The Nexus Archive
American Republicanism · State paper
A Summary View of the Rights of British America
by Thomas Jefferson · The Paradox of Liberty · American Founding, 1743-1826
Jefferson's 1774 instructions turn colonial grievances into a theory of equal peoples and limited kingship.
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- ~30 min read
- 1 chapter guide
- Public domain
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Before the text
Editor's Prelude
Instructions That Outran Their Convention
A subject addresses his king and insists that kings are servants. Written as proposed instructions for Virginia’s delegates in 1774, this pamphlet gives the language of a humble address an unusually demanding voice. Its first editors say they published it without the absent author’s knowledge, judging that his account of colonial grievances deserved a wider hearing.
Its formal address to George III still speaks the language of imperial grievance, yet its logic treats the American colonies as equal political societies joined to Britain only through the crown.
The argument moves between the intimate injuries of power and large claims about history: a family threatened by a distant trial, a town punished without a hearing, a people’s right to govern itself. Jefferson’s accounts of settlement, land and slavery also expose the limits of whom that people includes. The force of the demand for liberty and the uneven reach of its reasoning belong to the same document.
The opening pages
A Summary View of the Rights of British America
Resolved, that it be an instruction to the said deputies, when assembled in general congress with the deputies from the other states of British America, to propose to the said congress that an humble and dutiful address be presented to his majesty, begging leave to lay before him, as chief magistrate of the British empire, the united complaints of his majesty’s subjects in America; complaints which are excited by many unwarrantable encroachments and usurpations, attempted to be made by the legislature of one part of the empire, upon those rights which God and the laws have given equally and independently to all. To represent to his majesty that these his states have often individually made humble application to his imperial throne to obtain, through its intervention, some redress of their injured rights, to none of which was ever even an answer condescended; humbly to hope that this their joint address, penned in the language of truth, and divested of those expressions of servility which would persuade his majesty that we are asking favours, and not rights, shall obtain from his majesty a more respectful acceptance. And this his majesty will think we have reason to expect when he reflects that he is no more than the chief officer of the people, appointed by the laws, and circumscribed with definite powers, to assist in working the great machine of government, erected for their use, and consequently subject to their superintendance. And in order that these our rights, as well as the invasions of them, may be laid more fully before his majesty, to take a view of them from the origin and first settlement of these countries.
To remind him that our ancestors, before their emigration to America, were the free inhabitants of the British dominions in Europe, and possessed a right which nature has given to all men, of departing from the country in which chance, not choice, has placed them, of going in quest of new habitations, and of there establishing new societies, under such laws and regulations as to them shall seem most likely to promote public happiness. That their Saxon ancestors had, under this universal law, in like manner left their native wilds and woods in the north of Europe, had possessed themselves of the island of Britain, then less charged with inhabitants, and had established there that system of laws which has so long been the glory and protection of that country. Nor was ever any claim of superiority or dependence asserted over them by that mother country from which they had migrated; and were such a claim made, it is believed that his majesty’s subjects in Great Britain have too firm a feeling of the rights derived to them from their ancestors, to bow down the sovereignty of their state before such visionary pretensions. And it is thought that no circumstance has occurred to distinguish materially the British from the Saxon emigration. America was conquered, and her settlements made, and firmly established, at the expence of individuals, and not of the British public. Their own blood was spilt in acquiring lands for their settlement, their own fortunes expended in making that settlement effectual; for themselves they fought, for themselves they conquered, and for themselves alone they have right to hold. Not a shilling was ever issued from the public treasures of his majesty, or his ancestors, for their assistance, till of very late times, after the colonies had become established on a firm and permanent footing. …
Chapter guides · 1
A Summary View of the Rights of British America
A crown shared by free societies
Jefferson’s proposed address denies Parliament’s authority over the colonies and asks the king to preserve their connection with Britain on terms of equal right.
The king as common officer
Jefferson proposes instructions for delegates to a general congress, not a declaration already adopted by it. Emigrants, he argues, carried the right to govern themselves; settlement at their own expense made the colonies independent political societies that voluntarily shared Britain’s sovereign. British military help no more gives Parliament authority over them than aid to Portugal makes that country subject to British law. The king should mediate between these societies, not let one rule the others.
Grievances about the right to rule
Trade restrictions, limits on manufacture and taxes matter because Parliament claims a jurisdiction Jefferson denies altogether. Suspending New York’s legislature denies a society its own voice; closing Boston’s port punishes people without distinguishing guilt from innocence. Royal vetoes, dissolved assemblies and troops imposed without local consent extend the complaint to George III. A ruler entrusted to execute laws cannot place military power above the civil authority that created his office.
Liberty’s claims and limits
The pamphlet’s expansive account of colonial rights leaves other claims unequally treated. Jefferson presents conquest and settlement as grounds of possession without reckoning with Indigenous rights. He calls the abolition of slavery a colonial wish, but the immediate measure he defends is ending imports, to precede emancipation. At the close he expressly disavows a wish to separate from Britain: commercial preference remains negotiable, while taxation and property must remain under the colonies’ own authority. Union depends on terms that a free people can accept.
Questions readers ask
- How long does it take to read A Summary View of the Rights of British America?
- About 30 min in total.
- How difficult is A Summary View of the Rights of British America?
- Advanced. A short state paper; about 30 minutes of reading.
- Can I read A Summary View of the Rights of British America for free?
- A Summary View of the Rights of British America is part of Nexus Premium, so reading it needs an account and a Premium subscription. The opening above and one chapter guide on this page are free to read.
- How many chapter guides are there?
- One chapter guide, written by the Nexus editors; it opens in full here.
About Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, the third president of the United States, and a central figure in American republican thought. His life joins liberty, empire, education, party politics, and the unresolved contradiction of slavery.
“Can a republic proclaim equality while living against it?”
Jefferson forces Nexus to face both the language of liberty and the contradictions built into the American founding.
Source text: public domain. Chapter guides: original Nexus writing. A Summary View of the Rights of British America is part of The Nexus Archive, guided Quests through the great works.