Question

Why do you think that Thomas Jefferson wrote a paragraph about slavery when he wrote the Declaration of Independence?

Answer 1

Eighteenth-century political philosophers concerned themselves with the balance between the restrictions needed to make a government function and the individual liberties guaranteed by that government. Jefferson's efforts to protect individual rights including freedom of the press were persistent, pivotal, and not always successful. Jefferson was a staunch advocate of freedom of the press, asserting in a January 28, 1786, letter to James Currie (1745–1807), a Virginia physician and frequent correspondent during Jefferson's residence in France: “our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.”