Founding America (Barnes & Noble Classics) - Jack N. Rakove [350]
8
James Harrington (1611-1677), author of the republican political tract The Commonwealth of Oceana ( 1656), published during the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell.
9
Alexander Pope (1688-1744), English poet and essayist.
10
English political writers from the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, all supporters of republican principles of government.
11
From Alexander Pope’s poem “An Essay on Man” (1734).
12
Words crossed out here and below were written by Jefferson but later removed from the document by Congress.
13
Words in brackets here and below were written in the margin by Jefferson and approved by Congress for inclusion in the finished document.
14
Evidently a reference to Silas Deane ( 1737-1789), the Continental Congress’s agent to France, who en route to that country reached Bermuda in early May 1776.
15
Samuel Chase ( 1741-1811 ), Maryland representative in the Continental Congress.
16
Benjamin Harrison ( 1726-1791 ), Virginia delegate to the Continental Congress.
17
James Wilson ( 1742-1798) of Pennsylvania.
18
Robert Treat Paine ( 1731-1814) of Massachusetts.
19
John Witherspoon (1723-1794), delegate from New Jersey, was also the president of the College of New Jersey, now Princeton University.
20
Benjamin Rush ( 1746-1813) of Pennsylvania.
21
Stephen Hopkins (1707-1785), delegate from Rhode Island.
22
In the early 1780s, the northern and western boundaries of Pennsylvania had yet to be surveyed, and the exact location of Lake Erie relative to that state remained uncertain.
23
Hamilton refers to the hereditary office that had become the effective monarchy of the united provinces of the Netherlands.
24
Philip John Schuyler ( 1733-1804) of Albany soon became Hamilton’s father-in-law.
25
Alexander McDougall ( 1731-1786) of New York City had been a prominent leader of the Sons of Liberty before 1776 and later served as a general in the Continental Army.
26
In 1780 the Continental Congress began asking particular states to supply specific material needs of the Continental Army.
27
John Law ( 1671-1729), Scottish economist who founded the Mississippi Company, which became one of the great speculative bubbles of the early eighteenth century.
28
John Holroyd ( 1735-1821 ), first earl of Sheffield.
29
Of these 542 are on the eastern shore [Jefferson’s note].
30
Of these, 22,616 are eastward of the meridian of the north of the Great Kanhaway [Jefferson’s note].
31
To bid, to set, was the ancient legislative word of the English ... [Jefferson’s note].
32
June 4, 1781 [Jefferson’s note].
33
Crawford [Jefferson’s note]. Jefferson refers to the published experiments of Adair Crawford, a British physician and chemist.
34
The instrument proper to them is the Banjar, which they brought hither from Africa, and which is the original of the guitar, its chords being precisely the four lower chords of the guitar [Jefferson’s note].
35
Poet Phillis Wheatley (c. 1753-1784), born in Africa, was captured, enslaved, and sold to a Boston family who reared her in Christianity and educated her in arts and letters.
36
gnatius Sancho ( 1729-1780) was born on a slave ship, carried to England as a toddler, and given to three spinster sisters at Greenwich. He eventually gained the patronage of the Montagu family, who employed him as a butler and educated him. He became a poet, playwright, and composer.
37
Jefferson refers to the main character in the novel Tristram Shandy ( 1759-1767), by Laurence Sterne, which Jefferson reputedly always carried.
38
“Regarding the heretic who is to be burned” (Latin); reference to an English statute of 1401 that condemned those found in possession of an English translation of the Bible to be burned at the stake.
39
Declaration of Rights, Article 16 [Madison’s note].
40
Declaration of Rights, Article 1 [Madison’s note].
41
ditto, Art. 16 [Madison’s note].
42
Declaration of Rights, Art. 16 [Madison’s note].
43
At the spring 1787 elections, Governor James Bowdoin (1726-1790) was defeated for reelection, presumably