Jefferson's Liberty

A Personal Reflection

I first encountered Thomas Jefferson in Washington DC in March of 1965. I was there representing the State of Minnesota (that’s another story) and was taken to the Thomas Jefferson Memorial situated in West Potomac Park on the shore of the Potomac River.

In the centre of the memorial underneath a dome that echoes that of Jefferson’s home at Monticello is a large bronze statue of Jefferson himself.

On the walls of the memorial are a number of Jefferson’s writings including the self evident truths clauses from the Declaration of Independence.

But the quote that resonated and that has remained with me all my life and has been a guiding beacon is situated on the frieze below the dome. It is a sentence taken from a letter Jefferson wrote to Benjamin Rush on 23 September 1800.

Although it was expressed within the context of a constitutional refusal to recognise a State religion, the impact and scope of the statement goes well beyond that and echoes down the years to this day and likely beyond.

“I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”

Since then I have revisited the Memorial – a form of pilgrimage – and have been fortunate enough to visit and spend time at Jefferson’s home at Monticello on two occasions.

I am an unashamed admirer of Jefferson and his thought.

As John F Kennedy said when entertaining Nobel prize winners at dinner in their honour on 29 April 1962

“ I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.

Someone once said that Thomas Jefferson was a gentleman of 32 who could calculate an eclipse, survey an estate, tie an artery, plan an edifice, try a cause, break a horse, and dance the minuet. Whatever he may have lacked, if he could have had his former colleague, Mr. Franklin, here we all would have been impressed.”

Earlier this year I appeared before a Select Committee of Parliament. I was making oral submissions on the Regulatory Standards Bill which I supported. I suggested that the Bill was important because it acted as a brake on invasions of individual liberty. I argued that every time Parliament legislated there was an erosion of liberty.

Dr. Deborah Russell MP who, as she proclaimed, has a PhD in political theory asked me what I meant by liberty. A discussion followed which went completely off track and upon reflection I wonder if the intention was to prevent a well argued position seeing the light of day.

During the discussion I referred to Enlightenment thinkers who espoused liberty and one of my favourites and perhaps the most eloquent exponent of liberty is Thomas Jefferson.

In this article I want to briefly outline some of the basic tenets of Jefferson’s theories about liberty.

Thomas Jefferson’s understanding of liberty was both philosophical and practical, deeply shaped by Enlightenment ideas, particularly those of John Locke. His theory of liberty stood as a revolutionary challenge to older European notions of authority, forming the intellectual foundation of much American political thought. Jefferson’s conception was not a single principle but a comprehensive framework combining natural rights, limited government, and civic responsibility.

At the heart of Jefferson’s thought was the conviction that liberty is an inherent, natural right—one that exists prior to government and derives from human nature itself. In the Declaration of Independence, he declared liberty an “unalienable right” endowed by the Creator, alongside life and the pursuit of happiness.

This was no rhetorical flourish: Jefferson genuinely believed that human beings possess liberty by virtue of their humanity, not through grants of monarchs, parliaments, or states.

Liberty, for Jefferson, had both negative and positive dimensions. Negatively, it meant freedom from arbitrary interference—being left alone to chart one’s course in life. Positively, it entailed the capacity for self-determination and flourishing within a lawful society. These dual aspects shaped his broader social and political philosophy.

Jefferson situated liberty within the framework of the social contract. Governments are formed by voluntary agreement, deriving their “just powers from the consent of the governed.” Their primary purpose is to secure liberty, not to restrict it.

Consequently, Jefferson advocated for strictly limited government powers, with clearly defined boundaries beyond which no legitimate authority could extend. In his view, true liberty was not license—the unchecked exercise of will—but “rightful liberty,” meaning the unobstructed action of individuals limited only by “the equal rights of others.”

Law was therefore essential to liberty, but law itself had to remain subordinate to natural rights. Jefferson was deeply skeptical of centralized power and saw the state primarily as the protector, not the director, of personal life.

For Jefferson, liberty carried corresponding duties. Freedom could not survive unless exercised responsibly, and he believed three areas were especially critical. Citizens had to cultivate rational faculties and moral sensibilities.

Education was not only a personal good but a civic necessity: ignorance made people vulnerable to demagogues and tyranny.

Liberty also required economic self-sufficiency. Jefferson idealized the yeoman farmer as the model citizen, believing that dependence—whether on landlords, employers, or creditors—bred political servility.

Finally, liberty entailed active participation in public life. Citizens must remain vigilant, informed, and engaged in holding government accountable. As Jefferson observed, “the price of liberty is eternal vigilance.”

Among the rights Jefferson prized, freedom of conscience stood paramount. In his Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, he argued that civil authority had no right to impose belief, compel religious support, or coerce conscience. To him, religious liberty was not only a political right but a fundamental expression of human dignity.

Closely related were freedoms of expression and assembly. Citizens must be free to speak, publish, and gather without censorship, since truth emerges through open debate, not state authority. Personal autonomy extended beyond religion and speech: government existed to protect rights, not to dictate individual choices, except where necessary to protect the equal rights of others.

Jefferson was not content to theorize; he acted against perceived threats to liberty. Most famously, he drafted much of the Declaration of Independence, a revolutionary rejection of British overreach.

Later, he confronted government censorship in the debates over the Alien and Sedition Acts. Jefferson denounced these laws as violations of free expression and press freedom, responding with the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions to affirm limits on federal power.

For Jefferson, the press was essential to liberty. He called it “the censor of government” and insisted that “our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.” A free press safeguarded accountability, checked abuses of power, and prevented rulers from suppressing dissent.

Jefferson’s writings also reveal an enduring tension between liberty and equality. He proclaimed that “all men are created equal” in natural rights, yet recognized that liberty would inevitably yield unequal outcomes, as individuals exercised differing talents and efforts.

He generally favored equality of opportunity—secured through education and independence—while rejecting enforced equality of outcome. Underlying this was his belief that liberty always entails sacrifice.

To preserve freedom, individuals must sometimes forego comfort, accept risk, and endure hardship for the sake of justice and the common good. Rights could not be separated from duties; liberty could not exist without virtue.

For Jefferson, liberty was inseparable from self-government. Every individual, he argued, possessed the right of self-rule, and this right extended collectively to society.

Popular sovereignty was therefore a natural right, not merely a political arrangement. To separate individual rights from democratic self-rule was to alienate citizens from their own society and risk reducing them to subjects of ideology rather than free participants in governance.

Jefferson’s synthesis of natural rights, limited government, and personal responsibility profoundly shaped American constitutional development.

His insistence on protecting freedoms of conscience, speech, and press left lasting institutional safeguards. At the same time, his insistence that liberty requires education, independence, and civic engagement underscored that freedom cannot be sustained by laws alone - it must be actively cultivated.

His conception of liberty remains both inspiring and demanding. It is not merely the absence of constraint, but the active pursuit of human flourishing within a framework of rights and responsibilities. It requires vigilance against tyranny, respect for the equal rights of others, and participation in self-government. For Jefferson, liberty was both a gift of nature and a perpetual task for the people.

Had I had the time before the Select Committee that would have been my answer to Dr. Russell.