A Summary View of the Rights of British America

A Summary View of the Rights of British America was a tract written by Thomas Jefferson in 1774, before the U.S. Declaration of Independence, in which he laid out for delegates to the First Continental Congress a set of grievances against King George III, especially against the King's and the Parliament of Great Britain's response to the Boston Tea Party. Jefferson declares that the Parliament did not have the right to govern the Thirteen Colonies. He argues that since the individual colonies were founded they were independent of British rule. Read more