o do whatever they had to do to preserve their rights, but also that the most anti-liberty institution ever devised should be abolished. As Lynd (1968) writes, from the beginning of the work on the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson had not worked on any basic legal document having to do with the nature of the government without attempting to get into that document some declaration aiming at the ultimate elimination of the institution of slavery. In every case, however, Jefferson showed himself to be far ahead of his colleagues in terms of his defense of liberty, because without exception his objections to slavery were defeated (Lynd, 1968, p. 16).
Jefferson specifically favored the republican form of government and was opposed to any other form of government which he saw as being inherently opposed to the natural rights of m
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