OTIS AND JEFFERSON ON COLONISTS' RIGHTS

This research paper compares the positions and views of James Otis, Jr. (1725-1783) and Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) toward the British Monarch, King George III, and the rest of the British government, ministers and Parliament, during the period of strife between Great Britain and the American colonies which led up to the Declaration of Independence in 1776.

Both men played a leading role in advancing and articulating the colonists' cause, Otis from 1761 until his influence diminished due to his mental and physical deterioration in 1769 and Jefferson during the middle 1770s. In many respects, they shared a common vision as to the nature of the colonies' rights and obligations to the Crown and Parliament which stemmed from a similar but by no means identical intellectual and cultural background; however, Jefferson's attachment to the Monarchy was more symbolic and less deeply rooted than Otis's. It sharply diminished as the grievances of the colonies became more intense. Jefferson took a more radical position concerning the colonists' rights to political and economic autonomy than did Otis. This view led Jefferson eventually to favor complete separation and to support violent revolution, which Otis never could bring himself to accept.

Similarities of Background and Preparation

Otis and Jefferson had family backgrounds with strong roots in the established order. Otis was a fifth g

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laid on the people, but by their consent in person, or by deputation." At the same time, he acknowledged the supremacy of Parliament to legislate for the colonies because "the power of parliament is uncontrollable, but by themselves, and we must obey." At the same time, he argued that British laws which failed to acknowledge the autonomy of colonial legislatures violated the unwritten British constitution and were therefore void and said at the time of the unpopular Townshend Acts that if "one legislative authority can be suspended whenever we refused obedience to laws we never consented to, we may as well send home our representatives, and acknowledge ourselves as slaves." In his 1774 Summary View of the Rights of British America, Jefferson advanced a much more assertive view than had Otis of the rights of colonial legislatures vis-a-vis Parliament. After recounting various historical events to buttress the point that the colonists' rights were equal to those of citizens of the mother country, he flatly asserted that "the British Parliament has no right to exercise authority over us." After complaining that British trade and navigation laws, including the recently enacted 'Coercive Acts,' which had resulted in the closure o
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Approximate Word count = 2291
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)