Jefferson and the Rights of Man Author:Dumas Malone This is the second volume in Dumas Malone's monumental six volume work, Jefferson and His Time. — In the preceding volume, Jefferson the Virginian, Dr. Malone carried the story through the American Revolution and ended with Jefferson's departure for France in 1784. Now, in Jefferson and the Rights of Man, he begins with the European mission, whi... more »ch lasted through the opening months of the French Revolution, and ends with Jefferson's having served all but his final year as our first secretary of state under the New Constitution.
"To me the Virginia of Jefferson's youth and early manhood will ever be a charming scene," writes Dr. Malone in his introduction to the new work, "but Paris and Versailles at the time of Louis XVI, London in the reign of George III, and New York and Philadelphia in the presidency of George Washington provided a far richer and more colorful background than Monticello and Williamsburg; and Jefferson participated in far more complicated movements and events in the second period of his public life than in his first."
The two great events of the decade treated in Jefferson and the Rights of Man were the outbreak of the French Revolution and the establishment of a new government in the United States.« less