writing a different story.................

 

Not everyone who supported the Revolution would necessarily see it as an opportunity to make wide-ranging changes in society.  Dissolving the connections to Great Britain would be enough.  People go go about their business in pretty much the same way as they had before.  Of course, some changes would necessarily have to take place because the basic structure of a republic differs from that of a monarchy.  Subjects become citizens with new responsibilities that would alter the contours of society.  Men, though certainly not all of them, would have to get used to voting. . . .

If the Americans were not really operating with a tabula rasa after breaking from the British Empire, there was substantial opportunity to write a different story for the newly created United States, one that would help transform the world.  Jefferson sounded this theme throughout his political career and until his death.

-Annette Gordon-Reed from her essay "Thomas Jefferson, Optimistic Visionary", as found in The American Revolution at 250:  Twenty-Four Historians Reflect on the Founding