We Hold these Truths to be Self Evident

What a good day to get out of the city! With a car full of Texas Tech interns and a handful of good friends, we pulled out of D.C. yesterday morning, headed south to Monticello. Our friend Matt planned the perfect day: lunch at Mitchie Tavern, guided tour of the house, and a whole afternoon to explore the grounds. We finished up with dinner at Pig ‘n Steak Virginia barbeque.

We have to beg friends to travel with us because with as much gear as it takes to keep this kid happy, we'd never get any sightseeing done. Don't we look like tourists? By "we" I mean them.

Thomas Jefferson was a farmer and a gardener. He did intense horticultural testing in these gardens, which were maintained by slaves who lived in shacks located where I am standing. His garden not only fed the estate, but in it he experimented with new varieties and crop rotations.

Monticello was an amazing architectural feat but also extremely technologically advanced. Its kitchens, wine cellar, ice house, storage rooms, etc. are all located underneath the house accessible by stone tunnels.

My favorite flowers on the entire property were these Johnny Jump-Ups. We bought an envelope of seeds for our back yard.

From here, in his observatory, Thomas Jefferson may have reflected on the impact of the words he penned in the Declaration of Independence.

This is a view of the outside of Jefferson's observatory, located just beyond his garden and above his vineyards.

Standing just beside the observatory, Brandon observed that it's no wonder our government is in such a mess. They cram a bunch of people into a stuffy building in a big city and expect them to solve our problems.

This, he said, is where men are free to think big thoughts.

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.