Positive reconstruction · reader-scoped, not an inferred-absence lacuna
This reconstruction covers the readable fraction of Thomas Jefferson's formation -- attested reading and writing only, not the whole of a life.
Thomas Jefferson and Discourses Concerning Government
Thomas Jefferson's attested relationship to Discourses Concerning Government.
Thomas Jefferson is attested as having owned this work by Algernon Sidney.
Evidence ledger
- Sowerby's catalogue documents that Jefferson's library included Sidney's Discourses Concerning Government; Jefferson named Sidney alongside Locke as a source of the Declaration's political principles.