So on social media, I am friends with David Boaz, an author and executive who works for the Cato Institute. He posted a link to an article about Thomas Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence that was critical of himself.
The author is one Robert Curry and the article appeared at The Federalist. Long story short, Boaz supposedly engaged in a mistake that is all too common among academics who study the American founding: he said Jefferson et al. took from Locke's 2nd Treatise and put such into the Declaration. And simply credits Locke for those ideas.
But when we read the article, we observe no "there there." Curry invokes a distinction between what Jefferson wrote in the Declaration and what Locke wrote in the 2nd Treatise but fails to tell us why the distinction is meaningful.
Curry notes that it has something to do with Jefferson's use of the term "unalienable" that was lacking in Locke's original which stressed "property." And how property was missing from the Declaration. Rather it was replaced with "pursuit of happiness." But again, no clear explication of why the differences makes a difference.
But here is the strange thing; The Federalist article makes Curry look like an ignorant pedant. But he's actually not. When I googled him, I saw that fairly notable, informed people were supporting Curry's work and that he was affiliated with organizations, notably Claremont, with informed folks who do good work.
Indeed, Claremont published a longer article of Curry's which actually gets into better details on his thesis. Curry may still be wrong and I do think he uses too many words to make his point; but indeed there is a "there there" to his thesis.
You are just going to have to read the Claremont article to find out. And perhaps we can blame the editors at The Federalist for their weaker article.
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