This is the second part in a series.

The ideas put forth by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence weren’t new. Six months before in a local Cumberland County newspaper, The Plain Dealer, the editor stated the ideas that would make Jefferson famous: “that all power is derived from the people and not from any imaginary divine right, and therefore that all those placed in authority over us, having received their power and right of governing immediately from us, must of consequence be at all times accountable to their…