Free and Independent September 11, 2003 A recent biography of Thomas Jefferson contains an amusing statement. It says that Jefferson’s arguments in the 1798 Kentucky Resolutions “brought him dangerously close to secessionism.” Apparently the biographer doesn’t realize that Jefferson was an explicit secessionist. For openers, he wrote a famous secessionist document known to posterity as the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration proclaims the 13 American colonies “Free and Independent States” — adding “that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which...