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THE "SOVEREIGNTY" OF THE INDIVIDUAL
> What were Jefferson's views on the sovereignty of the individual free person? Jefferson nowhere mentions "the sovereignty of the individual free person," but always speaks of the individual as a responsible party within the society. The sovereignty of the individual is a concept that libertarians superimpose on Jefferson. "All men are created equal" is a measure of persons WITHIN a community, not of isolated individualism. The very term "equal" implies the existence of others persons to which one is equal. "Individuals are parts only of a society, subject to the laws of a whole." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1789. ME 7:456 "Every society has a right to fix the fundamental principles of its association, and to say to all individuals, that if they contemplate pursuits beyond the limits of these principles and involving dangers which the society chooses to avoid, they must go somewhere else for their exercise; that we want no citizens, and still less ephemeral and pseudo-citizens, on such terms. We may exclude them from our territory, as we do persons infected with disease." --Thomas Jefferson to William H. Crawford, 1816. ME 15:28 His views on "the sovereignty of the individual states" recognizes a DIVIDED sovereignty, in which the States are responsible for domestic concerns, the national government for foreign concerns.