ABSTRACT
The "abstract truth" Abraham Lincoln meant was the "self-evident truth" of the Declaration of Independence that "all men are created equal". Thomas Jefferson was the author of the Declaration, but he wrote it at the behest of a committee and for the approval of an assembly. The Declaration is not a proclamation from a superior or chosen people. Jefferson was a one-book author, and his one book, the Notes on Virginia, was written in the period 1780-1784 during and after his brief tenure as Governor of Virginia. America has natural power in its self-sufficiency. The first eleven Queries show that the New World is not lacking in any natural resource. "Human nature is the same on every side of the Atlantic", whatever the greater bounty of nature in land and rivers on this side. Jefferson, it can be said with emphasis, believed in reform, and in this book he tried to teach the American people to do likewise.
