Excerpts from Books and Wikipedia
"Finally, Jefferson’s references to the unchanging 'laws of nature' could be reconciled with popular sovereignty only because he assumed that each individual’s judgment was directed by an internal gyroscope, the moral sense. Many of Jefferson’s writings show his commitment to the ideas of Scottish common-sense philosophy. For those who ratified the Declaration of Independence, that moral code was consistent with the code of the Christian gospels, which insisted on the brotherhood of men and each individual’s obligation to love his neighbor as himself. That brotherhood, of course, did not extend to the five hundred thousand slaves, roughly one-eighth of the American population, whose independence the Declaration did not address." [Toward Democracy, Kindle Location 8057] "After Jefferson recovered his equilibrium, he continued in a more characteristically forward-looking tone: 'I think a change already perceptible, since the origin of the present revolution. The spirit of the master is abating, that of the slave rising from the dust.' The condition of slaves was 'mollifying, the way I hope preparing, under the auspices of heaven, for a total emancipation.'" [Toward Democracy, Location 9594]