Through his discussion of Thomas Jefferson, historian Matthew Crow offers a new perspective on constitutional transformation in early American history.

Matthew Crow is an Assistant Professor of History at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, New York.

1. Introduction: 'in the course of human events...'; 2. Jurisdiction and British legal memory in colonial Virginia; 3. New-modeling and rewriting in revolutionary Virginia; 4. Labor, language, and the legal subject of the Notes on the State of Virginia; 5. Governing the usufruct of the living; 6. The discipline of recollection; Index.