King George III surely had courtiers and sycophants who demanded that the colonials “respect the office.” And they meant it about the office: The idea that a people could not only survive but thrive without a king, or something very like a king, was seen as beyond radical and more like just plain nuts. Even the Most Serene Republic of Venice had its doge. The Americans thought differently, and they sent the king and his courtiers a public letter written by Thomas Jefferson: “Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government ...
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