Guy Aitchison (London, OK): Yes, according to Alex Salmond. In the second of a trilogy of speeches in his "Scotland Week" tour of the US and its 'Tartan Day" he evoked the words of Jefferson to assert the sovereign right of the Scottish people to vote on independence in a referendum:
Tartan Day was inaugurated ten years ago because the Senate recognised the influence of Scotland's Declaration of Arbroath on America's Declaration of Independence.
However, the connecting theme is not just clarion calls for liberty and independence, but the recognition of the sovereignty of the people first suggested in European history in the Arbroath Declaration and taken to its logical conclusion by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence.
I call on politicians on all sides of the debate to recognise the sovereignty of the people.
When the people of Scotland consider their place in the world and debate our constitutional future, the proper means to exercise this sovereignty is through a referendum..
And it is the words of Thomas Jefferson that will inspire us - today and in the years ahead: "We are a people capable of self-government, and worthy of it."
Beyond these pious words how far can the historical analogy be stretched? A massive source of grievance for US colonists in the 1770s was that they were being taxed and recruited to fight an imperialist war against the French in which they had no discernible interest. Today, ironically, it is Britain's alliance with the US in another war that has done so much to further the Nationalist cause in Scotland.
But if anyone is laying claim to the colonists' powerful demand to Westminster of "No taxation, without representation", then it might just be the English. According to new polling data English people want the Scottish Parliament to take charge of tax-raising and 70% believe Scottish MPs should no longer be allowed to vote on English laws.
Perhaps History doesn't repeat itself in the way Salmond hopes, but in the words of another American Mark Twain, it does "rhyme".
