After the battle of Lexington, in April 1776, the separation of the colonies from Britain became almost inevitable. It was from the Convention of Virginia that the first definite proposal came for declaring independence; and on June 7, Richard Henry Lee made the formal motion in Congress, in obedience to the Convention of his native State. While the discussion was being carried on, a committee of five was appointed by ballot to prepare a Declaration of Independence. Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, Sherman, and Livingston, were chosen. The first received the most votes, and was selected by the rest of the committee to draft the Declaration. The document was laid before Congress on July 2. Jefferson's language was still too free to suit the temper of the majority, and considerable changes were made in the paper before it was finally passed. On July 4, 1776,-a day whose anniversary is the great festival of the nation,-every member of Congress save one signed it; and the Declaration of Independence was published. This is not the place to

It

introduce a criticism or critical account of that document. is an eloquent and dignified, if somewhat florid proclamation of rights, by a free people who had firmly resolved to vindicate their freedom, and the name of the statesman who first drew it is entitled to a lasting place in the memory of his countrymen and the annals of his country.

Jefferson was re-elected to Congress in July 1776 by the Virginian Convention, but his private circumstances and his conviction that he could be more useful in the Legislature of his native State than in the general Federal Council induced him to resign. For the former reason he refused the post of envoy to France, with Dr. Franklin and Silas Deane. His keen and restless republicanism soon appeared in the Legis

lature. One of his first steps was to introduce a bill to destroy entails, he himself assigning as his chief reason a desire to substitute an aristocracy of virtue and talent for one of wealth. When this bill became law he followed it up by a proposal to do away with the law of primogeniture. But his zeal for radical legislation did not stop there. He introduced a third bill to disestablish the Church of England in Virginia, and to place all religious sects upon a footing of political equality. A more sweeping proposal was made by him in 1777, viz. to revise the whole law of Virginia so as to adapt it to the new circumstances. The work was divided by three commissioners. To Jefferson was assigned the revision of the common law and British statutes up to 1607; the British statutes from 1607 to 1777 fell to Mr. Wythe; and Mr. Pendleton dealt with the statute law of Virginia. No further estimate of the high position Jefferson held in the regard of his fellow-countrymen is needed than this trust of the most important function of the committee to him. He aimed at perspicuity and conciseness in his revision. He strove to remove useless verbiage and obscure technicalities, but at the same time to avoid fresh ambiguities or doubts by needlessly obtruding novel phrases into the statute-book. His success was great; and the statutes as they left his hands were high testimony to his clear-headedness and legal accomplishments. But in his legal as well as in other suggestions, Jefferson's keen intellect outstripped the spirit of the times. An extensive and well-devised plan of education proposed by him was negatived by the Legislature; and a noble scheme to increase the facilities for manumitting slaves in Virginia was emphatically opposed. But he passed a bill forbidding further importation of slaves into the State. Of his legal reforms, Jefferson himself writes:-The repeal

of the law of entails would prevent the accumulation and perpetuation of wealth in select families, and preserve the soil of the country from being daily more and more absorbed in mortmain. The abolition of primogeniture and equal partition of inheritances removed the feudal and unnatural restrictions which made one member of every family rich and all the rest poor; substituting equal partition, the best of all agrarian laws. The restoration of the rights of conscience relieved the people from a taxation for the support of a religion not theirs, for the establishment was truly but the religion of the rich, the dissenting sects being entirely composed of the less wealthy people; and these, by the bill for a general education, would be qualified to understand their rights, to maintain them, and to exercise with intelligence their parts in self-government; and all this would be effected without the violation of a single natural right of any one individual citizen. To these, too, might be added, as a further security, the introduction of the trial by jury into the Chancery courts, which have already ingulfed, and continue to ingulf, so great a proportion of the jurisdiction over our property.'

On June 1, 1779, at the age of thirty-six, Jefferson exchanged the legislative for an executive sphere, through his election to be governor of Virginia. The position was at once difficult and delicate in the keen and strained excitement of the times; although the war with Britain did not indeed invade Virginia till Jefferson's term of office had well-nigh expired. His military duties were limited at first to superintending the contributions of men and supplies required from the State by the national army; but the apathy of some and the disaffection of others rendered the task often laborious. But in January 1781 Arnold penetrated to Virginia with a British force,

seized and burned Richmond, and retreated with impunity. Jefferson, as the governor of a State in which there were 50,000 enrolled militia, was naturally severely censured for permitting such an event to happen, and a charge of cowardice was even hinted at. But in judging of his conduct there should be taken into account the difficulty of mobilizing a scattered militia, the suddenness of the attack, and the British command of the sea. In April a second invading force was met by Lafayette. Jefferson made no pretensions to military talent, for he refused to seek re-election as governor in May 1781, from a belief that, under the existing circumstances, 'the public would have more confidence in a military chief; and that, the military commander being invested with the civil power also, both might be wielded with more energy, promptitude, and effect for the defence of the State.' The distresses which fell on Virginia excited a good deal of bitter feeling against the ex-governor; some desired to carry an impeachment against him on certain specific charges, but in cooler moments the project was dropped, and in December 1781 the thanks of the General Assembly were voted to him 'for his impartial, upright, and attentive administration whilst in office.' The resolution went on to say that the Assembly wished, in the strongest manner, to declare the high opinion they entertained of 'Mr. Jefferson's ability, rectitude, and integrity;' and that they meant, 'by thus publicly avowing their opinion, to obviate and to remove all unmerited censure.'

In November 1782 Jefferson accepted the post of ministerplenipotentiary for negotiating peace; but before he left America peace had been arranged. Having been elected a delegate to Congress, he took his seat in November 1783. The vear before he had lost his wife, a blow which fell upon

him with crushing effect. A moment before the closing scene,' writes his daughter, 'he was led from the room almost in a state of insensibility by his sister, who with difficulty got him into his library, where he fainted, and continued so long insensible that they became apprehensive he never would revive. The scene that followed I did not witness, but the violence of his grief (when by stealth I entered his room at night) I dare not trust myself to describe. He kept his room three weeks, during which I was never a moment from his side. He walked almost incessantly, night and day, lying down only occasionally, when nature was completely exhausted, on a pallet that had been brought in during his long fainting fit. When at last he left his room, he rode out, and from that time he was incessantly on horseback, rambling about the mountain, in the least frequented roads, and just as often through the woods. In these melancholy rambles I was his constant companion, a solitary witness to many a violent burst of grief.'

He sought distraction by plunging into new political schemes for the alteration and improvement of his country's institutions. One of his chief labours was the conception and arrangement of the money system that is now used in the American States. For the territories that were ceded in 1780 by Virginia to the Federal Union, he suggested a provision, afterwards carried, that after 1800 there should be no slavery in this territory except as punishment for personal crime. The attempt to enforce this was one of the causes of the war of 1861. During the sittings of Congress Jefferson received the most constant assurances of the esteem in which he was held. He was chairman of several committees; and even presided over the whole Congress, when the official president was absent from ill-health.

His