John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. Ix 
liberty. Mr. Adams had a leading part in uniting all the suffrages 
for George Washington. 
In this Congress began Mr. Adams’s acquaintance with Mr. 
Jefferson, who joined that body on the 21st of June. 
Mr. Jefferson, the eldest son of a respectable landholder, was 
born on the 2d of April, 1743, at Shadwell, in the county of Albe- 
marle, within a short distance of his late residence, Monticello. 
He was distinguished by his powers, diligence, and improvement at 
the College of William and Mary, whose highest honours he 
received. He studied law with the celebrated George Wythe, 
afterwards Chancellor, was early in the legislature of Virginia, 
and took a decided part against the British aggressions. In 1774 
he published his “Summary View of the Rights of British 
America,” and in 1775 was called on by the legislature to reply 
to Lord North’s propositions. 
In the fourth Continental Congress the great question of Inde- 
pendence was decided, and Mr. Jefferson has the imperishable 
fame of having made the draught of the Declaration; a work 
which has always received the highest encomiums, as adapted to 
its end, worthy of the occasion, and marked by energy and 
felicity of style and force of argument: whilst Mr. Adams, one of 
the first who had contemplated separation, was, according to the 
avowal of the author of the Declaration, “the pillar of its support 
on the floor of Congress, its ablest advocate and defender against 
the multifarious assaults it encountered.” 
Mr. Adams was appointed Chief Justice of Massachusetts, 
but declined the place, desirous of serving his country in the more 
arduous duties of a representative in Congress. He retained his 
seat in this body till November, 1777; when he was made Com- 
missioner to France in the place of Silas Deane, who was recalled. 
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