JEFFERSON 



3130 



JEFFERSON 



throughout his life he remained an eager seeker 

 for knowledge. 



Soon after leaving college Jefferson entered 

 the law office of George Wythe, then the 

 leader of .the Virginia bar, and in 1767 was 

 admitted to practice. He had received a 

 thorough grounding in the principles of the 

 law, but never took great interest in practic- 

 ing it. In addressing judges and juries he was 

 handicapped by a weak voice, which became 

 husky after he had spoken only a short time. 

 It seems, moreover, that he was disgusted with 

 the current tendency to carry every little dis- 

 pute to the courts, yet his conscientious, pains- 

 taking services brought him a large practice. 



In the meantime, while still studying law, 

 Jefferson had assumed the management of the 

 estate left by the death of his father in 1757. 

 He was chosen to the office of justice of the 

 peace, which his father and his father's father 



THOMAS JEFFERSON 



Jefferson and John Adams died on the same 

 day (July 4, 1826), the last great figures of the 

 nation's first generation of statesmen. 



had held before him, and also, like his father, 

 was elected to the House of Burgesses. This 

 was in 1769, and marks his entrance into politi- 

 cal life. Yet his political activity was rather 

 that of the country gentleman, who naturally 

 held political office as an incidental obligation 

 due to his social prominence. He was con- 

 stantly adding to his estate, until in 1772, when 

 he married, he owned 5,000 acres, free of debt. 

 His bride, Mrs. Martha (Wayles) Skelton, was 

 a charming widow of twenty-three, artistic and 



fond of music. Jefferson was not the only 

 suitor for the widow's hand?"* The story goes 

 that one day two of his rivals met in the hall- 

 way of Mrs. Skelton's home. They were about 

 to enter the drawing-room when music was 

 heard. Jefferson and Mrs. Skelton were sing- 

 ing a duet, while Jefferson also played the 

 violin, and the lady accompanied him on the 

 harpsichord. The two would-be suitors halted, 

 looked at each other, and then, without speak- 

 ing a word, tiptoed out of the house. 



Whether the above story is true or not, it 

 is certain that Jefferson and his wife were 

 devoted to each other, and lived happily at 

 Monticello, the home which Jefferson built 

 after his father's house at Albemarle burned 

 to the ground. He was very busy laying out 

 gardens, trying to cultivate new plants intro- 

 duced from foreign lands, and generally trying 

 to make his new home attractive. Farming, 

 landscape gardening and architecture were at 

 that time his hobbies. 



The Shadow of Revolution. Since 1769 he 

 had been continuously a member of the House 

 of Burgesses, and had been a leader in the 

 attempts to maintain the rights of the colonists. 

 In 1774 he was elected to the Virginia conven- 

 tion to consider the state of the colony. Ill- 

 ness kept him away, but he sent to the con- 

 vention a series of resolutions which he wanted 

 adopted as instructions, for the delegates to 

 the Continental Congress. The substance of 

 these resolutions was that "emigration to this 

 country [that is, America] gave England no 

 more rights over us than the emigration of the 

 Danes and Saxons gave to the present authori- 

 ties of their mother country over England." 



Declaration of Independence. This was radi- 

 cal doctrine, far too radical for the Virginia 

 convention, but it made Jefferson famous 

 throughout the colonies, and resulted in his 

 appointment as a delegate to the Continental 

 Congress. On the tenth of June, 1776, he was 

 appointed chairman of a committee of Con- 

 gress to draft a declaration of independence. 

 As chairman, Jefferson naturally wrote the 

 document, and with the exception of one or 

 two phrases suggested by Franklin and John 

 Adams, the Declaration reported by the com- 

 mittee was entirely the work of Jefferson. 

 Congress debated it for three days, during 

 which a number of changes, chiefly omissions, 

 were agreed on, but the Declaration of Inde- 

 pendence, as it was finally adopted, still re- 

 mained substantially as Jefferson had written 

 it (see DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE). 



