226 THE PORTRAIT GALLERY 
that its final adoption was hastened by the heat and the swarms 
of flies from a nearby stable that literally drove the delegates 
from the room. He was on the committee that suggested the 
“E pluribus unum” motto for the newly founded federation. 
After the declaration he returned to Virginia where he actively 
set about the reforms necessary to make that colony conform 
to the spirit of the July 4th document. He refused a commis- 
sionership to Paris in company with FRANKLIN and DEANE, in 
order to prosecute this work. As a legislator he secured the 
laws holding Virginia lands in fee simple and permitting their 
sale for debt and he divorced the church and state, declaring 
the “government has nothing to do with opinion,” and “it is 
error alone which needs the support of government; truth can 
stand by itself.” He devised the system of courts of law and 
prescribed their powers and methods; he caused the removal 
of the capitol to Richmond; he extirpated the law of primogeni- 
ture; he abolished the cruel punishments of the ancient code; 
and he made the beginnings of a system of public education. 
In 1779 he was elected Governor and managed the colony during 
the difficult days of the GaTEs and CORNWALLIS campaigns. 
In 1783 he was elected to Congress where he assisted in the 
adoption of the decimal system for currency. The following 
year he was sent to Paris and in 1785 succeeded FRANKLIN as 
chief plenipotentiary. The wrongs of the French peasants bore 
bitterly into his heart and made him ever thereafter an unswerv- 
ing democrat. He successfully endeavored to break the French 
protective tariff and open up her markets to American agricul- 
tural products, and he sent to America seeds, roots, nuts, and 
information of agricultural importance. He became acquainted 
with the naturalist Burron, and supplied him with American 
zoological specimens, at the same time developing a facility in 
osteology and palaeontology that made him a real contributor 
to the science of fossils on his return to America. 
