Jefferson began his public life as a vestryman of the parish church and justice of the county court, offices which his father before him had filled. In 1769 he presented himself to the voters of Albemarle County as candidate for the House of Burgesses, an office which had also been held by his father. In accordance with the democratic custom of the time, the candidate went from voter to voter and made personal solicitations. He was elected as a matter of course. Indeed, he may be said to have inherited the seat of his father.

It was a critical and troublous period when he took his seat. Throughout the colonies there was a growing distrust of George III. and Parliament. Virginia imagined herself loyal, but outward forms apart, she was drifting with the general tide away from the home government. The great proprietors, the royal officers, and the clergy, partly through interest, partly through affection, were unshaken in their fidelity to the old order of things; but there were appearing upon the scene leaders who, like Otis and Adams in the north, were determined to resist to the last the encroachments of the crown. Jefferson fell in with those threatening revolution as naturally as a duck takes to water. He liked rebellion for its own sake. It cleared up the political atmosphere, he thought; a country without a rebellion,* say every century, he regarded as being in a dangerous way. Among his colleagues in the legislature were George Washington and Patrick Henry. These three men conducted the Revolution in Virginia. Washington was its sword, Henry its tongue, and Jefferson its pen. At the opening of the first session the member from Albemarle drafted a reply to the Governor's address, but his effort was rejected as being deficient in both style and contents. The young man was doubtless mortified, but his propensity to draw up addresses, constitutions, etc., was deeply rooted, and we shall find him trying his hand again upon the first and all succeeding occasions.

On the Thursday after the opening of the session the House passed resolutions which, after denying the right of taxation

*See Rebellion, page 354.

without representation, and the right of trying accused Americans in English courts, declared the right of the colonies to concur and co-operate in seeking redress of grievances. On account of those resolutions Lord Botetourt, the royal Governor, promptly dissolved the Burgesses, who, as private citizens, immediately met in the Apollo room of the famous Raleigh Tavern and, following the example of Massachusetts, pledged themselves to refrain from trade with England until such time as she should show a disposition to treat the colonies justly. When in a few months word was brought that the English government had relented, and that at the next session of Parliament a proposition would be made to remove the obnoxious duties, the governor reassembled the Burgesses in the hope that the trouble would be tided over. At this session, advancing about a century ahead of his time, Jefferson introduced a bill making it lawful for a master to emancipate his slaves. The prompt and emphatic rejection of the bill caused him to lose hope of the speedy settlement of the slavery question in Virginia, but it did not shake his belief in the justice of the cause.

In 1770 Jefferson's home at Shadwell was destroyed by fire, and with it his furniture, books and law-papers. Only a highly prized violin was rescued from the flames. About two miles from the Shadwell house was a hill named by Jefferson, Monticello* (little mount). This eminence commands a view of surpassing beauty, and was chosen by Jefferson as the site of a mansion that should embody his ideas of architecture-an art upon which he expended much thought, and in which he was more than an amateur. After the fire the building of a new house upon the "little mount" was pushed rapidly, and in something more than a year a section was ready for occupancy.

In 1772 Jefferson married and brought to his new mansion Martha Skelton, a childless widow of twenty-two, the daughter of John Wayles, a wealthy lawyer of Williamisburg. A story of the wooing is told by Randall, Jefferson's most faithful biographer. The widow Skelton, it seems, had many suitors. "Upon

*See Monticello, page 311.

one occasion two of her admirers called and were shown into a room from which they heard her harpsichord and voice, accompanied by Mr. Jefferson's violin and voice in the passages of a touching song. Whether something in the words or in the tone of the singers offered suggestion to them, tradition does not say, but it does aver that they took their hats and retired to return no more on the same errand." Jefferson was happy in his marriage. His wife was a woman distinguished by charms of mind and person, and she received from her husband an affection that was deep and imperishable.

GETTING UNDER WAY AS A STATESMAN.

The Convention that assembled in Williamsburg in August, 1774, in response to the call of the coterie of patriots that had in May met at the Raleigh Tavern was the first extra-legal representative body that met in Virginia. Among its members were Peyton Randolph, Patrick Henry, Benjamin Harrison and the Lees. Jefferson was chosen to represent Albemarle County, but on his way to Williamsburg he was taken ill and was prevented from attending. His influence in the Convention, however, was exerted through a document which he had prepared and placed in the hands of Randolph and Henry. This was the celebrated "Summary View of the Rights of British America"-a composition intended to form the basis of instructions to the delegates from Virginia in the Continental Congress. The manuscript was inspected by the members of the Convention, and was found to contain so much that was vigorous and convincing that it was printed at Williamsburg at private expense, without the knowledge of the author and without his name appearing. It was quickly reprinted in Philadelphia and also in London. The "Summary View" was probably the most important political pamphlet published at the South in the early days of the Revolution. It was Jefferson's aim to "set a pace that would bring the front and rear ranks of his fellow countrymen together." These "Instructions" show that his pace was a pretty rapid one, for they breathe the spirit of independence in every paragraph.

Indeed, it was the odd fortune of the writer of the Declaration of Independence to be accused in later years of having pilfered many of his ideas from the "Summary View."

Jefferson's views were too radical for the official approbation of the Convention, but he seems not to have been in advance of the public opinion of his constituency, for upon the occasion of his double election to the Convention and to the House of Burgesses in July, 1774, he drew up and caused to be adopted by the freeholders of Albemarle County a set of resolutions in which the right of self-government among the colonies without the intervention of Parliament was strictly asserted. Other counties passed spirited resolutions, but none were so spirited and revolutionary as these. The same citizens of Albemarle, after they had adopted the resolutions drawn up by their leader, armed themselves and threatened Lord Dunmore with punishment for stealing the powder of the colonists from the magazine in Williamsburg. Jefferson was doubtless behind this uprising, for he was the most prominent member of the Committee of Safety in his county.

In March, 1775, the Virginia Convention met at Richmond in the parish church of St. John, Jefferson in attendance. The eloquence of Patrick Henry hurried the willing body into revolution. He moved that the Colony "be immediately put into a state of defense," and in support of his motion delivered a speech that set on fire the souls of his hearers and still thrills the hearts of American school boys. Henry's motion was carried, and a committee consisting of himself, R. H. Lee, R. C. Nicholas, Benjamin Harrison, George Washington, Edmund Pendleton and Thomas Jefferson was appointed to devise a plan for putting the colony upon a military basis. Before the Convention adjourned it selected Jefferson to represent the colony in the Continental Congress in the place of Peyton Randolph, providing the latter should be recalled to preside over the House of Burgesses. In June, 1775, Randolph was recalled, and Jefferson became a member of Congress. Before he took leave of the colonial legislature, however, he prepared a reply to Lord North's "Conciliatory Proposition," which had been referred

to the Burgesses by the Governor for their consideration. It was understood throughout the colonies that Virginia was to make the first answer to the ministry's proposition for peace, and Jefferson was anxious that she should set for the other colonies an example of firmness and courage. The reply, passed by a vote "approaching unanimity," shows that the colony was rebellious and bent upon war, despite its protestations of loyalty and its oft-expressed desire for peace. Patrick Henry had uttered the real sentiment of his countrymen when he said: "The God of Hosts is all that is left us. Gentlemen may cry peace, peace, but there is no peace."

It was in a spirit of war and rebellion that Jefferson drew up a reply to the "Conciliatory Proposition," and it was in this spirit that he went to Philadelphia in June, 1775, to take his seat as a delegate to Congress. He was now thirty-two years of age; only two members of Congress were younger. He had developed into an all-round man of the world. He could "calculate an eclipse, survey an estate, tie an artery, plan an edifice, try a cause, break a horse, dance a minuet, and play the violin." His fame had preceded him in Congress. "Mr. Jefferson," wrote John Adams in 1822, "came to Congress in June, 1775, and brought with him a reputation for literature, science, and a happy talent for composition. Writings of his were handed about, remarkable for the peculiar felicity of expression." His pen was soon called into requisition. Congress, feeling obliged to give the world reasons for the rebellious scenes of Lexington and Bunker Hill, appointed a committee to draw up a declaration of causes for taking up arms. The report of this committee proving unsatisfactory, Congress recommitted it and added Jefferson and John Dickinson to the committee. Jefferson drew up a declaration that was too strong for the conservatives. Especially was the language of the young Virginian too strong for John Dickinson, who had great influence in Congress and still cherished hopes of reconciliation. Jefferson, seeing there was no chance for the adoption of his own draft against the opposition of Dickinson, gave way. Dickinson then prepared a statement more agreeable to the less radical, although