Word: jefferson
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...Jefferson's writing talents, he proved them two years ago in A Summary View of the Rights of British America?a trenchant and almost bellicose pamphlet reviewing the history of America in the British Empire. Some say, however, that Jefferson was only named to the committee as part of a compromise, after John Adams had nearly choked on the idea of working with Virginia's Benjamin Harrison, who was comparatively lukewarm to independence...
...Jefferson is a formidably learned man with a meticulous and graceful mind. The tall, red-haired Virginian was elected a delegate to Congress last year?when just 32 and only recently a father?and he first appeared in Philadelphia riding in a phaeton and accompanied by two black servants. John Adams may have regretted Jefferson's silence during debate, but he found him so quick in smaller councils that he was charmed. The two have formed an extraordinary partnership: Adams arguing the case for independence in the day-to-day clutches of debate, and Jefferson formulating the argument in private...
...When Jefferson returned to crowded Philadelphia last month, he was impressed anew with the bustle of the Colonies' largest city (population about 40,000). To get some quiet, he took lodgings in the new three-story house of a bricklayer named Jacob Graff, at the corner of Market and Seventh streets. Jefferson has the second floor?a bedroom and parlor with stairs and a passageway between them. Rent: 35 shillings a week. He dines...
Between June 11 and 28, Jefferson labored over the Declaration, writing on a portable writing box that he himself designed. The document that he produced?later amended slightly by the rest of the drafting committee and further altered by the Congress itself ?combines solemnly elevated thought with artful political stratagem. Its philosophy is not novel, nor did Jefferson intend it to be. The same general ideas, most completely developed by English Philosopher John Locke, have been a kind of political gospel in the Colonies for some years. Jefferson intended to state the common American sense, not to invent political...
...Jefferson began on a note of grave courtesy and lofty historical purpose: "When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands winch have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to winch the laws of nature and of nature's god entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes winch impel them to the separation...