Word: virginian
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...before, a preliminary vote on Virginian Richard Henry Lee's resolution for independence showed nine of the colonies in favor, two (South Carolina and Pennsylvania) opposed, New York abstaining and Delaware deadlocked. To decide such momentous business?cutting much of a continent and its 2.5 million inhabitants free from the British Empire?the Congress hoped for virtual unanimity. Anything less might poison the enterprise with disunity. Hence the delegates' anxiety on the morning of July...
...write the Declaration. According to one story, Jefferson urged the task on John Adams, the brilliant, truculent Boston lawyer who had proved himself the ablest debater of the revolutionary cause. By this account, Adams demurred on grounds that he was personally "obnoxious" to many members of Congress, that a Virginian should write the document since Virginia had first moved for independence, and that, in any case, Jefferson was the superior writer...
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...
...native Virginian, Jefferson, 33, shares with other wealthy tobacco planters a love of good food, good wine and fast horses. Unlike most of his neighbors in the Piedmont or Tidewater, however, Jefferson has been a lifelong student of natural philosophy and the arts, a man who reads easily in Greek, Latin, French and Italian, and who, when he can, still practices three hours a day on the violin...
...floor of the House of Representatives three scholars tried to pour a little of his wisdom into the heads of legislators, who were impatiently edging toward the Easter exit. Jerry Ford limousined over to the Jefferson Memorial to lay a wreath and claim some political kinship with the Virginian. And even one cab driver's tribute was recorded augustly by the Washington Post: "Yeah, I guess he was about the best...