dded to by his legal practice when, in 1767, he
obtained his diploma as a lawyer. In 1769, he became a member of the
House of Burgesses along with Washington and other prominent Virginians,
and with the exception of brief intervals he served with distinction
until the outbreak of the Revolution. In 1772, he married a young widow
in good circumstances, and this enabled him to add alike to his income
and to his patrimony. About the time of the meeting of the Colonial
Convention, called in 1775, to choose delegates for the Continental
Congress at Philadelphia, at which Patrick Henry was present, the
youthful Jefferson, now known as an able political writer, wrote his
"Summary View of the Rights of British America"--a trenchant protest
against English taxation of the Colonies, which had considerable
influence in creating public feeling favorable to American Independence.

The effect of this notable utterance was, later on, vastly increased
by the draft he prepared of the Declaration of Independence, the latter
immortal document being somewhat of a transcript of views set forth
by Jefferson in his former paper, as well as of ideas expressed by the
English philosopher, John Locke, in his "Theory of Government," and
by Rousseau, in his "Discourse on the Origin of Inequality Among Men;"
though the circumstances of the Colonies at this time were of course
different; while to England and the European nations the Declaration was
a startling revelation of the attitude now assumed by the great leaders
of the movement for separation as well as for freedom and independence.
In the passing of this great national charter John Adams, as all know,
was of much service to Jefferson in the debate over it in committee, as
well as in the subsequent ratification of it by the House. Franklin was
also of assistance in its revision in draft form; and most happy was the
result, not only in the ultimate passing of the great historic document,
but in its affirmation of the intelligent stand taken by the Colonies
against England and her monarch, and in its pointed definition of the
theory of democratic government on which the new fabric of popular rule
in the New World was founded and raised.

In the autumn of 1776, Jefferson resigned his seat in Congress, or
rather declined re-election to the Third Continental Congress, and
retired for a time to his Virginia home. He also, at this period,
declined appointment to France on the mission on which Frankli