Jefferson, who had already won reputation as author and scholar, was sent to Philadelphia to the Continental Congress. Though one of the youngest of its members, he was appointed to draft the Declaration of Independence. The paper was accepted and adopted in form slightly changed from that in which he presented it. The delegates who signed it well knew that they were signing their death warrants if the Revolution should prove a failure and they should fall into King George’s hands.
Hancock, the president of the Congress, said that the members must all hang together.
“Yes,” said Franklin, “we must hang together or we shall all hang separately.”
Four days later, the Declaration was read publicly, and its proclamation was received with enthusiasm throughout the colonies.
Jefferson was one of the five men that the Assembly selected to revise the Virginia laws; upon him devolved most of the work. It was due to him that severe laws were passed against dueling, and that there was repealed the old English law by which the eldest son inherited the father’s estate. For nine years he and other enlightened men fought for the repeal of the old intolerant laws about religion, and the passing of a statute securing religious liberty. Finally, all the old laws about tithes, compulsory worship, etc., were struck out and in their place was substituted this statute written by Jefferson:
“No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, ministry, or place whatsoever; nor shall he be enforced, restrained, molested or hindered in his body or his goods; nor shall he otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or beliefs; but all men shall be free to profess and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion; and the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge or affect their civil capacities.” We accept this as a matter of course, but in that day it was a great step forward.
Jefferson was elected governor of Virginia, but he resigned in 1781, feeling that in the emergency of the time the government could best be administered by having civil and military power in the same hands. He was asked by Congress to go with Franklin to France as ambassador but he refused because his wife was ill. After her death, two years later, he went as minister to France. No other American ambassador was ever so popular as Franklin, but Jefferson was liked and respected.
“You replace Dr. Franklin,” said a Frenchman.
“I merely succeed him; no one could replace him,” was the prompt reply.
Jefferson, like Franklin, was a many-sided man. The famous author of the Declaration of Independence, the scholar versed in the Greek, Latin, French, Italian, and Spanish languages, took a keen interest in practical matters and applied science. Under great difficulties, he procured some of the best rice of Italy and sent it to South Carolina; from this handful came the great rice crops produced in that state. From Europe Franklin sent to the United States the first announcement of Watt’s steam engine which he went from Paris to London to see. He wrote back that by it “a peck and a half of coal performs as much work as a horse in a day.” Jefferson himself had inventive talent; among his other inventions was a plow superior to any then in use, which in 1790 received a gold medal in France. He became the third president of the American Philosophical Society of which Franklin was the first president.