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 Franklin had set
out; nevertheless, we presently find him a member of the legislature
of his own State, taking part in passing measures in which he was
particularly interested. Many of these measures are indicative of the
breadth of mind and large, tolerant views for which Jefferson was noted,
viz.: the repeal in Virginia of the laws of entail; the abolition of
primogeniture and the substitution of equal partition of inheritance;
the affirmation of the rights of conscience and the relief of the people
from taxation for the support of a religion not their own; and the
introduction of a general system of education, so that the people, as
the author of these beneficent acts himself expressed it, "would be
qualified to understand their rights, to maintain them, and to exercise
with intelligence their parts in self-government.
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