raising money for defence, and in inspiring the legislature to set up a State government.  When Jefferson again took his seat in Congress, May 13, 1776, he was put upon the committee to draft a Declaration of Independence, composed, as already noted, of John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston, besides himself.  To him, however, was intrusted by the committee the labor and the honor of penning the draft, which was adopted with trifling revision.  He was always very proud of this famous document, and it was certainly effective.  Among the ordinary people of America he is, perhaps, better known for this rather rhetorical piece of composition than for all his other writings put together.  It was one of those happy hits of genius which make a man immortal,—­owing, however, no small measure of its fame to the historic importance of the occasion that called it forth.  It was publicly read on every Fourth-of-July celebration for a hundred years.  It embodied the sentiments of a great people not disposed to criticism, but ready to interpret in a generous spirit; it had, at the time, a most stimulating effect at home, and in Europe was a revelation of the truth about the feeling in America.

From the 4th of July, 1776, Thomas Jefferson became one of the most prominent figures identified with American Independence, by reason of his patriotism, his abilities, and advanced views of political principles, though as inferior to Hamilton in original and comprehensive genius as he was superior to him in the arts and foresight of a political leader.  He better understood the people than did his great political rival, and more warmly sympathized with their conditions and aspirations.  He became a typical American politician, not by force of public speaking, but by dexterity in the formation and management of a party.  Both Patrick Henry and John Adams were immeasurably more eloquent than he, but neither touched the springs of the American heart like this quiet, modest, peace-loving, far-sighted politician, since he, more than any other man of the Revolutionary period, was jealous of aristocratic power.  Hamilton, Jay, Gouverneur Morris, were aristocrats who admired the English Constitution, and would have established a more vigorous central government.  Jefferson was jealous of central power in the hands of aristocrats.  So indeed was Patrick Henry, whose outbursts of eloquence thrilled all audiences alike,—­the greatest natural orator this country has produced, if Henry Clay may be excepted; but he was impractical, and would not even endorse the Constitution which was afterwards adopted, as not guarding sufficiently what were called natural rights and the independence of the States.  This ultimately led to an alienation between these great men, and to the disparagement of Henry by Jefferson as a lawyer and statesman, when he was the most admired and popular man in Virginia, and “had only to say ’Let this be law,’ and it was law,—­when