From:
Wizard Marks
Date:
Oct 12 14:51 UTC
Short link
Thomas Jefferson:
Elected to the Second Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia, Jefferson
was appointed on June 11, 1776, to head a committee of five in preparing the
Declaration of Independence. He was its primary author, although his initial
draft was amended after consultation with Benjamin Franklin and John Adams and
altered both stylistically and substantively by Congress. Jefferson's reference
to the voluntary allegiance of colonists to the crown was struck; also deleted
was a clause that censured the monarchy for imposing slavery upon America.
As chairman of the committee dealing with the government of western lands,
Jefferson submitted proposals so liberal and farsighted as to constitute, when
enacted, the most progressive colonial policy of any nation in modern history.
The proposed ordinance of 1784 reflected Jefferson's belief that the western
territories should be self-governing and, when they reached a certain stage of
growth, should be admitted to the Union as full partners with the original 13
states. Jefferson also proposed that slavery should be excluded from all of the
American western territories after 1800. Although he himself was a slaveowner,
he believed that slavery was an evil that should not be permitted to spread. In
1784 the provision banning slavery was narrowly defeated. Had one
representative (John Beatty of New Jersey), sick and confined to his lodging,
been present, the vote would have been different. "Thus," Jefferson later
reflected, "we see the fate of millions unborn hanging on the tongue of one
man, and heaven was silent in that awful moment." Although Congress approved
the proposed ordinance of 1784, it was never put into effect; its main features
were incorporated, however, in the Ordinance of 1787, which established the
Northwest Territory. Moreover, slavery was prohibited in the Northwest
Territory.