He was then forty years old and one of the most remarkable men in the country.

Born on the frontier--his father from the upper middle class, his mother "a Randolph"-- he had been trained to an outdoor life; but he was also a prodigy in his studies and entered William and Mary College with advanced standing at the age of eighteen.

Many stories are told of his precocity and ability, all of which tend to forecast the later man of catholic tastes, omnivorous interest, and extensive but superficial knowledge; he was a strange combination of natural aristocrat and theoretical democrat, of philosopher and practical politician.

After having been a student in the law office of George Wythe, and being a friend of Patrick Henry, Jefferson early espoused the cause of the Revolution, and it was his hand that drafted the Declaration of Independence.

He then resigned from Congress to assist in the organization of government in his own State.