Thomas Jefferson Author:John Torrey Morse Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. IN CONGRESS. Jefferson arrived in Philadelphia on the tenth day of his journey, and on June 21 became one of that assembly concerning which Lo... more »rd Chatham truly said that its members had never been excelled " in solidity of reasoning, force of sagacity, and wisdom of conclusion." Jefferson, at the age of thirty-two, was among the younger deputies1 in a body which, by the aid of Dr. Franklin, aged seventy-one, and Edward Rutledge, aged twenty-six, represented all the adult generations of the country. He brought with him a considerable reputation as a ready and eloquent writer, and was justly expected, by his counsel, his pen, and his vote, to bring substantial reinforcement to the more advanced party. In debate, however, not much was to be anticipated from him, for he was never able to talk even moderately well in a deliberative body. Not only was his poorvoice an impediment, but he was a man who instinctively abhorred contest. Daringly as he wrote, yet he shrank from that contention which pitted him face to face against another, though the only weapons were the " winged words " of parliamentary argumentation. Turmoil and confusion he detested ; amid wrangling and disputing he preferred to be silent; it was in conversation, in the committee-room, and preeminently when he had pen, ink, and paper before him, that he amply justified his presence among the three-score chosen ones of the thirteen colonies. In his appropriate department he quickly superseded Jay as document-writer to Congress. 1 Not, as he himself with wonted inaccuracy says, "the youngest man but one;" for besides Edward Rutledge, born in 1749, there was also John Jay, born in 1745. Yet his first endeavor did not point to this distinction. When news of the fight at Bunker's Hill arrived in Philade...« less