Remembering: Thomas Jefferson's Election to the Continental Congress

March 27, 1775 Virginia elects Thomas Jefferson to the second Continental Congress. He quickly made a name for himself, publishing such papers as A Summary View of the Rights of British America and Drafts and Notes on the Virginia Constitution.

When the Congress was ready to form a committee to discuss independence from England, Jefferson was put on it, and then asked to write the declaration. It took him but days, and the committee approved it almost in it's entirety, making subtle changes to the wording.

A Declaration by the Representatives in General Congress Assembled was presented to Congress on June 28, 1776. On July 4 it was approved under a new name, The Declaration of Independence.

Jefferson would continue to write and publish documents, including a bill establishing religious freedom within the new country. He would become the United States' first secretary of state, vice president to it's second President, and finally it's third President, under the Constitution.

He died, at the age of eighty-three on July 4, 1826. Fifty years to the day after the signing of The Declaration of Independence.