Thus was the Declaration of Independence at last resolved upon, by the unanimous vote of twelve colonies, on the 2d of July, 1776; and this work having been done, Congress at once went into committee of the whole, to consider the form of declaration which should be adopted. That no time might be lost in disposing of this important matter, a committee had already been selected three weeks before, at the time of Lee's motion, to draw up a paper which might be worthy of this great and solemn occasion. Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston were the members of the committee, and Jefferson, as representing the colony which had introduced the resolution of independence, was chosen to be the author of the Declaration. Jefferson, then but thirty-three years of age, was one of the youngest delegates in Congress; but of all the men of that time, there was, perhaps, none of wider culture or keener political instincts. Inheriting a comfortable fortune, he had chosen the law as his profession, but he had always been passionately fond of study for its own sake, and to a wide reading in history and in ancient and modern literature he added no mean proficiency in mathematics and in physical science. He was skilled in horsemanship and other manly exercises, and in the management of rural affairs; while at the same time he was sensitively and delicately organized, playing the violin like a master, and giving other evidences of rare musical talent. His temper was exceedingly placid, and his disposition was sweet and sympathetic. He was deeply interested in all the generous theories of the eighteenth century concerning the rights of man and the perfectibility of human nature; and, like most of the contemporary philosophers whom he admired, he was a sturdy foe to intolerance and priestcraft. He was in his way a much more profound thinker than Hamilton, though he had not such a constructive genius as the latter; as a political leader he was superior to any other man of his age; and his warm sympathies, his almost feminine tact, his mastery of the dominant political ideas of the time, and, above all, his unbounded faith in the common-sense of the people and in their essential rectitude of purpose served to give him one of the greatest and most commanding positions ever held by any personage in American history. [Sidenote: Independence declared, July 4, 1776]