When Thomas Jefferson arrived in Philadelphia and took lodgings with "Ben Randolph" on Chestnut Street, he was only thirty-three years old, "the youngest member of Congress but one." But he was already known as the author of the "Summary View of the Rights of British America", he was bringing with him Virginia's answer to Lord North's "Conciliatory Proposition," and he had been appointed to succeed as delegate the former President of Congress. Most of all he had behind him, not only the first colony in population, but also, to a large extent, all the Southern colonies, which were bound to follow the course of Virginia. Unassuming and straightforward, he was at once welcomed with open arms by the New England leaders, and years later John Adams still remembered the first impression he made upon him: Mr. Jefferson came into Congress in June 1775, and brought with him a reputation for literature, science and a happy talent of composition.... Though a silent member in Congress, he was so prompt, frank, explicit and decisive upon committees and in conversation--not even Samuel Adams was more so--that he soon seized upon my heart. Five days later, he was placed on the committee appointed to draw up a "Declaration of the Causes of Taking Up Arms." Through deference for the authority of Dickinson, leader of the conservative party, he withdrew a draft he had prepared and in the final text he claimed as his only the last four paragraphs. But these last paragraphs contained some of the sharply coined sentences that impress themselves on the mind, the final expression of so many ideas ever since repeated in political speeches whenever an attempt is made to define America's ideal policies. To a certain extent Jefferson, as well as most of his contemporaries, may have been influenced by Thomas Paine, whose "Common Sense", a pamphlet addressed to the inhabitants of America, had taken the city by fire. For the first time the colonists had been told that "the cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all _Mankind_. Many circumstances, have and will arise, which are not local, but universal, and through which the Principles of all lovers of mankind are affected and in the event of which this affection is interested." It also contained a rather vague plan for a confederation, a "Continental charter", but Paine's pamphlet was essentially an eloquent appeal to elemental feelings; it exalted the cause of the colonists calling on them as the last defenders of oppressed liberty; it had all the fire and passion of an evangelical message: O ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose not only the tyranny, but the tyrant, stand forth. Every spot of the old world is over-run with oppression. Freedom hath been hunted around the globe. Asia and Africa have long expelled her.--Europe regards her like a stranger; and England hath given her warning to depart. O receive the fugitive, and prepare in time an asylum for mankind!