A mind always employed is always happy. This is the true secret, the grand recipe for felicity.”
—Thomas Jefferson, letter to his daughter Martha, May 21, 1787
On the morning of Monday, July 1, 1776, Thomas Jefferson had, it can safely be said, a lot on his mind.
On that fateful day, the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia was to consider the resolution, first introduced on June 7 by his fellow Virginian Richard H. Lee, to dissolve “all political connection between [the Colonies] and the state of Great Britain.” And as soon as that resolution passed, as Jefferson expected it would, his draft of the Declaration of Independence, which he had completed the previous Friday, was due to come to the floor for a vote.
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