e significant, were made in this text even after this complete fair copy of the Constitution was made; these are indicated in the notes to Document vii.
In view of the foregoing, it is obvious that no single person can be advanced as the “author” of the Virginia Constitution. That Adams’ Thoughts on Government had a direct influence on the Mason Plan and the Constitution can be demonstrated by a comparison of phraseology (e.g., Adams’ remarks on commissions, writs, and indictments, Works, IV, 199, are followed almost verbatim in the Mason Plan and in the Constitution). That Richard Henry Lee modified the Adams Plan is probable, as it is equally probable that Patrick Henry introduced one or the other or a modification thereof in the Virginia Gazette. Second, the Constitution, deriving from various plans and discussions of preceding months, was fought over, as Jefferson said, “inch by inch.” Many modifications were made and many persons had a hand in these modifications.
The contributions of Jefferson to the Virginia Constitution can be unmistakably identified by comparing his texts with the Committee revision, with the amendments offered in Convention, and with the final Constitution; certain parts are indisputably Jefferson’s in phraseology and substance. Of all the plans that are known, only Jefferson’s can be regarded as a complete, finished, detailed form of government: all others that are known were outlines, some merely describing and distributing the major powers of government. His was a carefully and thoroughly wrought document, exact in detail, harmonious in structure, consistent in purpose and instinct with the leading principles that guided his entire life. Different as his constitution was in its preciseness and in its magnificent vision from that under contemplation by the Convention, it received its greatest tribute when the Convention, worn out with its own struggles over constitution-making and many other problems, reopened an almost closed chapter and incorporated as much as it dared of Jefferson’s Draft. The remarkable thing under the circumstances is not that Jefferson’s advanced ideas were rejected but that, at the last moment, the Convention was willing even to consider his constitution. The fact that use was made of considerable part of it is a tribute to its excellence and to the influence of its author.
The notes to the Virginia Constitution (Document VII) identify those parts of the Constitution that are here, for the first time, identified as certainly or probably Jefferson’s. All the texts in this sequence are reproduced with literal fidelity. Square brackets in printed texts are, unless otherwise noted, in the MSS.