Special Collections Department, University of Virginia Library
Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library© 2001 By the Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia. All rights reserved.
Funding: Web version of the finding aid funded in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Processed by: Special Collections Department
There are no restrictions.
See the University of Virginia Library’s use policy.
Thomas Jefferson, Report Fragment, ca. 1769, Accession # 10803, Special Collections Dept., University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.
This item was purchased by the Library from Cohasco, Inc. of Yonkers, New York, on November 30, 1988.
This manuscript draft report of two partial pages, in the hand of Thomas Jefferson, was "evidently submitted to the committee of privileges and elections of the Virginia House of Burgesses late in 1769," according to the editor of the Papers of Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson was appointed to the committee of privileges and elections on November 7, 1769.
The document is probably Jefferson's preliminary report on parliamentary rules and procedures submitted to that committee and incorporated into its final report to the Burgesses. The House of Burgesses read and adopted the committee's report on December 8, 1769.
This report is the earliest known surviving manuscript pertaining to Jefferson's career as a Virginia legislator, and it is the first significant document in his hand relating to his interest in parliamentary privilege.