Yes Virginia...
I'm feeling a little better tonight. Now, I'm just tired. I wanted to get some cleaning done somtime tonight, but that isn't happening. Too tired.

I was just reading some more of John Adams and one of those missing "puzzle pieces" of history was filled in for me. I've read many times that one of the reasons JA had insisted that Thomas Jefferson write the Declaration of Independence was that he was a Virginian and that a Virginian ought to write it. The thing I wasn't sure of was why Virginia was so important. I knew that the "pro-independence" crowd was having a tough time convincing Virginia to support Independence, but that was true of many colonies. Tonight I read that when Adams and the other men from Massachussets arrived at the second Continental Congress they were met by some Philadelphia patriots who warned them that:

[The Massachussets Delegates] were perceived to be "too zealous" and must not presume to take the lead. Virginia, they reminded, was the largest, richest, and most populous of the colonies, and the "very proud" Virginians felt they had the right to lead.
-David McCullough, John Adams

Of course, John Adams had offended enough members of congress that if he wrote it probably would never have been taken seriously. He really was perceived as too zealous and had offended many of the other delegates.

If I'm the one to do it,
they'll run their quill pens through it.
-sung by "John Adams" in the musical 1776