Editing Thomas Jefferson (section)

==Member of Congress==
{{Further|Congress of the Confederation}}
[[File:Independence Hall Assembly Room.jpg|thumb|alt=Legislative chamber|The Assembly Room at [[Independence Hall]] in [[Philadelphia]], where Jefferson served as a delegate to the [[Second Continental Congress]] and where the Congress edited but unanimously ratified his draft of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776]]

Jefferson was appointed a Virginia delegate to the [[Congress of the Confederation]] organized following the [[Treaty of Paris (1783)|peace treaty]] with Great Britain in 1783. He was a member of the committee setting foreign exchange rates and [[Plan for Establishing Uniformity in the Coinage, Weights, and Measures of the United States|recommended]] an American currency based on the decimal system that was adopted.<ref>[[#Tucker37|Tucker, 1837]], v. 1, pp. 172–173.</ref> He advised the formation of the [[Committee of the States]] to fill the power vacuum when Congress was in recess.<ref>[[#Peterson70|Peterson, 1970]], p. 275.</ref> The committee met when Congress adjourned, but disagreements rendered it dysfunctional.<ref>[[#Rayner34|Rayner, 1834]], p. 207.</ref>

In the Congress's 1783–1784 session, Jefferson acted as chairman of committees to establish a viable system of government for the new Republic and to propose a policy for settlement of the western territories. He was the principal author of the [[Land Ordinance of 1784]], whereby Virginia ceded to the national government the vast area that it claimed northwest of the [[Ohio River]]. He insisted that this territory should not be used as colonial territory by any of the thirteen states, but that it should be divided into sections that could become states. He plotted borders for nine new states in their initial stages and wrote an ordinance banning slavery in all the nation's territories. Congress made extensive revisions and rejected the ban on slavery.<ref name=Peretson189>[[#Peterson60|Peterson, 1960]], pp. 189–190.</ref><ref>[[#Finkelman1989|Finkelman, 1989]], pp. 21–51.</ref> The provisions banning slavery, known as the "Jefferson Proviso", were modified and implemented three years later in the [[Northwest Ordinance]] of 1787 and became the law for the entire [[Northwest Territory]].<ref name=Peretson189/>