That experience is the parent of wisdom, is an adage the truth of which is recognized by the wisest as well as the simplest of mankind.
Our Governor today is a very powerful executive. But it hasnât always been that way. The first Governor under the constitution was the great patriot, Patrick Henry. The Virginia Convention elected him Governor on June 29, 1776, the same day it proclaimed the new constitution. He had virtually no power, nor did Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, and the other early governors.
Jefferson was first elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1769. There, along with its other outspoken leader, Patrick Henry, he was a leader of the patriot faction. He was a legislator for Virginia from 1776 to 1779. In 1779, he was elected as Governor of Virginia. He failed keep the British from invading, but successfully guided the state through the troubled last years of the American Revolution. From 1784 to 1789, Jefferson replaced Benjamin Franklin as minister to France. He supported the French in their Revolution.