Thomas Jefferson served with Patrick Henry and George Washington in the House of Burgesses. He served later in the Continental Congress with Benjamin Franklin. One thing Jefferson learned from these three men, and especially Franklin and Washington, was how to listen. George was especially adept at this trait.

Jefferson made it a point not to argue and to try to be a peacemaker. Of his experience in Congress he wrote in his autobiography:

“Our body was a little numerous, but very conscientious. Day after day was wasted on the most unimportant questions. A member, one of those afflicted with the morbid rage of debate, of an ardent mind, prompt imagination, and copious flow of words, who heard with impatience any logic which was not his own, sitting near me on some occasion of a trifling but wordy debate, asked me how I could sit in silence, hearing so much false reasoning, which a word would refute? I observed to him, that to refute indeed was easy, but to silence was impossible.”

Jefferson went on to explain how he learned such a principle:

“I served with General Washington in the legislature of Virginia, before the Revolution, and during it, with Dr. Franklin in Congress. I never heard either of them speak ten minutes at a time, nor to any but the main point, which was to decide the question. They laid their shoulders to the great points, knowing that the little ones would follow of themselves. If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise, in a body to which the people send one hundred and fifty lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour? That one hundred and fifty lawyers should do business together should not be expected.” (As quoted in “Founding Fathers—Uncommon Heroes.”)

Perhaps that’s why nothing gets done in Congress today!