Before he became president in 1800, and before the Constitution was written in 1787, Jefferson proposed two constitutions for Virginia. He proposed the first in 1776, about the same time when, as a delegate to the national congress, he offered his famous declaration for independence. He proposed the second in 1783, when he distributed his Notes on the State of Virginia to friends. In the interval, Jefferson had served as a wartime governor, and had determined that that the Virginia Constitution was flawed. In particular, one inadequacy of the Virginia Constitution — and of his own 1776 draft — was that it did not do enough to secure independence for the executive power. Indeed, Jefferson's actions as governor reveal his attempt to make executive power strong enough to meet the necessities of war but also remain compatible with constitutional government. By looking at the 1783 constitution informed by both the Virginia Constitution and Jefferson's 1776 plan, and by examining Jefferson's tenure as governor, it is possible to detect movement toward his mature doctrine of executive power.

The Virginia Constitution of 1776

A delegate to Congress in 1776, Jefferson made his famous argument for separation from Great Britain, but, at the same time, he was also thinking about forming a government in Virginia. When his request to return to participate in the Virginia legislature's attempt to write a constitution was turned down, he drafted a constitution of his own and sent it for Virginians to consider.