Jefferson, Thomas

Jefferson, Thomas (1743–1826), third president of the United States.Born in Virginia on the western edges of settlement, Jefferson would always feel a closeness to the land and to an agrarian way of life, and he built his own home, Monticello, in Albemarle County, not far from his birthplace. Although his public career repeatedly drew him away, he eagerly returned to Monticello whenever possible.

Entering the College of William and Mary in 1760, Jefferson absorbed the ideas of the Enlightenment and became a devoted disciple of the Age of Reason and he subscribed to its preferred religious position, Deism. He followed his college studies by reading law with George Wythe in Williamsburg. Here, in Virginia's colonial capital, Jefferson encountered the political world that would enlist his lifelong participation. Visiting the House of Burgesses in 1765, he heard Patrick Henry's memorable Give me liberty or give me death speech against the Stamp Act.

Elected to the House of Burgesses in 1769, at age twenty‐six, Jefferson began the political career that would continue until he retired from the presidency forty years later. The young Jefferson actively supported colonial rights in the developing conflict with the British. His Summary View of the Rights of British America (1774) protested British policies and actions, insisting that “the British Parliament has no right to exercise authority over us.” This pamphlet circulated among delegates to the First Continental Congress, making its author well known when he took his seat in the Second Continental Congress in June 1775. A year later, appointed to the committee to draft the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson achieved enduring fame as its principal author.

As a delegate in the Virginia Assembly, Jefferson was active in revising the laws of his state. His draft statute for religious freedom was eventually adopted in 1786. Elected governor of Virginia in 1779, Jefferson served during a trying period of the Revolutionary War, when the British invaded the state. In June 1781 he barely escaped capture when the British raided Monticello. After two years as governor, Jefferson decided to retire from politics.

In his private life, Jefferson married Martha Wayles Skelton in 1772, and they had three children who survived infancy. Martha's death in 1782, following the birth of their last child, left Jefferson severely depressed. Recovering from his grief, Jefferson was again willing to leave Monticello and return to politics.

Although he inherited slaves from his father and from his wife, Jefferson was opposed to slavery. In the revision of the laws of Virginia, he proposed gradual emancipation; and in his Notes on the State of Virginia (1785), he vigorously condemned the institution. Yet he failed to win support in Virginia for ending slavery and remained a slaveholder for the rest of his life.

Reports that Jefferson fathered children by his slave Sally Hemings (1773–1835), based on oral traditions among Hemings's descendants, have long been controversial. DNA analysis conducted in 1998 of the blood of descendants of Jefferson's uncle and descendants of Sally Hemings led some historians to conclude that Jefferson was the father of at least one of Hemings's children. Other historians, however, argued that such DNA analysis was not conclusive because Jefferson had a brother, Randolph, who with his five sons lived within easy distance of Monticello and visited Jefferson.

Jefferson was U.S. minister to France from 1785 to 1789 and thus did not participate in drafting or ratifying the U.S. Constitution. In Paris at the outbreak of the French Revolution, he welcomed the struggle as following in the path of the American Revolution and remained sympathetic to the French revolutionary cause after returning to the United States late in 1789.

Jefferson served as the first secretary of state under President George Washington from 1790 through 1793. In this post he played a major role not only in the direction of foreign affairs but also in the emerging political divisions between the Federalists and their Republican opponents. Opposing the fiscal policies of Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton, he was recognized as the Republican leader. While Hamilton's policies favored business development and urban commercial interests, Jefferson remained suspicious of cities and saw yeoman farmers as the backbone of American democracy.

After three years in retirement during which he extensively remodeled Monticello, Jefferson was elected vice president in 1796, having come in second to Federalist John Adams at a time when there was no separate balloting for vice president. Presiding over the Senate, he increasingly opposed the policies of the Federalists, who controlled Congress. In 1800, he accepted the Republican nomination for president to oppose Adams's reelection bid. In the electoral vote, Jefferson tied with his vice presidential running mate, Aaron Burr, throwing the election to the House of Representatives, which chose Jefferson as president and Burr as vice president. (The Twelfth Amendment, adopted in 1804, revised electoral college procedures to prevent such an outcome in the future.)

Jefferson's first term proved remarkably successful. Reversing Federalist policies that had produced the repressive Alien and Sedition Acts, Jefferson also reduced military expenditures and set a tone of simplicity and frugality. The capstone of his first term was the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. A strong president who provided leadership for Congress, Jefferson closely supervised his administration, drafting his own messages to Congress, wrestling with appointments, and working closely with his cabinet whom he involved in the decision‐making process. Secretary of State James Madison, a longtime friend and political ally, provided advice and support.

Defeating the Federalist Charles Cotesworth Pinckney to win reelection in 1804, President Jefferson faced increasing difficulties in his second term, including the British attack on the USS Chesapeake; the conspiracy trial of his former vice president, Aaron Burr; and the Napoleonic wars in Europe, which left American commerce caught in the conflict between Great Britain and France. Jefferson's embargo policy, enacted in 1807, forbade U.S. trading vessels to leave port for any foreign destination. Deeply unpopular with merchants, traders, seamen, and farmers growing crops for export, the Embargo Act was repealed in 1809.

Jefferson's retirement years at Monticello were filled with activity. An intellectual with wide‐ranging interests, from music, painting, and architecture to political philosophy and natural history, he served as president of the American Philosophical Society from 1797 to 1815. His extensive correspondence included a long series of letters with John Adams in which the onetime political rivals explored their differing views of politics and human nature. His most important retirement project was the founding of the University of Virginia, in Charlottesville. He not only rallied legislative support for the enterprise but also assumed the role of planner, architect, and director of building, together with establishing the curriculum and hiring professors. Jefferson lived to see the opening of the university on 7 March 1825. He died a year later on 4 July 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. In keeping with his instructions, his epitaph identifies him only as the author of the Declaration of Independence and the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, and father of the University of Virginia.
See also Early Republic, Era of the; Embargo Acts; Federal Government, Executive Branch: The Presidency; Republicanism.

Bibliography

Dumas Malone , Jefferson and His Time, 6 vols., 1948–1981.
Merrill D. Peterson , Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation: A Biography, 1970.
John C. Miller , The Wolf by the Ears: Thomas Jefferson and Slavery, 1977.
Noble E. Cunningham Jr. , The Process of Government under Jefferson, 1978.
Noble E. Cunningham Jr. , In Pursuit of Reason: The Life of Thomas Jefferson, 1987.
William Howard Adams , The Paris Years of Thomas Jefferson, 1997.
Joseph J. Ellis , American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson, 1997.
Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation , Report of the Research Committee on Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, January 2000.
Philip Ranslet , Communication, William and Mary Quarterly, 3d ser., 57, no. 3 (July 2000): 728.

Noble E. Cunningham Jr.