Jefferson, Thomas

Jefferson, Thomas (1743–1826), secretary of state, vice president, and third president of the United States.Thomas Jefferson believed that a large military establishment would both increase the nation's debt and threaten American liberty. As the first secretary of state (1789–93), he urged neutrality in the war between England and France; as president (1801–09), he pursued a policy of “peace, commerce, and honest friendship” with all nations, but “entangling alliances with none.” Jefferson's administration cut military spending drastically, from over $3 million annually to $1.9 million, although his administration also founded the U.S. Military Academy, first proposed by Washington, at West Point, New York, in 1802. Neutrality, though, was not isolation: Jefferson sent the U.S. Fleet to the Mediterranean in 1801, and cooperated with Sweden, Portugal, Naples, and other neutral powers in a multinational alliance against Tripoli. To replace the expensive frigates built by the Federalist administrations, Jefferson built 180 gunboats, 50 feet long, with crews of 20 and cannon mounted in bow and stern, primarily to defend American harbors. Instead of military force, the United States would use economic pressure in international affairs. The Europeans, he reasoned, depended on American grain and fish to feed their large armies and overtaxed populations. When both France and England attacked American commercial policy in 1807, Jefferson closed U.S. ports, depriving the belligerent Europeans of American goods. Though the embargo of 1808–09 did not force France or England to negotiate, Jefferson did not lose faith in economic power as the most potent weapon in the American arsenal.
[See also Academies, Service: U.S. Military Academy; Economy and War; Hamilton, Alexander; Tripolitan War.]

Bibliography

Merrill Peterson , Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation, 1970.
Reginald C. Stuart , The Half‐Way Pacifist: Thomas Jefferson's View of War, 1978.
Drew R. McCoy , The Elusive Republic: Political Economy in Jeffersonian America, 1980.
Robert W. Tucker and and David C. Hendrickson , Empire of Liberty: The Statecraft of Thomas Jefferson, 1990.

Robert J. Allison