Thomas Jefferson

Born April 13, 1743
Shadwell, Virginia
Died July 4, 1826
Charlottesville, Virginia

President and vice president of the United States, lawyer, philosopher, writer

Thomas Jefferson was a brilliant man with broad-ranging interests who greatly influenced the political and intellectual life of America. His gift for language made him the most eloquent leader of the American Revolution. His vision for America helped make him one of its most respected presidents.

Thomas Jefferson was born on April 13, 1743, to Peter Jefferson, a pioneer farmer and surveyor, and his wife, Jane Randolph Jefferson. The family was not wealthy, but Jeffer son's mother was from a well-respected Virginia family. As a teenager, Jefferson boarded with the local schoolmaster to learn Latin and Greek. In 1760, at age seventeen, he attended the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. Jefferson was an excellent student who sometimes studied fif teen hours a day.

After graduation in 1762 he studied law in Williams burg for five years, then began practicing law on his own. He mostly defended small-scale planters in land claims cases. He was well prepared and knowledgeable about the law, but he was not a great speaker.

In 1768 Jefferson began building his beautiful moun taintop home, Monticello, on land he had inherited from his father. He taught himself architecture by reading books. Mon ticello was a labor of love and he worked on it for the rest of his life.

Becomes active in politics

Jefferson's political career began in 1769 with his election to the Virginia House of Burgesses, the lower house of the legislature (where laws were made). "As a young man Jefferson has been described as tall, loose-jointed, [and] sandy-haired," Mark M. Boatner III wrote. "He was a skillful horseman, an expert violinist, a good singer and dancer and [a lively companion.]" As he got older, the more serious side of Jefferson emerged.

Beliefs about people and government

Jefferson believed that everyone could and should be educated so they could participate intelligently in their gov ernment. He believed that the position a person attains in soci ety should depend on his abilities. He believed that everyone had certain rights that could not be denied to them by kings. He opposed the idea that a nation should be governed by peo ple such as kings who inherited their positions or gained them because of wealth.

Jefferson expressed some of those views in his 1774 pamphlet titled Summary View of the Rights of British America. At the time the pamphlet was written, some Americans were challenging England's right to tax the colonists (to raise money to pay off British war debts) without their consent. Putting those views in writing went a step further. Jefferson declared that Great Britain had no right at all to exercise authority over the colonists. He said that England's King George III see entry was merely the "chief officer of the people," not someone chosen specially by God to rule. He also accused King George and his advisers of being responsible for crimes against the colonists. Summary View helped establish Jefferson as one of the early leaders of the American Revolution.

Writes Declaration of Independence

In May 1775 Jefferson was elected to the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia. During this convention the delegates debated whether the colonies should officially go to war against Great Britain (fighting had begun a month earlier, with the battle of Lexington and Concord). Like the citizens of the colonies, the congress was deeply divided on the matter of war, but as hostilities escalated over the next year, war was inevitable.

In June 1776 Jefferson was chosen by Congress to serve on a committee to write the Declaration of Independence, the document that established the United States as a nation. John Adams and Benjamin Franklin see entry made only small changes to Jefferson's draft before the document was sent on for the approval of Congress. For two and one-half days, the delegates in Congress examined and argued it line by line. In the end, the Declaration passed with many changes, but it still largely reflected the style and ideas of Jefferson, including the equality of all human beings, that certain rights belong to all people and cannot be taken away, and that people have the right to govern themselves.

Works for reform of Virginia laws

The Second Continental Congress adjourned in the fall of 1776. Jefferson returned home to Virginia and to his seat in the state legislature. There he was able to get lawmakers to consider passing some far-reaching reforms to Virginia's existing laws. The first, the one he considered most important, did not go into effect until 1786. It was the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, which provided for the separation of church and state. Jefferson believed that government must allow its citizens freedom to practice the religion they choose, and must be prevented from favoring any particular religion or establishing a state religion.

Jefferson also got a reform passed making it possible for a child other than a first-born son to inherit his father's estate. But many of Jefferson's reform efforts failed. At that time, Virginia had a list of more than one hundred offenses that could bring the death sentence; most of the listed offenses were minor. Jefferson urged that some criminal offenders be reformed rather than executed. But he was unsuccessful in his attempts to change Virginia's harsh policy for the treatment of criminals.

Slavery was another subject on which Jefferson had strong—though conflicting—views. He spoke of his opposition to slavery, though he himself owned slaves. Still, Jefferson tried to get a plan passed for gradually freeing the slaves.

He was especially disappointed with the failure of his Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge. The bill would have set up a complete system of public education, featuring free elementary schools for all citizens.

Elected governor of Virginia

In 1778 the Revolutionary War shifted to the South. In June 1779 Jefferson succeeded Patrick Henry see entry as governor of Virginia. The times called for a governor who could make instant decisions, but as Patrick Henry had already discovered, the Virginia governorship was largely a ceremonial position. Furthermore, Jefferson's kind temperament and deliberate way of looking at matters did not well suit him to govern in a time of great immediate danger.

In May 1781 the British invasion of Virginia's capital city, Richmond, forced government officials to flee to Charlottesville, near Jefferson's home. Believing that his term as governor had expired, Jefferson stepped down from the position, despite the fact that a new governor had not been chosen. He sent his family from Monticello to an estate on Virginia's Carter's Mountain, where he soon joined them. The war ended on October 18, 1781, with the surrender of the British at Yorktown, Virginia. Jefferson's political opponents now called him a traitor. They called his move to Carter's Mountain a flight from the British, and they criticized what they called his lack of leadership during the war years. Nothing ever came of their charges, and in the end Virginia legislators expressed their gratitude to Jefferson for his services.

Wife dies; Jefferson joins Congress

The mere suggestion of misconduct wounded Jefferson deeply, and he vowed never again to serve in public office. But then he was beset by a series of personal misfortunes, climaxing with the death of his wife, Martha, in September 1782. Jefferson had married Martha Wales Skelton, an attractive and wealthy young widow, ten years earlier. To his sorrow, three of the couple's six children had died before Martha, and only two survived to adulthood.

With his dream of family life on the plantation no longer a possibility, Jefferson returned to public life. In November 1782 he accepted an appointment by Congress to serve at the peace commission in Paris, France, to work on a treaty to end the Revolutionary War. But the treaty was signed before Jefferson sailed for France.

Congressional activities

In the next stage of his career, Jefferson became a member of the U.S. Congress from Virginia and served on nearly all of the important congressional committees. During the winter of 1783–84, Jefferson helped form American policy in a variety of areas. His proposal for a decimal system (based on the number ten) of American coins was adopted. He drafted a policy for governing America's western region, an area that always fascinated him. His policy suggested a workable method of creating states out of the wilderness.

Serves as Minister to France

Jefferson also had an influence on American foreign policy. By the mid-1780s the U.S. economy was in trouble, in part because of huge war debts. The nation hoped to set up trade relationships with foreign countries, but France was one of the few countries that seemed interested.

In 1784 Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin were appointed to a commission to negotiate commercial (trade) treaties with France and the major European powers. He sailed to Paris, and in 1785 he succeeded Franklin as minister to France. He focused his efforts on improving trade with that country.

Jefferson enjoyed his five years in France, made the most of its cultural offerings, and visited much of Europe. Some of the things he accomplished there had lasting effects on developments in America. For example, the designs he worked out with a French architect for the Capitol of Virginia helped to bring about a revival in America of the architectural styles of ancient Greece and Rome.

Faces challenges as Secretary of State

After his return to America in 1789, the forty-seven-year-old Jefferson became secretary of state under President George Washington see entry. He was mainly responsible for the conduct of the nation's foreign affairs. During the three frustrating years he served in the post, Jefferson's negotiations resulted in few benefits to America. This was partly because he faced opposition from political rivals. Jefferson wanted America to build on its commercial alliance with France and also to have much freer commerce with other European nations. But Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton see entry was against the development of free trade with France. He wanted to keep closer economic ties with England, France's longtime enemy.

Jefferson feared that Hamilton's policies would make just a few Americans rich and would also concentrate too much power in the office of the secretary of the treasury. So Jefferson allied himself with those who opposed Hamilton.

Becomes U.S. vice-president

War broke out between France and England in 1793 and threatened American peace. As secretary of state, Jefferson tried to keep America out of the war while maintaining ties with both France and Great Britain. In the case of France, he was unsuccessful, and his plans for a good trade relationship with France came to nothing. He resigned his office at the end of 1793.

After his resignation Jefferson was determined to quit public life once and for all. But in 1796 members of his Republican Party convinced him to run for president against John Adams. Jefferson barely lost the election, but because of the way the election system worked at the time, he became vice-president under Adams.

By 1798 relations between France and the United States were so bad that the two countries nearly went to war. Although war was avoided, Jefferson did not approve of the way President Adams handled the situation and the relationship between the two men—and their Republican and Federalist political parties—was badly strained.

Reacts to Alien and Sedition Acts

One way Adams handled the situation with France was to convince Congress to pass the Alien and Sedition Acts. (Aliens are foreigners; sedition is behavior or language intended to incite others to rebel against the authority of the government.) The Alien Acts were really intended to weaken the Republican Party, which was made up of many recent immigrants who were criticizing Adams's policies. The Alien Acts made it harder to become an American citizen and threatened to force people from "enemy" nations to go back home. The Sedition Acts tried to restrict the public activities of Americans critical of Adams's policies. Jefferson saw the acts as an attempt by Adams to make the federal government far more powerful than the individual states.

In response to the Alien and Sedition Acts, Jefferson secretly wrote the Kentucky Resolutions. They declared the Alien and Sedition Acts illegal and claimed that individual states did not have to abide by such laws. Although Jefferson's planned legislation did not pass, it contributed to the public's demand that Adams stop trying to expand the federal government's power. Jefferson continued to believe that the states should be governed with as little interference from the federal government as possible. Like Adams and Jefferson did, politicians today still argue about the proper role of the federal government.

Serves as U.S. president

In 1800 Jefferson ran for president as a Republican and won. On March 4, 1801, he was inaugurated in the nation's new capital, Washington, D.C. The speech he made that day urged friendship between Republicans and Federalists, the nation's two political parties. "We have called by different names brethren of the same principle," he said. "We are all republicans: we are all federalists."

Jefferson's speech also called for "a wise and [economically sound] government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned" by overtaxing. When members of his own Republican Party pressured him to favor them over the Federalists, he tried to remain fair to both parties.

Historians disagree about whether or not Jefferson was a strong and effective president during his two terms of office (1801–09). Some say he did not exercise authority when a strong hand was needed. But others point out that Jefferson enjoyed many successes. He got reforms passed regarding freedom of the press, made it easier for immigrants to become American citizens, and greatly improved the country's financial status. During his two administrations, the national debt was reduced by about 40 percent.

Foreign affairs

Foreign affairs was the area of Jefferson's greatest triumph and greatest defeat. With the 1803 Louisiana Purchase from France, Jefferson gained for the United States an area of 800,000 square miles. For this expansion he paid the remarkably small sum of less than $15 million. He approved the Meriwether Lewis and William Clark expedition (1803–06), which helped to acquaint Americans with their new western lands.

Jefferson was easily reelected in 1804, but he soon found himself involved in yet another quarrel between France and England. It was Jefferson's idea to try and resolve the quarrel by way of an embargo. The embargo prohibited foreign commercial ships from entering or departing American ports. The embargo was unpopular at home and had little effect on the behavior of France and Great Britain. Congress finally brought an end to the embargo in 1809 during the last days of Jefferson's presidency.

Life in retirement

After his retirement from politics, Jefferson seldom ventured farther than a few miles from Monticello. He enjoyed a long and active retirement. He corresponded with many people, maintained an interest in the latest happenings in a variety of fields, and welcomed visitors to his home from all over America and Europe. Although he still had political enemies, he was enormously popular among the American people.

Jefferson's efforts to revive plans for public education in his home state resulted in the founding of the University of Virginia in 1819. Jefferson was involved in all aspects of the project, from planning the grounds and buildings to choosing the teachers and classes.

During his later years Jefferson's health began to fail and he suffered a number of financial losses. At the time of his marriage, Jefferson had inherited both property and debts from his wife's family. His involvement in national affairs meant that sometimes he failed to pay close enough attention to his own personal finances on the plantation. Money difficulties became part of his life. In 1815 he had to sell his ten-thousand-volume library to the federal government to help relieve his financial difficulties. His books served as the core of the collection of the Library of Congress, the large public library he had helped establish in Washington, D.C., in 1800. The library was inspired by Jefferson's belief that in order to do its job, a democratic legislature needed information of all kinds.

Death of America's hero

Thomas Jefferson died at his home on July 4, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of American independence. His colleague, John Adams, passed away on the same day. Jefferson was buried next to his wife on a little hill at Monticello.

As he had done in life, Jefferson carefully controlled aspects of his death. He had designed his own tombstone and wrote the words he wished to appear on it: "Here was buried / Thomas Jefferson / author of the Declaration of American Independence / [and] of the Statute of Virginia for religious freedom / And Father of the University of Virginia."

Biographer Willard Sterne Randall pointed out how curious it was that in composing the words for his stone, Jefferson "did not think it important enough to mention that he had been twice elected and served as the president of the United States."

For More Information

Allison, Robert J. "Thomas Jefferson" in American Eras: The Revolutionary Era, 1754–1783. Detroit: Gale, 1998, pp. 222-23.

Boatner, Mark M., III. "Jefferson, Thomas" in Encyclopedia of the American Revolution. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1994, pp. 553-58.

Bourgoin, Suzanne M., and Paula K. Byers. "Jefferson, Thomas" in Encyclopedia of World Biography, Vol. 8. Detroit: Gale, 1998, pp. 238-41.

Ellis, Joseph J. American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson. New York: Vintage Books, 1998.

Malone, Dumas. Jefferson, the Virginian, Vol. 1. Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1948, p. 204.

Peterson, Merrill D. "Jefferson, Thomas" in American National Biography, Vol. 11. Edited by John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999, pp. 909-18.

Randall, Willard Sterne. Thomas Jefferson: A Life. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1993.