Thomas Jefferson

This article is about the third president of the United States. For other uses, see Thomas Jefferson (disambiguation).

Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. Among the Committee of Five charged by the Second Continental Congress with authoring the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson was the document's primary author. Following the American Revolutionary War and prior to becoming president in 1801, Jefferson was the first U.S. Secretary of State under George Washington and then the nation's second vice president under John Adams.

Thomas Jefferson
Portrait by Rembrandt Peale, 1800
3rd President of the United States
3rd Ambassador to
In office March 4, 1801 – March 4, 1809
Vice President	Aaron Burr (1801–1805) George Clinton (1805–1809)
Preceded by	John Adams
Succeeded by	James Madison
2nd Vice President of the United States
2nd Ambassador to
In office March 4, 1797 – March 4, 1801
President	John Adams
Preceded by	John Adams
Succeeded by	Aaron Burr
1st United States Secretary of State
1st Ambassador to
In office March 22, 1790 – December 31, 1793
President	George Washington
Preceded by	John Jay (acting)
Succeeded by	Edmund Randolph
2nd United States Minister to France
2nd Ambassador to
In office May 17, 1785 – September 26, 1789
Appointed by	Confederation Congress
Preceded by	Benjamin Franklin
Succeeded by	William Short
Minister Plenipotentiary for Negotiating Treaties of Amity and Commerce
Ambassador to
In office May 7, 1784 – May 11, 1786
Appointed by	Confederation Congress
Preceded by	Office established
Succeeded by	Office abolished
Delegate from Virginia Template:Awrap
Ambassador to
In office June 6, 1782 – May 7, 1784
Preceded by	James Madison
Succeeded by	Richard Lee
2nd Governor of Virginia
2nd Ambassador to
In office June 1, 1779 – June 3, 1781
Preceded by	Patrick Henry
Succeeded by	William Fleming
Member of the Virginia House of Delegates from Albemarle County
Ambassador to
In office October 7, 1776 – May 30, 1779
Preceded by	Charles Lewis
Succeeded by	George Gilmer
Ambassador to
In office December 10, 1781 – December 22, 1781
Preceded by	Isaac Davis
Succeeded by	James Marks
Delegate from Virginia Template:Awrap
Ambassador to
In office June 20, 1775 – September 26, 1776
Preceded by	George Washington
Succeeded by	John Harvie
Constituency	Second Continental Congress
Member of the Virginia House of Burgesses
Ambassador to
In office May 11, 1769 – June 1, 1775
Preceded by	Edward Carter
Succeeded by	Office abolished
Constituency	Albemarle County
Personal details
Born	(1743-04-13)Template:MONTHNAME 13, 1743 Shadwell, Virginia, British America
Died	July 4, 1826(1826-07-04) (aged 83) Charlottesville, Virginia, U.S.
Resting place	Monticello, Virginia
Political party	Democratic-Republican
Spouse(s)	Martha Wayles ​ ​ (m. 1772; died )​
Children	6 with Martha Wayles, including:  • Martha Jefferson Randolph  • Mary Jefferson Eppes Up to 6 with Sally Hemings, including:  • Madison Hemings  • Eston Hemings
Mother	Jane Randolph
Father	Peter Jefferson
Alma mater	College of William & Mary
Occupation	Politician lawyer
Signature
Template:Infobox philosopher

Jefferson's writings and advocacy for human rights, including freedom of thought, speech, and religion, were a leading inspiration behind the American Revolution, which ultimately led to American independence and the United States Constitution. He was a leading proponent of democracy, republicanism, and individual rights, and produced formative documents and decisions at the state, national, and international levels. During the American Revolution, Jefferson represented Virginia in the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia, which adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, and served as the second Governor of Virginia from 1779 to 1781. In 1785, Congress appointed Jefferson as United States Minister to France, where he served from 1785 to 1789. President Washington then appointed Jefferson the nation's first secretary of state, where he served from 1790 to 1793. During this time, in the early 1790s, Jefferson and James Madison organized the Democratic-Republican Party to oppose the Federalist Party during the formation of the nation's First Party System. With Madison, Jefferson anonymously wrote the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions in 1798 and 1799, which sought to strengthen states' rights by nullifying the federal Alien and Sedition Acts.

Jefferson and Federalist John Adams became both friends and political rivals, serving in the Continental Congress and drafting the Declaration of Independence together. In the 1796 presidential election between the two, Jefferson came in second, which according to electoral procedure at the time made him Adams' vice president. Jefferson challenged Adams again four years later, in 1800, and won the presidency. In 1804, Jefferson was overwhelmingly reelected to a second term as president. While then constitutionally eligible to run for a third term, Jefferson followed Washington's precedent of limiting his presidency to two terms. Jefferson eventually reconciled with Adams, and the two shared a correspondence that lasted 14 years. He and Adams both died within hours of each other on the same day, July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of Declaration of Independence.

As president, Jefferson pursued the nation's shipping and trade interests against Barbary pirates and aggressive British trade policies. Beginning in 1803, he promoted a western expansionist policy with the Louisiana Purchase, which doubled the nation's claimed land area. To make room for settlement, Jefferson began the process of Indian tribal removal from the newly acquired territory. As a result of peace negotiations with France, his administration reduced military forces. His second term was beset by difficulties at home, including the trial of former vice president Aaron Burr. In 1807, American foreign trade was diminished when Jefferson implemented the Embargo Act in response to British threats to U.S. shipping.

Jefferson was a slave owner, but also condemned the slave trade in his draft of the Declaration of Independence and signed the Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves in 1807. Since the 1790s, he was rumored to have had children by his slave Sally Hemings. According to scholarly consensus, Jefferson probably fathered at least six children with Hemings, including four that survived to adulthood.

After retiring from public office, Jefferson founded the University of Virginia. Presidential scholars and historians generally praise Jefferson's public achievements, including his advocacy of religious freedom and tolerance, his peaceful acquisition of the Louisiana Territory from France, and the successful Lewis and Clark Expedition. Jefferson is consistently ranked among the top ten presidents in American history. Template:Republicanism sidebar

Early life and career

Main article: Early life and career of Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson was born on April 13, 1743 (April 2, 1743, Old Style, Julian calendar), at the family's Shadwell Plantation in the British Colony of Virginia, the third of ten children. He was of English, and possibly Welsh, descent and was born a British subject. His father, Peter Jefferson, was a planter and surveyor who died when Jefferson was fourteen; his mother was Jane Randolph. Peter Jefferson moved his family to Tuckahoe Plantation in 1745 upon the death of William Randolph III, the plantation's owner and Jefferson's friend, who in his will had named Peter guardian of Randolph's children. The Jeffersons returned to Shadwell in 1752. In 1753, Thomas attended the wedding of his uncle Field Jefferson to Mary Allen Hunt, and Field became a close friend and early mentor.

Jefferson's father Peter died in 1757, and his estate was divided between his sons Thomas and Randolph. John Harvie Sr. then became 13-year-old Thomas' guardian. Thomas inherited approximately 5,000 acres (2,000 ha; 7.8 sq mi) of land, which included Monticello, and he assumed full legal authority over the property at age 21.

Education and early family life

Thomas Jefferson's coat of arms

The Wren Building at the College of William & Mary, where Jefferson studied

Jefferson began his education together with the Randolph children at Tuckahoe under the guidance of tutors. Thomas' father Peter, who was self-taught and regretted not having a formal education, entered Thomas into an English school at age five. In 1752, at age nine, he attended a local school run by a Scottish Presbyterian minister and also began studying the natural world, which he grew to love. At this time he began studying Latin, Greek, and French, while learning to ride horses as well. Thomas also read books from his father's modest library. He was taught from 1758 to 1760 by the Reverend James Maury near Gordonsville, Virginia, where he studied history, science, and the classics while boarding with Maury's family. Jefferson then befriended and came to know various American Indians, including the famous Cherokee chief Ostenaco, who often stopped at Shadwell to visit on their way to Williamsburg to trade. During the two years Jefferson was with the Maury family, he traveled to Williamsburg and was a guest of Colonel John Dandridge, father of Martha Washington. In Williamsburg, the young Jefferson met and came to admire Patrick Henry, eight years his senior, and shared a common interest in violin playing.

Jefferson entered the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia in 1761 at age 16 and studied mathematics, metaphysics, and philosophy with William Small. Under Small's tutelage, Jefferson encountered the ideas of the British Empiricists, including John Locke, Francis Bacon, and Isaac Newton. Small introduced Jefferson to George Wythe and Francis Fauquier. Small, Wythe, and Fauquier recognized Jefferson as a man of exceptional ability and included him in their inner circle, where he became a regular member of their Friday dinner parties where politics and philosophy were discussed. Jefferson later wrote that, while there, he "heard more common good sense, more rational & philosophical conversations than in all the rest of my life".

During his first year at the college, Jefferson spent a considerable amount of time attending parties and dancing and was not very frugal with his expenditures; in his second year, regretting that he felt he had squandered away time and money in his first year, he committed studying fifteen hours a day. Jefferson improved his French and Greek and his skill at the violin. He graduated two years after starting, in 1762. He read the law under Wythe's tutelage to obtain his law license while working as a law clerk in his office. He also read a wide variety of English classics and political works. Jefferson was well-read in a broad variety of subjects, which, along with law and philosophy, included history, natural law, natural religion, ethics, and several areas in science, including agriculture. Overall, he drew very deeply on the philosophers. During the years of study under the watchful eye of Wythe, Jefferson authored a survey of his extensive readings in his Commonplace Book. Wythe was so impressed with Jefferson that he later bequeathed his entire library to him.

In July 1765, Jefferson's sister Martha married his close friend and college companion Dabney Carr, which was greatly pleasing to Jefferson. In October of that year, however, Jefferson mourned his sister Jane's unexpected death at age 25; he wrote a farewell epitaph for her in Latin.

Jefferson treasured his books and amassed three sizable libraries in his lifetime. He began assembling his first library, which grew to 200 volumes, in his youth. It included books inherited from his father and left to him by George Wythe, but was destroyed when his Shadwell home burned in a 1770 fire. His second library, however, replenished the first. It grew to 1,250 titles by 1773, and to nearly 6,500 volumes by 1814. Jefferson organized his wide variety of books into three broad categories corresponding with elements of the human mind: memory, reason, and imagination. After the British destroyed the Library of Congress in the August 1814 Burning of Washington, Jefferson sold his second library to the U.S. government for $23,950, hoping to help jumpstart the Library of Congress' collection and rebuilding. Jefferson used a portion of the proceeds to pay off some of his large debt, remitting $10,500 to William Short and $4,870 to John Barnes of Georgetown. However, Jefferson soon resumed collecting what amounted to his third personal library, writing to John Adams, "I cannot live without books." He began to construct his third library with many of his personal favorite book. By the time of his death a decade later, the library had grown to nearly 2,000 volumes.

Lawyer and House of Burgesses

House of Burgesses in Williamsburg, Virginia, where Jefferson served from 1769 to 1775

Jefferson was admitted to the Virginia bar in 1767, and lived with his mother at Shadwell. He represented Albemarle County as a delegate in the Virginia House of Burgesses from 1769 until 1775. He pursued reforms to slavery, including writing and sponsoring legislation in 1769 to strip power away from the royal governor and courts, instead providing masters of slaves with the discretion to emancipate them. Jefferson persuaded his cousin Richard Bland to spearhead the legislation's passage, but it faced strong opposition in a state whose economy was largely agrarian.

Jefferson also took seven cases of freedom-seeking slaves and waived his fee for one he claimed should be freed before the minimum statutory age for emancipation. Jefferson invoked natural law, arguing "everyone comes into the world with a right to his own person and using it at his own will ... This is what is called personal liberty, and is given him by the author of nature, because it is necessary for his own sustenance." The judge cut him off and ruled against his client. As a consolation, Jefferson gave his client some money, which was conceivably used to aid his escape shortly thereafter. However, Jefferson's underlying intellectual argument that all people were entitled by their creator to what he labeled a "natural right" to liberty is one he would later incorporate as he set about authoring the Declaration of Independence. He also took on 68 cases for the General Court of Virginia in 1767, in addition to three notable cases: Howell v. Netherland (1770), Bolling v. Bolling (1771), and Blair v. Blair (1772).

The British Parliament responding by passing the Intolerable Acts in 1774, and Jefferson wrote a resolution calling for a "Day of Fasting and Prayer" in protest, and a boycott of all British goods. Jefferson's resolution was later expanded into A Summary View of the Rights of British America, in which he argued that people have the right to govern themselves.

Monticello, marriage, and family

Monticello, Jefferson's home near Charlottesville, Virginia

Jefferson's daughter Martha, born in 1772

In 1768, Jefferson began constructing his primary residence, Monticello, whose name in Italian means "Little Mountain", on a hilltop overlooking his 5,000-acre (20 km²; 7.8 sq mi) plantation. He spent most of his adult life designing Monticello as architect and was quoted as saying, "Architecture is my delight, and putting up, and pulling down, one of my favorite amusements." Construction was done mostly by local masons and carpenters, assisted by Jefferson's slaves. He moved into the South Pavilion in 1770. Turning Monticello into a neoclassical masterpiece in the Palladian style was his perennial project.

On January 1, 1772, Jefferson married his third cousin Martha Wayles Skelton, the 23-year-old widow of Bathurst Skelton, and she moved into the South Pavilion. She was a frequent hostess for Jefferson and managed the large household. Biographer Dumas Malone described the marriage as the happiest period of Jefferson's life. Martha read widely, did fine needlework, and was a skilled pianist; Jefferson often accompanied her on the violin or cello. During their ten years of marriage, Martha bore six children: Martha "Patsy" (1772–1836); Jane (1774–1775); an unnamed son who lived for only a few weeks in 1777; Mary "Polly" (1778–1804); Lucy Elizabeth (1780–1781); and another Lucy Elizabeth (1782–1784). Only Martha and Mary survived to adulthood. Martha's father John Wayles died in 1773, and the couple inherited 135 slaves, 11,000 acres (45 km²; 17 sq mi), and the estate's debts. The debts took Jefferson years to satisfy, contributing to his financial problems.

Martha later suffered from ill health, including diabetes, and frequent childbirth further weakened her. Her mother had died young, and Martha lived with two stepmothers as a girl. A few months after the birth of her last child, she died on September 6, 1782, with Jefferson at her bedside. Shortly before her death, Martha made Jefferson promise never to marry again, telling him that she could not bear to have another mother raise her children. Jefferson was grief-stricken by her death, relentlessly pacing back and forth, nearly to the point of exhaustion. He emerged after three weeks, taking long rambling rides on secluded roads with his daughter Martha, by her description "a solitary witness to many a violent burst of grief".

After serving as U.S. Secretary of State from 1790 to 1793 during Washington's presidency, Jefferson returned to Monticello and initiated a remodeling based on the architectural concepts, which he had learned and acquired in Europe. The work continued throughout most of his presidency and was completed in 1809.

Revolutionary War

Declaration of Independence

Main article: United States Declaration of Independence

The U.S. Declaration of Independence, written predominantly by Jefferson over 17 days in Philadelphia, represents "the most potent and consequential words in American history", according to historian Joseph Ellis.

Jefferson was the primary author of the Declaration of Independence. At age 33, he was one of the youngest delegates to the Second Continental Congress beginning in 1775 at the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War, where a formal declaration of independence from Britain was overwhelmingly favored. Jefferson was inspired by the Enlightenment ideals of the sanctity of the individual, and the writings of Locke and Montesquieu.

Jefferson sought out John Adams, a Continental Congress delegate from Massachusetts and an emerging leader in the Congress. They became close friends, and Adams supported Jefferson's appointment to the Committee of Five, which was charged by the Congress with authoring a declaration of independence. The five included Adams, Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin from Pennsylvania, Robert R. Livingston from New York, and Roger Sherman from Connecticut. The committee initially thought that Adams should write the document, but Adams persuaded the committee to choose Jefferson.

Jefferson consulted with his fellow committee members over the next 17 days, but mostly wrote the Declaration of Independence in isolation between June 11 and 28, 1776, from the second floor of a three-story Georgian-style home he was renting at 700 Market Street in Center City Philadelphia; the residence was then owned by Jacob Graff, a bricklayer whose grandparents had emigrated to Philadelphia from Germany in 1741. In authoring the Declaration, Jefferson drew considerably on his proposed draft of the Virginia Constitution, George Mason's draft of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, and other sources. Other committee members made some changes, and a final draft was presented to Congress on June 28, 1776.

The declaration was introduced on Friday, June 28, and Congress began debate over its contents on Monday, July 1, resulting in the removal of roughly a fourth of Jefferson's original draft, including a passage authored that was critical of King George III and "Jefferson's anti-slavery clause", which criticized King George III for importing slavery to the colonies. Jefferson resented the changes, but he did not speak publicly about the revisions.

On July 4, 1776, the Congress ratified the Declaration, and delegates signed it on August 2; in so doing, the delegates were knowingly committing an act of high treason against The Crown, which was deemed the most serious criminal offense and was punishable by torture and death, including hanging almost to the point of death followed by emasculation, disembowelment, decapitation, and dismemberment (chopped into four pieces) with the remains then often displayed in public to serve as a warning of the fate of traitors.

Jefferson's preamble is regarded as an enduring statement on individual and human rights, and the phrase "all men are created equal" has been called "one of the best-known sentences in the English language". The Declaration of Independence, historian Joseph Ellis wrote in 2008, represents "the most potent and consequential words in American history".

Virginia state legislator and governor

Governor's Palace, Jefferson's residence in Williamsburg during his term as Virginia governor from 1779 to 1781

At the start of the Revolution, Colonel Jefferson was named commander of the Albemarle County Militia on September 26, 1775. He was then elected to the Virginia House of Delegates for Albemarle County in September 1776, when finalizing the state constitution was a priority. For nearly three years, he assisted with the constitution and was especially proud of his Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom, which prohibited state support of religious institutions or enforcement of religious doctrine. The bill failed to pass, as did his legislation to disestablish the Anglican Church, but both were later revived by James Madison.

In 1778, Jefferson was given the task of revising the state's laws. He drafted 126 bills in three years, including laws to streamline the judicial system. He proposed statutes that provided for general education, which he considered the basis of "republican government". Jefferson also was concerned that Virginia's powerful landed gentry were becoming a hereditary aristocracy and he took the lead in abolishing what he called "feudal and unnatural distinctions." He targeted laws such as entail and primogeniture by which a deceased landowner's oldest son was vested with all land ownership and power.

Jefferson was elected governor for one-year terms in 1779 and 1780. He transferred the state capital from Williamsburg to Richmond, and introduced additional measures for public education, religious freedom, and inheritance.

During General Benedict Arnold's 1781 invasion of Virginia, Jefferson escaped Richmond just ahead of the British forces, which razed the city. He sent emergency dispatches to Colonel Sampson Mathews and other commanders in an attempt to repel Arnold's efforts. Jefferson then visited with friends in the surrounding counties of Richmond, including William Fleming, a college friend of his in Chesterfield County. General Charles Cornwallis that spring dispatched a cavalry force led by Banastre Tarleton to capture Jefferson and members of the Assembly at Monticello, but Jack Jouett of the Virginia militia thwarted the British plan. Jefferson escaped to Poplar Forest, his plantation to the west. When the General Assembly reconvened in June 1781, it conducted an inquiry into Jefferson's actions which eventually concluded that Jefferson had acted with honor—but he was not re-elected.

In April of the same year, his daughter Lucy died at age one. A second daughter of that name was born the following year, but she died at age three.

In 1782, Jefferson refused a partnership offer by North Carolina Governor Abner Nash, in a profiteering scheme involving the sale of confiscated Loyalist lands. Unlike some Founders in pursuit of land, Jefferson was content with his Monticello estate and the land he owned in the vicinity of Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. Jefferson thought of Monticello as an intellectual gathering place for his friends James Madison and James Monroe.

Notes on the State of Virginia

Main article: Notes on the State of Virginia

In 1780, Jefferson received from French diplomat François Barbé-Marbois a letter of inquiry into the geography, history, and government of Virginia, as part of a study of the United States. Jefferson organized his responses in a book, Notes on the State of Virginia (1785). He compiled the book over five years, including reviews of scientific knowledge, Virginia's history, politics, laws, culture, and geography. The book explores what constitutes a good society, using Virginia as an exemplar. Jefferson included extensive data about the state's natural resources and economy and wrote at length about slavery and miscegenation; he articulated his belief that blacks and whites could not live together as free people in one society because of justified resentments of the enslaved. He also wrote of his views on the American Indian, equating them to European settlers in body and mind.

Notes was first published in 1785 in French and appeared in English in 1787. Biographer George Tucker considered the work "surprising in the extent of the information which a single individual had been thus far able to acquire, as to the physical features of the state"; Merrill D. Peterson described it as an accomplishment for which all Americans should be grateful.

Member of Congress

The Assembly Room at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, where Jefferson served as a delegate to the Second Continental Congress and where the Congress edited but unanimously ratified his draft of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776

Jefferson was appointed a Virginia delegate to the Congress of the Confederation organized following victory in the Revolutionary War and the peace treaty with Great Britain in 1783. He was a member of the committee setting foreign exchange rates and recommended an American currency based on the decimal system which was adopted. He advised the formation of the Committee of the States to fill the power vacuum when Congress was in recess. The Committee met when Congress adjourned, but disagreements rendered it dysfunctional.

In the Congress' 1783–1784 session, Jefferson acted as chairman of committees to establish a viable system of government for the new Republic and to propose a policy for the settlement of the western territories. He was the principal author of the Land Ordinance of 1784, whereby Virginia ceded to the national government the vast area that it claimed northwest of the Ohio River. He insisted that this territory should not be used as colonial territory by any of the thirteen states, but that it should be divided into sections that could become states. He plotted borders for nine new states in their initial stages and wrote an ordinance banning slavery in all the nation's territories. Congress made extensive revisions, and rejected the ban on slavery. The provisions banning slavery, known as the "Jefferson Proviso," were modified and implemented three years later in the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 and became the law for the entire Northwest Territory.

Minister to France

A 43-year-old Jefferson in London in 1786, depicted in a portrait by Mather Brown

On May 7, 1784, Jefferson was appointed by the Congress of the Confederation to join Benjamin Franklin and John Adams in Paris as Minister Plenipotentiary for Negotiating Treaties of Amity and Commerce with Great Britain and other countries. With his young daughter Patsy and two servants, he departed in July 1784, arriving in Paris the next month. Jefferson had Patsy educated at the Pentemont Abbey. Less than a year later he was assigned the additional duty of succeeding Franklin as Minister to France. French foreign minister Count de Vergennes commented, "You replace Monsieur Franklin, I hear." Jefferson replied, "I succeed. No man can replace him." During his five years in Paris, Jefferson played a leading role in shaping U.S. foreign policy.

In 1786, he met and fell in love with Maria Cosway, an accomplished—and married—Italian-English musician of 27. They saw each other frequently over a period of six weeks. She returned to Great Britain, but they maintained a lifelong correspondence.

During the summer of 1786, Jefferson arrived in London to meet with John Adams, the United States Ambassador to Britain. Adams had official access to George III and arranged a meeting between Jefferson and the king. Jefferson later described the king's reception of the men as "ungracious." According to Adams's grandson, George III turned his back on both Adams and Jefferson in a jesture of public insult. Jefferson returned to France in August.

Jefferson sent for his youngest surviving child, nine-year-old Polly, in June 1787. She was accompanied on her voyage by a young slave from Monticello, Sally Hemings. Jefferson had taken her older brother, James Hemings, to Paris as part of his domestic staff and had him trained in French cuisine. According to Sally's son, Madison Hemings, the 16-year-old Sally and Jefferson began a sexual relationship in Paris, where she became pregnant. The son also indicated Hemings agreed to return to the United States only after Jefferson promised to free her children when they came of age.

While in France, Jefferson became a regular companion of the Marquis de Lafayette, a French hero of the American Revolutionary War, and Jefferson used his influence to procure trade agreements with France. As the French Revolution began, he allowed his Paris residence, the Hôtel de Langeac, to be used for meetings by Lafayette and other republicans. He was in Paris during the storming of the Bastille and consulted with Lafayette while the latter drafted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. Jefferson often found his mail opened by postmasters, so he invented his own enciphering device, the "Wheel Cipher"; he wrote important communications in code for the rest of his career. Unable to attend the 1787 Constitution Convention, Jefferson supported the Constitution but desired the addition of the promised bill of rights. Jefferson left Paris for America in September 1789, intending to return to his home soon; however, President George Washington appointed him the country's first secretary of state, forcing him to remain in the nation's capital. Jefferson remained a firm supporter of the French Revolution while opposing its more violent elements. John Skey Eustace kept Jefferson informed of the events of the French Revolution.

Secretary of State

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A 48-year-old Jefferson in 1791, depicted in a portrait by Charles Willson Peale

Soon after returning from France, Jefferson accepted President Washington's invitation to serve as Secretary of State. Pressing issues at this time were the national debt and the permanent location of the capital. He opposed a national debt, preferring that each state retire its own, in contrast to Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, who desired consolidation of various states' debts by the federal government. Hamilton also had bold plans to establish the national credit and a national bank, but Jefferson strenuously opposed this and attempted to undermine his agenda, which nearly led Washington to dismiss him from his cabinet. He later left the cabinet voluntarily.

The second major issue was the capital's permanent location. Hamilton favored a capital close to the major commercial centers of the Northeast, while Washington, Jefferson, and other agrarians wanted it located further south. After lengthy deadlock, the Compromise of 1790 was struck, permanently locating the capital on the Potomac River, and the federal government assumed the war debts of all original 13 states.

Jefferson's goals were to decrease American dependence on British commerce and to expand commercial trade with France. He sought to weaken Spanish colonialism of the trans-Appalachian West and British control in the North, believing this would aid in the pacification of Native Americans.

While serving in the government in Philadelphia, Jefferson and political protegee Congressman James Madison founded the National Gazette in 1791, along with author Phillip Freneau, in an effort to counter Hamilton's Federalist policies, which Hamilton was promoting through the influential Federalist newspaper the Gazette of the United States. The National Gazette made particular criticism of the policies promoted by Hamilton, often through anonymous essays signed by the pen name Brutus at Jefferson's urging, which were actually written by Madison. In Spring 1791, Jefferson and Madison took a vacation to Vermont at a moment when Jefferson had been suffering from migraines and was tiring of the in-fighting with Hamilton.

In May 1792, Jefferson became alarmed at the political rivalries taking shape; he wrote to Washington, imploring him to run for reelection that year as a unifying influence. He urged the president to rally the citizenry to a party that would defend democracy against the corrupting influence of banks and monied interests, as espoused by the Federalists. Historians recognize this letter as the earliest delineation of Democratic-Republican Party principles. Jefferson, Madison, and other Democratic-Republican organizers favored states' rights and local control and opposed federal concentration of power, whereas Hamilton sought more power for the federal government.

Jefferson supported France against Britain when the two nations fought in 1793, though his arguments in the Cabinet were undercut by French Revolutionary envoy Edmond-Charles Genêt's open scorn for President Washington. In his discussions with British Minister George Hammond, he tried in vain to persuade the British to vacate their posts in the Northwest and to compensate the U.S. for slaves whom the British had freed at the end of the war. Jefferson sought a return to private life, and resigned the cabinet position in December 1793; he may also have wanted to bolster his political influence from outside the administration.

After the Washington administration negotiated the Jay Treaty with Great Britain in 1794, Jefferson saw a cause around which to rally his party and organized a national opposition from Monticello. The treaty, designed by Hamilton, aimed to reduce tensions and increase trade. Jefferson warned that it would increase British influence and subvert republicanism, calling it "the boldest act [Hamilton and Jay] ever ventured on to undermine the government". The Treaty passed, but it expired in 1805 during Jefferson's presidential administration and was not renewed. Jefferson continued his pro-France stance; during the violence of the Reign of Terror, he declined to disavow the revolution: "To back away from France would be to undermine the cause of republicanism in America."

Election of 1796 and vice presidency

Further information: 1796 United States presidential election and Democratic-Republican Party

The results of the 1796 U.S. presidential election between Adams and Jefferson, won by Adams

A 56-year-old Jefferson in 1799, depicted in a portrait by Charles Peale Polk

In the presidential campaign of 1796, Jefferson lost the electoral college vote to Federalist John Adams by 71–68 and was thus elected vice president. As presiding officer of the Senate, he assumed a more passive role than his predecessor John Adams. He allowed the Senate to freely conduct debates and confined his participation to procedural issues, which he called an "honorable and easy" role. Jefferson had previously studied parliamentary law and procedure for 40 years, making him quite qualified to serve as presiding officer. In 1800, he published his assembled notes on Senate procedure as A Manual of Parliamentary Practice. He cast only three tie-breaking votes in the Senate.

In four confidential talks with French consul Joseph Létombe in the spring of 1797, Jefferson attacked Adams and predicted that his rival would serve only one term. He also encouraged France to invade England, and advised Létombe to stall any American envoys sent to Paris by instructing him to "listen to them and then drag out the negotiations at length and mollify them by the urbanity of the proceedings." This toughened the tone that the French government adopted toward the Adams administration. After Adams's initial peace envoys were rebuffed, Jefferson and his supporters lobbied for the release of papers related to the incident, called the XYZ Affair after the letters used to disguise the identities of the French officials involved. However, the tactic backfired when it was revealed that French officials had demanded bribes, rallying public support against France. The U.S. began an undeclared naval war with France known as the Quasi-War.

During the Adams presidency, the Federalists rebuilt the military, levied new taxes, and enacted the Alien and Sedition Acts. Jefferson believed these laws were intended to suppress Democratic-Republicans, rather than prosecute enemy aliens, and considered them unconstitutional. To rally opposition, he and James Madison anonymously wrote the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, declaring that the federal government had no right to exercise powers not specifically delegated to it by the states. The resolutions followed the "interposition" approach of Madison, in which states may shield their citizens from federal laws that they deem unconstitutional. Jefferson advocated nullification, allowing states to invalidate federal laws altogether. He warned that, "unless arrested at the threshold", the Alien and Sedition Acts would "necessarily drive these states into revolution and blood".

Historian Ron Chernow claims that "the theoretical damage of the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions was deep and lasting, and was a recipe for disunion", contributing to the American Civil War as well as later events. Washington was so appalled by the resolutions that he told Patrick Henry that, if "systematically and pertinaciously pursued", the resolutions would "dissolve the union or produce coercion." Jefferson had always admired Washington's leadership skills but felt that his Federalist party was leading the country in the wrong direction. He decided not to attend Washington's funeral in 1799 because of acute differences with him while serving as secretary of state.

Election of 1800

Main article: 1800 United States presidential election

The results of the 1800 presidential election between Adams and Jefferson, won by Jefferson

Jefferson contended for president once more against Adams in 1800. Adams's campaign was weakened by unpopular taxes and vicious Federalist infighting over his actions in the Quasi-War. Democratic-Republicans pointed to the Alien and Sedition Acts and accused the Federalists of being secret pro-Britain monarchists, while Federalists charged that Jefferson was a godless libertine beholden to the French. Historian Joyce Appleby said the election was "one of the most acrimonious in the annals of American history".

The Democratic-Republicans ultimately won more electoral college votes, due in part to the electors that resulted from the addition of three-fifths of the South's slaves to the population calculation. Jefferson and his vice-presidential candidate Aaron Burr unexpectedly received an equal total. Because of the tie, the election was decided by the Federalist-dominated House of Representatives. Hamilton lobbied Federalist representatives on Jefferson's behalf, believing him a lesser political evil than Burr. On February 17, 1801, after thirty-six ballots, the House elected Jefferson president and Burr vice president. Jefferson became the second incumbent vice president to be elected president.

The win was marked by Democratic-Republican celebrations throughout the country. Some of Jefferson's opponents argued that he owed his victory over Adams to the South's inflated number of electors, due to the counting slaves under the Three-Fifths Compromise. Others alleged that Jefferson secured James Asheton Bayard's tie-breaking electoral vote by guaranteeing the retention of various Federalist posts in the government. Jefferson disputed the allegation, and the historical record is inconclusive.

The transition proceeded smoothly, marking a watershed in American history. As historian Gordon S. Wood writes, "it was one of the first popular elections in modern history that resulted in the peaceful transfer of power from one 'party' to another."

Presidency (1801–1809)

Main article: Presidency of Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson, an 1805 portrait by Rembrandt Peale

Jefferson was sworn in as president by Chief Justice John Marshall at the new Capitol in Washington, D.C., on March 4, 1801. His inauguration was not attended by outgoing President Adams. In contrast to his two predecessors, Jefferson exhibited a dislike of formal etiquette. Plainly dressed, he chose to walk alongside friends to the Capitol from his nearby boardinghouse that day instead of arriving by carriage. His inaugural address struck a note of reconciliation and commitment to democratic ideology, declaring, "We have been called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists." Ideologically, he stressed "equal and exact justice to all men", minority rights, and freedom of speech, religion, and press. He said that a free and democratic government was "the strongest government on earth." He nominated moderate Republicans to his cabinet: James Madison as secretary of state, Henry Dearborn as secretary of war, Levi Lincoln as attorney general, and Robert Smith as secretary of the navy.

Widowed since 1782, Jefferson first relied on his two daughters to serve as his official hostesses. In late May 1801, he asked Dolley Madison, wife of his long-time friend James Madison, to be the permanent White House hostess. She accepted, realizing the diplomatic importance of the position. She was also in charge of the completion of the White House mansion. Dolley served as White House hostess for the rest of Jefferson's two terms and then for eight more years as First Lady while her husband served as president.

Financial affairs

Albert Gallatin, Jefferson's Treasury Secretary, depicted in a portrait by Gilbert Stuart

Jefferson's first challenge as president was shrinking the $83 million national debt. He began dismantling Hamilton's Federalist fiscal system with help from the Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. Gallatin devised a plan to eliminate the national debt in sixteen years by extensive annual appropriations and reduction in taxes. The administration eliminated the whiskey excise and other taxes after closing "unnecessary offices" and cutting "useless establishments and expenses".

Jefferson believed that the First Bank of the United States represented a "most deadly hostility" to republican government. He wanted to dismantle the bank before its charter expired in 1811, but was dissuaded by Gallatin. Gallatin argued that the national bank was a useful financial institution and set out to expand its operations. Jefferson looked to other corners to address the growing national debt. He shrank the Navy, for example, deeming it unnecessary in peacetime, and incorporated a fleet of inexpensive gunboats intended only for local defense to avoid provocation against foreign powers. After two terms, he had lowered the national debt from $83 million to $57 million.

Domestic affairs

Jefferson pardoned several of those imprisoned under the Alien and Sedition Acts. Congressional Republicans repealed the Judiciary Act of 1801, which removed nearly all of Adams's "midnight judges" from office. A subsequent appointment battle led to the Supreme Court's landmark decision in Marbury v. Madison, asserting judicial review over executive branch actions. Jefferson appointed three Supreme Court justices: William Johnson (1804), Henry Brockholst Livingston (1807), and Thomas Todd (1807).

Jefferson strongly felt the need for a national military university, producing an officer engineering corps for a national defense based on the advancement of the sciences, rather than having to rely on foreign sources for top grade engineers with questionable loyalty. He signed the Military Peace Establishment Act on March 16, 1802, thus founding the United States Military Academy at West Point. The Act documented in 29 sections a new set of laws and limits for the military. Jefferson was also hoping to bring reform to the Executive branch, replacing Federalists and active opponents throughout the officer corps to promote Republican values.

Jefferson took great interest in the Library of Congress, which had been established in 1800. He often recommended books to acquire. In 1802, Congress authorized President Jefferson to name the first Librarian of Congress, and formed a committee to establish library rules and regulations. Congress also granted the president and vice president the right to use the library.

Foreign affairs (1801–1805)

First Barbary War

Main article: First Barbary War

The Barbary Coast of North Africa in 1806, including (from left to right): Morocco, Gibraltar, Tunis, and Tripoli

American merchant ships had been protected from Barbary Coast pirates by the Royal Navy when the states were British colonies. After independence, however, pirates often captured U.S. merchant ships, pillaged cargoes, and enslaved or held crew members for ransom. Jefferson had opposed paying tribute to the Barbary States since 1785. In 1801, he authorized a U.S. Navy fleet under Commodore Richard Dale to make a show of force in the Mediterranean, the first American naval squadron to cross the Atlantic. Following the fleet's first engagement, he successfully asked Congress for a declaration of war. The subsequent "First Barbary War" was the first foreign war fought by the U.S.

Pasha of Tripoli Yusuf Karamanli captured the Template:USS, so Jefferson authorized William Eaton, the U.S. Consul to Tunis, to lead a force to restore the pasha's older brother to the throne. The American navy forced Tunis and Algiers into breaking their alliance with Tripoli. Jefferson ordered five separate naval bombardments of Tripoli, leading the pasha to sign a treaty that restored peace in the Mediterranean. This victory proved only temporary, but according to Wood, "many Americans celebrated it as a vindication of their policy of spreading free trade around the world and as a great victory for liberty over tyranny."

Louisiana Purchase

Main article: Louisiana Purchase

The 1803 Louisiana Purchase, completed during Jefferson's presidency, added 827,987 square miles (2,144,480 square kilometers), which doubled the geographic size of the United States.

Spain ceded ownership of the Louisiana territory in 1800 to the more predominant France. Jefferson was greatly concerned that Napoleon's broad interests in the vast territory would threaten the security of the continent and Mississippi River shipping. He wrote that the cession "works most sorely on the U.S. It completely reverses all the political relations of the U.S." In 1802, he instructed James Monroe and Robert R. Livingston to negotiate with Napoleon to purchase New Orleans and adjacent coastal areas from France. In early 1803, Jefferson offered Napoleon nearly $10 million for 40,000 square miles (100,000 square kilometers) of tropical territory.

Napoleon realized that French military control was impractical over such a vast remote territory, and he was in dire need of funds for his wars on the home front. In early April 1803, he unexpectedly made negotiators a counter-offer to sell 827,987 square miles (2,144,480 square kilometers) of French territory for $15 million, doubling the size of the United States. U.S. negotiators seized this unique opportunity and accepted the offer and signed the treaty on April 30, 1803. Word of the unexpected purchase did not reach Jefferson until July 3, 1803. He unknowingly acquired the most fertile tract of land of its size on Earth, making the new country self-sufficient in food and other resources. The sale also significantly curtailed the European presence in North America, removing obstacles to U.S. westward expansion.

Most thought that this was an exceptional opportunity, despite Republican reservations about the Constitutional authority of the federal government to acquire land. Jefferson initially thought that a Constitutional amendment was necessary to purchase and govern the new territory; but he later changed his mind, fearing that this would give cause to oppose the purchase, and he therefore urged a speedy debate and ratification. On October 20, 1803, the Senate ratified the purchase treaty by a vote of 24–7. Jefferson personally was humble about acquiring the Louisiana Territory, but he resented complainers who called the vast domain a "howling wilderness".

After the purchase, Jefferson preserved the region's Spanish legal code and instituted a gradual approach to integrating settlers into American democracy. He believed that a period of the federal rule would be necessary while Louisianans adjusted to their new nation. Historians have differed in their assessments regarding the constitutional implications of the sale, but they typically hail the Louisiana acquisition as a major accomplishment. Frederick Jackson Turner called the purchase the most formative event in American history.

Lewis and Clark Expedition (1803–1806)

Main article: Lewis and Clark Expedition

Lewis and Clark on the Lower Columbia, a 1905 portrait by Charles Marion Russell depicting Lewis and Clark's expedition on the Columbia River during Jefferson's presidency

Jefferson anticipated further westward settlements due to the Louisiana Purchase and arranged for the exploration and mapping of the uncharted territory. He sought to establish a U.S. claim ahead of competing European interests and to find the rumored Northwest Passage. Jefferson and others were influenced by exploration accounts of Le Page du Pratz in Louisiana (1763) and Captain James Cook in the Pacific (1784), and they persuaded Congress in 1804 to fund an expedition to explore and map the newly acquired territory to the Pacific Ocean.

Jefferson appointed Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to be leaders of the Corps of Discovery (1803–1806). In the months leading up to the expedition, Jefferson tutored Lewis in the sciences of mapping, botany, natural history, mineralogy, and astronomy and navigation, giving him unlimited access to his library at Monticello, which included the largest collection of books in the world on the subject of the geography and natural history of the North American continent, along with an impressive collection of maps.

The expedition lasted from May 1804 to September 1806 (see timeline) and obtained a wealth of scientific and geographic knowledge, including knowledge of many Indian tribes.

Other expeditions

Main articles: Dunbar–Hunter Expedition, Red River Expedition (1806), and Pike Expedition

In addition to the Corps of Discovery, Jefferson organized three other western expeditions: the William Dunbar and George Hunter Expedition on the Ouachita River (1804–1805), the Thomas Freeman and Peter Custis Expedition (1806) on the Red River, and the Zebulon Pike Expedition (1806–1807) into the Rocky Mountains and the Southwest. All three produced valuable information about the American frontier.

Native American affairs

Main article: Thomas Jefferson and Native Americans

Black Hoof, leader of the Shawnee, accepted Jefferson's Indian assimilation policies.

Jefferson's experiences with the American Indians began during his boyhood in Virginia and extended through his political career and into his retirement. He refuted the contemporary notion that Indians were inferior people and maintained that they were equal in body and mind to people of European descent.

As governor of Virginia during the Revolutionary War, Jefferson recommended moving the Cherokee and Shawnee tribes, who had allied with the British, to west of the Mississippi River. But when he took office as president, he quickly took measures to avert another major conflict, as American and Indian societies were in collision and the British were inciting Indian tribes from Canada. In Georgia, he stipulated that the state would release its legal claims for lands to its west in exchange for military support in expelling the Cherokee from Georgia. This facilitated his policy of western expansion, to "advance compactly as we multiply".

In keeping with his Enlightenment thinking, President Jefferson adopted an assimilation policy toward American Indians known as his "civilization program" which included securing peaceful U.S. – Indian treaty alliances and encouraging agriculture. Jefferson advocated that Indian tribes should make federal purchases by credit holding their lands as collateral for repayment. Various tribes accepted Jefferson's policies, including the Shawnees led by Black Hoof, the Muscogee, and the Cherokee. However, some Shawnees, led by Tecumseh, broke off from Black Hoof, and opposed Jefferson's assimilation policies.

Historian Bernard Sheehan argues that Jefferson believed that assimilation was best for American Indians; second best was removal to the west. He felt that the worst outcome of the cultural and resources conflict between American citizens and American Indians would be their attacking the whites. Jefferson told U.S. Secretary of War Henry Dearborn, who then oversaw Indian affairs under the War Department, "If we are constrained to lift the hatchet against any tribe, we will never lay it down until that tribe is exterminated or driven beyond the Mississippi." Miller agrees that Jefferson believed that Indians should assimilate to American customs and agriculture. Historians such as Peter S. Onuf and Merrill D. Peterson argue that Jefferson's actual Indian policies did little to promote assimilation and were a pretext to seize lands.

Re-election in 1804 and second term

Further information: 1804 United States presidential election

Results from the 1804 U.S. presidential election in which Jefferson was reelected overwhelmingly to a second term as president

Jefferson's successful first term resulted in him being nominated for reelection by the Republican party, and George Clinton replacing Burr as his running mate. The Federalist party ran Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, John Adams's vice-presidential candidate in the 1800 election. The Jefferson-Clinton ticket won overwhelmingly in the electoral college vote, by 162 to 14, promoting their achievement of a strong economy, lower taxes, and the Louisiana Purchase.

In March 1806, a split developed in the Republican party, led by fellow Virginian and former Republican ally John Randolph, who viciously accused President Jefferson on the floor of the House of moving too far in the Federalist direction. In so doing, Randolph permanently set himself apart politically from Jefferson. Jefferson and Madison had backed resolutions to limit or ban British imports in retaliation for British seizures of American shipping. Also, in 1808, Jefferson was the first president to propose a broad Federal plan to build roads and canals across several states, asking for $20 million, further alarming Randolph and believers of limited government.

Jefferson's popularity further suffered in his second term due to his response to wars in Europe. Positive relations with Great Britain had diminished, due partly to the antipathy between Jefferson and British diplomat Anthony Merry. After Napoleon's decisive victory at the Battle of Austerlitz in 1805, Napoleon became more aggressive in his negotiations over trading rights, which American efforts failed to counter. Jefferson then led the enactment of the Embargo Act of 1807, directed at both France and Great Britain. This triggered economic chaos in the U.S. and was strongly criticized at the time, resulting in Jefferson having to abandon the policy a year later.

During the revolutionary era, the states abolished the international slave trade, but South Carolina reopened it. In his annual message of December 1806, Jefferson denounced the "violations of human rights" attending the international slave trade, calling on the newly elected Congress to criminalize it immediately. In 1807, Congress passed the Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves, which Jefferson signed. The act established severe punishment against the international slave trade, although it did not address the issue domestically.

In Haiti, Jefferson's neutrality had allowed arms to enable the slave independence movement during its Revolution, and blocked attempts to assist Napoleon, who was defeated there in 1803. But he refused official recognition of the country during his second term, in deference to southern complaints about the racial violence against slave-holders; it was eventually extended to Haiti in 1862.

Domestically, Jefferson's grandson, James Madison Randolph, became the first child born in the White House in 1806.

Controversies

Burr conspiracy and trial

Further information: Burr–Hamilton duel and Burr conspiracy

An 1802 portrait of Aaron Burr by John Vanderlyn

Following the 1801 electoral deadlock, Jefferson's relationship with his vice president, former New York Senator Aaron Burr, rapidly eroded. Jefferson suspected Burr of seeking the presidency for himself, while Burr was angered by Jefferson's refusal to appoint some of his supporters to federal office. Burr was dropped from the Democratic-Republican ticket in 1804.

The same year, Burr was soundly defeated in his bid to be elected New York governor. During the campaign, Alexander Hamilton publicly made callous remarks regarding Burr's moral character. Subsequently, Burr challenged Hamilton to a duel, mortally wounding him on July 11, 1804. Burr was indicted for Hamilton's murder in New York and New Jersey, causing him to flee to Georgia, although he remained President of the Senate during Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase's impeachment trial. Both indictments quietly died and Burr was not prosecuted. Also during the election, certain New England separatists approached Burr, desiring a New England federation and intimating that he would be their leader. However, nothing came of the plot, since Burr had lost the election and his reputation was ruined after killing Hamilton. In August 1804, Burr contacted British Minister Anthony Merry offering to cede U.S. western territory in return for money and British ships.

After leaving office in April 1805, Burr traveled west and conspired with Louisiana Territory governor James Wilkinson, beginning a large-scale recruitment for a military expedition. Other plotters included Ohio Senator John Smith and an Irishman named Harmon Blennerhassett. Burr discussed a number of plots—seizing control of Mexico or Spanish Florida, or forming a secessionist state in New Orleans or the Western U.S. Historians remain unclear as to his true goal.

In the fall of 1806, Burr launched a military flotilla carrying about 60 men down the Ohio River. Wilkinson renounced the plot, apparently from self-interested motives; he reported Burr's expedition to Jefferson, who immediately ordered Burr's arrest. On February 13, 1807, Burr was captured in Louisiana's Bayou Pierre wilderness and sent to Virginia to be tried for treason.

Burr's 1807 conspiracy trial became a national issue. Jefferson attempted to preemptively influence the verdict by telling Congress that Burr's guilt was "beyond question", but the case came before his longtime political foe John Marshall, who dismissed the treason charge. Burr's legal team at one stage subpoenaed Jefferson, but Jefferson refused to testify, making the first argument for executive privilege. Instead, Jefferson provided relevant legal documents. After a three-month trial, the jury found Burr not guilty, while Jefferson denounced his acquittal. Jefferson subsequently removed Wilkinson as territorial governor but retained him in the U.S. military. Historian James N. Banner criticized Jefferson for continuing to trust Wilkinson, a "faithless plotter".

General Wilkinson misconduct

Commanding General James Wilkinson was a holdover of the Washington and Adams administrations. Wilkinson was rumored to be a "skillful and unscrupolous plotter". In 1804, Wilkinson received 12,000 pesos from the Spanish for information on American boundary plans. Wilkinson also received advances on his salary and payments on claims submitted to Secretary of War Henry Dearborn. This damaging information apparently was unknown to Jefferson. In 1805, Jefferson trusted Wilkinson and appointed him Louisiana Territory governor, admiring Wilkinson's work ethic.

In January 1806, Jefferson received information from Kentucky U.S. Attorney Joseph Davies that Wilkinson was on the Spanish payroll. Jefferson took no action against Wilkinson, since there was not then significant evidence against him. An investigation by the U.S. House of Representatives in December 1807 exonerated Wilkinson. In 1808, a military court looked into the allegations against Wilkinson but also found a lack of evidence to charge him. Jefferson retained Wilkinson in the U.S. Army, and Jefferson passed him on to James Madison, his successor as president. Evidence found in Spanish archives in the 20th century proved Wilkinson was, in fact, on the Spanish payroll.

Foreign affairs (1805–1809)

Attempted annexation of Florida

In the aftermath of the Louisiana Purchase, Jefferson attempted to annex West Florida from Spain, a nation under the control of Emperor Napoleon and the French Empire after 1804. In his annual message to Congress, on December 3, 1805, Jefferson railed against Spain over Florida border depredations. A few days later Jefferson secretly requested a two million dollar expenditure to purchase Florida. Representative and floor leader John Randolph, however, opposed annexation and was upset over Jefferson's secrecy on the matter, and believed the money would land in the coffers of Napoleon. The Two Million Dollar bill passed only after Jefferson successfully maneuvered to replace Randolph with Barnabas Bidwell as floor leader. This aroused suspicion of Jefferson and charges of undue executive influence over Congress. Jefferson signed the bill into law in February 1806. Six weeks later the law was made public. The two million dollars was to be given to France as payment, in turn, to put pressure on Spain to permit the annexation of Florida by the United States. France, however, was in no mood to allow Spain to give up Florida and refused the offer. Florida remained under the control of Spain. The failed venture damaged Jefferson's reputation among his supporters.

Chesapeake–Leopard affair

Main article: Chesapeake–Leopard affair

An illustration of the HMS Leopard (right) firing upon the USS Chesapeake in June 1807

The British conducted seizures of American shipping to search for British deserters from 1806 to 1807; American citizens were thus impressed into the British naval service. In 1806, Jefferson issued a call for a boycott of British goods; on April 18, Congress passed the Non-Importation Acts, but they were never enforced. Later that year, Jefferson asked James Monroe and William Pinkney to negotiate with Great Britain to end the harassment of American shipping, though Britain showed no signs of improving relations. The Monroe–Pinkney Treaty was finalized but lacked any provisions to end the British policies, and Jefferson refused to submit it to the Senate for ratification.

The British ship Template:HMS fired upon the Template:USS off the Virginia coast in June 1807, and Jefferson prepared for war. He issued a proclamation banning armed British ships from U.S. waters. He presumed unilateral authority to call on the states to prepare 100,000 militia and ordered the purchase of arms, ammunition, and supplies, writing, "The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation [than strict observance of written laws]". The Template:USS was dispatched to demand an explanation from the British government; it also was fired upon. Jefferson called for a special session of Congress in October to enact an embargo or alternatively to consider war.

Embargo (1807–1809)

Further information: Embargo Act of 1807

An 1807 political cartoon on the Embargo Act, depicting merchants dodging the "Ograbme", which is "Embargo" spelled backward

In December 1807, news arrived that Napoleon had extended the Berlin Decree, globally banning British imports. In Britain, King George III ordered redoubling efforts at impressment, including American sailors. But the war fever of the summer faded; Congress had no appetite to prepare the U.S. for war. Jefferson asked for and received the Embargo Act, an alternative that allowed the U.S. more time to build up defensive works, militias, and naval forces. Later historians have seen the irony in Jefferson's assertion of such federal power. Meacham said that the Embargo Act was a projection of power that surpassed the Alien and Sedition Acts, and R. B. Bernstein said that Jefferson "was pursuing policies resembling those he had cited in 1776 as grounds for independence and revolution".

In November 1807, Jefferson, for several days, met with his cabinet to discuss the deteriorating foreign situation. Secretary of State James Madison supported the embargo with equal vigor to Jefferson, while Treasury Secretary Gallatin opposed it, due to its indefinite time frame and the risk that it posed to the policy of American neutrality. The U.S. economy suffered, criticism grew, and opponents began evading the embargo. Instead of retreating, Jefferson sent federal agents to secretly track down smugglers and violators. Three acts were passed in Congress during 1807 and 1808, called the Supplementary, the Additional, and the Enforcement acts. The government could not prevent American vessels from trading with the European belligerents once they had left American ports, although the embargo triggered a devastating decline in exports.

Most historians consider Jefferson's embargo to have been ineffective and harmful to American interests. Appleby describes the strategy as Jefferson's "least effective policy", and Joseph Ellis calls it "an unadulterated calamity". Others, however, portray it as an innovative, nonviolent measure which aided France in its war with Britain while preserving American neutrality. Jefferson believed that the failure of the embargo was due to selfish traders and merchants showing a lack of "republican virtue." He maintained that, had the embargo been widely observed, it would have avoided war in 1812.

In December 1807, Jefferson announced his intention not to seek a third term. He turned his attention increasingly to Monticello during the last year of his presidency, giving Madison and Gallatin almost total control of affairs. Shortly before leaving office in March 1809, Jefferson signed the repeal of the Embargo. In its place, the Non-Intercourse Act was passed, but it proved no more effective. The day before Madison was inaugurated as his successor, Jefferson said that he felt like "a prisoner, released from his chains".

Post-presidency (1809–1826)

Further information: Thomas Jefferson and education

An 1821 portrait of Jefferson by Gilbert Stuart

Following his retirement from the presidency, Jefferson continued his pursuit of educational interests; after the British had burned the Library of Congress in 1814, he sold his vast collection of books (almost 6,500 books) to the get the library going again. He also founded and built the University of Virginia. Jefferson continued to correspond with many of the country's leaders (including his two protégées who succeeded him as president), and the Monroe Doctrine bears a strong resemblance to solicited advice that Jefferson gave to Monroe in 1823. As he settled into private life at Monticello, Jefferson developed a daily routine of rising early. He would spend several hours writing letters, with which he was often deluged. In the midday, he would often inspect the plantation on horseback. In the evenings, his family enjoyed leisure time in the gardens; late at night, Jefferson would retire to bed with a book. However, his routine was often interrupted by uninvited visitors and tourists eager to see the icon in his final days, turning Monticello into "a virtual hotel".

University of Virginia

Main article: University of Virginia

The University of Virginia, founded by Jefferson in 1819

Jefferson envisioned a university free of church influences where students could specialize in many new areas not offered at other colleges. He believed that education engendered a stable society, which should provide publicly funded schools accessible to students from all social strata, based solely on ability. He initially proposed his University in a letter to Joseph Priestley in 1800 and, in 1819, the 76-year-old Jefferson founded the University of Virginia. He organized the state legislative campaign for its charter and, with the assistance of Edmund Bacon, purchased the location. He was the principal designer of the buildings, planned the university's curriculum, and served as the first rector upon its opening in 1825.

Jefferson was a strong disciple of Greek and Roman architectural styles, which he believed to be most representative of American democracy. Each academic unit, called a pavilion, was designed with a two-story temple front, while the library "Rotunda" was modeled on the Roman Pantheon. Jefferson referred to the university's grounds as the "Academical Village," and he reflected his educational ideas in its layout. The ten pavilions included classrooms and faculty residences; they formed a quadrangle and were connected by colonnades, behind which stood the students' rows of rooms. Gardens and vegetable plots were placed behind the pavilions and were surrounded by serpentine walls, affirming the importance of the agrarian lifestyle. The university had a library rather than a church at its center, emphasizing its secular nature—a controversial aspect at the time.

When Jefferson died in 1826, James Madison replaced him as rector. Jefferson bequeathed most of his reconstructed library of almost 2,000 volumes to the university. Only one other ex-president has founded a university; Millard Fillmore, the nation's 13th president, founded the University at Buffalo two decades later, in 1846.

Reconciliation with Adams

In 1804, Abigail Adams, the wife and confidant of John Adams, was one of several people who intervened in an attempt to reconcile differences between Jefferson and John Adams. The two ultimately established a lengthy correspondence and renewed friendship and died within hours of each other on July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the U.S. Declaration of Independence.

Jefferson and John Adams became good friends in the first decades of their political careers, serving together in the Continental Congress in the 1770s and in Europe in the 1780s. The Federalist/Republican split of the 1790s divided them, however, and Adams felt betrayed by Jefferson's sponsorship of partisan attacks, such as those of James Callender. Jefferson, on the other hand, was angered at Adams for his appointment of "midnight judges". The two men did not communicate directly for more than a decade after Jefferson succeeded Adams as president. A brief correspondence took place between Abigail Adams and Jefferson after Jefferson's daughter Polly died in 1804, in an attempt at reconciliation unknown to Adams. However, an exchange of letters resumed open hostilities between Adams and Jefferson.

As early as 1809, Benjamin Rush, signer of the Declaration of Independence, desired that Jefferson and Adams reconcile and began to prod the two through correspondence to re-establish contact. In 1812, Adams wrote a short New Year's greeting to Jefferson, prompted earlier by Rush, to which Jefferson warmly responded. This initial correspondence began what historian David McCullough calls "one of the most extraordinary correspondences in American history". Over the next 14 years, Jefferson and Adams exchanged 158 letters discussing their political differences, justifying their respective roles in events, and debating the revolution's import to the world.

When Adams died on July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, in Quincy, Massachusetts, his last words were an acknowledgment of his longtime friend and rival. "Thomas Jefferson survives", Adams said in his final words, unaware that Jefferson had died a few hours earlier the same day at Monticello.

Autobiography

In 1821, at the age of 77, Jefferson began writing his autobiography, Autobiography of Thomas Jefferson: 1743-1790, in which he said he sought to "state some recollections of dates and facts concerning myself". He focused on the struggles and achievements he experienced until July 29, 1790, where the narrative stopped short. He excluded his youth, emphasizing the revolutionary era. He related that his ancestors came from Wales to America in the early 17th century and settled in the western frontier of the Virginia colony, which influenced his zeal for individual and state rights. Jefferson described his father as uneducated, but with a "strong mind and sound judgement". In the autobiography, he also addressed his enrollment in the College of William and Mary and his election to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia in 1775.

He also expressed opposition to the idea of a privileged aristocracy made up of large landowning families partial to the King, and instead promoted "the aristocracy of virtue and talent, which nature has wisely provided for the direction of the interests of society, & scattered with equal hand through all its conditions, was deemed essential to a well-ordered republic".

Jefferson gave his insight into people, politics, and events. The work is primarily concerned with the Declaration and reforming the government of Virginia. He used notes, letters, and documents to tell many of the stories within the autobiography. He suggested that this history was so rich that his personal affairs were better overlooked, but he incorporated a self-analysis using the Declaration and other patriotism.

Greek War of Independence

Thomas Jefferson was a philhellene, lover of Greek culture, who sympathized with the Greek War of Independence. He has been described as the most influential of the Founding Fathers who supported the Greek cause, viewing it as similar to the American Revolution. By 1823, Jefferson was exchanging ideas with Greek scholar Adamantios Korais. Jefferson advised Korais on building the political system of Greece by using classical liberalism and examples from the American governmental system, ultimately prescribing a government akin to that of a U.S. state. He also suggested the application of a classical education system for the newly founded First Hellenic Republic, where public education would be made available and pupils would be taught history, Latin, and Greek. Jefferson's philosophical instructions were welcomed by the Greek people. Korais became one of the designers of the Greek constitution and urged his associates to study Jefferson's works and other literature from the American Revolution.

Lafayette's visit

Main article: Visit of the Marquis de Lafayette to the United States

An 1824 portrait of Lafayette by Ary Scheffer, now on display in United States Capitol rotunda

In the summer of 1824, the Marquis de Lafayette accepted an invitation from President James Monroe to visit the country. Jefferson and Lafayette had not seen each other since 1789. After visits to New York, New England, and Washington, Lafayette arrived at Monticello on November 4.

Jefferson's grandson Randolph was present and recorded the reunion: "As they approached each other, their uncertain gait quickened itself into a shuffling run, and exclaiming, 'Ah Jefferson!' 'Ah Lafayette!', they burst into tears as they fell into each other's arms." Jefferson and Lafayette then retired to the house to reminisce. The next morning Jefferson, Lafayette, and James Madison attended a tour and banquet at the University of Virginia. Jefferson had someone else read a speech he had prepared for Lafayette, as his voice was weak and could not carry. This was his last public presentation. After an 11-day visit, Lafayette bid Jefferson goodbye and departed Monticello.

Final days, death, and burial

Jefferson's gravesite at Monticello

Jefferson's approximately $100,000 of debt weighed heavily on his mind in his final months, as it became increasingly clear that he would have little to leave to his heirs. In February 1826, he successfully applied to the General Assembly to hold a public lottery as a fundraiser. His health began to deteriorate in July 1825, due to a combination of rheumatism from arm and wrist injuries, as well as intestinal and urinary disorders and, by June 1826, he was confined to bed. On July 3, Jefferson was overcome by fever and declined an invitation to Washington to attend an anniversary celebration of the Declaration.

During the last hours of his life, he was accompanied by family members and friends. Jefferson died on July 4 at 12:50 p.m. at age 83, the same day as the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. His last recorded words were "No, doctor, nothing more," refusing laudanum from his physician, but his final significant words are often cited as "Is it the Fourth?" or "This is the Fourth." When John Adams died later that same day, his last words included an acknowledgment of his longtime friend and rival: "Thomas Jefferson survives," though Adams was unaware that Jefferson had died several hours before. The sitting president was Adams's son, John Quincy Adams, and he called the coincidence of their deaths on the nation's anniversary "visible and palpable remarks of Divine Favor."

Shortly after Jefferson had died, attendants found a gold locket on a chain around his neck, where it had rested for more than 40 years, containing a small faded blue ribbon that tied a lock of his wife Martha's brown hair.

Jefferson's remains were buried at Monticello, under an epitaph that he wrote:

HERE WAS BURIED THOMAS JEFFERSON, AUTHOR OF THE DECLARATION OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE, OF THE STATUTE OF VIRGINIA FOR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM, AND FATHER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA.

In his advanced years, Jefferson became increasingly concerned that people understand the principles in, and the people responsible for writing, the Declaration of Independence, and he continually defended himself as its author. He considered the document one of his greatest life achievements, in addition to authoring the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom and his founding of the University of Virginia. Plainly absent from his epitaph were his political roles, including President of the United States.

Jefferson died deeply in debt, unable to pass on his estate freely to his heirs. He gave instructions in his will for disposal of his assets, including the freeing of Sally Hemings's children; but his estate, possessions, and slaves were sold at public auctions starting in 1827. In 1831, Monticello was sold by Martha Jefferson Randolph and the other heirs.

Political, social, and religious views

Jefferson subscribed to the political ideals expounded by John Locke, Francis Bacon, and Isaac Newton, whom he considered the three greatest men who ever lived. He was also influenced by the writings of Gibbon, Hume, Robertson, Bolingbroke, Montesquieu, and Voltaire. Jefferson thought that the independent yeoman and agrarian life were ideals of republican virtues. He distrusted cities and financiers, favored decentralized government power, and believed that the tyranny that had plagued the common man in Europe was due to corrupt political establishments and monarchies. He supported efforts to disestablish the Church of England, wrote the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, and he pressed for a wall of separation between church and state. The Republicans under Jefferson were strongly influenced by the 18th-century British Whig Party, which believed in limited government. His Democratic-Republican Party became dominant in early American politics, and his views became known as Jeffersonian democracy.

Philosophy, society, and government

Template:Liberalism US Jefferson wrote letters and speeches prolifically, and these show him to be conversant and well-read in the philosophical literature of his day and of antiquity. Nevertheless, some scholars do not take Jefferson seriously as a philosopher mainly because he did not produce a formal work on philosophy. However, he has been described as one of the most outstanding philosophical figures of his time because his work provided the theoretical background to, and the substance of, the social and political events of the revolutionary years and the period of the development of the American Constitution in the 1770s and 1780s. Jefferson continued to attend to more theoretical questions of natural philosophy and subsequently left behind a rich philosophical legacy in the form of presidential messages, letters to philosophically minded people, and public papers.

Jefferson described himself as an Epicurean and, although he adopted the Stoic belief in intuition and found comfort in the Stoic emphasis on the patient endurance of misfortune, he rejected most aspects of Stoicism with the notable exception of Epictetus' works. He rejected the Stoics' doctrine of a separable soul and their fatalism, and was angered by their misrepresentation of Epicureanism as mere hedonism. Jefferson knew Epicurean philosophy from original sources, but also mentioned Pierre Gassendi's Syntagma philosophicum as an influential source for his ideas on Epicureanism.

According to Jefferson's philosophy, citizens have "certain inalienable rights" and "rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will, within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others." A staunch advocate of the jury system to protect people's liberties, he proclaimed in 1801, "I consider [trial by jury] as the only anchor yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution." Jeffersonian government not only prohibited individuals in society from infringing on the liberty of others, but also restrained itself from diminishing individual liberty as a protection against tyranny from the majority. Initially, Jefferson favored restricted voting to those who could actually have the free exercise of their reason by escaping any corrupting dependence on others. He advocated enfranchising a majority of Virginians, seeking to expand suffrage to include "yeoman farmers" who owned their own land while excluding tenant farmers, city day laborers, vagrants, most American Indians, and women.

He was convinced that individual liberties were the fruit of political equality, which was threatened by the arbitrary government. Excesses of democracy in his view were caused by institutional corruption rather than human nature. He was less suspicious of a working democracy than many contemporaries. As president, Jefferson feared that the federal system enacted by Washington and Adams had encouraged corrupting patronage and dependence. He tried to restore a balance between the state and federal governments more nearly reflecting the Articles of Confederation, seeking to reinforce state prerogatives where his party was in a majority.

Jefferson was steeped in the British Whig tradition of the oppressed majority set against a repeatedly unresponsive court party in the Parliament. He justified small outbreaks of rebellion as necessary to get monarchial regimes to amend oppressive measures compromising popular liberties. In a republican regime ruled by the majority, he acknowledged "it will often be exercised when wrong." But "the remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them." As Jefferson saw his party triumph in two terms of his presidency and launch into a third term under James Madison, his view of the U.S. as a continental republic and an "empire of liberty" grew more upbeat. On departing the presidency in 1809, he described America as "trusted with the destines of this solitary republic of the world, the only monument of human rights, and the sole depository of the sacred fire of freedom and self-government."

Jefferson was a supporter of American expansionism, writing in 1801 that "it is impossible not to look forward to distant times when our rapid multiplication will expand itself beyond those limits, and cover the whole northern, if not the southern continent."

Democracy

Thomas Jefferson, at age 78, depicted in an 1831 Thomas Sully portrait, commissioned by the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and now on display there

Jefferson considered democracy to be the expression of society and promoted national self-determination, cultural uniformity, and education of all males of the commonwealth. He supported public education and a free press as essential components of a democratic nation.

After resigning as secretary of state in 1795, Jefferson focused on the electoral bases of the Republicans and Federalists. The "Republican" classification for which he advocated included "the entire body of landholders" everywhere and "the body of laborers" without land. Republicans united behind Jefferson as vice president, with the election of 1796 expanding democracy nationwide at grassroots levels. Jefferson promoted Republican candidates for local offices.

Beginning with Jefferson's electioneering for the "revolution of 1800," his political efforts were based on egalitarian appeals. In his later years, he referred to the 1800 election "as real a revolution in the principles of our government as that of '76 was in its form," one "not effected indeed by the sword ... but by the ... suffrage of the people." Voter participation grew during Jefferson's presidency, increasing to "unimaginable levels" compared to the Federalist Era, with turnout of about 67,000 in 1800 rising to about 143,000 in 1804.

At the onset of the Revolution, Jefferson accepted William Blackstone's argument that property ownership would sufficiently empower voters' independent judgement, but he sought to further expand suffrage by land distribution to the poor. In the heat of the Revolutionary Era and afterward, several states expanded voter eligibility from landed gentry to all propertied male, tax-paying citizens with Jefferson's support. In retirement, he gradually became critical of his home state for violating "the principle of equal political rights"—the social right of universal male suffrage. He sought a "general suffrage" of all taxpayers and militia-men, and equal representation by population in the General Assembly to correct preferential treatment of the slave-holding regions.

Religion

Main article: Religious views of Thomas Jefferson

The Jefferson Bible featuring only the words of Jesus from the evangelists, in parallel Greek, Latin, French, and English

Jefferson depicted in an 1805 portrait by Gilbert Stuart

Baptized in his youth, Jefferson became a governing member of his local Episcopal Church in Charlottesville, which he later attended with his daughters. Jefferson, however, spurned Biblical views of Christianity. Influenced by Deist authors during his college years, Jefferson abandoned orthodox Christianity after his review of New Testament teachings. Jefferson has sometimes been portrayed as a follower of the liberal religious strand of Deism that values reason over revelation. Nonetheless, in 1803, Jefferson asserted, "I am Christian, in the only sense in which [Jesus] wished any one to be."

Jefferson later defined being a Christian as one who followed the simple teachings of Jesus. Influenced by Joseph Priestley, Jefferson selected New Testament passages of Jesus' teachings into a private work he called The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth, known today as the Jefferson Bible, never published during his lifetime. Jefferson believed that Jesus' message had been obscured and corrupted by Paul the Apostle, the Gospel writers and Protestant reformers. Peterson states that Jefferson was a theist "whose God was the Creator of the universe ... all the evidences of nature testified to His perfection; and man could rely on the harmony and beneficence of His work." In a letter to John Adams, Jefferson wrote that what he believed was genuinely Christ's, found in the Gospels, was "as easily distinguishable as diamonds in a dunghill". By omitting miracles and the resurrection, Jefferson made the figure of Jesus more compatible with a worldview based on reason.

Jefferson was firmly anticlerical, writing in "every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty ... they have perverted the purest religion ever preached to man into mystery and jargon." The full letter to Horatio Spatford can be read at the National Archives. Jefferson once supported banning clergy from public office but later relented. In 1777, he drafted the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. Ratified in 1786, it made compelling attendance or contributions to any state-sanctioned religious establishment illegal and declared that men "shall be free to profess ... their opinions in matters of religion." The Statute is one of only three accomplishments he chose to have inscribed in the epitaph on his gravestone. Early in 1802, Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Connecticut Baptist Association, "that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man and his God." He interpreted the First Amendment as having built "a wall of separation between Church and State." The phrase 'Separation of Church and State' has been cited several times by the Supreme Court in its interpretation of the Establishment Clause.

Jefferson donated to the American Bible Society, saying the Four Evangelists delivered a "pure and sublime system of morality" to humanity. He thought Americans would rationally create "Apiarian" religion, extracting the best traditions of every denomination. And he contributed generously to several local denominations near Monticello. Acknowledging organized religion would always be factored into political life for good or ill, he encouraged reason over supernatural revelation to make inquiries into religion. He believed in a creator god, an afterlife, and the sum of religion as loving God and neighbors. But he also controversially rejected fundamental Christian beliefs, denying the conventional Christian Trinity, Jesus's divinity as the Son of God and miracles, the Resurrection of Christ, atonement from sin, and original sin. Jefferson believed that the original sin was a gross injustice and that God did not condemn all of humanity by the transgression of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

Jefferson's unorthodox religious beliefs became an important issue in the 1800 presidential election. Federalists attacked him as an atheist. As president, Jefferson countered the accusations by praising religion in his inaugural address and attending services at the Capitol.

Banks

Jefferson opposed Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton's proposal to establish a government bank, and the two emerged as political rivals during George Washington's presidency

Jefferson distrusted government banks and opposed public borrowing, which he thought created long-term debt, bred monopolies, and invited dangerous speculation as opposed to productive labor. In one letter to Madison, he argued each generation should curtail all debt within 19 years, and not impose a long-term debt on subsequent generations.

In 1791, President Washington asked Jefferson, then secretary of state, and Hamilton, the secretary of the treasury, if the Congress had the authority to create a national bank. While Hamilton believed Congress had the authority, Jefferson and Madison thought a national bank would ignore the needs of individuals and farmers, and would violate the Tenth Amendment by assuming powers not granted to the federal government by the states. Hamilton successfully argued that the implied powers given to the federal government in the Constitution supported the creation of a national bank, among other federal actions.

Jefferson used agrarian resistance to banks and speculators as the first defining principle of an opposition party, recruiting candidates for Congress on the issue as early as 1792. As president, Jefferson was persuaded by Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin to leave the bank intact but sought to restrain its influence.

Slavery

Main article: Thomas Jefferson and slavery

Page 30 of Jefferson's 1795 Farm Book lists 163 slaves at Monticello

Jefferson lived in a planter economy largely dependent upon slavery, and as a wealthy landholder, used slave labor for his household, plantation, and workshops. He first recorded his slaveholding in 1774, when he counted 41 enslaved people. Over his lifetime he owned about 600 slaves; he inherited about 175 people while most of the remainder were people born on his plantations. Jefferson purchased some slaves in order to reunite their families. He sold approximately 110 people for economic reasons, primarily slaves from his outlying farms. In 1784 when the number of slaves he owned likely was approximately 200, he began to divest himself of many slaves, and by 1794 he had divested himself of 161 individuals.

Approximately 100 slaves lived at Monticello at any given time. In 1817, the plantation recorded its largest slave population of 140 individuals.

Jefferson once said, "My first wish is that the labourers may be well treated". Jefferson did not work his slaves on Sundays and Christmas and he allowed them more personal time during the winter months. Some scholars doubt Jefferson's benevolence, however, noting cases of excessive slave whippings in his absence. His nail factory was staffed only by enslaved children. Many of the enslaved boys became tradesmen. Burwell Colbert, who started his working life as a child in Monticello's Nailery, was later promoted to the supervisory position of butler.

Jefferson felt slavery was harmful to both slave and master but had reservations about releasing slaves from captivity, and advocated for gradual emancipation. In 1779, he proposed gradual voluntary training and resettlement to the Virginia legislature, and three years later drafted legislation allowing slaveholders to free their own slaves. In his draft of the Declaration of Independence, he included a section, stricken by other Southern delegates, criticizing King George III for supposedly forcing slavery onto the colonies. In 1784, Jefferson proposed the abolition of slavery in all western U.S. territories, limiting slave importation to 15 years. Congress, however, failed to pass his proposal by one vote. In 1787, Congress passed the Northwest Ordinance, a partial victory for Jefferson that terminated slavery in the Northwest Territory. Jefferson freed his slave Robert Hemings in 1794 and he freed his cook slave James Hemings in 1796. Jefferson freed his runaway slave Harriet Hemings in 1822. Upon his death in 1826, Jefferson freed five male Hemings slaves in his will.

During his presidency, Jefferson allowed the diffusion of slavery into the Louisiana Territory hoping to prevent slave uprisings in Virginia and to prevent South Carolina secession. In 1804, in a compromise on the slavery issue, Jefferson and Congress banned domestic slave trafficking for one year into the Louisiana Territory. In 1806 he officially called for anti-slavery legislation terminating the import or export of slaves. Congress passed the law in 1807.

In 1819, Jefferson strongly opposed a Missouri statehood application amendment that banned domestic slave importation and freed slaves at the age of 25 on grounds it would destroy the union. In Notes on the State of Virginia, he created controversy by calling slavery a moral evil for which the nation would ultimately have to account to God. Jefferson wrote of his "suspicion" that Black people were mentally and physically inferior to Whites, but argued that they nonetheless had innate human rights. He therefore supported colonization plans that would transport freed slaves to another country, such as Liberia or Sierra Leone, though he recognized the impracticability of such proposals.

During his presidency, Jefferson was for the most part publicly silent on the issue of slavery and emancipation, as the Congressional debate over slavery and its extension caused a dangerous north–south rift among the states, with talk of a northern confederacy in New England. The violent attacks on white slave owners during the Haitian Revolution due to injustices under slavery supported Jefferson's fears of a race war, increasing his reservations about promoting emancipation at that time. After numerous attempts and failures to bring about emancipation, Jefferson wrote privately in an 1805 letter to William A. Burwell, "I have long since given up the expectation of any early provision for the extinguishment of slavery among us." That same year he also related this idea to George Logan, writing, "I have most carefully avoided every public act or manifestation on that subject."

Historical assessment

Scholars remain divided on whether Jefferson truly condemned slavery and how he changed. Francis D. Cogliano traces the development of competing emancipationist then revisionist and finally contextualist interpretations from the 1960s to the present. The emancipationist view, held by the various scholars at the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, Douglas L. Wilson, John Ferling, and others, maintains Jefferson was an opponent of slavery all his life, noting that he did what he could within the limited range of options available to him to undermine it, his many attempts at abolition legislation, the manner in which he provided for slaves, and his advocacy of their more humane treatment.

One month before the Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves came into effect, in his annual message to Congress, Jefferson denounced the "violations of human rights." He said:

I congratulate you, fellow-citizens, on the approach of the period at which you may interpose your authority constitutionally, to withdraw the citizens of the United States from all further participation in those violations of human rights which have been so long continued on the unoffending inhabitants of Africa, and which the morality, the reputation, and the best interests of our country, have long been eager to proscribe.

The revisionist view, advanced by Paul Finkelman and others, criticizes him for holding slaves, and for acting contrary to his words. Jefferson never freed most of his slaves, and he remained silent on the issue while he was president. Contextualists such as Joseph J. Ellis emphasize a change in Jefferson's thinking from his emancipationist views before 1783, noting Jefferson's shift toward public passivity and procrastination on policy issues related to slavery. Jefferson seemed to yield to public opinion by 1794 as he laid the groundwork for his first presidential campaign against Adams in 1796.

Historian Henry Wiencek said Jefferson "rationalized an abomination to the point where an absolute moral reversal was reached and he made slavery fit into America's national enterprise."

Jefferson–Hemings controversy

Main article: Jefferson–Hemings controversy

Template:See also

An 1804 cartoon depicting Jefferson as a rooster and Sally Hemings as a hen

Claims that Jefferson fathered children with his slave Sally Hemings's have been debated since 1802. That year James T. Callender, after being denied a position as postmaster, alleged Jefferson had taken Hemings as a concubine and fathered several children with her. In 1998, a panel of researchers conducted a Y-DNA study of living descendants of Jefferson's uncle, Field, and of a descendant of Hemings's son, Eston Hemings. The results, released in November 1998, showed a match with the male Jefferson line. Subsequently, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation (TJF) formed a nine-member research team of historians to assess the matter. In January 2000 (revised 2011), the TJF report concluded that "the DNA study ... indicates a high probability that Thomas Jefferson fathered Eston Hemings." The TJF also concluded that Jefferson likely fathered all of Hemings's children listed at Monticello.

In July 2017, the TJF announced that archeological excavations at Monticello had revealed what they believe to have been Sally Hemings's quarters, adjacent to Jefferson's bedroom. In 2018, the TJF said that it considered the issue "a settled historical matter." Since the results of the DNA tests were made public, the consensus among most historians has been that Jefferson had a sexual relationship with Sally Hemings and that he was the father of her son Eston Hemings.

Still, a minority of scholars maintain the evidence is insufficient to prove Jefferson's paternity conclusively. Based on DNA and other evidence, they note the possibility that additional Jefferson males, including his brother Randolph Jefferson and any one of Randolph's four sons, or his cousin, could have fathered Eston Hemings or Sally Hemings's other children. In 2002, historian Merrill Peterson said: "in the absence of direct documentary evidence either proving or refuting the allegation, nothing conclusive can be said about Jefferson's relations with Sally Hemings." Concerning the 1998 DNA study Peterson said: "the results of the DNA testing of Jefferson and Hemings descendants provided support for the idea that Jefferson was the father of at least one of Sally Hemings's children."

After Thomas Jefferson's death, although not formally manumitted, Sally Hemings was allowed by Jefferson's daughter Martha to live in Charlottesville as a free woman with her two sons until her death in 1835. The Monticello Association refused to allow Sally Hemings' descendants the right of burial at Monticello.

Interests and activities

The Virginia State Capitol in Richmond, which Jefferson designed

Jefferson was a farmer, obsessed with new crops, soil conditions, garden designs, and scientific agricultural techniques. His main cash crop was tobacco, but its price was usually low and it was rarely profitable. He tried to achieve self-sufficiency with wheat, vegetables, flax, corn, hogs, sheep, poultry, and cattle to supply his family, slaves, and employees, but he lived perpetually beyond his means and was always in debt.

In the field of architecture, Jefferson helped popularize the Neo-Palladian style in the United States utilizing designs for the Virginia State Capitol, the University of Virginia, Monticello, and others. It has been speculated that he was inspired by the Château de Rastignac in south-west France—the plans of which he saw during his ambassadorship—to convince the architect of the White House to modify the South Portico to resemble the château. Jefferson mastered architecture through self-study, using various books and classical architectural designs of the day. His primary authority was Andrea Palladio's 1570 The Four Books of Architecture, which outlines the principles of classical design.

He was interested in birds and wine, and was a noted gourmet; he was also a prolific writer and linguist, and spoke several languages. As a naturalist, he was fascinated by the Natural Bridge geological formation, and in 1774 successfully acquired the Bridge by a grant from George III.

American Philosophical Society

Jefferson was a member of the American Philosophical Society for 35 years, beginning in 1780. Through the society he advanced the sciences and Enlightenment ideals, emphasizing that knowledge of science reinforced and extended freedom. His Notes on the State of Virginia was written in part as a contribution to the society. He became the society's third president on March 3, 1797, a few months after he was elected Vice President of the United States. In accepting, Jefferson stated: "I feel no qualification for this distinguished post but a sincere zeal for all the objects of our institution and an ardent desire to see knowledge so disseminated through the mass of mankind that it may at length reach even the extremes of society, beggars and kings."

Jefferson served as APS president for the next eighteen years, including through both terms of his presidency. He introduced Meriwether Lewis to the society, where various scientists tutored him in preparation for the Lewis and Clark Expedition. He resigned on January 20, 1815, but remained active through correspondence.

Linguistics

Jefferson had a lifelong interest in linguistics, and could speak, read, and write in a number of languages, including French, Greek, Italian, and German. In his early years, he excelled in classical language while at boarding school where he received a classical education in Greek and Latin. Jefferson later came to regard the Greek language as the "perfect language" as expressed in its laws and philosophy. While attending the College of William & Mary, he taught himself Italian. Here Jefferson first became familiar with the Anglo-Saxon language, especially as it was associated with English Common law and system of government and studied the language in a linguistic and philosophical capacity. He owned 17 volumes of Anglo-Saxon texts and grammar and later wrote an essay on the Anglo-Saxon language.

Jefferson claimed to have taught himself Spanish during his nineteen-day journey to France, using only a grammar guide and a copy of Don Quixote. Linguistics played a significant role in how Jefferson modeled and expressed political and philosophical ideas. He believed that the study of ancient languages was essential in understanding the roots of modern language. He collected and understood a number of American Indian vocabularies and instructed Lewis and Clark to record and collect various Indian languages during their Expedition. When Jefferson moved from Washington after his presidency, he packed 50 Native American vocabulary lists in a chest and transported them on a riverboat back to Monticello along with the rest of his possessions. Somewhere along the journey, a thief stole the heavy chest, thinking it was full of valuables, but its contents were dumped into the James River when the thief discovered it was only filled with papers. Subsequently, 30 years of collecting were lost, with only a few fragments rescued from the muddy banks of the river.

Jefferson was not an outstanding orator and preferred to communicate through writing or remain silent if possible. Instead of delivering his State of the Union addresses himself, Jefferson wrote the annual messages and sent a representative to read them aloud in Congress. This started a tradition that continued until 1913 when President Woodrow Wilson (1913–1921) chose to deliver his own State of the Union address.

Inventions

Jefferson invented many small practical devices and improved contemporary inventions, including a revolving book-stand and a "Great Clock" powered by the gravitational pull on cannonballs. He improved the pedometer, the polygraph (a device for duplicating writing), and the moldboard plow, an idea he never patented and gave to posterity. Jefferson can also be credited as the creator of the swivel chair, the first of which he created and used to write much of the Declaration of Independence. He first opposed patents and later supported them. In 1790–1793, as Secretary of State, he was the ex officio head of the three-person patent review board (the Secretary of War and the Attorney General being the other two patent reviewers). He drafted reforms of US patent law which lead to him being relieved of this duty in 1793, and also drastically changed the patent system.

As Minister to France, Jefferson was impressed by the military standardization program known as the Système Gribeauval, and initiated a program as president to develop interchangeable parts for firearms. For his inventiveness and ingenuity, he received several honorary Doctor of Law degrees.

Legacy

Historical reputation

Jefferson is an icon of individual liberty, democracy, and republicanism, hailed as the author of the Declaration of Independence, an architect of the American Revolution, and a renaissance man who promoted science and scholarship. The participatory democracy and expanded suffrage he championed defined his era and became a standard for later generations. Meacham opined that Jefferson was the most influential figure of the democratic republic in its first half-century, succeeded by presidential adherents James Madison, James Monroe, Andrew Jackson, and Martin Van Buren. Jefferson is recognized for having written more than 18,000 letters of political and philosophical substance during his life, which Francis D. Cogliano describes as "a documentary legacy ... unprecedented in American history in its size and breadth."

Jefferson's reputation declined during the American Civil War, due to his support of states' rights. In the late 19th century, his legacy was widely criticized; conservatives felt that his democratic philosophy had led to that era's populist movement, while Progressives sought a more activist federal government than Jefferson's philosophy allowed. Both groups saw Alexander Hamilton as vindicated by history, rather than Jefferson, and President Woodrow Wilson even described Jefferson as "though a great man, not a great American".

In the 1930s, Jefferson was held in higher esteem; President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933–1945) and New Deal Democrats celebrated his struggles for "the common man" and reclaimed him as their party's founder. Jefferson became a symbol of American democracy in the incipient Cold War, and the 1940s and 1950s saw the zenith of his popular reputation. Following the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, Jefferson's slaveholding came under new scrutiny, particularly after DNA testing in the late 1990s supported allegations that he had fathered multiple children with Sally Hemings.

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  Jefferson Memorial, Washington, D.C.
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  Thomas Jefferson Memorial Statue, by Rudulph Evans (1947)
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  Jefferson on the $2 bill
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  Jefferson's Birthplace

Noting the huge output of scholarly books on Jefferson in recent years, historian Gordon Wood summarizes the raging debates about Jefferson's stature: "Although many historians and others are embarrassed about his contradictions and have sought to knock him off the democratic pedestal ... his position, though shaky, still seems secure."

The Siena Research Institute poll of presidential scholars, begun in 1982, has consistently ranked Jefferson as one of the five best U.S. presidents, and a 2015 Brookings Institution poll of American Political Science Association members ranked him as the fifth greatest president.

Jefferson is portrayed in the popular Broadway musical Hamilton played by Daveed Diggs (Who also played the Marquis de Lafayette) for the Broadway opening in 2015. During the Broadway musical, the character of Jefferson is portrayed as being joined by Madison and Burr in confronting Hamilton about his affaire de cœur in the Reynolds affair and they together intone the rap lyrics to the song "We Know" aimed at Hamilton.

In 2020, historian Annette Gordon-Reed said that Jefferson's "vision of equality" did not include all people, as it primarily excluded both blacks and women. Jefferson believed that Native peoples could be citizens, as long as they agreed to assimilate into white society. According to her, Jefferson put little effort into obtaining freedom for black slaves, as he did for white colonists from Britain. She also said that Jefferson was doubtful of the intellectual capacity of blacks, compared to whites and also was hesitant to advocate or examine the equality of women. The assertion in the Declaration of Independence that it was "self-evident" that "all men are created equal" inspired women, men, blacks, and whites to pursue equality. Others contend that Jefferson included women as well as men when he wrote that "all men are created equal" and that he believed in women's natural equality as expressed in Notes on the State of Virginia.

Memorials and honors

Further information: List of places named for Thomas Jefferson

From left to right: George Washington, Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln depicted on on Mount Rushmore, created by Gutzon Borglum

The Jefferson Memorial, seen from across the Tidal Basin in Washington, D.C., opened April 13, 1943, the 200th anniversary of Jefferson's birth

Jefferson has been memorialized with buildings, sculptures, postage, and currency. In the 1920s, Jefferson, together with George Washington, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln, was chosen by sculptor Gutzon Borglum and approved by President Calvin Coolidge to be depicted in stone at the Mount Rushmore Memorial.

The Jefferson Memorial was dedicated in Washington, D.C. in 1943, on the 200th anniversary of Jefferson's birth. The interior of the memorial includes a 19-foot (6 m) statue of Jefferson by Rudulph Evans and engravings of passages from Jefferson's writings. Most prominent are the words inscribed around the monument near the roof: "I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."

In October 2021, in response to lobbying by activists, the New York City Public Design Commission voted unanimously to remove a statue of the former president from the New York City Council chamber where it had stood for more than a century. The statue was taken down in November 2021.

Writings

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• A Summary View of the Rights of British America (1774)
• Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms (1775)
• Declaration of Independence (1776)
• Memorandums taken on a journey from Paris into the southern parts of France and Northern Italy, in the year 1787
• Notes on the State of Virginia (1781)
• Plan for Establishing Uniformity in the Coinage, Weights, and Measures of the United States A report submitted to Congress (1790)
• "An Essay Towards Facilitating Instruction in the Anglo-Saxon and Modern Dialects of the English Language" (1796)
• Manual of Parliamentary Practice for the Use of the Senate of the United States (1801)
• Autobiography (1821)
• Jefferson Bible, or The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth

See also

• Cultural depictions of Thomas Jefferson
• List of presidents of the United States
• List of presidents of the United States by previous experience
• List of presidents of the United States who owned slaves
• Declaration of independence
• United States Declaration of Independence
• Memorial to the 56 Signers of the Declaration of Independence
• Founders Online
• List of abolitionist forerunners
• Uriah P. Levy
• Jefferson Monroe Levy
• Seconds pendulum

Bibliography

Main article: Bibliography of Thomas Jefferson

Scholarly studies

• Adams, Herbert Baxter (1888). Thomas Jefferson and the University of Virginia. U.S. Government Printing Office.
• Alexander, Leslie (2010). Encyclopedia of African American History (American Ethnic Experience). ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1851097692.
• Ambrose, Stephen E. (1996). Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-0684811079.
• Andresen, Julie (2006). Linguistics in America 1769–1924: A Critical History. Routledge. ISBN 978-1134976119.
• Andrews, Stuart. "Thomas Jefferson and the French Revolution" History Today (May 1968), Vol. 18 Issue 5, pp. 299–306.
• Appleby, Joyce Oldham (2003). Thomas Jefferson: The American Presidents Series: The 3rd President, 1801–1809. Henry Holt and Company. ISBN 978-0805069242.
• Bailey, Jeremy D. (2007). Thomas Jefferson and Executive Power. Twenty-First Century Books. ISBN 978-1139466295.
• Banner, James M. Jr. (1974). C. Vann Woodward (ed.). Responses of the Presidents to Charges of Misconduct. Delacorte Press Dell Publishing Co., Inc. ISBN 978-0440059233.
• Banning, Lance. The Jeffersonian persuasion: evolution of a party ideology (1978) online
• Bassani, Luigi Marco (2010). Liberty, State & Union: The Political Theory of Thomas Jefferson. Mercer University Press. ISBN 978-0881461862.
• Bear, James Adam (1967). Jefferson at Monticello. University of Virginia Press. ISBN 978-0813900223.
• —— (1974). "The Last Few Days in the Life of Thomas Jefferson". Magazine of Albemarle County History. 32: 77.
• Bernstein, Richard B. (2003). Thomas Jefferson. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0195181302.
• —— (2004). The Revolution of Ideas. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0195143683.
• Berry, Trey; Beasley, Pam; Clements, Jeanne (2006). The Forgotten Expedition, 1804–1805: The Louisiana Purchase Journals of Dunbar and Hunter. LSU Press. ISBN 978-0807131657.
• Bober, Natalie (2008). Thomas Jefferson: Draftsman of a Nation. University of Virginia Press. ISBN 978-0813927329.
• Boles, John B. (2017). Jefferson: Architect of American Liberty. Basic Books,626 pages. ISBN 978-0465094691.
• Brodie, Fawn (1974). Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0393317527.
• Bowers, Claude (1945). The Young Jefferson 1743–1789. Houghton Mifflin Company.
• Burstein, Andrew (2006). Jefferson's Secrets: Death and Desire at Monticello. Basic Books. ISBN 978-0465008131.
• ——; Isenberg, Nancy (2010). Madison and Jefferson. Random House. ISBN 978-1400067282.
• —— (2015). Democracy's Muse: How Thomas Jefferson Became an FDR Liberal, a Reagan Republican, and a Tea Party Fanatic, All the While Being Dead. University of Virginia Press. ISBN 978-0813937229.
• Chernow, Ron (2004). Alexander Hamilton. Penguin Press. ISBN 978-1594200090.
• Jefferson, Thomas (1926). Chinard, Gilbert (ed.). The Commonplace Book of Thomas Jefferson: A Repertory of His Ideas on Government, with an Introduction and Notes by Gilbert Chinard, Volume 2. ISBN 978-1400860098.
• Cogliano, Francis D (2008). Thomas Jefferson: Reputation and Legacy. Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978-0748624997.
• Cooke, Jacob E. (1970). "The Compromise of 1790". William and Mary Quarterly. 27 (4): 523–545. doi:10.2307/1919703. JSTOR 1919703.
• Cunningham, Vinson (December 28, 2020). "What Thomas Jefferson Could Never Understand About Jesus". newyorker.com. Retrieved April 28, 2022.
• Crawford, Alan Pell (2008). Twilight at Monticello: The Final Years of Thomas Jefferson. Random House Digital. ISBN 978-1400060795.
• Davis, David Brion (1999). The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1770–1823. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0199880836.
• Du Bois, William Edward Burghardt (1904). The suppression of the African slave-trade to the United States of America. Longmans, Green and Co. ISBN 978-0722272848.
• Earle, Edward Mead (1927). "American Interest in the Greek Cause, 1821–1827". The American Historical Review. 33 (1): 44–63. doi:10.2307/1838110. ISSN 0002-8762. JSTOR 1838110.
• Elkins, Stanley M.; McKitrick, Eric L. (1993). The Age of Federalism. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0195068900.
• Ellis, Joseph J. (1996). American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson. Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 978-0679444909. online free
• —— (2000). Thomas Jefferson: Genius of Liberty. Viking Studio. ISBN 978-0670889334.
• —— (2003). Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. ISBN 978-1400077687.
• —— (2008). American Creation: Triumphs and Tragedies in the Founding of the Republic. Random House LLC. ISBN 978-0307263698.
• Ferling, John (2000). Setting the World Ablaze: Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and the American Revolution. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0195134094.
• —— (2004). Adams vs. Jefferson: The Tumultuous Election of 1800. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0195167719.
• —— (2013). Jefferson and Hamilton: the rivalry that forged a nation. Bloomsbury Press. ISBN 978-1608195428.
• Finkelman, Paul (1989). "Evading the Ordinance: The Persistence of Bondage in Indiana and Illinois". Journal of the Early Republic. 9 (1): 21–51. doi:10.2307/3123523. JSTOR 3123523.
• Finkelman, Paul, ed. (2006). The Encyclopedia of American Civil Liberties A-F Index. Vol. 1. Taylor & Francis Group. ISBN 978-1135947040.
• Finkelman, Paul (April 1994). "Thomas Jefferson and Antislavery: The Myth Goes On" (PDF). The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography. Vol. 102, no. 2. Virginia Historical Society. pp. 193–228.
• Foster, Eugene A.; et al. (November 5, 1998). "Jefferson fathered slave's last child". Nature. 396 (6706): 27–28. Bibcode:1998Natur.396...27F. doi:10.1038/23835. PMID 9817200. S2CID 4424562.
• Frawley, William J., ed. (2003). "International Encyclopedia of Linguistics: 4-Volume Set". International Encyclopedia of Linguistics. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0195139778.
• Freehling, William W. (2005). Levinson, Sanford; Sparrow, Bartholomew H. (eds.). The Louisiana Purchase and American Expansion, 1803–1898 The Louisiana Purchase and the Coming of the Civil War. New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. pp. 69–82. ISBN 978-0742549838.
• Freeman, Joanne B. (2008). Shuffelton, Frank (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Jefferson. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521867313.
• Gish, Dustin, and Daniel Klinghard. Thomas Jefferson and the Science of Republican Government: A Political Biography of Notes on the State of Virginia (Cambridge University Press, 2017) excerpt.
• Fremont-Barnes, Gregory (2006). The Wars of the Barbary Pirates: To the Shores of Tripoli – The Rise of the US Navy and Marines. Osprey Publishing. ISBN 978-1846030307.
• Golden, James L.; Golden, Alan L. (2002). Thomas Jefferson and the Rhetoric of Virtue. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-0742520806.
• Gordon-Reed, Annette (1997). Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy. University Press of Virginia. ISBN 978-0813916989.
• —— (2008). The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0393064773.
• Gordon-Reed, Annette; Onuf, Peter S. (April 13, 2016). "Most Blessed of the Patriarchs": Thomas Jefferson and the Empire of the Imagination. ISBN 978-1631490781.; online review
• Gordon-Reed, Annette (February 20, 2020). "Thomas Jefferson's Vision of Equality Was Not All-Inclusive. But It Was Transformative". Retrieved March 11, 2022.
• Greider, William (2010). Who Will Tell the People. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-1439128749.
• Halliday, E. M. (2009). Understanding Thomas Jefferson. Harper Collins. ISBN 978-0060197933.
• Hamelman, Steven (January 1, 2002). "Autobiography and Archive: Franklin, Jefferson, and the Revised Self". Midwest Quarterly.
• Harrison, John Houston (1935). Settlers by the Long Grey Trail: Some Pioneers to Old Augusta County, Virginia, and Their Descendants of the Family of Harrison and Allied Lines. Genealogical Publishing Com. ISBN 978-0806306643.
• Hart, Charles Henry (1899). Browere's Life Masks of Great Americans. De Vinne Press for Doubleday and McClure Company.
• Hayes, Kevin J. (2008). The Road to Monticello: The Life and Mind of Thomas Jefferson. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0195307580.
• Hellenbrand, Harold (1990). The Unfinished Revolution: Education and Politics in the Thought of Thomas Jefferson. Associated University Presse. ISBN 978-0874133707.
• Helo, Ari (2013). Thomas Jefferson's Ethics and the Politics of Human Progress: The Morality of a Slaveholder. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1107435551.
• Hendricks, Nancy (2015). America's First Ladies. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, LLC. ISBN 978-1610698832.
• Herring, George C. (2008). From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations since 1776. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0199743773.
• Hogan, Pendleton (1987). The Lawn: A Guide to Jefferson's University. University Press of Virginia. ISBN 978-0813911090.
• Horton, Andrew S. (1976). "Jefferson and Korais: The American Revolution and the Greek Constitution". Comparative Literature Studies. 13 (4): 323–329. ISSN 0010-4132. JSTOR 40246007.
• Howe, Daniel Walker (2009). Making the American Self: Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0199740796.
• Hyland, William G (2009). In Defense of Thomas Jefferson: The Sally Hemings Sex Scandal. Carolina Academic Press. ISBN 978-0890890851.
• Template:Cite thesis
• Jayne, Allen (2014). Jefferson's Declaration of Independence: Origins, Philosophy, and Theology. University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 978-0-8131-4836-6.
• Johnson, Jeffrey K. (2010). "The Countryside Triumphant: Jefferson's Ideal of Rural Superiority in Modern Superhero Mythology". The Journal of Popular Culture. 43 (4): 720–737. doi:10.1111/j.1540-5931.2010.00767.x.
• Kaplan, Lawrence S. (1999). Thomas Jefferson: Westward the Course of Empire. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-0842026307.
• Kaufman, Will; Macpherson, Heidi Slettedahl (2005). Britain and the Americas: Culture, Politics, and History. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1-85109-431-8.
• Keyssar, Alexander (2009). The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States. Basic Books. ISBN 978-0465010141.
• Maier, Pauline (1997). American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence. Knopf. ISBN 978-0679454922.
• Malone, Dumas, ed. (1933). "Jefferson, Thomas". Dictionary of American Biography. Vol. 10. Charles Scribner's Sons. pp. 17–35.
• Malone, Dumas. Jefferson (6 vol. 1948–1981)
  • —— (1948). Jefferson, The Virginian. Jefferson and His Time. Vol. 1. Little Brown. OCLC 1823927., Ebook
  • —— (1951). Jefferson and the Rights of Man. Jefferson and His Time. Vol. 2. Little Brown.
  • —— (1962). Jefferson and the Ordeal of Liberty. Jefferson and His Time. Vol. 3. Little, Brown. ISBN 978-0316544757.
  • —— (1970). Jefferson the President: First Term, 1801–1805. Jefferson and His Time. Vol. 4. Little Brown.
  • —— (1974). Jefferson the President: Second Term, 1805–1809. Jefferson and His Time. Vol. 5. Little Brown. OCLC 1929523.
  • —— (1981). The Sage of Monticello. Jefferson and His Time. Vol. 6. Little Brown. ISBN 978-0316544788.
• Mapp, Alf J. (1991). Jefferson: Passionate Pilgrim. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-0517098882.
• Mayer, David N. (1994). The Constitutional Thought of Thomas Jefferson (Constitutionalism and Democracy). University of Virginia Press. ISBN 978-0813914855.
• Mayer, David (2008). "Jefferson, Thomas (1743–1826)". In Hamowy, Ronald (ed.). The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage; Cato Institute. pp. 262–263. doi:10.4135/9781412965811.n158. ISBN 978-1412965804. LCCN 2008009151. OCLC 750831024.
• McCullough, David (2001). John Adams. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-1471104527.
• McDonald, Robert M. S. (2004). Thomas Jefferson's Military Academy: Founding West Point. Jeffersonian America. University of Virginia Press. ISBN 978-0813922980.
• McEwan, Barbara (1991). Thomas Jefferson, Farmer. McFarland. ISBN 978-0899506333.
• Meacham, Jon (2012). Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power. Random House LLC. ISBN 978-0679645368.
• —— (2013). Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power (Paperback). Random House Trade Paperbacks. ISBN 978-0812979480.
• Miller, John Chester (1980). The Wolf by the Ears: Thomas Jefferson and Slavery. University of Virginia Press. ISBN 978-0452005303.
• Miller, Robert J. (2008). Native America, Discovered and Conquered: Thomas Jefferson, Lewis & Clark, and Manifest Destiny. University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 978-0803215986.
• Onuf, Peters S. (2000). Jefferson's Empire: The Language of American Nationhood. U of Virginia Press. ISBN 978-0813922041.
• —— (2007). The Mind of Thomas Jefferson. University of Virginia Press. ISBN 978-0813926117.
• Peterson, Merrill D. (1960). The Jefferson Image in the American Mind. University of Virginia Press. ISBN 978-0813918518.
• —— (1970). Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation; a Biography. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0195000542.
• —— (2002). "Thomas Jefferson". In Graff, Henry (ed.). The Presidents: A Reference History (7th ed.). Charles Scribner's Sons. pp. 39–56.
• Phillips, Julieanne (1997). "Northwest Ordinance (1787)". In Rodriguez, Junius (ed.). The Historical Encyclopedia of World Slavery. ABC-CLIO. pp. 473–474. ISBN 978-0874368857.
• Randall, Willard Sterne (1994). Thomas Jefferson: A Life. Harper Collins. ISBN 978-0060976170.
• Randall, Willard Sterne (1996). "Thomas Jefferson Takes A Vacation". American Heritage. Vol. 47, no. 4.
• Rodriguez, Junius (2002). The Louisiana Purchase: a historical and geographical encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1576071885.
• Stewart, John J. (1997). Thomas Jefferson: Forerunner to the Restoration. Cedar Fort. ISBN 978-0-88290-605-8.
• Sheehan, Bernard (1974). Seeds of Extinction: Jeffersonian Philanthropy and the American Indian. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0393007169.
• Scythes, James (2014). Tucker, Spencer C. (ed.). The Encyclopedia of the Wars of the Early American Republic, 1783–1812 A Political, Social, and Military History. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1598841565.
• Shuffelton, Frank (1974). "Introduction". In Jefferson, Thomas. (ed.). Notes on the State of Virginia. Penguin. ISBN 978-0140436679.
• Smith, Robert C. (2003). Encyclopedia of African American Politics. Infobase Publishing, 433 pages. ISBN 978-1438130194.
• Tucker, George (1837). The Life of Thomas Jefferson, Third President of the United States; 2 vol. Carey, Lea & Blanchard.
• —— (1990). Empire of Liberty: The Statecraft of Thomas Jefferson. Cogliano Press. ISBN 978-0198022763.
• Urofsky, Melvin I., ed. (2006). Biographical Encyclopedia of the Supreme Court: The Lives and Legal Philosophies of the Justices. CQ Press. ISBN 978-1452267289.
• Wiencek, Henry (2012). Master of the Mountain: Thomas Jefferson and his slaves. Macmillan.
• Wilentz, Sean (2005). The Rise of American Democracy. W. W. Norton & Company. pp. 108–111. ISBN 978-0393058208.
• Wilson, Steven Harmon (2012). The U.S. Justice System: Law and constitution in early America. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1598843040.
• Wood, Gordon S (2006). Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different. Penguin Press. ISBN 978-1594200939.
• —— (2010). Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789–1815. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0195039146.
• —— (2011). The Idea of America: Reflections on the Birth of the United States. Penguin Press. ISBN 978-1594202902.

Thomas Jefferson Foundation sources

Thomas Jefferson Foundation (Main page and site-search)

• "American Philosophical Society". Thomas Jefferson Foundation. Retrieved July 25, 2016.
• "Coded Messages". Thomas Jefferson Foundation. Retrieved July 22, 2016.
• "Embargo of 1807". Thomas Jefferson Foundation. Retrieved July 22, 2016.
• "I Rise with the Sun". Thomas Jefferson Foundation. Retrieved July 22, 2016.
• "Italy – Language". Thomas Jefferson Foundation. Retrieved July 25, 2016.
• "James Madison". Thomas Jefferson Foundation. Retrieved July 22, 2016.
• "Jefferson's Antislavery Actions". Thomas Jefferson Foundation. Retrieved July 24, 2016.
• "Jefferson's Religious Beliefs". Thomas Jefferson Foundation. Retrieved April 26, 2022.
• "Landscape of Slavery – Mulberry Row at Monticello: Treatment". Thomas Jefferson Foundation. Retrieved July 25, 2016.
• "Maria Cosway (Engraving)". Thomas Jefferson Foundation. Retrieved July 21, 2016.
• "Minority Report of the Monticello Research Committee on Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings". Thomas Jefferson Foundation. Retrieved July 25, 2016.
• "Monticello construction chronology". Thomas Jefferson Foundation. Retrieved July 17, 2016.
• "Monticello (House) FAQ – Who built the house?". Thomas Jefferson Foundation. Retrieved July 17, 2016.
• "Nailery". Thomas Jefferson Foundation. Retrieved July 24, 2016.
• "President Jefferson and the Indian Nations". Thomas Jefferson Foundation. Retrieved July 22, 2016.
• "Public Speaking". Thomas Jefferson Foundation. Retrieved July 25, 2016.
• "Quotations on Slavery and Emancipation". Thomas Jefferson Foundation. Archived from the original on August 20, 2016. Retrieved July 24, 2016.
• "Report of the Research Committee on Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings – Conclusions". Thomas Jefferson Foundation. Retrieved July 25, 2016.
• "Sale of Monticello". Thomas Jefferson Foundation. Retrieved July 16, 2016.
• "Slave Dwellings". Thomas Jefferson Foundation. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved July 16, 2016.
• "Slavery at Monticello FAQ – Property". Thomas Jefferson Foundation. Retrieved July 24, 2016.
• "Slavery at Monticello FAQ – Work". Thomas Jefferson Foundation. Retrieved July 24, 2016.
• "Spanish Language". Thomas Jefferson Foundation. Retrieved July 25, 2016.
• "Thomas Jefferson: A Brief Biography". Thomas Jefferson Foundation. Retrieved July 24, 2016.
• "Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: A Brief Account". Thomas Jefferson Foundation. Retrieved July 25, 2016.
• "Thomas Jefferson and Slavery". Thomas Jefferson Foundation. Retrieved May 5, 2016.
• "Thomas Jefferson's Enlightenment and American Indians". Thomas Jefferson Foundation. Retrieved July 20, 2016.
• "Thomas Jefferson's Religious Beliefs". Thomas Jefferson Foundation. Retrieved July 24, 2016.

Primary sources

• The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, – the Princeton University Press edition of the correspondence and papers; vol 1 appeared in 1950; vol 41 (covering part of 1803) appeared in 2014.
  • "Founders Online," searchable edition
• Jefferson, Thomas (November 10, 1798). "Thomas Jefferson, Resolutions Relative to the Alien and Sedition Acts". The Founder's Constitution. University of Chicago Press. Retrieved November 2, 2015.
• Thomas, Jefferson (1914). Autobiography of Thomas Jefferson 1743–1790. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons.
• "Thomas Jefferson". University of Virginia Library. Retrieved September 2, 2009.
• Jefferson, Thomas (1900). The Life and Writings of Thomas Jefferson. pp. 265–266.
• —— (1853). Notes on the State of Virginia. J.W. Randolph. (Note: This was Jefferson's only book; numerous editions)
• —— (1977). The Portable Thomas Jefferson. Penguin Press. ISBN 978-1101127667.
• Yarbrough, Jean M.; Jefferson, Thomas (2006). The Essential Jefferson. Hackett Publishing. ISBN 978-1603843782.

Web site sources

• "Gathering Voices: Thomas Jefferson and Native America". American Philosophical Society. Archived from the original on August 13, 2016. Retrieved August 11, 2016.
• "Thomas Jefferson to Horatio G. Spafford, 17 March 1814". U.S. Government: National Archives. Retrieved March 25, 2019.
• "American President: A Reference Resource". University of Virginia: Miller Center. Archived from the original on August 26, 2014. Retrieved August 26, 2014.
• Barger, Herbert (October 15, 2008). "The Jefferson-Hemings DNA Study". Jefferson DNA Study Group. Retrieved April 4, 2012.
• "Carving History". Mount Rushmore National Memorial. National Park Service. Retrieved April 1, 2012.
• Finkelman, Paul (November 30, 2012). "The Monster of Monticello". The New York Times. Retrieved May 5, 2016.
• Haimann, Alexander T. (May 16, 2006). "5-cent Jefferson". Arago, Smithsonian Institution. Retrieved November 6, 2015.
• "Jefferson's library". Library of Congress. April 24, 2000. Retrieved October 25, 2015.
• "Jefferson Nickel". U.S. Mint. Retrieved November 6, 2015.
• "Jefferson's Vision of the Academical Village". University of Virginia. October 14, 2010. Archived from the original on December 25, 2015. Retrieved November 5, 2015.
• "Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson". whitehouse.gov. Retrieved October 3, 2011 – via National Archives.
• Roberts, Gary Boyd (April–May 1993). "The Royal Descents of Jane Pierce, Alice and Edith Roosevelt, Helen Taft, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Barbara Bush". American Ancestors. New England Historic Genealogical Society. Retrieved October 29, 2015.
• Rottinghaus, Brandon; Vaughn, Justin S. (February 13, 2015). "Measuring Obama against the great presidents". Brookings Institution. Retrieved October 30, 2015.
• "The Jefferson Hemings Controversy – Report of The Scholars Commission: Summary" (PDF). Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society. 2011 [2001]. pp. 8–9, 11, 15–17. Archived from the original (PDF) on September 18, 2016. Retrieved July 26, 2016.
• "Siena Poll: American Presidents". Siena Research Institute. July 6, 2010. Archived from the original on July 6, 2010. Retrieved October 30, 2015.
• "Thomas Jefferson: Biography". National Park Service. Retrieved August 1, 2007.
• "The Thomas Jefferson Papers Timeline: 1743–1827". Retrieved July 19, 2009.
• "Thomas Jefferson Presidential $1 Coin". U.S. Mint. Archived from the original on August 11, 2016. Retrieved November 6, 2015.
• "U.S. Currency: $2 Note". U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing. Retrieved November 6, 2015.
• "The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth". 1820. Retrieved August 12, 2010.
• "Bookquick/"The Autobiography of Thomas Jefferson, 1743–1790" | Penn Current". Archived from the original on December 8, 2015. Retrieved December 12, 2015.
• Konig, David T. "Jefferson Thomas and the Practice of_Law, Three cases". Retrieved January 28, 2016.
• "The Burr Conspiracy". PBS American Experience. 2000. Retrieved May 23, 2016.
• Wilson, Douglas L. (1992). "Thomas Jefferson and the Issue of Character". The Atlantic. Retrieved May 22, 2016.
• "Thomas Jefferson's descendants unite over a troubled past". CBS News. February 14, 2019. Retrieved September 24, 2020.
• "Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings A Brief Account". monticello.org. Retrieved October 4, 2020.
• Peter, Carlson (September 27, 2017). "The Bible According to Thomas Jefferson". historynet.com. Retrieved May 14, 2022.

Teaching methods

• Smith, Mark A. (2009). "Teaching Jefferson". The History Teacher. 42 (3): 329–340. JSTOR 40543539.

External links

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• Scholarly coverage of Jefferson at Miller Center, U of Virginia
• United States Congress. "Thomas Jefferson (id: J000069)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
• Thomas Jefferson Papers: An Electronic Archive at the Massachusetts Historical Society
• Thomas Jefferson collection at the University of Virginia Library
• The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, subset of Founders Online from the National Archives
• Jefferson, Thomas (1774). Summary View of the Rights of British America. Printed by Clementina Rind – via World Digital Library.
• The Thomas Jefferson Hour, a radio show about all things Thomas Jefferson The Thomas Jefferson Hour
• "The Papers of Thomas Jefferson". Avalon Project.
• Works by or about Thomas Jefferson at Internet Archive
• Template:Librivox author
• "Collection of Thomas Jefferson Manuscripts and Letters".
• "Thomas Jefferson's Family: A Genealogical Chart". Jefferson Quotes & Family Letters.