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Thomas Jefferson
I n
the thick of party conflict in
1800, Thomas Jefferson wrote in
a private letter, "I have sworn
upon the altar of God eternal
hostility against every form of
tyranny over the mind of man."
This powerful advocate of
liberty was born in 1743 in
Albemarle County, Virginia,
inheriting from his father, a
planter and surveyor, some 5,000
acres of land, and from his
mother, a Randolph, high social
standing. He studied at the
College of William and Mary,
then read law. In 1772 he
married Martha Wayles Skelton, a
widow, and took her to live in
his partly constructed
mountaintop home, Monticello.
Freckled and sandy-haired,
rather tall and awkward,
Jefferson was eloquent as a
correspondent, but he was no
public speaker. In the Virginia
House of Burgesses and the
Continental Congress, he
contributed his pen rather than
his voice to the patriot cause.
As the "silent member" of the
Congress, Jefferson, at 33,
drafted the Declaration of
Independence. In years following
he labored to make its words a
reality in Virginia. Most
notably, he wrote a bill
establishing religious freedom,
enacted in 1786. Jefferson
succeeded Benjamin Franklin as
minister to France in 1785. His
sympathy for the French
Revolution led him into conflict
with Alexander Hamilton when
Jefferson was Secretary of State
in President Washington's
Cabinet. He resigned in 1793.
Sharp
political conflict developed,
and two separate parties, the
Federalists and the
Democratic-Republicans, began to
form. Jefferson gradually
assumed leadership of the
Republicans, who sympathized
with the revolutionary cause in
France. Attacking Federalist
policies, he opposed a strong
centralized Government and
championed the rights of states.
As a
reluctant candidate for
President in 1796, Jefferson
came within three votes of
election. Through a flaw in the
Constitution, he became Vice
President, although an opponent
of President Adams. In 1800 the
defect caused a more serious
problem. Republican electors,
attempting to name both a
President and a Vice President
from their own party, cast a tie
vote between Jefferson and Aaron
Burr. The House of
Representatives settled the tie.
Hamilton, disliking both
Jefferson and Burr, nevertheless
urged Jefferson's election.
When
Jefferson assumed the
Presidency, the crisis in France
had passed. He slashed Army and
Navy expenditures, cut the
budget, eliminated the tax on
whiskey so unpopular in the
West, yet reduced the national
debt by a third. He also sent a
naval squadron to fight the
Barbary pirates, who were
harassing American commerce in
the Mediterranean. Further,
although the Constitution made
no provision for the acquisition
of new land, Jefferson
suppressed his qualms over
constitutionality when he had
the opportunity to acquire the
Louisiana Territory from
Napoleon in 1803.
During
Jefferson's second term, he was
increasingly preoccupied with
keeping the Nation from
involvement in the Napoleonic
wars, though both England and
France interfered with the
neutral rights of American
merchantmen. Jefferson's
attempted solution, an embargo
upon American shipping, worked
badly and was unpopular.
Jefferson
retired to Monticello to ponder
such projects as his grand
designs for the University of
Virginia. A French nobleman
observed that he had placed his
house and his mind "on an
elevated situation, from which
he might contemplate the
universe."
Early Life
Jefferson was
born at Shadwell in what is now
Albemarle County, Va., on Apr.
13, 1743. He treated his
pedigree lightly, but his
mother, Jane Randolph Jefferson,
came from one of the first
families of Virginia; his
father, Peter Jefferson, was a
well-to-do landowner, although
not in the class of the
wealthiest planters. Jefferson
attended (1760-62) the College
of William and Mary and then
studied law with George WYTHE.
In 1769 he began six years of
service as a representative in
the Virginia House of Burgesses.
The following year he began
building Monticello on land
inherited from his father. The
mansion, which he designed in
every detail, took years to
complete, but part of it was
ready for occupancy when he
married Martha Wayles Skelton on
Jan. 1, 1772. They had six
children, two of whom survived
into adulthood:
Martha Washington Jefferson
(1772-1836); Jane Randolph
Jefferson (1774-75); infant son
(1777); Mary Jefferson
(1778-1804); Lucy Elizabeth
Jefferson (1780-81); Lucy
Elizabeth Jefferson (1782-84)
Jefferson's
reputation began to reach beyond
Virginia in 1774, when he wrote
a political pamphlet, A Summary
View of the Rights of British
America. Arguing on the basis of
natural rights theory, Jefferson
claimed that colonial allegiance
to the king was voluntary. "The
God who gave us life," he wrote,
"gave us liberty at the same
time: the hand of force may
destroy, but cannot disjoin
them."
Declaration
of Independence
Elected to
the Second Continental Congress,
meeting in Philadelphia,
Jefferson was appointed on June
11, 1776, to head a committee of
five in preparing the
Declaration of Independence.
He was its primary author,
although his initial draft was
amended after consultation with
Benjamin Franklin and John Adams
and altered both stylistically
and substantively by Congress.
Jefferson's reference to the
voluntary allegiance of
colonists to the crown was
struck; also deleted was a
clause that censured the
monarchy for imposing slavery
upon America.
Based upon
the same natural rights theory
contained in A Summary View, to
which it bears a strong
resemblance, the Declaration of
Independence made Jefferson
internationally famous. Years
later that fame evoked the
jealousy of John Adams, who
complained that the
declaration's ideas were
"hackneyed." Jefferson agreed;
he wrote of the declaration,
"Neither aiming at originality
of principle or sentiment, nor
yet copied from any particular
and previous writing, it was
intended to be an expression of
the American mind."
Revolutionary Leader
Returning to
Virginia late in 1776, Jefferson
served until 1779 in the House
of Delegates, one of the
two houses of the General
Assembly of
Virginia--established in 1776 by
the state's new constitution.
While the American Revolution
continued, Jefferson sought to
liberalize Virginia's laws.
Joined by his old law teacher,
George Wythe, and by James
Madison and George Mason,
Jefferson introduced a number of
bills that were resisted
fiercely by those representing
the conservative planter class.
In 1776 he succeeded in
obtaining the abolition of
entail; his proposal to abolish
primogeniture became law in
1785. Jefferson proudly noted
that "these laws, drawn by
myself, laid the ax to the foot
of pseudoaristocracy."
Jefferson was
also instrumental in devising a
major revision of the criminal
code, although it was not
enacted until 1796. His bill to
create a free system of
tax-supported elementary
education for all except slaves
was defeated as were his bills
to create a public library and
to modernize the curriculum of
the College of William and Mary.
In June 1779
the introduction of Jefferson's
bill on religious liberty
touched off a quarrel that
caused turmoil in Virginia for 8
years. The bill was significant
as no other state--indeed, no
other nation--provided for
complete religious liberty at
that time. Jefferson's bill
stated "that all men shall be
free to profess, and by argument
to maintain, their opinions on
matters of religion, and that
the same shall in no wise
diminish, enlarge, or affect
their civil capacities." Many
Virginians regarded the bill as
an attack upon Christianity. It
did not pass until 1786, and
then mainly through the
perseverance of James Madison.
Jefferson, by then in France,
congratulated Madison, adding
that "it is honorable for us to
have produced the first
legislature who had the courage
to declare that the reason of
man may be trusted with the
formation of his own opinions."
Wartime
Governor of Virginia
In June 1779,
Jefferson was elected governor
of Virginia. His political
enemies criticized his
performance as war governor
mercilessly. He was charged with
failure to provide for the
adequate defense of Richmond in
1780-81, although he knew a
British invasion was imminent,
and of cowardice and
"pusillanimous conduct" when he
fled the capital during the
moment of crisis. In June 1781
he retired from the
governorship. The Virginia
assembly subsequently voted that
"an inquiry be made into the
conduct of the executive of this
state." Jefferson was
exonerated: in fact, the
assembly unanimously voted a
resolution of appreciation of
his conduct. The episode left
Jefferson bitter, however, about
the rewards of public service.
Money and
the Ordinance of 1784
The death of
his wife, on Sept. 6, 1782,
added to Jefferson's troubles,
but by the following year he was
again seated in Congress. There
he made two contributions of
enduring importance to the
nation. In April 1784 he
submitted Notes on the
Establishment of a Money Unit
and of a Coinage for the United
States in which he advised the
use of a decimal system. This
report led to the adoption
(1792) of the dollar, rather
than the pound, as the basic
monetary unit in the United
States.
As chairman
of the committee dealing with
the government of western lands,
Jefferson submitted proposals so
liberal and farsighted as to
constitute, when enacted, the
most progressive colonial policy
of any nation in modern history.
The proposed ordinance of 1784
reflected Jefferson's belief
that the western territories
should be self-governing and,
when they reached a certain
stage of growth, should be
admitted to the Union as full
partners with the original 13
states. Jefferson also proposed
that slavery should be excluded
from all of the American western
territories after 1800. Although
he himself was a slaveowner, he
believed that slavery was an
evil that should not be
permitted to spread. In 1784 the
provision banning slavery was
narrowly defeated. Had one
representative (John Beatty of
New Jersey), sick and confined
to his lodging, been present,
the vote would have been
different. "Thus," Jefferson
later reflected, "we see the
fate of millions unborn hanging
on the tongue of one man, and
heaven was silent in that awful
moment." Although Congress
approved the proposed ordinance
of 1784, it was never put into
effect; its main features were
incorporated, however, in the
Ordinance of 1787, which
established the Northwest
Territory. Moreover, slavery was
prohibited in the Northwest
Territory.
Minister to
France
From 1784 to
1789, Jefferson lived outside
the United States. He was sent
to Paris initially as a
commissioner to help negotiate
commercial treaties; then in
1785 he succeeded Benjamin
Franklin as minister to France.
Most European countries,
however, were indifferent to
American economic overtures.
"They seemed, in fact,"
Jefferson wrote, "to know little
about us. . . . They were
ignorant of our commerce, and of
the exchange of articles it
might offer advantageously to
both parties." Only one country,
Prussia, signed a pact based on
a model treaty drafted by
Jefferson.
During these
years Jefferson followed events
in the United States with
understandable interest. He
advised against any harsh
punishment of those responsible
for Shay's Rebellion (1786-87)
in Massachusetts. He worried
particularly that the new
Constitution of the United
States lacked a bill of rights
and failed to limit the number
of terms for the presidency. In
France he witnessed the
beginning of the French
Revolution, but he doubted
whether the French people could
duplicate the American example
of republican government. His
advice, more conservative than
might be anticipated, was that
France emulate the British
system of constitutional
monarchy.
Secretary of
State
When
Jefferson left Paris on Sept.
26, 1789, he expected to return
to his post. On that date and
unknown to him, however,
Congress confirmed his
appointment as secretary of
state in the first
administration of George
Washington. Jefferson accepted
the position with some
reluctance and largely because
of Washington's insistence. He
immediately expressed his alarm
at the regal forms and
ceremonies that marked the
executive office, but his fears
were tempered somewhat by his
confidence in the character of
Washington.
Jefferson,
however, distrusted both the
proposals and the motives of
Secretary of the Treasury
Alexander Hamilton. He thought
Hamilton's financial programs
both unwise and
unconstitutional, flowing "from
principles adverse to liberty."
On the issue of federal
assumption of state debts,
Jefferson struck a bargain with
Hamilton permitting assumption
to pass--a concession that he
later regretted. He attempted,
unsuccessfully, to persuade
Washington to veto the bill
incorporating a Bank of the
United States--recommended by
Hamilton.
Jefferson
suspected Hamilton and others in
the emerging Federalist Party of
a secret design to implant
monarchist ideals and
institutions in the government.
The disagreements spilled over
into foreign affairs. Hamilton
was pro-British, and Jefferson
was by inclination pro-French,
although he directed the office
of secretary of state with
notable objectivity. The more
Washington sided with Hamilton,
the more Jefferson became
dissatisfied with his minority
position within the cabinet.
Finally, after being twice
dissuaded from resigning,
Jefferson did so on Dec. 31,
1793.
Brief
Retirement
At home for
the next three years, Jefferson
devoted himself to farm and
family. He experimented with a
new plow and other ingenious
inventions, built a nail
factory, commenced the
rebuilding of Monticello, set
out a thousand peach trees,
received distinguished guests
from abroad, and welcomed the
visits of his grandchildren. But
he also followed national and
international developments with
a mounting sense of foreboding.
"From the moment of my retiring
from the administration," he
later wrote, "the Federalists
got unchecked hold on General
Washington." Jefferson thought
Washington's expedition to
suppress the Whiskey rebellion
(1794) an unnecessary use of
military force. He deplored
Washington's denunciation of the
Democratic societies and
considered Jay's Treaty (1794)
with Britain a "monument of
folly and venality."
Vice-President
Thus
Jefferson welcomed Washington's
decision not to run for a third
term in 1796. Jefferson became
the reluctant presidential
candidate of the
Democratic-Republican party, and
he seemed genuinely relieved
when the Federalist candidate,
John Adams, gained a narrow
electoral college victory (71 to
68). As the runner-up, however,
Jefferson became vice-president
under the system then in effect.
Jefferson
hoped that he could work with
Adams, as of old, especially
since both men shared an
anti-Hamilton bias. But those
hopes were soon dashed.
Relations with France
deteriorated. In 1798, in the
wake of the XYZ AFFAIR, the
so-called Quasi-War began. New
taxes were imposed and the Alien
and Sedition Acts (1798)
threatened the freedom of
Americans. Jefferson, laboring
to check the authoritarian drift
of the national government,
secretly authored the Kentucky
Resolution. More important, he
provided his party with
principles and strategy, aiming
to win the election of 1800.
President
Jefferson's
triumph was delayed temporarily
as a result of a tie in
electoral ballots with his
running mate, Aaron BURR, which
shifted the election to the
House of Representatives. There
Hamilton's influence helped
Jefferson to prevail, although
most Federalists supported Burr
as the lesser evil. In his
inaugural speech Jefferson held
out an olive branch to his
political enemies, inviting them
to bury the partisanship of the
past decade, to unite now as
Americans.
Federalist
leaders remained adamantly
opposed to Jefferson, but the
people approved his policies.
Internal taxes were reduced; the
military budget was cut; the
Alien and Sedition Acts were
permitted to lapse; and plans
were made to extinguish the
public debt. Simplicity and
frugality became the hallmarks
of Jefferson's administration.
The Louisiana Purchase (1803)
capped his achievements.
Ironically, Jefferson had to
overcome constitutional scruples
in order to take over the vast
new territory without
authorization by constitutional
amendment. In this instance it
was his Federalist critics who
became the constitutional
purists. Nonetheless, the
purchase was received with
popular enthusiasm. In the
election of 1804, Jefferson
swept every state except
two--Connecticut and Delaware.
Jefferson's second
administration began with a
minor success--the favorable
settlement concluding the
TRIPOLITAN WAR (1801-05), in
which the newly created U.S.
Navy fought its first
engagements. The following year
the Lewis and Clark Expedition,
which the president had
dispatched to explore the
Louisiana Territory, returned
triumphantly after crossing the
continent. The West was also a
source of trouble, however. The
disaffected Aaron Burr engaged
in a conspiracy, the details of
which are still obscure, either
to establish an independent
republic in the Louisiana
Territory or to launch an
invasion of Spanish-held Mexico.
Jefferson acted swiftly to
arrest Burr early in 1807 and
bring him to trial for treason.
Burr was acquitted, however.
Jefferson's
main concern in his second
administration was foreign
affairs, in which he experienced
a notable failure. In the course
of the Napoleonic Wars Britain
and France repeatedly violated
American sovereignty in
incidents such as the Chesapeake
affair (1807). Jefferson
attempted to avoid a policy of
either appeasement or war by the
use of economic pressure.
The Embargo
Ace (Dec. 22, 1807), which
prohibited virtually all exports
and most imports and was
supplemented by enforcing
legislation, was designed to
coerce British and French
recognition of American rights.
Although it failed, it did rouse
many northerners, who suffered
economically, to a state of
defiance of national authority.
The Federalist party experienced
a rebirth of popularity. In
1809, shortly before he retired
from the presidency, Jefferson
signed the act repealing the
embargo, which had been in
effect for 15 months.
Later Life
In the final
17 years of his life,
Jefferson's major accomplishment
was the founding (1819) of the
University of Virginia at
Charlottesville. He conceived
it, planned it, designed it, and
supervised both its construction
and the hiring of faculty.
The
university was the last of three
contributions by which Jefferson
wished to be remembered; they
constituted a trilogy of
interrelated causes: freedom
from Britain, freedom of
conscience, and freedom
maintained through education. On
July 4, 1826, the 50th
anniversary of the Declaration
of Independence, Jefferson died
at Monticello.
Thomas Jefferson Digital Archive
Jefferson Library Of Congress
Exhibit
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Thomas Jefferson Quotes
A Bill of
Rights is what the people are
entitled to against every
government, and what no just
government should refuse, or
rest on inference.
Thomas Jefferson
A coward is
much more exposed to quarrels
than a man of spirit.
Thomas Jefferson
A democracy
is nothing more than mob rule,
where fifty-one percent of the
people may take away the rights
of the other forty-nine.
Thomas Jefferson
A wise and
frugal government, which shall
leave men free to regulate their
own pursuits of industry and
improvement, and shall not take
from the mouth of labor the
bread it has earned - this is
the sum of good government.
Thomas Jefferson
Advertisements contain the only
truths to be relied on in a
newspaper.
Thomas Jefferson
All tyranny
needs to gain a foothold is for
people of good conscience to
remain silent.
Thomas Jefferson
All, too,
will bear in mind this sacred
principle, that though the will
of the majority is in all cases
to prevail, that will to be
rightful must be reasonable;
that the minority possess their
equal rights, which equal law
must protect, and to violate
would be oppression.
Thomas Jefferson
Always take
hold of things by the smooth
handle.
Thomas Jefferson
An
association of men who will not
quarrel with one another is a
thing which has never yet
existed, from the greatest
confederacy of nations down to a
town meeting or a vestry.
Thomas Jefferson
An enemy
generally says and believes what
he wishes.
Thomas Jefferson
An injured
friend is the bitterest of foes.
Thomas Jefferson
As our
enemies have found we can reason
like men, so now let us show
them we can fight like men also.
Thomas Jefferson
Be polite to
all, but intimate with few.
Thomas Jefferson
Bodily decay
is gloomy in prospect, but of
all human contemplations the
most abhorrent is body without
mind.
Thomas Jefferson
Books
constitute capital. A library
book lasts as long as a house,
for hundreds of years. It is
not, then, an article of mere
consumption but fairly of
capital, and often in the case
of professional men, setting out
in life, it is their only
capital.
Thomas Jefferson
But
friendship is precious, not only
in the shade, but in the
sunshine of life, and thanks to
a benevolent arrangement the
greater part of life is
sunshine.
Thomas Jefferson
Commerce with
all nations, alliance with none,
should be our motto.
Thomas Jefferson
Conquest is
not in our principles. It is
inconsistent with our
government.
Thomas Jefferson
Delay is
preferable to error.
Thomas Jefferson
Dependence
begets subservience and
venality, suffocates the germ of
virtue, and prepares fit tools
for the designs of ambition.
Thomas Jefferson
Determine
never to be idle. No person will
have occasion to complain of the
want of time who never loses
any. It is wonderful how much
may be done if we are always
doing.
Thomas Jefferson
Difference of
opinion is advantageous in
religion. The several sects
perform the office of a Censor -
over each other.
Thomas Jefferson
Do not bite
at the bait of pleasure, till
you know there is no hook
beneath it.
Thomas Jefferson
Do you want
to know who you are? Don't ask.
Act! Action will delineate and
define you.
Thomas Jefferson
Don't talk
about what you have done or what
you are going to do.
Thomas Jefferson
Educate and
inform the whole mass of the
people... They are the only sure
reliance for the preservation of
our liberty.
Thomas Jefferson
Enlighten the
people generally, and tyranny
and oppressions of body and mind
will vanish like evil spirits at
the dawn of day.
Thomas Jefferson
Errors of
opinion may be tolerated where
reason is left free to combat
it.
Thomas Jefferson
Every citizen
should be a soldier. This was
the case with the Greeks and
Romans, and must be that of
every free state.
Thomas Jefferson
Every
generation needs a new
revolution.
Thomas Jefferson
Every
government degenerates when
trusted to the rulers of the
people alone. The people
themselves are its only safe
depositories.
Thomas Jefferson
Experience
demands that man is the only
animal which devours his own
kind, for I can apply no milder
term to the general prey of the
rich on the poor.
Thomas Jefferson
Experience
hath shewn, that even under the
best forms of government those
entrusted with power have, in
time, and by slow operations,
perverted it into tyranny.
Thomas Jefferson
Fix reason
firmly in her seat, and call to
her tribunal every fact, every
opinion. Question with boldness
even the existence of a God;
because, if there be one, he
must more approve of the homage
of reason, than that of
blindfolded fear.
Thomas Jefferson
For a people
who are free, and who mean to
remain so, a well-organized and
armed militia is their best
security.
Thomas Jefferson
Force is the
vital principle and immediate
parent of despotism.
Thomas Jefferson
Friendship is
but another name for an alliance
with the follies and the
misfortunes of others. Our own
share of miseries is sufficient:
why enter then as volunteers
into those of another?
Thomas Jefferson
Happiness is
not being pained in body or
troubled in mind.
Thomas Jefferson
He who knows
best knows how little he knows.
Thomas Jefferson
He who knows
nothing is closer to the truth
than he whose mind is filled
with falsehoods and errors.
Thomas Jefferson
History, in
general, only informs us of what
bad government is.
Thomas Jefferson
Honesty is
the first chapter in the book of
wisdom.
Thomas Jefferson
How much pain
they have cost us, the evils
which have never happened.
Thomas Jefferson
I abhor war
and view it as the greatest
scourge of mankind.
Thomas Jefferson
I am an
Epicurean. I consider the
genuine (not the imputed)
doctrines of Epicurus as
containing everything rational
in moral philosophy which Greek
and Roman leave to us.
Thomas Jefferson
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