Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826) was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence (1776) and the third President of the United States (1801–1809). One of the most influential Founding Fathers, Jefferson envisioned America as a great "Empire of Liberty" that would promote republicanism(Dell Inspiron Mini 1012 N450 battery).
At the beginning of the American Revolution, Jefferson served in the Continental Congress, representing Virginia. He then served as the wartime Governor of Virginia (1779–1781), barely escaping capture by the British in 1781. After a controversial term, Jefferson failed to be reelected. From mid-1784 through late 1789, Jefferson served as a diplomat, stationed in Paris(Dell Inspiron Mini 1012 battery), initially as a commissioner to help negotiate commercial treaties. In May 1785, he succeeded Benjamin Franklin as the United States Minister to France.
He was the first United States Secretary of State, (1789–1793). During the administration of President George Washington, Jefferson advised against a national bank and the Jay Treaty. He was the second Vice President, (1797–1801) under President John Adams. Winning on an anti-federalist platform(Dell Vostro A860N battery), Jefferson took the oath of office and became President of the United States in 1801. As president he negotiated the Louisiana Purchase (1803), and sent the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804–1806) to explore the vast new territory and lands further west. Jefferson always distrusted Britain as a threat to American security; he rejected a renewal of the Jay Treaty that his ambassadors had negotiated in 1806 with Britain and promoted aggressive action(Dell Vostro A860 battery), such as the embargo laws, that contributed to the already escalating tensions with Britain and France leading to war with Britain in 1812 after he left office.
Jefferson idealized the independent yeoman farmer as exemplar of republican virtues, distrusted cities and financiers, and favored states' rights and a limited federal government. Jefferson supported the separation of church and state and was the author of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom (1779, 1786) (Dell Vostro A840 battery). Jefferson's revolutionary view on individual religious freedom and protection from government authority have generated much interest with modern scholars. He was the eponym of Jeffersonian democracy and the co-founder and leader of the Democratic-Republican Party, which dominated American politics for 25 years.
Jefferson was born, and married into, prominent planter families; he was a loving husband to his wife Martha(Dell Inspiron 1088N battery), who died in childbirth, and an affectionate father to their children. As a planter, Jefferson owned hundreds of slaves throughout his life; he held views on the racial inferiority of Africans common for this period in time. While many historians long discounted accounts that, after his wife died, Jefferson had an intimate relationship with his slave Sally Hemings, since the late 1990s historians have generally accepted that he did, and that he had six children by her(Dell Inspiron 1088 battery).
Jefferson was a polymath who spoke five languages and could read two others. He was a major book collector with an enormous library, much of which he sold to the Library of Congress in 1814 after the British set fire to the Capitol which destroyed most of its works. He wrote more than sixteen thousand letters and was acquainted with nearly every influential person in America, and many throughout Europe(Dell Vostro 1015N battery). Jefferson is consistently rated by historical scholars as one of the greatest U.S. presidents.
Early life and education
Family
The third of ten children, Thomas Jefferson was born on April 13, 1743 into the Randolph family that linked him to some of the most prominent individuals in Virginia. His mother was Jane Randolph, daughter of Isham Randolph of Dungeness, a ship's captain and sometime planter, first cousin to Peyton Randolph, and granddaughter of wealthy English and Scottish gentry(Dell Vostro 1015 battery). Jefferson's father was Peter Jefferson, a planter and surveyor in Albemarle County (Shadwell, then Edge Hill, Virginia). He was of possible Welsh descent, although this remains unclear. When Colonel William Randolph, an old friend of Peter Jefferson, died in 1745, Peter assumed executorship and personal charge of William Randolph's estate in Tuckahoe as well as his infant son, Thomas Mann Randolph, Jr. That year the Jeffersons relocated to Tuckahoe(Dell Vostro 1014N battery), where they would remain for the next seven years before returning to their home in Albemarle in 1752. Peter Jefferson was appointed to the colonelcy of the county, an important position at the time.
When Thomas Jefferson was 22, his oldest sister Jane died at the age of 25 on October 1, 1765. He fell into a period of deep mourning, as he was already saddened by the absence of his sisters Mary, who had been married several years to Thomas Bolling, and Martha, who had wed in July to Dabney Carr(Dell Inspiron 1410 battery). Both had moved to their husbands' residences. Only Jefferson's younger siblings Elizabeth, Lucy, and the two toddlers, were at home. He drew little comfort from the younger ones, as they did not provide him with the same intellectual stimulation as the older sisters had(Dell Vostro 1014 battery).
Education
In 1752, Jefferson began attending a local school run by a Scottish Presbyterian minister. At the age of nine, Jefferson began studying Latin, Greek, and French; he learned to ride horses, and began to appreciate the study of nature. He studied under the Reverend James Maury from 1758 to 1760 near Gordonsville, Virginia. While boarding with Maury's family, he studied history, science and the classics(Dell Vostro 2510 battery).
At age 16, Jefferson entered the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, and first met the law professor George Wythe, who became his influential mentor. For two years he studied mathematics, metaphysics, and philosophy under Professor William Small, who introduced the enthusiastic Jefferson to the writings of the British Empiricists, including John Locke, Francis Bacon, and Isaac Newton. He also improved his French(Dell Vostro 1520 battery), Greek, and violin. A diligent student, Jefferson displayed an avid curiosity in all fields and graduated in 1762 with highest honors. Jefferson read law while working as a law clerk for Wythe. During this time, he also read a wide variety of English classics and political works. Jefferson was admitted to the Virginia bar five years later in 1767(Dell Vostro 1510 battery).
Throughout his life, books played a vital role in Jefferson's education. Even during the American Revolution and while minister to France, Jefferson collected and accumulated thousands of books for his library at Monticello. A significant portion of Jefferson's library was also bequeathed to him in the will of George Wythe who himself had an extensive library. Always eager for more knowledge(Dell Vostro 1320 battery), Jefferson's education would continue throughout most of his life. Jefferson once stated, "I cannot live without books." By 1815, his library included 6,487 books, which he then sold to the Library of Congress to replace the collection destroyed in the War of 1812.
Career
Jefferson handled many cases as a lawyer in colonial Virginia, and was very active from 1768 to 1773. Jefferson's client list included members of the Virginia's elite families, including members of his mother's family, the Randolphs(Dell Vostro 1310 battery).
Monticello
In 1768 Thomas Jefferson started the construction of Monticello, a neoclassical mansion. Since childhood, Jefferson had always wanted to build a beautiful mountaintop home within sight of Shadwell. Jefferson fell greatly in debt by spending lavishly over the years on Monticello in what was a continuing project to create a neoclassical environment, based on his study of the architect Andrea Palladio and the classical orders(Dell Latitude E4300 battery).
Besides practicing law, Jefferson represented Albemarle County in the Virginia House of Burgesses beginning on May 11, 1769 and ending June 20, 1775. Wythe also served at the same time. Following the passage of the Coercive Acts by the British Parliament in 1774, he wrote a set of resolutions against the acts, which were expanded into A Summary View of the Rights of British America, his first published work(Dell Latitude 2110 battery). Previous criticism of the Coercive Acts had focused on legal and constitutional issues, but Jefferson offered the radical notion that the colonists had the natural right to govern themselves. Jefferson also argued that Parliament was the legislature of Great Britain only, and had no legislative authority in the colonies. The paper was intended to serve as instructions for the Virginia delegation of the First Continental Congress, but Jefferson's ideas proved to be too radical for that body(Dell Latitude 2100 battery).
Marriage and family
In 1772, at age 29 Jefferson married the 23-year-old widow Martha Wayles Skelton. They had six children, only two of whom survived to adulthood. Only their oldest daughter Martha lived beyond age 25.
Martha Washington Jefferson (1772–1836), who married Thomas Mann Randolph, Jr., future governor of Virginia. They had twelve children, eleven of whom survived to adulthood(Dell Latitude D830 battery).
Jane Jefferson (1774–1775)
stillborn or unnamed son (1777)
Mary Wayles Jefferson (1778–1804), called Polly, married her cousin John Wayles Eppes, son of Martha's sister, Elizabeth Wayles Eppes. Mary died at age 25 after the birth of her third child; only their son Francis W. Eppes survived to adulthood. Jefferson made his grandson Francis Eppes the designated heir of Poplar Forest, originally intended for Mary. In 1829 Francis Eppes moved to Florida, where he had a cotton plantation until the Civil War(Dell Latitude D820 battery).
Lucy Elizabeth Jefferson (1780–1781)
Lucy Elizabeth Jefferson (1782–1785); it was customary to name subsequent children after one who had died, particularly when the family was also trying to pass down family names. The second Lucy died while Jefferson was in Paris, prompting him to have his youngest living daughter Polly sent to him; she was then age nine(Dell Latitude D810 battery).
Mrs. Jefferson died on September 6, 1782, a few months after the birth of her last child. Jefferson never remarried, as he promised her. He was at his wife's bedside when she died. Jefferson was deeply upset after her death, and often rode on secluded roads to mourn for his wife.
Political career from 1775 to 1800
Rudolph Evans' statue of Jefferson with excerpts from the Declaration of Independence to the right(Dell Latitude D800 battery)
Drafting a declaration
Jefferson served as a delegate to the Second Continental Congress beginning in June 1775, soon after the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War. When Congress began considering a resolution of independence in June 1776, Jefferson was appointed to a five-man committee to prepare a declaration to accompany the resolution. The committee selected Jefferson to write the first draft probably because of his reputation as a writer(Dell Latitude D630 battery). The assignment was considered routine; no one at the time thought that it was a major responsibility. Jefferson completed a draft in consultation with other committee members, drawing on his own proposed draft of the Virginia Constitution, George Mason's draft of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, and other sources.
Jefferson showed his draft to the committee, which made some final revisions, and after Franklin and Adams suggested a few changes, presented it to Congress on June 28, 1776(Dell Latitude D620 battery). After voting in favor of the resolution of independence on July 2, Congress turned its attention to the declaration. Over three days of fiery debate, Congress made a few changes in wording and deleted nearly a fourth of the text, most notably a passage critical of the slave trade, changes that Jefferson resented. During the three day debate Jefferson spoke not a word for or against any of the revisions(Dell Latitude D610 battery). On July 4, 1776, the wording of the Declaration of Independence was ratified. Before the signing a prayer was said and in silence the delegates to the convention applied their signature to the document, an act that would be considered treason by the Crown and which would cost them their lives should the revolution fail. The Declaration would eventually become Jefferson's major claim to fame, and his eloquent preamble became an enduring statement of human rights(Dell Latitude D600 battery).
State legislator
In John Trumbull's painting Declaration of Independence, the five-man drafting committee is presenting its work to the Continental Congress. Jefferson is the tall figure in the center laying the Declaration on the desk.
In September 1776, Jefferson returned to Virginia and was elected to the new Virginia House of Delegates for Albemarle County. He served there from September 26, 1776 – June 1, 1779(Dell Latitude D520 battery). During his term in the House, Jefferson set out to reform and update Virginia's system of laws to reflect its new status as a democratic state. He drafted 126 bills in three years, including laws to abolish primogeniture, establish freedom of religion, and streamline the judicial system. In 1778, Jefferson's "Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge" and subsequent efforts to reduce clerical control led to some small changes at William and Mary College(Dell Latitude D510 battery). While in the state legislature Jefferson proposed a bill to eliminate capital punishment in Virginia for all crimes except murder and treason. His effort to end the death penalty law was defeated.
Governor of Virginia
In 1779, at the age of thirty-six, Jefferson was elected Governor of Virginia and served from 1779–1781. At this time the now united colonies were in the middle of the American Revolutionary War with Britain(Dell Latitude D505 battery). Georgia had fallen helpless into the hands of the British, South Carolina was invaded, and Charleston threatened. In his capacity as Governor Jefferson made efforts to prepare Richmond for attack by moving all arms, military supplies and records from Richmond to a foundry located five miles outside of town. General Benedict Arnold, who had switched to the British side in 1780, learned of this transfer and moved to capture the foundry(Dell Latitude D500 battery). Jefferson then attempted to devise a way to move the supplies to Westham, seven miles to the north, but he was too late. Arnold's troops burned the foundry before returning to Richmond, where they burned much of the city the following morning. Jefferson at later points in his political career was criticized, especially by his political opponents, for failing to defend Richmond during this time(Dell Latitude D430 battery).
In January of 1781, Benedict Arnold led an armada of British ships and with 1600 British regulars conducted raids along the James River. Later he would join Lord Cornwallis, whose troops were marching across Virginia from the south. In advance, Cornwallis dispatched a cavalry force commanded by Banastre Tarleton on a secret expedition to Monticello to capture then Governor Jefferson(Dell Latitude D420 battery). Quickly making his way at night, Tarleton hoped to catch Jefferson by surprise, however in the midst of the activity and havoc of the invasion an action by a young Virginian named Jack Jouett, a captain in the Virginia militia, thwarted the British capture of Virginia's governor. Jouett had spotted the assembly and departure of Tarleton and his men and making his way to Monticello(Dell Latitude D410 battery), by way of various back roads of which he was familiar, arrived at Monticello in time to warn Jefferson, members of the Virginia Assembly and citizens at large. With little warning Jefferson and his family fled and managed to escape, leaving his home to be captured by British troops. A detachment of Cornwallis' troops, in their march north from the Carolinas, seized the estate along with another plantation which Jefferson owned on the James River(Dell Latitude CPX battery). British troops destroyed all his crops, burnt his barns and fences, drove off the cattle, seized all usable horses, cut the throats of the colts, and after setting fires left the plantation a smoldering, blackened waste. Twenty-seven slaves were also captured to which Jefferson later replied.. "Had he carried off the slaves to give them freedom, he would have done right(Dell Latitude CPI battery)."
As governor in 1780, he transferred the state capital from Williamsburg to Richmond. He continued to advocate educational reforms at the College of William and Mary, including the nation's first student-policed honor code. In 1779, at Jefferson's behest, William and Mary appointed George Wythe to be the first professor of law in an American university. Many people disliked his tenure, and he did not win office again in Virginia. However, in 1783 he was appointed to Congress by the state legislature(Dell Latitude C840 battery).
Notes on the State of Virginia
In the Fall of 1780, Gov. Thomas Jefferson was given a list of 22 questions, by Secretary of the French legation to the United States François Marbois, intended to gather pertinent information on the American colonies. Jefferson's responses to Marbois' "Queries" would become known as Notes on the State of Virginia. Jefferson, scientifically trained, was a member of the American Philosophical Society and had extensive knowledge of western lands from Virginia to Illinois(Dell Latitude C810 battery). In a course of 5 years, Jefferson enthusiastically devoted his intellectual energy to the book, which discussed contemporary scientific knowledge, and Virginia's history, politics, and ethnography. Jefferson was aided by Thomas Walker, George R. Clark, and U.S. geographer Thomas Hutchins. The book was first published in France in 1785 and in England in 1787(Dell Latitude C800 battery).
Member of Congress
Jefferson was a member of Congress at the time America had won its independence and signed the Treaty of Paris in 1783. The Virginia state legislature appointed Jefferson to the Congress of the Confederation on June 6 of that year, his term beginning on November 1. He was a member of the committee formed to set foreign exchange rates(Dell Latitude C640 battery)， and in that capacity he recommended that American currency should be based on the decimal system. Jefferson also recommended setting up the Committee of the States, to function as the executive arm of Congress when Congress was not in session. He left Congress when he was elected a minister plenipotentiary on May 7, 1784(Dell Latitude C610 battery).
Minister to France
Memorial plaque on the Champs-Élysées, Paris, France, marking where Jefferson lived while he was Minister to France. The plaque was erected after World War I to commemorate the centenary of Jefferson's founding of the University of Virginia.
In May of 1784 Congress appointed Jefferson to act as Minister to France, serving from 1785 to 1789, replacing Benjamin Franklin(Dell Latitude C600 battery), who was now well into his senior years. Franklin was much admired in France by both dignitary and common man alike and so it was a delicate matter for Jefferson to step into his position. When the French Foreign minister Count de Vergennes commented to Jefferson, "You replace Monsieur Franklin I hear", Jefferson replied, "I succeed him, no man can replace him(Dell Latitude C540 battery).
While serving in France Jefferson did not attend the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, though he followed the proceedings by correspondence, and was supportive of it.
Beginning in early September 1785, Jefferson collaborated by mail with John Adams in London to outline an anti-piracy treaty with Morocco. Their work culminated in a treaty that was ratified by Congress on July 18, 1787 and is still in force today, making it the longest unbroken treaty relationship in U.S. history(Dell Latitude C510 battery).
He enjoyed the architecture, arts, and the salon culture of Paris. He often dined with many of the city's most prominent people, but sided with the revolutionaries in 1789 French Revolution. While in Paris, Jefferson corresponded with a number of individuals who had important roles in events leading up to the French Revolution. These included marquis de Lafayette and comte de Mirabeau, a popular pamphleteer who repeated ideals that had been the basis for the American Revolution(Dell Latitude C500 battery).
Jefferson brought some of his slaves to serve the household, including James Hemings for training as a French chef. After his youngest daughter died, he requested that a young woman slave accompany his daughter Polly to France. Sally Hemings was chosen to travel with Polly, and lived with the Jefferson household for about two years in Paris. It is generally held by modern day scholars that Jefferson began a long-term relationship with Sally Hemings while in Paris(Dell Latitude C400 battery); that is what their son Madison Hemings reported in his 1873 memoir, however there are no known accounts from Sally Hemings herself.
Secretary of State
In September of 1789 Jefferson returned to America from France with his daughter. Immediately upon his return President Washington wrote to him urging him to accept a seat in his Cabinet as Secretary of State. After a brief conference Jefferson accepted the appointment(Dell Latitude 131L battery).
As George Washington's Secretary of State, (1790–1793) Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton argued over national fiscal policy, especially the funding of the debts of the war. Jefferson later compared Hamilton and the Federalists with "Royalism", and stated the "Hamiltonians were panting after...crowns, coronets and mitres." Jefferson and James Madison founded and led the Democratic-Republican Party(Dell XPS 1647 battery). He worked with Madison and his campaign manager John J. Beckley to build a nationwide network of Republican allies.
The French minister said in 1793: "Senator Morris and Secretary of the Treasury Hamilton...had the greatest influence over the President's mind, and that it was only with difficulty that he [Jefferson] counterbalanced their efforts." Jefferson supported France against Britain when they fought in 1793. Jefferson believed that political success at home depended on the success of the French army in Europe(Dell XPS 1645 battery). The French minister in 1793, Edmond-Charles Genêt, caused a crisis when he tried to influence public opinion in appealing to the people, something Jefferson tried to stop.
Break from office
Jefferson retired to Monticello in late 1793 where he continued to oppose the policies of Hamilton and Washington. However, the Jay Treaty of 1794, led by Hamilton, brought peace and trade with Britain – while Madison, with strong support from Jefferson, wanted, "to strangle the former mother country" without going to war(Dell XPS 1640 battery). "It became an article of faith among Republicans that 'commercial weapons' would suffice to bring Great Britain to any terms the United States chose to dictate."
Even during the violence of the Reign of Terror, Jefferson refused to disavow the revolution because "To back away from France would be to undermine the cause of republicanism in America."
Election of 1796 and Vice Presidency(Dell XPS 16 battery)
As the Democratic-Republican candidate in 1796 he lost to John Adams, but had enough electoral votes to become Vice President (1797–1801). As one of the chief duties of a Vice president is presiding over the Senate, Jefferson was concerned about the lack of rules governing this body, often leaving matters to the discretion of the presiding officer. Jefferson once wrote: "It is now so long since I have acted in the legislative line that I am entirely rusty in the Parliamentary rules of procedure(Dell XPS 13 battery).”
Jefferson spent much of his time researching procedures and rules for governing bodies years before taking office. As a student he had transcribed notes on British parliamentary law into a manual he would later refer to as his Parliamentary Pocket Book. Jefferson had also served on the committee appointed to draw up the rules of order for the Continental Congress in 1776. As Vice President he was more than qualified to bring reform to Senatorial procedural matters(Dell XPS M140 battery), and now prompted by the immediate need for such rules of order he would write his 'A Manual of Parliamentary Practice.' a document which the House of Representatives follow to the present day.
With the Quasi-War underway, the Federalists under John Adams started rebuilding the military, levied new taxes, and enacted the Alien and Sedition Acts. Jefferson interpreted the Alien and Sedition Acts as an effort to suppress Democratic-Republicans rather than dangerous enemy aliens, and were used to attack his party(Dell Inspiron Mini 12 battery). Due to the resultant negative reaction to the Alien and Sedition Acts, the Democratic-Republican party won the election in 1800. Congress under Jefferson would later repeal the Naturalization Law of 1802, while the other acts were allowed to expire. Jefferson and Madison rallied support by anonymously writing the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, which declared that the federal government had no right to exercise powers not specifically delegated to it by the states(Dell Latitude E6500 battery).
Election of 1800
Working closely with Aaron Burr of New York, Jefferson rallied his party, attacking the new taxes especially, and ran for the Presidency in 1800. Before the passage of the Twelfth Amendment, a problem with the new union's electoral system arose. He tied with Burr for first place in the electoral college, leaving the House of Representatives (where the Federalists still had some power) to decide the election(Dell Latitude E6400 battery).
Hamilton convinced his party that Jefferson would be a lesser political evil than Burr and that such scandal within the electoral process would undermine the new constitution. On February 17, 1801, after thirty-six ballots, the House elected Jefferson President and Burr Vice President. Jefferson later removed Burr from the ticket in 1804 after Burr killed Hamilton in a duel(Dell Latitude E5500 battery).
Jefferson owed his election victory to the South's inflated number of Electors, which counted slaves under the three-fifths compromise. After his election in 1800, some called him the "Negro President", with critics like the Mercury and New-England Palladium of Boston stating that Jefferson had the gall to celebrate his election as a victory for democracy when he won "the temple of Liberty on the shoulders of slaves(Dell Latitude E5400 battery)."
Presidency 1801–1809
Thomas Jefferson took the oath of Office on March 4, 1801, at a time when partisan strife between the Democratic-Republican and Federalist parties was growing to alarming proportions. Regarded as the 'People's President' news of Jefferson's election was well received in most parts of the new country and was marked by celebrations throughout the Union. He was sworn in by Chief Justice John Marshall at the new Capitol in Washington DC. In contrast to the preceding president John Adams(Dell XPS M2010 battery), Jefferson exhibited a dislike of formal etiquette. Unlike Washington, who arrived at his inauguration in a stagecoach drawn by six cream colored horses, Jefferson arrived alone on horseback without guard or escort. He was dressed plainly and after dismounting, retired his own horse himself.
Jefferson's presidency is remembered for three major achievements. First came the purchase of the Louisiana territory from France in 1803(Dell XPS M1730 battery), which doubled the size of the United States. A second accomplishment was the defeat of Mediterranean Sea pirates in the First Barbary War. The third occurred during Jefferson's second term, when he proposed legislation (approved by Congress) outlawing the importation of African slaves(Dell XPS M1710 battery).
Administration, Cabinet and Supreme Court appointments
First Barbary War
When Jefferson became president in 1801, the United States was at the time paying $80,000 to the Barbary states as a 'tribute' for protection against North African piracy. For decades, the pirates had been capturing American ships and crew members and demanding huge ransoms for their release. Before Independence, from 1775 until 1783, American merchant ships were protected from the Barbary pirates by the naval and diplomatic influence of Great Britain(Dell XPS M170 battery). When the American Revolution began, American ships were protected by the 1778 alliance with France, which required the French nation to protect "American vessels and effects against all violence, insults, attacks ...". On December 20, 1777, Morocco's Sultan Mohammed III declared that the American merchant ships would be under the protection of the sultanate and could thus enjoy safe passage into the Mediterranean and along the coast(Dell XPS M1530 battery). The Moroccan-American Treaty of Friendship stands as the U.S.'s oldest non-broken friendship treaty. The one with Morocco has been the longest-lasting treaty with a foreign power.
After the United States gained independence, it had to protect its own merchant vessels. It also had to pay $80,000 as tribute to the Barbary states, as did Britain and France at this time. When Tripoli made new demands on the new President for a prompt payment of $225,000 and an annual payment of $25,000, Jefferson refused and decided it would be easier to fight the pirates than to continue to pay bribes(Dell XPS 1340 battery). On May 10, 1801, the pasha of Tripoli declared war on the United States and the First Barbary War began. As secretary of state and vice president, Jefferson had opposed funds for a Navy to be used for anything more than a coastal defense, however the continued pirate attacks on American shipping interests in the Atlantic and Mediterranean and the systematic kidnapping of American crew members could no longer be ignored(Dell XPS M1330 battery). President Jefferson ordered a fleet of naval vessels to various points in the Mediterranean. He forced Tunis and Algiers into breaking their alliance with Tripoli which ultimately forced it out of the fight. Jefferson also ordered five separate naval bombardments of Tripoli, which restored peace in the Mediterranean for a while.
Louisiana Purchase
In 1803 the United States under Jefferson bought the Louisiana Territory from France, doubling the size of the United States(Dell XPS M1210 battery). At the time France under Napoleon, whom Jefferson despised and feared, was essentially bankrupt and facing imminent war against Britain. Jefferson sent James Monroe and Robert R. Livingston to Paris in 1802 to purchase the city of New Orleans and adjacent coastal areas. At the request of Jefferson, a French noblemen named Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours, having close ties with both Jefferson and Napoleon(Dell XPS GEN 2 battery), also helped negotiate the purchase with France. Napoleon was committed to affairs in France and was preparing for war with Britain on the home front and realized he could no longer defend the French territory in America. He astonished everyone by offering to sell the entire territory; the final price was a mere $15 million, which Treasury Secretary Albert Gallatin financed easily. Jefferson acted contrary to his usual requirement of explicit Constitutional authority and the Federalists criticized him for acting without that authority, but this unique and rare opportunity could not be missed(Dell Vostro 1500 battery). On December 20, 1803 the French flag was lowered in New Orleans and the U.S. flag raised, symbolizing the transfer of the Louisiana territory from France to the United States.
Politically, the Louisiana Purchase would prove to be the most consequential executive decision in American history. Without realizing it at the time Jefferson had purchased the largest fertile tract of land on the planet, allowing the nation to be self sufficient. The purchase also changed the new nation's entire national security strategy by removing both British and French imperial ambitions in America(Dell Vostro 1400 battery). Opinions vary among historians as to who was the principal player in the purchase, some believing it was Napoleon, while others regard Jefferson's handling of the affair as brilliant as his Declaration of Independence. Others agree with Alexander Hamilton, Jefferson's arch rival, and attribute it to "dumb luck". Still others concur that it was all of these things(Dell STUDIO 1450 battery).
Lewis and Clark Expedition
Jefferson had an avid interest in the sciences and had long entertained ideas of exploring the American frontier before Louisiana was purchased from France. As such Jefferson was a member of the American Philosophical Society, founded in Philadelphia in 1743 by Benjamin Franklin, and served as its President from 1797 to 1815. By the turn of the 19th century, the society was well established and staffed(Dell Latitude D400 battery), and equipped for research. Jefferson made use of its resources by sending Meriwether Lewis to Philadelphia in 1803 for instruction at the Society in botany, mathematics, surveying, astronomy, chemistry and map making, among other subjects. On January 18, 1803, Jefferson sent a confidential letter to Congress asking for $2,500 to fund an expedition through the West; on February 28, 1803, Congress appropriated the necessary funds(Dell Inspiron Mini 9 battery).
In 1804 Jefferson appointed Meriwether Lewis and William Clark as leaders of the expedition (1804–1806), which explored the Louisiana Territory and beyond, producing a wealth of scientific and geographical knowledge, and ultimately contributing to the European-American settlement of the West. Knowledge of the western part of the continent had been scant and incomplete(Dell Inspiron E1705 battery), limited to what had been learned from trappers, traders, and explorers. This was the first official American military expedition to the Pacific Coast. Lewis and Clark, for whom the expedition became known, recruited the 45 men to accompany them, and spent a winter training them for the effort.
The expedition had several goals, including finding a "direct & practicable water communication across this continent, for the purposes of commerce" (the long-sought Northwest Passage) (Dell Inspiron E1505 battery). They were to follow and map the rivers, and collect scientific data. Jefferson wanted to establish a US claim of "discovery" of the Pacific Northwest by mapping and documenting a United States presence there before Europeans could get a chance to claim the land. The expedition reached the Pacific Ocean by November 1805. With its return in 1806, it had fulfilled Jefferson's hopes by amassing much new data about the topographical features of the county and its natural resources(Dell Inspiron 9400 battery), with details on the flora and fauna, as well as the many Indian tribes of the West with which he hoped to increase trading.
Jefferson also commissioned the Pike Expedition to explore the central region of the Louisiana Purchase, and the Red River Expedition, which was less successful.
West Point
Ideas for a national institution for military education were founded during the American Revolution, but it wasn't until 1802 when Jefferson, following the advice of George Washington, John Adams and others(Dell INSPIRON 9300 battery), finally convinced Congress to authorize the funding and building of the United States Military Academy at West Point on the Hudson River in New York. On March 16, 1802, Jefferson signed the Military Peace Establishment Act, directing that a corps of engineers be established and "stationed at West Point in the state of New York, and shall constitute a Military Academy." The Act would provide well-trained officers for a professional army(Dell INSPIRON 9200 battery). The officers would be reliable republicans rather than a closed elite as in Europe, for the cadets were to be appointed by Congressmen, and thus exactly reflect the nation's politics. In May 1801 Secretary of War Henry Dearborn announced that the president had "decided in favor of the immediate establishment of a military school at West Point and also on the appointment of Major Jonathan Williams", grandnephew of Benjamin Franklin(Dell INSPIRON 9100 battery), to direct "the necessary arrangements, at that place for the commencement of the school." On July 4, 1802, the US Military Academy at West Point formally commenced its role as an institution for scientific and military learning.
Other involvements
He obtained the repeal of many federal taxes in his bid to rely more on customs revenue. He pardoned people imprisoned under the Alien and Sedition Acts, passed in John Adams' term. He repealed the Judiciary Act of 1801 and removed nearly all of Adams' "midnight judges" from office, which led to the Supreme Court deciding the important case of Marbury v. Madison(Dell INSPIRON 8600 battery). He also signed into law a bill that officially segregated the US postal system by not allowing blacks to carry mail.
Second Term
In 1807, Jefferson ordered his former vice president Aaron Burr tried for treason. Burr was charged with conspiring to levy war against the United States in an attempt to establish a separate confederacy composed of the Western states and territories, but he was acquitted. Jefferson championed the Embargo Act of 1807. Congress, however, repealed it at the end of his second term(Dell INSPIRON 8200 battery).
Later in 1807, the United States Congress, acting on Jefferson's request, passed the Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves. Jefferson signed the act and it went into effect January 1, 1808, the earliest date permitted by the United States Constitution for any law regulating slavery. The act made importation of slaves illegal but had no effect on the legal institution of slavery, which did not end in the South until after the Civil War in 1865(Dell Inspiron 710m battery).
Father of a university
After leaving the Presidency, Jefferson continued to be active in public affairs. He wanted to found a new institution of higher learning, specifically one free of church influences, where students could specialize in many new areas not offered at other universities. Jefferson believed educating people was a good way to establish an organized society. He believed such schools should be paid for by the general public(Dell INSPIRON 700M battery), so less wealthy people could be educated as students. A letter to Joseph Priestley, in January 1800, indicated that he had been planning the University for decades before its founding.
In 1819 he founded the University of Virginia. Upon its opening in 1825, it was the first university to offer a full slate of elective courses to its students. One of the largest construction projects to that time in North America, the university was notable for being centered about a library rather than a church. No campus chapel was included in Jefferson's original plans. Until his death, Jefferson invited students and faculty of the college to his home(Dell INSPIRON 7000 battery).
Jefferson is widely recognized[by whom?] for his planning of the University grounds. Its innovative design was an expression of his aspirations for both state-sponsored education and an agrarian democracy in the new Republic. His educational idea of creating specialized units of learning is expressed in the configuration of his campus plan, which he called the "Academical Village". Individual academic units were defined as distinct structures, represented by Pavilions, facing a grassy quadrangle(Dell Inspiron 6400 battery). Each Pavilion housed classroom, faculty office, and residences. Though distinctive, each is visually equal in importance, and they are linked with a series of open-air arcades that are the front facades of student accommodations. Gardens and vegetable plots are placed behind and surrounded by serpentine walls, affirming the importance of the agrarian lifestyle(Dell INSPIRON 600M battery).
His highly ordered site plan establishes an ensemble of buildings surrounding a central rectangular quadrangle, named The Lawn, which is lined on either side with the academic teaching units and their linking arcades. The quad is enclosed at one end with the library, the repository of knowledge, at the head of the table. The remaining side opposite the library remained open-ended for future growth. The lawn rises gradually as a series of stepped terraces, each a few feet higher than the last(Dell INSPIRON 6000 battery), rising up to the library set in the most prominent position at the top, while also suggesting that the Academical Village facilitates easier movement to the future.
Stylistically, Jefferson was a proponent of the Greek and Roman styles, which he believed to be most representative of American democracy by historical association. Each academic unit is designed with a two story temple front facing the quadrangle(Dell INSPIRON 510M battery), while the library is modeled on the Roman Pantheon. The ensemble of buildings surrounding the quad is an unmistakable architectural statement of the importance of secular public education, while the exclusion of religious structures reinforces the principle of separation of church and state. The campus planning and architectural treatment remains today as a paradigm of building of structures to express intellectual ideas and aspirations(Dell INSPIRON 5100 battery). A survey of members of the American Institute of Architects identified Jefferson's campus as the most significant work of architecture in America.
The University was designed as the capstone of the educational system of Virginia. In his vision, any citizen of the state could attend school with the sole criterion being ability.
Slavery
Numerous biographers such as Dumas Malone and Merrill Peterson portrayed Jefferson as anti-slavery, but historians such as David Brion Davis and Paul Finkelman, have noted his failure to take actions to end it or to free slaves he owned(Dell INSPIRON 500M battery), even at his death. He opposed slavery as an institution and said he wanted it to end, but he depended on enslaved labor to support his household and plantations. His first public attack on slavery came in 1774; when he was chosen in 1776 to draft the Declaration of Independence, his opposition to slavery was well known. Junius P. Rodriguez says, "All aspects of Jefferson's public career suggest an opposition to slavery(Dell Inspiron 5000 battery)." Peter Onuf points to "his well-known opposition to slavery, most famously expressed in... his Notes on the state of Virginia (1785). Jefferson called slavery an "abominable crime," and a "moral depravity". David Brion Davis said that by 1784 Jefferson was "one of the first statesman in any part of the world to advocate concrete measures for restricting and eradicating Negro slavery." But Davis also noted that after the planter returned to the US from France in 1789, "the most remarkable thing about Jefferson's stand on slavery is his immense silence(Dell INSPIRON 4000 battery)." Paul Finkelman noted Jefferson's lack of action after this date in terms of correcting or ending the institution. He said Jefferson's greatest failing was "his inability to join the best of his generation in fighting slavery and in his working instead to prevent any significant change in America's racial status quo(Dell INSPIRON 3800 battery)."
In his first draft of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson condemned the British crown for the slave trade. He also condemned the King for "inciting American Negroes to rise in arms against their masters", related to the Crown's promise of freedom for slaves who fought for the British in the Revolution. At the request of delegates from South Carolina and Georgia, this language was dropped from the Declaration(Dell INSPIRON 2600 battery).
From the mid-1770s, Jefferson advocated a plan of gradual emancipation, in Virginia, by which children of slaves would be freed. But he did not advance legislation for it while in the assembly. During the 1770s as a Virginia legislator, Jefferson also wrote bills to prevent free blacks from living in or moving into Virginia, and to punish interracial relations. Jefferson believed that free blacks should be deported and replaced with white settlers. He feared free blacks would encourage a rebellion by slaves against whites(Dell Inspiron 2000 battery). He proposed policies to prepare slaves for freedom: education, emancipation, and transportation of the freedmen to Africa.
In 1778 Jefferson pushed a bill through the Virginia legislature—one of the first of its kind in modern history—to ban further importation of slaves into the state. Davis says that abolitionists assumed "that an end to slave imports would lead automatically to the amelioration and gradual abolition of slavery." Many slave owners opposed the international slave trade, while still supporting slavery(Dell Inspiron 1720 battery). Ending the importation benefited slaveholders because it increased the value of slaves and decreased the chances of slave rebellion associated with new arrivals.
As a Virginia legislator, Jefferson failed to lead on gradual emancipation and discouraged efforts to include it in law. After he left the Assembly, in 1782 Virginia "easily adopted a law allowing private manumission." Maryland and Delaware passed similar laws as part of the post-Revolutionary War trend toward increased freedoms(Dell inspiron 1526 battery). In the two decades after the Revolution, in Virginia the number of free blacks climbed from less than one percent in 1782, to 4.2 percent in 1790, and 7.2 percent in 1810. In Delaware, three-quarters of blacks were free by 1810. In these two decades, numerous slaveholders were moved by ideals to free their slaves, either during their lives or by deed of will. In this period, Jefferson nominally freed only two slaves: he allowed Robert Hemings to purchase his freedom at market rates in 1794(Dell inspiron 1525 battery); and he freed his younger brother James Hemings in 1796, after requiring him to train his brother Peter for three years as a chef.
In 1784, Jefferson wrote an ordinance banning slavery in all the nation's territories (not just the Northwest), but it failed by one vote. While he was in France as US minister, the US Congress adopted a version that banned slavery in the Northwest Territory (north of the Ohio River). He was a leader in abolishing the international slave trade, both for Virginia (1778) and the nation as a whole (1808) (Dell Inspiron 1521 battery).
During his presidential term, Jefferson was disappointed that the younger generation was making no move to abolish slavery, but he kept silent. In December 1806 in his presidential message to Congress, he called for a law to ban the international slave trade. He denounced the trade as "violations of human rights which have been so long continued on the unoffending inhabitants of Africa, in which the morality, the reputation, and the best interests of our country have long been eager to proscribe(Dell Inspiron 1520 battery)." Jefferson signed the bill passed by Congress, and the international trade became illegal in January 1808. By that time only South Carolina had been officially importing slaves. Illegal smuggling continued for decades.
Views of slaves and blacks
Jefferson inherited slaves as a child, and owned upwards of 700 different people at one time or another. The historian Herbert E. Sloan says that Jefferson's debt prevented his freeing his slaves, but Finkelman says that freeing slaves was "not even a mildly important goal" of Jefferson, who preferred to spend lavishly on luxury goods like wine and French chairs(Dell Inspiron 1764 battery).
Isaac Jefferson, ca. 1847, a blacksmith who worked as a slave on Jefferson's plantation. His interview was later published in 1842 as Memoirs of a Monticello Slave. His account provided details to historians about life at Monticello.
According to historian Stephen Ambrose: "Jefferson, like all slaveholders and many others, regarded Negroes as inferior, childlike, untrustworthy and, of course, as property." He believed they were inferior to whites in reasoning, mathematical comprehension, and imagination(Dell Inspiron 1564 battery). Jefferson thought these "differences" were "fixed in nature" and was not dependent on their freedom or education. He thought such differences created "innate inferiority of Blacks compared to Whites".
Jefferson did not believe that African Americans could live in American society as free people together with whites. For a long-term solution, he thought that slaves should be freed after reaching maturity and having repaid their owner's investment(Dell Inspiron 1464 battery); afterward, he thought they should be sent to African colonies in what he considered "repatriation", despite their being American-born. Otherwise, he thought the presence of free blacks would encourage a violent uprising by slaves' looking for freedom. Jefferson expressed his fear of slave rebellion: "We have the wolf by the ears; and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other(Dell Inspiron 1420 battery)."
In 1809, he wrote to Abbé Grégoire, whose book argued against Jefferson's claims of black inferiority in Notes on the State of Virginia. Jefferson said blacks had "respectable intelligence", but did not alter his views. In August 1814 the planter Edward Coles and Jefferson corresponded about Coles' ideas on emancipation. Jefferson urged Coles not to free his slaves, but the younger man took all his slaves to the free state of Illinois and freed them(Dell Inspiron 1200 battery).
Life as a widower
Jefferson became a widower at age 40 in 1783, and remained so to his death in 1826. As the Monticello Website says:
"Through his celebrity as the eloquent spokesman for liberty and equality as well as the ancestor of people living on both sides of the color line, Jefferson has left a unique legacy for descendants of Monticello's enslaved people as well as for all Americans."
Sally Hemings and her children(Dell INSPIRON 1100 battery)
Since a 1998 DNA study showing a match between the Jefferson male line and Eston Hemings' descendants and independent reviews by the Thomas Jefferson Foundation (TJF) and the National Genealogical Society and other historical groups, the TJF and most historians believe that the widower Jefferson had a 38-year intimate relationship with his mixed-race slave Sally Hemings, and fathered six children with her(Dell Inspiron N4010 battery), four of whom survived to adulthood. In the antebellum period, the Hemingses would have been called a "shadow family". Hemings was three-fourths white and a half-sister to Jefferson's late wife, as her father was also John Wayles. Wayles had six children by his 12-year liaison with his slave Betty Hemings; the youngest was Sally.
Hemings' children were seven-eighths European in ancestry and legally white according to Virginia law of the time(Dell N3010 battery). (The "one-drop rule" did not become law until 1924.) Of the four who survived to adulthood: William Beverley, Harriet Hemings, Madison Hemings and Thomas Eston Hemings, all but Madison eventually identified as white and lived as adults in white communities. Thomas Jefferson Randolph, the president's oldest grandson, noted the Hemings' children's strong resemblance to his grandfather, but he told the historian Henry Randall that Jefferson's nephew Peter Carr was the father(Dell HF674 battery).
Controversy
As early as the 1790s, neighbors talked about Jefferson's connection to Hemings, and in 1802 the journalist James T. Callender reported that Jefferson had fathered several children with Sally Hemings. He never responded publicly, but his family denied the issue. The controversy has referred to the family's and historians' denial of Jefferson's paternity for nearly 200 years(Dell D6400 battery), and disagreements over how to interpret limited evidence related to the issue. Jefferson's daughter Martha told her son Thomas Randolph that Jefferson had been away from Monticello for more than a year before one of Hemings' children was born. Randolph, noting the family resemblance of the Hemings, later named Peter Carr, Jefferson's nephew, as father of the Hemings' children(Dell BAT30WL battery). The biographer Henry Randall passed on this family testimony to the historian James Parton, while strengthening his account. Randall's letter was a "pillar" of historians' defenses of Jefferson.
In 1873 Madison Hemings claimed Jefferson as father in a memoir recounting his family life at Monticello. He said Jefferson promised Sally Hemings to free her children when they came of age. In 1873, Israel Jefferson, also a former slave of Monticello, confirmed the account of Jefferson's paternity of Hemings' children in his own memoir(Sony VAIO VGN-FZ38 battery).
Nineteenth century biographers generally attacked Hemings' account and noted the political intentions of the journalist who interviewed him; they essentially discounted the content, although the 20th-century historian Merrill Peterson noted it was mostly accurate. James Parton repeated the family's Carr paternity thesis and assertion of Jefferson's critical absence in his 1874 book on the president(Sony VAIO VGN-FZ37 battery). Succeeding 20th-century historians, such as Merrill Peterson and Douglass Adair, relied on Parton's book. In turn, Dumas Malone adopted their positions. In the 1970s, he also published a letter by Ellen Randolph Coolidge, Randolph's sister, who claimed Samuel Carr, rather than Peter, had fathered Hemings' children. Briefly, the above 20th-century historians and others such as Joseph Ellis and Andrew Burstein "defended" Jefferson on the following grounds, based on the family testimony(Sony VAIO VGN-FZ390 battery): he was absent at the conception of one Hemings child; and the family identified Peter or Samuel Carr as father(s)); these historians interpreted Jefferson's character and his expressed antipathy to blacks to preclude his having such a relationship (although the prevalence of such arrangements among planters was well known). They discounted accounts from former slaves, including Madison Hemings, and did not cross check the facts to determine whose account was best supported(Sony VAIO VGN-FZ290 battery). For instance, Madison Hemings' account was supported by the fact that Jefferson freed all of Sally Hemings' children, although he was deeply in debt.
Facts
A timeline developed by Malone was used by the historian Winthrop Jordan to show that Jefferson was at Monticello at the time of conception of each of Hemings' children, during a 15-year period when he was often away for months at a time. Hemings conceived only when Jefferson was at Monticello. These facts overturned his daughter's testimony. The Hemings children were named for people in the Randolph-Jefferson family or important to Jefferson(Sony VAIO VGN-FZ290E battery), rather than for people in the Hemings family. Jefferson gave the Sally Hemings family special treatment: the three boys were each apprenticed to the master carpenter of the estate, the most skilled artisan of all. This would provide them with skills to make a good living.
Most importantly, Jefferson freed all the Hemings children; this was the only slave family to go free from Monticello(Sony VAIO VGN-FZ280E/B battery). Harriet Hemings was the only female slave whom he freed. He allowed Beverley (male) and Harriet to "escape" in 1822 at ages 23 and 21, although Jefferson was already struggling financially and would be $100,000 in debt at his death. Jefferson thus avoided publicity but the young adults were legally fugitive slaves under the law until Emancipation. The gentry noted their absences at the time; the overseer Edmund Bacon mentioned in his memoir that people were talking about Harriet's having left(Sony VAIO VGN-FZ28 battery), saying that she was Jefferson's daughter. In his 1826 will, Jefferson freed the younger brothers Madison and Eston Hemings. The will petitioned the legislature to permit them and three older Hemings males, who were also freed in his will, to stay in the state with their families. His daughter Martha Randolph gave Sally Hemings "her time", and she lived freely with her two younger sons in nearby Charlottesville for a decade(Sony VAIO VGN-FZ27 battery).
In 1997 Annette Gordon-Reed identified errors of fact in the Jefferson family testimony, noted that Randall had suggested he had seen material which did not exist, and showed that Parton, Malone, and Peterson had failed to assess critical evidence. She noted the significance of Jefferson's actions related to the Sally Hemings' family, which he took for no other. For 180 years, historians represented Peter or Samuel Carr as the likely father(s) of Sally Hemings' children(Sony VAIO VGN-FZ250E/B battery). This was conclusively disproved in the 1998 DNA study of the Y-chromosome of direct male descendants of the Jefferson male line, the Carr line, and an Eston Hemings descendant. In the same study, the team did find a match between the Eston Hemings descendant and the Jefferson male line. While another Jefferson male from his line would have had the same DNA as Thomas Jefferson, no other candidate from his male line had ever been identified during the decades of the historic controversy as a possible father(Sony VAIO VGN-FZ250E battery); as noted above, the Carrs had been considered candidates. As the historian Andrew Burstein said in 2005,
[T]he white Jefferson descendants who established the family denial in the mid-nineteenth century cast responsibility for paternity on two Jefferson nephews (children of Jefferson’s sister) whose DNA was not a match. So, as far as can be reconstructed, there are no Jeffersons other than the president who had the degree of physical access to Sally Hemings that he did(Sony VAIO VGN-FZ25 battery).
Jefferson is documented at Monticello for each of Hemings' conceptions. It is for the total body of evidence, plus the DNA match, that the DNA study team and most historians have concluded that Thomas Jefferson was the most likely father.
Conclusions
With this new evidence, formerly skeptical biographers such as Joseph Ellis and Andrew Burstein publicly said they had changed their opinions and acknowledged Jefferson's paternity of Hemings' children. In addition, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation(Sony VAIO VGN-FZ240N/B battery), which operates Monticello, issued its own report in 2000 supporting Jefferson's paternity. Dr. Daniel P. Jordan, president of Monticello, committed at the time to incorporate "the conclusions of the report into Monticello's training, interpretation, and publications." The Foundation has published new articles and monographs on the Hemings descendants reflecting the new evidence, and installed exhibits at the facility showing Jefferson as father of the Sally Hemings children(Sony VAIO VGN-FZ240N battery). In February 2000, PBS Frontline produced a program about the issues. It noted in its overview of material published about Jefferson-Hemings:
"More than 20 years after CBS executives were pressured by Jefferson historians to drop plans for a mini-series on Jefferson and Hemings, the network airs, "Sally Hemings: An American Scandal." Though many quarreled with the portrayal of Hemings as unrealistically modern and heroic, no major historian challenged the series' premise that Hemings and Jefferson had a 38-year relationship that produced children(Sony VAIO VGN-FZ240E battery)."
As noted in the following, some historians continue to disagree with these conclusions. For instance, in 1999 the newly formed Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society (TJHS) commissioned its own report. Its Scholars Commission, who included Lance Banning, Robert F. Turner and Paul Rahe, among others, concluded in 2001 there was insufficient evidence to determine that Jefferson was the father of Hemings's children(Sony VAIO VGN-FZ240E/B battery). It suggested that his younger brother Randolph Jefferson was the father, and that Hemings may have had multiple partners. But, Paul Rahe published a minority view saying he thought Jefferson's paternity of Eston Hemings was more likely than not. In turn, the TJHS report was directly criticized as poor scholarship in the National Genealogical Society Quarterly, which reported that the historical, genealogical, and DNA evidence were sufficient to conclude that Thomas Jefferson was the father(Sony VAIO VGN-FZ240EB battery).
The historian Alexander Boulton also reviewed TJHS report and a related book published by the TJHS. He noted that Randolph Jefferson had never been seriously proposed as a candidate by historians until after the DNA study of 1998 showed a genetic match between the Hemings descendant and the Jefferson line. He noted "previous testimony had agreed" that Hemings had only one father for her children(Sony VAIO VGN-FZ230EB battery), so criticized the idea that she had multiple partners for her children. Jeanette Daniels, Marietta Glauser, Diana Harvey and Carol Hubbell Ouellette conducted separate research and documented that Randolph Jefferson was seldom at Monticello.
In 2010 Shay Banks-Young and Julie Jefferson Westerinen, descended from Hemings, who identify as African American and white, respectively; and David Works, descended from Wayles; were honored with the international "Search for Common Ground" award for "their work to bridge the divide within their family and heal the legacy of slavery(Sony VAIO VGN-FZ230E battery)." The three have spoken about race and family in numerous appearances across the country. They organized "The Monticello Community", for descendants of all who lived and worked there during Jefferson's lifetime.
Interests, activities, inventions, and improvements
Jefferson was a farmer, with a lifelong interest in mechanical innovations, new crops, soil conditions, and scientific agricultural techniques. He took special interest in his gardens. 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(SONY VGP-BPS10/S battery), vegetables, flax, corn, hogs, sheep, poultry and cattle to feed and clothe his family, slaves and white employees, but he had cash flow problems and was always in debt.
Jefferson's drawing of a pasta machine, ca. 1787
Jefferson had a love for reading and collected thousands of books in his personal library. Jefferson stated that he could not "live without books" and that he had a "canine appetite for reading." By 1815, his library included 6,487 books, which he sold to the Library of Congress to replace the smaller collection destroyed in the War of 1812. In honor of Jefferson's contribution(SONY VGP-BPS10/B battery), the library's website for federal legislative information was named THOMAS. In 2007, Jefferson's two-volume 1764 edition of the Qur'an was used by Rep. Keith Ellison for his swearing in to the House of Representatives. In February 2011 the New York Times reported that a part of Jefferson's retirement library, containing 74 volumes with 28 book titles, was discovered at Washington University in St. Louis(SONY VGP-BPS10A/B battery).
Jefferson was an accomplished architect who helped popularize the Neo-Palladian style in the United States. Jefferson was said to advocate growing and smoking hemp. Modern scholarship indicates that hemp was a secondary crop at Monticello, but there is no evidence that Jefferson used the plant for smoking. Jefferson was interested in birds and wine, and was a noted gourmet. Jefferson was a prolific writer. He learned Gaelic to translate Ossian, and sent to James Macpherson for the originals(SONY VGP-BPS10A battery).
Jefferson invented many small practical devices and improved contemporary inventions. These include the design for a revolving book-stand to hold five volumes at once to be viewed by the reader. Another was the "Great Clock", powered by the Earth's gravitational pull on Revolutionary War cannonballs. Its chime on Monticello's roof could be heard as far as the University of Virginia. Louis Leschot(Sony VAIO VGN-NW11Z/T battery), a machinist, aided Jefferson with the clock. Jefferson invented a 15 cm long coded wooden cypher wheel, mounted on a metal spindle, to keep secure State Department messages while he was Secretary of State. The messages were scrambled and unscrambled by 26 alphabet letters on each circular segment of the wheel. He improved the moldboard plow and the polygraph, in collaboration with Charles Willson Peale(Sony VAIO VGN-NW11S/T battery).
Political philosophy and views
Jefferson was a leader in developing republicanism in the United States. He insisted that the British aristocratic system was inherently corrupt and that Americans' devotion to civic virtue required independence. Jefferson's vision was that of an agricultural nation of yeoman farmers minding their own affairs(Sony VAIO VGN-NW11Z/S battery).
Jefferson's republican political principles were heavily influenced by the Country Party of 18th century British opposition writers. He was influenced by John Locke (particularly relating to the principle of inalienable rights).
Jefferson had a decided dislike and distrust of banks and bankers and opposed borrowing from banks because he believed it created long-term debt as well as monopolies, and inclined the people to dangerous speculation, as opposed to productive labor on the farm(Sony VAIO VGN-NW11S/S battery).
Jefferson believed that each man has "certain inalienable rights". He defines the right of "liberty" by saying, "Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others..." A proper government, for Jefferson, is one that not only prohibits individuals in society from infringing on the liberty of other individuals, but also restrains itself from diminishing individual liberty(Sony VAIO VGN-NW35e battery).
Abigail Adams excepted[why?], Jefferson did not support gender equality, and opposed female involvement in politics, saying that "our good ladies ... are contented to soothe and calm the minds of their husbands returning ruffled from political debate."
Democracy
There is no dispute that Jefferson is a major iconic figure in the emergence of democracy—he was the "agrarian democrat" who shaped the thinking of his nation and the world.[citation needed] As Vernon Louis Parrington concluded in 1927(Sony VAIO VGN-NW320F/TC battery):
"Far more completely than any other American of his generation he embodied the idealisms of the great revolution -- its faith in human nature, its economic individualism, its conviction that here in America, through the instrumentality of political democracy, the lot of the common man should somehow be made better."
But Jefferson's concepts of democracy were rooted in The Enlightenment, as Peter Onuf has stressed. He envisioned democracy an expression of society as a whole(Sony VAIO VGN-NW31JF battery), calling for national self-determination, cultural uniformity, and based upon the education of the all the people. The emphasis on uniformity allowed no opportunity for a multiracial republic in which some groups were not fully assimilated into the identical republican values. Onuf argues that Jefferson was unable and unwilling to abolish slavery until a such demand could issue naturally from the sensibilities of the entire people. Public education and a free press was essential to a democratic nation(Sony VAIO VGN-NW21ZF battery): "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free it expects what never was and never will be....The people cannot be safe without information. Where the press is free, and every man able to read, all is safe.
Rebellion
In the 1780s Jefferson saw occasional upheaval as a natural event. In a letter to James Madison on January 30, 1787, Jefferson wrote, "A little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.. (Sony VAIO VGN-NW31EF/W battery).It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government." Similarly, in a letter to Abigail Adams on February 22, 1787 he wrote, "The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all." Concerning Shays' Rebellion after he had heard of the bloodshed, on November 13, 1787 Jefferson wrote to William S. Smith, John Adams' son-in-law, "What signify a few lives lost in a century or two(Sony VAIO VGN-NW21MF/W battery)? The tree of liberty must from time to time be refreshed with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure." In another letter to William S. Smith during 1787, Jefferson wrote: "And what country can preserve its liberties, if the rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms(Sony VAIO VGN-NW21MF battery)."
Religion
Jefferson rejected the orthodox Christianity of his day and was especially hostile to the Catholic Church as he saw it operate in France. Throughout his life Jefferson was intensely interested in theology, biblical study, and morality. As a landowner he played a role in governing his local Episcopal Church; in terms of belief he was inclined toward the religious philosophy of Christianity(Sony VAIO VGN-NW21JF battery):
In private letters, Jefferson refers to himself as "Christian" (1803): "To the corruptions of Christianity I am, indeed, opposed; but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian, in the only sense in which he wished any one to be; sincerely attached to his doctrines, in preference to all others; ascribing to himself every human excellence.... (Sony VAIO VGN-NW battery)
Jefferson believed in the moral teachings of Christ and edited a compilation of Christ's teachings leaving out the miracles. Jefferson was firmly anticlerical saying that in "every country and every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot...they have perverted the purest religion ever preached to man into mystery and jargon, unintelligible to all mankind, and therefore the safer for their purposes(Sony Vaio VGN-CR23/W Battery)."
Jefferson rejected the idea of immaterial beings and considered the idea of an immaterial Creator a heresy introduced into Christianity. He held to the view that God was a material being, stating in a letter to John Adams that "[t]o talk of immaterial existences is to talk of nothings." He, instead, held to a belief that all things that existed were material, including God. In the same letter to Adams he continues(Sony Vaio VGN-CR23/N Battery): "At what age of the Christian church this heresy of immaterialism, this masked atheism, crept in, I do not know. But a heresy it certainly is. Jesus taught nothing of it. He told us indeed that 'God is a spirit,' but he has not defined what a spirit is, nor said that it is not matter. And the antient fathers generally, if not universally, held it to be matter: light and thin indeed, an etherial gas; but still matter(Sony Vaio VGN-CR23/L Battery)."
Native American policy
Between 1776 and 1779, while governor of Virginia during the Revolutionary War, Jefferson recommended forcibly moving Cherokee and Shawnee tribes that fought on the British side to lands west of the Mississippi River. Later, Jefferson was the first President to propose the idea of Indian Removal. He laid out an approach to Indian removal in a series of private letters that began in 1803 (for example, see letter to William Henry Harrison below) (Sony Vaio VGN-CR23/R Battery). His first such act as president was to make a deal with the state of Georgia: if Georgia were to release its legal claims to discovery in lands to its west, the U.S. military would help forcefully expel the Cherokee people from Georgia. At the time, the Cherokee Nation had a treaty with the United States government which guaranteed its people the right to their lands, which was violated by Jefferson's deal with Georgia(Sony Vaio VGN-CR23/P Battery).
Acculturation and assimilation
Jefferson's original plan was for Natives to give up their own cultures, religions, and lifestyles in favor of western European culture, Christian religion, and a European-style agricultural lifestyle.
Jefferson believed that their assimilation into the European-American economy would make them more dependent on trade with white Americans, and would eventually thereby be willing to give up land that they would otherwise not part with, in exchange for trade goods or to resolve unpaid debts. In an 1803 letter to William Henry Harrison(Sony Vaio VGN-CR23/B Battery), Jefferson wrote:
To promote this disposition to exchange lands, which they have to spare and we want, for necessaries, which we have to spare and they want, we shall push our trading uses, and be glad to see the good and influential individuals among them run in debt, because we observe that when these debts get beyond what the individuals can pay, they become willing to lop them off by a cession of lands.... (Sony Vaio VGN-CR220E/R Battery)In this way our settlements will gradually circumscribe and approach the Indians, and they will in time either incorporate with us as citizens of the United States, or remove beyond the Mississippi. The former is certainly the termination of their history most happy for themselves; but, in the whole course of this, it is essential to cultivate their love. As to their fear(Sony Vaio VGN-CR21Z/R Battery), we presume that our strength and their weakness is now so visible that they must see we have only to shut our hand to crush them, and that all our liberalities to them proceed from motives of pure humanity only. Should any tribe be foolhardy enough to take up the hatchet at any time, the seizing the whole country of that tribe, and driving them across the Mississippi, as the only condition of peace, would be an example to others, and a furtherance of our final consolidation(Sony Vaio VGN-CR21Z/N Battery).
Forced Indian relocation
With the colonial and native civilizations in collision compounded by British incitement of Indian tribes and mounting hostilities between the two peoples quick measures were resorted to so as to avert another major conflict and measures were taken to forcefully relocate the various Indian tribes to points further west. Jefferson relates his feelings of the affair in a letter to Alexander von Humboldt in 1813(Sony Vaio VGN-CR21S/W Battery):
You know, my friend, the benevolent plan we were pursuing here for the happiness of the aboriginal inhabitants in our vicinities. We spared nothing to keep them at peace with one another. To teach them agriculture and the rudiments of the most necessary arts, and to encourage industry by establishing among them separate property. In this way they would have been enabled to subsist and multiply on a moderate scale of landed possession(Sony Vaio VGN-CR21S/P Battery). They would have mixed their blood with ours, and been amalgamated and identified with us within no distant period of time. On the commencement of our present war, we pressed on them the observance of peace and neutrality, but the interested and unprincipled policy of England has defeated all our labors for the salvation of these unfortunate people. They have seduced the greater part of the tribes within our neighborhood, to take up the hatchet against us(Sony Vaio VGN-CR21S/L Battery), and the cruel massacres they have committed on the women and children of our frontiers taken by surprise, will oblige us now to pursue them to extermination, or drive them to new seats beyond our reach.
Jefferson believed assimilation was best for Native Americans; second best was removal to the west. The worst possible outcome would happen if Native Americans attacked the whites. He told his Secretary of War, General Henry Dearborn (who was the primary government official responsible for Indian affairs) (Sony Vaio VGN-CR21E/W Battery): "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 Mississipi."
Death
Jefferson's gravesite
Jefferson' health began to deteriorate by July 1825, and by June 1826 he was confined to bed. His death was from natural causes, a combination of illnesses and conditions including uremia, severe diarrhea, and pneumonia. Jefferson died on July 4, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, and a few hours before John Adams(Sony Vaio VGN-CR21E/P Battery).
Though born into a wealthy slave-owning family, Jefferson had many financial problems, and died deeply in debt. He gave instructions for disposal of his assets in his Will[188] and after his death, his possessions (including the persons he held as slaves) were sold off in public auctions starting in 1827, Monticello itself was sold in 1831. Thomas Jefferson is buried in the family cemetery at Monticello. The cemetery only is now owned and operated by the Monticello Association, a separate lineage society that is not affiliated with the Thomas Jefferson Foundation that runs the estate(Sony Vaio VGN-CR21E/L Battery).
Jefferson wrote his own epitaph, which reads:
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.
Legacy
Memorials and Honors
Jefferson Memorial, Washington, D.C.
Jefferson has been memorialized in many ways, including buildings, sculptures, and currency. The Jefferson Memorial was dedicated in Washington, D.C. on April 13, 1943, the 200th anniversary of Jefferson's birth. The interior of the memorial includes a 19-foot (6 m) statue of Jefferson and engravings of passages from his writings. Most prominent are the words which are 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"(Sony Vaio VGN-CR21/B Battery).
Thomas Jefferson has been honored on U.S. postage since the first Jefferson postage stamp was released in 1856. Jefferson was the second president to be featured on U.S. Postage. His portrait appears on the U.S. $2 bill, nickel, and the $100 Series EE Savings Bond, and a Presidential Dollar which released into circulation on August 16, 2007(Sony Vaio VGN-CR190E/W Battery).
His original tombstone, now a cenotaph, is located on the campus in the University of Missouri's Quadrangle. A life mask of Jefferson was created by John Henri Isaac Browere in the 1820s.
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. Other memorials to Jefferson include the commissioning of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ship Thomas Jefferson in Norfolk(Sony Vaio VGN-CR190E/R Battery), Virginia on July 8, 2003, in commemoration of his establishment of a Survey of the Coast, the predecessor to NOAA's National Ocean Service; and the placement of a bronze monument in Jefferson Park, Chicago at the entrance to the Jefferson Park Transit Center along Milwaukee Avenue in 2005.
Reputation
First Jefferson Postage stamp Issue of 1856, Die Proof
Jefferson has always been one of the two or three central American icons of liberty, democracy and republicanism, standing with Washington and Lincoln. Americans[who?] have celebrated him as the most articulate spokesman of the American Revolution(Sony Vaio VGN-CR190E/P Battery), and as a renaissance man who promoted science and scholarship. He articulated a political philosophy that has retained its power across the centuries. Abraham Lincoln in particular was heavily indebted to Jefferson for the political philosophy of liberty and equality used in Lincoln's battle against slavery. Lincoln used the natural rights precepts of the Declaration of Independence as his guide to a better Union. He considered Jefferson to be "the most distinguished politician in our history(Sony Vaio VGN-CR190E/L Battery)."
During the New Deal era of the 1930s, Democrats honored Jefferson as the founding father and continued inspiration for their party. President Franklin D. Roosevelt took the lead in building his monument in Washington. Jefferson's reputation among the general public and in the school textbooks has generally been high based on his leadership as a founding father during the Revolution and early national period(Sony Vaio VGN-CR190 Battery).
On racial issues some historians[who?] express dismay at his harsh treatment of Native Americans, while others acknowledge the realities involved and understand that there were few choices available in dealing with the two colliding civilizations. There is also dismay about his opposition to a biracial society, and his indifferent opinion of blacks. The likelihood of his relationship with Sally Hemings(Sony Vaio VGN-CR150E/B Battery), a slave who was three-quarters white, and his "shadow family" by her suggests he kept his privacy and was a complex man of apparent contradictions. Jefferson's legacy as a champion of Enlightenment ideals has been challenged by modern historians[who?] who find his ownership of hundreds of slaves at Monticello to be in contradiction to his views on freedom and the equality of men(Sony Vaio VGN-CR13T/W Battery). Historian Peter Onuf stated that "Jefferson's failure to address the problem of slavery generally and the situation of his own human chattel...is in itself the most damning possible commentary on his iconic standing as 'apostle of freedom'." The historian Clarence E. Walker said that Jefferson could rationalize being a slave owner and defender of freedom since he believed blacks were inferior and needed supervision(Sony Vaio VGN-CR13T/R Battery).
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