Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 (April 2, 1743 O.S.) – July 4, 1826) was an American Founding Father who was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence (1776) and the third President of the United States (1801–1809).

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. Just after the war ended, from mid-1784 Jefferson served as a diplomat, stationed in Paris, initially as a commissioner to help negotiate commercial treaties. In May 1785, he became the United States Minister to France. He was the first United States Secretary of State (1790–1793). During the administration of President George Washington, Jefferson advised against a national bank and the Jay Treaty. Upon leaving office, with his close friend James Madison he organized the Democratic-Republican Party to oppose Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton's policies, especially his desire to create a national bank. He and Madison secretly wrote the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, which attempted to nullify the Alien and Sedition Acts and formed the basis of states' rights. After being elected Vice President under John Adams in 1796, Jefferson conducted secret talks with the French, in which he advocated that the French government take a more aggressive position against the American government, which he thought was too close to the British.^[1]

Elected president in what he called the Revolution of 1800, he oversaw a peaceful transition in power, purchased the vast Louisiana Territory from France (1803), and sent the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804–1806) to explore the new west. He decided to allow slavery in the acquired territory, which laid the foundation for the crisis of the Union a half century later. His second term was beset with troubles at home, such as the failed treason trial of his former Vice President Aaron Burr, and escalating trouble with Britain. Jefferson always distrusted Britain as a threat to American values. With Britain at war with Napoleon, he tried aggressive economic warfare, however his embargo laws stopped American trade, hurt the economy, and provoked a furious reaction in the Northeast.

Jefferson was part of the Virginia planter elite and, as a tobacco planter, owned hundreds of slaves throughout his lifetime. Like many of his contemporaries, he viewed Africans as being racially inferior. He remained a widower for the rest of his life after his wife of eleven years, Martha Jefferson, died in childbirth. Their marriage produced six children. Even though there is some disagreement on the subject, modern Jeffersonian scholarship generally acknowledges that Thomas Jefferson was likely the father of all of his slave Sally Hemings' six children.

A leader in The Enlightenment, Jefferson was a polymath who spoke five languages and was deeply interested in science, religion and philosophy. His interests led him to assist in creating the University of Virginia. While not an orator he was an indefatigable letter writer and was acquainted with many influential people in America and Europe. His views on slavery were complex, and changed over the course of his life. He was a leading American opponent of the international slave trade, and presided over its abolition in 1807. In the past, Jefferson has often been rated by historians as one of the greatest U.S. presidents, though since the mid-twentieth century scholars have become increasingly critical, partly due to the issue of slavery.

Early life and career

The third of ten children, Thomas Jefferson was born on April 13, 1743^[2] 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. Jefferson's father was Peter Jefferson, a planter and major slaveholder, and a surveyor in Albemarle County (Shadwell, then Edge Hill, Virginia). He was of possible Welsh descent, although this remains unclear.^[3] 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, 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.^[4] After he died in 1757, his son Thomas Jefferson inherited his estate, including about 50 slaves. They comprised the core of his labor force when he started to build Monticello as a young man.

On October 1, 1765, when Thomas Jefferson was 22, his oldest sister Jane died at the age of 25.^[5] 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.^[5] 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.^[5]

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.^[6]

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.^[7] He also improved his French, Greek, and violin. A diligent student, Jefferson displayed an avid curiosity in all fields^[8] 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.^[9]

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, Jefferson's education would continue throughout most of his life. Jefferson once stated, "I cannot live without books."^[10]

Marriage and family

On January 1, 1772, at age 28 Jefferson in Williamsburg married the 23-year-old widow Martha Wayles Skelton. They had six children, only two of whom survived to adulthood:^[11] Martha Washington, called Patsy, (1772–1836), married Thomas Mann Randolph, Jr. and they had 12 children, eleven of whom survived to adulthood. Jane (1774–1775) and a stillborn or unnamed son in 1777; Mary Wayles (1778–1804), called Polly, married her cousin John Wayles Eppes, and they had three children; only their son Francis W. Eppes survived to adulthood. Lucy Elizabeth (1780–1781), and Lucy Elizabeth (1782–1785).

Consistent childbirth had significantly weakened Martha and she died on September 6, 1782, a few months after the birth of her last child. Jefferson was at his wife's bedside and was deeply upset after her death, and often rode on secluded roads to mourn for his wife.^[11][12] Jefferson never remarried, as he had promised his wife.

Lawyer and House of Burgesses

Jefferson handled many cases as a lawyer in colonial Virginia, and was very active from 1768 to 1773.^[13] Jefferson's client list included members of the Virginia's elite families, including members of his mother's family, the Randolphs.^[13]

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.^[14][15] 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.^[16]

Besides practicing law, Jefferson represented Albemarle County in the Virginia House of Burgesses beginning on May 11, 1769 and ending June 20, 1775.^[17] 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. 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.^[18] 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.

Political career from 1775 to 1800

Drafting a declaration

Main article: United States Declaration of Independence

Jefferson served as a delegate to the Second Continental Congress beginning in June 1775, soon after the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War. He didn't know many people in the congress, but sought out John Adams who, along with his cousin Samuel, had emerged as a leader of the convention.^[19] Jefferson and Adams established a friendship that would last the rest of their lives; it led to the drafting of Jefferson to write the declaration of independence. When Congress began considering a resolution of independence in June 1776, Adams ensured that Jefferson was appointed to the five-man committee to write a declaration in support of the resolution.^[20] After discussing the general outline for the document, the committee decided that Jefferson would write the first draft.^[21] The committee in general, and Jefferson in particular, thought Adams should write the document. Adams persuaded the committee to choose Jefferson, who was reluctant to take the assignment, and promised to consult with the younger man. Over the next seventeen days, Jefferson had limited time for writing and finished the draft quickly.^[22] Consulting with other committee members, Jefferson also drew on his own proposed draft of the Virginia Constitution, George Mason's draft of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, and other sources. The other committee members made some changes. Most notably Jefferson had written, "We hold these truths to be sacred and un-deniable..." Franklin changed it to, "We hold these truths to be self-evident."^[23] A final draft was presented to the Congress on June 28, 1776. The title of the document was "A Declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress assembled."^[24]

After voting in favor of the resolution of independence on July 2, Congress turned its attention to the declaration. Over three days of debate, Congress made changes and deleted nearly a fourth of the text, most notably a passage critical of the slave trade.^[25] While Jefferson resented he changes, he did not speak publicly for or against any of the revisions. On July 4, 1776, the Congress ratified the Declaration of Independence. A prayer was read and, in silence, the delegates signed the document. The Declaration would eventually be considered one of Jefferson's major achievements; his preamble has been considered an enduring statement of human rights.^[25]

Virginia state legislator and Governor

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. 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.^[26] 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.^[27]

In 1779, at Jefferson's behest, William and Mary appointed George Wythe to be the first professor of law in an American university.^[28]

In 1779, at the age of thirty-six, Jefferson was elected Governor of Virginia and served from 1779–1781. 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 the fall of 1780, 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. Scientifically trained, Jefferson was a member of the American Philosophical Society and had extensive knowledge of western lands from Virginia to Illinois. 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.^[29]

At this time the united colonies were in the middle of the American Revolutionary War with Britain. Georgia had fallen to the British, who also invaded South Carolina and threatened Charleston. In his capacity as Governor, Jefferson had Richmond prepared for attack by moving all arms, military supplies and records to a foundry located five miles outside of town. General Benedict Arnold, who had switched to the British side in 1780, learned of the transfer and moved to capture the foundry. Jefferson tried to get the supplies moved 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.^[30] At later points in his political career, Jefferson was criticized for failing to have defended Richmond during this time. He was not re-elected again to office in Virginia.^[31]

In January 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. 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, 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.^[32] 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. 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."^[33]

Member of Congress

Virginia appointed Jefferson to its delegation to the Congress of the Confederation (informally called the Continental Congress) in 1783. As a member of the committee formed to set foreign exchange rates, he recommended that American currency should be based on the decimal system; his plan was adopted. Jefferson also recommended setting up the Committee of the States, to function as the executive arm of Congress. The plan was adopted but failed in practice. He resigned from Congress when he was appointed minister to France in May 1784.

Minister to France

Jefferson was minister to France from 1785 to 1789, the year the French Revolution started. When the French foreign minister, the Count de Vergennes, commented to Jefferson, "You replace Monsieur Franklin, I hear," Jefferson replied, "I succeed him. No man can replace him."^[34] He was busy in Paris and did not attend the 1787 Constitutional Convention.

Beginning in early September 1785, Jefferson collaborated with 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.^[35]

He enjoyed the architecture, arts, and the salon culture of Paris. He often dined with many of the city's most prominent people.^[36] While in Paris, Jefferson corresponded with many people who had important roles in the imminent French Revolution. These included the Marquis de Lafayette, and the Comte de Mirabeau, a popular pamphleteer who repeated ideals that had been the basis for the American Revolution.^[37]

Jefferson's eldest daughter Martha, known as Patsy, went with him to France in 1784.^[38] Jefferson brought some of his slaves to serve the household, including James Hemings for training as a French chef. After his youngest daughter Lucy died in 1785, Jefferson brought his youngest surviving child, Polly (then seven) to France. He requested that a young woman slave accompany Polly. Sally Hemings was chosen. She lived in the Jefferson household in Paris for about two years. The historian Annette Gordon-Reed suggests that Jefferson began a long-term relationship with Hemings while in Paris, as was asserted by her son Madison Hemings in his 1873 memoir. There are no direct written accounts from Sally Hemings.^[39]

Secretary of State

In September 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.^[34]

As George Washington's Secretary of State, (1790–1793) Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton argued over national fiscal policy,^[40] 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."^[41] Due to their opposition to Hamilton, Jefferson and James Madison founded and led the Democratic-Republican Party. He worked with Madison and his campaign manager John J. Beckley to build a nationwide network of Republican allies. Jefferson's political actions, and his attempt to undermine Hamilton, nearly led George Washington to dismiss Jefferson from his cabinet.^[42] Though Jefferson left the cabinet voluntarily, Washington never forgave him, and never spoke to him again.^[42]

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."^[43] Jefferson supported France against Britain when they fought in 1793.^[44] Jefferson believed that political success at home depended on the success of the French army in Europe.^[45] 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.^[45]

Jefferson tried to achieve three important goals during his discussions with George Hammond, British Minister to the U.S. The historian Miller said that he was unable to secure an admission by the British that they the British were in violation of the Treaty of Paris (1783); he was unable to convince the British to vacate posts in the northwest; and lastly, Jefferson was unsuccessful in his attempt to get the British to compensate American slave owners for the slaves they had freed and evacuated at the end of the war. He resigned in December 1793.^[46]

Election of 1796 and Vice Presidency

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. "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."^[47] 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."^[48] As vice president, Jefferson conducted secret talks with the French, in which he advocated that the French government take a more aggressive position against the American government, which he thought was too close to the British.^[1] He also successfully got the American ambassador to France expelled.

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 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, 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 follows to the present day.^[49]

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 believed that the Alien and Sedition Acts were an effort to suppress Democratic-Republicans rather than dangerous enemy aliens, although the acts later expired. 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.^[50] Though the resolutions followed the "interposition" approach of James Madison, Jefferson advocated nullification and at one point drafted a threat for Kentucky to secede.^[51] Jefferson's biographer Dumas Malone argued that this might have gotten Jefferson impeached for treason, had his actions become known at the time.^[1] In writing the Kentucky Resolutions, Jefferson warned that, "unless arrested at the threshold," the Alien and Sedition Acts would "necessarily drive these states into revolution and blood."^[1] Historian Ron Chernow says of this "he wasn't calling for peaceful protests or civil disobedience: he was calling for outright rebellion, if needed, against the federal government of which he was vice president." Jefferson "thus set forth a radical doctrine of states' rights that effectively undermined the constitution."^[52] Chernow argues that neither Jefferson nor Madison sensed that they had sponsored measures as inimical as the Alien and Sedition Acts themselves.^[52] Historian Garry Wills argued "Their nullification effort, if others had picked it up, would have been a greater threat to freedom than the misguided [alien and sedition] laws, which were soon rendered feckless by ridicule and electoral pressure"^[53] The theoretical damage of the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions was "deep and lasting, and was a recipe for disunion".^[52] George Washington was so appalled by them that he told Patrick Henry that if "systematically and pertinaciously pursued", they would "dissolve the union or produce coercion".^[52] The influence of Jefferson's doctrine of states' rights reverberated right up to the Civil War and beyond.^[54] Future president James Garfield, at the close of the Civil War, said that Jefferson's Kentucky Resolution "contained the germ of nullification and secession, and we are today reaping the fruits".^[54]

According to historian Ron Chernow, during the Quasi-War Jefferson engaged in a "secret campaign to sabotage Adams in French eyes".^[55] He held four confidential talks with French consul Joseph Letombe in the spring of 1797. In his private meetings with Letombe, Jefferson attacked Adams, predicted that he would only serve one term and encouraged France to invade England.^[55] Jefferson also advised Letombe to stall any American envoys sent to Paris by instructing them to "listen to them and then drag out the negotiations at length and mollify them by the urbanity of the proceedings." This toughened the tone that the French government adopted with the new Adams Administration.^[55] Due to pressure against the Adams Administration on behalf of the French government from Jefferson and his supporters, congress released the papers in connection with the XYZ Affair, which rallied support from Jefferson and the French government to Adams.^[55]

Presidency

Election of 1800 and first term

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.

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 owed his election victory to the South's inflated number of Electors, which counted slaves under the three-fifths compromise.^[56][57] 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."^[57]

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 by his supporters as the 'People's President' news of Jefferson's election was well received in many 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, 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.^[58]

As a result of his two predecessors, as well as the state of events in Europe, Jefferson inherited the presidency with relatively few urgent problems. Though he and his supporters attempted to dismantle several of the accomplishments of his two predecessors, notably the national bank, military, and federal taxation system, they were only partially successful.^[59]

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. 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. The Moroccan-American Treaty of Friendship stands as the U.S.'s oldest non-broken friendship treaty.^[60][61] 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. 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. 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.^[62]

Louisiana Purchase

In 1803 the United States under Jefferson bought the Louisiana Territory from France, doubling the size of the United States.^[63] As the exact boundaries of the territory were unsettled, England and Spain continued to make claims to parts of the territory until the time of president James Polk.^[64]

Changes to France's position in the Caribbean and Europe made her officials willing to sell the North American territory. Most of France's wealth in the New World came from its sugar plantations in the Caribbean. After France lost control of these colonies during the Haitian Revolution, the Louisiana territory ceased to be of any value to France, who at the time was escalating its war against the rest of Europe.^[65] 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 nobleman named Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours having close ties with both Jefferson and Napoleon, also helped negotiate the purchase with France. Napoleon offered to sell the entire territory for a price of $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 most thought that this opportunity could not be missed.^[66] 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.^[67]

Politically, the Louisiana Purchase would prove to be one of the most consequential executive decisions in American history. The territory was not finally secured until England and Mexico gave up their claims to northern and southern portions, respectively, during the presidency of James Polk. Without realizing it, at the time Jefferson had purchased one of the largest fertile tracts of land on the planet. As the purchase marked the end of French imperial ambitions in North America, the United States could develop a new national security strategy. Historians differ in their assessments as to who was the principal player in the purchase; the Jefferson biographer Peterson notes a range of opinion among those who credit Napoleon, or others who credit Jefferson, his secretary of state James Madison, and his negotiator James Monroe. Peterson agrees with Alexander Hamilton, Jefferson's arch rival, in attributing it to "dumb luck".^[68] Joseph Ellis, another major biographer of Jefferson, believes the events encompassed a variety of elements.^[69][70] The historian George Herring has said that while the purchase was somewhat the result of Jefferson and Madison's "shrewd and sometimes belligerent diplomacy", that it "is often and rightly regarded as a diplomatic windfall—the result of accident, luck, and the whim of Napoleon Bonaparte".^[71]

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, 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.^[72] 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.^[73]

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.^[74] Knowledge of the western part of the continent had been scant and incomplete, 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).^[75] 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 country and its natural resources, with details on the flora and fauna, as well as the many Indian tribes of the West with which he hoped to increase trading.^[76]

Jefferson also commissioned the Pike Expedition to explore the central region of the Louisiana Purchase, and the Red River Expedition, which was less successful.^[77][78]

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,^[79] 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."^[80] The Act would provide well-trained officers for a professional army. 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, to direct "the necessary arrangements, at that place for the commencement of the school."^[81] On July 4, 1802, the US Military Academy at West Point formally commenced its role as an institution for scientific and military learning.^[80]

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.^[82][83] He laid out an approach to Indian removal in a series of private letters that began in 1803.^[82] 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.^[82]

Jefferson originally intended that Natives should give up their own cultures, religions, and lifestyles in favor of western European culture, Christian religion, and a European-style agricultural lifestyle.^[82][83] Jefferson believed that assimilation of Native Americans into the European-American economy would make them more dependent on trade, and that they would eventually be willing to give up land that they would otherwise not part with, in exchange for trade goods or to resolve unpaid debts.^[84]

Jefferson believed assimilation was best for Native Americans; second best was removal to the west. The worst possible outcome would be Native Americans attacking the whites.^[85] He told his Secretary of War, General Henry Dearborn (who was the primary government official responsible for Indian affairs): "if we are constrained to lift the hatchet against any tribe, we will never lay it down until that tribe is exterminated, or driven beyond the Mississippi."^[86] With the colonial and native civilizations in collision, compounded by British incitement of Indian tribes and mounting hostilities between the two peoples, Jefferson's administration took quick measures to avert another major conflict. His deal with Georgia was part of measures to forcefully relocate the various Indian tribes to points further west.^[82]

1804 election and second term

In his second term, Jefferson's popularity suffered because the problems he faced, most notably those caused by the wars in Europe, became more difficult to solve. During Jefferson's first term, Napoleon's position was relatively weak and as such negotiations were possible. After Napoleon's decisive victory at the Battle of Austerlitz in 1805, however, Napoleon became much more aggressive and most attempts to negotiate with him were unsuccessful. Jefferson responded with the Embargo Act of 1807, which triggered economic chaos and was heavily criticized at the time, as it continues to be.^[87] Due to political attacks against him, in particular those by Alexander Hamilton and his supporters, he used the Alien and Sedition Acts to counter some of these political adversaries.^[88] 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.^[89][90] Also in 1807, the United States Congress 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.^[91][92] The act made international import and export of slaves a crime with severe punishments; it did not apply to the internal slave trade.

Embargo

The Embargo Act was passed in 1807 to maintain American neutrality in the Napoleonic Wars. Jefferson hoped to avoid national humiliation on the one hand, and war on the other. In the event he got both war and national humiliation; the economy of the entire Northeast suffered severely, Jefferson was vehemently denounced, and his party lost support. Instead of retreating Jefferson sent federal agents to secretly track down smugglers and violators.^[93][94]

The embargo was a financial disaster because the Americans could not export, while widespread disregard of the law meant enforcement was difficult. For the most part it effectively throttled American overseas trade. All areas of the United States suffered. In commercial New England and the Middle Atlantic states, ships rotted at the wharves, and in the agricultural areas, particularly in the South, farmers and planters could not dispose of their crops. Jefferson's Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin was against the entire embargo, foreseeing correctly the impossibility of enforcing the policy and the negative public reaction. "As to the hope that it may...induce England to treat us better," wrote Gallatin to Jefferson shortly after the bill had become law, "I think is entirely groundless...government prohibitions do always more mischief than had been calculated; and it is not without much hesitation that a statesman should hazard to regulate the concerns of individuals as if he could do it better than themselves."^[95]

Jefferson placed himself in a strange position with his embargo policy. Though he had so frequently argued for as small a federal government as possible, he now found the national government assuming extraordinary police powers in an attempt to enforce his policy. The presidential election of 1808, which James Madison won, showed that the Federalists were regaining strength, and helped to convince Congress that the Embargo would have to be repealed. Shortly before leaving office, in March 1809, Jefferson signed the repeal of the disastrous Embargo. In its place the Nonintercourse Act was enacted which proved no more effective than the Embargo, and it proved impossible to prevent American vessels from trading with the European belligerents once they had left American ports. Jefferson increasingly believed the problem was the greedy traders and merchants who lacked republican virtue by not complying.^[96]

Historians have generally given Jefferson poor marks on his embargo policy. Cogliano notes that the failure of the Embargo "reinforced the view that Jefferson had been lucky rather than adroit during the earlier negotiations."^[97] Doron Ben Atar argued that Jefferson's commercial and foreign policies were misguided, ineffective and harmful to American interests.^[98] Kaplan argued that the War of 1812 was the logical extension of his embargo, and that by entering the Napoleonic Wars on anti-British side, the United States deprived itself of the advantages of neutrality.^[99] Kaplan adds, "The results were a personal disaster for Jefferson and general malaise and confusion for the nation."^[100] Bradford Perkins concluded Jefferson was on this issue, "a wavering, miscalculating, and self-deluding man."^[101]

Other involvements

He obtained the repeal of some federal taxes in his bid to rely more on customs revenue, and dismantled much of the army and navy that he had inherited from Washington and Adams. He pardoned several people imprisoned under the Alien and Sedition Acts, passed in John Adams' term. He repealed the Judiciary Act of 1801, which removed nearly all of Adams' "midnight judges" from office. This quickly led to the Supreme Court deciding the important case of Marbury v. Madison. This also repealed a provision in the act that freed supreme court justices from having to constantly travel the country to serve as circuit court judges. This provision wasn't reinstated for another century, and its repeal under Jefferson ensured that justices would continue to bear heavy travel burdens throughout the nineteenth century. Jefferson also signed into law a bill that officially segregated the US postal system by not allowing blacks to carry mail.^[102]

Later years

By 1815, Jefferson's 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, the library's website for federal legislative information was named THOMAS.^[103][104] 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.^[105] 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.^[104]

University of Virginia

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, so less wealthy people could be educated as students.^[106] 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.

Jefferson is widely recognized 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. 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.

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, 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, 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. 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.^[107][108]

Death

Jefferson' health began to deteriorate by July 1825, and by June 1826 he was confined to bed. His death was from a combination of illnesses and conditions including uremia, severe diarrhea, and pneumonia.^[109][110] Jefferson died on July 4, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, and a few hours before John Adams.

Though born into a wealthy slave-owning family, Jefferson had many financial problems, and died deeply in debt.^[111] He gave instructions for disposal of his assets in his Will^[112] and after his death, his possessions (including more than 100 persons he held as slaves) were sold off in public auctions starting in 1827.^[111] Monticello was sold in 1831.

Thomas Jefferson is buried in the family cemetery at Monticello. The cemetery is separately owned and operated by the Monticello Association, a lineage society that is not affiliated with the Thomas Jefferson Foundation that runs the estate.

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.

Slavery

Jefferson's views on slavery changed throughout his life, and he could never be described as purely for or against it. Historians have noted that, in his earlier life, he often seemed to criticize the institution, though after his return from France, he became increasingly defensive of it.^[113] Christopher Hitchens credits Jefferson as a leader for abolishing the international slave trade, both for Virginia (1778) and the nation as a whole (1808).^[114] Mid-twentieth-century biographers, such as Dumas Malone and Merrill Peterson, portrayed Jefferson as anti-slavery for his statements about it and opposition to it as an institution, an early effort to try to end it in the territories, and the prohibition of the international slave trade in 1807. More recent historians, such as David Brion Davis and Paul Finkelman, have noted his lack of action to end slavery, and his failure to free the slaves he owned, even at his death. The historian Stephen Ambrose wrote that later in his life, Jefferson appeared to defend slavery based on his belief in the racial inferiority of blacks.^[115] Jefferson, like other elite planters of the South, depended on enslaved labor to support his household and his plantations.

Jefferson first spoke out against slavery in 1774; his opposition to it was well known by 1776, when he was chosen to draft the Declaration of Independence.^[116] Junius P. Rodriguez says, "All aspects of Jefferson's public career suggest an opposition to slavery."^[117] Peter Onuf points to "his well-known opposition to slavery, most famously expressed in... his Notes on the state of Virginia (1785).^[118] Jefferson called slavery an "abominable crime," and a "moral depravity". David Brion Davis said that by 1784, when Jefferson was a Virginia delegate to the Congress of the Confederation, he was "one of the first statesman in any part of the world to advocate concrete measures for restricting and eradicating Negro slavery."^[119] 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."^{[113] [120]} 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."^[121]

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.^[122][123] At the request of delegates from South Carolina and Georgia, this language was dropped from the Declaration.

From the mid-1770s, Jefferson advocated a plan of gradual emancipation, in Virginia, by which children of slaves would be freed.^[124][125] But he never advanced legislation for it while in the assembly.^[121] Jefferson believed that free blacks should be deported to Africa and replaced with white settlers. He feared free blacks would encourage rebellion by slaves against whites. He proposed policies to prepare slaves for freedom: education, emancipation, and transportation of the freedmen to Africa.^[126][127]

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."^[128] Many slave owners opposed the international slave trade, while still supporting slavery. Ending the importation benefited slaveholders because it increased the value of slaves and decreased the chances of slave rebellion associated with new arrivals.^[129][130]

As a Virginia legislator, Jefferson failed to lead on gradual emancipation; he discouraged efforts to include it in law. But, after he left the Assembly, in 1782 Virginia "easily adopted a law allowing private manumission."^[121] Maryland and Delaware passed similar laws as part of the post-Revolutionary War trend toward increased freedoms.^[131] 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.^[132] In Delaware, 75 percent of blacks were free by 1810.^[133] 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; and he freed his younger brother James Hemings in 1796, after requiring him to train a younger brother Peter for three years as a chef.^[134]

In 1784, as the Virginia delegate to the Continental Congress, Jefferson wrote an ordinance banning slavery in all the nation's territories (not just the Northwest), but it failed by one vote. The subsequent Northwest Ordinance prohibited slavery in the newly organized territory, but it did nothing to free slaves who were already held by settlers there. Jefferson was in France when the law was passed.^[135] At the time of the Louisiana Purchase, slavery already existed in the vast territory. In December 1806 in his presidential message to Congress, Jefferson called for a law to ban the international slave trade. With his signature of the law, the international trade was prohibited beginning in January 1808. By that time, only South Carolina among the states had been openly importing slaves. Illegal smuggling continued for decades.^[136]

Views about slaves and blacks

Jefferson inherited slaves as a child, and owned upwards of 700 different people at one time or another.^[137] The historian Herbert E. Sloan says that Jefferson's debt prevented his freeing his slaves,^[138] 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.^[121]

As was typical of planters, Jefferson broke up families when he gave slaves to his sisters and daughters as wedding presents. He considered children over the age of 10 or 12, when they began working on the plantation, as ready to leave their families.^[139] For instance, he gave the 14-year-old Betsy Hemmings, a mixed-race slave, and 30 other slaves to his daughter Mary Jefferson Eppes and her husband on the occasion of their marriage.^[140] From 1784–1794, he gave away or sold 161 slaves from Monticello.^[139]

Some former slaves from Monticello gave accounts of their lives there. Isaac Jefferson (born 1775) was interviewed in 1847 as a free man by the author and historian Charles Campbell. The material was not published until 1951, with Raymond Logan as editor of Memoirs of a Monticello Slave.^[141] Isaac Jefferson's account provided valuable details to historians about daily life and family relationships at Monticello.^[142][143] In 1873 Madison Hemings (who stated he and his siblings were Thomas Jefferson's children by Sally Hemings), and Israel Jefferson, who confirmed Madison's account, published accounts of their lives at Monticello.^[144][145]

According to the historian Stephen Ambrose: "Jefferson, like all slaveholders and many others, regarded Negroes as inferior, childlike, untrustworthy and, of course, as property."^[115] He believed they were inferior to whites in reasoning, mathematical comprehension, and imagination. Jefferson thought these "differences" were "fixed in nature" and was not dependent on their freedom or education.^[126] He thought such differences created "innate inferiority of Blacks compared to Whites". In Notes on the State of Virginia, Jefferson claimed that blacks prefer the beauty of whites over other blacks, and cited "the preferences of the Orangutan for the black woman over those of his own species".^[146]

Jefferson did not believe that African Americans could live in American society as free people together with whites.^[147] For a long-term solution, he thought that slaves should be freed after reaching maturity and having repaid their owner's investment; 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.^[148] 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."^[149]

In 1809, he wrote to Abbé Grégoire, who had published a book arguing 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.^[150][151] In August 1814 the planter Edward Coles and Jefferson corresponded about Coles' ideas on emancipation. Jefferson discouraged Coles from freeing his slaves, but the younger man took them to the Illinois country and freed them. He had also purchased land for the freedmen so they could have their own plots for farming.^[152]

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, 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.^[153][154]

Jefferson was an accomplished architect who helped popularize the Neo-Palladian style in the United States. 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.^[155]

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, a machinist, aided Jefferson with the clock. Jefferson invented a 15 cm long coded wooden cipher 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.^[156]

As Minister to France, Jefferson was impressed by France's military standardization program known as the Système Gribeauval and later as president initiated a program at the Federal Armories to develop interchangeable parts for firearms.^[157] Although not realized in Jefferson's lifetime, interchangeable parts eventually led to modern industry and was a major factor in the United States' industrial power by the late 19th century.

Political philosophy and views

Jefferson idealized the independent yeoman as the best exemplar of republican virtues, distrusted cities and financiers, and favored states' rights and a strictly limited federal government, though he suspended his qualms to buy Louisiana. Jefferson detested the European system of established churches and called for a wall of separation between church and state at the federal level; he helped disestablish the Anglican Church in Virginia, and was the author of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom (1779, 1786). Jefferson is often accredited for Jeffersonian democracy; his Democratic-Republican Party, dominated American politics for 25 years. 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).^[158] 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.^[159] 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..."^[160] 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.

Society and government

Gordon Wood has argued that Jefferson's political philosophy was a product of his time and his scientific interests. His political thinking was in some respects Newtonian, and he saw social systems as analogous to physical systems.^[161] Under this philosophy, love takes the place in the social world that gravity does in the physical world, so that all people are naturally attracted to each other, and it is dependence that corrupts this attraction and results in political problems.^[161] Wood argues that, though the phrase "all men are created equal" was a cliché in the late 18th century,^[161] Jefferson took it further than most. Jefferson held that not only are all men created equal, but they remain equal throughout their lives, equally capable of this attractive love, and that it is their level of dependence that make them unequal in practice. Thus, removing all this corrupting dependence would make all men equal in practice.^[161] Thus, Jefferson idealized a future relatively devoid of dependence, in particular those caused by banking or royal influences.^[161]

Americans at the time typically thought of virtue as being the "glue" that held together a republic, where as patronage, dependency and coercion held together a monarchy. "Virtue" in this sense was public virtue, in particular self-sacrifice. It was thought that any dependence would corrupt this impulse, by making people more subservient to their patrons than the society at large. This derived from the British conception of the nobility, that they lived passively off rents and were devoid of dependence, allowing them to more easily sacrifice for the society at large. Americans thus reasoned that liberty and republicanism could only exist in a virtuous society, which meant that the society had to be devoid of dependence and extensive patronage networks which corrupted this virtue.^[161] Jefferson's ideal of a yeoman farmer (or even a slave owning planter) personified this type of independence. While Jefferson believed most in a society could not escape this corrupting dependence, the franchise need only be extended to those who could. It was out of this fear of dependence and patronage that Jefferson developed his dislike of entrenched influences, be they banking, government, or military. He also disliked inter-generational dependence, as well as its manifestations, such as national debt and unalterable governments. It was thus the root of his opposition to Hamilton's consolidated banking and military plans.^[161] Wood argues that Hamilton favored these plans for the same reason Jefferson feared them, only Hamilton saw this as allowing future American greatness, just as it had done in England, whereas Jefferson feared the loss of liberty and had no desire for such future imperial greatness.^[161]

During the late 1780s, James Madison had grown to think this self-interested dependence could be filtered out of a government, though Jefferson didn't shift in this direction so he continued to idealize the yeoman farmer.^[161] Whereas Madison became disillusioned with what he saw as excessive democracy in the states, Jefferson assumed that these excesses were caused by institutional corruptions caused by dependency, and so he remained less suspicious of democracy than many of his contemporaries.^[161] Wood argues that as president, Jefferson partially implemented this idea by attempting to re-create the balance under the Articles of Confederation. This was done by attempting to deconstruct much of what had been constructed under his predecessors, and thus shifting the balance of power back to the states. Wood argues that this wasn't out of a fear of government per se, but Jefferson's classical republican conception that liberty could only be retained in small, homogeneous societies, and that the Federalist system enacted by Washington and Adams had encouraged corrupting patronage and dependence.^[161] According to Wood, Jefferson didn't typically contradict this philosophy, and many of his apparent contradictions can be understood within this philosophical framework. For example, his desire to deny women the franchise was rooted in his belief that a government must be controlled by the independent, and in the 18th century women were assumed to be dependent by their nature. Like almost all political thinkers of his day 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."^[162]

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.^[163][164] As historian Vernon Louis Parrington concluded in 1927:

"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."^[165]

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, 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.^[166] Gordon Wood argued that Jefferson's philosophy of liberty personified American ideals.^[167] Public education and a free press was essential to a democratic nation: "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".^[168]

Foreign policy

According to Tucker and Hendrickson (1992) Jefferson believed America "was the bearer of a new diplomacy, founded on the confidence of a free and virtuous people, that would secure ends based on the natural and universal rights of man, by means that escaped war and its corruptions." Jefferson sought a radical break from the traditional European emphasis on "reason of state" (which could justify any action) and the traditional priority of foreign policy and the needs of the ruling family over the needs of the people.^[169]

Jefferson envisaged America becoming the world's great "empire of liberty"--that is, the model for democracy and republicanism. He identified his nation as a beacon to the world, for, he said on departing the presidency in 1809, America was:

"Trusted with the destinies of this solitary republic of the world, the only monument of human rights, and the sole depository of the sacred fire of freedom and self-government, from hence it is to be lighted up in other regions of the earth, if other regions of the earth shall ever become susceptible of its benign influence."^[170]

He saw Britain as America's great enemy because it was the base for successful aristocracy and antipathy to democracy, while France, at least in the early stages of the French Revolution, appeared to Jefferson to be an ideal solution to Europe's malaise. He said, "The liberty of the whole world was depending on the issue of the contest."^[171] He never wanted war. The paradox was that Britain was much more powerful and was the leading trading partner of the U.S., so that the sort of economic warfare he proposed would hurt the American economy.^[172]

Rebellion

While in France in the 1780s, Jefferson increasingly saw occasional upheaval as a natural and productive 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...It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government."^[173] 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."^[173] 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? The tree of liberty must from time to time be refreshed with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."^[174] 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."^[173]

Relationships

Jefferson-Hemings controversy

Rumors beginning in the 1790s suggested that Jefferson, after the death of his wife, had an intimate relationship with his mixed-race slave, Sally Hemings, and fathered six of children of record. The Jefferson family denied these rumors and assertions, and historians generally felt that there was insufficient proof for them. In the late twentieth century historians began reanalyzing the body of evidence.^[175] A consensus began to emerge after the results of a DNA analysis in 1998, which showed no match between the Carr male line, long proposed as possible father(s), and the one Hemings descendant tested. The analysis did show a match between the Jefferson male line and the Hemings descendant.

Since then, many historians, including major biographers such as Joseph Ellis and institutions such as the National Park Service^[176], have accepted that the widower Jefferson had a long intimate relationship with Hemings, and fathered six children with her, four of whom survived to adulthood. The Thomas Jefferson Foundation (TJF), which runs Monticello, conducted an independent historic review in 2000, as did the National Genealogical Society in 2001; both concluded Jefferson was likely the father of all Hemings' children.^[177][178] Critics, such as the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society (TJHS) Scholars Commission (2001), have argued against the TJF report. They have concluded that there is insufficient evidence to determine that Jefferson was the father of Hemings's children. The TJHS report suggested that Jefferson's younger brother Randolph Jefferson could have been the father, and that Hemings may have had multiple partners.^[179]

Maria Cosway

During his time in Paris as Minister to France, Jefferson became attached to Maria Cosway, an English artist, musician and composer. She was a highly educated, married woman with whom he fell in love. They were close and had some relationship about which biographers have speculated; she became part of his intimate circle of friends, and they spent nearly each day together over a six-week period. Biographers such as Joseph Ellis and Andrew Burstein have speculated about the relationship. In 1786 when Cosway returned to London, Jefferson wrote a 4,000-word love letter to her, which has become known as his "Dialogue of the Head vs. the Heart".^[180] After Jefferson left Paris, he and Cosway continued as friends and had a lifelong correspondence.^[181] (See the link for a 1785 engraving of Maria Cosway, which is now part of the collection at Monticello. [1]). Each saved their letters from the other.^[176] Similarly, Jefferson kept at Monticello an engraving of Maria done by Luigi Schiavonetti, from a drawing by Richard Cosway.^[182][183] In turn, Cosway had Trumbull create a portrait of Jefferson which she kept.^[184]

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 Deism and the moral philosophy of Christianity.

In a private letter to Benjamin Rush, 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..."^[185] In a letter to his close friend William Short Jefferson clarified, "it is not to be understood that I am with him [Jesus] in all his doctrines. I am a Materialist; he takes the side of Spiritualism; he preaches the efficacy of repentance toward forgiveness of sin; I require a counterpoise of good works to redeem it. Among the sayings and discourses imputed to him by his biographers, I find many passages of fine imagination, correct morality, and of the most lovely benevolence; and others, again, of so much ignorance, of so much absurdity, so much untruth and imposture, as to pronounce it impossible that such contradictions should have proceeded from the same being."^[186]

Jefferson praised the morality of Jesus and edited a compilation of his teachings leaving out the miracles.^[187] 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."^[188]

Jefferson rejected the idea of immaterial beings and considered the idea of an immaterial Creator a heresy introduced into Christianity. In a letter to John Adams, Jefferson wrote that to "talk of immaterial existences is to talk of nothings. . . . 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 ancient fathers generally, if not universally, held it to be matter: light and thin indeed, an etherial gas; but still matter."^[189]

Legacy

Memorials and Honors

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".^[190]

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.^[191] 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.^[192]

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.^[193]

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.^[194] Other memorials to Jefferson include the commissioning of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ship Thomas Jefferson in Norfolk, 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

Jefferson has often been seen as a major American icon of liberty, democracy and republicanism.^[195] Many have hailed him as one of the most articulate spokesmen of the American Revolution, and as a renaissance man who promoted science and scholarship. In the past, historians often rated him among the top ten presidents, though they have become increasingly critical of him in recent decades.^[196][197] He is seen by many as having championed a political philosophy that has retained its power over the centuries.^[198] Abraham Lincoln cited Jefferson when articulating his own philosophy of liberty and equality in the battle against slavery.^[199][200] Lincoln used the natural rights precepts of the Declaration of Independence as his guide to a better Union.^[201] He once said that Jefferson was "the most distinguished politician in our history."^[202]

During the New Deal era of the 1930s, Democrats honored Jefferson and Andrew Jackson as their party's founding fathers and continued inspiration. He was portrayed as the spokesman for democracy and the common man and arch foe of Hamilton, portrayed as the front man for bankers and aristocrats.^[203] President Franklin D. Roosevelt took the lead in building his monument in Washington.

The historian Gordon S. Wood has noted how the views of Jefferson and the other founders have changed as the values of the modern age have changed. He argues that during the progressive era of the late 19th and early 20th century, when scholars saw revolutionary America as a struggle between "haves" and "have nots", Jefferson's reputation reached new heights as his presidency was seen as the final defeat of the moneyed classes. Wood argues that this predominated until the 1940s, when the progressive era view fell from favor, and Jefferson's reputation declined from its prior heights. As modern historians see slavery as a greater evil than the mercantilism that Jefferson's adversaries championed, Wood argues, Jefferson's legacy in recent decades has come under further scrutiny and criticism.^[204]

Together with the Civil Rights Movement, widespread cultural changes in the United States have led a new generation of historians to reassess Jefferson and other early leaders of the republic. Historians such as Richard Drinnon and David Stannard noted Jefferson's harsh treatment of Native Americans. Some Jefferson biographers and historians of the era, such as David Brion Davis, have been more concerned for the contrast between his statements about the equality of men and lack of action to end or ameliorate slavery. John Chester Miller, Paul Finkelman and Nicholas Magnis have noted that Jefferson opposed a biracial society. Jefferson's legacy as a champion of Enlightenment ideals has been challenged by modern historians,^[205] who find his continued ownership of hundreds of slaves at Monticello to be in conflict with his stated views on freedom and the equality of men. The 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 rationalized being a slave owner and defender of freedom since he believed blacks were inferior and needed supervision.^[205] In addition, the academic consensus that Jefferson had a long-term relationship with his slave Sally Hemings and a "shadow family" with her, demonstrates that he was a man of his times, with deep contradictions.

Writings

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

See also

• Jeffersonian democracy
• Maria Cosway
• Monticello Association
• Uriah P. Levy
• Jefferson Levy
• France in the American Revolutionary War
• Founding Fathers of the United States
• US Presidents on US postage stamps
• List of Presidents of the United States

Notes

Bibliography

Main article: Bibliography of Thomas Jefferson

Biographical

Politics and ideas

Religion

Legacy and historiography

Primary sources

External links

• Thomas Jefferson at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Thomas Jefferson: A Resource Guide at the Library of Congress
• Thomas Jefferson Papers: An Electronic Archive at the Massachusetts Historical Society
• Thomas Jefferson collection at the University of Virginia Library
• Thomas Jefferson at the White House
• Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) at LibraryThing
• Thomas Jefferson at the Online Library of Liberty, Liberty Fund
• Thomas Jefferson Memorial, Washington, D.C., National Park Service
  • Thomas Jefferson's Plan for the University of Virginia: Lessons from the Lawn, a National Park Service Teaching with Historic Places (TwHP) lesson plan
• Monticello, home of Thomas Jefferson
• Poplar Forest, Jefferson's second home in Virginia
• Thomas Jefferson at American Presidents: Life Portraits, C-SPAN
• "Jefferson's Blood". Producer, director, writer: Thomas Lennon; Writer: Shelby Steele. Frontline. PBS. 2 May 2000.
• The Papers of Thomas Jefferson at the Avalon Project
• Works by Thomas Jefferson at Project Gutenberg