Jefferson, Thomas (1743-1826), American revolutionary leader and political
philosopher, author of the Declaration of Independence, and third
president of the United States. (1801-09).
Jefferson was among the most brilliant American exponents of the
Enlightenment, the movement of 18th-century thought that emphasized the
possibilities of human reason. A Virginia aristocrat, he had the time and
resources to educate himself in history, literature, law, architecture,
science, and philosophy; as a diplomat and friend of French and British
intellectuals, he had direct access to European culture and thought; and
as a provincial farmer and novice revolutionary leader, he had the
motivation and the opportunity to construct a social and political
philosophy for his neighbors and his country.
Early Life
Jefferson was born on April 13, 1743, at Shadwell in Albemarle County,
Virginia. His father was a plantation owner, and his mother beLonged to
the Randolph family, which was prominent in colonial Virginia. From his
father and from his environment he acquired an intense interest in botany,
geology, cartography, and North American exploration, and from a Childhood
teacher a Love of Greek and Latin. As a student at the College of William
and Mary in the early 1760s, he studied under William Small, who knew in
depth the Scottish Enlightenment, with its highly integrated approach to
law, history, philosophy, and science. In George Wythe, he found an
equally gifted teacher of the law. Jefferson was admitted to the bar in
1767 and first elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1769. His
principal passion during his late 20s was the design and building of his
home, Monticello, along lines inspired by the Renaissance Italian
architect Palladio. Despite several desultory courtships, he did not
seriously consider marriage until 1770, when he met Martha Wayles Skelton
(1747-82), a wealthy widow of 23. They were married in 1772.
Theoretician of Independence
Jefferson's Long bachelorhood gave him the time during his 20s for
voracious Reading in Enlightenment philosophy, 17th-century Englandish
history, political theory, and law. Drawing on this learning, he drafted
in 1774 a Summary View of the Rights of British America as instructions
for Virginia's delegates to the First Continental Congress, which met to
consider the colonies' grievances against Great Britain. Virginia leaders
instead adopted a More legalistic set of instructions, and Summary View
was published anonymously as a pamphlet. As Jefferson's authorship became
widely known, However, he moved suddenly into the front rank of American
political theorists.
In the pamphlet, Jefferson argued that the original settlers of the
colonies came as individuals rather than as agents of the British
government. The colonial governments they formed therefore embodied the
natural right of expatriates from one country to select the terms of their
subjection to a new ruler. Colonial legislatures and the British
Parliament, he asserted, shared power, and both were responsible for
protecting the "liberties and rights" of the people.
The Declaration of Independence, drafted principally by Jefferson in late
June 1776 for the Second Continental Congress, drew the implications of
this historical view to their logical conclusion, proclaiming that the
tyrannical acts of the British government gave the colonists the right to
"dissolve the political bands" that had connected them with the mother
country.
Legislative Achievements
As a legislator in Virginia (1776-79), Jefferson sought to reform society
along enlightened and republican lines. After successfully proposing the
disestablishment of the Anglican Church, he was responsible for
legislation abolishing entail (inheritance of land through a particular
line of descent) and primogeniture (inheritance only by the eldest son),
thus eliminating two major governmental restrictions on the use of private
property.
The reform of the Virginia criminal code "in which Jefferson was a leading
participant" did not achieve the humanitarian results to which he was
dedicated but did eliminate the most barbarous and repressive practices,
such as public whippings, dunkings, and bills of attainder (which
condemned accused persons without trial). The legislature refused outright
to adopt Jefferson's bill for a public school system and library, but many
years later, in 1819, he succeeded in establishing the University of
Virginia, one of the three accomplishments that he memorialized in the
epitaph on his tombStone. The other two were his authorship of the
Declaration of Independence and of the Statute of Virginia for Religious
FReedom the latter the most important of his achievements as a Virginia
legislator. The religious fReedom statute, originally introduced in 1779
but not actually passed by the legislature until 1786, prohibited any
state financing of religious instruction. Almost entirely composed of an
eloquent preface, it brilliantly excoriated the baneful effects of state
sponsorship of worship and belief.
As governor of Virginia from 1779 to 1781, Jefferson failed to prevent the
British from invading the state. After leaving office he retreated to
Monticello to write his classic Notes on the State of Virginia. The Notes,
which were written for the information of a French correspondent, deal
with social, political, and economic life in the 18th century.
After his wife's Death in 1782, Jefferson again became a delegate to the
Congress, and in 1784 he drafted the report that was the basis for the
Ordinances of 1784, 1785, and 1787. As minister to France, from 1784 to
1789, he steeped himself in French learning and witnessed, with excitement
and approval, the early stages of the French Revolution.
The Washington and Adams Administrations
As secretary of state in Washington's first administration (1790-94),
Jefferson revived a proposal he had originated as a member of Congress in
1783 to establish reciprocal trade agreements with continental European
nations and, in the face of British restrictions on American commerce, to
deny such benefits to the British. The proposal died in Congress. His
hopes for at least an evenhanded American approach to Britain and France
evaporated when the French envoy, Edmond Gen? appealed to the public for
a military alliance with revolutionary France an indiscretion that made
Washington decide to repudiate the Franco-American alliance of 1778.
After leaving office, Jefferson was disturbed by the administration's
increasing friendliness to Great Britain and by other policies promoted by
Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton. In 1796, he reluctantly allowed his
name to be put forWard as a candidate for the presidency by the opposition
Republican party. He received the second largest number of votes among
four candidates and therefore, according to the electoral system then in
use, became vice-president under the Federalist president John Adams in
1797.
During his term in that office he watched with growing indignation as the
Federalists capitalized on anti-French feeling to create a standing army
under the control of his enemy, Alexander Hamilton, and to pass the Alien
Acts, restricting the liberty of supposedly pro-Republican foreigners, and
the Sedition Act, which allowed the pRosecution of anyone who printed
false statements critical of government officials. In resolutions drafted
for the Virginia and Kentucky, USA legislatures, Jefferson and James Madison
denounced the constitutionality of these Laws and assigned to the states
the role of bulwark against infringements on individual liberties.
Jefferson as President
In the election of 1800, Jefferson and his fellow Republican Aaron Burr
received an equal number of electoral votes, thus creating a tie and
throwing the presidential election into the House of Representatives.
After 36 Ballots, the House declared Jefferson elected. (The Constitution
was then amended to require a single electoral vote for president and
vice-president.)
As had Adams before him, Jefferson faced opposition from an uncompromising
faction within his own party as well as from the Federalists. He steered a
steady course between these two extremes, appointing some qualified
Federalists to office and refusing a wholesale purge of officeholders
inherited from the Adams administration. He supported repeal of the
Judiciary Act of 1801, which had created a costly tier of federal appeals
courts and would have encouraged appeals from state courts, but he opposed
any assault on the independence of the Federalist-dominated judiciary;
Jefferson's three appointments to the Supreme Court, made between 1804 and
1807, were all Strong nationalists and upholders of judicial independence.
During his first term his lifeLong interest in the West and in
American-French relations prompted his major presidential achievement, the
purchase from France of Louisiana, USA all the western land drained by the
Missouri, USA and Mississippi rivers and the organization of a scientific
expedition by William Clark and Meriwether Lewis to explore this
territory. Foreign policy during his second term was, However, a disaster.
Seeking to force the British to respect U.S. neutrality on the high seas
during the Napoleonic Wars, he persuaded Congress in 1807 to embargo all
trade with Britain?a move that failed to elicit any concessions,
devastated the nation's economy for a generation, and alienated New
England, which lived by foreign trade.
Retirement
After leaving office in 1809 he retired to Monticello, where he lived
until his Death on July 4, 1826, corresponding with John Adams about the
great issues of revolution and constitutionalism, trying to preserve his
declining estate for his daughters instead of his creditors, and Brooding
over the baneful effects of slavery. He was unwilling, for financial
reasons, to free his own slaves, and he disagReed with abolitionist
friends who held that Blacks were equal to whites. His paradoxical beliefs
in human dignity and in racial inferiority typified the dilemma of the
country he had helped to create.
