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Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743–July 4, 1826) was the third (1801–1809) President of the United States and an American statesman, ambassador to France, political philosopher, revolutionary, agriculturalist, horticulturist, land owner, architect, archaeologist, and author. Jefferson was, many historians believe, among the most brilliant men ever to occupy the Presidency. President John F. Kennedy welcomed 49 Nobel Prize winners to the White House in 1962, saying, "I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone."
Biographical informationJefferson's parents were Peter Jefferson (March 29, 1708–August 17, 1757) and Jane Randolph (February 20, 1720–March 31, 1776), both from families who had settled in Virginia for several generations. He attended and then attempted to institute many reforms at the College of William & Mary — where he was a member of the secret Flat Hat Club — before founding his own vision of higher education at the University of Virginia. He was the primary author of the Declaration of Independence, and a source of many other contributions to American culture. Achievements of his presidency include the Louisiana Purchase and the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Jefferson himself designed his famous home, Monticello, near Charlottesville, Virginia; it included automatic doors and other convenient devices invented by Jefferson. Nearby is the University of Virginia, the original architecture and curriculum of which Jefferson also designed. Frank E. Grizzard, Jr., a scholar at the University of Virginia, has written the definitive book on the original buildings, or Academical Village (http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/grizzard), at the University of Virginia.  Jefferson's interests included archaeology, a discipline then in its infancy. He has sometimes been called the "father of archaeology" in recognition of his role in developing excavation techniques. When exploring an Indian burial mound on his Virginia estate in 1784, Jefferson avoided the common practice of simply digging downwards until something turned up. Instead, he cut a wedge out of the mound so that he could walk into it, look at the layers of occupation, and draw conclusions from them. Jefferson was also an avid wine lover and noted gourmet. During his ambassadorship to France (1784-9) he took extensive trips through French and other European wine regions and sent the best back to the White House. He is noted for the bold pronouncement "We could in the United States make as great a variety of wines as are made in Europe, not exactly of the same kinds, but doubtless as good." While there were extensive vineyards planted at Monticello, a significant portion were of the European wine grape Vitis vinifera and did not survive the many vine diseases native to the Americas. Thus, Jefferson himself was never able to produce wine on par with Europe. However, it seems likely that he would be pleased with the quantity and quality of wine now being made in Virginia, to say nothing of the rest of the country.   Jefferson's idea for the United States was that of an agricultural nation of yeoman farmers, in contrast to the vision of Alexander Hamilton, who envisioned a nation of commerce and manufacturing. Jefferson was a great believer in the uniqueness and the potential of the United States and is often classified a forefather of American exceptionalism (see also exceptionalism). His personal records show he owned 187 slaves. A subject of considerable controversy since Jefferson's own time was whether Jefferson was the father of any of the children of his slave Sally Hemings. A modern look at this relationship is by Shannon Fair in his book Jefferson's Children (ISBN 0375805974). DNA evidence has suggested that Thomas Jefferson may have fathered at least one of Hemings' children. Jefferson was the first secretary of state of the United States, serving from 1789 until 1795. He was also the second vice president of the United States, under John Adams from 1797 until 1801, achieving that position after getting second place in the presidential election of 1796. An electoral tie resulted between Jefferson and his opponent Aaron Burr in the U.S. presidential election, 1800. It was resolved on February 17, 1801 when Jefferson was elected President and Burr Vice President by the United States House of Representatives. Jefferson was the only Vice President elected to the Presidency to serve two full terms. Jefferson's portrait appears on the U.S. $2 bill and the U.S. 5 cent piece, or nickel. Jefferson also appears on the $100 Series EE Savings Bond. Thomas Jefferson is buried on his Monticello estate. Jefferson's epitaph, written by Jefferson with an insistence that only his words and "not a word more" be inscribed, reads,
Events during his Presidency
Appearance, temperament and interestsJefferson was about six feet (183 cm) in height, large-boned, slim, erect and sinewy. He had angular features, a very ruddy complexion, sandy hair and hazel-flecked, grey eyes. Age lessened the unattractiveness of his exterior. In later years he was negligent in dress and loose in bearing. There was grace, nevertheless, in his manners; and his frank and earnest address, his quick sympathy (yet he seemed cold to strangers), his vivacious, desultory, informing talk gave him an engaging charm. Beneath a quiet surface he was fairly aglow with intense convictions and a very emotional temperament. Yet he seems to have acted habitually, in great and little things, on system. His mind, no less trenchant and subtle than Hamilton's, was the most impressible, the most receptive, mind of his time in America. The range of his interests is remarkable. For many years he was president of the American Philosophical Society. Though it is a biographical tradition that he lacked wit, Molière and Don Quixote seem to have been his favorites; and though the utilitarian wholly crowds romanticism out of his writings, he had enough of that quality in youth to prepare to learn Gaelic in order to translate Ossian, and sent to Macpherson for the originals! His interest in art was evidently intellectual. He was singularly sweet-tempered, and shrank from the impassioned political bitterness that raged about him; bore with relative equanimity a flood of coarse and malignant abuse of his motives, morals, religion, personal honesty and decency; cherished very few personal animosities; and better than any of his great antagonists cleared political opposition of ill-blooded personality. In short, his kindness of heart rose above all social, religious or political differences, and nothing destroyed his confidence in men and his sanguine views of life. Religious viewsOn matters of religion, Jefferson was sometimes accused by his political opponents as being an atheist; however, he was actually most sympathetic to Deism, a philosophy which he shared with many other notable intellectuals of his time. Jefferson believed in a creator, and in the United States Declaration of Independence refers to "Nature's God". Jefferson believed, furthermore, that Nature's God endowed humanity with a number of inalienable natural rights, such as "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" (see id.). However, "Nature's God", in Jefferson's view, was not a being to be worshipped through the practice of religion, but to be understood, if possible, through reason and science. Jefferson was raised Episcopalian at a time when the Episcopal Church was the state religion in Virginia. Before the American Revolution, when the Episcopal Church was the American branch of the Anglican Church of England, Jefferson was a vestryman in his local church, a lay position that was part of political office at the time. He later removed his name from those available to become godparents, because his Deist beliefs opposed Trinitarian theology. Jefferson later expressed general agreement with his friend Joseph Priestley's Unitarianism, but there were no Unitarian churches in Virginia. From 1784 to 1786 Jefferson and James Madison worked together to oppose Patrick Henry's attempts to again assess taxes in Virginia to support churches. Instead, in 1786 the Virginia General Assembly passed Jefferson's Bill for Religious Freedom, which he had first submitted in 1779, and was one of only three accomplishments he put in his own epitaph. Virginia thereby became the first state to disestablish religion — Rhode Island, Delaware, and Pennsylvania never having had established religion. Like most Deists, Jefferson did not believe in miracles. At one point he edited the Gospels to remove all reference to the miracles of Jesus and material he considered overly religious, leaving only Jesus' moral philosophy, of which he approved. This compilation was published after his death and became known as the Jefferson Bible, later printed in some 2,500 copies for the U.S. Congress in 1903. Though Jefferson did not believe in the divinity of Jesus, he had high esteem for Jesus' moral teachings, which he viewed as the "principles of a pure deism, and juster notions of the attributes of God, to reform [prior Jewish] moral doctrines to the standard of reason, justice & philanthropy, and to inculcate the belief of a future state." (Letter to Joseph Priestley, April 9, 1803.) Jefferson also supported the erection of what he called a "wall of separation between Church and State", which he believed was a principle expressed within the First Amendment (see Letter to the Danbury (Connecticut) Baptist Association, 1802, Letter to Virginia Baptists, 1808). There is some controversy surrounding what Jefferson meant by this "wall of separation". During his presidency, Jefferson refused to issue proclamations calling for days of prayer and thanksgiving. Moreover, his private letters indicate he was skeptical of too much interference by clergy in matters of civil government. His letters contain the following observations: "History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government" (Letter to Alexander von Humboldt, December 6, 1813), and, "In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own" (Letter to Horatio G. Spafford, March 17, 1814). "May it be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all), the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government" (Letter to Roger C. Weightman June 24, 1826). On the other hand, there is one enigmatic anecdote by the Rev. Ethan Allen (1797-1879) in which Allen claimed to have seen Jefferson walking to church one Sunday with a large red prayer book under his arm. Allen claimed he overheard Jefferson say to a friend who had challenged him for going to church when he did not believe: "[N]o nation has ever yet existed or been governed without religion. Nor can be. The Christian religion is the best religion that has ever been given to man and I as chief Magistrate of this nation am bound to give it the sanction of my example. Good morning sir." (handwritten history of Rev. Ethan Allen, Library of Congress). This anecdote, if true, would seem to contradict the statements Jefferson made in his personal letters. Moreover, Rev. Allen was only 12 when Jefferson retired the presidency. There is, therefore, some controversy regarding how accurately Allen's diary entry reflects Jefferson's views. Clearly, however, Jefferson's desire to erect a "wall of separation" did not include a desire to inhibit the personal religious lives of public officials. Jefferson himself attended certain public Christian services during his presidency. He also had friends who were clergy, and he supported some churches financially. Moreover, he personally believed, as did Deist and humanist John Locke, that human rights were endowed by a God: "Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are a gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever" (Notes on the State of Virginia, 1781-1785 Query 18). Though not religious himself, he viewed religious opinions in others, including public officials, as a purely personal matter with which the state should not interfere:
InfluencesJefferson was influenced heavily by the ideas of Polish brethren. Englishman John Bidle had translated two works by one of the Polish Brethren, Samuel Przypkowski; he also translated the Racovian Catechism and a work by J. Stegmann, a "Polish Brother" from Germany. Bidle's followers had very close relations with the Polish Socinian family of Crellius (aka Spinowski). John Bidle was a pioneer of Unitarianism in England. Subsequently, many of the ideas of the Polish Brethren were continued in English-speaking countries by Unitarian congregations -- most notably, by Joseph Priestley, who had emigrated to the U. S. A. and was a friend of both James Madison and Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson's political principles were also heavily influenced by John Locke ( particularly relating to the principles of inalienable rights and popular sovereignty) and by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Cabinet
Supreme Court appointmentsJefferson appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:
Writings
Further reading
Related articles
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This article incorporates text from the public domain 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica.
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