Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826) was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer and architect who served as the third President of the United States from 1801 to 1809. The principal author of the Declaration of Independence, he articulated the founding language of American republicanism while himself holding hundreds of people in slavery, a contradiction that remains central to assessments of his life. [1][2]
Early life and education
Jefferson was born on 13 April 1743 at Shadwell, a plantation in the colony of Virginia, into a wealthy planter family. He studied at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, where he read widely in classical literature, natural science and law, and afterwards trained as a lawyer under George Wythe. [1]
He entered Virginia's House of Burgesses in 1769 and began building Monticello, the hilltop house he designed and rebuilt over decades, which became a lasting expression of his interest in neoclassical architecture. [3]
Revolution and the Declaration
As a delegate to the Second Continental Congress, Jefferson was chosen in June 1776 to draft a statement of the colonies' separation from Britain. The resulting Declaration of Independence, adopted on 4 July 1776, grounded the break in the claim that all men are created equal and endowed with unalienable rights, a formulation that shaped later democratic movements worldwide. [2]
He returned to Virginia to work on revising its legal code, drafting the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, which separated church and state in the commonwealth. He served as governor of Virginia from 1779 to 1781 during a difficult period of British invasion. [1]
Diplomacy and national office
Jefferson succeeded Benjamin Franklin as American minister to France in 1785, witnessing the early stages of the French Revolution. Under George Washington he became the first Secretary of State in 1790, where his disputes with Alexander Hamilton over federal power and finance helped produce the first American party system. He served as vice president under John Adams from 1797. [4]
Presidency
Elected president in 1800 after a contest decided in the House of Representatives, Jefferson reduced federal spending and the national debt and sought to limit the reach of central government. In 1803 his administration concluded the Louisiana Purchase from France, roughly doubling the territory of the United States, and commissioned the Lewis and Clark expedition to explore it. [4]
His second term was dominated by the pressures of the Napoleonic Wars at sea. The Embargo Act of 1807, intended to avoid war by halting American foreign trade, damaged the domestic economy and was repealed near the end of his presidency. He also signed legislation prohibiting the importation of enslaved people into the United States from 1808. [1]
Slavery
Jefferson enslaved more than six hundred people over the course of his life at Monticello and his other properties, freeing only a small number. Historical and genetic evidence indicates that he fathered children by Sally Hemings, an enslaved woman in his household, a conclusion accepted by the Thomas Jefferson Foundation. [3]
Later life and legacy
In retirement Jefferson founded the University of Virginia, designing its buildings and curriculum, and sold his library to the nation after the burning of Washington, forming the nucleus of the rebuilt Library of Congress. He died at Monticello on 4 July 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and the same day as John Adams. [2]
