Thomas Jefferson

Jefferson, Thomas (1743-1826), is best remembered as a great president and as the author of the Declaration of Independence. He also won lasting fame as a diplomat, a political thinker, and a founder of the Democratic Party. Jefferson's interests and talents covered an amazing range. He became one of the leading American architects of his time and designed the Virginia Capitol, the University of Virginia, and his own home, Monticello. He greatly appreciated art and music and tried to encourage their advancement in the United States. He arranged for the famous French sculptor Jean Hoyden to come to America to make a statue of George Washington. Jefferson also posed for Houdon and for the famous American portrait painter Gilbert Stuart. Jefferson also enjoyed playing the violin in chamber music concerts. Jefferson invented a decoding device, a lap desk, and an improved type of moldboard plow. His collection of more than 6,400 books became a major part of the Library of Congress. Jefferson revised Virginia's laws and founded its state university. He developed the decimal system of coinage that allows Americans to keep accounts in dollars and cents.

Jefferson did not consider himself a professional politician. Instead, he regarded himself as a public-spirited citizen and a broad-minded, practical thinker. He preferred his family, his books, and his farms to public life. But he spent most of his career in public office and made his greatest contribution to his country in the field of politics.

Jefferson molded the American spirit and mind. Every later generation has turned to him for inspiration. Through about 40 years of public service, he remained faithful to his vow of "eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." During Jefferson's two terms as president, the United States almost doubled in area with the purchase of the vast Louisiana Territory. America preserved its hard-won neutrality while France, led by Napoleon's armies, and battled most of Europe. Congress passed a law banning the slave trade.

Jefferson was elected to the House of Burgesses in 1769 and served there until 1775. He was not a brilliant speaker but proved himself an able writer of laws and resolutions. Jefferson often showed a talent for clear and simple English that the more experienced legislators quickly recognized. Jefferson took a leading part in the Continental Congress. After the Revolutionary War began, he was asked to draft a "Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking up Arms." The Congress found this declaration "too strong." The more moderate John Dickinson drafted a substitute, which included much of Jefferson's original version.

The Declaration of Independence remains Jefferson's best-known work. It set forth with moving eloquence, supported by strong legal argument, the position of the American revolutionaries. It affirmed belief in the natural rights of all people. Few of the ideas were new. Jefferson said his object was "to place before mankind the common sense of the subject, in terms so plain and firm as to command their assent ... Neither aiming at originality of principle or sentiment, nor yet copied from any particular and previous writing, it was intended to be an expression of the American mind ..."

The death of Jefferson's wife in September 1782 left him stunned and distraught. For several months, he spoke to few people and wrote to none. His daughter Martha wrote many years later: "... the violence of his emotion ... to this day I dare not describe