Thomas Jefferson
After drafting the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America, Thomas Jefferson went on to become the first secretary of the state, the second vice president and the third president. Born on April 2nd 1743 he died on the 4th of July in 1826; perhaps a poignant day for the man who was known as America’s most distinguished “apostle of liberty.” He is associated with concepts, philosophies and institutions such as the Louisiana Purchase, the complete separation of church and state, and the University of Virginia. Jefferson, and the conflicting truths of his fiercely eloquent philosophical statements on liberty and status as a slave owner; is also associated with the institution of slavery in America.
Thomas Jefferson grew up on his family’s estate where he roamed the woods, practiced the violin and read until, at the age of nine, he entered a local private school run by Reverend William Douglas and began studying the classical languages. When he was fourteen, the Reverend James Maury helped him broaden his educational pursuits by introducing his to the formal studies of literature and mathematics. Jefferson respected Reverend Maury and later called him a “correct classical scholar.”
Subsequently, in 1760 he attended the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. Jefferson initially found this a disappointing experience, as the curriculum was not challenging. While many of the other students enjoyed the freedom from education in order to pursue the study of horses, cards and women, Jefferson sought out a circle of older scholars to help further his studies. These gentlemen included lieutenant Governor Francis Fauquier, Professor William Small and lawyer George Wythe.
The lawyer, George Wythe gave young Thomas Jefferson his next educational opportunity when Jefferson began to “read law” under his tutelage. After five years studying under Wythe, Thomas Jefferson sat for the Virginia Bar and entered into a successful practice of law that lasted from 1767 to 1774. During this period, he also laid the foundation for much of his life. He created his private life and home when he began construction of Monticello and married Martha Wayles Skelton. CITATION Bio12 \l 1033 His public life was established when he stood for the Virginia House of Burgeresses.
In 1775 Jefferson wrote, “A Summary View of the Rights of British America” which brought him to wider recognition. Subsequently, the Virginia legislature appointed him as a delegate to the Second Continental Congress in 1775. Although he was not known for his speeches, his finely honed writing talents earned him an appointment to the committee where he became the primary draftsman of the Declaration of Independence of the United States.
Upon his return to Virginia in 1776, he launched the reform of the state’s legal code and worked for the total separation of church and state and education reform for all youths and education for women. In 1779, he was elected governor of Virginia in 1779. In 1782, his wife died in childbirth in September and Jefferson was called to serve as a delegate to the Continental Congress in December. It was during this congressional session that Jefferson set forth the principal that the western territories should enter the union as states upon meeting the appropriate criteria.
Upon his return to the United States of America, he served as secretary of state under President George Washington. Although the Constitution was ratified in 1788, it was still a work in progress. Jefferson was more concerned about preserving liberties than in defining government powers and thusly-focused more on the Bill of Rights than upon the Constitution itself. As secretary of state, he was primarily concerned with international relations, where he felt the government’s affiliations’ should favor France over her rival, Great Britain.
Jefferson opposed the consolidation of power in a central Federal government believing that was akin to the earlier British control. As the events of the time unrolled, and the politicians worked to resolve them the American political party system began to emerge. In 1797, John Adams was elected President and Jefferson vice president; their evolving political differences cooled their formerly warm friendship as they found themselves on opposing sides of the political debate regarding centralized governance versus a more diffused form of government. During his term as vice president, Jefferson wrote “A Manual of Parliamentary Practice” and served as the president of the American Philosophical Society. CITATION Bio12 \l 1033
When Jefferson was elected President in 1800, it was the first time power had transferred between two modern political parties during a time of peace. During his first term as president, he made many achievements. Jefferson’s presidency reduced the national debt, the armed forces and government bureaucracy. He doubled the size of the nation by the Louisiana Purchase, which added the land between the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains. He created the Lewis and Clark Expedition to explore these lands. Jefferson also deployed American warships to eradicate the problem of the Barbary pirates who were disrupting American trade in the Mediterranean. His second term was dominated by foreign policy concerns as the Napoleonic wars tested America’s loyalties to both France and Britain. Like the man Thomas Jefferson himself, the world was finding its way through an ever shifting political and philosophical environment that somehow to simultaneously embrace polar extremes.
Thomas Jefferson lived in an age of conflict and resolution. Perhaps that is why he is so often seen as a contradiction in terms himself. He was born in a British colony that became a state when the revolution he helped to begin fought its way to freedom from the British Empire. Then he traveled to France where he anticipated a bloodless revolution. His political career unfolded within a newly birthed system that conceived the notion of united states, working together for a common goal. However, these states were also called “America” one nation with a central government. His friends and fellow politicians came from all strata of society held together by their common interests in the founding and building a new government; unlike any other that had gone before it. As an individual, Thomas Jefferson represented a strange dichotomy; he was an aristocrat who was a champion of the common man; an advocate of liberty who owned slaves; a Constitutionalist who ignored the Constitution to make the Louisiana Purchase and a staunch supporter of limited government who expanded the government’s authority during his presidency.
Thomas Jefferson died a few hours before John Adams on the Fourth of July 1826, fifty years fifty years after the nation they helped build was born. John Adams’ last words were “Thomas Jefferson survives.” Although he did not know it at the time those words were prophetically true. Although the last breath had passed from his body, Thomas Jefferson had breathed life into this nation he helped to birth and so lives on to this day. CITATION The1213 \l 1033
Bibliography
Bio. The true story. "Thomas Jefferson." Bio. The true story. 2012. http://www.biography.com/people/thomas-jefferson-9353715?page=7 (accessed 4 11, 2012).
The Jefferson Monticello. "Thomas Jefferson." The Jefferson Monticello. 2012. http://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson (accessed 4 11, 2012).
The White House. "Thomas Jefferson." The White House. 2012. http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/presidents/thomasjefferson/ (accessed 4 11, 2012).
