Thomas Jefferson: A Historical Overview

The subject Founding Father of this paper is the historical dichotomy named Thomas Jefferson. This paper will take a look into several areas of Jefferson’s life. His youth, where he grew up, educational background, his plantation lifestyle, his political and religious leanings and finally what led him to be one of the Founding Fathers of this great nation. Jefferson is one of the most intricate of the Founders; he is considered a Renaissance man by modern historians because he was one of the few people who knew something about nearly every subject known at the time. He saw the infancy of a nation and helped nurture it into adolescence. He was an avid Architect, Engineer, Enlightenment thinker and Biblical Scholar as well as his total wealth of general knowledge. He was the first Secretary of State under Washington, Vice President under Adams and finally the third President of the United States allowing Ohio into the Union and doubling the size of the United States by way of the Louisiana Purchase. All of these things helped create the duplexity and enigma that was Thomas Jefferson. (1, 2, 3, 5)

            The third of ten children, Thomas Jefferson was born on April 13, 1743 at the family home, in a one and a half story farmhouse in Shadwell, not far from Richmond and the Virginia wilderness. He was born to Jane Randolph, daughter of Isham Randolph, a ship's captain and sometime planter. His father was Peter Jefferson, a planter and surveyor. Before the widower William Randolph, an old friend of Peter Jefferson, died in 1745, he appointed Peter as guardian to manage his Tuckahoe Plantation and care for his four children. That year the Jefferson’s relocated to Tuckahoe, where they lived for the next seven years before returning to Shadwell in 1752. Peter Jefferson died in 1757 and the Jefferson estate was divided between Peter's two sons, Thomas and Randolph. Thomas inherited approximately 5,000 acres of land, including Monticello which would become his architectural vision and playground, and between twenty and forty slaves. He took control of the property after he came of age at 21. The precise amount of land and number of slaves that Jefferson inherited is estimated but thought to have been one of the largest inheritances of the area at the time for his age. (1, 2, 3, 5)

            His education began on the Tuckahoe Plantation with tutors hired by the family for William Randolph’s children as well as the Jefferson children. Jefferson was an introspective child, not confident with public speech, but well versed in the arena of writing. He began his formal education at the age of nine, studying Latin, Greek and French at a local private school run by the Reverend William Douglas a Scottish Presbyterian minister at the Tuckahoe Plantation. Jefferson learned to ride horses, and began the study of nature. He studied under Reverend James Maury from 1758 to 1760 near Gordonsville, Virginia whom Jefferson later described as "a correct classical scholar". While boarding with Maury's family, he studied history, science, and the classics. The classics at the time were Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, and some more ancient writers like the Roman Aulus Gellius, a 2nd-century Roman writer who was the first to use the words “Classicus scriptor, non proletarius” (“A distinguished, not a commonplace writer”) when in reference to great writing for all time and not just the average writer. At age 16, Jefferson entered the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg and first met the law professor George Wythe who became his influential mentor. He studied mathematics, metaphysics, and philosophy under Professor William Small, who introduced the enthusiastic Jefferson to the writings of the British Empiricists, including John Locke, Francis Bacon, and Isaac Newton. He also improved his French, Greek, and violin while there. Being a diligent student, Jefferson displayed an avid curiosity in all fields and graduated in 1762, completing his studies in only two years. Jefferson read law while working as a law clerk for Wythe. There were no law schools at this time; instead aspiring attorneys "read law" under the supervision of an established lawyer before being examined by the bar. Wythe guided Jefferson through an extraordinarily rigorous five-year course of study (more than double the typical duration); by the time Jefferson won admission to the Virginia bar in 1767, he was already one of the most learned lawyers in America. During this time, he also read a wide variety of English classics and political works. In 1770, Jefferson's home as well as family library (consisting of 200 volumes) in Shadwell, Virginia, was destroyed by fire. By 1773 he again amassed 1,250 titles. By 1815, his collection had grown to almost 6,500 volumes. He collected and accumulated thousands of books for his library at Monticello. When Jefferson's father Peter died Thomas inherited, among other things, his large library. A significant portion of Jefferson's library was also bequeathed to him in the will of George Wythe, who had an extensive collection. After the British burned the Library of Congress in 1814 Jefferson offered to sell his collection of more than 6,000 books to the Library for $23,950. After realizing he was no longer in possession of such a grand collection he wrote in a letter to John Adams, "I cannot live without books". He intended to pay off some of his large debt, but immediately started buying more books. He was a man of education throughout his entire life and sought to learn as much as he possibly could by way of books and personal study during his years. He was a man who read and wrote until his final days. (1, 2, 3, 5)

            After early graduation, Jefferson became a law clerk for George Wythe. He started work on Monticello in 1768, and he worked for roughly ten years as a law clerk and lawyer before he married his third cousin the 23-year-old widow Martha Wayles Skelton on January 1, 1772. She was the daughter of John Wayles who was an attorney, slave trader, business agent for Bristol-based merchants Farrell & Jones, a prosperous planter and left Martha one of the richest women in the country at the time. Later in life with deaths and inheritances, Thomas Jefferson and his wife were bequeathed Elizabeth Hemings (Betty). Who bore ten mixed race children fathered by John Wayles, Martha’s father. Meaning Betty Hemings’ ten mixed children were eventually inherited by Martha Wayles their half sister and her husband, Thomas Jefferson. The youngest of which was Sally who became famous in her own right by way of Thomas Jefferson himself. Once he graduated and married Martha the Jeffersons spent two weeks at The Forest (her father's plantation in Charles City County) before setting out in a two-horse carriage for Monticello (Jefferson's plantation in the Piedmont). Martha bore Thomas six children, only two of whom survived to adulthood, Martha and Mary, with only Martha outliving her father. (1, 2, 3, 5)

            A few years prior to his marriage to the widow Wayles, he began trying cases in Virginia courts and was a successful attorney. He practiced law from 1767 to 1774 and was very successful. While studying and practicing law his political ideals began to form. After the Stamp Act of 1765 Jefferson started to “think” about American Independence. On December 16, 1773, colonists protesting a British tea tax dumped 342 chests of tea into the Boston Harbor in what is known as the "Boston Tea Party." In April 1775, American militiamen clashed with British soldiers at the Massachusetts towns of Lexington and Concord, the first battles in what developed into the American Revolutionary War. Thomas Jefferson was one of the earliest and most radical supporters of the cause of American independence from Great Britain. He gained election to the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1768 and joined its radical bloc, led by Patrick Henry and George Washington. In 1774, Jefferson penned his first major political work, "A Summary View of the Rights of British America," thus establishing his reputation as one of the most eloquent advocates of the “American ideal”. A year later, in 1775, Jefferson attended the Second Continental Congress, which created the Continental Army and appointed Jefferson's fellow Virginian, George Washington, as its commander-in-chief. However, the Congress's most significant work fell to Jefferson himself. (1, 2, 3, 5)

            The Declaration of Independence became Jefferson’s baby for lack of better terms. In June 1776, the Congress appointed a five-man committee (Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman and Robert Livingston) to draft a Declaration of Independence. The committee then chose Jefferson to author the declaration's first draft, selecting him for what John Adams called his "happy talent for composition and singular felicity of expression." Over the next seventeen days, Jefferson drafted one of the most beautiful and powerful testaments to liberty and equality in world history. As Lincoln said of Jefferson, ‘we are a nation built on a single proposition that all men are created equal, and Jefferson wrote that proposition.’ (George Will TJ doc) better put in Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address as “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” Several changes were made to the original draft which grated on Jefferson a bit since he was known for being thoughtful in his writings. Consulting with other committee members, Jefferson also drew on his own proposed draft of the Virginia Constitution, George Mason's draft of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, and other sources such as Locke and Paine. The other committee members made some changes as well. Most notably Jefferson had written, "We hold these truths to be sacred and un-deniable..." Franklin changed it to, "We hold these truths to be self-evident." Franklin wanted the change because they were not writing a religious document. (1, 2, 4) A final draft was presented to the Congress on June 28, 1776. The title of the document was "A Declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress assembled." After voting in favor of the resolution of Independence on July 2, Congress turned its attention to the declaration. Over three days of debate, Congress made changes and deleted nearly a fourth of the text, most notably a passage critical of the slave trade and the King. On July 4, 1776, the Congress ratified the Declaration of Independence and the delegates signed the document. The Declaration would eventually be considered one of Jefferson's major achievements; his preamble has been considered an enduring statement of human rights. The passage “All men are created equal” came to represent a moral standard to which the United States should strive. This view was notably promoted by Abraham Lincoln, who based his philosophy on it, and argued for the Declaration as a statement of principles through which the United States Constitution should be interpreted. Jefferson viewed the Independence of the American people from the mother country Britain as breaking away from "parent stock", and that the War of Independence from Britain was a natural outcome of being separated by the Atlantic Ocean. Jefferson felt English colonists were compelled to rely on "common sense" and rediscover the "laws of nature". According to Jefferson, the Independence of the original British colonies was in a historical succession following a similar pattern when the Saxons colonized Britain and left their mother country Europe hundreds of years earlier. (1, 5)

            After authoring and finalizing the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson returned to Virginia, where, from 1776 to 1779, he served as a member of the Virginia House of Delegates. There he fought to revise Virginia's laws to fit the American ideals he had outlined in the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson successfully abolished the “Doctrine of Entail”, which dictated that only a property owner's heirs could inherit his land, and the “Doctrine of Primogeniture”, which required that in the absence of a will a property owner's oldest son inherited his entire estate. In 1777, Jefferson wrote the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, which established freedom of religion and the separation of church and state. Although the document was not adopted as Virginia state law for another nine years, it was one of Jefferson's proudest life accomplishments. (1, 4, 5) On June 1, 1779, the Virginia legislature elected Jefferson as the state's second governor the low point of Jefferson's political career. Torn between the Continental Army's pleas for more men and supplies and Virginians' strong desire to keep such resources for their own defense, Jefferson sat on the fence and quit stealing my paper from my blog pleased no one. As the Revolutionary War progressed into the South, Jefferson moved the capital from Williamsburg to Richmond Virginia, only to be forced to evacuate that city when it, rather than Williamsburg, turned out to be the target of British attack. On June 1, 1781, the day before the end of his second term as Governor, Jefferson was forced to flee his home at Monticello, only narrowly escaping capture by the British cavalry. Although he had no choice but to run, his political enemies later pointed to this incident as evidence of Jefferson’s cowardice. Jefferson declined to seek a third term as Governor and stepped down on June 4, 1781. Don't steal my paper for your educational purposes. He then claimed that he was giving up public life for good. He returned to Monticello, where he intended to live out the rest of his days as a gentleman farmer surrounded by his family, his farm and his books. (1, 4, 5)

            Retirement for Jefferson was a short lived idea. He began to feel bored and to fill his time at home, in late 1781; Jefferson began working on his only full-length book, the modestly titled “Notes on the State of Virginia”. While the book's purpose was to outline the history, culture and geography of Virginia, it also provides a window into Jefferson's political philosophy and worldview. (1, 3, 5) In “Notes on the State of Virginia” is Jefferson's vision of the society he hoped America would become: a virtuous agricultural republic based on the values of liberty, honesty and simplicity and centered on the self-sufficient farmer. However, this book also sheds a bit of light on the dichotomy spoken of earlier. Jefferson wrote against slavery, however had no intention of giving his up and knew full well the only way to remain a “gentleman farmer” was to keep those he had in servitude as such. Famously he wrote, “We have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other.” He did in fact believe that blacks were innately inferior to whites in terms of both mental and physical capacity. Nevertheless, he claimed to disdain slavery as a violation of the natural rights of man. (1, 2, 4) Following the United States victory in the Revolutionary War and subsequent peace treaty with Great Britain in 1783, the United States formed a Congress of the Confederation (a.k.a. the Continental Congress), and Jefferson was appointed as a Virginia delegate. After several works on the exchange committee where he suggested adopting the decimal system for U.S. money, to chairing committees deciding the fate of land north of the Ohio River. (2, 3, 5) Martha Jefferson passed away in September of 1782, while Sally Hemmings was in the room and heard Jefferson promise to his passing wife that he would never marry again. (1) This put Jefferson in a mental breakdown which lasted for months. He spent several days locked in his room alone, then wandered about on horseback and alone thinking and not really saying much. (1, 2, 5)

            The unfortunate passing of his wife at 34 years of age left him hungry to do something, and he was talked back into politics. By June 1783, Jefferson returned to Philadelphia and he led the Virginia delegation to the Confederation Congress. In 1785, that body appointed Jefferson to replace Benjamin Franklin as U.S. minister to France. He accepted the position even though he loved French architecture and style; he hated the separation of class and wealth there. "I find the general fate of humanity here, most deplorable," he wrote in one letter. (1, 3) Jefferson developed a written friendship with John Adams again. The two were such powerful personalities in their own way and each wanting their own share of what they considered righteous rule, they butted heads often and had not spoken much in several years. Jefferson's official duties as minister consisted primarily of negotiating loans and trade agreements with private citizens and government officials in Paris and Amsterdam. While in France Jefferson aligned himself with Lafayette who had returned from the United States with news of his child’s death, Lafayette was a Republican and Jefferson lent himself and his Hôtel de Langeac spaces to French Republican meetings. He was in France for the revolution and the storming of the Bastille. (1, 3, 5, 6)  Jefferson left Paris in September of 1789 intending to return after a brief return to his home. Before leaving Paris he famously wrote from on August 30th, “the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. It is its natural manure.” After nearly five years in Paris, Jefferson returned to America at the end of 1789 with a greater appreciation for his home nation. He wrote to James Monroe, "My God! How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy?" (1, 2, 5, 6)

             Upon returning in September 1789 from France with his two daughters and slaves, President Washington wrote to him asking him to accept a seat in his Cabinet as Secretary of State. Jefferson accepted the appointment. (1, 2, 6) This entire time he spent fighting Hamilton over banks. Jefferson believed Central banking was evil by nature and Hamilton believed that was the only way to succeed. He tired quickly of the fight and believing he had lost any of the President’s confidence, Jefferson resigned in December 1793. He claimed he was leaving public life for good. (1, 3, 5, 6,)
            Monticello got a great working over during this time. He kept himself busy with constant work on the Monticello estate. It was his obsession to try to make it what he wanted. He designed apparatus’ like the 4 sided book stand that don't steal my paper for your educational purposes could accommodate multiple open books at once, and the polygraph which was the first copy machine, copying to another page as he wrote. He studied medicine, astronomy and philosophy. He played music and sang ballads while there. It seemed to rejuvenate him to delve into other things beside what he had previously done. This was his home of science and discovery. (2, 5, 6)

            By 1796 he and the rest of the men who always spoke of Cincinnatus and his morals of giving back power seemed to want a bit of power himself. Jefferson believed Adams wanted the United States to be more like a Monarchy, and Adams believed Jefferson’s love for Democracy would have us in perpetual revolution. The Sedition Act was created due to this election. The long friendship between Adams and Jefferson had deteriorated due to political differences (Adams was a Federalist), and Adams did not consult his vice president on any important decisions. Jefferson believed that the Federalists were totally against the Constitution and wanted legislation drafted against them whether he was Vice President or not. Even coming up with specific drafts for states to leave the Federal Government, even Dumas Malone argues this could be one time he could have been held for treason. (1, 5, 2)

            By 1800 a mini revolution was taking place. In the presidential election, Hamiltonian Federalists refused to back Adams, clearing the way for the Republican candidates Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr to tie for first place with 73 electoral votes each. After a long and tough debate, the House of Representatives selected Jefferson to serve as the third U.S. president, with Burr as his vice president. This election was a landmark of world history, the first peacetime and peaceful transfer of power from one party to another in a modern republic. Delivering his inaugural address on March 4, 1801, Jefferson spoke to the fundamental commonalities uniting all Americans despite their partisan differences. "Every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle," he stated. "We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists." (1, 3, 5, 6) Jefferson won. Oddly a man who fought his entire political life to decentralize government was now at the head of government.

            During his first term President Jefferson was remarkably successful and productive. In keeping with his Republican values, Jefferson stripped the presidency of all the trappings of European royalty, reduced the size of the armed forces, government bureaucracy and lowered the national debt from $80 million to $57 million in his first two years in office. He immediately began to dismantle Hamilton's Federalist fiscal system. His Secretary of Treasury, Albert Gallatin, claimed that, “if this administration shall not reduce taxes, they never will be permanently reduced.” Jefferson advanced the idea of Separation of Church and State, believing that the government should not have an official religion while at the same time it should not prohibit any particular religious expression. He first expressed these thoughts in an 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptists in Connecticut answering their letter requesting special protections against the Congregationalists of Connecticut stating,

“To Messers, Nehemiah Dodge, Ephraim Robbins, & Stephen S. Nelson, a committee of the Danbury Baptist association in the state of Connecticut.

Gentlemen

The affectionate sentiments of esteem and approbation which you are so good as to express towards me, on behalf of the Danbury Baptist association, give me the highest satisfaction. My duties dictate a faithful and zealous pursuit of the interests of my constituents, & in proportion as they are persuaded of my fidelity to those duties, the discharge of them becomes more and more pleasing. Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties. I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection & blessing of the common father and creator of man, and tender you for yourselves & your religious association, assurances of my high respect & esteem.” Jan. 1. 1802. (1, 4, 5)

He opened West Point Academy. He even declared the first United States war, the Barnaby War which put an end to the centuries-old problem of Barbary pirates disrupting American shipping and taking slaves of American citizens in the Mediterranean by forcing the pirates to capitulate by deploying new American warships. (1, 5, 6) Jefferson's most significant accomplishment as president was the Louisiana Purchase. In 1803, he acquired land stretching from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains from a broke Napoleon in France for the bargain price of $15 million ($.10 an acre), thereby doubling the size of the nation in a single stroke. He then devised the Lewis and Clark Expedition to explore, map out and report back on the new American territories. It was a huge success.

Even though Jefferson easily won re-election in 1804, troubles seemed to start prior to the election when On July 11, 1804, Vice President Aaron Burr mortally wounded Federalist Party leader Alexander Hamilton in a duel at Weehawken. Jefferson replaced Burr with George Clinton of New York on the 1804 ticket. Burr immediately made plans for a military adventure, headed west plotting to separate the Western territories from the United States. Jefferson’s second term in office proved much more difficult and less productive than his first. International tensions surrounding the Spanish in North America preoccupied much of 1805 for the Jefferson administration, revolving around the exact boundaries of the Louisiana Territory with Mexico, and the fate of the “Floridas”, which Spain refused to cede to the United States. Add to that Aaron Burr, in 1806 spreading numerous rumors of military adventurism, recruiting men, stocking arms and building boats on the upper Ohio River. Joining Burr in the conspiracy was U.S. General and Louisiana Territory governor, appointed by Jefferson, James Wilkinson and it is obvious Jefferson had his hands full from the start of his second term. He even had the European issues at the time as Napoleon became more aggressive in his negotiations over trading rights, and American consolation efforts failed. Jefferson responded with the Embargo Act of 1807, directed at both France and Great Britain. Even though Jefferson abandoned the policy a year later, the move wrecked the American economy as exports crashed from $108 million to $22 million by the time he left office in 1809. The embargo also led to the War of 1812 with Great Britain after Jefferson left office. (1, 3, 5, 6)            

March 4, 1809, after watching the inauguration of his close friend and successor James Madison, Jefferson returned to Virginia to live out the rest of his days as "The Sage of Monticello." Jefferson's favorite pastime was continuously rebuilding, remodeling and improving his beloved home and estate of Monticello. A Frenchman, Marquis de Chastellux, remarked, "it may be said that Mr. Jefferson is the first American who has consulted the Fine Arts to know how he should shelter himself from the weather." He even rewrote the bible again after his first attempt in 1804 with “The Philosophy of Jesus of Nazareth”, the predecessor to “The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth.” He described it in a letter to John Adams dated October 13, 1813:

“In extracting the pure principles which he taught, we should have to strip off the artificial vestments in which they have been muffled by priests, who have travestied them into various forms, as instruments of riches and power to themselves. We must dismiss the Platonists and Plotinists, the Stagyrites and Gamalielites, the Eclectics, the Gnostics and Scholastics, their essences and emanations, their logos and demiurges, aeons and daemons, male and female, with a long train of … or, shall I say at once, of nonsense. We must reduce our volume to the simple evangelists, select, even from them, the very words only of Jesus, paring off the amphibologisms into which they have been led, by forgetting often, or not understanding, what had fallen from him, by giving their own misconceptions as his dicta, and expressing unintelligibly for others what they had not understood themselves. There will be found remaining the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man. I have performed this operation for my own use, by cutting verse by verse out of the printed book, and arranging the matter which is evidently his, and which is as easily distinguishable as diamonds in a dunghill. The result is an octavo of forty-six pages, of pure and unsophisticated doctrines.”

He may have believed in a Jesus, but he didn’t seem to believe in the “magic ascribed him by the writers of the Holy books. (1, 4, 5)

      Finally Thomas Jefferson and his friend John Adams began their writing campaign together again as friends prior to their deaths. Some of the most beautiful, heartfelt political, life and respectful discussions came in the form of these letters between two men who had seen it all from birth to celebration of the nation. The tortured soul that seemed to be Thomas Jefferson didn’t free his slaves when he died, however after his death, Sally Hemings then left Monticello with her sons. They were counted as free whites in the 1830 census so they must have had some type of agreement. He detested slavery, but understood his life and his nation were built on the backs of a “lesser people”. Jefferson also dedicated his later years to beginning the University of Virginia, the nation's first secular university. He personally designed the campus, envisioned as an "academic village," and hand-selected renowned European scholars to serve as its professors. The University of Virginia opened its doors on March 7, 1825, one of the proudest days of Jefferson's life. Jefferson died on July 4, 1826. The 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and only a few hours before John Adams also passed away in Massachusetts. In the moments before Adams passed, John Adams spoke his last words, eternally true if not in the literal sense in which he meant them, "Thomas Jefferson survives." A scholar, an Engineer, a lawmaker and Founder of our great nation, Thomas Jefferson will live on forever. (1, 3, 4, 5, 6)

 

Reference Page

1. Thomas Jefferson the Author of America - Christopher Hitchens - 10/13/2009. ISBN: 9780061753978 - HarperCollins e-books - Pages: 208 Hitchens discussion of the book and Jefferson. (this is an hour plus long academic discussion of said book)
2. The American Experience PBS Documentary – Part 1.
3. The American Experience PBS Documentary – Part 2.
4. "Jefferson and Darwin: Science and Religion in Troubled Times". Yale Lecture Series on Jefferson – Dr. Keith S. Thomson (Professor Emeritus Oxford University) delivers the first of four Terry Lectures at Yale.
5. Jefferson and His Time: Volumes 1 - 6 – 1974 by Dumas Malone – 3,349 pages Publisher: Little, Brown and Company ASIN: B000JMA6IA
6. Ken Burns PBS Jefferson 2