Jefferson Born: Author of American Independence

Thomas Jefferson wrote "all men are created equal" while enslaved people maintained his household. He owned more than 600 over his lifetime. He freed two during his life and five in his will. He almost certainly fathered six children with Sally Hemings, an enslaved woman who was also the half-sister of his late wife Martha. DNA evidence confirmed in 1998 what his political enemies had alleged since 1802. Born on April 13, 1743 (April 2 by the Julian calendar then in use), at Shadwell plantation in Virginia, Jefferson was the son of a prosperous planter and surveyor. He studied law under George Wythe, the first American law professor, and entered the Virginia House of Burgesses at 26. He was 33 when the Continental Congress asked him to draft the Declaration of Independence in June 1776. He wrote it in seventeen days in a rented room in Philadelphia. His original draft included a passage condemning the slave trade, which was removed at the insistence of South Carolina and Georgia delegates. The final document declared principles of equality and natural rights that its author could not or would not extend to the people he held in bondage. He served as Governor of Virginia, Minister to France, Secretary of State under Washington, Vice President under Adams, and two terms as President from 1801 to 1809. As President, he engineered the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, doubling the size of the United States for approximately three cents per acre. He dispatched Lewis and Clark to explore the territory. He waged an undeclared naval war against the Barbary pirates. He reduced the national debt by a third. He was a polymath who designed Monticello, founded the University of Virginia, catalogued plants, played violin, spoke six languages, and owned one of the largest private libraries in the country, which he sold to Congress after the British burned the Capitol in 1814 to reconstitute the Library of Congress. He died on July 4, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration, within hours of John Adams. His tombstone, which he designed himself, mentions that he wrote the Declaration, founded the University of Virginia, and authored the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. It does not mention the presidency. He died $100,000 in debt. His estate, including enslaved people, was auctioned.