Historical Figure
Thomas Jefferson
1743–1826
Founding Father, U.S. president from 1801 to 1809
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Biography
Thomas Jefferson was an American Founding Father and the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He was the primary author of the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson was a leading proponent of democracy, republicanism, and natural rights, and he produced formative documents and decisions at the state, national, and international levels.
Timeline
The story of Thomas Jefferson, told in moments.
Born at Shadwell, Virginia. His father is a wealthy planter and mapmaker. His mother comes from one of the most prominent families in the colony. He starts learning Latin, Greek, and French as a boy. Enters the College of William and Mary at 16. Reads 15 hours a day.
Drafts the Declaration of Independence in a rented room on Market Street in Philadelphia. He's 33. The committee is Adams, Franklin, Sherman, Livingston. They edit his draft. Congress cuts about a quarter of it, including a passage condemning the slave trade. "We hold these truths to be self-evident" survives.
Arrives in Paris as US Minister to France. He lives there for five years. Falls in love with French wine, architecture, and food. Ships home crates of books, seeds, and a macaroni machine. When asked if he replaced Benjamin Franklin, he says: "No one can replace him. I am only his successor."
Signs the Louisiana Purchase. 828,000 square miles from France for $15 million. Three cents an acre. It doubles the size of the United States. He isn't sure the Constitution allows it. He does it anyway.
Founds the University of Virginia. Designs the campus himself. The Rotunda, the Lawn, the colonnades. He considers it one of his three greatest achievements, alongside the Declaration and the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. Not the presidency.
Dies at Monticello on the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. He is 83. John Adams dies the same day in Massachusetts. Adams's last words: "Thomas Jefferson survives." He doesn't know Jefferson died hours earlier. Jefferson owned over 600 enslaved people during his lifetime. The contradiction defines his legacy.
In Their Own Words (20)
Children till 10. years old to serve as nurses. from 10. to 16. the boys make nails, the girls spin. at 16. go into the ground or learn trades.
Jefferson's Farm Book as quoted in The Dark Side of Thomas Jefferson, by Henry Wiencek, Smithsonian Magazine, (October 2012), 2012
My new trade of nail-making is to me in this country what an additional title of nobility or the ensigns of a new order are in Europe
As quoted in The Dark Side of Thomas Jefferson, by Henry Wiencek, Smithsonian Magazine, (October 2012), 2012
I allow nothing for losses by death, but, on the contrary, shall presently take credit four per cent. per annum, for their increase over and above keeping up their own numbers.
On his profits from slavery as quoted in The Dark Side of Thomas Jefferson, by Henry Wiencek, Smithsonian Magazine, (October 2012), 2012
Dispersed as the Jews are, they still form one nation, foreign to the land they live in.
As quoted in The Americans by Daniel Boorstin. See Truth from the "Zog Bog" by Gyeorgos Ceres Hatonn, 1993, 224 p., 1993
I have always said, and always will say, that the studious perusal of the sacred volume will make better citizens, better fathers, and better husbands.
Attributed to Jefferson by Daniel Webster in a letter of 15 June 1852 addressed to Professor Pease, recalling a Sunday spent with Jefferson more than a quarter of a century before., 1852
Artifacts (15)
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