Thomas Jefferson 3rd President of the United States (March 4, 1801 to March 3, 1809) Nicknames: "Man of the People"; "Sage of Monticello" Born: April 13, 1743, in Shadwell, Virginia Died: July 4, 1826, at Monticello (near Charlottesville, Virginia) |
Father: Peter Jefferson
Mother: Jane Randolph Jefferson
Married: Martha Wayles Skelton (1748-1782), on January 1, 1772
Children: Martha Washington Jefferson (1772-1836); Jane Randolph Jefferson (1774-75); infant son (1777); Mary Jefferson (1778-1804); Lucy Elizabeth Jefferson (1780-81); Lucy Elizabeth Jefferson (1782-85)
Mother: Jane Randolph Jefferson
Married: Martha Wayles Skelton (1748-1782), on January 1, 1772
Children: Martha Washington Jefferson (1772-1836); Jane Randolph Jefferson (1774-75); infant son (1777); Mary Jefferson (1778-1804); Lucy Elizabeth Jefferson (1780-81); Lucy Elizabeth Jefferson (1782-85)
Religion: No formal affiliation
Education: Graduated from College of William and Mary (1762)
Occupation: Lawyer, planter
Political Party: Democratic-Republican
Education: Graduated from College of William and Mary (1762)
Occupation: Lawyer, planter
Political Party: Democratic-Republican
Life overview:
Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826) was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence (1776) and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom (1777), the third President of the United States (1801–1809) and founder of the University of Virginia (1819).[1] He was an influential Founding Father and an exponent of Jeffersonian democracy.
At the beginning of the American Revolution, Jefferson served in the Continental Congress, representing Virginia. He then served as the wartime Governor of Virginia (1779–1781), barely escaping capture by the British in 1781. Just after the war ended, from mid-1784 Jefferson served as a diplomat, stationed in Paris, initially as a commissioner to help negotiate commercial treaties. In May 1785, he became the United States Minister to France. He was the first United States Secretary of State (1790–1793). During the administration of President George Washington, Jefferson advised against a national bank and the Jay Treaty. Upon leaving office, with his close friend James Madison he organized the Democratic-Republican Party to oppose Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton's policies, especially his desire to create a national bank. He and Madison secretly wrote the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, which attempted to nullify the Alien and Sedition Actsand formed the basis of States' rights.
Elected president in what he called the Revolution of 1800, he oversaw a peaceful transition in power, purchased the vast Louisiana Territory from France (1803), and sent the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804–1806) to explore the new west. He decided to allow slavery in the acquired territory, which laid the foundation for the crisis of the Union a half century later.[2] His second term was beset with troubles at home, such as the failed treason trial of his former Vice President Aaron Burr, and escalating trouble with Britain. Jefferson always distrusted Britain as a threat to American values. With Britain at war with Napoleon, he tried aggressive economic warfare, however his embargo laws stopped American trade, hurt the economy, and provoked a furious reaction in the Northeast.
Jefferson was part of the Virginia planter elite and, as a tobacco planter, owned hundreds of slaves throughout his lifetime. Like many of his contemporaries, he viewed Africans as being racially inferior. He remained a widower for the rest of his life after his wife of eleven years, Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson, died in childbirth. Their marriage produced six children. Most historians believe that after his wife's death, Jefferson had an intimate relationship for nearly four decades with Martha's half-sister, his mixed-race slave Sally Hemings; and he also fathered her six children.[3] He freed the four surviving Hemings children when they came of age.
A leader in The Enlightenment, Jefferson was a polymath who spoke five languages and was deeply interested in science and political philosophy. While not an orator he was an indefatigable letter writer and was acquainted with many influential people in America and Europe. His views on slavery were complex, and changed over the course of his life.[4] He was a leading American opponent of the international slave trade, and presided over its abolition in 1807. Jefferson is typically rated by historical scholars as one of the greatest U.S. presidents, though in recent decades some scholars have tended to be more negative.[5]
Favorite Quote : "In matters of principle, stand like a rock, in matters of taste, swim with the current. "
Notable Events:
- 1803
- Supreme Court ruled in Marbury v. Madison . Any law passed by Congress can be declared unconstitutional by the courts.
The Louisiana Territory was purchased from France for $15 million dollars. The price works out to three cents per acre for the 512 million acres. - 1804
- 12th Amendment changed Presidential election rules.
Jefferson reelected.
Meriwether Lewis and William Clark began exploration of the Northwest.
Vice President Aaron Burr kills Alexander Hamilton in a duel July 11. - 1807
- Congress outlaws importing slaves from Africa, March 2.
Embargo Act, December 22, forbids American ships to leave American waters. - 1808
- Slave importation outlawed. Yet, another 1/4 million brought in by 1860.
- 1809
- Non-Intercourse Act, March 1, repeals the Embargo Act, which didn't work.
Points of Interest:
- Jefferson was the first president to be inaugurated in Washington, D.C.
- Approximately 6,000 books from Jefferson's private library were purchased for $23,950 to help start the Library of Congress.
- Jefferson was right-handed, but taught himself to write with his left hand.
- Bears brought back from Lewis and Clark's famous expedition were displayed in cages on the White House lawn. For years the White House was sometimes referred to as the "president's bear garden."
- The only presidents to sign the Declaration of Independence,
Adams and Jefferson both died on its 50th anniversary, July 4, 1826. Adams' dying words were "Thomas Jefferson survives". Jefferson, however, had passed on a few hours earlier. - Jefferson is credited with several inventions, including the swivel chair, a pedometer, a machine to make fiber from hemp, a letter-copying machine, and the lazy susan.
- Jefferson wrote his own epitaph without mentioning that he served as president of the United States.
Notable Quotes:
"I cannot live without books. "
"Books constitute capital. A library book lasts as long as a house, for hundreds of years. It is not, then, an article of mere consumption but fairly of capital, and often in the case of professional men, setting out in life, it is their only capital. "
"I am mortified to be told that, in the United States of America, the sale of a book can become a subject of inquiry, and of criminal inquiry too. "
"That love of order and obedience to the laws, which so remarkably characterize the citizens of the United States, are sure pledges of internal tranquility; and the elective franchise, if guarded as the ark of our safety, will peaceably dissipate all combinations to subvert a Constitution, dictated by the wisdom, and resting on the will of the people. "
"I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical."
"He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world's believing him. This falsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good dispositions."
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is natural manure."
"Delay is preferable to error."
"An injured friend is the bitterest of foes."
"I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."
"History, in general, only informs us what bad government is."
"I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of society but the people themselves, and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education."
"Great innovations should not be forced on slender majorities."
"I have never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as a cause for withdrawing from a friendship."
"Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God."
"The constitutions of most of our states (and of the United States) assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed and that they are entitled to freedom of person, freedom of religion, freedom of property, and freedom of press."
"I consider trial by jury as the only anchor yet imagined by man by which a government can be held to the principles of its Constitution."
"Happiness is not being pained in body or troubled in mind."
"The way to have safe government is not to trust it all to the one, but to divide it among the many, distributing to everyone exactly the functions in which he is competent. . . . To let the National Government be entrusted with the defense of the nation, and its foreign and federal relations. . . . The State Governments with the civil Rights, Laws, Police and administration of what concerns the State generally. The Counties with local concerns, and each ward direct the interests within itself. It is by dividing and subdividing these Republics from the great national one down through all its subordinations until it ends in the administration of everyman's farm by himself, by placing under everyone what his own eye may superintend, that all will be done for the best."
"We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our selection between economy and liberty or profusion and servitude."
"Above all things I hope the education of the common people will be attended to, convinced that on their good sense we may rely with the utmost security for the preservation of a due degree of liberty."
"The right of opinion shall suffer no invasion from me. Those who have acted well have nothing to fear, however they may have differed from me in opinion: those who have done ill, however, have nothing to hope; nor shall I fail to do justice lest it should be ascribed to that difference of opinion."
"It is neither wealth nor splendor, but tranquility and occupation which give happiness."
"The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time."
"I have not observed men's honesty to increase with their riches."
"A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government."
"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive."
"It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world. Mischief may be done negatively as well as positively."
"I tolerate with the utmost latitude the right of others to differ from me in opinion without imputing to them criminality."
"Liberty is the collective body, what health is to every individual body. Without health no pleasure can be tasted by man; without liberty, no happiness can be enjoyed by society."
"Most bad government has grown out of too much government."
"No government ought to be without censors, and where the press is free, no one ever will."
"Error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it."
"We are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it."
"When angry, count to ten before you speak. If very angry, a hundred."
"The will of the people . . . is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object."
"Only aim to do your duty, and mankind will give you credit when you fail."
"Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations--entangling alliances with none."
"Question with boldness even the existence of God; because if there be one, He must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear."
"Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government himself. Can he, then be trusted with the government of others? "
"That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves."
"In matters of principle, stand like a rock, in matters of taste, swim with the current. "
"The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do."
"If the children are untaught, their ignorance and vices will in future life cost us much dearer in their consequences than it would have done in their correction by a good education. "
"I have erred at times--no doubt I have erred; this is the law of human nature. For honest errors, however, indulgence may be hoped."
"Education . . . engrafts a new man on the native stock, and improves what in his nature was vicious and perverse into qualities of virtue and social worth . . . [accumulated knowledge] must advance the knowledge and well being of mankind, not infinitely, as some have said, but indefinitely, and to a term which one can fix or foresee."
"It is the multitude which possess force, and wisdom must yield to that."
"Our greatest happiness does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed us, but it is always the result of a good conscience, good health, occupation, and freedom in all just pursuits."
"Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just."
"We all know too well the texture of the human mind, and the slipperiness of human reason, to consider differences of opinion otherwise than differences of form or feature. Integrity of views, more than their soundness, is the basis of esteem."
"Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the boisterous sea of liberty."
"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it."
"Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain Security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one."
"It is much easier to avoid errors by having good information at first, than to unravel and correct them after they are committed."
"Truth is certainly a branch of morality and a very important one to society."
"Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state."
"Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like spirits at the dawn of day."
"The man who fears no truth has nothing to fear from lies."
"He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors."
"Difference of opinion leads to enquiry, and enquiry to truth."
"Power is not alluring to pure minds."
"I love to see honest and honorable men at the helm, men who will not bend their politics to their purses nor pursue measures by which they may profit and then profit by their measures."
"The glow of one warm thought is to me worth more than money."
"The happiest moments of my life have been the few which I have passed at home in the bosom of my family."
"Life is of no value but as it brings us gratifications. Among the most valuable of these is rational society. It informs the mind, sweetens the temper, cheers our spirits, and promotes health."
"Always take hold of things by the smooth handle."
"Liberty is the great parent of science and of virtue; and a nation will be great in both in proportion as it is free."
"If we are faithful to our country, if we acquiesce, with good will, in the decisions of the majority, and the nation moves in mass in the same direction, although it may not be that which every individual thinks best, we have nothing to fear from any quarter."
"Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it."
"Pride costs more than hunger, thirst and cold."
"I have never been able to conceive how any rational being could propose happiness to himself from the exercise of power over others."
"This should be a man's attitude: "Few things will disturb him at all; nothing will disturb him much."
"Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude."
"Truth between candid minds can never do harm."
"Do not bite the bait of pleasure till you know there is no hook beneath it. The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave."
"I find the pain of a little censure, even when it is unfounded, is more acute than the pleasure of much praise."
"But friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life; and thanks to a benevolent arrangement of things, the greater part of life is sunshine."
"I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it."
"Freedom of religion, freedom of the press, trial by jury, habeas corpus, and a representative legislature . . . I consider as the essentials constituting free government, and . . . the organization of the executive is interesting as it may insure wisdom and integrity in the first place, but next as it may favor or endanger the reservation of these fundamentals."
"To inform the minds of the people, and to follow their will, is the chief duty of those placed at their head."
"With the same honest views, the most honest men often form different conclusions."
"My chief object is to let the good sense of the nation have fair play, believing it will best take care of itself. "
"The road to that glory which never dies is to use power for the support of the laws of our country, not for their destruction."
"[The] approbation of my fellow-citizens is the richest reward I can receive. I am conscious of having always intended to do what was best for them; and never, for a single moment, to have listened to any personal interest of my own."
"If, in the course of my life, it has been in any degree useful to the cause of humanity, the fact itself bears its full reward."
"It is impossible not to deplore our past follies and their present consequences, but let them at least be warnings against like follies in future."
"In the transaction of the business of my fellow citizens I cannot have escaped error. It is incident to our imperfect nature. But I may say with truth, my errors have been of the understanding, not of intention; and that the advancement of the rights and interests has been the constant motive of every measure."
"I have not been in the habit of mysterious reserve on any subject, nor of buttoning up my opinions within my own doublet. On the contrary, while in public service especially, I thought the public entitled to frankness, and intimately to know whom they employed."
"After the satisfaction of doing what is right, the greatest is that of having what we do approved by those whose opinions deserve esteem."
"It is not wisdom alone but public confidence in that wisdom which can support an administration."
"Opinion is power."
"Continue to go straight forward, pursuing always that which is right, as the only clue which can lead us out of the labyrinth. Let nothing be spared of either reason or passion to preserve the public confidence entire as the only rock of our safety."
"In a free country, every power is dangerous which is not bound up by general rules."
"Principles being understood, their applications will be less embarrassing."
"I have the consolation . . . of having added nothing to my private fortune during my public service and of retiring with hands as clean as they are empty."
"In truth, man is not made to be trusted for life if secured against all liability to account."
"I think it is a duty in those entrusted with the administration of their affairs to conform themselves to the decided choice of their constituents. "
"Truth advances and error recedes step by step only; and to do our fellow men the most good in our power, we must lead where we can, follow where we cannot, and still go with them, watching always the favorable moment for helping them to another step."
"He who has done his duty honestly, and according to his best skill and judgment, stands acquitted before God and man."
"The boys of the rising generation are to be the men of the next, and the solid guardians of the principles we deliver over to them."
"Remember that we often repent of what we have said, but never, never of that which we have not."
"I will sacrifice everything but principle to procure harmony."
"Every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle."
"I believe we may lessen the danger of buying and selling votes by making the number of voters too great for any means of purchase."
"No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another, and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him."
"Should things go wrong at any time, the people will set them to rights by the peaceable exercise of their elective rights."
"Laws made by common consent must not be trampled on by individuals."
"Bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will, to be rightful, must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal laws must protect, and to violate would be oppression."
"It is an encouraging observation that no good measure was ever proposed which, if duly pursued, failed to prevail in the end."
"Man, once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without a rudder, is the sport of every wind. With such persons, gullibility, which they call faith, takes the helm from the hand of reason, and the mind becomes weak."
"Bear always in mind that a nation ceases to be republican only when the will of the majority ceases to be the law."
"If virtuous, the government need not fear the fair operation of attack and defense. Nature has given to man no other means of sifting the truth, either in religion, law, or politics."
"A great deal of indulgence is necessary to strengthen habits of harmony and fraternity."
"Let us go on in doing with the pen what in other times was done with the sword, and show that reformation is more practicable by operating on the mind than on the body of man."
"It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself."
"Ignorance and bigotry, like other insanities, are incapable of self-government."
"Every man's reason is his own rightful umpire. This principle, with that of acquiescence in the will of the majority, will preserve us free and prosperous as long as they are sacredly observed."
"I can never fear that things will go wrong where common sense has fair play."
"The ground of liberty is to be gained by inches, and we must be contented to secure what we can get from time to time and eternally press forward for what is yet to get. It takes time to persuade men to do even what is for their own good."
"Time and truth will at length correct error."
"Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances."
"I have great confidence in the common sense of mankind in general."
"Where thought is free in its range, we need never fear to hazard what is good in itself."
"I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led, and bearding every authority which stood in their way."
"There is not a truth existing which I fear or would wish unknown to the whole world."
"Opinion, and the just maintenance of it, shall never be a crime in my view: nor bring injury on the individual."
"Truth is great and will prevail if left to herself. She is proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless, by human interposition, disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate; errors cease to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them."
"Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom."
"The greatest honor of a man is in doing good to his fellow men, not in destroying them."
"The care of human life and happiness and not their destruction is the first and only legitimate object of good government. "
"In every country where man is free to think and to speak, differences of opinion will arise from difference of perception, and the imperfection of reason; but these differences when permitted, as in this happy country, to purify themselves by free discussion, are but as passing clouds overspreading our land transiently and leaving our horizon more bright and serene."
"The art of life is the art of avoiding pain; and he is the best pilot, who steers clearest of the rocks and shoals with which it is beset."
"All . . . being equally free, no one has a right to say what shall be law for the others. Our way is to put these questions to the vote, and to consider that as law for which the majority votes."
"Our saviour . . . has taught us to judge the tree by its fruit, and to leave motives to Him who can alone see into them."
"I have ever deemed it more honorable and more profitable, too, to set a good example than to follow a bad one."
"We are sensible of the duty and expediency of submitting our opinions to the will of the majority, and can wait with patience till they get right if they happen to be at any time wrong."
"He alone who walks strict and upright, and who, in matters of opinion, will be contented that others should be as free as himself and acquiesce when his opinion is freely overruled, will attain his object in the end.
Resources:
2011 Wikipedia. Thomas Jefferson. Retrieved 10/22/2011 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson
1996-2008 Summers, Robert- John Adams. In ipl2: Information You Can Trust: POTUS. Retrieved 1022/2011, from http://www.ipl.org/div/potus/tjefferson.html
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