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biography
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| lived:
| (1743–1826)
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| biography:
| US statesman and third president (1801–9), born in Albermarle Co, Virginia, USA. His father was a surveyor-landowner and his mother was a member of the distinguished Randolph family of Virginia. Thomas graduated from the College of William and Mary (1762) and read law under George Wythe. After several years of law practice, he was elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses (1769–75) and sided with the revolutionary faction, writing an influential tract, A Summary View of the Rights of British America (1774). In 1770 he began designing and building Monticello, which would occupy him on and off for some 35 years. Here in 1772 he brought his new wife, Martha Wyles Skelton (d.1782), and they had six children, only two of whom survived into maturity. He was among those who called the First Continental Congress (1774), and as a delegate to the Second Congress (1775–7), he was mainly responsible for drafting the Declaration of Independence (adopted 4 Jul 1776) which embodied some of his ideas on the natural rights of certain people. He then returned to Virginia where, as a member of its legislature (1776–9), he took the lead in creating a state constitution and then served as governor (1779–81), during which time he proposed that Virginia abolish the slave trade and assure religious freedom, but he did not achieve this. He was not very successful in organizing Virginian resistance to the British military operations there, and would come under criticism for his lack of leadership. Returning to the Continental Congress in 1783, he drafted the policy organizing the Northwest Territory and secured the adoption of the decimal system of coinage. He was sent to France (1784) with Benjamin Franklin and Samuel Adams to negotiate commercial treaties, and the next year succeeded Franklin as ambassador there. In 1789 George Washington appointed Jefferson secretary of state. In that position he became head of the liberal democratic–Republican faction (as it was then called) and worked against the more conservative Federalist policies of Hamilton, Madison, and Washington. He resigned as secretary of state at the end of 1793 to devote himself to his estate at Monticello. (He retained c.150 slaves there, selling or ‘giving’ them to others, treating them as property; he could accept this along with his high ideals because he regarded Africans as inferior beings.) In 1796 he was elected vice-president under Federalist John Adams. After four troubled years in that position (1797–1801), he beat Adams and narrowly beat Aaron Burr for the presidency, thanks in large part to the fact that his arch rival, Hamilton, supported him when the Electoral College vote was tied. Among the events of his triumphant first term (1801–5) were the successful war against Barbary pirates, the Louisiana Purchase (which more than doubled the size of the USA), and the Lewis and Clark Expedition. His second term (1805–9) was marred by vice-president Burr's trial for treason and Jefferson's highly unpopular embargo on trade with England and France. In 1809 he retired to his estate at Monticello, continuing his scholarly and scientific interests and helping to found the University of Virginia (1825). The campus he designed for the latter, the masterpiece of his periodic architectural endeavours, ushered in the Classical Revival in the USA. He also designed the Virginia state capitol and several fine homes. In 1813 he began what became an extended and remarkable exchange of letters with his old political adversary, John Adams; both died on 4 July 1826, the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. A complex man, happier when at intellectual pursuits than as an elected politician (he made no reference to his presidency on his tombstone), he was more admired abroad in his day than at home, where he was charged by some with everything from godlessness to fathering a child with his black servant girl. (This last charge has never been proved.) In the 20th-c he assumed the status of one of the greatest of all Americans, respected for his many achievements, from pioneering work in several disciplines to prophetic insights into such issues as freedom of the press. |
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