Thomas Jefferson:
Father of the "Declaration of Independence"
THOMAS JEFFERSON, author of the Declaration of Independence, was born on April 13, 1743 and grew up on the family plantation at Shadwell in Albermarle County, Virginia. His father was Peter Jefferson, who, with the aid of thirty slaves, tilled a tobacco and wheat farm of 1,900 acres and like his fathers before him, was a justice of the peace, a vestryman of his parish and a member of the colonial legislature. The first of the Virginia Jefferson’s of Welsh extraction, Peter in 1738 married Jane Randolph. Of their ten children, Thomas was the third.
In 1757, when Thomas was only fourteen, his father died, leaving him heir to an enormous estate. On his deathbed, his father left an order that his son’s education, already well advanced in a preparatory school, should be completed at the College of William and Mary, a circumstance which Thomas always remembered with gratitude, saying that if he had to choose between the education and the estate his father left him, he would choose the education.
At seventeen, when young Jefferson entered the College of William and Mary he was tall, raw-boned, freckled, and sandy haired. The college at that time had one truly outstanding educator, Dr. William Small of Scotland, professor of mathematics. Jefferson said in his autobiography that his coming under the influence of Dr. Small “probably fixed the destinies of my life”. Dr. Small gave Jefferson the views of the connection of the sciences and of the system of things of which man is a part, which then prevailed in the advanced scientific circles of Europe. As a student, Jefferson attended the musical parties that the lieutenant governor, Francis Fauquier hosted. Jefferson learned much of the social, political, and parliamentary life of the Old World. George Wythe, who was then a young lawyer of Williamsburg, often frequented the governor’s table, and contributed immensely to the forming of Jefferson’s mind.
Upon his graduation in 1762, Jefferson took up the study of law, under the guidance of George Wythe. While he was a student, he was an eyewitness of those memorable scenes in the Virginia legislature, which followed the passage of the stamp act. He was present as a spectator in the house when Patrick Henry read his five resolutions, enunciating the principal that Englishmen living in America had all the rights of Englishmen living in England, the chief of which was that they could only be taxed by their own representatives. On coming of age in April 1764, Jefferson assumed the management of his father’s estate and was appointed to two of his father’s offices—justice of the peace and vestryman.
Early in 1767, Jefferson was admitted to the bar of Virginia, and entered at once the practice of his profession. Jefferson was an accurate, painstaking and laborious lawyer and his business blossomed. He practiced law for nearly eight years, until the Revolutionary contest summoned him to other labors.
His public life began on May 11, 1769, when Jefferson took his seat as a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses, George Washington also being a member. Jefferson was then twenty-six years old. On becoming a public man he made a resolution “never to engage, while in public office, in any kind of enterprise for the improvement of my fortune, nor to wear any other character than that of a farmer.” On the close of his public career of nearly half a century, he could say that he had kept this resolution.
On January 1, 1772 Jefferson married Martha Wayles Skelton, who was the daughter of John Wayles, a wealthy Williamsburg lawyer, from whom she inherited a large property. Her first husband, Bathurst Skelton died before she was twenty years of age, and Jefferson was one of her many suitors. A few days after their marriage, he took her to live in his partly constructed mountaintop home, Monticello.
In March 1775, Jefferson was in Richmond as a member of the convention, which assembled in the church of St. John to consider what course Virginia should take in the crisis. The last act of this convention was to appoint a replacement in the case of a vacancy in the delegation of Virginia to congress. That replacement was Thomas Jefferson and on June 21, 1775, Jefferson took his seat as a substitute for Peyton Randolph, who had been called home. In May 1776, the news reached congress that the Virginia convention had unanimously voted for independence.
The momentous decision of the Continental Congress to sever its ties to Great Britain came on July 2, 1776 when the Delegates of the United Colonies of America adopted the resolution, introduced by Richard Henry Lee and John Adams, declaring independence from Great Britain:
``Resolved, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.'' .
On July 2, 1776 the United Colonies of America officially became the United States of America. The Declaration, which explained why the Colonies declared their independence, was adopted by the Continental Congress July 4, 1776. The Committee of five was Thomas Jefferson, assisted by John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Robert R. Livingston, and Roger Sherman. The committee assigned Thomas Jefferson the task of producing a draft Declaration for its consideration. Jefferson drew heavily on George Mason's Virginia Declaration of Rights (passed on June 12, 1776), state and local calls for independence, and his own work on the Virginia Constitution.
Despite key edits and changes made by the Committee of five, then Congress, Jefferson is rightfully considered the author of the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson used to relate with much merriment that the final vote upon the Declaration was hastened by swarms of flies, which came from a neighboring stable, and added to the discomfort of the members. A few days afterward, Jefferson was one of a committee to devise a seal for the newborn country. Among their suggestions (and this was the only one accepted by congress) was the best legend ever appropriated, E pluribus unum, a phrase that had served as a motto on the cover of the “Gentleman’s Magazine” for many years.
Having thus linked his name imperishably with the birthday of the nation, Jefferson resigned his seat in congress, on the ground that the health of his wife and the condition of his household made his presence in Virginia indispensable, he had also been again elected a member of the Virginia legislature, and his heart was set upon the work of purging the statute-books of unsuitable laws, and bringing up Virginia to the level of the Declaration. He had formed a high conception of the excellence of the New England governments, and wished to introduce into his native state the local institutions that had enabled those states to act with such efficiency during the war. After some stay at home he entered upon this work at Williamsburg, where, 8 October, 1776, a messenger from congress informed him that he had been elected joint commissioner, with Franklin and Deane, to represent the United States at Paris. After three days of consideration, he resisted the temptation to go abroad, feeling that his obligations to his family and his state made it his duty to remain at home.
In January 1779, the Virginia legislature elected Jefferson governor of the state, to succeed Patrick Henry, whose third term ended on June 1. His governorship of two years, during a time of British invasion, ended unhappily, largely through fault of circumstances. On the last day of 1780, Arnold's fleet of twenty-seven sail anchored in Chesapeake bay, and Arnold, with nine hundred men, penetrated as far as Richmond; but Jefferson had acted with so much promptitude, and was so ably seconded by the county militia, that the traitor held Richmond but twenty-three hours, and escaped total destruction only through a timely change in the wind, which bore him down the river with extraordinary swiftness.
In five days from the first summons twenty-five hundred militia were in pursuit of Arnold, and hundreds more were coming in every hour. For eighty-four hours Governor Jefferson was almost continuously in the saddle; and for many months after Arnold's first repulse, not only the governor, but all that Virginia had left of manhood, resources, and credit, were absorbed in the contest. Four times in the spring of 1781 the legislature of Virginia was obliged to adjourn and fly before the approach or the threat of an enemy. Monticello was captured by a troop of horse, and Jefferson himself narrowly escaped.
Cornwallis lived for ten days in the governor's house at Elk Hill, a hundred miles down the James, where he destroyed all the growing crops, burned the barns, carried off the horses, killed the colts, and took away twenty-seven slaves. During the public disasters of that time there was the usual disposition among a portion of the people to cast the blame upon the administration, and Jefferson himself was of the opinion that, in such a desperate crisis, it was best that the civil and the military power should be entrusted to the same hand. He therefore declined a re-election to a third term, and induced his friends to support General Thomas Nelson, commander-in-chief of the militia, who was elected.
The capture of Cornwallis in November, 1781, atoned for all the previous suffering and disaster. A month later Jefferson rose in his place in the legislature and declared his readiness to answer any charges that might be brought against his administration of the government; but no one responded. After a pause, a member offered a resolution thanking him for his impartial, upright, and attentive discharge of his duty, which was passed without a dissenting voice.
On 6 September, 1782, Jefferson's wife died, to his unspeakable and lasting sorrow, leaving three daughters, the youngest four months old. During the stupor caused by this event he was elected by a unanimous vote of congress, and, as Madison reports, "without a single adverse remark," plenipotentiary to France, to treat for peace, he gladly accepted; but, before he sailed, the joyful news came that preliminaries of peace had been agreed to, and he returned to Monticello.
June, 1783, he was elected to congress, and in November took his seat at Annapolis. Here, as chairman of a committee on the currency, he assisted to give us the decimal currency now in use. The happy idea originated with Gouverneur Morris of New York, but with details too cumbrous for common use. Jefferson proposed our present system of dollars and cents, with dimes, half-dimes, and a great gold coin of ten dollars, with subdivisions, such as we have now.
On 7 May, 1784, congress elected Jefferson for a third time plenipotentiary to France, to join Franklin and Adams in negotiating commercial treaties with foreign powers. On 2 May, 1785, he received from his commission appointing him sole minister plenipotentiary to the king of France for three years from 10 March, 1785. "You replace Dr. Franklin," said the Count de Vergennes to him, when he announced his appointment. Jefferson replied: " I succeed; no one can replace him."
The impression that France made upon Jefferson's mind was painful in the extreme. While enjoying the treasures of art that Paris presented, and particularly its music, relishing the amiable manners of the people, their habits and tastes, he was appalled at the cruel oppression of the ancient system of government. "The people," said he, "are ground to powder by the vices of the form of government," and he wrote to Madison that government by hereditary rulers was a "government of wolves over sheep, or kites over pigeons."
He kept the American colleges advised of the new inventions, discoveries, and books of Europe. He was particularly zealous in sending home seeds, roots, and nuts or trial in American soil. During his journey to Italy he procured a quantity of the choicest rice for the planters of South Carolina, and he supplied Buffon with American skins, skeletons, horns, and similar objects for his collection.
During his absence in France, his youngest daughter, Lucy, had died, leaving him just Martha and Maria. Having received a leave of absence for six months, he returned to Virginia, landing at Norfolk, 18 November, 1789.
His reception was most cordial. The legislature appointed a committee of thirteen, with Patrick Henry at their head, to congratulate him on his return, and on the day of his landing he read in a newspaper that President Washington, in settling the new government, had assigned to Thomas Jefferson the office of secretary of state. "I made light of it," he wrote soon afterward, "supposing I had only to say no, and there would be an end of it." On receiving the official notification of his appointment, he told the president that he preferred to retain the office he held. "But," he added, "it is not for an individual to choose his post. You are to marshal us as may be best for the public good." He finally accepted the appointment, and after witnessing at Monticello, 23 February, 1790, the marriage of his eldest daughter, Martha, to Thomas Mann Randolph, he began his journey to New York. On Sunday, 21 March, 1790, he reached New York, to enter upon the duties of his new office.
All his interest in the cultivation of the soil now returned to him, and he supposed his public life ended forever. In September, 1794, after the retirement of Hamilton from the cabinet (whom with Jefferson had had a great falling out), Washington invited Jefferson to resume the office of secretary of state; but he declined, declaring that "no circumstances would evermore tempt him to engage in anything public." Nevertheless, in 1796, with Washington having refused to serve a third term in the presidency, he allowed his name to be used as that of a reluctant candidate for the succession. The contest was embittered by the unpopularity of the Jay treaty with Great Britain. Jefferson had desired the rejection of the treaty, and he remained always of the opinion that by its rejection the government of the United States might at length have secured "a respect for our neutral rights" without a war. Jefferson had a narrow escape from being elected to the presidency in 1796. John Adams received seventy-one electoral votes, and Jefferson sixty-eight, a result that, as the law then stood, gave him the vice presidency.
In 1800 Mr. Adams was defeated for reelection, the electoral vote resulting thus: Jefferson, 73; Burr, 73; Adams, 65; Charles C. Pinckney, 64; Jay, 1. This strange result threw the election into the house of representatives, where the Federalists endeavored to elect Burr to the first office, an unworthy intrigue, which Hamilton honorably opposed. After a period of excitement, which seemed at times fraught with peril to the Union, the election was decided as the people meant it should be: Thomas Jefferson became president of the United States and Aaron Burr vice president.
The inauguration was celebrated throughout the country as a national holiday; soldiers paraded, church-bells rang, orations were delivered, and in some of the newspapers the Declaration of Independence was printed at length. Jefferson's first thought on coming to the presidency was to assuage the violence of party spirit, and he composed his fine inaugural address with that view. He reminded his fellow-citizens that a difference of opinion is not a difference of principle.
"We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists. If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form. let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it."
Among the first acts of President Jefferson was his pardoning every man who was in durance under the sedition law, which he said he considered to be "a nullity as absolute and palpable as if congress had ordered us to fall down and worship a golden image." To the chief victims of the alien law, such as Kosciuszko and Volney, he addressed friendly, consoling letters. Dr. Priestley, menaced with expulsion under the alien law, he invited to the White House. He wrote a noble letter to the venerable Samuel Adams, of Massachusetts, who had been avoided and insulted during the recent contest. He gave Thomas Paine, outlawed in England and living on sufferance in Paris, a passage home in a national ship. He appointed as his cabinet James Madison, secretary of state: Albert Gallatin, secretary of the treasury; Henry Dearborn, secretary of war; Robert Smith, secretary of the navy; Gideon Granger, postmaster-general; Levi Lincoln, attorney-general--all of whom were men of liberal education. With his cabinet he lived during the whole of his two terms in perfect harmony, and at the end he declared that if he had to choose again he would select the same individuals. With regard to appointments and removals the new president found himself in an embarrassing position, as all our presidents have done. Most of the offices were held by Federalists, and many of his own partisans expected removals enough to establish an equality. Jefferson resisted the demand. He made a few removals for strong and obvious reasons; but he acted uniformly on the principle that a difference of politics was not a reason for the removal of a competent and faithful subordinate. The few removals that he made were either for official misconduct or, to use his own language, "active and bitter opposition to the order of things which the public will has established."
War with Tripoli
Jefferson had long opposed paying tribute to protect American shipping from the pirates who operated from the Barbary states on the coast of northern Africa. As diplomatic representative to France he had tried but failed to persuade European countries to join with the United States in an attack on the pirate bases.
In 1801 the pasha (ruler) of Tripoli, one of the Barbary states (in what is now Libya), demanded tribute money beyond the amount fixed by treaty. When Jefferson refused the demand, war ensued. Jefferson sent warships to blockade Tripoli, and Stephen Decatur, a young naval officer, distinguished himself in several daring actions. However, the war with Tripoli did not end until 1805, when Captain William Eaton captured the Tripolitan town of Darnah and the pasha agreed to make peace. The payment of tribute to Tripoli came to an end.
Louisiana Purchase
Jefferson's chief accomplishment as president was the Louisiana Purchase. The huge territory of Louisiane (in English, Louisiana), stretching from the Canadian border to the Gulf of Mexico and from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains, was claimed as a possession by France in 1682. Because Louisiana was so large, its resources—although as yet mostly undiscovered—were thought to be of great value.
In the early years of the United States, Louisiana was of concern chiefly because it bordered the Mississippi River, which was vital to U.S. trade. In 1762 France had ceded Louisiana to Spain, which was too weak to offer a serious threat to American commerce. In 1800, however, rumors spread that Spain was about to cede Louisiana back to France. Jefferson was alarmed. Relations between the United States and France were still unfriendly, and France had the power to cut off American shipping at Louisiana's capital, New Orleans, at the mouth of the Mississippi. There was, said Jefferson, “one single spot” on the globe, “the possessor of which is our natural and habitual enemy. It is New Orleans through which the produce of three-eighths of our territory must pass to market.”
In 1802 the rumored cession was confirmed. Jefferson called the resulting crisis “the most important the United States have ever met since independence.” He sent James Monroe to help Robert R. Livingston, the American diplomatic representative to France, negotiate the purchase of New Orleans. Congress appropriated $2 million for the purchase.
In April 1803, one day before Monroe arrived in Paris, Talleyrand made Livingston a startling offer. The French emperor, Napoleon I, was willing to sell not only New Orleans, he said, but the whole of Louisiana as well. A treaty dated April 30, 1803, set the terms of the purchase: $15 million, which included $3.75 million to pay for American claims against France.
At the end of June, news of the treaty reached the United States. Jefferson was very eager to acquire the entire territory. Envoys in France wrote that Napoleon already regretted his offer and might back out if given time. Furthermore, many Federalists opposed the purchase and were ready to seize on Jefferson's own doubts about its constitutionality to prevent its ratification. Jefferson therefore asked the Senate to ratify the treaty at once. The Senate did so on October 20, although every Federalist voted against it.
It then appeared that Spain, which had not yet actually turned over Louisiana to France, might challenge the purchase. Jefferson proceeded swiftly and firmly to establish American rights. He ordered out troops from the Mississippi Territory, Tennessee, and Kentucky. This show of force discouraged Spanish resistance, and Spain formally ceded Louisiana to France. On December 20, 1803, the flag of the United States flew over New Orleans.
Lewis and Clark Expedition
Jefferson had dreamed of the exploration of the West from the time he was secretary of state. As a scientist he wanted to know about the land and its inhabitants. He realized the importance of such exploration for the future expansion of the United States.
In January 1803, half a year before the Louisiana Purchase, Jefferson proposed his idea to Congress. In order to conceal its expansionist aims from England, France, and Spain, he suggested that the journey be presented as a “literary pursuit.” Congress gave its approval. Jefferson chose his secretary, Meriwether Lewis, to lead the expedition, and Lewis selected William Clark, a frontiersman, as his coleader. Jefferson instructed them to observe and note down the physical features, topography, soil, climate, and wildlife of the land and the language and customs of its inhabitants. In 1806 Lewis and Clark returned with their valuable journals. They had successfully breached the mountain barrier of the West, built a fort on the Pacific Ocean at the mouth of the Columbia River, and mapped and explored much of the American Northwest. Moreover, they had secured the friendship of a number of Native American peoples and given the United States a claim to the Oregon country.
The popularity of the administration soon became such that the opposition was reduced to insignificance, and the president was re-elected by a greatly increased majority. In the house of representatives the Federalists shrank at length to a little band of twenty-seven, and in the senate to five. Jefferson seriously feared that there would not be sufficient opposition to furnish the close and ceaseless criticism that the public good required. His second term was less peaceful and less fortunate. During the long contest between Napoleon Bonaparte and the allied powers, the infractions of neutral rights were so frequent and so exasperating that perhaps Jefferson alone, aided by his fine temper and detestation of war, could have kept the infant republic out of the brawl.
When the English ship "Leopard," within hearing of Old Point Comfort, poured broadsides into the American frigate "Chesapeake," all unprepared and unsuspecting, killing three men and wounding eighteen, parties ceased to exist in the United States, and every voice that was audible clamored for bloody reprisals. "I had only to open my hand,""and let havoc loose."
There was a period in 1807 when he expected war both with Spain and Great Britain. A partial reparation by Great Britain postponed the contest. Yet the offenses were repeated; " no American ship was safe from violation, and no American sailor from impressment. This state of things induced Jefferson to recommend congress to suspend commercial intercourse with the belligerents, his object being to introduce between nations another umpire than arms." The embargo of 1807, which continued to the end of his second term, imposed upon the commercial states a test too severe for human nature patiently to endure. It was frequently violate and did not accomplish the object proposed. To the end of his life, Jefferson was of opinion that, if the whole people had risen to the height of his endeavor, if the merchants had strictly observed the embargo, and the educated class given it a cordial support, it would have saved the country the War of 1812, and extorted, what that war did not give us, a formal and explicit concession of neutral rights.
In the Election of 1808, Jefferson was again offered the Republican presidential nomination. Unwilling to see the presidency become “an inheritance,” he declined. He wanted, he said, to follow “the sound precedent set by an illustrious predecessor,” George Washington. The Republicans thereupon chose Jefferson's political protégé James Madison, who went on to win the presidential election of 1808. As Jefferson's term drew near its end, he wrote his old friend, French economist Pierre du Pont de Nemours:
"Never did a prisoner, released from his chains, feel such relief as I shall on shaking off the shackles of power. Nature intended me for the tranquil pursuits of science, by rendering them my supreme delight. But the enormities of the times in which I have lived, have forced me to … commit myself on the boisterous ocean of political passions. I thank God for the opportunity of retiring from them without censure, and carrying with me the most consoling proofs of public approbation."
On 4 March, 1809, after a nearly continuous public service of forty-four years, Jefferson retired to private life, so seriously impoverished that he was not sure of being allowed to leave Washington without arrest by his creditors. The embargo, by preventing the exportation of tobacco, had reduced his private income two thirds. He was comfortable leaving the presidency in the hands of James Madison, though, with whom he was in the most complete sympathy and with whom he continued to be in active correspondence, he was still a power in the nation. Madison and Monroe were his neighbors and friends, and both of them administered the government on principles that he cordially approved. As has been frequently remarked, they were three men and one system.
On retiring to Monticello, Jefferson was sixty-six years of age, and had seventeen years to live. His daughter Martha and her husband resided with him, they and their numerous brood of children, six daughters and five sons, to whom was now added Francis Eppes, the son of his daughter Maria, who had died in 1804. Surrounded thus by family, he spent the leisure of his declining years in endeavoring to establish in Virginia a system of education to embrace all the children of his native state. In this he was most zealously and ably assisted by his friend, Joseph C. Cabell, a member of the Virginia senate. What he planned in the study, Cabell supported in the legislature; and then in turn Jefferson would advocate Cabell's bill by one of his ingenious and exhaustive letters, which would go the rounds of the Virginia press. The correspondence of these two Patriots on the subject of education in Virginia was afterward published in an octavo of 528 pages, a noble monument to the character of both. He did not live long enough to see his system of common schools established in Virginia, but the university, which was to crown that system, a darling dream of his heart for forty years, he beheld in successful operation.
Toward the close of his life Jefferson became distressingly embarrassed in his circumstances. In 1814 he sold his library to congress for $23,000--about one fourth of its value. A few years afterward he endorsed a twenty-thousand-dollar note for a friend and neighbor whom he could not refuse, and who soon became bankrupt. This loss, which added $1,200 a year to his expenses, completed his ruin, and he was in danger of being compelled to surrender Monticello and seek shelter for his last days in another abode.
Philip Hone, mayor of New York, raised for him, in 1826, $8,500, to which Philadelphia added $5,000, and Baltimore $3,000. He was deeply touched by the spontaneous generosity of his countrymen. "No cent of this," he wrote, "is wrung from the tax-payer. It is the pure and unsolicited offering of love."
He retained his health nearly to his last days, and had the happiness of living to the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. He died at twenty minutes to one p. hr., 4 July, 1826. John Adams died a few hours later on the same day, saying, just before he breathed his last, "Thomas Jefferson still lives." he was buried in his own graveyard at Monticello, beneath a stone upon which was engraved an inscription prepared by his own hand;
"Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia."
This was to be inscribed on the monument, and “not a word more … because by these, as testimonials that I have lived, I wish most to be remembered.”
Jefferson's wishes were carried out, but vandals later overturned and broke the stone. A careful reproduction now marks Jefferson's grave.
Thomas Jefferson Notes:
So many Accomplishments in a Single Lifetime
Thomas Jefferson was the third Constitutional President of the United States (1801-1809) and author of the Declaration of Independence. He was arguably one of the most brilliant men in history. His interests were boundless, and his accomplishments were great and varied. He was a philosopher, educator, naturalist, politician, scientist, architect, inventor, pioneer in scientific farming, musician, and writer, and he was the foremost spokesman for democracy of his day.
During Jefferson's stay abroad he was frequently consulted on significant developments at home. The most important of these was the Constitution of the United States, drawn up in 1787. To James Madison, who sent him a copy of the proposed Constitution, Jefferson wrote, “A bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth.” Such a bill would clearly state the right of the people to “freedom of religion, freedom of the press, protection against standing armies, restriction of monopolies, the eternal and unremitting force of the habeas corpus laws, and trial by jury ….” Based on Jefferson's suggestions, Madison proposed a Bill of Rights, consisting of the first ten amendments, which was added to the Constitution in 1791.
Just one matter Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton disagreed intensely was the establishment of a national bank. Hamilton advocated such a bank as a means of forging a bond of common interest between business and the federal government. Jefferson felt that a national bank would encourage people to desert agriculture for speculation and give the commercial interests too much power in the federal government.
Political Parties
Out of the divergent political philosophies of Jefferson and Hamilton emerged the first clearly defined political parties in the United States. Hamilton's followers called themselves Federalists, later known as the Federalist Party, and Jefferson's were Republicans, later known as the Democratic-Republican Party. Feelings ran high between the two parties. Jefferson was assailed as an atheist and a demagogue. The Federalists were accused of planning to establish a monarchy along British lines.
Jefferson supported his views by a “strict construction” of the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution, which specified that “the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Jefferson argued that since the Constitution did not specifically empower the federal government to establish a national bank, it could not do so. Hamilton, however, argued for a “loose construction” of the Constitution. Relying on the implied-powers clause, which states that Congress can make all laws “necessary and proper” for the execution of its powers, Hamilton argued that the federal government could establish a bank. Jefferson's views were rejected when President Washington signed a bill establishing a national bank.
During most of his life, Thomas Jefferson kept detailed records, in books. He recorded births, deaths, work assignments, and food and clothing allotments. Jefferson also included minute observations and calculations about the natural world; the work cycles at his plantations, mills, and manufactories; and the work of his labor force.
Merry Affair
Jefferson believed that the president's dress and manners should reflect the republican simplicity and informality of the country. Pomp and show reminded him too much of the European courts. In fact, Jefferson worked so hard to avoid ostentation that he began to dress not merely plainly, but sloppily. As for manners, he refused to observe the rules of protocol in seating his dinner guests. First come, first served was the rule in the presidential mansion, the White House. Jefferson explained:
In social circles, all are equal, whether in, or out, of office, foreign or domestic; and the same equality exists among ladies and gentlemen … “pell mell” and “next the door” form the basis of etiquette in the societies of this country.
The new British diplomatic representative to the United States, Anthony Merry, and his wife were shocked and insulted when the president received them in worn clothing and slippers. In December 1803 at a formal dinner in the White House, no one offered to escort Mrs. Merry to dinner. In the dining room, Merry and his wife had to scramble for places at the table in competition with the other guests. The Marquis d'Yrujo, the Spanish diplomat, had the same experience. He and Merry agreed that this treatment was an insult to them and to their countries. The two diplomats and their wives sought to retaliate. At their parties, for instance, no one escorted the wives of the Cabinet members to the dinner table. This social war greatly enlivened Washington. The president refused to retreat from his pell mell rule, and Merry and Yrujo became increasingly angry and receptive to the plottings of Jefferson's opponents, the Federalists and Aaron Burr.
Thomas Jefferson, like other enlightened farmers, took a scientific approach to farming with the help of his son-in-law, Thomas Mann Randolph, who managed much of Jefferson's land after marrying Martha "Patsy" Jefferson in 1790. Jefferson took careful consideration of a workable method of crop rotation for Monticello -- an innovative practice at the time.
Thomas Jefferson was devastated by the death of his wife Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson who died after giving birth to their sixth child, Lucy Elizabeth (1782-1784). Jefferson wrote little about his wife's death, making this entry into his account book on September 6, 1782: "My dear wife died this day at 11H -45' A.M." More than two months later he haltingly wrote to a French officer and friend, Marquis de Chastellux (1734-1788), that he was... "emerging from the stupor of mind which had rendered me as dead to the world as [she] was whose . . . loss occasioned it."
In 1757, when Thomas was only fourteen, his father died, leaving him heir to an enormous estate. On his deathbed, his father left an order that his son’s education, already well advanced in a preparatory school, should be completed at the College of William and Mary, a circumstance which Thomas always remembered with gratitude, saying that if he had to choose between the education and the estate his father left him, he would choose the education.
At seventeen, when young Jefferson entered the College of William and Mary he was tall, raw-boned, freckled, and sandy haired. The college at that time had one truly outstanding educator, Dr. William Small of Scotland, professor of mathematics. Jefferson said in his autobiography that his coming under the influence of Dr. Small “probably fixed the destinies of my life”. Dr. Small gave Jefferson the views of the connection of the sciences and of the system of things of which man is a part, which then prevailed in the advanced scientific circles of Europe. As a student, Jefferson attended the musical parties that the lieutenant governor, Francis Fauquier hosted. Jefferson learned much of the social, political, and parliamentary life of the Old World. George Wythe, who was then a young lawyer of Williamsburg, often frequented the governor’s table, and contributed immensely to the forming of Jefferson’s mind.
Upon his graduation in 1762, Jefferson took up the study of law, under the guidance of George Wythe. While he was a student, he was an eyewitness of those memorable scenes in the Virginia legislature, which followed the passage of the stamp act. He was present as a spectator in the house when Patrick Henry read his five resolutions, enunciating the principal that Englishmen living in America had all the rights of Englishmen living in England, the chief of which was that they could only be taxed by their own representatives. On coming of age in April 1764, Jefferson assumed the management of his father’s estate and was appointed to two of his father’s offices—justice of the peace and vestryman.
Early in 1767, Jefferson was admitted to the bar of Virginia, and entered at once the practice of his profession. Jefferson was an accurate, painstaking and laborious lawyer and his business blossomed. He practiced law for nearly eight years, until the Revolutionary contest summoned him to other labors.
His public life began on May 11, 1769, when Jefferson took his seat as a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses, George Washington also being a member. Jefferson was then twenty-six years old. On becoming a public man he made a resolution “never to engage, while in public office, in any kind of enterprise for the improvement of my fortune, nor to wear any other character than that of a farmer.” On the close of his public career of nearly half a century, he could say that he had kept this resolution.
On January 1, 1772 Jefferson married Martha Wayles Skelton, who was the daughter of John Wayles, a wealthy Williamsburg lawyer, from whom she inherited a large property. Her first husband, Bathurst Skelton died before she was twenty years of age, and Jefferson was one of her many suitors. A few days after their marriage, he took her to live in his partly constructed mountaintop home, Monticello.
In March 1775, Jefferson was in Richmond as a member of the convention, which assembled in the church of St. John to consider what course Virginia should take in the crisis. The last act of this convention was to appoint a replacement in the case of a vacancy in the delegation of Virginia to congress. That replacement was Thomas Jefferson and on June 21, 1775, Jefferson took his seat as a substitute for Peyton Randolph, who had been called home. In May 1776, the news reached congress that the Virginia convention had unanimously voted for independence.
The momentous decision of the Continental Congress to sever its ties to Great Britain came on July 2, 1776 when the Delegates of the United Colonies of America adopted the resolution, introduced by Richard Henry Lee and John Adams, declaring independence from Great Britain:
``Resolved, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.'' .
On July 2, 1776 the United Colonies of America officially became the United States of America. The Declaration, which explained why the Colonies declared their independence, was adopted by the Continental Congress July 4, 1776. The Committee of five was Thomas Jefferson, assisted by John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Robert R. Livingston, and Roger Sherman. The committee assigned Thomas Jefferson the task of producing a draft Declaration for its consideration. Jefferson drew heavily on George Mason's Virginia Declaration of Rights (passed on June 12, 1776), state and local calls for independence, and his own work on the Virginia Constitution.
Despite key edits and changes made by the Committee of five, then Congress, Jefferson is rightfully considered the author of the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson used to relate with much merriment that the final vote upon the Declaration was hastened by swarms of flies, which came from a neighboring stable, and added to the discomfort of the members. A few days afterward, Jefferson was one of a committee to devise a seal for the newborn country. Among their suggestions (and this was the only one accepted by congress) was the best legend ever appropriated, E pluribus unum, a phrase that had served as a motto on the cover of the “Gentleman’s Magazine” for many years.
Having thus linked his name imperishably with the birthday of the nation, Jefferson resigned his seat in congress, on the ground that the health of his wife and the condition of his household made his presence in Virginia indispensable, he had also been again elected a member of the Virginia legislature, and his heart was set upon the work of purging the statute-books of unsuitable laws, and bringing up Virginia to the level of the Declaration. He had formed a high conception of the excellence of the New England governments, and wished to introduce into his native state the local institutions that had enabled those states to act with such efficiency during the war. After some stay at home he entered upon this work at Williamsburg, where, 8 October, 1776, a messenger from congress informed him that he had been elected joint commissioner, with Franklin and Deane, to represent the United States at Paris. After three days of consideration, he resisted the temptation to go abroad, feeling that his obligations to his family and his state made it his duty to remain at home.
In January 1779, the Virginia legislature elected Jefferson governor of the state, to succeed Patrick Henry, whose third term ended on June 1. His governorship of two years, during a time of British invasion, ended unhappily, largely through fault of circumstances. On the last day of 1780, Arnold's fleet of twenty-seven sail anchored in Chesapeake bay, and Arnold, with nine hundred men, penetrated as far as Richmond; but Jefferson had acted with so much promptitude, and was so ably seconded by the county militia, that the traitor held Richmond but twenty-three hours, and escaped total destruction only through a timely change in the wind, which bore him down the river with extraordinary swiftness.
In five days from the first summons twenty-five hundred militia were in pursuit of Arnold, and hundreds more were coming in every hour. For eighty-four hours Governor Jefferson was almost continuously in the saddle; and for many months after Arnold's first repulse, not only the governor, but all that Virginia had left of manhood, resources, and credit, were absorbed in the contest. Four times in the spring of 1781 the legislature of Virginia was obliged to adjourn and fly before the approach or the threat of an enemy. Monticello was captured by a troop of horse, and Jefferson himself narrowly escaped.
Cornwallis lived for ten days in the governor's house at Elk Hill, a hundred miles down the James, where he destroyed all the growing crops, burned the barns, carried off the horses, killed the colts, and took away twenty-seven slaves. During the public disasters of that time there was the usual disposition among a portion of the people to cast the blame upon the administration, and Jefferson himself was of the opinion that, in such a desperate crisis, it was best that the civil and the military power should be entrusted to the same hand. He therefore declined a re-election to a third term, and induced his friends to support General Thomas Nelson, commander-in-chief of the militia, who was elected.
The capture of Cornwallis in November, 1781, atoned for all the previous suffering and disaster. A month later Jefferson rose in his place in the legislature and declared his readiness to answer any charges that might be brought against his administration of the government; but no one responded. After a pause, a member offered a resolution thanking him for his impartial, upright, and attentive discharge of his duty, which was passed without a dissenting voice.
On 6 September, 1782, Jefferson's wife died, to his unspeakable and lasting sorrow, leaving three daughters, the youngest four months old. During the stupor caused by this event he was elected by a unanimous vote of congress, and, as Madison reports, "without a single adverse remark," plenipotentiary to France, to treat for peace, he gladly accepted; but, before he sailed, the joyful news came that preliminaries of peace had been agreed to, and he returned to Monticello.
June, 1783, he was elected to congress, and in November took his seat at Annapolis. Here, as chairman of a committee on the currency, he assisted to give us the decimal currency now in use. The happy idea originated with Gouverneur Morris of New York, but with details too cumbrous for common use. Jefferson proposed our present system of dollars and cents, with dimes, half-dimes, and a great gold coin of ten dollars, with subdivisions, such as we have now.
On 7 May, 1784, congress elected Jefferson for a third time plenipotentiary to France, to join Franklin and Adams in negotiating commercial treaties with foreign powers. On 2 May, 1785, he received from his commission appointing him sole minister plenipotentiary to the king of France for three years from 10 March, 1785. "You replace Dr. Franklin," said the Count de Vergennes to him, when he announced his appointment. Jefferson replied: " I succeed; no one can replace him."
The impression that France made upon Jefferson's mind was painful in the extreme. While enjoying the treasures of art that Paris presented, and particularly its music, relishing the amiable manners of the people, their habits and tastes, he was appalled at the cruel oppression of the ancient system of government. "The people," said he, "are ground to powder by the vices of the form of government," and he wrote to Madison that government by hereditary rulers was a "government of wolves over sheep, or kites over pigeons."
He kept the American colleges advised of the new inventions, discoveries, and books of Europe. He was particularly zealous in sending home seeds, roots, and nuts or trial in American soil. During his journey to Italy he procured a quantity of the choicest rice for the planters of South Carolina, and he supplied Buffon with American skins, skeletons, horns, and similar objects for his collection.
During his absence in France, his youngest daughter, Lucy, had died, leaving him just Martha and Maria. Having received a leave of absence for six months, he returned to Virginia, landing at Norfolk, 18 November, 1789.
His reception was most cordial. The legislature appointed a committee of thirteen, with Patrick Henry at their head, to congratulate him on his return, and on the day of his landing he read in a newspaper that President Washington, in settling the new government, had assigned to Thomas Jefferson the office of secretary of state. "I made light of it," he wrote soon afterward, "supposing I had only to say no, and there would be an end of it." On receiving the official notification of his appointment, he told the president that he preferred to retain the office he held. "But," he added, "it is not for an individual to choose his post. You are to marshal us as may be best for the public good." He finally accepted the appointment, and after witnessing at Monticello, 23 February, 1790, the marriage of his eldest daughter, Martha, to Thomas Mann Randolph, he began his journey to New York. On Sunday, 21 March, 1790, he reached New York, to enter upon the duties of his new office.
All his interest in the cultivation of the soil now returned to him, and he supposed his public life ended forever. In September, 1794, after the retirement of Hamilton from the cabinet (whom with Jefferson had had a great falling out), Washington invited Jefferson to resume the office of secretary of state; but he declined, declaring that "no circumstances would evermore tempt him to engage in anything public." Nevertheless, in 1796, with Washington having refused to serve a third term in the presidency, he allowed his name to be used as that of a reluctant candidate for the succession. The contest was embittered by the unpopularity of the Jay treaty with Great Britain. Jefferson had desired the rejection of the treaty, and he remained always of the opinion that by its rejection the government of the United States might at length have secured "a respect for our neutral rights" without a war. Jefferson had a narrow escape from being elected to the presidency in 1796. John Adams received seventy-one electoral votes, and Jefferson sixty-eight, a result that, as the law then stood, gave him the vice presidency.
In 1800 Mr. Adams was defeated for reelection, the electoral vote resulting thus: Jefferson, 73; Burr, 73; Adams, 65; Charles C. Pinckney, 64; Jay, 1. This strange result threw the election into the house of representatives, where the Federalists endeavored to elect Burr to the first office, an unworthy intrigue, which Hamilton honorably opposed. After a period of excitement, which seemed at times fraught with peril to the Union, the election was decided as the people meant it should be: Thomas Jefferson became president of the United States and Aaron Burr vice president.
The inauguration was celebrated throughout the country as a national holiday; soldiers paraded, church-bells rang, orations were delivered, and in some of the newspapers the Declaration of Independence was printed at length. Jefferson's first thought on coming to the presidency was to assuage the violence of party spirit, and he composed his fine inaugural address with that view. He reminded his fellow-citizens that a difference of opinion is not a difference of principle.
"We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists. If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form. let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it."
Among the first acts of President Jefferson was his pardoning every man who was in durance under the sedition law, which he said he considered to be "a nullity as absolute and palpable as if congress had ordered us to fall down and worship a golden image." To the chief victims of the alien law, such as Kosciuszko and Volney, he addressed friendly, consoling letters. Dr. Priestley, menaced with expulsion under the alien law, he invited to the White House. He wrote a noble letter to the venerable Samuel Adams, of Massachusetts, who had been avoided and insulted during the recent contest. He gave Thomas Paine, outlawed in England and living on sufferance in Paris, a passage home in a national ship. He appointed as his cabinet James Madison, secretary of state: Albert Gallatin, secretary of the treasury; Henry Dearborn, secretary of war; Robert Smith, secretary of the navy; Gideon Granger, postmaster-general; Levi Lincoln, attorney-general--all of whom were men of liberal education. With his cabinet he lived during the whole of his two terms in perfect harmony, and at the end he declared that if he had to choose again he would select the same individuals. With regard to appointments and removals the new president found himself in an embarrassing position, as all our presidents have done. Most of the offices were held by Federalists, and many of his own partisans expected removals enough to establish an equality. Jefferson resisted the demand. He made a few removals for strong and obvious reasons; but he acted uniformly on the principle that a difference of politics was not a reason for the removal of a competent and faithful subordinate. The few removals that he made were either for official misconduct or, to use his own language, "active and bitter opposition to the order of things which the public will has established."
War with Tripoli
Jefferson had long opposed paying tribute to protect American shipping from the pirates who operated from the Barbary states on the coast of northern Africa. As diplomatic representative to France he had tried but failed to persuade European countries to join with the United States in an attack on the pirate bases.
In 1801 the pasha (ruler) of Tripoli, one of the Barbary states (in what is now Libya), demanded tribute money beyond the amount fixed by treaty. When Jefferson refused the demand, war ensued. Jefferson sent warships to blockade Tripoli, and Stephen Decatur, a young naval officer, distinguished himself in several daring actions. However, the war with Tripoli did not end until 1805, when Captain William Eaton captured the Tripolitan town of Darnah and the pasha agreed to make peace. The payment of tribute to Tripoli came to an end.
Louisiana Purchase
Jefferson's chief accomplishment as president was the Louisiana Purchase. The huge territory of Louisiane (in English, Louisiana), stretching from the Canadian border to the Gulf of Mexico and from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains, was claimed as a possession by France in 1682. Because Louisiana was so large, its resources—although as yet mostly undiscovered—were thought to be of great value.
In the early years of the United States, Louisiana was of concern chiefly because it bordered the Mississippi River, which was vital to U.S. trade. In 1762 France had ceded Louisiana to Spain, which was too weak to offer a serious threat to American commerce. In 1800, however, rumors spread that Spain was about to cede Louisiana back to France. Jefferson was alarmed. Relations between the United States and France were still unfriendly, and France had the power to cut off American shipping at Louisiana's capital, New Orleans, at the mouth of the Mississippi. There was, said Jefferson, “one single spot” on the globe, “the possessor of which is our natural and habitual enemy. It is New Orleans through which the produce of three-eighths of our territory must pass to market.”
In 1802 the rumored cession was confirmed. Jefferson called the resulting crisis “the most important the United States have ever met since independence.” He sent James Monroe to help Robert R. Livingston, the American diplomatic representative to France, negotiate the purchase of New Orleans. Congress appropriated $2 million for the purchase.
In April 1803, one day before Monroe arrived in Paris, Talleyrand made Livingston a startling offer. The French emperor, Napoleon I, was willing to sell not only New Orleans, he said, but the whole of Louisiana as well. A treaty dated April 30, 1803, set the terms of the purchase: $15 million, which included $3.75 million to pay for American claims against France.
At the end of June, news of the treaty reached the United States. Jefferson was very eager to acquire the entire territory. Envoys in France wrote that Napoleon already regretted his offer and might back out if given time. Furthermore, many Federalists opposed the purchase and were ready to seize on Jefferson's own doubts about its constitutionality to prevent its ratification. Jefferson therefore asked the Senate to ratify the treaty at once. The Senate did so on October 20, although every Federalist voted against it.
It then appeared that Spain, which had not yet actually turned over Louisiana to France, might challenge the purchase. Jefferson proceeded swiftly and firmly to establish American rights. He ordered out troops from the Mississippi Territory, Tennessee, and Kentucky. This show of force discouraged Spanish resistance, and Spain formally ceded Louisiana to France. On December 20, 1803, the flag of the United States flew over New Orleans.
Lewis and Clark Expedition
Jefferson had dreamed of the exploration of the West from the time he was secretary of state. As a scientist he wanted to know about the land and its inhabitants. He realized the importance of such exploration for the future expansion of the United States.
In January 1803, half a year before the Louisiana Purchase, Jefferson proposed his idea to Congress. In order to conceal its expansionist aims from England, France, and Spain, he suggested that the journey be presented as a “literary pursuit.” Congress gave its approval. Jefferson chose his secretary, Meriwether Lewis, to lead the expedition, and Lewis selected William Clark, a frontiersman, as his coleader. Jefferson instructed them to observe and note down the physical features, topography, soil, climate, and wildlife of the land and the language and customs of its inhabitants. In 1806 Lewis and Clark returned with their valuable journals. They had successfully breached the mountain barrier of the West, built a fort on the Pacific Ocean at the mouth of the Columbia River, and mapped and explored much of the American Northwest. Moreover, they had secured the friendship of a number of Native American peoples and given the United States a claim to the Oregon country.
The popularity of the administration soon became such that the opposition was reduced to insignificance, and the president was re-elected by a greatly increased majority. In the house of representatives the Federalists shrank at length to a little band of twenty-seven, and in the senate to five. Jefferson seriously feared that there would not be sufficient opposition to furnish the close and ceaseless criticism that the public good required. His second term was less peaceful and less fortunate. During the long contest between Napoleon Bonaparte and the allied powers, the infractions of neutral rights were so frequent and so exasperating that perhaps Jefferson alone, aided by his fine temper and detestation of war, could have kept the infant republic out of the brawl.
When the English ship "Leopard," within hearing of Old Point Comfort, poured broadsides into the American frigate "Chesapeake," all unprepared and unsuspecting, killing three men and wounding eighteen, parties ceased to exist in the United States, and every voice that was audible clamored for bloody reprisals. "I had only to open my hand,""and let havoc loose."
There was a period in 1807 when he expected war both with Spain and Great Britain. A partial reparation by Great Britain postponed the contest. Yet the offenses were repeated; " no American ship was safe from violation, and no American sailor from impressment. This state of things induced Jefferson to recommend congress to suspend commercial intercourse with the belligerents, his object being to introduce between nations another umpire than arms." The embargo of 1807, which continued to the end of his second term, imposed upon the commercial states a test too severe for human nature patiently to endure. It was frequently violate and did not accomplish the object proposed. To the end of his life, Jefferson was of opinion that, if the whole people had risen to the height of his endeavor, if the merchants had strictly observed the embargo, and the educated class given it a cordial support, it would have saved the country the War of 1812, and extorted, what that war did not give us, a formal and explicit concession of neutral rights.
In the Election of 1808, Jefferson was again offered the Republican presidential nomination. Unwilling to see the presidency become “an inheritance,” he declined. He wanted, he said, to follow “the sound precedent set by an illustrious predecessor,” George Washington. The Republicans thereupon chose Jefferson's political protégé James Madison, who went on to win the presidential election of 1808. As Jefferson's term drew near its end, he wrote his old friend, French economist Pierre du Pont de Nemours:
"Never did a prisoner, released from his chains, feel such relief as I shall on shaking off the shackles of power. Nature intended me for the tranquil pursuits of science, by rendering them my supreme delight. But the enormities of the times in which I have lived, have forced me to … commit myself on the boisterous ocean of political passions. I thank God for the opportunity of retiring from them without censure, and carrying with me the most consoling proofs of public approbation."
On 4 March, 1809, after a nearly continuous public service of forty-four years, Jefferson retired to private life, so seriously impoverished that he was not sure of being allowed to leave Washington without arrest by his creditors. The embargo, by preventing the exportation of tobacco, had reduced his private income two thirds. He was comfortable leaving the presidency in the hands of James Madison, though, with whom he was in the most complete sympathy and with whom he continued to be in active correspondence, he was still a power in the nation. Madison and Monroe were his neighbors and friends, and both of them administered the government on principles that he cordially approved. As has been frequently remarked, they were three men and one system.
On retiring to Monticello, Jefferson was sixty-six years of age, and had seventeen years to live. His daughter Martha and her husband resided with him, they and their numerous brood of children, six daughters and five sons, to whom was now added Francis Eppes, the son of his daughter Maria, who had died in 1804. Surrounded thus by family, he spent the leisure of his declining years in endeavoring to establish in Virginia a system of education to embrace all the children of his native state. In this he was most zealously and ably assisted by his friend, Joseph C. Cabell, a member of the Virginia senate. What he planned in the study, Cabell supported in the legislature; and then in turn Jefferson would advocate Cabell's bill by one of his ingenious and exhaustive letters, which would go the rounds of the Virginia press. The correspondence of these two Patriots on the subject of education in Virginia was afterward published in an octavo of 528 pages, a noble monument to the character of both. He did not live long enough to see his system of common schools established in Virginia, but the university, which was to crown that system, a darling dream of his heart for forty years, he beheld in successful operation.
Toward the close of his life Jefferson became distressingly embarrassed in his circumstances. In 1814 he sold his library to congress for $23,000--about one fourth of its value. A few years afterward he endorsed a twenty-thousand-dollar note for a friend and neighbor whom he could not refuse, and who soon became bankrupt. This loss, which added $1,200 a year to his expenses, completed his ruin, and he was in danger of being compelled to surrender Monticello and seek shelter for his last days in another abode.
Philip Hone, mayor of New York, raised for him, in 1826, $8,500, to which Philadelphia added $5,000, and Baltimore $3,000. He was deeply touched by the spontaneous generosity of his countrymen. "No cent of this," he wrote, "is wrung from the tax-payer. It is the pure and unsolicited offering of love."
He retained his health nearly to his last days, and had the happiness of living to the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. He died at twenty minutes to one p. hr., 4 July, 1826. John Adams died a few hours later on the same day, saying, just before he breathed his last, "Thomas Jefferson still lives." he was buried in his own graveyard at Monticello, beneath a stone upon which was engraved an inscription prepared by his own hand;
"Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia."
This was to be inscribed on the monument, and “not a word more … because by these, as testimonials that I have lived, I wish most to be remembered.”
Jefferson's wishes were carried out, but vandals later overturned and broke the stone. A careful reproduction now marks Jefferson's grave.
Thomas Jefferson Notes:
So many Accomplishments in a Single Lifetime
Thomas Jefferson was the third Constitutional President of the United States (1801-1809) and author of the Declaration of Independence. He was arguably one of the most brilliant men in history. His interests were boundless, and his accomplishments were great and varied. He was a philosopher, educator, naturalist, politician, scientist, architect, inventor, pioneer in scientific farming, musician, and writer, and he was the foremost spokesman for democracy of his day.
During Jefferson's stay abroad he was frequently consulted on significant developments at home. The most important of these was the Constitution of the United States, drawn up in 1787. To James Madison, who sent him a copy of the proposed Constitution, Jefferson wrote, “A bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth.” Such a bill would clearly state the right of the people to “freedom of religion, freedom of the press, protection against standing armies, restriction of monopolies, the eternal and unremitting force of the habeas corpus laws, and trial by jury ….” Based on Jefferson's suggestions, Madison proposed a Bill of Rights, consisting of the first ten amendments, which was added to the Constitution in 1791.
Just one matter Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton disagreed intensely was the establishment of a national bank. Hamilton advocated such a bank as a means of forging a bond of common interest between business and the federal government. Jefferson felt that a national bank would encourage people to desert agriculture for speculation and give the commercial interests too much power in the federal government.
Political Parties
Out of the divergent political philosophies of Jefferson and Hamilton emerged the first clearly defined political parties in the United States. Hamilton's followers called themselves Federalists, later known as the Federalist Party, and Jefferson's were Republicans, later known as the Democratic-Republican Party. Feelings ran high between the two parties. Jefferson was assailed as an atheist and a demagogue. The Federalists were accused of planning to establish a monarchy along British lines.
Jefferson supported his views by a “strict construction” of the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution, which specified that “the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Jefferson argued that since the Constitution did not specifically empower the federal government to establish a national bank, it could not do so. Hamilton, however, argued for a “loose construction” of the Constitution. Relying on the implied-powers clause, which states that Congress can make all laws “necessary and proper” for the execution of its powers, Hamilton argued that the federal government could establish a bank. Jefferson's views were rejected when President Washington signed a bill establishing a national bank.
During most of his life, Thomas Jefferson kept detailed records, in books. He recorded births, deaths, work assignments, and food and clothing allotments. Jefferson also included minute observations and calculations about the natural world; the work cycles at his plantations, mills, and manufactories; and the work of his labor force.
Merry Affair
Jefferson believed that the president's dress and manners should reflect the republican simplicity and informality of the country. Pomp and show reminded him too much of the European courts. In fact, Jefferson worked so hard to avoid ostentation that he began to dress not merely plainly, but sloppily. As for manners, he refused to observe the rules of protocol in seating his dinner guests. First come, first served was the rule in the presidential mansion, the White House. Jefferson explained:
In social circles, all are equal, whether in, or out, of office, foreign or domestic; and the same equality exists among ladies and gentlemen … “pell mell” and “next the door” form the basis of etiquette in the societies of this country.
The new British diplomatic representative to the United States, Anthony Merry, and his wife were shocked and insulted when the president received them in worn clothing and slippers. In December 1803 at a formal dinner in the White House, no one offered to escort Mrs. Merry to dinner. In the dining room, Merry and his wife had to scramble for places at the table in competition with the other guests. The Marquis d'Yrujo, the Spanish diplomat, had the same experience. He and Merry agreed that this treatment was an insult to them and to their countries. The two diplomats and their wives sought to retaliate. At their parties, for instance, no one escorted the wives of the Cabinet members to the dinner table. This social war greatly enlivened Washington. The president refused to retreat from his pell mell rule, and Merry and Yrujo became increasingly angry and receptive to the plottings of Jefferson's opponents, the Federalists and Aaron Burr.
Thomas Jefferson, like other enlightened farmers, took a scientific approach to farming with the help of his son-in-law, Thomas Mann Randolph, who managed much of Jefferson's land after marrying Martha "Patsy" Jefferson in 1790. Jefferson took careful consideration of a workable method of crop rotation for Monticello -- an innovative practice at the time.
Thomas Jefferson was devastated by the death of his wife Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson who died after giving birth to their sixth child, Lucy Elizabeth (1782-1784). Jefferson wrote little about his wife's death, making this entry into his account book on September 6, 1782: "My dear wife died this day at 11H -45' A.M." More than two months later he haltingly wrote to a French officer and friend, Marquis de Chastellux (1734-1788), that he was... "emerging from the stupor of mind which had rendered me as dead to the world as [she] was whose . . . loss occasioned it."
Monticello
Thomas Jefferson built his octagon house, in the Palladian style, at Poplar Forest, a plantation inherited from his wife Martha's father, John Wayles in 1773. Jefferson usually went to Poplar Forest several times a year, staying for up to two months to oversee plantation production and to avoid visitors at Monticello. Jefferson left Poplar Forest to his grandson Francis Eppes (1801-1881), who sold it two years later to a neighbor. The house remained a private home until 1984.
Ivory Sheets
Thomas Jefferson used these ivory sheets to make penciled notes, which could then be erased once he transferred the information into one of his numerous permanent record books.
On hearing of the sale of Thomas Jefferson's library to Congress as a replacement for the books burned by the British in August 1814, John Adams wrote to Jefferson on October 28, 1814: "By the Way I envy you that immortal honour: but I cannot enter into competition with you for my books are not half the number of yours." Jefferson did not reply to Adams' letter until June 10, 1815, but wrote "I cannot live without books, but fewer will suffice where amusement, and not use, is the only future object."
Though Thomas Jefferson made conflicting statements about the American press, he was an avid reader of newspapers. The Genius of Liberty was just one of more than 70 newspaper titles represented in Jefferson's library when it was sold to the Congress in 1815. Jefferson's newspapers were nearly all destroyed in the fire of December 24, 1851. Jefferson also maintained newspaper clipping files and often wrote a subject notations in the margin.
Though Thomas Jefferson made conflicting statements about the American press, he was an avid reader of newspapers. The Genius of Liberty was just one of more than 70 newspaper titles represented in Jefferson's library when it was sold to the Congress in 1815. Jefferson's newspapers were nearly all destroyed in the fire of December 24, 1851. Jefferson also maintained newspaper clipping files and often wrote a subject notations in the margin.
Book Keeper
This cube-shaped book stand was probably designed by Thomas Jefferson to hold five books and allow the reader to rotate the stand, thus changing the book in view. The solid walnut stand, designed to sit on a tripod was made at the Monticello joinery, supervised by James Dinsmore and John Hemings.
Jefferson's Love for his Wife & Children:
His wife, Martha, was beautiful, but she was also fragile. Her mother had died in childbirth, and so she had a fear of childbirth to begin with, but for some reason she seems to have wanted to have children. They lost four, ultimately, of the six children that she did have, and there were innumerable miscarriages as well. And unfortunately Jefferson was at that point serving his country and was not able to be with her as much as he would have liked.
Martha (whom they called "Patsy") was the first child who was born, and she did indeed survive. They lost a son. They lost another daughter. At the time that Jefferson was in Philadelphia writing the Declaration of Independence, Martha was at home in Virginia suffering from the recent loss of a baby. And it was at that time that Jefferson wrote to John Page that “it is with great difficulty, great pain that I can stay here” because she was so ill and he really wanted to be home with her. There was no way that he could run home to be with her for a weekend. He was living in a three-mile-an hour world. It would have taken him better than a week to travel the distance from Philadelphia to Virginia and then another week back again and so, of necessity, Martha was alone a great deal of the time and suffered. She often went into states of depression because she wanted him with her and of course because she was losing these “dear pledges” as Jefferson called them, one after another. Ultimately she did die. With the last child, Lucy Elizabeth— she ultimately succumbed after that sixth birth.
During her last weeks he was always with her. In fact, there was a little room right off the bedroom where she was, and when she slept he was working on his Notes on the State of Virginia. But for the most part he sat with her, he held her hand, he tried to comfort her, he tried to feed her. On the very last day of her life, some of the house servants who felt close to her were allowed to come in to see her, and they were witness to a scene in which she told him, Thomas, what she wanted him to do or what she hoped he would do and one of things that she feared most was that her children would be brought up by a stepmother as she had been. And she asked him not to marry again and he did indeed promise that he would never remarry and that he would care for the children.
When she finally did close her eyes, he fainted. And he was carried out of the room insensible, as his daughter described it. And his sister Martha Carr was with him, and famously Martha Carr called out, “For God’s sake, leave the dead and come and take care of the living” because she feared that Jefferson himself was going to die. And it was moons before he finally came-to.
His daughter Martha, who they called Patsy, was the only one apparently who could get through to him, and she was his constant companion. She sat with him in this room. They brought in a pallet, and they laid it out on the floor, and this is what he slept on. He stayed there in his library for weeks, and when he finally rode out on his horse, she followed behind. She wrote that she was witness to many an outburst of grief. But she was constantly with him. And ultimately was able to pull him out of his stupor. When he took the appointment in France, she went with him.
Daughter, Lucy
Lucy died very young while, in the charge of Elizabeth Epps, Jefferson was in France. She and Polly were too young for him to take so far away with him.
Daughter, Maria ("Polly")
Maria, or “Polly” was very different from Martha. She was hauntingly like her mother. And Jefferson worried always that she would meet the same fate that her mother did, and indeed, he was correct. She did die very young of complications of childbirth. Martha brought up her baby with her own children.
Daughter, Martha "Patsy"
Thomas Jefferson died solvent, for the sale of his estate discharged his debts to the uttermost farthing. His only remaining daughter and her children lost their home and had no means of support. Their circumstances becoming known, the legislature of South Carolina and Virginia each voted her a gift of $10,000, which gave peace and dignity to the remainder of her life. She died in 1836, aged sixty-three, leaving numerous descendants.
Martha (whom they called "Patsy") was the first child who was born, and she did indeed survive. They lost a son. They lost another daughter. At the time that Jefferson was in Philadelphia writing the Declaration of Independence, Martha was at home in Virginia suffering from the recent loss of a baby. And it was at that time that Jefferson wrote to John Page that “it is with great difficulty, great pain that I can stay here” because she was so ill and he really wanted to be home with her. There was no way that he could run home to be with her for a weekend. He was living in a three-mile-an hour world. It would have taken him better than a week to travel the distance from Philadelphia to Virginia and then another week back again and so, of necessity, Martha was alone a great deal of the time and suffered. She often went into states of depression because she wanted him with her and of course because she was losing these “dear pledges” as Jefferson called them, one after another. Ultimately she did die. With the last child, Lucy Elizabeth— she ultimately succumbed after that sixth birth.
During her last weeks he was always with her. In fact, there was a little room right off the bedroom where she was, and when she slept he was working on his Notes on the State of Virginia. But for the most part he sat with her, he held her hand, he tried to comfort her, he tried to feed her. On the very last day of her life, some of the house servants who felt close to her were allowed to come in to see her, and they were witness to a scene in which she told him, Thomas, what she wanted him to do or what she hoped he would do and one of things that she feared most was that her children would be brought up by a stepmother as she had been. And she asked him not to marry again and he did indeed promise that he would never remarry and that he would care for the children.
When she finally did close her eyes, he fainted. And he was carried out of the room insensible, as his daughter described it. And his sister Martha Carr was with him, and famously Martha Carr called out, “For God’s sake, leave the dead and come and take care of the living” because she feared that Jefferson himself was going to die. And it was moons before he finally came-to.
His daughter Martha, who they called Patsy, was the only one apparently who could get through to him, and she was his constant companion. She sat with him in this room. They brought in a pallet, and they laid it out on the floor, and this is what he slept on. He stayed there in his library for weeks, and when he finally rode out on his horse, she followed behind. She wrote that she was witness to many an outburst of grief. But she was constantly with him. And ultimately was able to pull him out of his stupor. When he took the appointment in France, she went with him.
Daughter, Lucy
Lucy died very young while, in the charge of Elizabeth Epps, Jefferson was in France. She and Polly were too young for him to take so far away with him.
Daughter, Maria ("Polly")
Maria, or “Polly” was very different from Martha. She was hauntingly like her mother. And Jefferson worried always that she would meet the same fate that her mother did, and indeed, he was correct. She did die very young of complications of childbirth. Martha brought up her baby with her own children.
Daughter, Martha "Patsy"
Thomas Jefferson died solvent, for the sale of his estate discharged his debts to the uttermost farthing. His only remaining daughter and her children lost their home and had no means of support. Their circumstances becoming known, the legislature of South Carolina and Virginia each voted her a gift of $10,000, which gave peace and dignity to the remainder of her life. She died in 1836, aged sixty-three, leaving numerous descendants.
Visit Monicello
(Thomas Jefferson's Country Retreat)
http://www.monticello.org/
(Thomas Jefferson's Country Retreat)
http://www.monticello.org/
Thomas Jefferson Memorial
Washington D.C.