Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson was born on April 13, 1743, at Shadwell plantation in western Virginia. His father, Peter Jefferson, was a planter, militia commander, surveyor and local politician who owned 7,000 acres when he died in 1757; little is known about his mother, Jane Randolph Jefferson, who died in 1776.⁠[1]

Shadwell was then in Goochland County, present-day Albemarle County.⁠[2]

In 1760 Jefferson enrolled at the College of William and Mary, where he came under the influence of Professor William Small. From 1762 to 1767 he studied law under George Wythe, and he was admitted to the Virginia bar in April 1767.⁠[1]

He entered the college at 17 and graduated in 1762.⁠[2]

He was a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses from 1769 to 1774. In 1774 he wrote “Summary View of the Rights of British America,” which raised his national profile.⁠[1]

On January 1, 1772, he married Martha Wayles Skelton, a 23-year-old wealthy widow, and the couple moved into a stark one-room brick house on his plantation, which he called Monticello.⁠[1]

The Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia appointed Jefferson, with John AdamsJohn AdamsJohn Adams (1735–1826) was the first vice president (1789–1797) and the second president (1797–1801) of the United States. Earlier he served in the Continental Congress, was a signer of the Treaty of Paris and became the first American minister to Great Britain.Open the full entry, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman and Robert R. Livingston, to a committee to draft a declaration. On July 4 Congress approved “The Unanimous Declaration of the 13 United States of America.”⁠[1]

From 1776 to 1779 he served in the Virginia House of Delegates, where he led the progressive party and helped revise the state’s laws.⁠[2]

He successfully sought to abolish entail and primogeniture and wrote the Virginia Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom, which passed with the help of James MadisonJames MadisonJames Madison (1751–1836) was the fourth president of the United States, serving from 1809 to 1817. He helped frame the Constitution, co-wrote The Federalist and guided the Bill of Rights through Congress, and earlier served as a U.S. representative and secretary of state.Open the full entry.⁠[1]

He was governor of Virginia from 1779 to 1781. The National Park Service biography judges that wartime conditions and constitutional limits hampered him and that he was regarded as a weak executive.⁠[2]

When the British overran Virginia he fled Monticello, a decision later criticized as cowardice.⁠[1]

On November 6, 1782, Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson died in childbirth after her sixth pregnancy.⁠[1]

From 1785 to 1789 he served as minister to France, succeeding Benjamin Franklin.⁠[2]

His two daughters, Martha and Mary, lived with him in France.⁠[1]

From 1790 to 1793 he was secretary of state in George WashingtonGeorge WashingtonGeorge Washington (1732–1799) was the first president of the United States, serving from 1789 to 1797. Earlier he commanded the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War and presided over the Constitutional Convention of 1787.Open the full entry’s cabinet, clashing with Alexander Hamilton before resigning.⁠[2]

From 1797 to 1801 he was vice president under John Adams, although he belonged to the opposing party.⁠[2]

Presidential electors cast their ballots on December 3, 1800, and the Jefferson-Burr ticket won a majority. When the votes were counted on February 11, 1801, the two men were tied, and on February 17 the House of Representatives elected Jefferson on the 36th ballot.⁠[3]

In this election Jefferson and Aaron Burr each received 73 electoral votes, John Adams 65, Charles C. Pinckney 64 and John Jay 1; there were 138 electors, and a majority was 70.⁠[4]

On March 4, 1801, he took office as the third president of the United States and delivered his First Inaugural Address, becoming the first president sworn in in Washington, D.C. On March 12 and 16 he pardoned David Brown and James Thomson Callender, who had been convicted of sedition. On July 4 the White House held its first public reception, and on December 8 he sent his first State of the Union message in writing.⁠[3][5]

He was the first chief executive inaugurated at the Capitol.⁠[2]

The Miller Center’s essay notes that his inaugural address called for national unity.⁠[6]

On May 14, 1801, Tripoli declared war on the United States, and on May 20 naval vessels were sent to the Mediterranean. On February 6, 1802, he signed an act authorizing armed vessels to protect commerce and capture Tripolitan ships. On May 23, 1803, Commodore Edward Preble was commissioned to lead a squadron against Tripoli, and on February 16, 1804, he sent Congress a special message on the wreck of the USS Philadelphia at Tripoli. U.S. Marines and Arab mercenaries captured Derna on April 27, 1805, and a Treaty of Peace and Amity with Tripoli was signed on June 4, 1805, ending the war.⁠[3]

The Miller Center’s essay traces the war to his effort to stop paying tribute.⁠[6]

On January 26, 1802, he signed the act establishing the Library of Congress. On March 8 he signed the repeal of the Judiciary Act of 1801; on March 16 an act fixing the military peace establishment, which authorized the military academy at West Point; on April 6 an act repealing internal taxes, including the excise on stills and spirits; and on April 14 a naturalization act reducing the residency requirement to five years.⁠[3]

The Miller Center’s essay notes that his presidency brought a reduction of the national debt.⁠[6]

On January 18, 1803, he sent Congress a confidential message requesting funds to explore commerce with Indian tribes, which became the Lewis and Clark Expedition. The expedition saw and heard the Pacific on November 7, 1805, and returned to St. Louis on September 23, 1806.⁠[3]

He asked Congress for a secret appropriation of $2,500 for the western expedition, which left St. Louis up the Missouri River in May 1804.⁠[7]

The Miller Center’s essay dates the expedition to 1804–1806 and names Meriwether Lewis as its leader.⁠[6]

On February 24, 1803, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled unanimously in Marbury v. Madison that it could declare an act of Congress void if it conflicted with the Constitution.⁠[7]

The Miller Center’s essay describes the landmark ruling as establishing the independent power of the Supreme Court.⁠[6]

In 1800 Jefferson learned that Spain had secretly ceded LouisianaLouisianaLouisiana is a state in the southern United States on the Gulf of Mexico, bordered by Arkansas, Mississippi and Texas; its capital is Baton Rouge and its largest city is New Orleans. It entered the Union on April 30, 1812, as the 18th state, and had a population of 4,657,757 in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020).Open the full entry to France. On April 30, 1803, representatives of the United States and France signed the Louisiana Purchase Treaty, giving the United States all of the Louisiana territory from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains.⁠[7]

On January 11, 1803, James MonroeJames MonroeJames Monroe (1758–1831) was an American politician and diplomat who served as President of the United States from 1817 to 1825; his administration proclaimed the Monroe Doctrine.Open the full entry was appointed minister to France and Spain. On October 17 he explained the purchase in his Third State of the Union Message and sent the treaty to the Senate; on October 31 he signed the act enabling the president to take possession of Louisiana, and on November 10 the act authorizing borrowing for the purchase.⁠[3]

The purchase cost $15 million and doubled the size of the nation.⁠[6]

On December 9, 1803, Congress passed the Twelfth Amendment and sent it to the states; New HampshireNew HampshireNew Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordered by Quebec, Canada, to the north, Vermont across the Connecticut River to the west, Massachusetts to the south, and Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east; its capital is Concord. One of the original 13 colonies, it became the ninth state to ratify the U.S. Constitution on June 21, 1788, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 1,377,529.Open the full entry ratified it on June 15, 1804.⁠[3]

On July 11, 1804, Vice President Aaron Burr fatally wounded Alexander Hamilton in a duel in New JerseyNew JerseyNew Jersey is a state in the eastern United States on the Atlantic Ocean, bordered by New York State, Delaware, and Pennsylvania, with the Hudson River forming its northeastern boundary and the Delaware River its western boundary; its capital is Trenton and its largest city is Newark. One of the original 13 colonies, it became the third state to ratify the U.S. Constitution on December 18, 1787, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 9,288,994.Open the full entry; Hamilton died the next day.⁠[7]

On March 12, 1804, the House voted to impeach Justice Samuel Chase; on March 1, 1805, the Senate failed to reach the two-thirds majority needed to convict him.⁠[3]

Jefferson won the 1804 election, with George Clinton as vice president. The electors cast their ballots on December 5, Congress tabulated the votes on February 13, 1805, and he delivered his Second Inaugural Address on March 4.⁠[3]

The Miller Center’s essay describes his 1804 win as a landslide.⁠[6]

From 1805 to 1807 Aaron Burr took part in a plan to separate the southwest from the United States.⁠[7]

On January 22, 1807, Jefferson sent Congress a message on the Burr conspiracy, and on February 19 he announced Burr’s arrest. On August 31 John Marshall, sitting on a circuit court, rejected key evidence in Burr’s treason trial, and on September 1 the jury found Burr not guilty.⁠[3]

On March 2, 1807, he signed an act prohibiting the importation of slaves after January 1, 1808, the date on which it took effect.⁠[3]

On April 18, 1806, Congress passed the Non-Importation Act banning British imports. On June 22, 1807, HMS Leopard fired on the USS Chesapeake after its commander refused to surrender British deserters. On November 11 a British Order in Council restricted neutral trade with France, on December 17 Napoleon Bonaparte issued the Milan Decree, and on December 22 Jefferson signed the Embargo Act. On January 9, 1809, he signed the Enforcement Act forbidding the movement of goods intended for export, and on March 1 the Non-Intercourse Act, which replaced the embargo and repealed the 1806 Non-Importation Act.⁠[3]

The Miller Center’s essay calls the suspension of trade with both France and England disastrous and identifies the British navy’s impressment of American sailors as one of the disputes of the time.⁠[6]

On December 10, 1807, he said that he would not seek a third term. James Madison was elected president in 1808.⁠[3]

On March 4, 1809, James Madison was inaugurated, and Jefferson retired to Monticello.⁠[3]

After the British burned the Capitol and the Library of Congress in 1814, Jefferson offered his own library to Congress as a replacement in a letter to Samuel H. Smith dated September 21, 1814. Congress bought the collection in 1815 for $23,950; the Library of Congress’s records show that it received 6,487 volumes, nearly two-thirds of which were destroyed in an 1851 fire.⁠[8]

The purchase bill passed the Senate on December 3, 1814, and the House on January 30, 1815, by a narrow, party-line margin. The books were carried to Washington in ten wagons, the last of which left Monticello on May 8, 1815.⁠[9]

In 1819 he founded the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.⁠[2]

He designed his own gravestone and prepared its text, probably around the time he signed his final will in March 1826; the inscription includes the words “Author of the Declaration of American Independence” and “Father of the University of Virginia.”⁠[10]

He died on July 4, 1826, at the age of 83, a few hours before John Adams, and was buried at Monticello. The three achievements listed in his epitaph also include the Virginia statute for religious freedom.⁠[2]

He owed creditors more than $100,000 at his death. On January 15, 1827, his heirs auctioned the people he had enslaved and the contents of Monticello and Poplar Forest, and the family was eventually forced to sell Monticello itself, receiving only $4,500.⁠[10]

His wife, Martha Wayles Skelton, was born in 1748 and died in 1782. Their children were Martha (1772–1836), Jane Randolph (1774–1775), an infant son (1777), Mary (1778–1804), Lucy Elizabeth (1780–1781) and Lucy Elizabeth (1782–1785).⁠[11]

Jefferson enslaved more than 600 people over the course of his life, and at any given time around 130 people were enslaved at Monticello. He freed two people during his life and five in his will; Monticello states that of the more than 600 people he enslaved, only ten, all members of one family, gained their freedom.⁠[12]

Sally Hemings (1773–1835) was a woman enslaved at Monticello. Monticello records list six children: Harriet (born 1795, died in infancy), Beverly (born 1798), a daughter born in 1799 who died in infancy, Harriet (born 1801), Madison (born 1805) and Eston (born 1808). A 1998 DNA study led by Dr. Eugene Foster found a genetic link between descendants of Jefferson’s male line and descendants of Eston Hemings. A Thomas Jefferson Foundation research committee report of January 2000 concluded that Jefferson was very probably the father of Eston Hemings and likely the father of all six children; the foundation states that a decade later it and most historians held this view.⁠[13]

Beverly and Harriet were allowed to leave Monticello in 1822, and Madison and Eston were freed under his 1826 will. Jefferson did not free Sally Hemings; after his death his daughter Martha Jefferson Randolph allowed her to leave Monticello.⁠[13]

After his wife’s death he wrote his only book, Notes on the State of Virginia, which addresses religious freedom, education, property and slavery and states his belief in the racial inferiority of Black people.⁠[1]

The Miller Center lists his nicknames as “Man of the People” and “Sage of Monticello.”⁠[11]

The Levy family owned Monticello from 1834. In 1923 the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation was officially incorporated in New York City, bought Monticello from Jefferson Monroe Levy that year and opened it to the public in early December. Monticello was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1960 and named to the United Nations’ list of World Heritage Sites in 1987. In 2000 the foundation changed its name to Thomas Jefferson Foundation, Inc.⁠[14]

A Library of Congress exhibition judges that he spent part of his last years defining and defending his legacy; near the end of his life he wrote to James Madison, “take care of me when dead.”⁠[10]

Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello: Official website: https://www.monticello.org/ (opens in a new window).⁠[14]