Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
The third president, Thomas Jefferson was a founding father and principal author of the Declaration of Independence which rationalized the break with Britain. He also approved the Louisiana Purchase which nearly doubled the area countrolled by the United States. Jefferson was born into the Virginia planter class, attended private schools and entered the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1769. By 1774 he owned 10,000 acres and more than 200 slaves. That same year he wrote the first of many influential political pamphlets. He became an early and effective leader in the American Revolution. He was a delegate to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia and in 1776 he was a member of the committee which wrote the Declaration of Independence. He drafted a plan to organize the territories of the expanding United States, a system based on rectangular surveys. His plan to bar slavery from the territories was incorporated into the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, but Jefferson owned slaves until he died.
In 1785 he replaced Benjamin Franklin as minister to France and was in France when the U.S. Constitution was drafted. Jefferson served as secretary of state under President George Washington. By 1793, he and James Madison organized opposition to the Federalist's plan for national economic development and foreign entanglements with England. The Republicans emerged to provide an outlet for citizens to oppose office holders they disagreed with, and to elect replacements which shared their own concerns. Thus the first political system developed. The Republicans favored sstate's rights in government in opposition to the strong central government favored by Federalists. Jefferson expressed his concerns about this in the Kentucky Resolutions, written in 1798. Jefferson ran for president in 1796, but earned only enough votes to serve as vice-president to Federalist John Adams. In 1800 Jefferson was elected president and served two terms. He maintained peace and encouraged westward expansion during the first term, completing the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 from Napoleon. Foreign affairs clouded his second term as France and England both refused to recognize that the United States was neutral. Jefferson imposed the unpopular Embargo Act of 1807 which paralyzed trade for over one year. It was repealed by Congress days before James Madison assumed the presidency. Jefferson and John Adams both died on July 4, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
Additional Information Can Be Found At...
Jefferson, Thomas - Encarta Online Deluxe
Monticello-The Home of Thomas Jefferson
Chapter Autobiography of Autobiography by Thomas Jefferson