Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson 3rd President of the United States
Born	April 13, 1743
Died	July 4, 1826
Term	1801-1809
Political party	Democratic-Republican
Vice President	Aaron Burr (1801-1805) George Clinton (1805-1809)
Preceded by	John Adams
Succeeded by	James Madison

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) was the third President of the United States of America and often credited as the author of the Declaration of Independence, though key portions of that document were simply taken from the Virginia Declaration of Rights.^{[Citation Needed]} Jefferson was a prominent architect, inventor and scientist. His presidency had significant failures, and is best known for doubling the area of the United States with the controversial Louisiana Purchase from France.

Many liberal textbooks and online resources claim that Jefferson was a deist, but in fact Jefferson did not describe his own views in that manner.^{[Citation Needed]}

In one of his writings now inscribed on the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C., Jefferson said:

God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever.

Jefferson's Second Inaugural Address implied that, unlike deists, he believed in divine intervention: "I shall need, too, the favor of that Being in whose hands we are, who led our forefathers, as Israel of old."

In an 1803 letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush, Jefferson declared that "I am a Christian," though his view of Christianity was different from most:

I then promised you that one day or other I would give you my views of [the Christian religion]. They are the result of a life of inquiry and reflection, and very different from that anti-Christian system imputed to me by those who know nothing of my opinions. To the corruptions of Christianity I am indeed opposed, but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian, in the only sense in which he wished anyone to be: sincerely attached to his doctrines in preference to all others, ascribing to himself every human excellence, and believing he never claimed any other.

Jefferson, along with James Madison, was a member of the Democratic-Republican Party, an early political group that was opposed by the Federalist Party.

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