Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson
3rd President of the United States
Term of office March 4, 1801 - March 4, 1809
Political party	Democratic-Republican
Vice Presidents	Aaron Burr (1801-1805) George Clinton (1805-1809)
Preceded by	John Adams
Succeeded by	James Madison
2nd Vice-President of the United States
Term of office March 4, 1797 - March 4, 1801
Political party	Democratic-Republican
President	John Adams
Preceded by	John Adams
Succeeded by	Aaron Burr
Born	April 13, 1743 Shadwell, Virginia
Died	July 4, 1826 Charlottesville, Virginia
Spouse	Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson
Religion	Deist/Unitarian?

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) was the 3rd President of the United States of America and often credited as the author of the Declaration of Independence, although he had considerable input from John Adams.

Jefferson was a prominent architect, inventor and scientist. Jefferson, along with James Madison, was a member of the Democratic-Republican Party, an early political group that was opposed by the Federalist Party. After first serving as Vice President under John Adams, he defeated Adams in the next election and became President in his own right, a position that he held for 2 terms (8 years). Based on the early history of elections in the United States, the Vice President was not at that time appointed by the President as is true today. The Vice Presidency went to the person with the second highest number of election delegates, which was Jefferson. Jefferson, even though he was Vice President under Adams, was not a part of Adam's Federalist Party and in fact was opposed to much of Adam's political work. Jefferson is widely revered among libertarians for his work on the Declaration of Independence and political views.

Presidency (1801-1809)

Thomas Jefferson was inaugurated the third President of the United States on March 4, 1801 in the infant capital on the Potomac. The new President filled his cabinet with moderate Republicans, those in a more radical persuasion were disappointed. Although it became a model of executive unity, the cabinet meet infrequently. Jefferson had the pleasure of dominating Congress. In 1801, for the first time, Republicans controlled both houses of the legislator. The federalists were a shrinking minority. Congress depended on executive initiatives and usually followed them. Nearly all the legislation during his eight years in office originated with the President and his secretaries.

Jefferson's long held fiscal philosophy was that public debt and taxes were evils of the first magnitude. As President Jefferson slashed Army and Navy expenditures, cut the budget, eliminated the tax on whiskey so unpopular in the West, yet reduced the national debt by a third. He also sent a naval squadron to fight the Barbary pirates, who were harassing American commerce in the Mediterranean. Further, although the Constitution made no provision for the acquisition of new land, Jefferson suppressed his qualms over constitutionality when he had the opportunity to acquire the Louisiana Territory from Napoleon in 1803. This then controversial Louisiana Purchase doubled the size of the United States of America, for 15 million dollars. Jefferson sent Captain Meriwether Lewis and Lieutenant William Clark for an expedition of the new American territory.

During Jefferson's second term, he was increasingly preoccupied with keeping the Nation from involvement in the Napoleonic wars, though both England and France interfered with the neutral rights of American merchantmen. Jefferson's attempted solution, an embargo upon American shipping, failed badly and had to be repealed.

Religious Views

Many liberal textbooks and online resources claim that Jefferson was a deist, but Jefferson's own description of his views show more complexity.

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.

However, despite Jefferson's self-declared Christianity, many of his views would be considered incorrect or even heretical by most Christians. Most notably, he attempted to create the Jefferson Bible - an edited version of the New Testament intended to retain Christ's moral and practical teaching, while disposing of supernatural or inconvenient elements.

Jefferson certainly believed Jesus to be a great teacher of morality, and believed the universe to be created by a God. Less clear is his views on subjects such as the divinity of Christ, the resurrection, sin and salvation. The Jefferson Bible suggests he rejects these ideas entirely, but is not definitive. Jefferson never had the Bible published during his lifetime. He did have this to say about Christianity and the message contained in the work that he created.

There will be found remaining the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man.

The Right to Bear Arms

"In a nation governed by the people themselves, the possession of arms to defend their nation against usurpers within and without was deemed absolutely necessary. This right is protected by the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution. A gun was an everyday implement in early American society, and Jefferson recommended its use."

A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun, therefore, be the constant companion of your walks. --Thomas Jefferson to Peter Carr, 1785. ME 5:85, Papers 8:407

The constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people; that... it is their right and duty to be at all times armed. --Thomas Jefferson to John Cartwright, 1824. ME 16:45

One loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them. --Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, 1796. ME 9:341

Architecture

The Rotunda of the University of Virginia. It was designed by Thomas Jefferson.

Jefferson was the founder of the University of Virginia and designer of his "academical village"; he did among others the drawings for The Rotunda in 1819. Although never formally trained in architecture, Jefferson had studied the structures of Europe and read extensively on the great architects of Europe... Jefferson contributed his architectural statement to federal buildings as well, assisting Pierre L'Enfant in the design and layout of the new Federal City of Washington and designing the state capitol in Richmond. Jefferson believed that "from architecture would flow education in taste, values, and ideals," and therefore constructed buildings that became ideas for America.

Jefferson believed that architecture was the heart of the American cause. In his mind, a building was not merely a walled structure, but a metaphor for American ideology, and the process of construction was equal to the task of building a nation. The architecture of any American building should express the American desire to break cultural--as well as political--ties to Europe. American architecture, Jefferson believed, would embody the fulfillment of the civic life of Americans, and he sought to establish the standards of a national architecture, both aesthetically and politically. Ibidem

Jefferson was an admirer of Andrea Palladio; the Palladian influece may be seen at Thomas Jefferson's estate Monticello (1768 - 1809). We know that he owned Palladio's treatise on the Five Orders, and that he followed Palladio's ideas.

Thomas Jefferson was among the many people who submitted a plan for the White House. His design, however, was not chosen. Instead, James Hoban, an Irish immigrant architect living in Charleston, South Carolina, won the competition and a $500 prize, with a design modeled after Leister House in Dublin, Ireland.

“

"Whenever it is proposed to prepare plans for the Capitol, I should prefer the adoption of some one of the models of antiquity which have had the approbation of thousands of years; and for the President's house I should prefer the celebrated fronts of modern buildings which have already received the approbation of all good judges. Such are the Galerie du Louvre, the Garde Meubles; and two fronts of the Hotel de Salm." T. Jefferson.

”

Death

Jefferson died on July 4th, Independence Day, in 1826. It was the same day as the death of John Adams. They had been close friends until the political wars of the 1790s drove them apart, then resumed their friendship with a brilliant correspondence.

Fake quotes

Dozens of false quotations have been attributed to Jefferson.

• Jefferson did NOT say, “A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine”. On the contrary, he was the foremost promoter of democracy in world history.
• In the 1960s leftwing activists invented another false quote: "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism".
• Jefferson did not like banks. He did NOT say, "If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered."
  • Jefferson did say in 1816: "And I sincerely believe, with you, that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale."

See also

• Jeffersonian Democracy
• Embargo of 1807

External links

• "Jefferson: Man of the Millennium," by Richard Jensen, links
• Dumas Malone, "Thomas Jefferson" excerpts from Dictionary of American Biography, Volume 5 1933, short biography by leading scholar, with links to web sources