Jefferson, Thomas

Thomas (1743-1826), the third president of the United States. His father, Peter Jefferson, was an uneducated man, possessed of sound common sense. He was an Indian fighter, a surveyor, and a frontiersman. He made his home in one of the western counties of Virginia at the foot of the Blue Ridge. Here Thomas Jefferson was born. He inherited his father's sterling qualities. Both as a man and as a boy he was sturdy, independent, and a friend of the common people. His mother was a Randolph. She belonged to one of the most aristocratic families of the Old Dominion, a family of noted clergymen, lawyers, physicians, and statesmen. From her he inherited refinement of manner and an intense love of study. She saw to it that he was educated at William and Mary College, and that he associated with the most refined society of the day.

Though democratic in his manners and dress, Jefferson was universally conceded to be in all respects a gentleman. Few men have shown greater versatility in public life. At the age of twenty-six he was a member of the Virginia Assembly. He sat in the First Continental Congress and was governor of Virginia in 1779-1781. He was ambassador to France for five years and was secretary of state during a part of Washington's administration. He was a member of the committee instructed to draft the Declaration of Independence. He is credited with having produced that document almost unaided. During the early years of the republic Jefferson was one of the foremost advocates of the doctrine that the government should be given as little power as possible, and that the less it did the better. He retired from Washington's cabinet because he was dissatisfied. He opposed Adams' election to the presidency. In 1801 he was himself a candidate on a people's platform. There were four candidates. The vote for Jefferson and Aaron Burr was a tie. The election was carried into the House of Representatives. On the thirty-sixth ballot Jefferson was chosen by a majority of six votes over Burr, to whom the vice presidency fell.

Jefferson's first term was a brilliant success. His inaugural address calmed the Federalists who feared leveling tendencies. He introduced simple manners into the White House, dropped all formality of intercourse between himself and members of the cabinet as well as in his communications to Congress. Under his management and that of his secretary of the treasury, Albert Gallatin, revenues increased, expenses and debt decreased. The pirates of Barbary, to whom tribute had been paid for some years, were handsomely punished and brought to terms. Louisiana was purchased for $15,000,000, and the Pacific frontage in Oregon was explored. He prevented his friends from sweeping the Federalists entirely out of office, and crushed his most persistent and able enemy, Aaron Burr.

His second term was less successful. England and France were at war; even Jefferson's utmost efforts could not prevent the infant navy and the merchant ships of the United States from suffering many indignities. The capture of the Chesapeake and other humiliations belong to this period. It was during this term that the clumsy Claremont steamed up the Hudson against wind and tide to Albany. Jefferson was urged by his friends and petitioned by the legislatures of nearly all the states to accept a third term of office, but he declared that a third term would be a bad precedent. He retired to his home at Monticello, near Charlottesville, Virginia, where he died July 4, 1826, just fifty years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

Aside from the fact that he was a poor financier, at least an inefficient administrator of his own affairs, Jefferson was a great man from whatever point of view his actions be regarded. He was not only a musician and mathematician, but he had a magnificent command of the English language. He foresaw, as few have seen, the present conflict between capital and labor. He foresaw the development of the United States and the immense advantage of possessing the western half of the Mississippi Valley. His public views were far larger than those of Webster, Calhoun, or Clay. No public measure was seemingly too great to be grasped; nor was any measure likely to benefit the public too trifling to interest him. When minister at Paris, he filled his leisure moments, like Franklin, in sending home accounts of useful inventions. He was the first to send home a package of rice, with the suggestion that experimental plantings be made. His library was his chief companion. He favored absolute political equality, the emancipation of slaves, the establishment of public schools, and religious equality. He feared wealth and official power. He trusted the people. Whether regarded as a patriot, a statesman, or a scholar, he deserves to rank among the greatest men this country has ever produced. Many assert that Franklin, Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln are our four great men.

Jefferson was buried at Monticello. The epitaph he himself chose for his tombstone: "Here lies buried Thomas Jefferson, Author of the Declaration of Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia."

A great deal is said of Jefferson, but his own words are not quoted as often as they should be for so clear a thinker. Jeffersonian principles are referred to frequently by the press and by campaign orators. Here are some of them taken from his first inaugural, spoken at the supreme moment of his life:

About to enter, fellow citizens, on the exercise of duties which comprehend everything dear and valuable to you, it is proper that you should understand what I deem the essential principles of our government, and consequently those which ought to shape its administration. I will compress them within the narrowest compass they will bear, stating the general principle, but not all its limitations.

Equal and exact justice to all men of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political.

Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.

The support of the state governments in all their rights, as the most competent administrations for our domestic concerns and the surest bulwarks against anti-republican tendencies.

The preservation of the general government in its whole constitutional vigor, as the sheet anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad.

A jealous care of the rights of election by the people--a mild and safe corrective of abuses which are lopped by the sword of revolution where peaceable remedies are unprovided.

Absolute acquiescence in the decision of the majority-the vital principle of republics from which there is no appeal but to force the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism.

A well-disciplined militia, our best reliance in peace, and for the first moments of war, till the regulars may relieve them.

The supremacy of the civil over the military authority.

Economy in the public expense, that labor may be lightly burdened.

The honest payment of our debts and sacred preservation of the public faith.

Encouragement of agriculture and commerce as its handmaid.

The diffusion of information and the arraignment of all abuses at the bar of public reason.

Freedom of religion; freedom of the press; freedom of the person under the protection of habeas corpus; and trials by juries impartially selected.

These principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us, and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation. The wisdom of our sages and the blood of our heroes have been devoted to the attainment. They should be the creed of our political faith-the text of civil instruction-the touchstone by which to try the services of those we trust; and should we wander from them in moments of error or alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps and regain the road which leads alone to peace, liberty, and safety.

Let us then, with a courage and confidence, pursue our own federal and republican principles, our attachment to our Union and representative government. Kindly separated by nature and a wide ocean from the exterminating havoc of one quarter of the globe; too high minded to endure the degradations of the others; possessing a chosen country, with room enough for our descendants to the hundredth and thousandth generation; entertaining a due sense of our equal right to the use of our own faculties to the acquisitions of our industry; to honor and confidence from our fellow-citizens, resulting not from birth but from our actions, and their sense of them; enlightened by a benign religion, professed, indeed, and practiced in various forms, yet all of them inculcating honesty, truth, temperance, gratitude, and the love of man; acknowledging and adoring an overruling Providence, which by all its dispensations, proves that it delights in the happiness of man here, and his greater happiness hereafter; with all these blessings what more is necessary to make us a happy and prosperous people? Still, one thing more, fellow-citizens--a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.

See Louisiana Purchase; Lewis And Clark; Burr; Declaration Of Independence