Thomas Jefferson
In the
thick of party conflict in 1800,
Thomas Jefferson wrote in a private letter,
"I have sworn upon the altar of
God eternal hostility against every form of
tyranny over the mind of man."
This powerful advocate of liberty was born
in 1743 in Albermarle County,
Virginia, inheriting from his father, a planter
and surveyor, some 5,000
acres of land, and from his mother, a Randolph, high
social standing. He
studied at the College of William and Mary, then read law.
In 1772 he
married Martha Wayles Skelton, a widow, and took her to live in his
partly
constructed mountaintop home, Monticello. Freckled and sandy-haired,
rather
tall and awkward, Jefferson was eloquent as a correspondent, but he was
no
public speaker. In the Virginia House of Burgesses and the
Continental
Congress, he contributed his pen rather than his voice to the
patriot cause. As
the "silent member" of the Congress, Jefferson, at 33,
drafted the
Declaration of Independence. In years following he labored to
make its words a
reality in Virginia. Most notably, he wrote a bill
establishing religious
freedom, enacted in 1786. Jefferson succeeded Benjamin
Franklin as minister to
France in 1785. His sympathy for the French
Revolution led him into conflict
with Alexander Hamilton when Jefferson was
Secretary of State in President
Washington's Cabinet. He resigned in
1793. Sharp political conflict developed,
and two separate parties, the
Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans, began
to form. Jefferson
gradually assumed leadership of the Republicans, who
sympathized with the
revolutionary cause in France. Attacking Federalist
policies, he opposed a
strong centralized Government and championed the rights
of states. As a
reluctant candidate for President in 1796, Jefferson came within
three votes
of election. Through a flaw in the Constitution, he became
Vice
President, although an opponent of President Adams. In 1800 the
defect caused a
more serious problem. Republican electors, attempting to name
both a President
and a Vice President from their own party, cast a tie vote
between Jefferson and
Aaron Burr. The House of Representatives settled
the tie. Hamilton, disliking
both Jefferson and Burr, nevertheless urged
Jefferson's election. When Jefferson
assumed the Presidency, the crisis in
France had passed. He 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.
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, worked badly
and was unpopular. Jefferson retired to Monticello to
ponder such projects as
his grand designs for the University of Virginia. A
French nobleman observed
that he had placed his house and his mind "on an
elevated situation, from
which he might contemplate the universe." He died on
July 4, 1826.