Thomas Jefferson

Extracted Attributes

• Education

  College of William & Mary

• Date of Birth

  1743-04-13

• Date of Death

  1826-07-04

• Place of Birth

  Shadwell, Virginia, Colony of Virginia

• Place of Death

  Monticello, Virginia, United States

• Political Party

  Democratic-Republican Party

• Slave Ownership

  Owned over 600 enslaved people over his lifetime

• Major Achievement

  Primary author of the Declaration of Independence

• Presidential Term

  1801-1809 (3rd President of the United States)

Timeline

• Born at Shadwell Plantation in the Colony of Virginia. (Source: Wikidata)

  1743-04-13

• Graduated from the College of William & Mary. (Source: Web Search (National Constitution Center))

  1762-01-01

• The Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, primarily authored by Jefferson. (Source: Wikipedia)

  1776-07-04

• Began his term as the second Governor of Virginia. (Source: Wikipedia)

  1779-06-01

• Appointed U.S. Minister to France, succeeding Benjamin Franklin. (Source: Wikipedia)

  1785-05-17

• Assumed office as the first U.S. Secretary of State under George Washington. (Source: Wikipedia)

  1790-03-22

• Co-founded the Democratic-Republican Party with James Madison. (Source: Wikipedia)

  1792-01-01

• Inaugurated as the second Vice President of the United States. (Source: Wikipedia)

  1797-03-04

• Inaugurated as the third President of the United States after defeating John Adams. (Source: Wikipedia)

  1801-03-04

• Negotiated the Louisiana Purchase from France, doubling the size of the United States. (Source: Wikipedia)

  1803-04-30

• Signed the Embargo Act to protect American shipping and industries. (Source: Wikipedia)

  1807-12-22

• Founded the University of Virginia. (Source: Web Search (Britannica))

  1819-01-25

• Died at his home, Monticello, on the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. (Source: Wikidata)

  1826-07-04

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson (April 13 [O.S. April 2], 1743 – July 4, 1826) was an American Founding Father and the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He was the primary author of the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson was a leading proponent of democracy, republicanism, and natural rights, and he produced formative documents and decisions at the state, national, and international levels. Jefferson was born into the Colony of Virginia's planter class. During the American Revolution, Jefferson represented Virginia in the Second Continental Congress, which unanimously adopted the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson's advocacy for individual rights, including freedom of thought, speech, and religion, helped shape the ideological foundations of the revolution. Jefferson served as the second governor of Virginia from 1779 to 1781. In 1785, Congress appointed Jefferson as U.S. Minister to France, where he served from 1785 to 1789. President Washington then appointed Jefferson the nation's first secretary of state, where he served from 1790 to 1793. In 1792, Jefferson and political ally James Madison organized the Democratic-Republican Party to oppose the Federalist Party during the formation of the nation's First Party System. Jefferson and Federalist John Adams became both personal friends and political rivals. In the 1796 U.S. presidential election between the two, Jefferson came in second, which made him Adams' vice president under the electoral laws of the time. Four years later, in the 1800 presidential election, Jefferson again challenged Adams and won the presidency. In 1804, Jefferson was reelected overwhelmingly to a second term, crushing his main opposition, the Federalists' Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina. Jefferson's presidency assertively defended the nation's shipping and trade interests against Barbary pirates and aggressive British trade policies, promoted a western expansionist policy with the Louisiana Purchase, which doubled the nation's geographic size, and reduced military forces and expenditures following successful negotiations with France. In his second presidential term, Jefferson was beset by difficulties at home, including the trial of his former vice president Aaron Burr. In 1807, Jefferson implemented the Embargo Act to defend the nation's industries from British threats to U.S. shipping, limit foreign trade, and stimulate the birth of the American manufacturing. Jefferson is ranked among the upper tier of U.S. presidents both by scholars and in public opinion. Presidential scholars and historians have praised Jefferson's advocacy of religious freedom and tolerance, his peaceful acquisition of the Louisiana Territory from France, and his leadership in supporting the Lewis and Clark Expedition. They acknowledge his lifelong ownership of large numbers of slaves, but offer varying interpretations of his views on and relationship with slavery.

Web Search Results

• Thomas Jefferson - Wikipedia

  Jefferson was born into the Colony of Virginia's planter class, dependent on slave labor. During the American Revolution, Jefferson represented Virginia in the Second Continental Congress, which unanimously adopted the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson's advocacy for individual rights, including freedom of thought, speech, and religion, helped shape the ideological foundations of the revolution. This inspired the Thirteen Colonies in their revolutionary fight for independence, which culminated in the establishment of the United States as a free and sovereign nation. [...] Thomas Jefferson (April 13 [O.S. April 2], 1743 – July 4, 1826) was an American Founding Father and the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He was the primary author of the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson was the nation's first U.S. secretary of state under George Washington and then the nation's second vice president under John Adams. Jefferson was a leading proponent of democracy, republicanism, and natural rights, and he produced formative documents and decisions at the state, national, and international levels. [...] Jefferson was born on April 13, 1743 (April 2, 1743, Old Style, Julian calendar), at the family's Shadwell Plantation in the Colony of Virginia, then one of the Thirteen Colonies of British America. He was the third of ten children. His father, Peter Jefferson, was a planter and surveyor; his mother was Jane Randolph. Peter Jefferson moved his family to Tuckahoe Plantation "Tuckahoe (plantation)") in 1745 following the death of William Randolph III "William Randolph III (son of Thomas)"), the plantation's owner and Jefferson's friend, who in his will had named Peter guardian of Randolph's children. The Jeffersons returned to Shadwell before October 1753.

• Thomas Jefferson | Biography, Political Career, Slavery, & Facts

  See all videos for this article Thomas Jefferson (born April 2 [April 13, New Style], 1743, Shadwell, Virginia [U.S.]—died July 4, 1826, Monticello, Virginia, U.S.) was the draftsman of the Declaration of Independence of the United States and the nation’s first secretary of state (1789–94) and second vice president (1797–1801) and, as the third president (1801–09), the statesman responsible for the Louisiana Purchase. An early advocate of total separation of church and state, he also was the founder and architect of the University of Virginia and the most eloquent American proponent of individual freedom as the core meaning of the American Revolution. Jefferson MemorialJefferson Memorial, Washington, D.C. [...] that Jefferson had almost certainly fathered a child with Sally Hemings, an enslaved woman thirty years his junior and owned by him. (For more on this story, see “Tom and Sally”: The Jefferson - Hemings paternity debate.) The huge gap between his lyrical expression of liberal ideals and the more attenuated reality of his own life has transformed Jefferson into America’s most problematic and paradoxical hero. The Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C., was dedicated to him on April 13, 1943, the 200th anniversary of his birth. [...] Albermarle county, where Jefferson was born, lay in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in what was then regarded as a western province of the Old Dominion. His father, Peter Jefferson, was a self-educated surveyor who amassed a tidy estate that included 60 enslaved people. According to family lore, Jefferson’s earliest memory was as a three-year-old boy “being carried on a pillow by a mounted slave” when the family moved from Shadwell to Tuckahoe. His mother, Jane Randolph Jefferson, was descended from one of the most prominent families in Virginia. She raised two sons, of whom Jefferson was the eldest, and six daughters. There is reason to believe that Jefferson’s relationship with his mother was strained, especially after his father died in 1757, because he did everything he

• Thomas Jefferson - White House Historical Association

  Thomas Jefferson was born on April 13, 1743 in Albemarle County, Virginia to Jane and Peter Jefferson. His father was a Virginia planter, surveyor, and slave owner. At age fourteen, Jefferson’s father died, and Thomas inherited some thirty enslaved individuals. Jefferson fully embraced the lifestyle of an affluent member of the planter class, and over the course of his lifetime he owned over 600 enslaved people—the most of any American president. [...] After the outbreak of the American Revolution, Jefferson was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates, where he worked tirelessly to revise state laws and draft Virginia’s state constitution. In 1786, he proudly authored a bill establishing religious freedom. Jefferson was also elected twice as Governor of Virginia for two one-year terms in 1779 and 1780. Around the same time, Jefferson authored a treatise on the history, politics, geography, law, culture, and economics of Virginia. Published in 1785, Notes on the State of Virginia included Jefferson’s views on slavery. He argued for gradual emancipation of the state’s enslaved population, while also perpetuating racial prejudices about the inferiority of African Americans. [...] In 1789, Jefferson returned from France and accepted an invitation to serve as Secretary of State for President George Washington. He quickly found himself at odds with Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, clashing on issues such as the national debt, the location of a new and permanent capital city, and America’s diplomatic relationship with France. Eventually, Jefferson left Washington’s cabinet in 1793, but his rivalry with Hamilton reflected a broader political conflict, as two separate parties formed—the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans. Jefferson soon emerged as a leader of the Democratic-Republicans, receiving enough Electoral College votes in 1796 to become vice president under John Adams. Four years later, Jefferson defeated Adams and Aaron Burr, assuming the

• Thomas Jefferson | whitehouse.gov

  This powerful advocate of liberty was born in 1743 in Albemarle 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.

• Thomas Jefferson - The National Constitution Center

  In 1783, Jefferson reentered the national stage; he was elected as a Virginia delegate to the Confederation Congress. His central achievement was to author the Land Ordinance of 1784 by which Virginia ceded all the land it had claimed northwest of the Ohio River to the national government. Jefferson insisted that these lands become states and wrote an ordinance that banned slavery from all the nation’s territories. Congress, however, rejected this ban on slavery. Three years later the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 ensured that no part of the vast northwest territory would ever be colonized by the original 13 states. [...] Thomas Jefferson was born at the family’s Shadwell Plantation, the third of ten children in this elite family. His father, Peter Jefferson, died in 1757 and fourteen-year-old Thomas was put under the guardianship of John Harvie Sr, who would watch over the 5,000 acres the boy had inherited. Jefferson would gain legal authority over this land when he turned 21. Thomas was well educated, studying mathematics, ancient languages, metaphysics and philosophy in locally- run schools. At 18 he entered the College of William & Mary, where he studied mathematics, metaphysics, and philosophy. At college he was introduced to the theories of John Locke, Isaac Newton, and Francis Bacon. After college he went on to read law with the distinguished attorney George Wythe. He was admitted to the bar in 1767 [...] As the war continued, Jefferson took on the duties of governor of his state. He was elected for one-year terms in 1779 and 1780. While in office, he transferred the state capital from Williamsburg to Richmond and introduced several reforms in public education and religious freedoms. But in 1781, Benedict Arnold, now an officer in the British military, led an invasion of Virginia. Jefferson narrowly escaped capture. He was accused by his political opponents of cowardice for taking flight. The General Assembly conducted an inquiry into Jefferson’s actions and although they did not find fault with his decision, he was not re-elected to the governorship.

• Award

  Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

• Image

  

• Gender

  male

• Educated At

  College of William & Mary

• Instance Of

  Q5

• Occupation

  writer

• Citizenship

  United States

• Date Of Birth

  4/13/1743

• Date Of Death

  7/4/1826

• Place Of Birth

  Shadwell

• Place Of Death

  Monticello