October 1, 2019 (Tuesday)
The information in this blog comes from a web site known as “The Jefferson Monticello.” Much of the material is copied word for word from the site.
Jefferson was born April 13, 1743 in Shadwell, Virginia, the song of a wealthy plantation owner. He died July 4, 1826, the same day as his contemporary champion of national independence, John Adams.
He designed his own grave monument with instructions that it list only 3 achievements: “Author of the Declaration of American Independence, Author of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia. The marker would have been crowded if all his achievements had been listed, such as President, Vice-President, Secretary of State, “Ambassador” to France, and congressman. In Virginia he served as governor, a member of both legislative bodies, as well as local offices–a total of 50 years of public service.
He also omitted his work as a lawyer, architect, writer, farmer, gentleman scientist, and life as patriarch of an extended family at Monticello, both white and black. He offered no particular explanation as to why only these three accomplishments should be recorded, but they were unique to Jefferson.
His father died when he was 14 years old, leaving him a gigantic estate, but he wanted to live in a house of his own design, at the foot of a mountain: “Monticello.” He married Martha Wayles Skelton, in January 1772. She died ten years later, after the birth of 6 children, only two of which survived to become adults: Martha (Patsy) and Mary (Polly).
Along with the land Jefferson inherited slaves from his father and even more slaves from his father-in-law, John Wayles; he also bought and sold enslaved people. Some were given training in various trades, others worked the fields, and some worked inside the main house. Many of the enslaved house servants were members of the Hemings family. The only slaves Jefferson freed in his lifetime and in his will were all Hemingses, giving credence to oral history. Years after his wife’s death, Thomas Jefferson fathered at least six of Sally Hemings’s children. Some were freed.
After a two-year course of study at the College of William and Mary that he began at age seventeen, Jefferson recorded his first legal case in 1767. In two years he was elected to Virginia’s House of Burgesses. He became a delegate to the first Continental Congress and was chosen to write The Declaration of Independence, stating the colonies’ arguments for declaring themselves free and independent states.
After Jefferson left Congress in 1776, he returned to Virginia and served in the legislature. Working with James Madison, he wrote the Statute for Religious Freedom in 1786. He became governor from 1779 to 1781. After leaving office in 1784, he entered public service again, in France, first as trade commissioner and then as Benjamin Franklin’s successor as U.S. minister.
In 1790 he agreed to be the first secretary of state under the new Constitution in the administration of the first president, George Washington. In 1796, as the presidential candidate of the nascent Democratic-Republican Party, he became vice-president after losing to John Adams by three electoral votes. Four years later, he defeated Adams in another hotly contested election and became the third president.
Perhaps the most notable achievements of his first term were the purchase of the Louisiana Territory in 1803 and his support of the Lewis and Clark expedition. His second term is most remembered for his efforts to maintain neutrality in the midst of the conflict between Britain and France. Unfortunately, his efforts did not avert the War of 1812 during Madison’s administration.
The three accomplishmets recorded on his gravestone made an enormous contribution to the aspirations of a new America and to the dawning hopes of repressed people around the world. He had dedicated his life to meeting the challenges of his age: political freedom, religious freedom, and educational opportunity. While he knew that we would continue to face these challenges through time, he believed that America’s democratic values would become a beacon for the rest of the world. He never wavered from his belief in the American experiment.
He is remembered for having said, “I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves. . . .”
During the last seventeen years of his life, Jefferson generally remained at Monticello, welcoming the many visitors who came to call upon him. Jefferson embarked on his last great public service at the age of seventy-six with the founding of the University of Virginia, in which he was directly involved.
Unfortunately, Jefferson’s retirement was clouded by debt. His finances worsened in retirement with the War of 1812 and the subsequent recession, headed by the Panic of 1819. His extensive land holdings in Virginia could no longer cover what he owed. Ironically, Jefferson’s greatest accomplishment during his presidency, the purchase of the port of New Orleans and the Louisiana Territory that opened the western migration, would contribute to his financial discomfort in his final years, as the population moved westward, buying land elsewhere.
Despite his debts, when he died just a few hours before his friend John Adams on the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1826, he was optimistic as to the future of the republican experiment. Just ten days before his death, he had declined an invitation to the planned celebration in Washington but offered his assurance, “All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man.”
Thomas Jefferson – Third President (1801-1809)