Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson was born in Shadwell in the colony of Virginia on April 13, 1743.[2] In 1776, he completed one of his greatest career achievements—The Declaration of Independence. As the primary author of this founding document, Jefferson drew upon Enlightenment ideals and the writings of John Locke, Montesquieu, and George Mason to formulate its most famous line: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."[1] Four years later, Jefferson defeated Adams and Aaron Burr, assuming the presidency on March 4, 1801.[1]

Early Life and Education

Thomas Jefferson was born in 1743 in Shadwell, Virginia, just outside of what is now Charlottesville. Jefferson was the third of ten children born to Peter Jefferson and his wife, Jane Randolph Jefferson.[3] He owed his good fortune to the financial success of his father, Peter Jefferson, a planter of some means. By the time of his death in 1757, the elder Jefferson owned 7,000 acres of land in western Virginia.[6] He had also made a name for himself as the commander of the local militia, a talented surveyor, and a country politician.[6] Because Peter was not the eldest son, his father had spent little money on Peter's education, and he always felt a bit unpolished compared to his in-laws.[8] As a result, Peter made the education of his children paramount in their upbringing and Tom developed a love for learning and books at an early age.[8]

When Jefferson was just a few years old, his family moved to a plantation just outside of Richmond. At the Tuckahoe Plantation, Jefferson received an early childhood education provided by tutors. There he learned to read and write and spent considerable time roaming the outdoors, and in the process, acquiring a love of nature.[3] The Jeffersons moved back to Shadwell in 1752, at which point Jefferson began attending a formal school led by a Presbyterian minister.[3]

His early death, when Thomas was fourteen, caused his teenage son to look to his teachers for fatherly advice and direction.[6] One of his father's dying wishes was for Tom to complete his education, and the following year, Jefferson went away to study with the Rev. James Maury at his classical academy. Jefferson was there for two beneficial years and later stated he owed Maury a "deep and lasting" debt for the scholarship he taught Tom, as well as life lessons.[8]

With this classical education well absorbed, in March 1760, Jefferson left Shadwell for Williamsburg and the College of William and Mary.[8] After years in boarding school, where he excelled in classical languages, Jefferson enrolled in William and Mary College in his home state of Virginia, taking classes in science, mathematics, rhetoric, philosophy, and literature.[5] Unlike most of his fellow students who were into horse racing, drinking, and gambling, Jefferson was very studious and spent as much as sixteen hours a day over his books. That is not to say Jefferson completely shunned the society of his schoolmates, but he was certainly more settled and more responsible than his peers.[8]

Key Influences and Mentors

Through these studies, Jefferson was introduced to the philosophers, John Locke and Francis Bacon, whose writings deeply impacted Jefferson's writing on natural rights and governance.[2] William Small (1734-1775) was professor of natural philosophy and mathematics at the College of William and Mary. He was a mentor to Thomas Jefferson while Jefferson was a student at the school (1760-1762).[18] Small was a major influence on Jefferson's intellectual development. He inculcated in Jefferson a life-long appreciation of science, math, and the Enlightenment thinkers.[18]

Outside of the classroom, he helped introduce young Jefferson to Governor Francis Fauquier and local lawyer George Wythe.[18] Jefferson later wrote about these relationships: "he procured for me the patronage of mr Wythe, & both of them, the attentions of Governor Fauquier, the ablest man who ever filled the chair of government here... at these dinners I have heard more good sense, more rational & philosophical conversations than in all my life besides. they were truly Attic societies."[18]

"It was my great good fortune, and what probably fixed the destinies of my life that Dr. Wm. Small of Scotland was then professor of Mathematics, a man profound in most of the useful branches of science, with a happy talent of communication, correct and gentlemanly manners, & an enlarged & liberal mind. He, most happily for me, became soon attached to me & made me his daily companion when not engaged in the school; and from his conversation I got"[18] his first taste of Enlightenment thinking.

Professional Development

After receiving an education at the College of William & Mary, Jefferson studied law in Williamsburg.[1] He graduated from the College of William & Mary in 1762, studied law, and was admitted to the Virginia bar in 1767.[10] As a young country lawyer, Jefferson practiced law on a circuit, following the meetings of the colonial court as it traveled to various district seats throughout Virginia.[6]

By 1769, he was serving in the Virginia House of Burgesses and three years later married Martha Wayles Skelton.[1] A member of the Virginia House of Burgesses from 1769 to 1774, Jefferson played an active role in the organization of the Virginia Committee of Correspondence. Colonial resentment against Britain was fomenting, and committees such as this one represented an underground group of political agitators which worked to oppose British domination of the colonies.[6]

Personal Life

It was during these unsettled years that he met and fell in love with twenty-three-year-old Martha Wayles Skelton, a wealthy widow and daughter of a prominent Virginia lawyer... Martha and Thomas married on January 1, 1772, moving into a stark one-room brick house at Jefferson's Virginia plantation, which he called Monticello.[6] Having lost his beloved wife, Martha Wayles Skelton, in 1782 to childbirth, Jefferson relied on his two married daughters and the wife of his secretary of state, Dolley Madison, as his official hostesses.[5]

Relationship with Sally Hemings

By Madison Hemings's and other accounts, Sally Hemings and some of her siblings were the children of John Wayles, Thomas Jefferson's father-in-law, making her the half-sister of Jefferson's wife, Martha Wayles Jefferson (1748-1782).[22] He brought along his daughters, Martha (known as Patsy) and Mary (known as Maria or Polly), and two enslaved individuals from Monticello—a brother and sister named James and Sally Hemings.[1]

James eventually bargained for his freedom, while Sally, who entered into a sexual relationship with Jefferson, negotiated privileges for herself and her family before agreeing to return to Monticello. Jefferson fathered at least six of Sally's children, four of whom survived to adulthood and were later freed by the former president.[1] Sally Hemings had at least six children fathered by Thomas Jefferson. Four survived to adulthood.[23]

In September 1802, political journalist James T. Callender, a disaffected former ally of Jefferson, wrote in a Richmond newspaper that Jefferson had for many years "kept, as his concubine, one of his own slaves." "Her name is Sally," Callender continued, adding that Jefferson had "several children" by her. Although there had been rumors of a sexual relationship between Jefferson and an enslaved woman before 1802, Callender's article spread the story widely.[22]

It was corroborated by the findings of the Y-chromosome haplotype DNA study conducted by Dr. Eugene Foster and published in the scientific journal Nature in November 1998. The DNA study did prove paternity of a Jefferson family member and corroborated the ample documentary and oral history evidence.[26]

Political Career

As tensions grew between the American colonies and Great Britain, Jefferson was elected to the Continental Congress. In 1776, he completed one of his greatest career achievements—The Declaration of Independence.[1] Before becoming the nation's third President, Jefferson served as delegate to the Virginia House of Delegates, where he drafted legislation that abolished primogeniture, the law that made the eldest son the sole inheritor of his father's property. He also promoted religious freedom, helping to establish the country's separation between church and state, and he advocated free public education, an idea considered radical by his contemporaries.[5]

During the Revolution, Jefferson served two years as governor of Virginia, during which time he barely escaped capture by British forces by fleeing from Monticello, his home. He was later charged with being a coward for not confronting the enemy.[5]

In 1784 Jefferson succeeded Benjamin Franklin as the minister to France. During this time Jefferson significantly, advanced United States diplomacy.[2] Thomas Jefferson served as the first Secretary of State from March 22, 1790, to December 31, 1793.[10] Jefferson served as secretary of state under Washington, but quarrels with Secretary of Treasury Alexander Hamilton over his vision of a centralized national bank caused Jefferson to resign his post in 1793.[5]

He came in second to Federalist John Adams in Electoral College votes and became Adams's vice president.[5] Four years later, Jefferson defeated Adams and Aaron Burr, assuming the presidency on March 4, 1801.[1]

Presidency

During Jefferson's presidency, he focused on reducing the national debt by cutting military budgets and minimizing expenditures. He also fought to keep the United States out of the Napoleonic wars raging across Europe, opting to enact an unpopular embargo that closed American ports and crippled foreign trade—consequences that were felt by American merchants, businesses, and industries.[1]

As president, Jefferson also acquired 828,000 square miles of land west of the Mississippi River from France for $15 million.[1] The Louisiana Purchase is thought by many to be Jefferson's greatest accomplishment as president.[4] Jefferson selected his personal secretary, Meriwether Lewis, to join William Clark in leading an expedition to the West Coast to explore the country's new land.[4]

Lunar Society of Birmingham Connection

In 1758 he was appointed Professor of Natural Philosophy at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, which is where he met and taught Thomas Jefferson. In 1764 Small returned to Britain, with a letter of introduction to Matthew Boulton from Benjamin Franklin. Through this connection Small was elected to the Lunar Society.[13] While in England, he received a medical degree and became an adviser to Matthew Boulton and James Watt. Boulton, Small, and Erasmus Darwin helped establish the Birmingham Lunar Society, a learned society whose participants included Watt, Joseph Priestley, Josiah Wedgwood, William Withering (after Small's death), and others.[18]

The ranks of the dozen or so regular members of the Lunar Society were often swelled by visits and correspondents from more peripheral members including the likes of Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Sir Richard Arkwright, Thomas Bedoes, Anna Seward, John Smeaton, etc.[11] In addition the Society corresponded with and received visits from a succession of eminent individuals, among them Richard Arkwright, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and Anna Seward.[12]

The Lunar Society of Birmingham was a British dinner club and informal learned society of prominent figures in the Midlands Enlightenment, including industrialists, natural philosophers and intellectuals, who met regularly between 1765 and 1813 in Birmingham. At first called the Lunar Circle, "Lunar Society" became the formal name by 1775. The name arose because the society would meet during the full moon, as the extra light made the journey home easier and safer in the absence of street lighting.[16]

Later Years and Legacy

In 1809, Jefferson retired to his Virginia plantation home, Monticello, where he continued pursuing his widely diverse interests in science, natural history, philosophy, and the classics. Jefferson also devoted himself to founding the University of Virginia.[5] In 1819, at 76 years old Jefferson founded the University of Virginia, a university free of all church influence.[2]

Reconciling his friendship with John Adams through correspondence letters starting in 1812 and continuing until both figures passed away on the same day, July 4, 1826.[2] Like his friend John Adams, Jefferson died 50 years to the day after the approval of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1826.[4]

Jefferson left a complicated legacy: The man who wrote the Declaration of Independence—which states that "all men are created equal"—also enslaved more than 600 people during his lifetime. But according to his writings, Jefferson knew that future generations would have to end the enslavement of people, and that it would be a long, terrible process.[4] This would become the biggest moral and philosophical dissonance of Jefferson's life, his passion for liberty and enlightenment values while being an active participant in the institution of slavery.[2]