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THOMAS JEFFERSON

Thomas Jefferson was the third president of the USA. He was born in 1743 at Shadwell, Virginia and died in 1826. He was graduated at William and Mary College, studied law, and entered upon its practice and the care of his estate.

In 1769 he entered the House of Burgesses, and became active in the Revolutionary agitation; but his activity then and later was as a writer rather than as a speaker. He drafted the instructions to the Virginia delegates to the first Continental Congress, and was in consequence proscribed in Great Britain. As a delegate to the second Continental Congress he is of course chiefly remembered for his draft of the American Declaration of Independence. Soon after signing that document he left Congress to re-enter the Virginia Legislature, where he laboured strenuously for democratic reforms in the laws respecting the church and the descent of landed property.

While Governor of Virginia, 1779-1781, he was called upon to resist the British invasion of the State. He was again in the Legislature, and for a short time in Congress. In 1784 he went to France as Plenipotentiary, and there wrote his 'Notes on Virginia', and observed the outbreak of the French Revolution. At the end of 1789 Jefferson returned to America, and entered upon his duties as Secretary of State in George Washington's first Cabinet.

In the ensuing years he became the central figure in the Democratic-Republican party which was forming in opposition to the Federalists. Hamilton, ablest of the Federalist leaders, was also in the Cabinet, and between the two divergence of views developed into continual disputes. Jefferson finally resigned in 1794. The great party of which he was the head gave him, in 1796, almost as many electoral votes as were given to Adams. He became accordingly Vice-President. At this epoch he prepared a 'Manual of Parliamentary Practice', was president of the Philosophical Society, and drafted the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798.

In the election of 1800-1801 Jefferson's party defeated Adams and the Federalists, but the defective provisions of the Constitution gave to Jefferson and Burr seventy-three electoral votes each, and there was no election; the House of Representatives accordingly took up the matter, and a bitter struggle ended in the choice of Jefferson for first place. In his Cabinet Madison was Secretary of State, Gallatin of the Treasury, Dearborn of War, Robert Smith of the Navy, and Lincoln Attorney-General.

His administration was marked by the abolition of some usages of an aristocratic nature, by the Tripolitan War, the Louisiana Purchase, the Lewis and Clark expedition, the Chesapeake incident, and the Embargo. President Jefferson was re-elected in 1804, and retired from office in 1809, but continued to be regarded as the adviser of the party. He was interested in later life in plans for education in Virginia, and superintended the planting of the University of Virginia. He died at Monticello in his native State. His political theories had great influence upon the public life of America.
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