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Thomas Jefferson Facts
- Thomas Jefferson’s President No.: 3rd
- Thomas Jefferson Served: 1801-09
- Thomas Jefferson’s Party: Democratic-Republican
- Thomas Jefferson was From: Virginia
- Thomas Jefferson’s Married: Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson
- Thomas Jefferson was Born on: April 13, 1743
- Thomas Jefferson was Born at: Albermarle County, Virginia
- Thomas Jefferson Died on: July 4, 1826
- Thomas Jefferson Died at: Monticello in Virginia
- Thomas Jefferson’s Education: College of William and Mary
- Thomas Jefferson’s Jobs Before President: Lawyer, Ambassador to France, Governor of Virginia, represented Virginia in the Continental Congress, Secretary of State, Vice President
- Thomas Jefferson’s Height: 6 feet, 2.5 inches
- Population at Thomas Jefferson was president time: 5,308,483
- Thomas Jefferson’s Hobbies: Archeology, Fishing, horticulture, riding, violin, walking
- Thomas Jefferson’s Pets: Mockingbirds
- Thomas Jefferson’s Transportation: Horse and carriage
- Thomas Jefferson’s Communication Methods: Letter
Thomas Jefferson Biography
Thomas Jefferson was born on April 13, 1743 and was the third President of the United States. Jefferson was a statesman and an ambassador to France. Many have said he was the first cultured President the United States every truly had Jefferson’s predecessors were the combative Adams and the ‘for the people’ Washington.
Jefferson, though, was a man of opposites. He loved archeology but also recognized that the United States had to move forward in order to survive. He was a philosopher in a time where action was supposedly louder than words. And he was a peacemaker in a time of war.
Early Life
Born to Peter Jefferson and Jane Randolph, both from Virginian families, he attended the College of William & Mary, where he was a member of the FHC Society. Later in life he founded the University of Virginia, largely as a result of attempting to reform the College of William & Mary – with little success.
Personality
Jefferson was the primary author of the Declaration of Independence and a leader in American culture. Jefferson pushed the frontiers of America through the Louisiana Purchase and the Lewis & Clark Expedition.
Jefferson once said: ‘Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time who never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.’
In his own life he stood by this statement, as he worked arduously to design his home in Charlottesville, Virginia. He included several of his inventions and innovations designed to make life easier, more convenient and to please his many guests. In fact, there were very few things he asked others to do that he wasn’t willing to do himself. He believed in leading by example – the first President to do so.
Jefferson’s hobby, and passion, was archeology – at a time when archeology was so young that it wasn’t even called a science. Many have said that Jefferson in many ways popularized and legitimized the discipline. For example, when he found an Indian burial mound on his Virginian estate, he made the unique approach of cutting a wedge deep into the mound so that he could visually explore each cross section and draw his own conclusions. The practice later became a standard in archeology, at a time when the common practice was to simply dig downwards and hope nothing was destroyed.
Politics
Jefferson’s political career began as the first Secretary of State of the United States, a post he served within for 6 years, from 1789 until 1795. Afterwards, he spent 4 years as John Adams‘ Vice President – as a result of getting second place in the 1976 presidential elections.
Presidency
In his next run for the Presidency in 1800, Jefferson and his opponent, Aaron Burr, tied for electoral votes. The impasse was resolved by the House of Representatives on February 17, 1801 when Jefferson was elected President, and Burr became the Vice President. Jefferson had the unique privilege of being the only Vice President who was elected President to serve two full terms. His profile current appears on the $2 bill and the 5 cent piece.
Jefferson applied the same discipline that had been visible in his personal life to his presidential career. He quickly slashed the military budgets, cut the overall federal budget, cut several taxes and worked hard to reduce the national debt. During his tenure, the debt was reduced by more than a third. Jefferson also oversaw the Louisiana Purchase in 1803.
Jefferson’s second term was overshadowed by the Napoleonic wars, a conflict in which Jefferson was loathe to involve himself and his country in spite of the continued interference of England and France in American affairs.
Religion
Like many of the founding fathers, Jefferson was a Deist. He believed that although God was real, he was distant and unconcerned with humanity. That God simply created, and then went somewhere else to play.
Further, Jefferson did not believe in miracles – to the point of writing his own accounting of the gospels, commonly known as the Jefferson Bible. He brought copies of his new bible to many of his most famous engagements, quoting from them religiously and driving home his belief that man was man’s own savior.
Jefferson’s faith in the non-intervention of God in daily life is displayed in his belief that the separation of church and state was an absolute requirement for a civilized society, to the point where he wrote “In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.”
In spite of these things, though, Jefferson was a man who was completely for religious freedom. He simply didn’t want religion to be the basis for the founding or running of his country.
Legacy
Thomas Jefferson’s stand for human liberty struck a chord that resounds even today. But in the end, Jefferson’s own appraisal of his life, and the one that he wrote for use on his own tombstone, suffices: “Author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for religious freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia.
Speeches
Thomas Jefferson Inaugural Addresses
Thomas Jefferson State of the Union Addresses
- 1801 State of the Union Address
- 1802 State of the Union Address
- 1803 State of the Union Address
- 1804 State of the Union Address
- 1805 State of the Union Address
- 1806 State of the Union Address
- 1807 State of the Union Address
- 1808 State of the Union Address
Thomas Jefferson Quotes
The quotes in the list below all have verifiable sources listed below them. Please note when using quotes from other sites that they may not have these citations and therefore the authenticity of the quote may be questionable.
A lively and lasting sense of filial duty is more effectually impressed on the mind of a son or daughter by reading King Lear, than by all the dry volumes of ethics, and divinity, that ever were written.
3 August, 1771. Letter to Robert Skipwith.
The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time.
1774. Summary View of the Rights of British America.
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to separation. We hold these truths to be self-evidence; 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; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of those ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.
4 July, 1776. Declaration of Independence.
We must therefore … hold them [the British] as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.
4 July, 1776. Declaration of Independence.
And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.
4 July, 1776. Declaration of Independence.
Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from truth who believes nothing, that he who believes what is wrong.
Notes on the State of Virginia, 1781-85, Query 6.
The Newtonian principle of gravitation is now more firmly established, on the basis of reason, that it would be were the government to step in, and to make it an article of necessary faith. Reason and experiment have been indulged, and error has fled before them.
Notes on the State of Virginia, 1781-85, Query 17.
Subject opinion to coercion: whom will you make your inquisitors? Fallible men; men governed by bad passions, by private as well as public reasons.
Notes on the State of Virginia, 1781-85, Query 17.
Is uniformity [of opinion] attainable? Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have no advanced one inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, the other half hypocrites.
Notes on the State of Virginia, 1781-85, Query 17.
Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.
Notes on the State of Virginia, 1781-85, Query 18.
Those who labor in the earth are chosen people of God, if ever He had a chosen people, whose breasts He has made His peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue.
Notes on the State of Virginia, 1781-85, Query 19.
He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world’s believing him. This falsehood of tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good dispositions.
19th August, 1785. Letter to Peter Carr.
The basis of our government being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.
16th January, 1789. Letter to Colonel Edward Carrington.
Experience declares that man is the only animal which devours his own kind; for I can apply no milder term to the governments of Europe, and to the general prey of the rich on the poor.
16th January, 1789. Letter to Colonel Edward Carrington.
I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.
30th January, 1787. Letter to James Madison.
What country before ever existed a century and a half without rebellion? … The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.
13th November, 1787. Letter to William Stevens Smith.
The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind.
11th March, 1790. Letter to William Hunter.
We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed.
2nd April, 1790. Letter to Lafayette.
Let what will be said or done, preserve your sangfroid immovably, and to every obstacle, oppose patience, perseverance, and soothing language.
18th March, 1792. Letter to William Short.
Delay is preferable to error.
16th May, 1792. Letter to George Washington.
We confide in our strength, without boasting of it; we respect that of others, without fearing it.
30th June, 1793. Letter to William Carmichael and William Short.
The second office of the government is honorable and easy, the first but a splendid misery.
13th May, 1797. Letter to Elbridge Gerry.
Offices are as acceptable here as elsewhere, and whenever a man has cast a longing eye on them, a rottenness begins in his conduct.
21st May, 1797. Letter to Tench Coxe.
If the principle were to prevail of a common law [i.e a single government] being in force in the United States…it would become the most corrupt government on the earth.
13th August, 1800. Letter to Gideon Granger.
I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hospitality against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.
23rd September, 1800. Letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush.
All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.
4th March, 1801. First Inaugural Address.
We are all Republicans – we are all Federalists. If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.
4th March, 1801. First Inaugural Address.
But would the honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment, abandon a government whcih has so far kept us free and firm, on the theoretic and visionary fear that this government, the world’s best hope, may by possibility want energy to preserve itself?
4th March, 1801. First Inaugural Address.
Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.
4th March, 1801. First Inaugural Address.
Still one thing more, fellow citizens – a wise and frugal government which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.
4th March, 1801. First Inaugural Address.
Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political; peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none; the support of the State governments in all their rights, as the most competent administrations for our domestic concerns and the surest bulwarks against antirepublican tendencies; the preservation of the General Government in its whole constitutional vigor, as the sheet anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad; a jealous care of the right of election by the people — a mild and safe corrective of abuses which are lopped by the sword of revolution where peaceable remedies are unprovided; absolute acquiescence in the decisions of the majority, the vital principle of republics, from which is no appeal but to force, the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism; a well-disciplined militia, our best reliance in peace and for the first moments of war till regulars may relieve them; the supremacy of the civil over the military authority; economy in the public expense, that labor may be lightly burthened; the honest payment of our debts and sacred preservation of the public faith; encouragement of agriculture, and of commerce as its handmaid; the diffusion of information and arraignment of all abuses at the bar of the public reason; freedom of religion; freedom of the press, and freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus, and trial by juries impartially selected. These principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation. The wisdom of our sages and blood of our heroes have been devoted to their attainment. They should be the creed of our political faith, the text of civic instruction, the touchstone by which to try the services of those we trust; and should we wander from them in moments of error or of alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps and to regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty, and safety.
4th March, 1801. First Inaugural Address.
Whensoever hostile aggressions … require a resort to war, we must meet out duty and convince the world that we are just friends and brave enemies.
3rd December, 1806. Letter to Andrew Jackson.
When a man assumes a public trust, he should consider himself as public property.
1807. Remark to Baron von Humbodlt. Quoted in ‘Life of Jefferson’, Rayner.
The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the frist and only legitimate object of good government.
31st March, 1809. To the Republican Citizens of Washington County, Maryland.
Politics, like religion, hold up the torches of martyrdom to the reformers of error.
4th August, 1811. Letter to James Ogilvie.
But though an old man, I am but a young gardener.
20th August, 1811. Letter to Charles Wilson Peale.
The earth belongs to the living, not to the dead.
24th June, 1813. Letter to John W. Eppes.
I agree with you that there is a natural aristocracy among men. The groups of this are virtue and talents.
28th October, 1813. Letter to John Adams.
Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains.
17th March, 1814. Letter to Horatio G. Spafford.
I cannot live without books.
10th June, 1815. Letter to John Adams.
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.
6th January, 1816. Letter to Colonel Charles Yancey.
Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.
24th April, 1816. Letter to Du Pont de Nemours.
I have the consolation to relect that during the period of my administration not a drop of the blood of a single fellow citizen was shed by the sword of war or of the law.
14th February, 1818. Letter to papal nuncio Count Dugnani.
But this momentous questions [the Missouri Compromise], like a firebell in the night awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it the knell of the Union.
22nd April, 1820. Letter to John Holmes.
I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion.
28th September, 1820. Letter to William Charles Jarvis.
We are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.
27th December, 1820. Letter to William Roscoe.
That one hundred and fifty lawyers should do business together ought not to be expected.
6th January, 1821. Autobiography. Description is of the U.S. Congress.
And even should the cloud of barbarism and despotism again obscure the science and liberties of Europe, this country remains to preserve and restore light and liberty to them. In short, the flames kindled on the fourth of July, 1776, have spread over too much of the globe to be extinguished by the feeble engines of despotism; on the contrary they will consume these engines and all who work them.
12th September, 1821. Letter to John Adams.
To attain all this [universal republicanism], however, rivers of blood must yet flow, and years of desolation pass over; yet the object is worth rivers of blood, and years of desolation.
4th September, 1823. Letter to John Adams.
If a due participation of office is a matter of right, how are vacancies to be obtained? Those bydeath are few; by resignation none.
4th September, 1823. Letter to John Adams.
Men by their constitutions are naturally divided into two parties: (1) Those who fear and distrust the people, and wish to draw all powers from them into the hands of the higher classes. (2) Those who identify themselves with the people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider them as the most honest and safe, although not the most wise depository of the public interests. In every country these two parties exist; and in every one where they are free to think, speak, and write, they will declare themselves.
10th August, 1824. Letter to Henry Lee.
Never buy what you do not want, because it is cheap; it will be dear to you.
21st February, 1825. A Decalogue of Canons for Observation in Practical Life.
When angry, count ten before you speak; if very angry, an hundred.
21st February, 1825. A Decalogue of Canons for Observation in Practical Life.
The good old Dominion, the blessed mother of us all.
1826. Thoughts on Lotteries.
No duty the Executive had to perform was so trying as to put the right man in the right place.
Quoted in J.B. MacMaster, ‘History of the People of the U.S.’.
We have the wolf by the ears; and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other.
On slavery. Quoted in J.C. Miller, ‘The Wolf by the Ears’.
This is the fourth?
4th July, 1826. Last words.
