Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) was an American statesman, philosopher, and founding father. He served as the second U.S. vice president 1797–81 and the third president 1801–09. An intellectual with wide-ranging interests, from music, law, science, painting, and architecture to political philosophy and natural history, he wielded a towering influence on the political and intellectual life of the new nation.
A Democratic-Republican from Virginia, Jefferson played a significant leadership role during the American Revolution. He was the principal drafter of the 1776 Declaration of Independence. Subsequently, President George Washington persuaded Jefferson to serve as the first secretary of state (1789–93.)
While president, Jefferson finalized the Louisiana Purchase (1803) and sanctioned the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804–06) to survey this vast territory. He was re-elected to a second term, but his poor handling of U.S. shipping and maritime policy made a third term impossible.
After retiring from political office, Jefferson lived in his Monticello estate in Virginia. He was also famously well-read and a great lover of books; the federal government purchased his magnificent personal book collection (6,487 volumes on history, philosophy, and fine arts) after the War of 1812 to form the core of the Library of Congress.
Jefferson was responsible for the chartering of the University of Virginia in 1819. He designed the campus and its buildings and served as the first rector of the university.
Jefferson also wrote numerous pieces of legislation, reports, observations, correspondences, essays, and even books on farming and gardening.
Jefferson died on July 4, 1826, few hours before his rival and friend John Adams died on the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. In his epitaph, composed during the last months of his life, Jefferson codified his legacy: “Author of the Declaration of Independence and of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia.”
Jefferson’s legacy is tainted by his ownership of slaves to support his lavish lifestyle, even if he opposed slavery in principle. He fathered at least one child with a slave.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Thomas Jefferson
Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: Welfare, Government
I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: Liberty, Freedom
Were I to commence my administration again, the first question I would ask respecting a candidate would be, Does he use ardent spirits?
—Thomas Jefferson
I have never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as a cause for withdrawing from a friend.
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: Friendship
The art of reasoning becomes of first importance. In this line antiquity has left us the finest models for imitation; I should consider the speeches of Livy, Sallust, and Tacitus, as pre-eminent specimens of logic, taste, and that sententious brevity which, using not a word to spare, leaves not a moment for inattention to the hearer. Amplification is the voice of modern oratory.
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: Nation
With earnest prayers to all my friends to cherish mutual good will, to promote harmony and conciliation, and above all things to let the love of our country soar above all minor passions, I tender you the assurance of my affectionate esteem and respect.
—Thomas Jefferson
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: Government
Were we directed from Washington when to sow, & when to reap, we should soon want bread.
—Thomas Jefferson
Any woodsman can tell you that in a broken and sundered nest, one can hardly find more than a precious few whole eggs. So it is with the family.
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: Family
The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: Government
Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: Freedom
The suppression of unnecessary offices, of useless establishments and expenses, enabled us to discontinue our internal taxes. These, covering our land with officers, and opening our doors to their intrusions, had already begun that process of domiciliary vexation which, once entered, is scarcely to be restrained from reaching, successively, every article of property and produce.
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: Taxes
I have come to a resolution myself as I hope every good citizen will, never again to purchase any article of foreign manufacture which can be had of American make be the difference of price what it may.
—Thomas Jefferson
The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it.
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: Slavery
Great innovations should not be forced on slender majorities.
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: Change, Innovation
Peace with all nations, and the right which that gives us with respect to all nations, are our object.
—Thomas Jefferson
Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independant, the most virtuous, and they are tied to their country and wedded to its liberty and interests by the most lasting bands. As long therefore as they can find emploiment in this line, I would not convert them into mariners, artisans, or any thing else. But our citizens will find emploiment in this line till their numbers, and of course their productions, become too great for the demand both internal and foreign.
—Thomas Jefferson
I consider ethics, as well as religion, as supplements to law in the government of man.
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: Ethics
The Constitution of most of our states (and of the United States) assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed.
—Thomas Jefferson
In truth, the abuses of monarchy had so much filled all the space of political contemplation, that we imagined everything republican which was not monarchy. We had not yet penetrated to the mother principle, that governments are republican only in proportion as they embody the will of their people, and execute it. Hence, our first constitutions had really no leading principles in them. But experience and reflection have but more and more confirmed me in the particular importance of the equal representation then proposed.
—Thomas Jefferson
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 by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power.
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: Education
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. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government.
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: Medicine, Revolution, Science, Fight, Miscellaneous
Educate and inform the whole mass of the people… They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: People, Liberty
the giver of life, who gave it for happiness and not for wretchedness.
—Thomas Jefferson
Liberty is the great parent of science and of virtue; and a nation will be great in both always in proportion as it is free.
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: Liberty
In every country where man is free to think and to speak, difference of opinion will arise from difference of perception, and the imperfection of reason; but these differences, when permitted, as in this happy country, to purify themselves by free discussion, are but as passing clouds overspreading our land transiently, and leaving our horizon more bright and serene.
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: Opinions, Freedom
The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave.
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: Liberty
The maxim of buying nothing without the money in our pocket to pay for it, would make of our country one of the happiest upon earth. Experience during the war proved this; as I think every man will remember that under all the privations it obliged him to submit to during that period he slept sounder, and awaked happier than he can do now. Desperate of finding relief from a free course of justice, I look forward to the abolition of all credit as the only other remedy which can take place.
—Thomas Jefferson
Every State has a natural right in cases not within the compact casus non faederis to nullify of their own authority all assumptions of power by others within their limits. Without this right, they would be under the dominion, absolute and unlimited, of whosoever might exercise this right of judgment for them
—Thomas Jefferson
Topics: Assumptions, Government
I thought the work would be very innocent, and one which might be confided to the reason of any man; not likely to be much read if let alone, but, if persecuted, it will be generally read. Every man in the United States will think it a duty to buy a copy, in vindication of his right to buy, and to read what he pleases.
—Thomas Jefferson
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