Today is a great day. Today I am writing about my favorite founder, America won last night, and tomorrow is a day off from work. Plus, my very favorite holiday is on Saturday. Today, July 2, is an important day, too. Today is the day where our brave founders voted for Independence. John Adams actually thought July 2nd would be our national Independence Day, but he was wrong.
I know Jefferson has taken a lot of heat over the years, but he was a titan. Let’s goooo
Quick Hits
Born: April 13, 1743 in Virginia (was 33 a.k.a. in his Jesus year in 7/4/76)
Died: July 4, 1826
Wife: Martha, married in 1772, died in 1782
Kids: 6 with Martha, up to 6 with Sally
US Political Offices Held: Governor of Virginia (1779-1781), Secretary of State (1790-1793), Vice President of the United States (1797-1801), President of the United States (1801-1809)
Most famous for: Being our third president, writing the Declaration of Independence, executing the Louisiana Purchase, having an affair with his slave, founding the Democratic-Republicans, being on the nickel and $2 bill.
Life Before 1776
Thomas Jefferson, or TJ as I often refer to him in my mind and writings, was born on his family’s plantation in Virginia. He was the third of ten siblings. Thomas’ father did not receive a formal education, and he wanted to ensure TJ did. He began formal schooling at just five years old.
He was extremely well-rounded as a kid. He loved reading the classics, meeting new people including Cherokee Chief Ostenaco, and learning new languages. His father died when he was 14 and Jefferson and his brother inherited the family land. At 17, he went to the College of William and Mary where he studied math and philosophy.
TJ loved to read and had extensive libraries at a young age. He organized his books into memory, reason, and imagination categories which I just think is a fascinating fact.
Role in the Revolution
In 1767, he entered the bar and a few years later, he was elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses. One of his main focuses while in office was to reform slavery as he believed the owners of the slaves should have the right to free the slaves if/when they wanted for any reason they wanted. This was his first big move against the dirty Brits because they apparently had authority over slaves. He also represented several slaves seeking their freedom. In his arguments to the judge, he spoke of natural law and the “natural right” to liberty belonging to each human being.
Jefferson was elected to the Second Continental Congress and was one of its youngest delegates. Baller. He was appointed to the Group of Five who were tasked with writing the Declaration of Independence. The group chose Jefferson to be its primary author at the urging of John Adams. He took their opinions into consideration, but mostly wrote the document in private. It was ratified on July 4, and newspapers began publishing it on July 6.
Jefferson was a colonel in the Virginia militia, and was also elected to the Virginia State House in 1776. He helped write the Virginia Constitution where he advocated for a formal disassociation from the Anglican Church and for religious freedom. These efforts were initially unsuccessful, but James Madison was later able to succeed where TJ had failed.
He was asked to basically rework all of Virginia’s laws before he became Governor for two one-year terms beginning in 1779. The British tried to capture him a few times, but he escaped.
After the war ended, Jefferson replaced Benjamin Franklin as our minister to France. He helped establish trade agreements between us and them. He was not able to attend the Constitutional Convention due to his oversea duties, but he favored ratifying the document with a Bill of Rights.
He also invented the “wheel cipher” while he was abroad. He often found that his mail had been open so he created this cipher to code all of his important messages for the rest of his life. Some say that sounds paranoid, but I think it sounds tight.
Post 1776 Life
Once he was back home, Jefferson was appointed as the first Secretary of State. He clashed often with Alexander Hamilton. TJ did not believe a national debt was moral and believed the states should handle their own debts. Hamilton disagreed. Jefferson wanted to lessen our dependence on the dirty Brits and grow a stronger relationship with France. (Hamilton wanted the opposite)
In 1791, Jefferson and James Madison founded the National Gazette. They used this to share their ideas and speak out against Hamilton’s Federalists who were promoting their ideas in the Gazette of the United States. Madison did most of the writing under Jefferson’s direction using the pseudonym Brutus.
What a time to be alive. Somebody makes you angry? You just start a newspaper to fight back against all their stupid talking points.
Jefferson resigned from the Cabinet in 1794, but after Hamilton and John Jay finalized the horrific Jay Treaty with England, he rallied his allies at his home, Monticello. Jefferson believed the treaty to be a disaster and said it was the worst thing those two had done yet to undermine the new government.
Jefferson lost the Presidential race in 1796, but became John Adams’ VP as the second-highest vote getter. The two had been friends for a long time, but were drifting apart as they found themselves on opposite sides of the aisle on big issues.
As the VP, Jefferson presided over the Senate. He only cast three tie-breaking votes. In 1800, he published A Manual of Parliamentary Practice. The Alien and Sedition Acts were passed under Adams, acts which Jefferson vehemently opposed as unconstitutional. To again rally support to their side, Jefferson and Madison wrote the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions which basically said the federal government does not have any power expressly not given to it by the states. Baller.
Jefferson also advocated for nullification, a principle that seems to be left out in school (or jury instructions) today. Nullification is states invalidating federal laws. And it’s a baller idea. Think about what it would be like today if we regularly used this – Congress does something ridiculous and overreaching. And if a state believes the federal government has gotten too big or too overreaching, they have a right to leave the willing republic of which they are a member.
People hate this idea and blame Jefferson’s ideas as the basis for the Civil War a few decades later. I’m not going to get into this right now, but Alexander Hamilton had a lot more to do DIRECTLY with starting the Civil War than a man who believed that the federal government gets its power from the people in the states.
Jefferson beat Adams for the Presidency in 1800, and Aaron Burr became his VP. The transfer of power between opposing parties was peaceful, apparently the first time that had happened in world history. America is just BUILT DIFFERENT.
In TJ’s inaugural speech, he advocated for minority rights, the freedom of speech and religion, and equal justice for all men. Jefferson’s wife died before he became President, so his two living daughters served as his official hostesses. Eventually, Dolly Madison, James’ wife, became the hostess. She was in charge of all kinds of events and parties but was also in charge of the completion of the White House.
I’m really starting to think I might write about some of the lesser-known ladies in American history.
When Jefferson became President, the nation had $83M in debt which is about $1.6B today. Our debt now is incomprehensibly bigger. Like literally incomprehensible. We can’t understand the value of 38 trillion dollars.
Anyway.
To attack the debt, TJ attacked what got us there in the first place. With his Secretary of the Treasury, they created a plan to eliminate all debt in 16 years while also lowering taxes. They closed pointless bureaucratic offices and cut all frivolous government spending. He shrank the size of the Navy, and invested in cheaper boats to be used locally to dissuade against foreign attack.
Jefferson believed the USA needed a military academy, and in 1802, he signed an act into law to establish The United States Military Academy at West Point. In 1801, after pirates were regularly attacking our ships, Jefferson asked Congress to declare war on the Barbary Coast. We won – it was the first war on foreign land we won.
Now for the Louisiana Purchase! Spain ceded the land they owned in the US west of the Mississippi to France in 1800. Jefferson was worried about Napoleon having all of this land near our borders, and feared invasion. In 1802, he sent Madison and Robert Livingston to negotiate the purchase. They originally discussed purchasing New Orleans, but we were eventually offered 828,000 square miles for just $15 million (about $444 million today). Imagine doubling the size of your country for just some cash and exactly zero lives lost in a war. Baller.
After the Louisiana Purchase, America had lots of new land to explore! Jefferson commissioned Lewis and Clark to explore and map the land. In fact, Jefferson privately taught Meriwether Lewis many important skills like mapping, astronomy, navigation, and botany before he left. He sent several more explorers west. Each of these expeditions help map the American west, discovered new plants and animals (like grizzly bears), helped us claim more territory in the west, and established relationships with the Indians.
We haven’t spoken about this much, but obviously relationships with the Indians were new and developing during this period in our history. Many people believed the Natives were inferior beings, but Jefferson disagreed. He worked hard to maintain peace with the various tribes all over the country. He also proposed a “civilization program” which sought peace treaties and agricultural partnerships with the various tribes. Jefferson likely believed the best way for America and the Indians to both survive would be for the Indians to assimilate. He also reportedly said that if the Indians ever attacked any city or state, America would not stop fighting them until that tribe was extinguished as we must protect our country.
Jefferson also allowed for guns to flow into Haiti, and refused to help Napoleon beat Haiti in the slave rebellion. Ultimately, the Haitians were successful in their own revolution. Jefferson’s administration felt they could not recognize Haiti as a sovereign nation in order to keep the peace with the southern states who were worried about a slave revolt of their own.
Jefferson’s second term was more challenging than his first. During this term, he succeeded in securing funding for interstate roads and canals. He also dealt with British and French military action against our ships which led to a trade embargo with both countries. This was not very popular, so he rescinded the order a year later.
In 1806, TJ denounced the slave trade as a human rights violation. A few months later, Congress passed the Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves which banned the international slave trade, but did not address slavery here. Jefferson ended his second term, declined to run for a third, and said he felt like “a prisoner who had been released from his chains.” A powerful man who never enjoyed the power. Baller.
In 1819, Jefferson founded the University of Virginia. He believed America needed schools without religious ties and for a wider variation of topics to be taught. He carried this out at his school. He designed the grounds and buildings himself.
In 1821, he began writing his autobiography. He also rekindled his relationship with John Adams after they had not spoken for over a decade. They wrote letters to each other until they died, which happened to be on America’s 50th birthday.
Before TJ died, he had accumulated a lot of debt partly due to thousands of dollars in debt he inherited from his father. He was able to hold a public lottery of his possessions before he died to help repay some of his debts. He still died with a lot of debt which complicated things for his heirs. In his will, he included that Sally’s kids be freed upon his death, but they were not.
After he died, he was found wearing a necklace with a lock of his wife’s hair. She had asked him not to ever remarry and he obliged. He wrote his own epitaph which fails to mention any of his political positions: HERE WAS BURIED THOMAS JEFFERSON, AUTHOR OF THE DECLARATION OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE, OF THE STATUTE OF VIRGINIA FOR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM, AND FATHER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA.
Alright, so Sally Hemings. There is widespread belief Jefferson and Sally had as many as six children together. There is also not actually concrete evidence of that as the accusations that Jefferson was having an affair with Sally began as a political attack. He did ask for her children to be freed upon his death, and the birth of all of her children lined up with time periods when Jefferson was at Monticello. Her quarters were also next to his. There have been DNA tests that show her children shared DNA with the Jefferson male line, although this could have been Jefferson’s brothers or nephews. I don’t really know enough about it all to have a firm opinion one way or the other.
Man, I feel like I have not done my boy justice. It’s almost like leaving him for the end made me confused about what to include for him because he was mentioned in so many other posts. So let’s take a second and examine his baller beliefs.
Jefferson was an advocate for equal rights of all men. And yes I know that seems confusing because he owned slaves, but he is on the record many times stating that people of all colors have an inherent value as a human being. People say they those two things are in conflict with each other, but many Southerners at the time said they genuinely did not understand how the economy would work otherwise. That sounds like a cop out to many people now. Maybe it’s kind of like sweatshops today. We know sweatshops are wrong, and we personally are disgusted by them. But the clothes are cheap, and the tennis shoes are good, and you don’t have to have a different phone than your group chat. So you purchase goods made in a sweatshop anyway and try not to think about how you’re perpetuating the vile practice. And yes, maybe that is a really lame comparison, but it’s just so easy for us to criticize people now for things we see with hindsight 250 years later. In general, I take the stand that putting your hope in any single human being or expecting one to be perfect is just setting yourself up for failure. People. Suck. The only person you should model your life after is Jesus.
He believed merit should determine someone’s value, not their birth status. He believed the ultimate power in a nation came from the people, and if a government failed, the people had the right to abolish it. He believed short terms were necessary for politicians, and that states should have much much power than a big giant federal government. He believed the role of government was to ensure people didn’t hurt each other or take their stuff, but that we should largely be trusted to be left alone with as much freedom as otherwise possible. He focused on decreasing (or eliminating) taxes and federal debt. He advocated for freedom of religion and the separation of church and state, two principles I believe to be critical to individual freedom long term. He believed an agrarian society was the best society for living in a republic (which is a belief I didn’t really know I had until a few years ago when my chaotic health journey began). He believed in self governance and had so much optimism about the potential of an individual that people called him naive. If I got called naive for believing people will choose right when given (not forced) the opportunity to do so, I’d think that says a lot more about the haters than it does about me.
Quotes (with Beks commentary)
“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.” This might be the single most important and enduring statement ever written about man-made government. I love just sitting and thinking about the weight of it sometimes.
“Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations — entangling alliances with none.” PREACH.
“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” Isn’t this such a baller quote? People think that liberty just exists, but sometimes, we need to remember its cost. Seek peace at all costs, but sometimes, war is necessary.
“I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery.” This is the perfect representation to me about his view of government and the people. Freedom, true freedom, is dangerous. But isn’t freedom so much better than being a slave?
“When angry, count to ten before you speak. If very angry, count to one hundred.” This is so wise. I genuinely try to live this one out. How many of us have said something we regret just because we were angry? TJ helps you avoid that with this baller advice.
“Rebellion to tyranny is obedience to God.” Probably my all-time favorite quote. It sums up my political beliefs so well. Tyranny is straight up wrong anyway you slice it. Rebellion to things that are wrong is answering the call to do as God commands. I love it.
Well, that brings this series to a close! I am definitely going to keep writing, although I’ll be taking a few weeks off. If you have ideas about my next series, let me know in the comments. Thanks for following along!
Rebekah and her Ramblings 