259 Facts About Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson was the primary author of the Declaration of Independence.

Thomas Jefferson was a leading proponent of democracy, republicanism, and natural rights, and he produced formative documents and decisions at the state, national, and international levels.

Thomas Jefferson was born into the Colony of Virginia's planter class, dependent on slave labor.

Thomas Jefferson served as the second governor of revolutionary Virginia from 1779 to 1781.

Four years later, in the 1800 presidential election, Thomas Jefferson again challenged Adams and won the presidency.

In 1804, Thomas Jefferson was reelected overwhelmingly to a second term.

In 1807, Thomas Jefferson implemented the Embargo Act to defend the nation's industries from British threats to US shipping, limit foreign trade, and stimulate the birth of the American manufacturing.

Thomas Jefferson is ranked among the upper tier of US presidents by both scholars and in public opinion.

Thomas Jefferson's father, Peter Jefferson, was a planter and surveyor; his mother was Jane Randolph.

Peter Thomas Jefferson moved his family to Tuckahoe Plantation in 1745 following the death of William Randolph III, the plantation's owner and Thomas Jefferson's friend, who in his will had named Peter guardian of Randolph's children.

Thomas Jefferson began his education together with the Randolph children at Tuckahoe under tutors.

Thomas Jefferson studied Latin, Greek, and French, and began learning to ride horses.

Thomas Jefferson was taught from 1758 to 1760 by the Reverend James Maury near Gordonsville, Virginia, where he studied history, science, and the classics while boarding with Maury's family.

Thomas Jefferson came to know various American Indians, including Cherokee chief Ostenaco, who often stopped at Shadwell to visit on their way to Williamsburg to trade.

In Williamsburg, the young Thomas Jefferson met and came to admire Patrick Henry.

Thomas Jefferson's father died in 1757, and his estate was divided between his sons, Thomas Jefferson and Randolph.

Thomas Jefferson inherited approximately 5,000 acres, which included the land on which he later built Monticello in 1772.

Under Small's tutelage, Thomas Jefferson encountered the ideas of British empiricists, including John Locke, Francis Bacon, and Isaac Newton.

Thomas Jefferson read the law under Wythe's tutelage while working as a law clerk in his office.

Thomas Jefferson was well-read in a broad variety of subjects, including law, philosophy, history, natural law, natural religion, ethics, and several areas of science, including agriculture.

Thomas Jefferson kept two commonplace books: from about age 15 to 30, he compiled a book of sayings and quotations, published in the 20th century as Thomas Jefferson's Literary Commonplace Book.

Thomas Jefferson treasured his books and amassed three sizable libraries in his lifetime.

Thomas Jefferson began assembling his first library, which grew to 200 volumes, in his youth.

Thomas Jefferson organized his books into three broad categories of the human mind: memory, reason, and imagination.

Thomas Jefferson used a portion of the proceeds to pay off some of his large debt.

In 1767, Thomas Jefferson was granted admission to the Virginia bar, and lived with his mother at Shadwell.

Thomas Jefferson persuaded his cousin Richard Bland to spearhead the legislation's passage, but it faced strong opposition in a state whose economy was largely agrarian.

Thomas Jefferson's underlying intellectual argument that all people were entitled by their creator to what he labeled a "natural right" to liberty is a theme that he later prominently incorporated into the Declaration of Independence.

In 1767, Jefferson took on 68 cases for the General Court of Virginia and was counsel in three notable cases of that era, Howell v Netherland, Bolling v Bolling, and Blair v Blair.

In 1774, Thomas Jefferson authored a resolution calling for a boycott of all British goods in protest of the British Parliament's passing of the Intolerable Acts.

Thomas Jefferson's resolution was later expanded into A Summary View of the Rights of British America, published that year in which he argued that people have the right to govern themselves.

In 1768, Thomas Jefferson began constructing his primary residence, Monticello near present-day Charlottesville, Virginia.

Thomas Jefferson was a frequent hostess for Jefferson, and managed the large household.

Martha was a skilled pianist; Thomas Jefferson often accompanied her on the violin or cello.

Thomas Jefferson was grief-stricken by her death, relentlessly pacing back and forth for roughly three weeks, and finally emerging to take long rambling rides on secluded roads with his daughter, Martha, who said she was "a solitary witness to many a violent burst of grief".

Thomas Jefferson was the primary author of the Declaration of Independence.

Thomas Jefferson was inspired by the Enlightenment ideals of the sanctity of the individual, and the writings of Locke and Montesquieu.

Thomas Jefferson sought out John Adams, a Continental Congress delegate from Massachusetts and an emerging leader in the Congress.

Thomas Jefferson drew considerably on his proposed draft of the Virginia Constitution, George Mason's draft of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, and other sources.

Thomas Jefferson resented the changes, but he did not speak publicly about them.

Contemporary historians generally view the Declaration of Independence as one of the most significant and influential written documents in world history, and Thomas Jefferson's preamble is regarded as an enduring statement on individual and human rights.

For nearly three years, Thomas Jefferson assisted with the constitution and was especially proud of his Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom, which prohibited state support of religious institutions or enforcement of religious doctrine.

In 1778, Thomas Jefferson was given the task of revising the state's laws.

Thomas Jefferson drafted 126 bills in three years, including laws to streamline the judicial system.

Thomas Jefferson proposed statutes that provided for general education, which he considered the basis of "republican government".

Thomas Jefferson was elected governor for one-year terms in 1779 and 1780.

Thomas Jefferson transferred the state capital from Williamsburg to Richmond, and introduced additional measures for public education, religious freedom, and inheritance.

Thomas Jefferson sent emergency dispatches to Colonel Sampson Mathews and other commanders in an attempt to repel Arnold's efforts.

Thomas Jefferson escaped to Poplar Forest, his plantation to the west.

In 1782, Thomas Jefferson refused a partnership offer by North Carolina Governor Abner Nash, in a profiteering scheme involving the sale of confiscated Loyalist lands.

Unlike some Founders, Thomas Jefferson was content with his Monticello estate and the land he owned in the vicinity of Virginia's Shenandoah Valley.

Thomas Jefferson thought of Monticello as an intellectual gathering place for James Madison, James Monroe, and other friends.

In 1780, Thomas Jefferson received a letter of inquiry from French diplomat Francois Barbe-Marbois into the geography, history, and government of Virginia, as part of a study of the United States.

Thomas Jefferson organized his responses in a book, Notes on the State of Virginia.

Thomas Jefferson included extensive data about the state's natural resources and economy and wrote at length about slavery and miscegenation; he articulated his belief that blacks and whites could not live together as free people in one society because of justified resentments of the enslaved.

Thomas Jefferson wrote of his views on the American Indians, equating them to European settlers.

Thomas Jefferson was appointed a Virginia delegate to the Congress of the Confederation organized following the peace treaty with Great Britain in 1783.

Thomas Jefferson was a member of the committee setting foreign exchange rates and recommended an American currency based on the decimal system that was adopted.

Thomas Jefferson advised the formation of the Committee of the States to fill the power vacuum when Congress was in recess.

Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the Land Ordinance of 1784, whereby Virginia ceded to the national government the vast area that it claimed northwest of the Ohio River.

Thomas Jefferson insisted that this territory should not be used as colonial territory by any of the thirteen states, but that it should be divided into sections that could become states.

Thomas Jefferson plotted borders for nine new states in their initial stages and wrote an ordinance banning slavery in all the nation's territories.

The provisions banning slavery, known as the "Thomas Jefferson Proviso", were modified and implemented three years later in the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 and became the law for the entire Northwest Territory.

Thomas Jefferson returned to Great Britain after six weeks, but she and Jefferson maintained a lifelong correspondence.

Thomas Jefferson was accompanied by a young slave from Monticello, Sally Hemings.

Thomas Jefferson had taken her older brother, James Hemings, to Paris as part of his domestic staff and had him trained in French cuisine.

The son indicated Hemings agreed to return to the United States only after Thomas Jefferson promised to free her children when they came of age.

Thomas Jefferson often found his mail opened by postmasters, so he invented his own enciphering device, the "Wheel Cipher"; he wrote important communications in code for the rest of his career.

Unable to attend the 1787 Constitution Convention, Thomas Jefferson supported the Constitution but desired the addition of the promised Bill of Rights.

Thomas Jefferson remained a firm supporter of the French Revolution while opposing its more violent elements.

Thomas Jefferson opposed a national debt, preferring that each state retire its own, which contrasted with Hamilton's vision of the federal government consolidating state debts and establishing national credit and a national bank.

Thomas Jefferson strenuously opposed both polices and attempted to undermine Hamilton's agenda, which nearly lead Washington to dismiss him from the cabinet.

Thomas Jefferson's goals were to decrease American dependence on British commerce and to expand commercial trade with France.

Thomas Jefferson sought to weaken Spanish colonialism of the Trans-Appalachia and British control in the North, believing this would aid in the pacification of Native Americans.

The National Gazette criticized the policies promoted by Hamilton, often in anonymous essays signed by the pen name Brutus at Thomas Jefferson's urging and written by Madison.

In Spring 1791, Thomas Jefferson was suffering from migraines and tiring of the in-fighting with Hamilton, and he and Madison departed for a vacation in Vermont.

Thomas Jefferson urged the president to rally the citizenry to a party that would defend democracy against the corrupting influence of banks and financial-focused interests, which the Federalists were embracing and espousing.

Thomas Jefferson supported France against Britain when the two nations fought in 1793, though his arguments in Washington's Cabinet were undercut by French Revolutionary envoy Edmond-Charles Genet's open scorn for Washington.

In discussions with British Minister George Hammond, Thomas Jefferson tried in vain to persuade the British to vacate their posts in the Northwest and to compensate the US for enslaved people freed by the British at the end of the Revolutionary War.

Thomas Jefferson organized national opposition to the treaty from Monticello.

Thomas Jefferson warned that it would increase British influence and subvert republicanism, calling it "the boldest act [Hamilton and Jay] ever ventured on to undermine the government".

Thomas Jefferson continued his pro-France stance; during the violence of the Reign of Terror, he declined to disavow the revolution.

Thomas Jefferson did receive the second-highest number of votes and, under the electoral laws at the time, was elected as vice president.

Thomas Jefferson allowed the Senate to freely conduct debates and confined his participation to procedural issues, which he called an "honorable and easy" role.

Thomas Jefferson previously studied parliamentary law and procedure for 40 years, making him qualified to serve as presiding officer.

Thomas Jefferson cast only three tie-breaking votes in the Senate.

In four confidential talks with French consul Joseph Letombe in the spring of 1797, Thomas Jefferson attacked Adams, predicting that his rival would only serve one term.

Thomas Jefferson encouraged France to invade England, and advised Letombe to stall any American envoys sent to Paris.

Thomas Jefferson believed these laws were intended to suppress Democratic-Republicans, rather than prosecute enemy aliens, and considered them unconstitutional.

Thomas Jefferson advocated nullification, allowing states to entirely invalidate federal laws.

Thomas Jefferson warned that, "unless arrested at the threshold", the Alien and Sedition Acts would "drive these states into revolution and blood".

Thomas Jefferson decided not to attend Washington's funeral in 1799 because of acute differences with him while serving as secretary of state.

Thomas Jefferson ran for president against John Adams again in 1800.

Federalists, in turn, charged that Thomas Jefferson was a godless libertine beholden to the French.

Hamilton lobbied Federalist representatives on Thomas Jefferson's behalf, believing him a lesser political evil than Burr.

Some of Thomas Jefferson's opponents argued that he owed his victory to the South's inflated number of electors.

Thomas Jefferson disputed the allegation, and the historical record is inconclusive.

Thomas Jefferson was sworn in as president by Chief Justice John Marshall at the new Capitol in Washington, DC, on March 4,1801.

Thomas Jefferson's inauguration was not attended by outgoing President Adams.

In contrast to his two predecessors, Thomas Jefferson exhibited a dislike of formal etiquette.

Widowed since 1782, Thomas Jefferson first relied on his two daughters to serve as his official hostesses.

Thomas Jefferson was in charge of the completion of the White House mansion.

Thomas Jefferson began dismantling Hamilton's Federalist fiscal system with help from the secretary of the treasury, Albert Gallatin.

Thomas Jefferson believed that the First Bank of the United States represented a "most deadly hostility" to republican government.

Thomas Jefferson wanted to dismantle the bank before its charter expired in 1811, but was dissuaded by Gallatin.

Thomas Jefferson looked to other corners to address the growing national debt.

Thomas Jefferson shrank the Navy, for example, deeming it unnecessary in peacetime, and incorporated a fleet of inexpensive gunboats intended only for local defense to avoid provocation against foreign powers.

Thomas Jefferson pardoned several of those imprisoned under the Alien and Sedition Acts.

Thomas Jefferson strongly felt the need for a national military university, producing an officer engineering corps for a national defense based on the advancement of the sciences, rather than having to rely on foreign sources.

Thomas Jefferson signed the Military Peace Establishment Act on March 16,1802, founding the United States Military Academy at West Point.

Thomas Jefferson was hoping to bring reform to the Executive branch, replacing Federalists and active opponents throughout the officer corps to promote Republican values.

Thomas Jefferson took great interest in the Library of Congress, which had been established in 1800.

Thomas Jefferson had opposed paying tribute to the Barbary States since 1785.

Thomas Jefferson ordered five separate naval bombardments of Tripoli, leading the pasha to sign a treaty that restored peace in the Mediterranean.

Thomas Jefferson was concerned that Napoleon's interests in the vast territory would threaten the security of the continent and Mississippi River shipping.

Thomas Jefferson wrote that the cession "works most sorely on the US It completely reverses all the political relations of the US" In 1802, he instructed James Monroe and Robert R Livingston to negotiate the purchase of New Orleans and adjacent coastal areas.

Thomas Jefferson unknowingly acquired the most fertile tract of land of its size on Earth, making the new country self-sufficient in food and other resources.

Thomas Jefferson initially thought that a Constitutional amendment was necessary to purchase and govern the new territory; but he later changed his mind, fearing that this would give cause to oppose the purchase, and urged a speedy debate and ratification.

Thomas Jefferson personally was humble about acquiring the Louisiana Territory, but he resented complainers who called the vast domain a "howling wilderness".

Thomas Jefferson believed that a period of the federal rule would be necessary while Louisianans adjusted to their new nation.

Thomas Jefferson anticipated further westward settlements due to the Louisiana Purchase and arranged for the exploration and mapping of the uncharted territory.

Thomas Jefferson sought to establish a US claim ahead of competing European interests and to find the rumored Northwest Passage.

Thomas Jefferson appointed secretary Meriwether Lewis and acquaintance William Clark to lead the Corps of Discovery.

Thomas Jefferson refuted the contemporary notion that Indians were inferior and maintained that they were equal in body and mind to people of European descent, although he believed them to be inferior in terms of culture and technology.

Thomas Jefferson advocated that Indian tribes should make federal purchases by credit holding their lands as collateral.

Various tribes accepted Thomas Jefferson's policies, including the Shawnees led by Black Hoof, the Muscogee, and the Cherokee.

Historian Bernard Sheehan argues that Thomas Jefferson believed that assimilation was best for American Indians, and next-best was removal to the west; he felt that the worst outcome of the conflict would be their attacking the whites.

Thomas Jefferson was nominated for reelection by the Democratic-Republican Party, with George Clinton replacing Burr as his running mate.

Thomas Jefferson's popularity suffered further in his second term as a result of his response to wars in Europe.

Thomas Jefferson then led the enactment of the Embargo Act of 1807, directed at both France and Britain, which triggered economic chaos in the US and was strongly criticized, leading Thomas Jefferson to abandon the policy a year later.

In Haiti, Thomas Jefferson's neutrality allowed arms to flow to the slave independence movement during the Haitian Revolution, and Thomas Jefferson blocked attempts to assist Napoleon, who was defeated militarily in Haiti in 1803.

Thomas Jefferson suspected Burr of seeking the presidency for himself, while Burr was angered by Thomas Jefferson's refusal to appoint some of his supporters to federal office.

Wilkinson renounced the plot and reported Burr's expedition to Thomas Jefferson, who ordered Burr's arrest.

Thomas Jefferson attempted to preemptively influence the verdict by telling Congress that Burr's guilt was "beyond question", but the case came before his longtime political foe John Marshall, who dismissed the treason charge.

Thomas Jefferson subsequently removed Wilkinson as territorial governor but retained him in the US military.

Historian James N Banner criticized Jefferson for continuing to trust Wilkinson, a "faithless plotter".

In 1805, Thomas Jefferson trusted Wilkinson and appointed him Louisiana Territory governor, admiring Wilkinson's work ethic.

In January 1806, Thomas Jefferson received information from Kentucky US Attorney Joseph Davies that Wilkinson was on the Spanish payroll.

Thomas Jefferson took no action against Wilkinson, since there was not then significant evidence against him.

In 1806, Thomas Jefferson issued a call for a boycott of British goods; on April 18, Congress passed the Non-Importation Acts, but they were never enforced.

Later that year, Thomas Jefferson asked James Monroe and William Pinkney to negotiate an end to foreign interference with American merchant shipping, though relations with Britain showed no signs of improving.

Thomas Jefferson issued a proclamation banning British warships from US waters.

Thomas Jefferson presumed unilateral authority to call on the states to prepare 100,000 militia and ordered the purchase of arms, ammunition, and supplies, writing, "The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation [than strict observance of written laws]".

However, Congress had no appetite to prepare the US for war; Thomas Jefferson asked for and received the Embargo Act, an alternative that allowed the US more time to build up defensive works, militias, and naval forces.

Meacham argued that the Embargo Act was a projection of power that surpassed the Alien and Sedition Acts, and R B Bernstein said that Jefferson "was pursuing policies resembling those he had cited in 1776 as grounds for independence and revolution".

In December 1807, Thomas Jefferson announced his intention not to seek a third term.

Thomas Jefferson turned his attention increasingly to Monticello during the last year of his presidency, giving Madison and Gallatin almost total control of affairs.

Shortly before leaving office in March 1809, Thomas Jefferson signed the repeal of the Embargo.

The day before Madison was inaugurated as his successor, Thomas Jefferson said that he felt like "a prisoner, released from his chains".

Thomas Jefferson envisioned a university free of church influences where students could specialize in new areas not offered at other colleges.

Thomas Jefferson believed that education engendered a stable society, which should provide publicly funded schools accessible based solely on ability.

Thomas Jefferson initially proposed his university in a letter to Joseph Priestley in 1800 and, in 1819, founded the University of Virginia.

Thomas Jefferson organized the state legislative campaign for its charter and, with the assistance of Edmund Bacon, purchased the location.

Thomas Jefferson was the principal designer of the buildings, planned the university's curriculum, and served as the first rector upon its opening in 1825.

Thomas Jefferson was a strong disciple of Greek and Roman architectural styles, which he believed to be most representative of American democracy.

Thomas Jefferson referred to the university's grounds as the "Academical Village", and he reflected his educational ideas in its layout.

When Thomas Jefferson died in 1826, James Madison replaced him as rector.

Thomas Jefferson bequeathed most of his reconstructed library of almost 2,000 volumes to the university.

In 1812, Adams wrote a short New Year's greeting to Thomas Jefferson, prompted earlier by Rush, to which Thomas Jefferson warmly responded.

Thomas Jefferson related that his ancestors came from Wales to America in the early 17th century and settled in the western frontier of the Virginia colony, which influenced his zeal for individual and state rights.

Thomas Jefferson described his father as uneducated, but with a "strong mind and sound judgement".

Thomas Jefferson used notes, letters, and documents to tell many of the stories.

Thomas Jefferson suggested that this history was so rich that his personal affairs were better overlooked, but he incorporated a self-analysis using the Declaration and other patriotism.

Thomas Jefferson was a philhellene, lover of Greek culture, who sympathized with the Greek War of Independence.

Thomas Jefferson has been described as the most influential of the Founding Fathers who supported the Greek cause, viewing it as similar to the American Revolution.

Thomas Jefferson advised Korais on building the political system of Greece by using classical liberalism and examples from the American governmental system, ultimately prescribing a government akin to that of a US state.

Thomas Jefferson suggested the application of a classical education system for the newly founded First Hellenic Republic.

Thomas Jefferson had someone else read a speech he had prepared for Lafayette, as his voice was weak and could not carry.

Thomas Jefferson's health began to deteriorate in July 1825, due to a combination of rheumatism from arm and wrist injuries, and intestinal and urinary disorders.

When John Adams died later that same day, his last words were "Thomas Jefferson survives", though Adams was unaware that Jefferson had died several hours before.

Shortly after Thomas Jefferson died, attendants found a gold locket on a chain around his neck, containing a small faded blue ribbon around a lock of his wife Martha's hair.

Thomas Jefferson was interred at Monticello, under an epitaph that he wrote:.

Thomas Jefferson considered the document one of his greatest life achievements, in addition to authoring the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom and founding the University of Virginia.

Thomas Jefferson died deeply in debt, and was unable to pass on his estate freely to his heirs.

Thomas Jefferson gave instructions in his will for disposal of his assets, including the freeing of Sally Hemings's children; but his estate, possessions, and slaves were sold at public auctions starting in 1827.

Thomas Jefferson subscribed to the political ideals expounded by John Locke, Francis Bacon, and Isaac Newton, whom he considered the three greatest men who ever lived.

Thomas Jefferson was influenced by the writings of Gibbon, Hume, Robertson, Bolingbroke, Montesquieu, and Voltaire.

Thomas Jefferson thought that the independent yeoman and agrarian life were ideals of republican virtues.

Thomas Jefferson distrusted cities and financiers, favored decentralized government power, and believed that the tyranny that had plagued the common man in Europe was due to corrupt political establishments and monarchies.

Thomas Jefferson supported efforts to disestablish the Church of England, wrote the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, and he pressed for a wall of separation between church and state.

The Republicans under Thomas Jefferson were strongly influenced by the 18th-century British Whig Party, which believed in limited government.

Thomas Jefferson wrote letters and speeches prolifically; these show him to be well-read in the philosophical literature of his day and of antiquity.

Thomas Jefferson continued to attend to more theoretical questions of natural philosophy and subsequently left behind a rich philosophical legacy in the form of presidential messages, letters, and public papers.

Thomas Jefferson described himself as an Epicurean and, although he adopted the Stoic belief in intuition and found comfort in the Stoic emphasis on the patient endurance of misfortune, he rejected most aspects of Stoicism with the notable exception of Epictetus' works.

Thomas Jefferson rejected the Stoics' doctrine of a separable soul and their fatalism, and was angered by their misrepresentation of Epicureanism as mere hedonism.

Thomas Jefferson knew Epicurean philosophy from original sources, but mentioned Pierre Gassendi's Syntagma philosophicum as influencing his ideas on Epicureanism.

Thomas Jefferson advocated enfranchising a majority of Virginians, seeking to expand suffrage to include "yeoman farmers" who owned their own land while excluding tenant farmers, city day laborers, vagrants, most American Indians, and women.

Thomas Jefferson was convinced that individual liberties were the fruit of political equality, which was threatened by the arbitrary government.

Thomas Jefferson was less suspicious of a working democracy than many contemporaries.

Thomas Jefferson tried to restore a balance between the state and federal governments more nearly reflecting the Articles of Confederation, seeking to reinforce state prerogatives where his party was in the majority.

Later, writing in Notes, Thomas Jefferson supported gradual emancipation of slaves, to be sent away from the US to an unspecified place.

In 1792, Thomas Jefferson calculated that he was making a 4 percent profit every year on the birth of black children.

Thomas Jefferson was steeped in the Whig tradition of the oppressed majority set against a repeatedly unresponsive court party in the Parliament.

Thomas Jefferson justified small outbreaks of rebellion as necessary to get monarchial regimes to amend oppressive measures compromising popular liberties.

Thomas Jefferson considered democracy to be the expression of society and promoted national self-determination, cultural uniformity, and education of all males of the commonwealth.

Thomas Jefferson supported public education and a free press as essential components of a democratic nation.

Voter participation grew during Thomas Jefferson's presidency, increasing to "unimaginable levels" compared to the Federalist Era, with turnout of about 67,000 in 1800 rising to about 143,000 in 1804.

At the onset of the American Revolution, Thomas Jefferson accepted William Blackstone's argument that property ownership would sufficiently empower voters' independent judgement, but he sought to further expand suffrage by land distribution to the poor.

Thomas Jefferson sought a "general suffrage" of all taxpayers and militia-men, and equal representation by population in the General Assembly to correct preferential treatment of the slave-holding regions.

Thomas Jefferson has sometimes been portrayed as a follower of the liberal religious strand of Deism that values reason over revelation.

Nonetheless, in 1803, Thomas Jefferson asserted, "I am Christian, in the only sense in which [Jesus] wished any one to be".

Thomas Jefferson later defined being a Christian as one who followed the simple teachings of Jesus.

Thomas Jefferson believed that Jesus' message had been obscured and corrupted by Paul the Apostle, the Gospel writers and Protestant reformers.

Thomas Jefferson once supported banning clergy from public office but later relented.

Early in 1802, Thomas Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Connecticut Baptist Association that "religion is a matter which lies solely between Man and his God".

Thomas Jefferson interpreted the First Amendment as having built "a wall of separation between Church and State".

Thomas Jefferson donated to the American Bible Society, saying the Four Evangelists delivered a "pure and sublime system of morality" to humanity.

Thomas Jefferson thought Americans would rationally create "Apiarian" religion, extracting the best traditions of every denomination.

Thomas Jefferson contributed generously to several local denominations near Monticello.

Thomas Jefferson believed in a creator god, an afterlife, and the sum of religion as loving God and neighbors.

Thomas Jefferson had the Quran shipped from England to Williamsburg, Virginia.

Thomas Jefferson distrusted government banks and opposed public borrowing, which he thought created long-term debt, bred monopolies, and invited dangerous speculation as opposed to productive labor.

Thomas Jefferson used agrarian resistance to banks and speculators as the first defining principle of an opposition party, recruiting candidates for Congress on the issue as early as 1792.

Opinions range from "emancipationists" who view him as an early proto-abolitionist, who subsequently made pragmatic compromises with the slave power to preserve the union; to "revisionists", who argue that he in fact entrenched the institution in American society; with people having more nuanced opinions, who either argue that Thomas Jefferson held inconsistent views on the institution throughout his lifetime or that both interpretations are too overly simplistic.

Thomas Jefferson lived in a planter economy largely dependent upon slavery, and as a wealthy landholder, used slave labor for his household, plantation, and workshops.

Thomas Jefferson first recorded his slaveholding in 1774, when he counted 41 enslaved people.

Thomas Jefferson purchased some slaves in order to reunite their families.

Thomas Jefferson sold approximately 110 people for economic reasons, primarily slaves from his outlying farms.

Thomas Jefferson did not work his slaves on Sundays and Christmas and he allowed them more personal time during the winter months.

Some scholars doubt Thomas Jefferson's benevolence, noting cases of excessive slave whippings in his absence.

Thomas Jefferson felt slavery was harmful to both slave and master but had reservations about releasing slaves from captivity, and advocated for gradual emancipation.

In 1784, Thomas Jefferson proposed the abolition of slavery in all western US territories, limiting slave importation to 15 years.

In 1787, Congress passed the Northwest Ordinance, a partial victory for Thomas Jefferson that terminated slavery in the Northwest Territory.

Thomas Jefferson freed his slave Robert Hemings in 1794 and he freed his cook slave James Hemings in 1796.

In 1819, Thomas Jefferson strongly opposed a Missouri statehood application amendment, which banned domestic slave importation and freed slaves at the age of 25 on grounds that it would destroy the union.

Thomas Jefferson wrote of his "suspicion" that Black people were mentally and physically inferior to Whites, but argued that they nonetheless had innate human rights.

Thomas Jefferson therefore supported colonization plans that would transport freed slaves to another country, such as Liberia or Sierra Leone, though he recognized the impracticability of such proposals.

Claims that Thomas Jefferson fathered children with his slave Sally Hemings after his wife's death have been debated since 1802.

In that year James T Callender, after being denied a position as postmaster, alleged Jefferson had taken Hemings as a concubine and fathered several children with her.

Subsequently, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation formed a nine-member research team of historians to assess the matter.

The TJF concluded that Thomas Jefferson likely fathered all of Hemings's children listed at Monticello.

Thomas Jefferson was a farmer, obsessed with new crops, soil conditions, garden designs, and scientific agricultural techniques.

Thomas Jefferson tried to achieve self-sufficiency with wheat, vegetables, flax, corn, hogs, sheep, poultry, and cattle to supply his family, slaves, and employees, but he lived perpetually beyond his means and was always in debt.

Thomas Jefferson's efforts were nonetheless an important contribution to the development of American viticulture.

Thomas Jefferson helped popularize the Neo-Palladian style in the United States, utilizing designs for the Virginia State Capitol, the University of Virginia, Monticello, and others.

Thomas Jefferson's excavations were prompted by the "Moundbuilders" question and his careful methods allowed him to witness the stratigraphic layout, the various human remains and other artifacts inside the mound.

Thomas Jefferson was interested in birds and wine, and was a noted gourmet.

Thomas Jefferson was a member of the American Philosophical Society for 35 years, beginning in 1780.

Thomas Jefferson is considered to be a pioneer of scientific paleontology research in North America.

Thomas Jefferson served as APS president for the next eighteen years, including through both terms of his presidency.

Thomas Jefferson introduced Meriwether Lewis to the society, where various scientists tutored him in preparation for the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

Thomas Jefferson resigned on January 20,1815, but remained active through correspondence.

Thomas Jefferson had a lifelong interest in linguistics, and could speak, read, and write in a number of languages, including French, Greek, Italian, and German.

Thomas Jefferson later came to regard Greek as the "perfect language" as expressed in its laws and philosophy.

Linguistics played a significant role in how Thomas Jefferson modeled and expressed political and philosophical ideas.

Thomas Jefferson believed that the study of ancient languages was essential in understanding the roots of modern language.

Thomas Jefferson criticized language purists and supported the introduction of neologisms to English, foreseeing the emergence of "an American dialect".

Thomas Jefferson described the Academie Francaise, a body designated to regulate the French language, as an "endeavor to arrest the progress of their language".

Thomas Jefferson collected and understood a number of American Indian vocabularies and instructed Lewis and Clark to record and collect various Indian languages during their Expedition.

When Thomas Jefferson moved from Washington after his presidency, he took 50 Native American vocabulary lists back to Monticello along with the rest of his possessions.

Thomas Jefferson was not an outstanding orator and preferred to communicate through writing or remain silent if possible.

Thomas Jefferson invented many small practical devices and improved contemporary inventions, including a revolving book-stand and a "Great Clock" powered by the gravitational pull on cannonballs.

Thomas Jefferson improved the pedometer, the polygraph, and the moldboard plow, an idea he never patented and gave to posterity.

Thomas Jefferson can be credited as the creator of the swivel chair, the first of which he created and used to write much of the Declaration of Independence.

Thomas Jefferson drafted reforms of US patent law which led to him being relieved of this duty in 1793, and drastically changed the patent system.

Thomas Jefferson is seen as an icon of individual liberty, democracy, and republicanism, hailed as the author of the Declaration of Independence, an architect of the American Revolution, and a renaissance man who promoted science and scholarship.

Meacham opined that Thomas Jefferson was the most influential figure of the democratic republic in its first half-century, succeeded by presidential adherents James Madison, James Monroe, Andrew Jackson, and Martin Van Buren.

Thomas Jefferson has been memorialized with buildings, sculptures, postage, and currency.

The Thomas Jefferson Memorial was dedicated in Washington, DC, in 1943, on the 200th anniversary of Thomas Jefferson's birth.