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Jefferson, Thomas
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) was the third president of the United States, a political theorist, and a representative of Enlightenment thought. Jefferson was born in Albemarle County, Virginia. He graduated from the College of William and Mary in 1762, studied law under George Wythe, and was admitted to the Virginia bar in 1767. After he entered the House of Burgesses in 1769, public affairs increasingly occupied his time, and he soon became a leading opponent of British oppression of the colonies. A Summary View of the Rights of British America (1774), Declaration of the Causes and Necessity for Taking up Arms (1775), and the Declaration of Independence (1776), all drafted by Jefferson, made him the major penman of the American Revolution. In 1776, he left the ...
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