Jefferson, Thomas (1743–1826)

Thomas Jefferson was born on April 13, 1743, in what is now Albemarle County, Virginia, and died at Monticello, Virginia, on July 4, 1826. Jefferson is best known as the author of the Declaration of Independence and as the third president of the United States. Two of his proudest accomplishments, which he memorialized on his gravestone, were founding the University of Virginia and authoring the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom. In addition, Jefferson is widely cited for his letter to the Danbury Baptist Association expressing his views on separation of church and state.

Jefferson's famous passages in the Declaration of Independence-that “all men are created equal” and that they enjoy “unalienable rights” including “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”-have been quoted by liberals and conservatives alike in cases ranging from equal protection of the law to substantive and procedural due process. His influence is apparent in the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, which provide that no person shall be deprived of “life, liberty, or property without due process of law.”

To Jefferson, education and government were inseparable. Self-government was the safeguard preventing tyranny, and the key to self-government was an enlightened, informed citizenry. He thought that a repressive government could deprive its citizens of their rights and liberties only if the people were ignorant. Jefferson believed that education of the common man was an essential prerequisite to preservation of a republican form of government. As president of the United States, Jefferson proposed an amendment to the Constitution to legalize federal support for education.

Jefferson envisioned an educational system beginning with grammar school and continuing through university. He strongly advocated free public education and urged the Virginia legislature to fund elementary and secondary schools. Although unsuccessful in this endeavor, Jefferson did secure funding for the creation of the University of Virginia. Insofar as Jefferson's founding of the university fulfilled one of his greatest ambitions, he spent much of his later years designing its campus, organizing its administrative structure, and molding its curriculum. Many of Jefferson's educational plans and ideas were later adopted and implemented by state legislatures and universities throughout the nation.

Thomas Jefferson's most direct influence on the development of education law is in the area of First Amendment Establishment Clause jurisprudence. [Page 478]When attempting to ascertain the “original intent” of the Founding Fathers, proponents of strict separation of church and state look to Virginia history and the writings of Jefferson and James Madison. In 1784, when the Virginia Assembly introduced an Assessment Bill, which would have established a tax to provide funds in support of teachers of the Christian religion, Jefferson and Madison led the opposition to the bill. Madison's “Memorial and Remonstrance,” denouncing the tax, is his most famous writing on the subject of separation of church and state. In 1786, after the defeat of the Assessment Bill, Madison secured passage of a Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom, which had originally been introduced by Jefferson in 1779. Separationists argue that because the U.S. Bill of Rights is to a large extent modeled on the bill of rights in the Virginia constitution, great weight should be given to the Virginia experience.

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