Jefferson, Thomas (1743–1826)

U.S. president

For his tomb at his home at Monticello, Virginia, Thomas Jefferson composed the following epitaph by which he wished most to be remembered:

This simple epitaph, although incomplete, indicates the scope of Jefferson's leadership: political, intellectual, cultural, and symbolic. Indeed, the range of Jefferson's interests—the breadth of his contributions—is striking. There is Jefferson the philosopher, the defender of democracy, the champion of limited government and of religious and political liberty. There is Jefferson the scientist, the architect and inventor, with an insatiable curiosity about the physical world around him. There is Jefferson the politician and statesman, who spent some thirty-five years in almost continuous public service.

Notably missing from his epitaph is any mention of those many offices of state that Jefferson occupied with distinction—legislator, governor, diplomat, secretary of state, vice president, and president—omissions that reveal much about his attitude to public leadership. The man whose historical reputation centers upon his contributions to the commonweal (general welfare) professed to prefer the cloistered life of the scientist and intellectual. Upon his retirement from the presidency in 1809 he confided to an old friend, “Never did a prisoner, released from his chains, feel such relief as I shall on shaking off the shackles of power. Nature intended me for the tranquil pursuits of science, by rendering them my supreme delight. But the enormities of the times in which I have lived, have forced me to take a part in resisting them, and to commit myself on the boisterous ocean of political passions” (Lipscomb and Bergh 1903, 269–270).

Early Career

Thomas Jefferson was born at Shadwell, the family home in Albemarle County, east of the Blue Ridge Mountains in western Virginia. His father, Peter, was a planter and local official of moderate social standing. His mother, Jane, on the other hand, was a Randolph, a member of one of the most prominent families in colonial Virginia, providing the young Jefferson with a network of social and political connections that was to serve him well in his early years.

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Statue of Thomas Jefferson stands in the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Stephen G.Donaldson; used with permission.

Little of detail is known of Jefferson's childhood. After attending several boarding schools, he entered the College of William and Mary at Williamsburg shortly before his seventeenth birthday. Later he studied law under George Wythe (1726–1806), the most prominent lawyer in the colony. He was admitted to the bar in 1767 and entered into the practice of law. Soon, however, through his contacts with the leading figures in the colonial controversies of the day, his interests were drawn to politics. In 1768, at the age of twenty-five, he won election to the Virginia House of Burgesses.

As a member of the House of Burgesses, Jefferson rarely spoke in debate but was recognized for his work in committee and in drafting legislation, a style of leadership behavior that was to be a pattern throughout his legislative career. He sided, nonetheless, with those who were in the forefront of the struggle for colonial rights. In 1774 he produced the first of his great state papers, “A Summary View of the Rights of British America,” a bold statement of grievances and defense of resistance that thrust him into prominence beyond Virginia.

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