Thomas Jefferson

In the Virginia world of plantations, tutors, classical books, and colonial politics, Thomas Jefferson grew into one of the central voices of the American Revolution. Born on April 13, 1743, at Shadwell Plantation in the Colony of Virginia, he was the third of ten children in a planter family. His father, Peter Jefferson, was a planter and surveyor; his mother was Jane Randolph. From that setting, Jefferson moved into the wider struggles of British America, becoming a Founding Father, the primary author of the Declaration of Independence, and later the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809.

Jefferson’s education began early and ranged widely. As a child he studied with tutors at Tuckahoe, entered an English school at five, and by nine was learning under a Presbyterian minister while also studying the natural world, which he came to love. He studied Latin, Greek, and French, learned to ride horses, and read from his father’s library. Later, under the Reverend James Maury near Gordonsville, he studied history, science, and the classics. At the College of William & Mary, which he entered at seventeen, he studied mathematics and philosophy with William Small, who introduced him to the ideas of John Locke, Francis Bacon, and Isaac Newton, as well as to George Wythe and Francis Fauquier.

That mix of Virginia experience, disciplined reading, and philosophical conversation shaped Jefferson’s public thought. He later wrote that in the circle of Small, Wythe, and Fauquier he heard “more common good sense, more rational & philosophical conversations than in all the rest of my life.” After wasting time and money in his first year at college, he committed himself to studying fifteen hours a day. He read law under Wythe, worked as a law clerk, and kept commonplace books filled with sayings, notes on law, history, and philosophy. For a quotes site, that habit matters: Jefferson was not only a maker of public documents, but a collector and refiner of language.

During the American Revolution, Jefferson represented Virginia in the Second Continental Congress, which unanimously adopted the Declaration of Independence. His advocacy for individual rights, including freedom of thought, speech, and religion, helped shape the ideological foundations of the revolution. He went on to serve as the second governor of Virginia from 1779 to 1781, U.S. Minister to France from 1785 to 1789, and the nation’s first secretary of state from 1790 to 1793 under President George Washington. With James Madison, he organized the Democratic-Republican Party in 1792 to oppose the Federalist Party as the First Party System formed.

Jefferson’s political life was closely tied to John Adams, both friend and rival. In the 1796 presidential election, Jefferson came in second to Adams, which made him vice president under the electoral laws of the time. In 1800, he challenged Adams again and won the presidency. As president, he defended American shipping and trade interests against Barbary pirates and aggressive British trade policies, reduced military forces and expenditures after negotiations with France, and pursued western expansion through the Louisiana Purchase, which doubled the nation’s geographic size. In his second term, he faced difficulties at home, including the trial of his former vice president Aaron Burr, and in 1807 implemented the Embargo Act.

Scholars and the public have often ranked Jefferson among the upper tier of U.S. presidents, praising his advocacy of religious freedom and tolerance, the peaceful acquisition of the Louisiana Territory, and his support for the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Historians also acknowledge his lifelong ownership of large numbers of slaves and offer varying interpretations of his views on and relationship with slavery. His words still draw readers because they speak in the language of rights, inquiry, self-command, and risk. One line attributed to him on this site captures that restless spirit: “If you want something you have never had, you must be willing to do something you have never done.”