1743–1826 · Author of the Declaration and 3rd President

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence at 33, served as the first Secretary of State, doubled the size of the nation as President, and spent his last years building a university. He was an architect, inventor, farmer and one of the great letter writers in American history.

Early life and education

Jefferson was born on April 13, 1743, at Shadwell, a plantation in what is now Albemarle County, Virginia. He studied at the College of William & Mary and then read law under George Wythe, a revered teacher who later signed the Declaration and remained a lifelong friend.

On a Virginia mountaintop near his birthplace he began building Monticello, whose name means "little mountain" in Italian. He designed it himself and kept rebuilding it for more than forty years.

The Declaration of Independence

In June 1776 the Continental Congress appointed a Committee of Five to draft a declaration: Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman and Robert Livingston. The committee chose Jefferson to write the first draft, which he completed in about two and a half weeks. Congress voted for independence on July 2 and adopted the edited Declaration on July 4. Its central claim, that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights, became the creed of the new nation.

Diplomat and Secretary of State

In 1785 Jefferson succeeded Benjamin Franklin as American minister to France. He reportedly said that no one could replace Franklin; he was only his successor. In Paris he published his only full-length book, Notes on the State of Virginia, written in answer to questions from a French diplomat. Returning home, he became the first Secretary of State under George Washington, serving from 1790 to 1793.

The presidency

The election of 1800 ended in an Electoral College tie between Jefferson and his running mate, Aaron Burr. The House of Representatives broke the tie on the 36th ballot. As President, Jefferson bought the Louisiana Territory from Napoleon's France in 1803, roughly doubling the size of the United States, and sent Meriwether Lewis and William Clark west with the Corps of Discovery to explore it.

Books, inventions and a university

After the British burned Washington in 1814, Jefferson sold his library of 6,487 volumes to Congress, rebuilding the Library of Congress. He copied every letter with a polygraph, a device in which two pens moved together, and called it the finest invention of the age. In old age he founded the University of Virginia, designing its "Academical Village," planning its studies and hiring its first faculty.

A remarkable death

Jefferson died on July 4, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration. John Adams died the same day, hours later. Jefferson chose the words for his own tombstone and left out the presidency entirely: author of the Declaration of Independence and of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, and father of the University of Virginia.

Quick facts

• Born: April 13, 1743, Shadwell, Virginia
• Died: July 4, 1826, Monticello
• Offices: governor of Virginia, minister to France, Secretary of State, Vice President, President
• On money: the nickel and the two-dollar bill

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