Thomas Jefferson and flourishing of the USA

Marcus Tulius Cicero and his justification for the study of history

Politicians on coming to power are often intent on rewriting history

The direction in which education starts a man will determine his future life

Our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education

18. Freedom and democracy

19. Direct and representative democracies

20. Majority Rule and Minority Rights

21. Democratic Society

22. Inalienable Rights

23. Citizenship: Rights and Responsibilities

24. Human Rights and Political goals

25. Magna Carta

26. Due Process

27. Constitutions

28. Locke and Montesquieu

29. Elections

30. The culture of democracy

31. The Bill of Rights and Rights of man

32. Democratic Government

Four basic types of Democracy

34. Voting and Voices

Thomas Jefferson and flourishing of the USA

Thomas Jefferson (April 13 [O.S. April 2] 1743 – July 4, 1826) was an American lawyer and Founding Father, and principal author of the Declaration of Independence (1776). He was elected the second Vice President of the United States (1797–1801) and the third President (1801–1809). Primarily of English ancestry, he was born and educated in Virginia, where he graduated from the College of William & Mary, practiced law, and married Martha Wayles Skelton.

Jefferson was a proponent of democracy, republicanism and individual rights, which motivated American colonists to break from Great Britain and form a new nation. He produced formative documents and decisions at both the state and national level. During the American Revolution, he represented Virginia in the Continental Congress that adopted the Declaration, drafted the law for religious freedom as a Virginia legislator, and served as a wartime governor (1779–1781). He became the United States Minister to France in May 1785, and subsequently the nation's first Secretary of State in 1790–1793 under President George Washington. Jefferson and James Madison organized the Democratic-Republican Party to oppose the Federalist Party during the formation of the First Party System. In 1796 he was elected Vice President under President John Adams. Jefferson and Madison in 1798–1799 anonymously wrote the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, which sought to embolden states' rights in opposition to the national government, by nullifying the Alien and Sedition Acts.

He was elected President of the United States in 1800, and pursued the nation's shipping and trade interests against Barbary pirates and aggressive British trade policies respectively, while almost doubling the country's territory and curtailing international slave trade. As a result of peace negotiations with France, his administration reduced military forces. He was reelected in 1804. Jefferson's second term was beset with difficulties at home, including the trial of former Vice President Aaron Burr for treason. American foreign trade was diminished when Jefferson implemented the Embargo Act of 1807, in response to British threats to U.S. shipping. In 1803, Jefferson began a controversial process of Indian tribe removal to the newly organized Louisiana Territory and also signed into law in 1807 the disputed Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves, which stopped short of addressing domestic slavery. His approach to the Indians and slavery has been vigorously debated, but historians generally rank Jefferson as one of the most successful U.S. Presidents.

Jefferson was a polymath whose interests ranged from surveying and mathematics to horticulture and inventions. He was also a proven architect in the classical tradition. His foremost book, Notes on the State of Virginia (1785), is among the nation's momentous publications prior to 1800. Jefferson's keen interest in religion and philosophy earned him the presidency of the American Philosophical Society. He shunned organized religion, but was influenced by both Christianity and deism. Besides English, he was well versed in Latin, Greek, French, Italian, and Spanish. He founded the University of Virginia in his retirement from public office. Although unexceptional as an orator, he was a skilled writer and corresponded with many influential people in America and Europe.

Jefferson had six children with his wife Martha, but only two daughters survived to adulthood. Most historians believe that after the death of his wife in 1782, Jefferson, a major slave holder, had a long-term relationship with his slave Sally Hemings, and fathered at least some of her children. Jefferson died at his home on the fiftieth anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence.

Jefferson is a historical icon of individual liberty, democracy and republicanism, hailed as the author of the Declaration of Independence, an architect of the American Revolution and a renaissance man who promoted science and scholarship. The participatory democracy and expanded suffrage he championed defined his era and became a standard for later generations. Meacham opined that Jefferson was the most influential figure of the democratic republic in its first half century, succeeded by presidential adherents James Madison, James Monroe, Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren. Jefferson is also recognized for having written more than 18,000 letters of political and philosophical substance during his life, which Francis D. Cogliano describes as "a documentary legacy ... unprecedented in American history in its size and breadth".

Jefferson's reputation declined during the American Civil War due to his support of states' rights. In the late 19th century, his legacy was widely criticized; conservatives felt his democratic philosophy had led to that era's populist movement, while Progressives sought a more activist federal government than Jefferson's philosophy allowed. Both groups saw Hamilton's views as vindicated by history, rather than Jefferson's, and the progressive President Woodrow Wilson even described Jefferson as "not a great American".

In the 1930s, however, Jefferson was held in higher esteem than President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933–45) and New Deal Democrats celebrated his struggles for "the common man" and reclaimed him as their party's founder. Jefferson subsequently became a symbol of American democracy in the incipient Cold War, and the 1940s and '50s saw the zenith of his popular reputation. Following the African-American Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and '60s, Jefferson's slaveholding came under new scrutiny, causing another decline in his reputation, particularly after a 1998 DNA test supported allegations that he had a sexual relationship with Sally Hemings. The Siena Research Institute poll of presidential scholars, begun in 1982, has consistently ranked Jefferson as one of the five best U.S. presidents, and a 2015 Brookings Institution poll of American Political Science Association members ranked him as the fifth greatest president.

Date: 2016-04-22; view: 777