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Major events during his presidency include the Louisiana Purchase (1803) and the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804–1806), as well as escalating tensions with both Britain and France that led to war with Britain in 1812, after he left office.
As a political philosopher, Jefferson was a man of the Enlightenment and knew many intellectual leaders in Britain and France. He idealized the independent yeoman farmer as exemplar of republican virtues, distrusted cities and financiers, and favored states' rights and a strictly limited federal government. Jefferson supported the separation of church and state[4] and was the author of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom (1779, 1786). He was the eponym of Jeffersonian democracy and the cofounder and leader of the Democratic-Republican Party, which dominated American politics for 25 years. Jefferson served as the wartime Governor of Virginia (1779–1781), first United States Secretary of State (1789–1793), and second Vice President of the United States (1797–1801).
Jefferson owned several plantations and hundreds of slaves during his lifetime. He relied on slavery partially for his wealth, and did not oppose slavery as a politician, although he did sign the law to ban the slave trade as President.[5][6] Historians have written extensively on allegations of a sexual relationship with one of his slaves, Sally Hemings, and Jefferson's possible paternity of her children, including the Jefferson DNA data test in 1998.[7]
A polymath, Jefferson achieved distinction as, among other things, a horticulturist, political leader, architect, archaeologist, paleontologist, musician, inventor, and founder of the University of Virginia. When President John F. Kennedy welcomed 49 Nobel Prize winners to the White House in 1962 he said, "I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent and of human knowledge that has ever been gathered together at the White House – with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone." [8] To date, Jefferson is the only president to serve two full terms in office without vetoing a single bill of Congress. Jefferson has been consistently ranked by scholars as one of the greatest of U.S. presidents.
Early life and education
Childhood
Thomas Jefferson was born on April 13, 1743 [2] into a family closely related to some of the most prominent individuals in Virginia, the third of ten children. Two died in childhood.[9] His mother was Jane Randolph, daughter of Isham Randolph of Dungeness, a ship's captain and sometime planter, first cousin to Peyton Randolph, and granddaughter of wealthy English and Scottish gentry. Jefferson's father was Peter Jefferson, a planter and surveyor in Albemarle County (Shadwell, then Edge Hill, Virginia.) He was of possible Welsh descent, although this remains unclear.[10] When Colonel William Randolph, an old friend of Peter Jefferson, died in 1745, Peter assumed executorship and personal charge of William Randolph's estate in Tuckahoe as well as his infant son, Thomas Mann Randolph, Jr. That year the Jeffersons relocated to Tuckahoe where they would remain for the next seven years before returning to their home in Albemarle. Peter Jefferson was then appointed to the Colonelcy of the county, an important position at the time.[11]Education
In 1752, Jefferson began attending a local school run by a local Scottish Presbyterian minister. At the age of nine, Jefferson began studying Latin, Greek, and French; he learned to ride, and began to appreciate the study of nature. In 1757, when he was 14 years old, his father died. Jefferson inherited about 5,000 acres (20 km²) of land and dozens of slaves. He built his home there, which eventually became known as Monticello. After his father's death, he was taught at the school of the learned minister James Maury from 1758 to 1760. The school was in Fredericksville Parish near Gordonsville, Virginia, twelve miles (19 km) from Shadwell, and Jefferson boarded with Maury's family. There he received a classical education and studied history and science.[12]In 1760, at the age of 16, Jefferson entered the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg. For two years he studied mathematics, metaphysics, and philosophy under Professor William Small, who introduced the enthusiastic Jefferson to the writings of the British Empiricists, including John Locke, Francis Bacon, and Isaac Newton (Jefferson called them the "three greatest men the world had ever produced").[13] He also perfected his French, carried his Greek grammar book wherever he went, practiced the violin, and read Tacitus and Homer. A keen and diligent student, Jefferson displayed an avid curiosity in all fields and, according to the family tradition, frequently studied fifteen hours a day. His closest college friend, John Page of Rosewell, reported that Jefferson "could tear himself away from his dearest friends to fly to his studies." He lodged and boarded at the College in the building known today as the Sir Christopher Wren Building, attending communal meals in the Great Hall, and morning and evening prayers in the Wren Chapel. Jefferson often attended the lavish parties of royal governor Francis Fauquier, where he played his violin and developed an early love for wines.[14] After graduating in 1762 with highest honors, he read law with William & Mary law professor George Wythe and was admitted to the Virginia bar in 1767.[15]
After college
On October 1, 1765, Jefferson's oldest sister Jane died at the age of 25.[16] Jefferson fell into a period of deep mourning, as he was already saddened by the absence of his sisters Mary, who had been married several years to Thomas Bolling, and Martha, who had wed earlier in July to Dabney Carr.[16] Both had moved to their husbands' residences, leaving younger siblings Elizabeth, Lucy, and the two toddlers as his companions. Jefferson was not comforted by the presence of Elizabeth or Lucy as they did not provide him with the same intellectual stimulation as his older siblings had.[16]Jefferson would go on to handle many cases as a lawyer in colonial Virginia, managing more than a hundred cases each year between 1768 and 1773 in General Court alone, while acting as counsel in hundreds of cases.[17] Jefferson's client list included members of the Virginia's elite families, including members of his mother's family, the Randolphs.[17]
Monticello
Monticello was also Thomas Jefferson's slave plantation. Throughout a period lasting seventy years, Thomas Jefferson owned over 600 slaves. Many of the slaves at the Monticello plantation intermarried amongst each other and produced children. Jefferson only paid a few of his trusted slaves in important positions for work done or for performing difficult tasks like cleaning chimneys or privies. Fragmentary records indicate a rich spiritual life at Monticello slave quarters, incorporating both Christian and African traditions. Although there is no record that Jefferson instructed slaves in grammar education, several enslaved men at Monticello could read and write.[22]
Toward revolution
Besides practicing law, Jefferson represented Albemarle County in the Virginia House of Burgesses beginning in 1769. Following the passage of the Coercive Acts by the British Parliament in 1774, he wrote a set of resolutions against the acts, which were expanded into A Summary View of the Rights of British America, his first published work. Previous criticism of the Coercive Acts had focused on legal and constitutional issues, but Jefferson offered the radical notion that the colonists had the natural right to govern themselves.[23] Jefferson also argued that Parliament was the legislature of Great Britain only, and had no legislative authority in the colonies.[23] The paper was intended to serve as instructions for the Virginia delegation of the First Continental Congress, but Jefferson's ideas proved to be too radical for that body.[23]Political career from 1775 to 1800
Drafting a declaration
Jefferson served as a delegate to the Second Continental Congress beginning in June 1775, soon after the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War. When Congress began considering a resolution of independence in June 1776, Jefferson was appointed to a five-man committee to prepare a declaration to accompany the resolution. The committee selected Jefferson to write the first draft probably because of his reputation as a writer. The assignment was considered routine; no one at the time thought that it was a major responsibility.[24] Jefferson completed a draft in consultation with other committee members, drawing on his own proposed draft of the Virginia Constitution, George Mason's draft of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, and other sources.[25]Jefferson showed his draft to the committee, which made some final revisions, and then presented it to Congress on June 28, 1776. After voting in favor of the resolution of independence on July 2, Congress turned its attention to the declaration. Over several days of debate, Congress made a few changes in wording and deleted nearly a fourth of the text, most notably a passage critical of the slave trade, changes that Jefferson resented.[26] On July 4, 1776, the wording of the Declaration of Independence was approved. The Declaration would eventually become Jefferson's major claim to fame, and his eloquent preamble became an enduring statement of human rights.[26]
State legislator
Governor of Virginia
Jefferson served as governor of Virginia from 1779–1781. As governor, he oversaw the transfer of the state capital from Williamsburg to the more central location of Richmond in 1780. He continued to advocate educational reforms at the College of William and Mary, including the nation's first student-policed honor code. In 1779, at Jefferson's behest, William and Mary appointed George Wythe to be the first professor of law in an American university. Dissatisfied with the rate of changes he wanted to push through, he later became the founder of the University of Virginia, which was the first university in the United States at which higher education was completely separate from religious doctrine.Virginia was invaded twice by the British led first by Benedict Arnold and then by Lord Cornwallis during Jefferson's term as governor. He, along with Patrick Henry and other leaders of Virginia, were but ten minutes away from being captured by Banastre Tarleton, a British colonel leading a cavalry column that was raiding the area in June 1781.[29] Public disapproval of his performance delayed his future political prospects, and he was never again elected to office in Virginia.[30] He was, however, appointed by the state legislature to Congress in 1783.
Member of Congress
See also: Plan for Establishing Uniformity in the Coinage, Weights, and Measures of the United States
The Virginia state legislature appointed Jefferson to the Congress of the Confederation on 6 June 1783, his term beginning on 1 November. He was a member of the committee formed to set foreign exchange rates, and in that capacity he recommended that the American currency be based on the decimal system.Jefferson also recommended setting up the Committee of the States, to function as the executive arm of Congress when Congress was not in session.
He left Congress when he was elected a minister plenipotentiary on 7 May 1784. He became Minister to France in 1785.
Minister to France
While in Paris, he lived in a home on the Champs-Élysées. He spent much of his time exploring the architectural sites of the city, as well as enjoying the fine arts that Paris had to offer. He became a favorite in the salon culture and was a frequent dinner guest of many of the city's most prominent people. In addition, he frequently entertained others from French and European society. He and his daughters were accompanied by two slaves of the Hemings family from Monticello. Jefferson paid for James Hemings to be trained as a French chef (Hemings later accompanied Jefferson as chef when he was in Philadelphia). Sally Hemings, James' sister, had accompanied Jefferson's younger daughter overseas. Some historians speculate that Jefferson begun a long-term relationship with Sally Hemings while in Paris.[31] Both the Hemings learned French during their time in the city.[32]
From 1784 to 1785, Jefferson was one of the architects of trade relations between the United States and Prussia. The Prussian ambassador Friedrich Wilhelm von Thulemeyer and John Adams, both living in the Hague, and Benjamin Franklin in Paris, were also involved.[33]
Despite his numerous friendships with the social and noble elite, when the French Revolution began in 1789, Jefferson sided with the revolutionaries.
Secretary of State
After returning from France, Jefferson served as the first Secretary of State under George Washington (1790–1793). Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton began sparring over national fiscal policy, especially the funding of the debts of the war, with Hamilton believing that the debts should be equally shared, and Jefferson believing that each state should be responsible for its own debt (Virginia had not accumulated much debt during the Revolution). In further sparring with the Federalists, Jefferson came to equate Hamilton and the rest of the Federalists with Tories and monarchists who threatened to undermine republicanism. He equated Federalism with "Royalism," and made a point to state that "Hamiltonians were panting after...and itching for crowns, coronets and mitres."[34] Jefferson and James Madison founded and led the Democratic-Republican Party. He worked with Madison and his campaign manager John J. Beckley to build a nationwide network of Republican allies to combat Federalists across the country.In foreign policy Jefferson was repeatedly out-maneuvered by Hamilton, who had Washington's ear. The French minister reported to Paris in 1793 that Jefferson told him, "Senator Morris and Secretary of the Treasury Hamilton, attached to the interests of England, had the greatest influence over the President's mind, and that it was only with difficulty that he [Jefferson] counterbalanced their efforts."[35] Jefferson strongly supported France against Britain when war broke out between those nations in 1793. Historian Lawrence S. Kaplan notes Jefferson's "visceral support for the French cause," while agreeing with Washington that the nation should not get involved in the fighting.[36] The arrival in 1793 of an aggressive new French minister, Edmond-Charles Genêt, caused a crisis for the Secretary of State, as he watched Genêt try to violate American neutrality, manipulate public opinion, and even go over Washington's head in appealing to the people; projects that Jefferson helped to thwart. According to Schachner, Jefferson believed that political success at home depended on the success of the French army in Europe:[37]
- Jefferson still clung to his sympathies with France and hoped for the success of her arms abroad and a cordial compact with her at home. He was afraid that any French reverses on the European battlefields would give "wonderful vigor to our monocrats, and unquestionably affect the tone of administering our government. Indeed, I fear that if this summer should prove disastrous to the French, it will damp that energy of republicanism in our new Congress, from which I had hoped so much reformation."
Break from office
Jefferson at the end of 1793 retired to Monticello where he continued to orchestrate opposition to Hamilton and Washington. However, the Jay Treaty of 1794, orchestrated by Hamilton, brought peace and trade with Britain – while Madison, with strong support from Jefferson, wanted, Miller says, "to strangle the former mother country" without going to war. "It became an article of faith among Republicans that 'commercial weapons' would suffice to bring Great Britain to any terms the United States chose to dictate." Jefferson, in retirement, strongly encouraged Madison.[38]Election of 1796 and Vice Presidency
As the Democratic-Republican candidate in 1796 he lost to John Adams, but had enough electoral votes to become Vice President (1797–1801). He wrote a manual of parliamentary procedure, but otherwise avoided the Senate.With the Quasi-War, an undeclared naval war with France, underway, the Federalists under John Adams started a navy, built up the army, levied new taxes, readied for war, and enacted the Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798. Jefferson interpreted the Alien and Sedition Acts as an effort to suppress Democratic-Republicans rather than dangerous enemy aliens and, in fact, they were used to attack his party, with the most notable attacks coming from Matthew Lyon, a representative from Vermont. Jefferson and Madison rallied support by anonymously writing the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, which declared that the federal government had no right to exercise powers not specifically delegated to it by the states. The Resolutions meant that, should the federal government assume such powers, its acts under them could be voided by a state. The Resolutions presented the first statements of the states' rights theory, that later led to the concepts of nullification and interposition.
Election of 1800
Main article: United States presidential election, 1800
Working closely with Aaron Burr of New York, Jefferson rallied his party, attacking the new taxes especially, and ran for the Presidency in 1800. Consistent with the traditions of the times, he did not formally campaign for the position. Before the passage of the Twelfth Amendment, a problem with the new union's electoral system arose. He tied with Burr for first place in the electoral college, leaving the House of Representatives (where the Federalists still had some power) to decide the election.After lengthy debate within the Federalist-controlled House, Hamilton convinced his party that Jefferson would be a lesser political evil than Burr and that such scandal within the electoral process would undermine the still-young regime. The issue was resolved by the House, on February 17, 1801, after thirty-six ballots, when Jefferson was elected President and Burr Vice President. Burr's refusal to remove himself from consideration created ill will with Jefferson, who dropped Burr from the ticket in 1804 after Burr killed Hamilton in a duel.
However, Jefferson's win over the Federalist John Adams in the general election was derided in its time for how the electoral college was set up under the three-fifths compromise at the Constitutional convention. Jefferson owed part of his election to the South's inflated number of Electors due to slave-holdings, which meant that twelve of Jefferson's electoral votes—his margin of victory—were derived from citizenry who were denied the vote and their full humanity.[39][40] After his election in 1800, Jefferson was derided as the "Negro President", with critics like the Mercury and New-England Palladium of Boston writing on January 20, 1801, that Jefferson had the gall to celebrate his election as a victory for democracy when he won "the temple of Liberty on the shoulders of slaves."[40][41]
Presidency 1801–1809
Main article: Presidency of Thomas Jefferson
In 1803, despite his misgivings about the constitutionality of Congress's power to buy land, Jefferson bought the Louisiana Territory from France, doubling the size of the United States. The land thus acquired amounts to 23 percent of the United States today.[42]
In 1807, his former vice president, Aaron Burr, was tried for treason on Jefferson's order, but was acquitted. During the trial Chief Justice John Marshall subpoenaed Jefferson, who invoked executive privilege and claimed that as president he did not need to comply. When Marshall held that the Constitution did not provide the president with any exception to the duty to obey a court order, Jefferson backed down.
Jefferson's reputation was damaged by the Embargo Act of 1807, which was ineffective and was repealed at the end of his second term.
In 1803, President Jefferson signed into law a bill that excluded blacks from carrying the U.S. mail. Historian John Hope Franklin called the signing "a gratuitous expression of distrust of free Negroes who had done nothing to merit it." [43]
On March 3, 1807, Jefferson signed a bill making slave importation illegal in the United States.[44][45]
Administration, Cabinet and Supreme Court appointments 1801–1809
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Father of a university
- Also see: History of the University of Virginia
His dream was realized in 1819 with the founding of the University of Virginia. Upon its opening in 1825, it was then the first university to offer a full slate of elective courses to its students. One of the largest construction projects to that time in North America, it was notable for being centered about a library rather than a church. No campus chapel was included in his original plans. Until his death, Jefferson invited students and faculty of the school to his home.
Jefferson is widely recognized for his architectural planning of the University of Virginia grounds, an innovative design that is a powerful representation of his aspirations for both state sponsored education and an agrarian democracy in the new Republic. His educational idea of creating specialized units of learning is physically expressed in the configuration of his campus plan, which he called the "Academical Village". Individual academic units are expressed visually as distinct structures, represented by Pavilions, facing a grassy quadrangle, with each Pavilion housing classroom, faculty office, and homes. Though unique, each is visually equal in importance, and they are linked with a series of open air arcades that are the front facades of student accommodations. Gardens and vegetable plots are placed behind and surrounded by serpentine walls, affirming the importance of the agrarian lifestyle.
His highly ordered site plan establishes an ensemble of buildings surrounding a central rectangular quadrangle, named The Lawn, which is lined on either side with the academic teaching units and their linking arcades. The quad is enclosed at one end with the library, the repository of knowledge, at the head of the table. The remaining side opposite the library remained open-ended for future growth. The lawn rises gradually as a series of stepped terraces, each a few feet higher than the last, rising up to the library set in the most prominent position at the top, while also suggesting that the Academical Village facilitates easier movement to the future.
Stylistically, Jefferson was a proponent of the Greek and Roman styles, which he believed to be most representative of American democracy by historical association. Each academic unit is designed with a two story temple front facing the quadrangle, while the library is modeled on the Roman Pantheon. The ensemble of buildings surrounding the quad is an unmistakable architectural statement of the importance of secular public education, while the exclusion of religious structures reinforces the principle of separation of church and state. The campus planning and architectural treatment remains today as a paradigm of building of structures to express intellectual ideas and aspirations. A survey of members of the American Institute of Architects identified Jefferson's campus as the most significant work of architecture in America.
The University was designed as the capstone of the educational system of Virginia. In his vision, any citizen of the state could attend school with the sole criterion being ability.
Death
Although he was born into one of the wealthiest families in North America, Thomas Jefferson was deeply in debt when he died. Jefferson's trouble began when his father-in-law died, and he and his brothers-in-law quickly divided the estate before its debts were settled. It made each of them liable for the whole amount due – which turned out to be more than they expected.
Jefferson sold land before the American Revolution to pay off the debts, but by the time he received payment, the paper money was worthless amid the skyrocketing inflation of the war years. Cornwallis ravaged Jefferson's plantation during the war, and British creditors resumed their collection efforts when the conflict ended. Jefferson suffered another financial setback when he cosigned notes for a relative who reneged on debts in the financial Panic of 1819. Only Jefferson's public stature prevented creditors from seizing Monticello and selling it out from under him during his lifetime.
After his death, his possessions were sold at auction. In 1831, Jefferson's 552 acres (223 hectares) were sold to James T. Barclay for $7,000, equivalent to $144 thousand today.[50] Thomas Jefferson is buried on his Monticello estate, in Charlottesville, Virginia. In his will, he left Monticello to the United States to be used as a school for orphans of navy officers. His epitaph, written by him with an insistence that only his words and "not a word more" be inscribed (notably omitting his service as Governor of Virginia, Vice-President and President), reads:
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Appearance and temperament
Jefferson was a thin, tall man, who stood at 6'2" 1/2 but was not particularly imposing; his eyes were small, his skin tone was pale.[52] Over the years Jefferson suffered from numerous ailments, in addition to frequent bouts of anxiety and psychological depression. Some of his known maladies include episodic headaches, dysentery, urinary tract obstruction, malaria, and diabetes.[53]"The Sage of Monticello" cultivated an image that earned him the other nickname, "Man of the People." He affected a popular air by greeting White House guests in homespun attire like a robe and bedroom slippers, which European diplomats assumed was a deliberate insult.[54] Dolley Madison, wife of James Madison (Jefferson's secretary of state), and Jefferson's daughters relaxed White House protocol and turned formal state dinners into more casual and entertaining social events.[55]
Jefferson's writings were utilitarian and evidenced great intellect, and he had an affinity with languages. He learned Gaelic to translate Ossian, and sent to James Macpherson for the originals.[56]
As President, he discontinued the practice of delivering the State of the Union address in person, instead sending the address to Congress in writing (the practice was eventually revived by Woodrow Wilson); he gave only two public speeches during his Presidency. Jefferson had a lisp[57] and preferred writing to public speaking partly because of this. He burned all of his letters between himself and his wife at her death, creating the portrait of a man who at times could be very private. Indeed, he preferred working in the privacy of his office rather than in the public eye.[58]
Interests and activities
Jefferson also designed Poplar Forest, near Lynchburg, in Bedford County, Virginia, as a private retreat from his very public life. Jefferson contributed to the design of the Virginia State Capitol, which was modeled after the Maison Carrée, an ancient Roman temple at Nîmes in southern France. Jefferson's buildings helped initiate the ensuing American fashion for Federal architecture.
Jefferson invented many small practical devices, such as a rotating book stand and (in collaboration with Charles Wilson Peale) a number of improvements to the polygraph, a device that made a copy of a letter as he wrote the original.[59] Monticello included automatic doors, the first swivel chair, and other convenient devices invented by Jefferson. His interest in mechanical drawing devices included the use of the physiognotrace. In 1802, Charles Willson Peale sent a watercolor sketch of this instrument to Thomas Jefferson,[60] along with a detailed explanation. The drawing now sits with the Jefferson Papers in the Library of Congress. In 1804, Charles Fevret de Saint-Memin created an oval silhouette likeness of Jefferson using the physiognotrace, which became one of the best known likenesses of Jefferson in his day.[61]
In 1780, he joined Benjamin Franklin's American Philosophical Society. He served as president of the society from 1797 to 1815. It was the first scientific society to be founded in America. By the time of the Lewis and Clark expedition, it had become the nation's de facto national library, museum, and academy of science.[62]
Jefferson was interested in birds. His Notes on Virginia contains a list of the birds found in his home state, though there are "doubtless many others which have not yet been described and classed." He also comments that the drawings of Virginia birds by the English naturalist Mark Catesby "are better as to form and attitude, than colouring, which is generally too high."
In 1801, he published A Manual of Parliamentary Practice that is still in use. In 1812, Jefferson published a second edition.
After the British burned Washington, D.C. and the Library of Congress in August 1814, Jefferson offered his own collection of books to the nation. In January 1815, Congress accepted his offer, appropriating $23,950 for his 6,487 books. The foundation was laid for a great national library. Today, the Library of Congress' website for federal legislative information is named THOMAS, in honor of Jefferson.[63] In 2007, Jefferson's two-volume 1764 edition of the Qur'an was used by Rep. Keith Ellison for his swearing in to the House of Representatives.[64]
Political philosophy and views
Jefferson's vision for American virtue was that of an agricultural nation of yeoman farmers minding their own affairs. His agrarianism stood in contrast to the vision of Alexander Hamilton of a nation of commerce and manufacturing, which Jefferson said offered too many temptations to corruption. Jefferson's deep belief in the uniqueness and the potential of America made him the father of American exceptionalism. In particular, he was confident that an underpopulated America could avoid what he considered the horrors of class-divided, industrialized Europe.[citation needed]
Jefferson's republican political principles were heavily influenced by the Country Party of 18th century British opposition writers. He was influenced by John Locke (particularly relating to the principle of inalienable rights). Historians find few traces of any influence by his French contemporary, Jean-Jacques Rousseau.[65]
Francophilia
Jefferson was notorious for his love of France and French culture.[66][67] Even during the excesses of the Reign of Terror, Jefferson refused to disavow the revolution because he was "convinced that the fates of the two republics were indissolubly linked. To back away from France would be to undermine the cause of republicanism in America." [68] Commenting on the continuing revolutions in Holland and France, the retired Secretary of State predicted: "this ball of liberty, I believe most piously, is now so well in motion that it will roll round the globe, at least the enlightened part of it, for light & liberty go together. it is our glory that we first put it into motion."[69]The "staunchly Francophile"[70] Jefferson, and by extension his adherents or "Jeffersonians", were characterized by his political enemies, the Federalists, as "decadent, ungodly and immoral Francophiles"[71]
Jefferson would often sign his letters "Affectionately adieu", and commented late in life "France, freed from that monster, Bonaparte, must again become the most agreeable country on earth."[72]
The 1995 film Jefferson in Paris by James Ivory, recalls this connection.
Banks and bankers
Jefferson distrusted all forms of banking, which he identified with speculation and chicanery and because they were owned by foreign interests. He opposed borrowing from banks because it created long-term debt as well as monopolies, and inclined the people to dangerous speculation, as opposed to productive labor on the farm. He felt that each generation should pay back its debt within 19 years, and not impose a long-term debt on subsequent generations. Jefferson fought against Hamilton's proposed Bank of the United States in 1790, but lost. Jefferson also opposed the bank loans that financed the War of 1812.[73] His fellow tobacco planters, however, recognized the need for banks in order to finance the purchase of new land and new slaves, and support commerce, industry and internal improvements.[74]Jefferson often attacked banks, paper money and borrowing as inimical to Republicanism;[75] in retirement in 1816, he wrote John Taylor:
- "The system of banking we have both equally and ever reprobated. I contemplate it as a blot left in all our constitutions, which, if not covered, will end in their destruction, which is already hit by the gamblers in corruption, and is sweeping away in its progress the fortunes and morals of our citizens."[76]
Individual rights
Jefferson believed that each individual has "certain inalienable rights". That is, these rights exist with or without government; man cannot create, take, or give them away. It is the right of "liberty" on which Jefferson is most notable for expounding. He defines it by saying, "Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law,' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual."[77] Hence, for Jefferson, though government cannot create a right to liberty, it can indeed violate it. The limit of an individual's rightful liberty is not what law says it is but is simply a matter of stopping short of prohibiting other individuals from having the same liberty. A proper government, for Jefferson, is one that not only prohibits individuals in society from infringing on the liberty of other individuals, but also restrains itself from diminishing individual liberty.Jefferson's commitment to equality was expressed in his successful efforts to abolish primogeniture in Virginia, the rule by which the first born son inherited all the land.[78]
Jefferson believed that individuals have an innate sense of morality that prescribes right from wrong when dealing with other individuals—that whether they choose to restrain themselves or not, they have an innate sense of the natural rights of others. He even believed that moral sense to be reliable enough that an anarchist society could function well, provided that it was reasonably small. On several occasions, he expressed admiration for the tribal, communal way of living of Native Americans:[79] Jefferson is sometimes seen as a philosophical anarchist.[80]
He said in a letter to Colonel Carrington: "I am convinced that those societies (as the Indians) which live without government, enjoy in their general mass an infinitely greater degree of happiness than those who live under the European governments." However, Jefferson believed anarchism to be "inconsistent with any great degree of population".[81] Hence, he did advocate government for the American expanse provided that it exists by "consent of the governed".
In the Preamble to his original draft of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson wrote:
We hold these truths to be sacred & undeniable; that all men are created equal & independent, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent & inalienable, among which are the preservation of life, & liberty, & the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these ends, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government shall become destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, & to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles & organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety & happiness.[82]Jefferson's dedication to "consent of the governed" was so thorough that he believed that individuals could not be morally bound by the actions of preceding generations. This included debts as well as law. He said that "no society can make a perpetual constitution or even a perpetual law. The earth belongs always to the living generation." He even calculated what he believed to be the proper cycle of legal revolution: "Every constitution then, and every law, naturally expires at the end of nineteen years. If it is to be enforced longer, it is an act of force, and not of right." He arrived at 19 years through calculations with expectancy of life tables, taking into account what he believed to be the age of "maturity"—when an individual is able to reason for himself.[83] He also advocated that the national debt be eliminated. He did not believe that living individuals had a moral obligation to repay the debts of previous generations. He said that repaying such debts was "a question of generosity and not of right."[84]
States' rights
Jefferson's very strong defense of States' rights, especially in the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions of 1798, set the tone for hostility to expansion of federal powers. However, some of his foreign policies did strengthen the government. Most important was the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, when he used the implied powers to annex a huge foreign territory and all its French and Indian inhabitants. The population was estimated to be 97,000 as of the 1810 census.[85] His enforcement of the Embargo Act of 1807, while it failed in terms of foreign policy, demonstrated that the federal government could intervene with great force at the local level in controlling trade that might lead to war.Carrying of arms
Jefferson copied many excerpts from the various books he read into his "Legal Commonplace Book."[86] One passage he copied which touches on gun control was from Cesare Beccaria's Essay on Crimes and Punishments. The passage, which is written in Italian, discusses the "false idea of utility” (false idee di utilità) which Beccaria saw as underlying some laws. It can be translated, in part, as:A principal source of errors and injustice are false ideas of utility. For example: that legislator has false ideas of utility ... who would deprive men of the use of fire for fear of their being burnt, and of water for fear of their being drowned; and who knows of no means of preventing evil but by destroying it.
The laws of this nature are those which forbid to wear arms, disarming those only who are not disposed to commit the crime which the laws mean to prevent. ... It certainly makes the situation of the assaulted worse, and of the assailants better, and rather encourages than prevents murder, as it requires less courage to attack unarmed than armed persons.[87]Jefferson's only notation was, "False idee di utilità."[87] It isn't known whether Jefferson agreed with the example Beccaria used, or with the general idea, or if he had some other reason for copying the passage.
Corporations
Jefferson in 1816 wrote to George Logan,In this respect England exhibits the most remarkable phenomenon in the universe in the contrast between the profligacy of it's government and the probity of it's citizens. And accordingly it is now exhibiting an example of the truth of the maxim that virtue & interest are inseparable. It ends, as might have been expected, in the ruin of it's people, but this ruin will fall heaviest, as it ought to fall on that hereditary aristocracy which has for generations been preparing the catastrophe. I hope we shall take warning from the example and crush in it's birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country.[88]
Judiciary
Trained as a lawyer, Jefferson was a gifted writer but never a good speaker or advocate and was never comfortable in court. He believed that judges should be technical specialists but should not set policy. He privately felt the 1803 Supreme Court ruling in Marbury v. Madison was a violation of democracy, for it made the Supreme Court the final decision-maker on the Constitution. He lacked enough support in Congress to propose a Constitutional amendment to overturn it.[89] Jefferson continued to oppose the doctrine of judicial review:To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions [is] a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men and not more so. They have with others the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps. Their maxim is boni judicis est ampliare jurisdictionem [good justice is broad jurisdiction], and their power the more dangerous as they are in office for life and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control. The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots. It has more wisely made all the departments co-equal and co-sovereign within themselves.[90]
Rebellion to restrain government and retain individual rights
After the Revolutionary War, Jefferson advocated restraining government via rebellion and violence when necessary, in order to protect individual freedoms. In a letter to James Madison on January 30, 1787, Jefferson wrote, "A little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical...It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government."[91] Similarly, in a letter to Abigail Adams on February 22, 1787 he wrote, "The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all."[91] Concerning Shays' Rebellion after he had heard of the bloodshed, on November 13, 1787 Jefferson wrote to William S. Smith, John Adams' son-in-law, "What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must from time to time be refreshed with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."[92] In another letter to William S. Smith during 1787, Jefferson wrote: And what country can preserve its liberties, if the rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.[91]Self-esteem
In a letter to Francis Hopkinson of March 13, 1789, Jefferson wrote: "I never had an opinion in politics or religion which I was afraid to own. A costive reserve on these subjects might have procured me more esteem from some people, but less from myself."[93]Women in politics
Jefferson disliked seeing women take political roles, Historian Richard Morris wrote, "Abigail Adams excepted, Jefferson detested intellectual women. Annoyed by the political chatter of women in Parisian salons, he wrote home expressing the hope that 'our good ladies ... are contented to soothe and calm the minds of their husbands returning ruffled from political debate.'" While President, Jefferson wrote that "The appointment of a woman to office is an innovation for which the public is not prepared, nor am I."[94]Religion
Further information: Thomas Jefferson and religion
The religious views of Thomas Jefferson diverged from the orthodox Christianity of his day. Throughout his life Jefferson was intensely interested in theology, biblical study, and morality. He is most closely connected with the Episcopal Church, Unitarianism, and the religious philosophy of Deism. He wrote to a nephew, "Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear."[95][96] In private letters, Jefferson refers to himself as "Christian" (1803),[97][98] "a sect by myself" (1819),[99] an "Epicurean" (1819),[100] a "Materialist" (1820),[101] and a "Unitarian by myself" (1825).[102]Jefferson believed in the moral teachings of Christ; writing a bible of Christ's teachings without the miracles.[103] Jefferson, however, was firmly anticlerical saying that in "every country and every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot...they have perverted the purest religion ever preached to man into mystery and jargon, unintelligible to all mankind, and therefore the safer for their purposes."[104] Jefferson himself privately expressed doubts on the existence of invisible beings such as God, angels, and the soul writing, "To talk of immaterial existences is to talk of nothings."[105] Jefferson believed that Immaculate Conception by the Virgin Mary would eventually be "classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter." [106] Jefferson also rejected the predestination doctrine of John Calvin and the Book of Revelations in the Bible.[107]
Native American policy
Jefferson was the first President to propose the idea of a formal Indian Removal plan.[108][109]Andrew Jackson is often erroneously credited with initiating Indian Removal, because Congress passed the Indian Removal Act in 1830, during his presidency, and also because of his personal involvement in the forceful extermination and removal of many Eastern tribes.[108] But Jackson was merely legalizing and implementing a plan laid out by Jefferson in a series of private letters that began in 1803 (for example, see letter to William Henry Harrison below).[108]
Jefferson's first promotions of Indian Removal were between 1776 and 1779, when he recommended forcing the Cherokee and Shawnee tribes to be driven out of their ancestral homelands to lands west of the Mississippi River.[108]
His first such act as president, was to make a deal with the state of Georgia that if Georgia were to release its legal claims to discovery in lands to the west, then the U.S. military would help forcefully expel the Cherokee people from Georgia. At the time, the Cherokee had a treaty with the United States government which guaranteed them the right to their lands, which was violated in Jefferson's deal with Georgia.[108]
Acculturation and assimilation
Jefferson's original plan was for Natives to give up their own cultures, religions, and lifestyles in favor of western European culture, Christian religion, and a sedentary agricultural lifestyle.[108][109]Jefferson's expectation was that by assimilating them into an agricultural lifestyle and stripping them of self-sufficiency, they would become economically dependent on trade with white Americans, and would thereby be willing to give up land that they would otherwise not part with, in exchange for trade goods or to resolve unpaid debts.[110] In an 1803 letter to William Henry Harrison, Jefferson wrote:
- To promote this disposition to exchange lands, which they have to spare and we want, for necessaries, which we have to spare and they want, we shall push our trading uses, and be glad to see the good and influential individuals among them run in debt, because we observe that when these debts get beyond what the individuals can pay, they become willing to lop them off by a cession of lands.... In this way our settlements will gradually circumscribe and approach the Indians, and they will in time either incorporate with us a citizens or the United States, or remove beyond the Mississippi. The former is certainly the termination of their history most happy for themselves; but, in the whole course of this, it is essential to cultivate their love. As to their fear, we presume that our strength and their weakness is now so visible that they must see we have only to shut our hand to crush them, and that all our liberalities to them proceed from motives of pure humanity only. Should any tribe be foolhardy enough to take up the hatchet at any time, the seizing the whole country of that tribe, and driving them across the Mississippi, as the only condition of peace, would be an example to others, and a furtherance of our final consolidation.[110]
Forced removal and extermination
In cases where Native tribes resisted assimilation, Jefferson believed that they should be forcefully removed from their land and sent west.[108] As Jefferson put it in a letter to Alexander von Humboldt in 1813:- You know, my friend, the benevolent plan we were pursuing here for the happiness of the aboriginal inhabitants in our vicinities. We spared nothing to keep them at peace with one another. To teach them agriculture and the rudiments of the most necessary arts, and to encourage industry by establishing among them separate property. In this way they would have been enabled to subsist and multiply on a moderate scale of landed possession. They would have mixed their blood with ours, and been amalgamated and identified with us within no distant period of time. On the commencement of our present war, we pressed on them the observance of peace and neutrality, but the interested and unprincipled policy of England has defeated all our labors for the salvation of these unfortunate people. They have seduced the greater part of the tribes within our neighborhood, to take up the hatchet against us, and the cruel massacres they have committed on the women and children of our frontiers taken by surprise, will oblige us now to pursue them to extermination, or drive them to new seats beyond our reach.[111]
Slavery
Main article: Thomas Jefferson and slavery
Slavery as an undesirable institution
According to a biographer, Jefferson "believed that it was the responsibility of the state and society to free all slaves."[114] Jefferson believed that slavery was a social evil that was bad for both blacks and whites. Randall concludes, "He knew slavery was evil, he called it evil and spoke out against it in a series of public forums, but he would only push so far — and then he would fall back on a way of life utterly dependent on slave labor."[115]However, Jefferson owned slaves all his life. Biographers point out that Jefferson was deeply in debt and had encumbered his slaves by notes and mortgages; he could not free them until he was free of debt, which never happened.[116] His claimed ambivalence was also reflected in his treatment of those slaves who worked most closely with him and his family at Monticello and in other locations. He invested in having them trained and schooled in high quality skills.[117] He wrote about slavery, "We have the wolf by the ears; and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other."[118]
While Jefferson was a member of the Virginia legislature during the 1770s he authored legislation preventing freed blacks from living or moving into Virginia and punished interacial relations. Jefferson believed that freed blacks should be deported and replaced with white settlers. The forced deportation of blacks would prevent a race war between former slaves and whites, according to Jefferson. His solution entailed gauging what he perceived to be the common good for both whites and blacks and proposing what he considered to be reasonable policies: education, emancipation, and repatriation of the former slaves.[120][121]
In his first draft of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson condemned the British crown for the slave trade, but not slavery itself, saying he "has waged cruel war against human nature itself...captivating & carrying them into slavery." He also condemned the King for "inciting American Negroes to rise in arms against their masters".[122][123] However, this language was dropped from the Declaration at the request of delegates from South Carolina and Georgia.
In 1778 the legislature passed a bill he proposed to ban further importation of slaves into Virginia, and he said it "stopped the increase of the evil by importation, leaving to future efforts its final eradication." Many slave owners opposed the international slave trade, while supporting slavery. The two were distinct institutions, and there were clear benefits for slave owners like the increased value of slaves and the decreased chances of slave rebellion.[124][125]
In 1807, as President, he signed a bill abolishing the import or export of slaves, which was already outlawed by all states except South Carolina; he was not the main force behind the legislation, to which resistance was small.[126]
Attitude towards slaves and blacks
According to historian Stephen Ambrose: "Jefferson, like all slaveholders and many other white members of American society, regarded Negroes as inferior, childlike, untrustworthy and, of course, as property.[127]Jefferson published his views that blacks were inferior to whites in his book, Notes on the State of Virginia, saying blacks were inferior "in the endowments both of body and mind."[128]Supervising and owning hundreds of slaves, including their children, Jefferson believed that blacks were equal to lazy animals and were inferior to whites in reasoning, mathematical comprehension, and imagination. This was Jefferson's rationalization for their condition of slavery. In effect, Jefferson believed that the difference between blacks and whites was "fixed in nature", and was not dependent on their freedom or education.[129]
Jefferson could see no way for African Americans to live in American society as free people, saying "Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free. [But] the two races...cannot live in the same government."[130] For a long-term solution Jefferson believed that slaves should be freed then deported to African colonies. Otherwise, he feared war and that in his words, "human nature must shudder at the prospect held up. We should in vain look for an example in the Spanish deportation or deletion of the Moors. This precedent would fall far short of our case."[131]
In 1809, Jefferson corresponded with Abbé Grégoire, whose book argued against Jefferson claims of black inferiority in Notes on Virginia. Jefferson responded saying blacks had "respectable intelligence", but did not alter his views.[132][133]
In August 1814 Edward Coles and Jefferson corresponded about Coles' ideas on emancipation. Jefferson urged Coles not to free his slaves.[134]
Jefferson emancipated two enslaved people during his lifetime, Robert Hemings in 1794 and James Hemings in 1796. He freed five additional enslaved men upon his death, including Madison and Eston Hemings, whom many historians now believe were the two youngest of his four children with Sally Hemings. They were all male, and all from the Hemings family.[135] One slave freed was Joe Fossett, but not his wife or their eight children; they were sold to different slave owners in the slave auction after Jefferson's death. Madison and Eston were not freed until they were 21.[136] Jefferson possibly allowed Beverley (a male) and Harriet Hemings to leave Monticello in 1822; they went on to live as white people. Jefferson also informally freed their cousin James Hemings in 1804.[137] Six months after Jefferson's death, 130 enslaved men, women, and children from Monticello were auctioned off to help pay the debts of Jefferson's estate.[138]
Jefferson on US postage
Since the middle 19th century when the United States Post Office first began using postage stamps Thomas Jefferson's portrait has been found engraved on the face of the various U.S. Postage issues that have honored him. The first U.S. postage stamp to honor Jefferson was issued in March 1856, (displayed above) nine years after the Post Office issued its first two stamps of Washington and Franklin in 1847. Before this time ink and hand-stamps, usually made of cork or wood, (hence the term 'stamp') were used to mark and confirm payment of postage. Almost as popular and famous as George Washington, Jefferson has appeared comparatively much less often on postage issues over the last 160+ years, and unlike Washington and Franklin, appears on just two commemorative issues. All other occurrences of Jefferson are found on regular issues.[139]  |  |  |
Jefferson's role in US currency
Three years after the United States Constitution was enacted in 1789 the newly seated Congress once again took up discussion of the issue of coinage. Then on April 2, 1792, Congress approved an Act requiring coins to be minted bearing the words 'United States of America' and also "an impression emblematic of liberty, with an inscription of the word Liberty, and the year of the coinage...". This was the first major step in establishing the US coinage system.[140][141]The US had its problems to deal with in order to get its currency into circulation, and established in the free market. Not only were there crude minting conditions to improve, there was little gold and silver bullion available at the time, as the US was in its infancy and still recovering from the costs of the revolution. Also the expected movement of new US coinage into the marketplace was greatly impaired by metals speculators who exported US gold and silver coins overseas. The metal imbalance situation got so out of hand that in 1804, President Thomas Jefferson ordered a suspension of gold $10.00 Eagle production. In 1806, Jefferson likewise halted silver dollar production. Not until 1836 did minting of silver dollars resume. For three decades, then, the basal United States coin was not even minted.[140]
In more modern times Jefferson's portrait appears on the U.S. $2 bill, nickel, and the $100 Series EE Savings Bond.
Thomas Jefferson was honored on a Presidential Dollar which released into circulation on August 16, 2007. The day before the coins were issued the U.S. Mint held an official release ceremony at the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C.[142]
 Thomas Jefferson on Presidential Dollar |  Jefferson portrayed on the United States two-dollar bill |  The Jefferson Nickel 1938–2004 |  Jefferson's face in close profile, US nickel, 2005 |  Jefferson's face, US nickel, 2006–present |
Reputation and memorials
Further information: List of places named for Thomas Jefferson
Reputation
Jefferson's reputation has many dimensions. There is no doubt that his ideals of republicanism are profoundly implanted in the system of American political values.[143][144] As the father of the Democratic-Republican Party, and the honorary father of the modern Democratic Party, he has been routinely hailed by politicians and partisans, for example at the annual Jefferson-Jackson Day celebration that Democrats hold. In the 1850s, the new Republican party held him in high esteem for the Declaration of Independence, but deplored his emphasis on states rights, which secessionists were employing to break up the Union. In the late 19th century, "Jeffersonian Democracy" was appropriated by the conservative Bourbon Democrats. During the Progressive Era of the early 20th century, Progressives pointed more often to the vigorous nation building of Hamilton, and derided Jefferson's opposition to a strong central government. During the New Deal era of the 1930s, Democrats especially honored him, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt took the lead in building his monument in Washington. Jefferson's reputation among the general public and in the school textbooks has generally been high.[145]However, his reputation among scholars and historians has come in cycles, and in recent years has been at a low point. The primary reason is historians' disgust of his harsh treatment of Indians and, especially, his opposition to a biracial society and his low opinion of blacks even as he perhaps had an affair with one.[146][147]
While historians are not unanimous, Princeton scholar Sean Wilentz in 2010 identified a scholarly trend very much in Hamilton's favor:
- In recent years, Hamilton and his reputation have decidedly gained the initiative among scholars who portray him as the visionary architect of the modern liberal capitalist economy and of a dynamic federal government headed by an energetic executive. Jefferson and his allies, by contrast, have come across as naïve, dreamy idealists. At best according to many historians, the Jeffersonians were reactionary utopians who resisted the onrush of capitalist modernity in hopes of turning America into a yeoman farmers' arcadia. At worst, they were proslavery racists who wish to rid the West of Indians, expand the empire of slavery, and keep political power in local hands -- all the better to expand the institution of slavery and protect slaveholders' rights to own human property.[148]
Memorials
Jefferson has been memorialized in many ways, including buildings, sculptures, and currency. The Jefferson Memorial was dedicated in Washington, D.C. on April 13, 1943, the 200th anniversary of Jefferson's birth. The interior of the memorial includes a 19-foot (6 m) statue of Jefferson and engravings of passages from his writings. Most prominent are the words which are inscribed around the monument near the roof: "I have sworn upon the altar of god eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man".[149]His original tombstone, now a cenotaph, is located on the campus in the University of Missouri's Quadrangle.
A life mask of Jefferson was created by John Henri Isaac Browere in the 1820s.[150]
Jefferson, together with George Washington, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln, was chosen by sculptor Gutzon Borglum and approved by President Calvin Coolidge to be depicted in stone at the Mount Rushmore Memorial.[151]
Recent memorials to Jefferson include the commissioning of the NOAA ship Thomas Jefferson in Norfolk, Virginia on July 8, 2003, in commemoration of his establishment of a Survey of the Coast, the predecessor to NOAA's National Ocean Service; and the placement of a bronze monument in Jefferson Park, Chicago at the entrance to the Jefferson Park Transit Center along Milwaukee Avenue in 2005.
 Jefferson on Mount Rushmore |
Marriage and family
Acknowledged wife and children
In 1772, at age 29 Jefferson married the 23-year-old widow Martha Wayles Skelton. They had six children: Martha Jefferson Randolph (1772–1836), Jane Randolph (1774–1775), a stillborn or unnamed son (1777), Mary Jefferson Eppes (1778–1804), Lucy Elizabeth (1780–1781), and another Lucy Elizabeth (1782–1785). Martha died on September 6, 1782, after the birth of her last child. Jefferson never remarried.Alleged mixed-race children
See also: Sally Hemings and Jefferson DNA data
Jefferson is alleged to have had a long-term, intimate relationship with one of his slaves, Sally Hemings. She was a half-sister to Jefferson's late wife, and was three fourths white. Sally Hemings had six children, four of whom survived to adulthood and were freed or allowed to escape by Jefferson. They were presumably seven-eighths white by ancestry.[152]James T. Callender was a political pamphleteer whom Jefferson secretly employed. After Jefferson became President, he denied Callender a patronage appointment. Callender then wrote newspaper articles in 1802 alleging that Jefferson had fathered several children with Sally Hemings. Jefferson himself said: "I should have fancied myself half guilty had I condescended to put pen to paper in refutation of their falsehoods". Historian Annette Gordon-Reed says Jefferson added to the controversy in 1826 when he freed only five male slaves in his will, all of the Hemings family, including Sally Hemings' two sons Madison Hemings and Eston Hemings.[153][154]
According to the 19th-century biographer Henry Randall, Jefferson's oldest grandson, Thomas Jefferson Randolph and others close to the family, told him that Sally Hemings had been the mistress of Jefferson's nephew Peter Carr, and that it was "notorious at Monticello." Randall concluded "there was not the shadow of suspicion" involving Jefferson.[155][156][157] Most historians supported this view, preferring the oral tradition of Jefferson's daughter over the oral traditions of the descendants of former slaves, saying that either Samuel or Peter Carr was the father of Sally Hemings' children, not Jefferson.
In 1998, Eugene Foster led a group of scientists who collected and coded the DNA of the surviving male relatives of Jefferson's paternal uncle, Field Jefferson, and John Carr (father of Peter and Samuel), the father of two men some historians claimed were the most likely to have fathered some of Sally Heming's children. Their samples were compared against the male descendants of Thomas Woodson and Eston Hemings, two men whose families claimed Jefferson was the father through Sally Hemings. The coded DNA samples were then analysed at Oxford University.[158] The results were not conclusive, but concluded that Thomas Woodson was not related to Jefferson, but that "the simplest and most probable explanations for our molecular findings are that Thomas Jefferson, rather than one of the Carr brothers, was the father of Eston Hemings Jefferson." Whilst noting the possibility of one of Field Jefferson's male descendants as the father, Foster's group said there was an "absence of historical evidence" that made this or other "possibilities...unlikely"
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