Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson
Third President
Served March 4, 1801 – March 4, 1809
Party: Democratic-Republican

Born: April 13, 1743 in Shadwell, Virginia
Died: July 4, 1826 in Charlottesville, Virginia
Favorite Bible: His Own

Thomas Jefferson broke onto the national scene during the Second Continental Congress in which he was assigned to a committee to draft a declaration of independence, aptly named the Declaration of Independence. Among the other committee members were Benjamin Franklin and John Adams, but they left Thomas to write the entire thing while they went pub hopping in Philadelphia.

For a portion of the Revolutionary War, Thomas Jefferson was appointed as an ambassador to France. On a cold dark night in the winter of 1785 Jefferson happened across a cantankerous gypsy. She offered the American his greatest desires for a nominal price. Without even asking the price, Jefferson agreed and was granted continual youth at the price of correspondence with his most hated rival, John Adams. Upon hearing the price, Jefferson protested, and as the gypsy disappeared into the misty night she declared for his insolence Adams would become President of the United States before Jefferson.

Thomas Jefferson is commonly held as the first politician to run on one set of principles and then govern from a completely opposite set of principles. This is now a time-honored practice of nearly all our elected officials, but it was quite ground-breaking for the time. In his campaigns for the Presidency Jefferson staunchly supported states’ rights and the limited power of the government, especially the office of the President. While in office Jefferson took unilateral steps to increase the president’s power and authority. He negotiated with Napoleon, the purchase of the Louisiana Territory, doubling the territorial size of the United States. He commissioned the Lewis and Clark expedition of the newly bought territory. Thomas Jefferson also personally stormed the beaches of Tripoli with the newly formed Marines after being fed up with the policy of paying tribute to the Barbary pirates who terrorized the seas. Piracy was single-handedly ended for the next two hundred years.

After his time as President, Thomas Jefferson retired to his home Monticello, where he pursued his other interests, mainly attractive slave women. In order to continue his “pursuits” into his old age, he was forced to correspond with John Adams. With their political careers behind them, the two bitter rivals were able to put behind them the bygone ordeals of the past, or at least they were able to for a time until John Adams suggested they had really written the Declaration of Independence 50-50. Thomas Jefferson refused to continue correspondence, and the two men died the same day on July 4, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of the United States.

Preceded by John Adams
Succeeded by James Madison