THOMAS JEFFERSON :: Essays Papers

THOMAS JEFFERSONIn the thick of party conflict in 1800, Thomas Jefferson wrote in a private letter, I have swear upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of despotism over the mind of man. This powerful advocate of liberty was born in 1743 in Albermarle County, Virginia, inheriting from his father, a planter and surveyor, some 5,000 acres of land, and from his mother, a Randolph, high social standing. He studied at the College of William and Mary, then immortalize law. In 1772 he married Martha Wayles Skelton, a widow, and took her to live in his partly constructed mountaintop home, Monticello. Freckled and sandy-haired, rather tall and awkward, Jefferson was eloquent as a correspondent, merely he was no public speaker. In the Virginia House of Burgesses and the Continental Congress, he contributed his pen rather than his voice to the patriot cause. As the silent extremity of the Congress, Jefferson, at 33, drafted the Declaration of Independence. In years fol lowing he strained to make its words a reality in Virginia.Most notably, he wrote a bill establishing religious freedom, enacted in 1786. Jefferson succeeded Benjamin Franklin as look to France in 1785. His sympathy for the French Revolution led him into conflict with horse parsley Hamilton when Jefferson was Secretary of State in President Washingtons Cabinet. He resigned in 1793. a truncatedely political conflict developed, and two separate parties, the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans, began to form. Jefferson gradually assumed leading of the Republicans, who sympathized with the revolutionary cause in France. Attacking Federalist policies, he opposed a strong centralized Government and championed the rights of states. As a reluctant chance for President in 1796, Jefferson came within three votes of election. Through a daub in the Constitution, he became Vice President, although an opponent of President Adams. In 1800 the fracture caused a more serious problem. R epublican electors, attempting to name both a President and a Vice President from their own party, cast a tie vote between Jefferson and Aaron Burr. The House of Repre moveatives settled the tie. Hamilton, disliking both Jefferson and Burr, further urged Jeffersons election. When Jefferson assumed the Presidency, the crisis in France had passed. He slashed Army and Navy expenditures, cut the budget, eliminated the tax on whiskey so unpopular in the West, still reduced the national debt by a third. He also sent a naval squadron to fight the Barbary pirates, who were harassing American commerce in the Mediterranean.