The LuLac Editon #5, 702 July 4th 2026

 

THOMAS JEFFERSON

THE AUTHOR,

Declaration of Independence (1776)

Notes on Virginia (1785)

Jefferson's Manual (1801)

Jefferson Bible (1820)

INNOVATOR AND PROLIFIC RENAISSANCE MAN

  

Thomas Jefferson was a Founding Father and the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He was the second vice president under John Adams. Jefferson was the primary author of the Declaration of Independence, and a leading proponent of democracy, republicanism and natural rights.

Jefferson was born into the Colony of Virginia's planter class. During the American Revolution, he represented Virginia in the Second Continental Congress, which unanimously adopted the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson's advocacy for individual rights, including freedom of thought, speech, and religion, helped shape the ideological foundations of the revolution.Jefferson served as the second governor of Virginia from 1779 to 1781. In 1785, Congress appointed him as U.S. Minister to France, where he served from 1785 to 1789. President George Washington then appointed Jefferson the nation's first secretary of state, where he served from 1790 to 1793. In 1792, Jefferson and political ally James Madison organized the Democratic-Republican Party to oppose the Federalist Party during the formation of the nation's First Party System. Jefferson and Federalist John Adams became both personal friends and political rivals. In the 1796 U.S. presidential election between the two, Jefferson came in second, which made him Adams' vice president under the electoral laws of the time. Four years later, in the 1800 presidential election, Jefferson again challenged Adams and won the presidency. When running for reelection in 1804, Jefferson overwhelmingly defeated the Federalists' Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina.

Jefferson's presidency assertively defended the nation's shipping and trade interests against Barbary pirates and aggressive British trade policies, promoted a western expansionist policy with the Louisiana Purchase, which doubled the nation's geographic size, and reduced military forces and expenditures following successful negotiations with France. In his second presidential term, Jefferson was beset by difficulties at home, including the trial of his former vice president Aaron Burr. In 1807, Jefferson implemented the Embargo Act to defend the nation's industries from British threats to U.S. shipping, limit foreign trade, and stimulate the birth of the American manufacturing.

Jefferson is ranked among the upper tier of U.S. presidents both by scholars and in public opinion. Presidential scholars and historians have praised Jefferson's advocacy of religious freedom and tolerance, his peaceful acquisition of the Louisiana Territory from France, and his leadership in supporting the Lewis and Clark Expedition. They acknowledge his lifelong ownership of large numbers of slaves but offer varying interpretations of his views on and relationship with slavery.

JEFFERSON THE LAWYER

In 1767, Jefferson was granted admission to the Virginia bar, and lived with his mother at Shadwell.[36] Between 1769 and 1775, he represented Albemarle County in Virginia's House of Burgesses. While serving in the House of Burgesses, Jefferson pursued reforms to slavery, including writing and sponsoring legislation in 1769 to strip power from the royal governor and courts, instead providing masters of slaves with the discretion to emancipate them. Jefferson persuaded his cousin Richard Bland to spearhead the legislation's passage, but it faced strong opposition in a state whose economy was largely agrarian.

As a lawyer, Jefferson took on seven freedom-seeking enslaved people as clients and waived his fee for one he claimed should be freed before the minimum statutory age for emancipation. Jefferson invoked natural law, arguing "everyone comes into the world with a right to his own person and using it at his own will ... This is what is called personal liberty, and is given him by the author of nature, because it is necessary for his own sustenance." The judge cut him off and ruled against his client. As a consolation, Jefferson gave his client some money, which was conceivably used to aid his escape shortly thereafter. Jefferson's underlying intellectual argument that all people were entitled by their creator to what he labeled a "natural right" to liberty is a theme that he later prominently incorporated into the Declaration of Independence. In 1767, Jefferson took on 68 cases for the General Court of Virginia and was counsel in three notable cases of that era, Howell v. Netherland (1770), Bolling v. Bolling (1771), and Blair v. Blair (1772).

 

JEFFERSON AND THE DOCUMENT

Jefferson was the primary author of the Declaration of Independence. At age 33, he was one of the youngest delegates to the Second Continental Congress, which convened in the colonial capital of Philadelphia following the Battles of Lexington and Concord, which launched the American Revolutionary War in 1775. Delegates to the Congress overwhelmingly favored authoring, ratifying, and issuing a formal declaration of independence from Britain.Jefferson was inspired by the Enlightenment ideals of the sanctity of the individual, and the writings of Locke and Montesquieu.

Jefferson sought out John Adams, a Continental Congress delegate from Massachusetts and an emerging leader in the Congress.[63] They became close friends, and Adams supported Jefferson's appointment to the Committee of Five, which the Congress charged with authoring the Declaration: Adams, Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Robert R. Livingston, and Roger Sherman. The committee initially thought that Adams should write the document, but Adams persuaded the committee to choose Jefferson due to Jefferson being a Virginian, popular, and a good writer by Adams.

Jefferson consulted with his fellow committee members, but mostly wrote the Declaration of Independence in isolation between June 11 and 28, 1776.Jefferson drew considerably on his proposed draft of the Virginia Constitution, George Mason's draft of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, and other sources.[65] Other committee members made some changes, and a final draft was presented to Congress on June 28, 1776. Congress began debate over its contents on Monday, July 1,[resulting in the removal of roughly a fourth of Jefferson's original draft.[67][68] Jefferson resented the changes, but he did not speak publicly about them.[f] On July 4, 1776, the Congress voted unanimously to ratify the Declaration, and delegates signed it on August 2. Jefferson and the other delegates knew they were committing high treason against the Crown, which was punishable by torture and death.

Following its ratification, the Declaration was released publicly. Two days after its ratification, on July 6, The Pennsylvania Evening Post, was the first newspaper to publish it. On July 8 at noon, it was read publicly and simultaneously for the first time at three designated locations: Trenton, New Jersey; Easton, Pennsylvania; and Philadelphia.

Contemporary historians generally view the Declaration of Independence as one of the most significant and influential written documents in world history, and Jefferson's preamble is regarded as an enduring statement on individual and human rights. Jefferson's phrase "all men are created equal" has been called "one of the best-known sentences in the English language". Harvard University history chairman David Armitage has written that, "No American document has had a greater global impact than the Declaration of Independence",  and historian Joseph Ellis has written that the Declaration includes "the most potent and consequential words in American history.

After an incredible years od being in Congress, Governor of Virginia, Ambassador, Secretary of State, Vice President, President and other endeavors Jefferson’s health seemed to fade.

By June 1826, he was confined to bed.  On July 3, overcome by fever, Jefferson declined an invitation to attend an anniversary celebration of the Declaration in Washington.

During his last hours, he was accompanied by family members and friends. Jefferson died on July 4, 1826, at 12:50 p.m. at age 83, on the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. In the moments prior to his death, Jefferson instructed his treating physician, "No, doctor, nothing more", refusing laudanum. But his final significant words were, "Is it the Fourth?" or "This is the Fourth".  When his predecessor, John Adams, died at approximately 6:20 pm that same day, his last words were "Thomas Jefferson survives", though Adams was unaware that Jefferson had died several hours before. The sitting president was Adams's son, John Quincy Adams, and he called the coincidence of their deaths on the nation's anniversary "visible and palpable remarks of Divine Favor".

Shortly after Jefferson died, attendants found a gold locket on a chain around his neck, containing a small faded blue ribbon around a lock of his wife Martha's hair.

Jefferson was interred at Monticello, under an epitaph that he wrote:

HERE WAS BURIED THOMAS JEFFERSON, AUTHOR OF THE DECLARATION OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE, OF THE STATUTE OF VIRGINIA FOR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM, AND FATHER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA.

At a visit to Monticello in the 80s, standing in front of that grave was one of the most  incredible feelings I ever had.