Thomas Jefferson: Founding father with a complicated legacy
Thomas Jefferson was one of the founding fathers of the United States of America, shaping the new country as it experimented with democracy and separated itself from the British monarchy. As an early leader, politician, and the nation’s third president, he developed ideas of what it meant to be an American, and these ideas influence our government and popular opinion to this day.
Jefferson the politician
Thomas Jefferson was the author of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, which was the formal statement by the colonies to the British Crown of the intention to secede from its empire. An eloquent piece, it remains to this day a model internationally for the concept of universal human rights, a cornerstone of liberal democratic government.
It's not surprising the his early political involvement led to more positions in the young government. Jefferson earned a number of key political seats, including Governor of Virginia, Secretary of State under Washington, and finally as President of the United States with his election in 1800 and again in 1804.
Jefferson’s presidency was marked by the largest single expansion of American territory in its history: the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Jefferson believed the purchase was unconstitutional, that the document, the U.S. Constitution, which he helped create, did not provide the U.S. Government the powers to acquire new lands. Though this view was popular, he accepted the offer from the French leader Napoleon Bonaparte, thereby doubling the size of the United States. The Barbary War was fought during his presidency, as were significant pushes against Native Americans out of western territories for American settlers.
Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness
Jefferson was a landowner in Virginia, with a large estate named Monticello. Like many of his contemporaries, he owned slaves and sided with the southern states in many economic and social issues. The very fact that he was a slaveowner makes it difficult for modern students to reconcile the words he penned in the Declaration of Independence with his enslaved laborers.
It is important to recall when considering figures like Thomas Jefferson that the individuals for whose rights they fought to preserve were limited to men of European descent exclusively. Women, men and women of African heritage, Native Americans, and, at the outset, European men without property, all were not originally included in the lofty declarations in defense of human rights and liberty.
Democratic societies continue even now to challenge the limits on who has rights and who doesn't, and in this way, we are still every much asking the questions that Jefferson and his contemporaries raised almost 250 years ago.
Jefferson’s ideas of slavery and racial purity
The primary focus of any scholarly study of Jefferson since the 1970s has been to untangle a very difficult contradiction: Jefferson was a slave-owner while also being a strong advocate for not only the ideals and principles of universal liberty, but specifically of the abolition of slavery.
Academics have sought to understand this complicated entanglement that Jefferson lived within. He was, after all, a revolutionary statesman for a new republic built on ideals of liberty and freedom while also the heir of a lucrative plantation.
Jefferson’s view on slavery, while he hoped for abolition, stood on his view that people from Africa were inferior from people from Europe. He believed he observed a childlike mentality in the slaves he oversaw at Monticello that he ascribed to their race, and not to their condition of enslavement.
A key dimension of Jefferson’s plans of abolition required that there would be no “mixing of blood” between black and white Americans. The paradox comes at this point: if Jefferson was so adamant about avoiding racial mixing, why did he have reported a sexual relationship with one of the enslaved women at Monticello?
The controversy of Sally Hemings
Thomas Jefferson was known to have affairs with women outside of his marriage. The most well-known of Jefferson’s relationships with women was his affair with Sally Hemings, a slave. The reason so much attention has been given to this specific relationship is that many have speculated that Jefferson carried on an illicit affair with Hemings and to have fathered from four to six children with her between 1795 and 1808.
It is also notable that she was only fourteen at the time he was reported to have begun his attentions, which resulted in a pregnancy. From a modern perspective, there are many disturbing things about these reports in terms of her tender age and the power differential between a slave owner and the young girl he controlled.
The historical records are not complete in terms of the Jefferson-Hemings relationship, but many markers exist in correspondence from the time period that indicate their relationship continued for many years. Modern DNA testing provides a link suggesting that Sally Hemings children were fathered by Thomas Jefferson.
The End of the International Slave Trade
A significantly more positive legacy of Jefferson’s second term was the illegalization of the international slave trade. The move to stop any new African slaves from being bought and sold in the United States was the only successful move against slavery Jefferson actually achieved, but one he had long sought. The Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves went into effect on January 1, 1808.
The words and acts throughout the life of Thomas Jefferson display an inconsistency that is important to note as we look back on history. As we continue to discuss human rights and the shape of democracy, we can see how far our country has come since 1776, and how far it still has to go until the ideals of the young democracy are realized.
Thomas Jefferson: Founding father with a complicated legacy
Thomas Jefferson was one of the founding fathers of the United States of America, shaping the new country as it experimented with democracy and separated itself from the British monarchy. As an early leader, politician, and the nation’s third president, he developed ideas of what it meant to be an American, and these ideas influence our government and popular opinion to this day.
Jefferson the politician
Thomas Jefferson was the author of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, which was the formal statement by the colonies to the British Crown of the intention to secede from its empire. An eloquent piece, it remains to this day a model internationally for the concept of universal human rights, a cornerstone of liberal democratic government.
It's not surprising the his early political involvement led to more positions in the young government. Jefferson earned a number of key political seats, including Governor of Virginia, Secretary of State under Washington, and finally as President of the United States with his election in 1800 and again in 1804.
Jefferson’s presidency was marked by the largest single expansion of American territory in its history: the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Jefferson believed the purchase was unconstitutional, that the document, the U.S. Constitution, which he helped create, did not provide the U.S. Government the powers to acquire new lands. Though this view was popular, he accepted the offer from the French leader Napoleon Bonaparte, thereby doubling the size of the United States. The Barbary War was fought during his presidency, as were significant pushes against Native Americans out of western territories for American settlers.
Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness
Jefferson was a landowner in Virginia, with a large estate named Monticello. Like many of his contemporaries, he owned slaves and sided with the southern states in many economic and social issues. The very fact that he was a slaveowner makes it difficult for modern students to reconcile the words he penned in the Declaration of Independence with his enslaved laborers.
It is important to recall when considering figures like Thomas Jefferson that the individuals for whose rights they fought to preserve were limited to men of European descent exclusively. Women, men and women of African heritage, Native Americans, and, at the outset, European men without property, all were not originally included in the lofty declarations in defense of human rights and liberty.
Democratic societies continue even now to challenge the limits on who has rights and who doesn't, and in this way, we are still every much asking the questions that Jefferson and his contemporaries raised almost 250 years ago.
Jefferson’s ideas of slavery and racial purity
The primary focus of any scholarly study of Jefferson since the 1970s has been to untangle a very difficult contradiction: Jefferson was a slave-owner while also being a strong advocate for not only the ideals and principles of universal liberty, but specifically of the abolition of slavery.
Academics have sought to understand this complicated entanglement that Jefferson lived within. He was, after all, a revolutionary statesman for a new republic built on ideals of liberty and freedom while also the heir of a lucrative plantation.
Jefferson’s view on slavery, while he hoped for abolition, stood on his view that people from Africa were inferior from people from Europe. He believed he observed a childlike mentality in the slaves he oversaw at Monticello that he ascribed to their race, and not to their condition of enslavement.
A key dimension of Jefferson’s plans of abolition required that there would be no “mixing of blood” between black and white Americans. The paradox comes at this point: if Jefferson was so adamant about avoiding racial mixing, why did he have reported a sexual relationship with one of the enslaved women at Monticello?
The controversy of Sally Hemings
Thomas Jefferson was known to have affairs with women outside of his marriage. The most well-known of Jefferson’s relationships with women was his affair with Sally Hemings, a slave. The reason so much attention has been given to this specific relationship is that many have speculated that Jefferson carried on an illicit affair with Hemings and to have fathered from four to six children with her between 1795 and 1808.
It is also notable that she was only fourteen at the time he was reported to have begun his attentions, which resulted in a pregnancy. From a modern perspective, there are many disturbing things about these reports in terms of her tender age and the power differential between a slave owner and the young girl he controlled.
The historical records are not complete in terms of the Jefferson-Hemings relationship, but many markers exist in correspondence from the time period that indicate their relationship continued for many years. Modern DNA testing provides a link suggesting that Sally Hemings children were fathered by Thomas Jefferson.
The End of the International Slave Trade
A significantly more positive legacy of Jefferson’s second term was the illegalization of the international slave trade. The move to stop any new African slaves from being bought and sold in the United States was the only successful move against slavery Jefferson actually achieved, but one he had long sought. The Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves went into effect on January 1, 1808.
The words and acts throughout the life of Thomas Jefferson display an inconsistency that is important to note as we look back on history. As we continue to discuss human rights and the shape of democracy, we can see how far our country has come since 1776, and how far it still has to go until the ideals of the young democracy are realized.
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