I really didn’t have any problems finding information about Thomas Jefferson. On the Internet, I just did a search for Thomas Jefferson, and I got all kinds of information, from the Thomas Jefferson University to his autobiography. If I was the teacher, I would have allowed the students to print off of the web pages. It isn’t illegal, and it would make it much easier and more efficient to hit command-p and hit return than copy down 5 pages of information longhand and not be able to write legibly for the rest of the day because of a numb hand. I also would have given a little more time than a week.
All of the information I have came from the Internet. I didn’t use one book to find information. I think that it is much smarter to try to find information electronically than it is to go to a library, do a search, hope they have it in stock, walk around trying to find the book, go check it out, drive home, stop at McDonald’s, and finally site down and read it. By the time you get home and have time to read it, you’re too tired to read the book, let alone do a report with it. Thomas Jefferson was born in Shadwell in Albemarle county, Virginia, on April 13, 1743.
His dad, Peter Jefferson and his mom Jane Randolph were members of the most famous Virginia families. Besides being born rich, Thomas Jefferson, was well educated. He attended the College of William and Mary and read law (1762-1767) with George Wythe, the best law teacher of his time in Virginia. He went into to the bar in 1767 and practiced until 1774, when the courts were closed by the American Revolution. He had inherited a considerable landed estate from his father, and doubled it by a happy marriage on Jan. 1, 1772, to Martha Wayles Skelton.
He was lected to the House of Burgesses, when he was 25, he served there from 1769 to 1774, proving himself to be an effective committeeman and skillful draftsman, though not good at speaking From the beginning of the struggle with the mother country, Jefferson stood with the more advanced Patriots, grounding his position on a wide knowledge of English history and political philosophy. His biggest early contribution to the cause of the Patriots was his powerful pamphlet A Summary View of the Rights of British America (1774), originally written for presentation to the Virginia convention of that year.
In this he emphasized natural rights, including that of immigration, and denied parliamentary authority over the colonies, recognizing no tie with the mother country except the king. When he was a member of the Continental Congress (1775-1776), Jefferson was chosen together with John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Robert Livingstone and Roger Sherman in 1776 to draft the Declaration of Independence . He wrote the declaration almost all by himself and was amended by John Adams and Benjamin Franklin . Jefferson left Congress in 1776 and served in the Virginia legislature ntil his election as governor in 1779.
He was governor from 1779 to 1781. During this brief private interval (1781-1783) he began to write the Notes on the State of Virginia, which was published in 1785. In this document there are some of his opinions on slavery. From 1783 to 1784 he was a member of the Continental Congress. While Jefferson was secretary of state from 1790 to 1793, Alexander Hamilton, secretary of the treasury, defeated the movement for commercial discrimination against Britain, which Jefferson liked. Jefferson’s policy was not pro-French, but it seemed anti-British. Hamilton was distinctly pro-British.
By late 1792 or 1793 the opponents of Hamiltonianism (I hope I used a real word) constituted a fairly definite national party, calling itself Republican. Early in 1793 the Virginians in Congress forced Hamilton to quit his office. Jefferson retired as Secretary of State at the end of the year 1793. During a respite of three years from public duties, he began to remodel his house at Monticello and interested himself greatly in agriculture. He was supported by the Republicans for president in 1796, and running econd to John Adams by three electoral votes, he became vice president.
Jefferson and his running mate Aaron Burr defeated John Adams in the elections of 1800. Jefferson’s own title to the presidency was not real for some weeks because he was tied with his running mate under the workings of the original electoral system. The election was thrown into the House of Representatives. The Federalists voted for Burr through many indecisive ballots. Finally, enough of them allowed the obvious decision of the majority to be carried out. And so Jefferson became the 3d president of the United States of America.
And what also was important that the movement was effected by strictly constitutional means. Jefferson emphasized this in his accommodating inaugural address. Jefferson was replaced in 1809 by his loyal lieutenant, James Madison. During the last 17 years of his life, Jefferson remained in Virginia. As the ‘Sage of Monticello’ he engaged in a large and rich correspondence with John Adams and others. Jefferson’s last great public service was the founding of the University of Virginia in 1819. He died at Monticello on July 4, 1826 on the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
