Jefferson, Thomas, 1743-1826
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) was the third president of the United States, born in Goochland (now Albemarle County), Virginia. He was a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses from 1769 to 1775, and with R. H. Lee and Patrick Henry initiated the inter-colonial committee of correspondence in 1773. He wrote the widely circulated Summary View of the Rights of British America in 1774. Jefferson was a member of the Continental Congress in 1775 and 1776, and was chairman of committee that prepared Declaration of Independence. Jefferson himself wrote and presented the first draft of Declaration to Congress on July 2, 1776. He then signed Declaration with other founding fathers.
Jefferson was Governor of Virginia from 1779 to 1781, and again a member of the Continental Congress from 1783 to 1785. He proposed decimal coinage, a series of provisions later embodied in Ordinance of 1787. He served as U.S. minister to France from 1785 to 1789, and as U.S. Secretary of State from 1790 to 1793. He served as Vice president of the U.S. from 1797 to 1801, and drafted the Kentucky Resolves in 1798, against the Alien and Sedition Acts.
Jefferson was President of the United States from 1801 to 1809, elected by the House of Representatives after a tie in electoral vote (with Aaron Burr, q.v.). His presidential administration is remembered for the purchase of Louisiana from France in 1803 and dispatch of Lewis and Clark to explore it; the war against Algerian pirates from 1801 to 1805; diplomatic trouble with Great Britain over "impressments" of American seamen (Embargo Act of 1807); and prohibition of the importation of slaves. After retirement from presidency, Jefferson lived on his plantation at Monticello near Charlottesville, Virginia. He was instrumental in founding the University of Virginia in 1819. He was a noted naturalist, scholar, and architect, and author of Notes on the State of Virginia in 1785.
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