Easton Press Thomas Jefferson books
Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation - Merrell D. Peterson - 1987
The Shackles of Power: Three Jeffersonian Decades - John Dos Passos - 1988
The Pursuit of Reason: The Life of Thomas Jefferson - Noble E. Cunningham - 1992
The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - 2 volumes - 1993
Thomas Jefferson and His Time - 6 volume set - Malone Dumas - 1993
Vol. 1 - The Virginian
Vol. 2 - Jefferson and the rights of Man
Vol. 3 - Jefferson and the ordeal of Liberty
Vol. 4 - The President (first term 1801 - 1805)
Vol. 5 - The President (second term 1805 - 1809)
Vol. 6 - The Sage of Monticello
Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, Thomas Jefferson, and the opening of the American West - Stephen Ambrose - signed edition - 1998
American Sphinx: The charter of Thomas Jefferson - Joseph Jay Ellis - 2000
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President Thomas Jefferson biography
Thomas Jefferson might be the most important person of the American Revolution. He was the author of the Declaration of Independence. He was the first diplomat abroad, the first Secretary of State, the second Vice President, and the third U.S. President.
Thomas Jefferson was born on April 13, 1743, on his father's prosperous Virginia plantation.
He had an outstanding education. He started at the College of William & Mary in Virginia and later studied law under George Wythe.
Jefferson practiced law in Virginia from 1767 to 1775.
During this time, he met and married Martha Skelton, a 23-year-old widow. The couple had six children. He also had a relationship lasting more than three decades with his wife's half-sister, Sally Hemings, who was also his slave.
He had several children with her, and the only slaves Jefferson freed upon his death were the children he had with Sally Hemings.
In 1774, he drafted an extraordinarily important document, A Summary View of the Rights of British America, which justified the right of Americans to be self-governing.
As a delegate to the Second Continental Congress, Jefferson was selected to write the first draft of the Declaration of Independence, which he finished in June 1776.
John Adams chose Jefferson to write the Declaration of Independence because he admired Jefferson's literary style. Jefferson, who was only 33 years old at the time, managed to write it in 17 days.
The United States was the first country in the modern age to declare its independence from a colonizing power. This document became a model for declarations of independence all over the world for two centuries.
During the Revolutionary War, Jefferson returned to Virginia, where he was elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses and served two terms as governor. While serving in the state legislature, Jefferson wrote the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. This became the basis for the drafting of the First Amendment.
Thomas Jefferson then succeeded Benjamin Franklin as Minister to France before becoming President George Washington's Secretary of State in 1789.
Thomas Jefferson had a somewhat bumpy tenure as Secretary of State and ultimately resigned in 1793 because of major political and ideological conflicts with Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton.
In 1800, Thomas Jefferson was elected the third President of the United States after the House of Representatives broke an electoral tie with Aaron Burr. The election of 1800 was so fiercely contested that it could have ended in civil war, but it did not. It was resolved through democratic means, and the American experiment survived.
This was the first peaceful transfer of power between opposing political parties in Western history.
During his presidency, he cut the nation's debt in half, protected U.S. interests abroad by sending the U.S. Navy to deal with the Barbary pirates, and doubled the size of the United States with the Louisiana Purchase from France in 1803.
He commissioned Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to explore that territory. The Lewis and Clark Expedition remains one of the great exploration sagas in American history.
After Jefferson's second term and after he left office, he became heavily involved in founding the University of Virginia, the first secular university in the United States. He designed the campus and became its first rector.
Death
Jefferson died on July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the same day John Adams died.
Jefferson wanted to be remembered for three things, which he ordered carved on his tombstone: author of the Declaration of Independence, author of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, and father of the University of Virginia.
Thomas Jefferson quotes
"I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical."
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
"I cannot live without books."
"I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery."
"In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock."
"Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom."
"I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past."
"Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty."
"When angry, count ten, before you speak; if very angry, a hundred."
"I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it."