Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson (1743 – 1826) was one of the founding fathers of the United States, and its third president.

He was born in 1743 in Virginia. He inherited some 5,000 acres of land from his father. He studied at the College of William and Mary, then read law. In 1772 he married a widow, Martha Wayles Skelton.

As a member of the Continental Congress, he spoke little, but was the main author of the Declaration of Independence. He succeeded Benjamin Franklin as minister to France in 1785.

With the establishment of the United States' federal government, he became the first Secretary of State, but resigned in 1793. He became leader of the Republican party, who sympathised with the revolutionaries in France. He opposed a strong centralised Government and championed the rights of states. He stood for president in 1796; narrowly losing to John Adams, he became vice-president. He defeated Adams in 1800.

By 1800, the crisis in France was over. He slashed defence expenditure, cut the budget, abolished the tax on whisky, yet reduced the national debt by a third. He also sent naval ships to fight the Barbary pirates, who were attacking American ships in the Mediterranean Sea. He greatly enlarged the USA by buying the Louisiana Territory from Napoleon Bonaparte in 1803.

Re-elected in 1804, he made every effort to keeping the USA neutral in the Napoleonic Wars, despite interference by both sides with American ships.

Jefferson retired to his house in Virginia, Monticello, where he died.