DOCSLIB.ORG

Thomas Jefferson and the Meanings of Liberty

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Thomas Jefferson and the Meanings of Liberty 8 Thomas Jefferson and the Meanings of Liberty DOUGLAS L. WILSON The United States was conceived in idealism and in paradox. America joined the family of nations dedicated to the proposition that "all men are created equal," that all are en- dowed with the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and that they have a natural right to rebel when those rights are denied. So said Thomas Jefferson in the American Declaration of Independence, summing up truths that Americans had learned in the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, or Age of Reason, a time of momen- tous intellectual and scientific advancements that began in Europe and spread to Amer- ica. Enlightenment thinkers in Europe stressed a belief in natural law, human progress, and government as a rational instrument, ideas that profoundly influenced Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and most other American patriots. The ringing prologue of Jeffer- son's Declaration, in fact, drew much of its inspiration from English philosopher John Locke, who had held that all human beings were innately equal and good and were enti- tled to "life, liberty, and possessions." Yet in 1776, enlightened America held some 500,000 Africans in chains. Jefferson himself and George Washington, the commander of the patriot army, were large slave- holders. Indeed, slavery existed in all thirteen states and was an indispensable labor Jorce for the patriot cause. Even so, many northerners, in a burst of revolutionary idealism, moved to abolish the institution in their states. Vermont was the first to do so, in 1777. Massachusetts outlawed it by a judicial decision six years later. New Hampshire removed it by "constitutional interpretation," and Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Connecticut all adopted gradual emancipation programs. When New York and New Jersey finally freed their slaves, the institution of bondage became peculiar to the South—hence the term peculiar institution. 101 The story was dramatically different in the South. True, some individual masters, swept up in the spirit of the Revolution, voluntarily manumitted their slaves. But most southern planters and political leaders refused to follow the lead of the northern states. Because those states had so few slaves in relation to their white population, white south- erners liked to ask what the northerners had to lose in adopting emancipation. Southern whites did not see how they could abolish slavery, not with their heavy concentration of slaves (in some places they outnumbered whites) and their correspondingly large invest- ments. For white southerners of the Revolutionary generation, however, slavery, was more than a labor system, more even than a means of race control in a region brimming with blacks. It was the foundation of an entire patrician way of life, so interwoven with the fabric of southern society — as a potent status symbol, as personal wealth, as inheri- tances and dowries — that it did not seem possible to remove it. And what of Jefferson, perhaps the most enlightened southerner of his day? In Jeffer- son, we meet an American anomaly: the antislavery slaveholder. Jefferson truly hated slavery; he damned it as "this blot in our country," this "great political and moral evil," and he devised a specific plan to get rid of it i» Virginia — by gradual emancipation and colonization of the freed blacks outside the state. Yet Virginia never adopted his plan, and Jefferson himself was so much a part of his slave-holding culture — and so much in debt — that he felt unable to free his own slaves while he was alive (he did, however, provide for the liberation of five of his skilled slaves upon his death). It is not unfair to point out that Jefferson's illustrious political career—among other things, he was Revo- lutionary governor of Virginia, United States minister to France, Washington's secretary of state, and the third president of the United States — was made possible by slave labor. In this selection, a distinguished Jefferson scholar reflects on this "many-sided and multi-talented man," especially on his contradictions concerning slavery and race. In doing so, Douglas Wilson raises a crucial point about the perils ofpresentism — that is, of intruding today's values and attitudes upon the past. To do that, he warns, risks dis- torting history. What annoys him is that too many Americans today seem unable to dis- cuss the past in its own terms, unable "to make appropriate allowances for prevailing his- GL< torical conditions." As an example of presentism, Wilson discusses the story of Jefferson's alleged liaison with his house slave, Sally Flemings. The author denies the HEIv story as wholly out ofcharacter for Jefferson. But even if it were true, does it matter? slave, child This leads Wilson to a profound question that all of us ought to ponder. "How should we remember the leading figures of our history?" he asks. "By their greatest achieve- MOI ments and most important contributions or by their personal failures and peccadilloes?" NO1 Wilson emphatically sides with the first position. Jeffer Of Jefferson's many achievements, Wilson contends that his "pre-eminent contri- obser bution to the world was the Declaration of Independence." In discussing that contri- also i 102 butioti, Wilson confronts even worse examples of presentism: the view of Jefferson as a ranting hypocrite for trumpeting liberty and equality, yet failing to free his own slaves, and as an inveterate racist for his observations about the traits of black people in his Notes on the State of Virginia. Frankly, those observations are offensive to read today. Yet Wilson reminds us that they were speculative, "a suspicion only," and maintains that Jefferson would have readily discarded them had he encountered an outspoken, literate African American such as Frederick Douglass (whom we will meet in later selections). Addressing the question of why Jefferson did not free his slaves, Wilson observes that the great Virginian faced formidable obstacles in the con- text of his time and place. Then Wilson turns the whole question around. Instead of asking why Jefferson continued to hold slaves, the question ought to be, "How did a man who was bom into a slaveholding society, whose family and admired friends owned slaves, who inherited a fortune that was dependent on slaves and slave labor, decide at an early age that slavery was morally wrong and forcefully declare that it ought to be abolished?" As for the Declaration of Independence, Wilson makes a convincing case that Jefferson meant to include both blacks and women in his philosophical conception of equality. The author goes on to establish a powerful connection between Jefferson's Declaration and Lin- coln's address at Gettysburg during the Civil War. The Gettysburg Address, Wilson points out, "invested Jefferson's eighteenth-century notion of equality with an essentially new meaning and projected it onto the future of the nation." As a result, Americans today have a different view of the prologue of the Declaration than did Jefferson's generation. This-is a powerful, thought-provoking essay. Now that you are aware of the problem : of presentism, how would you evaluate the other readings in Portrait of America? Do they judge the past through the lens of the present, or do they assess historical figures and societies on their own terms, within the context of their times? GLOSSARY colonization; later, Henry Clay and Abraham Lincoln (in his pre—Civil War crreer) would HEMINGS, SALLY Jefferson's mulatto house endorse that approach. slave, by whom he supposedly fathered seven children. PRESENTISM The imposition of present-day values and assumptions on individuals and societies MONTICELLO Jefferson's Virginia estate. of the past. NOTES ON THE STATE OF VIRGINIA (1785) Jefferson's only published book, in which he made SOCIAL DARWINISM A belief, based on observations about the racial traits of blacks and Charles Darwin's theories of biological evolution, also offered a plan of gradual emancipation and that only the fittest individuals and societies survive. 103 "WHEN IN THE COURSE OF HUMAN EVENTS r oday, makes yesterday mean." Emily tion Dickinson's gnomic utterance con- "T:tains at least one undoubted truth — that the perspectives of the present invariably color the the meanings we ascribe to the past. Nothing con- mise firms this so readily as the changing reputations of Jeffe: historical figures, whose status often appears indexed plact to present-day preoccupations. It may be inevitable searc that every age should refashion its historical heroes in Obje a contemporary idiom, but doing so carries with it meai an obvious and inherent danger. In imposing Today's meanings on Yesterday, we run the risk of It distorting it — whether willfully, to suit our own the purposes, or unintentionally, by unwarranted as- chile sumptions and because of meager information. In him this way we lose track of what might be considered Indc the obverse of Emily Dickinson's remark: that Yes- slave terday has meanings of its own that are prior to and may necessarily independent of Today's. dent Thomas Jefferson is one of the few historical not Americans who need no introduction. Even the Thomas Jefferson, in an oil painting done in 1805 by Rembrandt tion most abbreviated knowledge of American history, at Peale. Jefferson was tall and slender, with a freckled face, gray witr. home or abroad, includes the author of the Declara- eyes, and short, powdered, red hair. The color of his hair inspired mor tion of Independence. Identified around the world one correspondent to salute him as "You red-headed son of a such with democracy and human rights, Jefferson's name bitch." Despite his aristocratic upbringing, he was largely indiffer- and words have been invoked for two hundred years ent about his clothes, which rarely fit him.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Mr. Jefferson S Private Life
    Mr. Jefferson s Private Life DUMAS MALONE IHE ATTACHED letter of Ellen Randolph Coolidge is in the Alderman Library at the University of Virginia in a volume containing copies of her letters to Henry S. Randall and other papers relating to her adored grandfather, Thomas Jefferson. It was written to her husband, Joseph Coolidge, Jr., in Boston, while she was visiting her brother in Albemarle County, Vir- ginia, and it has only recently been released for publication by her great-grandson, Harold Jefferson Coolidge. It bears par- ticularly on certain allegations that had been made against the character of her grandfather, and it has immediate relevance since some of these allegations have been recently revived and widely circulated. The story that the third President of the United States had a brood of children by one of his own slaves was first publi- cized in 1802. The distinction of having given it to the world belongs to an embittered journalist, James Thomson Callender, whose title as the most notorious and most unscrupulous scandalmonger of his generation, or indeed of any American generation, would be difficult to contest.^ It was taken up glee- fully by Jefferson's political enemies and occasioned much ridi- cule and obscenity. Rarely has a president been subjected to 'There is an account of the breaking of this story, and of Callender's relations with his former benefactor, in my book, Jefferson the President: First Term (Boston, 1970), ch. XII. 65 66 American Antiquarian Society such vulgarity and rarely have we had so sensitive a president. Nevertheless, Jefferson, following his consistent policy with respect to personal attacks, made no public response of any sort.
    [Show full text]
  • Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings Author(S): Pearl M
    Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings Author(s): Pearl M. Graham Source: The Journal of Negro History, Vol. 46, No. 2 (Apr., 1961), pp. 89-103 Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2716715 Accessed: 26-07-2018 16:00 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms Association for the Study of African American Life and History, The University of Chicago Press are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of Negro History This content downloaded from 207.62.77.131 on Thu, 26 Jul 2018 16:00:10 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms THOMAS JEFFERSON AND SALLY HEMINGS Thomas Jefferson had been only briefly in the White House when reports, long circulated in the neighborhoods of Richmond and Charlottesville, began to appear in print. Some of Jefferson's own slaves, it was agreed, bore a striking re- semblance to their master. And one name, that of Sally Hem- ings1, appeared as the most favored of the colored mistresses. Jefferson himself took, at least in public, a "No com- ment" attitude.
    [Show full text]
  • The Jefferson-Hemings Controversy Report of the Scholars Commission
    turner 00 fmt auto cx 3 3/17/11 10:54 AM Page iii The Jefferson-Hemings Controversy Report of the Scholars Commission Edited by Robert F. Turner Carolina Academic Press Durham, North Carolina turner 00 fmt auto cx 3 4/15/11 5:36 AM Page iv Copyright © 2001, 2011 Robert F. Turner All Rights Reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Scholars Commission on the Jefferson-Hemings Matter. The Jefferson-Hemings controversy : report of the Scholars Commission / edited by Robert F. Turner. p. cm. ISBN 978-0-89089-085-1 (alk. paper) 1. Jefferson, Thomas, 1743–1826--Relations with women. 2. Hemings, Sally. 3. Jef- ferson, Thomas, 1743–1826--Relations with slaves. 4. Jefferson, Thomas, 1743–1826-- Family. I. Turner, Robert F. II. Title. E332.2.S35 2010 973.4'6092--dc22 2010031551 Carolina Academic Press 700 Kent Street Durham, NC 27701 Telephone (919) 489-7486 Fax (919) 493-5668 www.cap-press.com Printed in the United States of America turner 00 fmt auto cx 3 3/17/11 10:54 AM Page v This book is dedicated to the memory of our beloved colleagues Professor Lance Banning Hallam Professor of History University of Kentucky (January 24, 1942–January 31, 2006) and Professor Alf J. Mapp, Jr. Eminent Scholar, Emeritus and Louis I. Jaffe Professor of History, Emeritus Old Dominion University (February 17, 1925–January 23, 2011) turner 00 fmt auto cx 3 3/17/11 10:54 AM Page vii Contents Preface xiii Acknowledgments xv Members of the Scholars Commission xvii Scholars Commission on The Jefferson-Hemings Matter, Report 12 April 2001 3 Summary
    [Show full text]
  • HIS 100: Introduction to Historical Methods: the World of Thomas Jefferson Fall 2010 Professor T. Slaughter Tuesday and Thursday
    HIS 100: Introduction to Historical Methods: The World of Thomas Jefferson Fall 2010 Professor T. Slaughter Tuesday and Thursday RR Library 456, 9:40-10:55. Office hours: Tuesday and Thursday 11-noon, and by appointment. 369B RR; 273-2799 [email protected] Thomas Jefferson is an ideal focus for discussions of the range of subjects that fascinated him, from gardening to food, wine, women, education, politics, philosophy, architecture, and plantation management. He provides an exquisite example of Enlightenment culture during the age of revolutions, and of a Founding Father who, as Secretary of State, Vice President, and President attempted to implement the revolutionary and constitutional principles on which the United States was founded. His private correspondence and public papers, his published writings and private musings, give access to Jefferson’s inner landscape as well as the world in which he lived. Through films, non-fiction and fiction, and primary source documents relating to case studies—The Declaration of Independence and its contrast to Thomas Paine’s Common Sense; the Burr Conspiracy; and Jefferson’s relationship with his slave Sally Hemings—we will explore historical research and interpretation, both our own and that of other historians. In particular, we will look at some of the ways that historical research can go wrong, and how historical writing is always a reflection of perspectives rather than of gathered facts, of interpretations rather than recovery, of creativity rather than objective engagement with sources. Your grades will be based on attendance; active, knowledgeable participation in class discussions; and three papers that you will re-write after the first drafts are returned to you.
    [Show full text]
  • Life Stage Information Sheet: Born Into Slavery and Inherited by Jefferson
    Life Stage Information Sheet: Born into Slavery and Inherited by Jefferson Sally Hemings’s story began before her birth in 1773. Her mother, Elizabeth Hemings, was the daughter of an African slave and an English sea captain named Hemings. From Captain Hemings, Elizabeth and her future children received their surname. Captain Hemings made multiple efforts to purchase Elizabeth, but her owner, John Wayles, refused to sell the girl. As a result, Elizabeth grew up subject to Wayles’s authority in every matter. After the deaths of three wives, Wayles took Elizabeth to be his “concubine.” Concubine, a term used by Betty’s grandson, Madison Hemings, meant that he held her in a sexual relationship without the prospect of marriage or legal recognition. The pair produced six children named Robert, James, Thenia, Critta, Peter, and Sally. Therefore, Sally was born into a Virginia plantation culture where inter-racial and extra-marital relationships were common. In 1773, just after Sally’s birth, John Wayles died and Thomas Jefferson, Wayles’s son-in-law, relocated the Hemings family to his plantation, Monticello. Jefferson married Martha Wayles Skelton in 1772, and by this marriage, he gained the legal rights to Elizabeth, Sally, and the rest of the Hemings family. Therefore, despite being Martha Jefferson’s half-sister, Sally became a housemaid at Monticello. Sally was nine years old and present when her half-sister and mistress died in 1782. After you read through the profile, consider these points about this stage in Sally’s life: 1. What might Sally have thought about serving her half-sister? 2.
    [Show full text]
  • Monticello William Morrow
    Reading Guide Monticello William Morrow By Sally Cabot Gunning ISBN: 9780062320438 Introduction From the critically acclaimed author of The Widow's War comes a captivating work of literary historical fiction that explores the tenuous relationship between a brilliant and complex father and his devoted daughter—Thomas Jefferson and Martha Jefferson Randolph. After the death of her beloved mother, Martha Jefferson spent five years abroad with her father, Thomas Jefferson, on his first diplomatic mission to France. Now, at seventeen, Jefferson’s bright, handsome eldest daughter is returning to the lush hills of the family’s beloved Virginia plantation, Monticello. While the large, beautiful estate is the same as she remembers, Martha has changed. The young girl that sailed to Europe is now a woman with a heart made heavy by a first love gone wrong. The world around her has also become far more complicated than it once seemed. The doting father she idolized since childhood has begun to pull away. Moving back into political life, he has become distracted by the tumultuous fight for power and troubling new attachments. The home she adores depends on slavery, a practice Martha abhors. But Monticello is burdened by debt, and it cannot survive without the labor of her family’s slaves. The exotic distant cousin she is drawn to has a taste for dangerous passions, dark desires that will eventually compromise her own. As her life becomes constrained by the demands of marriage, motherhood, politics, scandal, and her family’s increasing impoverishment, Martha yearns to find her way back to the gentle beauty and quiet happiness of the world she once knew at the top of her father’s “little mountain.” Questions for Discussion 1.
    [Show full text]
  • The Myth of Tom and Sally by Kathryn Moore and D
    The Washington Times, January 8, 1999, A19 The Myth of Tom and Sally by Kathryn Moore and D. M. Giangreco Genetic scientists recently concluded that Thomas Jefferson likely fathered the last child of Sally Hemings, one of his slaves. Because of their findings, some now say that he should be removed from Mount Rushmore; others demand a revision of Jefferson’s place in history. What textbooks say about the life of Jefferson may, however, be little affected by the genetic research because of a wider range of facts that figure into the story. Sally Hemings was a slave in the household of Thomas Jefferson. His wife, upon her father’s death, inherited Sally, her mother and siblings. They were members of the Jefferson slave household by 1774. Madison Hemings, Sally’s son told a reporter in 1873 that her mother Elizabeth was a slave concubine of John Wayles, Thomas Jefferson’s father-in-law and stated that Elizabeth was the daughter of a slave and a slave ship captain. Sally was actually a year younger than Jefferson’s eldest daughter Martha and thirty years younger than Jefferson. In 1787, fourteen year-old Sally served as a last-minute replacement as the personal servant of nine-year-old Mary Jefferson when she traveled from Virginia to France to be reunited with her father and elder sister Martha. She stayed with the family in Paris then returned with them to Virginia two years later. From 1795 to 1808, Sally Hemings bore five children who were accounted for at Monticello. She continued to live and work there as a household slave until Jefferson’s death.
    [Show full text]
  • The Paris of Thomas Jefferson a Customthomas SEMINAR with Jefferson ANNETTE GORDON-REED
    The Paris of Thomas Jefferson A CUSTOMThomas SEMINAR WITH Jefferson ANNETTE GORDON-REED May 20–27, 2018 Legion of Honor, Hotel de Salm (TCY) This custom-designed travel program has been created uniquely for: Legion of Honor / Hôtel de Salm (JLPC) Led by historian and author Annette Gordon-Reed, immerse yourself in late 18th-century Paris and trace the footsteps of Thomas Jefferson, Sally Hemings, and other early Americans, reliving their encounters and triumphs, and visiting the places that inspired them. During the very formative years of the United States of America, many of our Founding Fathers found themselves thousands of miles from home in Paris, France. Their subtle diplomacy to the French court was key in obtaining military support and, later, helping our new nation gain a solid footing on the international scene. Perhaps foremost among these leaders was Thomas Jefferson, who spent five years in the City of Lights, mostly as American Minister to France. Jefferson was in Paris at a fascinating and volatile time, with the winds of reform buffeting the ancient royal court, although few imagined the cataclysmic events of the French Revolution that were just around the corner. While in Paris, Jefferson exchanged ideas with preeminent French thinkers and experts about political economy, the fine arts, agriculture, trade, and fine food and wine. He also spent ample amounts of time with Sally Hemings, who arrived in Paris midway through Jefferson’s time there. This unique tour allows alumni and friends of Dartmouth College and Harvard University to experience the Paris in which Jefferson, Hemings, and their early American contemporaries lived—tracing their footsteps, reliving their encounters and triumphs, retelling personal anecdotes in the very places they occurred and visiting the places that inspired them.
    [Show full text]
  • Claiming Our Foremothers: the Legend of Sally Hemings and the Tasks of Black Feminist Theory
    University at Buffalo School of Law Digital Commons @ University at Buffalo School of Law Journal Articles Faculty Scholarship Fall 1997 Claiming Our Foremothers: The Legend of Sally Hemings and the Tasks of Black Feminist Theory Stephanie L. Phillips University at Buffalo School of Law Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.law.buffalo.edu/journal_articles Part of the Gender and Sexuality Commons, Law Commons, and the Race and Ethnicity Commons Recommended Citation Stephanie L. Phillips, Claiming Our Foremothers: The Legend of Sally Hemings and the Tasks of Black Feminist Theory, 8 Hastings Women's L.J. 401 (1997). Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.buffalo.edu/journal_articles/270 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Scholarship at Digital Commons @ University at Buffalo School of Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal Articles by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ University at Buffalo School of Law. For more information, please contact [email protected]. CLAIMING OUR FOREMOTHERS: THE LEGEND OF SALLY HEMINGS AND THE TASKS OF BLACK FEMINST THEORY Stephanie L. Phillips * TABLE OF CONTENTS I. INTRODUCTION II. THE LEGEND OF SALLY HEMINGS A. THE DRAMA UNFOLDS B. WHAT SEQUEL SHALL I WRITE? III. PRIMEVAL STORIES ABOUT BLACK WOMEN AND WHITE MEN DURING "SLAVERY TIME" A. DESCRIPTION OF THE PROJECT B. THE STORIES 1. FirstPrimeval Story: Slave Hates Master; Master Takes Sex by Brutality/Rape/Coercion a. Celia (First Version) b. Mary Peters; Tempe Pitts c. Harriet (Slave-of-the-Smiths) d. Harriet Jacobs e. Summary: Themes of the Hate Story 2.
    [Show full text]
  • 1. Application Narrative
    Slavery at Jefferson’s Monticello: Paradox of Liberty NEH Grant Application 1. Application Narrative 1(A) Abstract Slavery at Jefferson’s Monticello: Paradox of Liberty is an exhibition that uses Monticello, the home and plantation of Thomas Jefferson, as a lens through which to explore the dilemma of slavery and the lives of the enslaved families and their descendants. Given the relevance and popularity of this landmark exhibition, initially launched in 2012 in partnership with the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation at Monticello (TJF) requests funding to update Slavery at Jefferson’s Monticello with new content – including a feature on Sally Hemings – and launch a new national tour to four African American museums. TJF also plans a “pop-up” exhibition that will travel to libraries and schools. Slavery at Jefferson’s Monticello presents Monticello as a microcosm of the American story – a lens through which to understand the complicated dynamics of our founding, and the ways in which slavery continues to shape our nation. 1(B) Nature of the Request “What do the stories of the enslaved and their descendants have to do with race relations today? Everything. People who don't know their history and culture are like a tree without roots. Slavery is part of that history, some of it rooted here at Monticello. Slavery and its consequences, including Jim Crow, segregation and disenfranchisement, continue to cast a shadow over every American. It impacts how we live and, too often,
    [Show full text]
  • The Sally Hemings Story
    Such Is the Story That Comes Down to Me My Hemings Family My Oral History Lesson I can remember intently listening to the story of my maternal ancestors as told by my grandmother, great-aunt, and mother. In hushed tones they told my sister and I of our very special five-times great-grandmother. Her name was Sarah "Sally" Hemings. She had a secret relationship with a very prominent gentlemen named TJ. They had four children who survived their childhood, becoming thriving adults. I didn't realize until the third grade just how prominent TJ was. Imagine when I realized our TJ was the third president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson. The story did not dwell on the fact that Sally and her children were enslaved, but instead focused on their talents and skills that helped them survive. My task was to keep the story alive, to pass it on, to be proud of my roots, to make my ancestors proud. Great-great-grandmother Emma Jane Byrd Great-grandmother Ella Mae Young Grandmother Emma Lee Cooper Mother Emma Jane Dalton My sister, brother and I are keepers of the story. We are passing it on to my nephew. Thomas Jefferson’s Legacy April 13, 1743 - July 4, 1826 United States statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, and Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. • Author of the Declaration of Independence • Author of the Statute of Virginia Religious Freedom • Second Governor of Virginia • Minister to France • First Secretary of State • Second Vice President • Founder of the University of Virginia Thomas
    [Show full text]
  • Chronology from Thomas Jefferson: Writings, Edited by Merrill D
    Thomas Jefferson: Chronology From Thomas Jefferson: Writings, edited by Merrill D. Peterson. The Library of America, 1984. Revised November 2011. Copyright © 2011 Literary Classics of the U.S., Inc. Chronology 1743 Born April 13 (April 2, Old Style) at Shadwell, Goochland (now Albemarle) County, Virginia, fi rst son (third of ten children) of Peter Jeff erson, surveyor, landowner, mapmaker, and magistrate, and Jane Randolph, a member of the most prominent land-owning and offi ce-holding family of colo- nial Virginia. 1745 Death of William Randolph (Jane Randolph Jeff erson’s cousin) leaves three orphaned children, among them Thom- as Mann Randolph. Peter Jeff erson, fulfi lling the request made in Randolph’s will, becomes their guardian, occupies the family mansion, and manages the plantation at Tuckahoe on the James River above Richmond. Thomas spends six years there, and with his sisters and cousins attends the one- room plantation schoolhouse, where he is tutored privately. 1752 Returns with family to Shadwell, and enters a Latin school conducted by the Reverend William Douglas, of Scot- land. 1757 Father dies. 1758–60 Attends school of the Reverend James Maury, “a correct classical scholar,” and boards with Maury’s family in Freder- icksville; rides twelve miles home each weekend. 1760–62 Attends College of William and Mary, at Williamsburg, study- ing particularly with the professor of mathematics, William Small of Scotland, the only layman on a faculty of Anglican clerics; Small’s teaching is rational and scientifi c, and his infl u- ence, Jeff erson later wrote, “probably fixed the destinies of my life.” 1762–67 Studies law under the direction of George Wythe, a man of considerable learning, later a signer of the Declaration of Independence, fi rst professor of law at William and Mary, and Chancellor of Virginia.
    [Show full text]