Thomas Jefferson . Third President of the United States . Author of the Declaration of Independence. Despite possessing a vast culture and writing an important document on individual liberties and human rights, he was a fervent defender of slavery and himself a slave owner.
He was always a promoter of the expansion of the United States , considering especially Cuba as the most interesting addition that they could make to their state system .
Summary
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- 1 Biography
- 1 Early years
- 2 Political life
- 3 Vice-presidency and presidency
- 4 Death
- 2 Sources
Biography
Early years
Thomas Jefferson was born in Shadwell (Virginia) on April 13 , 1743 , into a wealthy family. His mother, Jane Randolph, was the daughter of Isham Randolph, a sea captain and former landowner, first cousin of Peyton Randolph, a descendant of the English and Scottish aristocracy. Jefferson’s father, Peter Jefferson, was an Albemarle County landowner and surveyor.
In 1752 , Jefferson began attending a local school run by William Douglas, a Scotsman. At the age of nine, Jefferson began studying Latin, Greek, and French. In 1757 , when he was 14 years old, his father died. Jefferson inherited some 5,000 acres (20 km²) of land and dozens of slaves. He built his home there, which in time became known as Monticello.
In his book Notes on the State of Virginia , he said that blacks were lazy animals. He argued that they were inferior in everything to whites and that, therefore, they were condemned to slavery. The great difference between white and black, according to him, was marked by nature, that is, it was innate, and did not depend on freedom or education.
For him the white race was only made up of some subdivisions of the Caucasian race, such as the Germanic, Alpine and Nordic races, and did not include the Mediterranean, Semitic, Turánida, Iranida or others. In other words, for him, Italians, Spanish, Greeks, Portuguese, Turks, Iranians, Jews, Latin Americans of European descent, and other peoples, were not white.
He enrolled in the school of philosophy and studied mathematics , metaphysics, and philosophy. In college he was a member of a secret organization called the FHC Society.
Political life
Thomas Jefferson Signature.
After graduating in 1762 with high honors, he passed the test with law professor George Wythe which allowed him to be admitted as a Virginia lawyer in 1767 . Jefferson represented Albemarle County in the Virginia House of Citizens beginning in 1769 . In that year he began to participate in politics defending religious tolerance and equal public education. When the conflict between Great Britain and its thirteen North American colonies worsened , Jefferson defended the rights of these, publishing an essay of radical cut ( Brief analysis of the rights of British America , 1774 ).
In June 1775 he was elected Virginia delegate to the Second Continental Congress, shortly after the outbreak of the American War of Independence . They were at that congress Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania and John Hancock of Massachusetts . There he distinguished himself as a speaker and as the author of political statements.
Because of these gifts he was appointed along with Benjamin Franklin, John Adams , Robert R. Livingston and Roger Sherman to draft a declaration of independence to accompany Richard Henry Lee’s resolution , the Declaration of Independence .
Jefferson drafted the statement in consultation with other members of the commission, taking as a reference his own proposal for the Virginia Constitution and also George Mason’s draft of the Virginia Bill of Rights, among other sources. Some changes were then made to the document and it was then presented to Congress on June 28 , 1776 .
In September 1776, Jefferson returned to Virginia and was elected to the new state assembly. He drafted 126 bills in three years, including laws to abolish primogeniture, establish freedom of religion and streamline the judicial system.
He was governor of the new state of Virginia from 1779 to 1781 . As governor, he oversaw the transfer of the state capital from Williamsburg to Richmond in 1780 , during the War of Independence.
The Virginia Assembly appointed the Congress of the Confederacy to represent the state on June 6 , 1783 , for the period that would begin on November 1 . In Congress, he was a member of the committee in charge of setting currency exchange rates, and for this reason, he recommended that the US currency should be based on the decimal system. He left Congress when he was elected Ambassador to France in 1785 .
After returning from France, Jefferson was George Washington’s first Secretary of State ( 1790 – 1793 ). Together with James Madison, he founded and led the Democratic-Republican Party . Contrary to many views of Washington and Madison, he retired in late 1793 to Monticello, his home.
Vice Presidency and Presidency
He lost to John Adams the presidential elections in 1796 , becoming vice president. He won the elections in 1800 and 1804 , so he was president between 1801 and 1809 .
Jefferson favored the future expansion of the United States , by acquiring the vast territory of Louisiana from France ( 1803 ). The Constitution did not empower the President or Congress to alter the size of the country, whether by purchase or sale. Congress had to meet in full, and its two-thirds had to pass a Constitutional Amendment creating those powers, but it was not done. There was a great dissension in the House and Jefferson was accused of placing himself above the Constitution, but, finally, the purchase was approved by 59 votes to 57, with which the House also violated the Basic Law of the country by passing a measure unconstitutional.
Jefferson promoted Lewis and Clark’s westward explorations ( 1804 – 1806 ). Then the bloody persecution of the peaceful native inhabitants, which had begun in the governments of Washington and Adams, especially towards the nations that lived in Virginia, the Carolinas and Georgia, increased.
Jefferson in 1801 provoked known as Barbary Coast War ( War of the Barbary Coast ), an armed conflict between the United States and the states of Morocco , Algeria , Tunisia and the city-state of Tripoli , known as Barbary States . These states were accused of practicing piracy and their leaders responded that the North American ships violated their territorial waters and perpetrated other misdeeds.
At the end of several encounters in which the Tripoli fleet managed to capture the Yankee war frigate Philadelphia , the Tripoli pasha demanded a ransom of $ 225,000 and Jefferson refused. After a series of encounters in which the Americans burned the frigate and then landed on the coast of Tripoli, while several warships bombarded the city, causing dozens of deaths. The war ended in 1805, with the defeat of Tripoli.
In 1805 he officially expressed US interest in Cuba by notifying the British Minister in Washington:
In the event of war between England and Spain , the United States seized Cuba for strategic needs for the defense of Louisiana and Florida .
Jefferson’s influence was so great that on the official map of the United States, published in 1812 , he extended its borders to the south to fully include Cuba.
In June 1823 , he wrote to James Monroe the following:
“We must be willing to receive Cuba when she requests it, because her addition to our Republic is precisely what we need to round out our power.”
On October 24 of the same year he said:
“I candidly confess that I have always looked at Cuba as the most interesting addition that we could make to our State system. The supremacy that that Island and Florida would give us over the Gulf of Mexico and for the neighboring countries, would be enough to complete the measure. of our political welfare. ”
Following the example of Washington, he did not stand for a third reelection and at the end of his term in office in 1809 he retired to Monticello.
Death
Jefferson died on 4 of July of 1826 , hours before John Adams, his compatriot in seeking independence, then great political rival and later friend and correspondent.
