What did Thomas Jefferson do?

Question

i know he was an inventor and architect, but what about a statesman? I also know he wrote the declaration of independence, but what else? Please help. :) Thank you!~

Answer 1

Thomas Jefferson (13 April 1743 – 4 July 1826)[1] was the third President of the United States (1801–1809), the principal author of the Declaration of Independence (1776), and one of the most influential Founding Fathers for his promotion of the ideals of Republicanism in the United States. Major events during his presidency include the Louisiana Purchase (1803) and the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804–1806).

As a political philosopher, Jefferson was a man of the Enlightenment and knew many intellectual leaders in Britain and France. He idealized the independent yeoman farmer as exemplar of republican virtues, distrusted cities and financiers, and favored states' rights and a strictly limited federal government. Jefferson supported the separation of church and state and was the author of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom (1779, 1786). He was the eponym of Jeffersonian democracy and the co-founder and leader of the Democratic-Republican Party, which dominated American politics for a quarter-century and was the precursor of the modern-day Democratic Party. Jefferson served as the wartime Governor of Virginia (1779–1781), first United States Secretary of State (1789–1793) and second Vice President (1797–1801).

A polymath, Jefferson achieved distinction as, among other things, a horticulturist, statesman, architect, archaeologist, paleontologist, author, inventor and founder of the University of Virginia. When President John F. Kennedy welcomed forty-nine Nobel Prize winners to the White House in 1962 he said, "I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent and of human knowledge that has ever been gathered together at the White House—with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone."[2]

Political career from 1774 to 1800

Rudolph Evans' statue of Jefferson with the Declaration of Independence preamble to the right
Colonial legislator
Jefferson practiced law and served in the Virginia House of Burgesses. In 1774, he wrote A Summary View of the Rights of British America, which was intended as instructions for the Virginia delegates to a national congress. The pamphlet was a powerful argument of American terms for a settlement with Britain. It helped speed the way to independence, and marked Jefferson as one of the most thoughtful patriot spokesmen.


The Second Continental Congress
Jefferson was the primary author of the Declaration of Independence and a contributor to American political and civil culture. The Continental Congress delegated the task of writing the Declaration to a Committee of Five that unanimously solicited Jefferson, considered the best writer, to write the first draft, which underwent some alteration, but remained largely Jefferson's work.


State legislator
In September 1776, Jefferson returned to Virginia and was elected to the new Virginia House of Delegates. During his term in the House, Jefferson set out to reform and update Virginia's system of laws to reflect its new status as a democratic state. He drafted 126 bills in three years, including laws to abolish primogeniture, establish freedom of religion, and streamline the judicial system. In 1778, Jefferson's "Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge" led to several academic reforms at his alma mater, including an elective system of study — the first in an American university
Governor of Virginia
Jefferson served as governor of Virginia from 1779–1781. As governor, he oversaw the transfer of the state capitol from Williamsburg to the more central location of Richmond in 1780. He continued to advocate educational reforms at the College of William and Mary, including the nation's first student-policed honor code. In 1779, at Jefferson's behest, William and Mary appointed George Wythe to be the first professor of law in an American university. Dissatisfied with the rate of changes he wanted to push through, he later became the founder of the University of Virginia, which was the first university at which higher education was completely separate from religious doctrine.

Virginia was invaded twice by the British during Jefferson's term as governor. He, along with Patrick Henry and other Virginia Patriot leaders, were but ten minutes away from being captured by Banastre Tarleton, a British colonel leading a cavalry column that was raiding the area in June 1781.[6] Public disapproval of his performance delayed his future political prospects, and he was never again elected to office in Virginia.[7]
Minister to France

Memorial plaque on the Champs-Élysées, Paris, France, marking where Jefferson lived while he was Minister to France. The plaque was erected after World War I to commemorate the centenary of Jefferson's founding of the University of Virginia.Because Jefferson served as minister to France from 1785 to 1789, he was not able to attend the Constitutional Convention. He generally supported the new constitution despite the lack of a Bill of Rights and was kept informed by his correspondence with James Madison.

While in Paris, he lived in a residence on the Champs-Élysées.


Secretary of State
After returning from France, Jefferson served as the first Secretary of State under George Washington (1789–1793). Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton began sparring over national fiscal policy, especially the funding of the debts of the war, with Hamilton believing that the debts should be equally shared, and Jefferson believing that each state should be responsible for its own debt (Virginia had not accumulated much debt during the Revolution). In further sparring with the Federalists, Jefferson came to equate Hamilton and the rest of the Federalists with Tories and monarchists who threatened to undermine republicanism. He equated Federalism with "Royalism," and made a point to state that "Hamiltonians were panting after...and itching for crowns, coronets and mitres".[8] Jefferson and James Madison founded and led the Democratic-Republican Party. He worked with Madison and his campaign manager John J. Beckley to build a nationwide network of Republican allies to combat Federalists across the country.

Jefferson strongly supported France against Britain when war broke out between those nations in 1793. Historian Lawrence S. Kaplan notes Jefferson's "visceral support for the French cause," while agreeing with Washington that the nation should not get involved in the fighting.[9] The arrival in 1793 of an aggressive new French minister, Citizen Genêt, caused a crisis for the Secretary of State, as he watched Genêt try to violate American neutrality, manipulate public opinion, and even go over Washington's head in appealing to the people; projects that Jefferson helped to thwart. According to Schachner, Jefferson believed that political success at home depended on the success of the French army in Europe:[10]


Thomas Jefferson, aquatint by Tadeusz KościuszkoJefferson still clung to his sympathies with France and hoped for the success of her arms abroad and a cordial compact with her at home. He was afraid that any French reverses on the European battlefields would give "wonderful vigor to our monocrats, and unquestionably affect the tone of administering our government. Indeed, I fear that if this summer should prove disastrous to the French, it will damp that energy of republicanism in our new Congress, from which I had hoped so much reformation."

A break from office
Jefferson at the end of 1793 retired to Monticello where he continued to orchestrate opposition to Hamilton and Washington. However, the Jay Treaty of 1794, orchestrated by Hamilton, brought peace and trade with Britain — while Madison, with strong support from Jefferson, wanted, Miller says, "to strangle the former mother country" without actually going to war. "It became an article of faith among Republicans that 'commercial weapons' would suffice to bring Great Britain to any terms the United States chose to dictate." Jefferson, in retirement, strongly encouraged Madison.[11]


The 1796 election and Vice Presidency
As the Republican candidate in 1796 he lost to John Adams, but had enough electoral votes to become Vice President (1797–1801). He wrote a manual of parliamentary procedure, but otherwise avoided the Senate.


Portrait of Thomas Jefferson by Rembrandt Peale, 1800With the Quasi-War, an undeclared naval war with France, underway, the Federalists under John Adams started a navy, built up the army, levied new taxes, readied for war, and enacted the Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798. Jefferson interpreted the Alien and Sedition Acts as an attack on his party more than on dangerous enemy aliens; they were used to attack his party, with the most notable attacks coming from Matthew Lyon, congressman of Vermont. He and Madison rallied support by anonymously writing the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, which declared that the federal government had no right to exercise powers not specifically delegated to it by the states. The Resolutions meant that, should the federal government assume such powers, its acts under them could be voided by a state. The Resolutions presented the first statements of the states' rights theory, that later led to the concepts of nullification and interposition.


The election of 1800
Working closely with Aaron Burr of New York, Jefferson rallied his party, attacking the new taxes especially, and stood for the Presidency in 1800. Consistent with the traditions of the times, he did not formally campaign for the position. Prior to the passage of the 12th Amendment, a problem with the new union's electoral system arose. He tied with Burr for first place in the Electoral College, leaving the House of Representatives (where the Federalists still had some power) to decide the election.

After lengthy debate within the Federalist-controlled House, Hamilton convinced his party that Jefferson would be a lesser political evil than Burr and that such scandal within the electoral process would undermine the still-young regime. The issue was resolved by the House, on 17 February 1801 after thirty-six ballots, when Jefferson was elected President and Burr Vice President. Burr's refusal to remove himself from consideration created ill will with Jefferson, who dropped Burr from the ticket in 1804 after Burr killed Hamilton in a duel.


Presidency 1801–1809

Answer 2

What Did Thomas Jefferson Do

Answer 3

He was a magnificent mind; his methods of crop rotation and farming to save the earth from depletion are used to this day;

he traveled, wrote, and observed everything about everyday life in our country and foreign nations; and took the best of what he learned and adapted those things to our lives to make them easier.

he invented the ice cream freezer we use to make home made ice cream! yum

thomas jefferson was called the Renaissance Man for a very good reason. He was the most well rounded versatile and intelligent leader this country has ever known.

The only other president to come close was W.J. Clinton.

President Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), one of Virginia's largest planters, considered agriculture to be "a science of the very first order," and he studied it with great zeal and commitment. Jefferson introduced numerous plants to the United States, and he frequently exchanged farming advice and seeds with like-minded correspondents. Of particular interest to the innovative Jefferson was farm machinery, especially the development of a plow which would delve deeper than the two to three inches achieved by a standard wooden plow.

Jefferson was a magnificent Architect, who designed and oversaw the building of the University of Virginia. Something he considered his greatest accomplishment.

He was always looking at labor saving devices; such as the swivel chair he invented, to save time and space

He made a macaroni machine in 1791 or so,
with holes from which dough could be extruded

Jefferson not only served his guests the best European wines, but dazzled them with delights such as ice cream, peach flambe, macaroni, and macaroons.

Jefferson was instrumental in the Patent office so that inventors could keep the rights to those things they invented.

He also developed a cipher machine to develop and to decode coded material.

Answer 4

I'll say one thing - Jefferson was a multi-faceted man and you could often contradict one quote of Jefferson's with another quote of Jefferson's. That is what I learned in AP US History. Peace!

Answer 5

According to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson
"Thomas Jefferson (13 April 1743 – 4 July 1826)[1] was the third President of the United States (1801–1809), the principal author of the Declaration of Independence (1776), and one of the most influential Founding Fathers for his promotion of the ideals of Republicanism in the United States. Major events during his presidency include the Louisiana Purchase (1803) and the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804–1806).

As a political philosopher, Jefferson was a man of the Enlightenment and knew many intellectual leaders in Britain and France. He idealized the independent yeoman farmer as exemplar of republican virtues, distrusted cities and financiers, and favored states' rights and a strictly limited federal government. Jefferson supported the separation of church and state and was the author of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom (1779, 1786). He was the eponym of Jeffersonian democracy and the co-founder and leader of the Democratic-Republican Party, which dominated American politics for a quarter-century and was the precursor of the modern-day Democratic Party. Jefferson served as the wartime Governor of Virginia (1779–1781), first United States Secretary of State (1789–1793) and second Vice President (1797–1801).

A polymath, Jefferson achieved distinction as, among other things, a horticulturist, statesman, architect, archaeologist, paleontologist, author, inventor and founder of the University of Virginia. When President John F. Kennedy welcomed forty-nine Nobel Prize winners to the White House in 1962 he said, "I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent and of human knowledge that has ever been gathered together at the White House—with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.""

He also appointed 3 Supreme Court Judges and Ohio became a state on his watch, he founded the University of Virginia. He was a governer and state legislator for Virginia and he donated his book collection to start the Libray of Congress. Edgar Allen Poe was one of the students that Jefferson invited into his home.

"He has sometimes been called the "father of archeology" in recognition of his role in developing excavation techniques."

"After the British burned Washington, D.C. and the Library of Congress in August 1814, Jefferson offered his own collection to the nation. In January 1815, Congress accepted his offer, appropriating $23,950 for his 6,487 books, and the foundation was laid for a great national library. Today, the Library of Congress' website for federal legislative information is named THOMAS, in honor of Jefferson."

"Jefferson was a leader in developing Republicanism in the United States."

"His opposition to the Bank of the United States was fierce: "I sincerely believe, with you, that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.""

"Whether Jefferson fathered children with Sally Hemings is the subject of considerable controversy since Jefferson is often believed to be the father of at least some of the children of his slave. In addition, Hemings was likely the half-sister of Jefferson's deceased wife Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson. The allegation that Jefferson fathered children with Hemings first gained widespread public attention in 1802, when controversial journalist James T. Callender, wrote in a Richmond newspaper, "...[Jefferson] keeps and for many years has kept, as his concubine, one of his slaves. Her name is Sally." Jefferson never responded publicly about this issue but is said to have denied it in his private correspondence."

Answer 6

Governor of Virginia, U.S. minister to France, Secretary of State, Revolutionary leader, Purchased Louisiana, Vice-President and President. See below.

Answer 7

Did you know that President Thomas Jefferson ALSO waged war against Islamic Extremism?

Answer 8

He was a president of the United States.......

Answer 9

He was the third president and he died on the 4th of July.

Answer 10

type his name in browser line and choose a site

Answer 11

lead US convension back in the day