This document provides a summary of Thomas Jefferson's life and accomplishments in 5 sections: 1. Early Years - Jefferson was born in Virginia and educated at the College of William & Mary where he studied law. He published "A Summary of the Rights of British America" and was a delegate to the Second Continental Congress. 2. Declaration of Independence - Jefferson drafted the Declaration and its key principles of equality and natural rights. It was adopted by Congress in 1776. 3. Later Life - Jefferson contributed to Virginia as a politician and thinker. He advanced separation of church and state through his Statute for Religious Freedom. He later served as Vice President and President. 4. Criticism -

2. Jefferson
Justice & Power, session ix

4. Topics in This Session
i. Introduction
ii.Early Years
iii.Declaration of Independence; June, 1776
iv.Later Life
v.Criticism

5. Introduction

7. The Fiftieth Anniversary--1824
The vicious campaign of 1800 had divided the second and third
presidents. In 1812, at the persistent urging of their mutual friend
Benjamin Rush, the two reconciled. Their correspondence was a great
consolation to both in their twilight years. As the fiftieth anniversary
of the Declaration of Independence approached, both old men
reflected on this joint endeavor of their youth. Both struggled to
hang on to life until the great day. Jefferson asked at 8 pm July 3rd “Is
it the 4th yet?”
“Almost.”
He passed away at 10 minutes before 1 pm the next day , at age 83, a
few hours before John Adams, whose last words were “Jefferson
survives.”

8. He had made directions for his funeral: no invitations, no
celebration or parade. He wished to be buried at
Monticello. He wrote his own epitaph which includes no
reference to his presidency:
HERE WAS BURIED THOMAS JEFFERSON
AUTHOR OF THE DECLARATION OF
AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE
OF THE STATUTE OF VIRGINIA FOR RELIGIOUS
FREEDOM
AND FATHER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA

9. Jefferson’s grave at Monticello

10. Early Years

11. Early Years

12. II. Early Years
1. family and society
2. William and Mary College, 1760-62
a. Geo. Wythe and “reading for the law”
b. bar, 1767
3. House of Burgesses, 1769
4. A Summary of the View of the Rights of British America, 1774

13. 1743-third of ten children, born on the western frontier of
Virginia
his father was a planter, surveyor, and speculator
1752-having been home schooled, at age nine,Thomas began
studies at the local school of a Scottish Presbyterian minister.
Latin, Greek, French, equestrianism, nature
1758-1760-boarded nearby with Rev. James Maury. Studied
history, science, and the classics
1762-age sixteen, went east to attend the College of William
and Mary at the colonial capital, Williamsburg

14. II.2.a. & b. Williamsburg
1781 map
governor’s palace
college
George
Wythe
house House
of
Burgesses

15. College of William & Mary
The Wren Building-front

16. College of William & Mary
The Wren Building-rear

17. The Governor’s Palace

18. George Wythe House
Jefferson’s law professor

19. House of Burgesses
Williamsburg

20. House of Burgesses
Interior

21. II.4. A Summary of the View of the Rights of British America, 1774
while still a young lawyer in Williamsburg Jefferson
published this pamphlet which made the legal
argument for Independence
June, 1776-age 32, sent as a Virginia delegate to the
Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia
John Adams picked this young man to be part of the
committee to draft the Declaration largely on the
reputation which his “Summary…” had earned for him
throughout the colonies

22. Declaration of
Independence

23. Declaration of
Independence

24. Declaration of
Independence

25. With five simple words in the Declaration of Independence---”all
men are created equal”---Thomas Jefferson undid Aristotle’s ancient
formula, which had governed human affairs until 1776: “From the
hour of their birth, some men are marked out for subjection, others
for rule.” In his original draft of the Declaration, in soaring, damning,
fiery prose, Jefferson denounced the slave trade as an “execrable
commerce...this assemblage of horrors,” a “cruel war against human
nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberties.” As
historian John Chester Miller put it, “The inclusion of Jefferson’s
strictures on slavery and the slave trade would have committed the
United States to the abolition of slavery.”
Henry Wiencek, “Master of Monticello,” in Smithsonian, October 2012, p. 40

26. III. Declaration of Independence; June, 1776
1. composition and publication
2. content
a. prologue
b. philosophy - memorize (“We...happiness”)
c. indictment
d. conclusion
3. significance
4. criticism

27. III.1. composition and publication
June 11th-Congress appoints the 5-man
committee to draft a declaration
in the next 17 days Jefferson produces a
draft with input from Franklin and Adams
famously, Franklin changed “We hold
these truths to be sacred and un-
deniable” to read “...self-evident”
July 2-4th-Congress first voted to
declare, then spent 3 days debating the
text. The most important concession to
the slave interests was the toning down of
Jefferson’s attack on the “peculiar
institution”
This idealized depiction of (left to right) Franklin, Adams, and
Jefferson working on the Declaration (Jean Leon Gerome
Ferris, 1900) was widely reprinted

28. III. Declaration of Independence; June, 1776
1. composition and publication
2. content
a. prologue
b. philosophy - memorize (“We...happiness”)
c. indictment
d. conclusion
3. significance

29. When in the course of human events...

30. We hold these truths to be self-evident...

31. ----That to secure these rights
Governments are instituted among Men,
deriving their just powers from the
consent of the governed

32. Justice occurs when the governed
consent to the powers which they
assign to government.

33. ----That whenever any Form of
Government becomes destructive of these
ends it is the Right of the People to alter
or abolish it.

34. The history of the present king of Great
Britain...

35. We, therefore, the Representatives of the
united States of America, in General
Congress, Assembled, appealing to the
Supreme Judge of the world ...

36. And for the support of this Declaration,
with a firm reliance on the protection of
divine Providence, we mutually pledge to
each other our Lives, our Fortunes and
our sacred Honor.

37. A non-partisan appreciation for the Declaration emerged in the years following
the War of 1812, thanks to a growing American nationalism and a renewed
interest in the history of the Revolution. In 1817, Congress commissioned John
Trumbull's famous painting of the signers, which was exhibited to large crowds
before being installed in the Capitol. The earliest commemorative printings of
the Declaration also appeared at this time, offering many Americans their first
view of the signed document. Collective biographies of the signers were first
published in the 1820s, giving birth to what Garry Wills called the "cult of the
signers". In the years that followed, many stories about the writing and signing
of the document would be published for the first time.
Wikipedia

38. The five-man committee
Livingston
Sherman Franklin
Jefferson
Adams

39. French leaders were directly influenced by the text of the Declaration of Independence
itself. The Manifesto of the Province of Flanders (1790) was the first foreign derivation
of the Declaration; others include the Venezuelan Declaration of Independence (1811),
the Liberian Declaration of Independence (1847), the declarations of secession by the
Confederate States of America (1860–61), and the Vietnam Declaration of
Independence (1945). These declarations echoed the United States Declaration of
Independence in announcing the independence of a new state, without necessarily
endorsing the political philosophy of the original.
Some other countries that used the Declaration as inspiration or directly copied sections
from it is the Haitian declaration of 1 January 1804 from the Haitian Revolution, the
United Provinces of New Granada in 1811, the Argentine Declaration of Independence
in 1816, the Chilean Declaration of Independence in 1818, Costa Rica in 1821, El
Salvador in 1821, Guatemala in 1821, Honduras in (1821), Mexico in 1821, Nicaragua
in 1821, Peru in 1821, Bolivian War of Independence in 1825, Uruguay in 1825,
Ecuador in 1830, Colombia in 1831, Paraguay in 1842, Dominican Republic in 1844,
Texas Declaration of Independence in March 1836, California Republic in November
1836, Hungarian Declaration of Independence in 1849, Declaration of the Independence
of New Zealand in 1835, Czechoslovak declaration of independence from 1918 drafted
in Washington D.C. with Gutzon Borglum among the drafters, Southern Rhodesia in 11
November 1965.
Wikipedia

40. Later Life

41. Later Life

42. IV. Later Life
1. contributions to Virginia
2. separation of church and state
a. Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, 1786
b. First Amendment, 1791
3. personal learning and education policy
4. national service

43. Notes on the State of Virginia (1785) -- Jefferson completed the first edition
in 1781, and updated and enlarged the book in 1782 and 1783. Notes on the
State of Virginia originated in Jefferson's responding to questions about
Virginia, posed to him in 1780 by the Secretary of the French delegation in
Philadelphia, the temporary capital of the united colonies.
Often dubbed the most important American book published before 1800,
Notes on the State of Virginia is both a compilation of data by Jefferson
about the state's natural resources and economy, and his vigorous and often
eloquent argument about the nature of the good society, which he believed
was incarnated by Virginia. He expressed his beliefs in the separation of
church and state, constitutional government, checks and balances, and
individual liberty. He wrote extensively about slavery, the problems of
miscegenation, and his belief that whites and blacks could not live together in
a free society.
Wikipedia

44. Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of
Christianity, have been burned, tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has
been the effect of this coercion? T make one half the world fools and the
o
other half hypocrites; to support roguery and error all over the earth... Our
sister states of Pennsylvania and New York, however, have long subsisted
without any establishment at all. The experiment was new and doubtful when
they made it. It has answered beyond conception. They flourish infinitely.
Notes on the State of Virginia

45. IV. 2. separation of church and state
People mistakenly believe this is a phrase from the First
Amendment or some other document with the force of law. It is,
instead, contained in a letter to the Baptists of Danbury,
Connecticut in 1802.
Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between
man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or
his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions
only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act
of the whole American people which declared that their legislature
should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of
separation between church and State.

46. IV. 2. a. Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, 1786
As the established state church, the Anglican Church received tax support and no one
could hold office who was not an Anglican. The Presbyterian, Baptist and Methodist
churches did not receive tax support. As Jefferson wrote in his Notes on Virginia, pre-
Revolutionary colonial law held that "if a person brought up a Christian denies the being
of a God, or the Trinity ...he is punishable on the first offense by incapacity to hold any
office ...; on the second by a disability to sue, to take any gift or legacy ..., and by three
year' imprisonment." Prospective officer-holders were required to swear that they did
not believe in the central Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation.
In 1779 Jefferson proposed "The Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom," which was
adopted in 1786. Its goal was complete separation of church and state; it declared the
opinions of men to be beyond the jurisdiction of the civil magistrate. He asserted that
the mind is not subject to coercion, that civil rights have no dependence on religious
opinions, and that the opinions of men are not the concern of civil government. This
became one of the American charters of freedom. This elevated declaration of the
freedom of the mind was hailed in Europe as "an example of legislative wisdom and
liberality never before known."
Wikipedia

48. The Bill of Rights, 1791
(the first ten amendments to the Constitution)

49. Amendment I -- Congress shall make no law respecting an
establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or
abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the
people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a
redress of grievances.

50. IV.4. national service
1775-1776--Second Continental Congress
1783-1785--Confederation Congress
1785-1789--Minister to France
1790-1793--Secretary of State to George Washington
1797-1801--VicePresident to John Adams
1801-1809--President

52. IV.3. personal learning and education policy
at a state dinner JFK once quipped to his guests that
this was the most brilliant gathering of intellect at the
White House since Thomas Jefferson dined alone
after his formal education Jefferson became an auto-
didact
a half dozen languages-learned Gaelic to translate Ossian
architecture
agronomy
mechanical inventions
natural history &c., &c., &c…..

53. University of Virginia

54. University of Virginia

57. Walnut Hills High School
Cincinnati, Ohio

58. Criticism

59. Criticism
dedicated April 13, 1943
the two hundredth anniversary

60. Excerpt
from the
Declaration

64. It’s hard to argue with this demigod of American Civil Religion.
But are “these truths” really “self-evident”?
Is the doctrine of natural law still a useful concept?
Do the “unalienable rights” come from Nature? Nature’s God
(their Creator)?
And the compact/contract theory? with its implied right to
rebellion?
Or was Wilson right?

65. It’s hard to argue with this demigod of American Civil Religion.
But are “these truths” really “self-evident”?
Is the doctrine of natural law still a useful concept?
Do the “unalienable rights” come from Nature? Nature’s God
(their Creator)?
And the compact/contract theory? with its implied right to
rebellion?
Or was Wilson right?
in Hillsdale College, “Constitution 201”, September 17, 2012

66. It’s hard to argue with this demigod of American Civil Religion.
But are “these truths” really “self-evident”?
Is the doctrine of natural law still a useful concept?
Do the “unalienable rights” come from Nature? Nature’s God
(their Creator)?
And the compact/contract theory? with its implied right to
rebellion?
Or was Wilson right?
in Hillsdale College, “Constitution 201”, September 10, 2012

67. this book by Hillsdale College
president Arnn addresses why
today’s Progressives dismiss the
philosophy of the Declaration
why for them the Founders’
philosophy and the Constitution are
obsolete 18th century obstacles to
progress
how the well-intentioned democratic
idealism of the early 20th century
Progressives led them to prefer the
administrative bureaucratic state to
the checks and balances of the 18th
century Constitution
Thomas Nelson, 2012

68. Why should [they] regard the Constitution as odious in principle, an
albatross when it is effective, and for the most part happily irrelevant? ….
The answer has to do with a change in our understanding of rights and
what it takes to protect them. These regulatory agencies are designed to
accommodate an evolutionary standard of rights favored in the academic
world for generations now. In this understanding, the Constitution is
severed from the Declaration, and both are compromised. The
Declaration proclaims rights that are inadequate, and the standards by
which it proclaims them are obsolete. This being so, the Constitution is
simply destroyed. Its arrangements are outmoded and rightly ignored. Its
purposes are rejected, and we are left with nothing except the tide of
history (characterized by supporters of the administrative state as
“progress”) to guide us. In modern America this tide has all the force of
bureaucracy behind it.
Arnn, pp.18-19

69. Last Word
By 1792 Jefferson had gone from “all men are created equal” to
an uneasy accommodation with slavery at Monticello. He wrote
about the profitability of slavery as an investment which
returned a 4% per annum return because of the “natural
increase” of his more than 200 slaves. He was trapped between
his self-indulgent spendthrift lifestyle and his philosophical
moral insight.
In 1800, the mudslinging of the Federalist press against
Jefferson’s challenge to Adams’ reelection makes 2012’s
campaign look like a Platonic dialogue in comparison. Jefferson
(cont.)

70. Last Word (concluded)
In 1800, the mudslinging of the Federalist press against
Jefferson’s challenge to Adams’ reelection makes 2012’s
campaign look like a Platonic dialogue in comparison. Jefferson
had written about the evils of miscegenation. He was accused in
the press and in pamphlets of keeping his slave Sally Hemings as
a concubine and siring children upon her.
But, “let him who is without sin cast the first stone” (Jn, 8, 7 KJV).
Rather, let us examine Jefferson’s eloquent thought which has
inspired so much political good. Let us not commit Aristotle’s
fallacy of argumentum ad hominem (the argument against the
man). It is the philosophy, not the personal failings of its author
which we examine critically.

71. Our democratic revolution led in two ways to an even more
tumultuous one in France a decade later. The French military
aid which enabled us to win our independence bankrupted the
Bourbon monarchy. And the revolutionary idealism brought
back by officers like Lafayette offered an alternative to divine
right absolutism.
But that’s another story...