JEFFERSON, THOMAS. - American statesman, b. at Shadwell (Virginia) on 13 Apr. 1743, d. at Monticello (Virginia) on 4 July 1826. For some years he was a lawyer; but he soon showed himself to be one of the most influential and resolute defenders of the rights of the American colonies against England. A deputy to the Virginia Assembly, in 1775 he was elected to the Continental Congress, and was given the task of drafting the Declaration of Independence, the celebrated document with which the colonies broke their ties with the mother country in 1776. Having returned to Virginia, he exerted himself on behalf of a program of liberal reforms (separation of Church and State, full religious toleration, etc.) which he himself had drawn up. He was governor of the State (1779), once again a delegate to the Continental Congress (1783), and then minister of the new Confederation in Paris (1785).
His stay in France was of great importance for the evolution of his thought. Having started from positions that were linked to the English liberal tradition and only in part derived from the Enlightenment, J. in France, thanks to his contacts with French thinkers, moved away from Anglo-Saxon legalism and traditionalism in order to adhere to a decidedly rationalist and revolutionary philosophy. Moreover, Europe seen and judged in the light of the Enlightenment served to give him the conviction that in America not only had a new nation been founded, but a new age had been inaugurated in the history of humanity: the secular era of peace, progress and reason. Having returned to his homeland after the outbreak of the French Revolution, which he welcomed with exultation and sought to steer, thanks to the prestige he enjoyed with La Fayette and his friends, toward moderate forms, he entered Washington's cabinet as Secretary of State (1789). The decade that followed saw the struggle between the Federalist party, oriented toward conservative solutions in the organization of the State and of the government, under the guidance of a most skillful leader, Alexander Hamilton, and the Republican Party, which J. gathered around himself and to which he gave a decidedly democratic ideological content. The conflict had alternating fortunes, exacerbated by the echoes of the French Revolution; it culminated in 1800 with the victory of the Republicans and the election of J. to the presidency of the United States. In 1803 he negotiated with Napoleon the purchase of Louisiana. He left power in 1809.