JEFFERSON, THOMAS. — American statesman, born in Shadwell (Virginia) on 13 April 1743, died at Monticello (Virginia) on 4 July 1826. For several years he was a lawyer; but he soon emerged as one of the most influential and determined defenders of the rights of the American colonies against England. A delegate to the Virginia Assembly, in 1775 he was elected to the Continental Congress and was entrusted with drafting the Declaration of Independence, the celebrated document by which the colonies broke their ties with the mother country in 1776. Returning to Virginia, he devoted himself to a programme of liberal reforms (separation of Church and State, full religious toleration, etc.) which he himself had formulated. 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 residence in France was of great importance for the development of his thought. Starting from positions connected with the English liberal tradition and only partly deriving from the Enlightenment, J. in France, thanks to his contacts with French thinkers, moved away from Anglo-Saxon legalism and traditionalism to embrace a decidedly rationalist and revolutionary philosophy. Moreover, Europe viewed and judged in the light of the Enlightenment gave him the conviction that in America not only had a new nation been founded, but a new age in the history of humanity had been inaugurated: the secular era of peace, progress, and reason. He returned to his homeland after the beginning of the French Revolution, which he welcomed with jubilation and sought, owing to the prestige he enjoyed among La Fayette and his friends, to steer towards moderate forms; he entered Washington’s cabinet as Secretary of State (1789). The decade that followed witnessed the struggle between the Federalist party, oriented towards conservative solutions in the organization of the state and government under the leadership of a highly capable leader, Alexander Hamilton, and the Republican Party, which J. gathered around himself and to which he gave a decidedly democratic ideological content. The conflict underwent alternating phases, intensified by the reverberations of the French Revolution; it culminated in 1800 with the victory of the Republicans and J.’s election to the presidency of the United States. In 1803 he negotiated the purchase of Luisiana with Napoleon. He left office in 1809.