new thomas jefferson biography

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Thomas Jefferson

By: History.com Editors

Updated: March 22, 2022 | Original: October 29, 2009

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), author of the Declaration of Independence and the third U.S. president, was a leading figure in America’s early development. During the American Revolutionary War (1775-83), Jefferson served in the Virginia legislature and the Continental Congress and was governor of Virginia. He later served as U.S. minister to France and U.S. secretary of state and was vice president under John Adams (1735-1826). 

Jefferson, a Democratic-Republican who thought the national government should have a limited role in citizens’ lives, was elected president in 1800. During his two terms in office (1801-1809), the U.S. purchased the Louisiana Territory and Lewis and Clark explored the vast new acquisition. Although Jefferson promoted individual liberty, he also enslaved over six hundred people throughout his life. After leaving office, he retired to his Virginia plantation, Monticello, and helped found the University of Virginia.

Thomas Jefferson’s Early Years

Thomas Jefferson was born on April 13, 1743, at Shadwell, a plantation on a large tract of land near present-day Charlottesville, Virginia . His father, Peter Jefferson (1707/08-57), was a successful planter and surveyor and his mother, Jane Randolph Jefferson (1720-76), came from a prominent Virginia family. Thomas was their third child and eldest son; he had six sisters and one surviving brother.

Did you know? In 1815, Jefferson sold his 6,700-volume personal library to Congress for $23,950 to replace books lost when the British burned the U.S. Capitol, which housed the Library of Congress, during the War of 1812. Jefferson's books formed the foundation of the rebuilt Library of Congress's collections.

In 1762, Jefferson graduated from the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, where he reportedly enjoyed studying for 15 hours, then practicing violin for several more hours on a daily basis. He went on to study law under the tutelage of respected Virginia attorney George Wythe (there were no official law schools in America at the time, and Wythe’s other pupils included future Chief Justice John Marshall and statesman Henry Clay ). 

Jefferson began working as a lawyer in 1767. As a member of colonial Virginia’s House of Burgesses from 1769 to 1775, Jefferson, who was known for his reserved manner, gained recognition for penning a pamphlet, “A Summary View of the Rights of British America” (1774), which declared that the British Parliament had no right to exercise authority over the American colonies .

Marriage and Monticello

After his father died when Jefferson was a teen, the future president inherited the Shadwell property. In 1768, Jefferson began clearing a mountaintop on the land in preparation for the elegant brick mansion he would construct there called Monticello (“little mountain” in Italian). Jefferson, who had a keen interest in architecture and gardening, designed the home and its elaborate gardens himself. 

Over the course of his life, he remodeled and expanded Monticello and filled it with art, fine furnishings and interesting gadgets and architectural details. He kept records of everything that happened at the 5,000-acre plantation, including daily weather reports, a gardening journal and notes about his slaves and animals.

On January 1, 1772, Jefferson married Martha Wayles Skelton (1748-82), a young widow. The couple moved to Monticello and eventually had six children; only two of their daughters—Martha (1772-1836) and Mary (1778-1804)—survived into adulthood. In 1782, Jefferson’s wife Martha died at age 33 following complications from childbirth. Jefferson was distraught and never remarried. However, it is believed he fathered more children with one of his enslaved women, Sally Hemings (1773-1835), who was also his wife’s half-sister .

Slavery was a contradictory issue in Jefferson’s life. Although he was an advocate for individual liberty and at one point promoted a plan for the gradual emancipation of slaves in America, he enslaved people throughout his life. Additionally, while he wrote in the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal,” he believed African Americans were biologically inferior to whites and thought the two races could not coexist peacefully in freedom. Jefferson inherited some 175 enslaved people from his father and father-in-law and owned an estimated 600 slaves over the course of his life. He freed only a small number of them in his will; the majority were sold following his death.

Thomas Jefferson and the American Revolution

In 1775, with the American Revolutionary War recently underway, Jefferson was selected as a delegate to the Second Continental Congress. Although not known as a great public speaker, he was a gifted writer and at age 33, was asked to draft the Declaration of Independence (before he began writing, Jefferson discussed the document’s contents with a five-member drafting committee that included John Adams and Benjamin Franklin ). The Declaration of Independence , which explained why the 13 colonies wanted to be free of British rule and also detailed the importance of individual rights and freedoms, was adopted on July 4, 1776.

In the fall of 1776, Jefferson resigned from the Continental Congress and was re-elected to the Virginia House of Delegates (formerly the House of Burgesses). He considered the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, which he authored in the late 1770s and which Virginia lawmakers eventually passed in 1786, to be one of the significant achievements of his career. It was a forerunner to the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution , which protects people’s right to worship as they choose.

From 1779 to 1781, Jefferson served as governor of Virginia, and from 1783 to 1784, did a second stint in Congress (then officially known, since 1781, as the Congress of the Confederation). In 1785, he succeeded Benjamin Franklin (1706-90) as U.S. minister to France. Jefferson’s duties in Europe meant he could not attend the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787; however, he was kept informed of the proceedings to draft a new national constitution and later advocated for including a bill of rights and presidential term limits.

Jefferson's Path to the Presidency

After returning to America in the fall of 1789, Jefferson accepted an appointment from President George Washington (1732-99) to become the new nation’s first secretary of state. In this post, Jefferson clashed with U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton (1755/57-1804) over foreign policy and their differing interpretations of the U.S. Constitution. In the early 1790s, Jefferson, who favored strong state and local government, co-founded the Democratic-Republican Party to oppose Hamilton’s Federalist Party , which advocated for a strong national government with broad powers over the economy.

In the presidential election of 1796, Jefferson ran against John Adams and received the second-highest amount of votes, which, according to the law at the time, made him vice president.

Jefferson ran against Adams again in the presidential election of 1800, which turned into a bitter battle between the Federalists and Democratic-Republicans. Jefferson defeated Adams; however, due to a flaw in the electoral system, Jefferson tied with fellow Democratic-Republican Aaron Burr (1756-1836). The House of Representatives broke the tie and voted Jefferson into office. In order to avoid a repeat of this situation, Congress proposed the Twelfth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which required separate voting for president and vice president. The amendment was ratified in 1804.

Jefferson Becomes Third U.S. President

Jefferson was sworn into office on March 4, 1801; he was the first presidential inauguration held in Washington, D.C. ( George Washington was inaugurated in New York in 1789; in 1793, he was sworn into office in Philadelphia, as was his successor, John Adams, in 1797.) Instead of riding in a horse-drawn carriage, Jefferson broke with tradition and walked to and from the ceremony.

One of the most significant achievements of Jefferson’s first administration was the purchase of the Louisiana Territory from France for $15 million in 1803. At more than 820,000 square miles, the Louisiana Purchase (which included lands extending between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains and the Gulf of Mexico to present-day Canada) effectively doubled the size of the United States. Jefferson then commissioned explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to explore the uncharted land, plus the area beyond, out to the Pacific Ocean. (At the time, most Americans lived within 50 miles of the Atlantic Ocean.)  Lewis and Clark’s expedition , known today as the Corps of Discovery, lasted from 1804 to 1806 and provided valuable information about the geography, American Indian tribes and animal and plant life of the western part of the continent.

In 1804, Jefferson ran for re-election and defeated Federalist candidate Charles Pinckney (1746-1825) of South Carolina with more than 70 percent of the popular vote and an electoral count of 162-14. During his second term, Jefferson focused on trying to keep America out of Europe’s Napoleonic Wars (1803-15). However, after Great Britain and France, who were at war, both began harassing American merchant ships, Jefferson implemented the Embargo Act of 1807. 

The act, which closed U.S. ports to foreign trade, proved unpopular with Americans and hurt the U.S. economy. It was repealed in 1809 and, despite the president’s attempts to maintain neutrality, the U.S. ended up going to war against Britain in the War of 1812. Jefferson chose not to run for a third term in 1808 and was succeeded in office by James Madison (1751-1836), a fellow Virginian and former U.S. secretary of state.

Thomas Jefferson’s Later Years and Death

Jefferson spent his post-presidential years at Monticello, where he continued to pursue his many interests, including architecture, music, reading and gardening. He also helped found the University of Virginia, which held its first classes in 1825. Jefferson was involved with designing the school’s buildings and curriculum and ensured that unlike other American colleges at the time, the school had no religious affiliation or religious requirements for its students.

Jefferson died at age 83 at Monticello on July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. Coincidentally, John Adams, Jefferson’s friend, former rival and fellow signer of the Declaration of Independence, died the same day . Jefferson was buried at Monticello. However, due to the significant debt the former president had accumulated during his life, his mansion, furnishing and enslaved people were sold at auction following his death. Monticello was eventually acquired by a nonprofit organization, which opened it to the public in 1954.

Jefferson remains an American icon. His face appears on the U.S. nickel and is carved into stone at Mount Rushmore . The Jefferson Memorial, near the National Mall in Washington, D.C., was dedicated on April 13, 1943, the 200th anniversary of Jefferson’s birth.

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Books | New Thomas Jefferson biography captures complex…

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Books | new thomas jefferson biography captures complex president in his place and time.

That was April 1962, and that was how Jefferson was then viewed: as a man of astonishingly varied and sophisticated knowledge and accomplishments, a Founding Father to rank beside Washington and Franklin. Then, a dozen years later, came Fawn Brodie’s “Jefferson: An Intimate History,” an inquiry into Jefferson’s relations with his slaves, most specifically the possibility of sexual relations with the house servant Sally Hemings. It sold well for a work of ostensibly serious history, though it aroused passionate indignation among Jefferson loyalists in Virginia and elsewhere, and it set Jefferson on the downhill course he has followed ever since. As John B. Boles says at the outset of this magisterial biography:

“Jefferson’s complexity renders him easy to caricature in popular culture. Particularly in recent years, Jefferson, long the hero of small d as well as capital D democrats, has seen his reputation wane due to his views on race, the revelation of his relationship with Sally Hemings, and his failure to free his own slaves. Once lauded as the champion of the little man, today he is vilified as a hypocritical slave owner, professing a love of liberty while quietly driving his own slaves to labor harder in his pursuit of luxury. Surely an interpretive middle ground is possible, if not necessary. If we hope to understand the enigma that is Thomas Jefferson, we must view him holistically and within the rich context of his time and place. This biography aims to provide that perspective.”

To say that it does so is massive understatement. “Jefferson: Architect of American Liberty” is perhaps the finest one-volume biography of an American president. Boles, a professor of history at Rice University, has spent many years studying Jefferson’s native American South in all its mysteries, contradictions, follies and outrages, as well as its unique contributions to the national culture and literature. This biography is the culmination of a long, distinguished career. I admire it so passionately that, almost 2 1/2 years into a happy retirement, I had no choice except to violate my pledge never again to write another book review.

To his study of this deeply controversial man, Boles brings an ample supply of what has been so lamentably missing in the discussion over the past half-century: a calm insistence on separating truth (so far as we can know it) from rumor and invective, and a refusal to judge a man who lived more than two centuries ago by the moral, ethical and political standards of today. Boles admires Jefferson and maintains a sympathetic attitude toward him through this long, immensely satisfying narrative, but he does not flinch when Jefferson’s behavior and attitudes seem, according to 21st-century standards, offensive at worst, inexplicable at best.

Because the focus in recent years has been almost entirely on Jefferson’s attitudes toward slavery and his actions regarding the several hundred slaves who fell under his ownership, it is important to recall that there was vastly more to his long life than this. In Boles’ “full-scale biography,” Jefferson is presented to us “in all his guises: politician, diplomat, party leader, executive; architect, musician, oenophile, gourmand, traveler; inventor, historian, political theorist; land owner, farmer, slaveholder; and son, father, grandfather.” Without smothering the reader under mountains of detail, Boles briskly but authoritatively takes Jefferson from his birth in Virginia in 1743 to his death, at home in his beloved Monticello, on the Fourth of July, 1826, several hours before the death in Massachusetts of his old friend and occasional rival, John Adams, that other great Founding Father.

As Boles notes, the world into which Jefferson was born was so different from our own that we are hard-pressed to imagine it, yet it was out of this distant world that our own eventually emerged, and Jefferson was at the very center as the transformation from colony to nation got under way. He wrote the immortal Declaration of Independence, which gave voice to the convictions and hopes that impelled his fellow colonists into revolution. At the end of his life, he said the Declaration was one of his three singular accomplishments, the others being the enactment of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom (1786) and the establishment of the University of Virginia a couple of years before his death.

He represented the new nation in Paris from 1784 to 1790, and while he was there delighted in and learned from the varied aspects of that city, whether musical or literary or architectural. In Philadelphia and New York, from 1790 to 1801, he participated in the formation of the new government and served a term as John Adams’ vice president, spending much of that term at Monticello, just as Adams spent much of his term at his Massachusetts home. He then sought and won the presidency in February 1801 in a breathtakingly close vote in the House of Representatives.

The accomplishments of his presidency are well known, most notably the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 and the Lewis and Clark expedition to the far West, though his second term was less successful than his first. He lived for more than a decade and a half after it ended, and while he continued to be active in the public lives of his nation and state, he found his greatest pleasures in Monticello and within the bonds of the family to which he was utterly devoted. His wife, Martha, had died in 1782, pleading with him on her deathbed not to marry again, a request that he honored willingly but one that probably had much to do with his later escape into the arms of Hemings.

Thanks largely to the diligent research of Annette Gordon-Reed and the two books that emerged from it, “Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings” (1997) and “The Hemingses of Monticello” (2008), we now know almost certainly as much as we ever will about this essentially mysterious connection. We do know that Hemings “gave birth to five children,” that Jefferson “was demonstrably present at Monticello nine months prior to each of these births” and that one of her children bore an almost uncanny resemblance to Jefferson. Gordon-Reed “argues that Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, as unlikely as it might seem, probably had genuine mutual affection,” which if true can only leave us all the more puzzled by “his failure to emancipate his own slaves or work actively to end slavery completely.” Boles writes:

“Activists in Jefferson’s time … much less the abolitionists who emerged soon after his death, could not accept such a patient approach; nor can modern readers. Jefferson’s willingness to wait tells us a great deal about his character and also about his era, his race, and his class. As a wealthy white man, he saw little need for urgency; he believed, rather, that in God’s good time, emancipation would somehow be effected. In no other aspect of his life does Jefferson seem more distant from us or more disappointing.”

Disappointing, to be sure, but also understandable. He was a creature of his own time, not of ours, and at the end of this superb, utterly riveting biography, Boles strikes exactly the right note. He describes the “simple obelisk” erected over Jefferson’s grave at Monticello and then says: “It was a simple marker for a man of vast accomplishments and complexities, the supreme spokesman of America’s promise. Ironically, today he is often found wanting for not practicing the principles he articulated best. Yet Jefferson, despite his limitations, more than anyone else was the intellectual architect of the nation’s highest ideals. He will always belong in the American pantheon.”

Yardley was the book critic of The Washington Post from 1981 to 2014.

“Jefferson: Architect of American Liberty” b y John B. Boles

Basic. 626 pp. $35

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Thomas Jefferson's Monticello

Thomas jefferson, thomas jefferson biography.

(Born April 13, 1743, at Shadwell, Virginia; died July 4, 1826, Monticello)

Lawyer. Father. Scientist. Writer. Revolutionary. Governor. Vice-president. President. Philosopher. Architect. Slave Owner.

Many words describe Thomas Jefferson. He is best remembered as the person who wrote the Declaration of Independence and third president of the United States.

Early Life and Monticello

Jefferson was born April 13, 1743, on his father’s plantation of  Shadwell  located along the Rivanna River in the Piedmont region of central Virginia at the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. 1  His father Peter Jefferson was a successful planter and surveyor and his mother Jane Randolph a member of one of Virginia’s most distinguished families. When Jefferson was fourteen, his father died, and he inherited a sizeable estate of approximately 5,000 acres. That inheritance included the house at Shadwell, but Jefferson dreamed of living on a mountain. 2

Shadwell, where it all began

Have you ever wondered where our third president was born? Learn about his early life, as presented by Research Archaeologist Derek Wheeler.

In 1768 he contracted for the clearing of a 250 feet square site on the topmost point of the 868-foot mountain that rose above Shadwell and where he played as a boy. 3   He would name this mountain Monticello, and the house that he would build and rebuild over a forty-year period took on this name as well. He would later refer to this ongoing project, the home that he loved, as “my essay in Architecture.” 4  The following year, after preparing the site, he began construction of a small brick structure that would consist of a single room with a walk-out basement kitchen and workroom below. This would eventually be referred to as the South Pavilion and was where he lived first alone and then with his bride, Martha Wayles Skelton, following their marriage in January 1772.

Unfortunately, Martha would never see the completion of Monticello; she died in the tenth year of their marriage, and Jefferson lost “the cherished companion of my life.” Their marriage produced six children but only two survived into adulthood,  Martha  (known as Patsy) and  Mary  (known as Maria or Polly). 5

Martha Wayles Jefferson, A Vivid Personality

In this short video, hear how Martha W.S. Jefferson stands out as a vivid personality in the recollections of those who knew and remembered her.

Along with the land Jefferson inherited slaves from his father and even more slaves from his father-in-law,  John Wayles ; he also bought and sold enslaved people. In a typical year, he owned about 200, almost half of them under the age of sixteen. About eighty of these enslaved individuals lived at Monticello; the others lived on his adjacent Albemarle County farms, and on his Poplar Forest estate in Bedford County, Virginia. Over the course of his life, he owned over 600 enslaved people. These men, women and children were integral to the running of his farms and building and maintaining his home at Monticello. Some were given training in various trades, others worked the fields, and some worked inside the main house.

Many of the enslaved house servants were members of the Hemings family.  Elizabeth Hemings  and her children were a part of the Wayles estate and tradition says that John Wayles was the father of six of Hemings’s children and, thus, they were the half-brothers and sisters of Jefferson’s wife Martha. Jefferson gave the Hemingses special positions, and the only slaves Jefferson freed in his lifetime and in his will were all Hemingses, giving credence to the oral history. Years after his wife’s death, Jefferson fathered at least six of Sally Hemings’s children. Four survived to adulthood and are mentioned in Jefferson’s plantation records. Their daughter  Harriet  and eldest son  Beverly  were allowed to leave Monticello during Jefferson’s lifetime and the two youngest sons,  Madison  and  Eston , were freed in Jefferson’s will.

Videos and podcasts about Jefferson

Learn more about Jefferson's life, career, and legacy in this gallery of recorded livestreams, podcasts, and videos.

Education and Professional Life

After a two-year course of study at the College of William and Mary that he began at age seventeen, Jefferson read the law for five years with Virginia’s prominent jurist, George Wythe, and recorded his first legal case in 1767. In two years he was elected to Virginia’s House of Burgesses (the legislature in colonial Virginia).

His first political work to gain broad acclaim was a 1774 draft of directions for Virginia’s delegation to the First Continental Congress, reprinted as a  “Summary View of the Rights of British America.”  Here he boldly reminded George III that, “he is no more than the chief officer of the people, appointed by the laws, and circumscribed with definite powers, to assist in working the great machine of government. . . .”  Nevertheless, in his “Summary View” he maintained that it was not the wish of Virginia to separate from the mother country. 6  But two years later as a member of the Second Continental Congress and chosen to draft the  Declaration of Independence , he put forward the colonies’ arguments for declaring themselves free and independent states. The Declaration has been regarded as a charter of American and universal liberties. The document proclaims that all men are equal in rights, regardless of birth, wealth, or status; that those rights are inherent in each human, a gift of the creator, not a gift of government, and that government is the servant and not the master of the people.

Jefferson recognized that the principles he included in the Declaration had not been fully realized and would remain a challenge across time, but his poetic vision continues to have a profound influence in the United States and around the world. Abraham Lincoln made just this point when he declared:

All honor to Jefferson – to the man who, in the concrete pressure of a struggle for national independence by a single people, had the coolness, forecast, and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document, an abstract truth, and so to embalm it there, that to-day and in all coming days, it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling-block to the very harbingers of reappearing tyranny and oppression. 7

After Jefferson left Congress in 1776, he returned to Virginia and served in the legislature. In late 1776, as a member of the new House of Delegates of Virginia, he worked closely with James Madison. Their first collaboration, to end the religious establishment in Virginia, became a legislative battle which would culminate with the passage of Jefferson’s  Statute for Religious Freedom  in 1786.

Elected governor from 1779 to 1781, he suffered an inquiry into his conduct during the British invasion of Virginia in his last year in office that, although the investigation was finally repudiated by the General Assembly, left him with a life-long pricklishness in the face of criticism and generated a life-long enmity toward Patrick Henry whom Jefferson blamed for the investigation. The investigation “inflicted a wound on my spirit which will only be cured by the all-healing grave” Jefferson told James Monroe. 8

During the brief private interval in his life following his governorship, Jefferson completed the one book which he authored,  Notes on the State of Virginia . Several aspects of this work were highly controversial. With respect to slavery, in  Notes  Jefferson recognized the gross injustice of the institution – warning that because of slavery “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his Justice cannot sleep for ever.” But he also expressed racist views of blacks’ abilities; albeit he recognized that his views of their limitations might result from the degrading conditions to which they had been subjected for many years. With respect to religion, Jefferson’s  Notes  emphatically supported a broad religious freedom and opposed any establishment or linkage between church and state, famously insisting that “it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” 9

In 1784, he entered public service again, in France, first as trade commissioner and then as Benjamin Franklin's successor as U.S. minister. During this period, he avidly studied European culture, sending home to Monticello, books, seeds and plants, along with architectural drawings, artwork, furniture, scientific instruments, and information.

In 1790 he agreed to be the first secretary of state under the new Constitution in the administration of the first president,  George Washington . His tenure was marked by his opposition to the policies of  Alexander Hamilton  which Jefferson believed both encouraged a larger and more powerful national government and were too pro-British.

In 1796, as the presidential candidate of the nascent Democratic-Republican Party, he became vice-president after losing to  John Adams  by three electoral votes. Four years later, he defeated Adams in another  hotly contested election  and became president, the first peaceful transfer of authority from one party to another in the history of the young nation.

Perhaps the most notable achievements of his first term were the purchase of the  Louisiana Territory  in 1803 and his support of the  Lewis and Clark expedition . His second term, a time when he encountered more difficulties on both the domestic and foreign fronts, is most remembered for his efforts to maintain neutrality in the midst of the conflict between Britain and France. Unfortunately, his efforts did not avert a war with Britain in 1812 after he had left office and his friend and colleague, James Madison, had assumed the presidency.

Jefferson as President

More on Jefferson's two terms as America's third president.

During the last seventeen years of his life, Jefferson generally remained at Monticello, welcoming the many visitors who came to call upon the Sage. During this period, he sold his collection of books (almost 6500 volumes) to the government to form the nucleus of the Library of Congress before promptly beginning to purchase more volumes for his final library. Noting the irony, Jefferson famously told John Adams that “I cannot live without books.” 10

Jefferson embarked on his last great public service at the age of seventy-six with the founding of the  University of Virginia . He spearheaded the legislative campaign for its charter, secured its location, designed its buildings, planned its curriculum, and served as the first rector.

Unfortunately, Jefferson’s retirement was clouded by debt. Like so many Virginia planters, he had contended with debts most of his adult life, but along with the constant fluctuations in the agricultural markets, he was never able to totally liquidate the sizeable debt attached to the inheritance from his father-in-law John Wayles. His finances worsened in retirement with the War of 1812 and the subsequent recession, headed by the Panic of 1819. He had felt compelled to sign on notes for a friend in 1818, who died insolvent two years later, leaving Jefferson with two $10,000 notes. This he labeled his  coup de grâce,  as his extensive land holdings in Virginia, with the deflated land prices, could no longer cover what he owed. He complained to James Madison that the economic crisis had “peopled the Western States” and “drew off bidders” for lands in Virginia and along the Atlantic seaboard. 11   Ironically, Jefferson’s greatest accomplishment during his presidency, the purchase of the port of New Orleans and the Louisiana Territory that opened the western migration, would contribute to his financial discomfort in his final years. 12

Jefferson's Three Greatest Achievements

A Monticello guide looks at the three contributions that Jefferson considered his greatest achievements.

Despite his debts, when he died just a few hours before his friend John Adams on the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1826, he was optimistic as to the future of the republican experiment. Just ten days before his death, he had declined an invitation to the planned celebration in Washington but offered his assurance, “All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man.” 13

Jefferson wrote his own epitaph and designed the obelisk grave marker that was to bear three of his accomplishments and “not a word more:”

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 BORN APRIL 2, 1743 O.S. DIED JULY 4. 1826

He could have filled several markers had he chosen to list his other public offices: third president of the new United States, vice president, secretary of state, diplomatic minister, and congressman. For his home state of Virginia he served as governor and member of the House of Delegates and the House of Burgesses as well as filling various local offices — all tallied into almost five decades of public service. He also omitted his work as a lawyer, architect, writer, farmer, gentleman scientist, and life as patriarch of an extended family at Monticello, both white and black. He offered no particular explanation as to why only these three accomplishments should be recorded, but they were unique to Jefferson.

Other men would serve as U.S. president and hold the public offices he had filled, but only he was the primary draftsman of the Declaration of Independence and of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom , nor could others claim the position as the Father of the University of Virginia . More importantly, through these three accomplishments he had made an enormous contribution to the aspirations of a new America and to the dawning hopes of repressed people around the world. He had dedicated his life to meeting the challenges of his age: political freedom, religious freedom, and educational opportunity. While he knew that we would continue to face these challenges through time, he believed that America’s democratic values would become a beacon for the rest of the world. He never wavered from his belief in the American experiment.

I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves. . . . Thomas Jefferson, 2 July 1787

He spent much of his life laying the groundwork to insure that the great experiment would continue.

Jefferson, Politics, and Citizenship

Timeline of jefferson's public service.

From pro bono law work to founding the University of Virginia, Jefferson's career was one of public service.

The Art of Citizenship

A hub of stories, quotes, videos, biographies, podcasts, and timelines on Jefferson and civics in America.

Articles in our Jefferson Encyclopedia

Jefferson's personal life, interests, and habits.

Jefferson's Community

The people in Jefferson's life.

Articles about Jefferson's political career and accomplishments.

Science and Exploration

Learn more about Jefferson's "tranquil pursuits of science" which he called his "supreme delight."

Information about Jefferson's religious beliefs and his promotion of religious freedom.

Reports some of Jefferson's documents, his correspondence, and his writing habits.

Jefferson in Legend

Anecdotes and stories, generally inaccurate, about Jefferson's life.

1. Jefferson was born April 2nd according to the Julian calendar then in use (“ old style ”), but when the Georgian calendar was adopted in 1752, his birthday became April 13th (“new style”).

2. Dumas Malone, Jefferson and His Time , 6 vols. (Boston: 1948-77). I:3-33; Appendix I, I:435-46.

3. Jefferson’s Memorandum Books , James A. Bear and Lucia Stanton, eds. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997). I: 76.

4. TJ to Benjamin Latrobe, 10 Oct. 1809, PTJR:RS, 1:595.

5. “Autobiography” in Jefferson’s Writings, PTJ 6:210.

6. PTJ 1:121.

7. Letter from Abraham Lincoln to Henry L. Pierce, et al ., April 6, 1859, John G. Nicolay and John Hay, eds., Abraham Lincoln: Complete Works (New York: Century Co., 1894): 533.

8. Jefferson to James Monroe, May 20, 1782, PTJ 6:185 (ftnt omitted).

9. Notes on the State of Virginia . Ed. by William Peden. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982.

10. Jefferson to John Adams, 15 June 1815, PTJR 8:522.

11. For coup de grâce and following quote, see TJ to James Madison 17 February 1826, Jefferson Writing, Merrill Peterson, ed. (Library of America, 1984), 1512-15.

12. For Jefferson’s retirement debt see, Herbert Sloan, Principle & Interest: Thomas Jefferson and the Problem of Debt (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1995), 202-237; for notes signed in 1818, see p. 219.

13. TJ to Roger Weightman, 24 June 1826, Jefferson Writings , 1516-17.

ADDRESS: 931 Thomas Jefferson Parkway Charlottesville, VA 22902 GENERAL INFORMATION: (434) 984-9800

The Essentials: Five Books on Thomas Jefferson

A Jefferson expert provides a list of indispensable reads about the founding father

Megan Gambino

Senior Editor

Historian Marc Leepson is the author of seven books, including Saving Monticello (2001), a comprehensive history of the house built by Thomas Jefferson and the hands it passed through since his death in 1826.

Here, Leepson provides a list of five must-reads for a better understanding of the author of the Declaration of Independence and the third president of the United States.

Jefferson and His Time , by Dumas Malone

This classic biography of Thomas Jefferson, written by one of the most renowned Jefferson scholars, was published in six volumes over 33 years. It consists of Jefferson the Virginian (1948), covering his childhood through his drafting of the Declaration of Independence; Jefferson and the Rights of Man (1951), about his years as a minister to France and secretary of state; Jefferson and the Ordeal of Liberty (1962), leading up through his presidential election; Jefferson the President: First Term, 1801-1805 (1970) and Jefferson the President: Second Term, 1805-1809 (1974); and The Sage of Monticello (1981), about the last 17 years of his life, as his priorities changed from politics to family, architecture and education. In 1975, author Dumas Malone won the Pulitzer Prize for history for the first five volumes.

From Leepson: Malone is a Jefferson partisan, but his scholarship is impeccable .

American Sphinx  (1996), by Joseph J. Ellis

National Book Award winner Joseph J. Ellis’ newest book,  First Family , takes on the relationship between Abigail and John Adams. But a decade and a half ago, the Mount Holyoke history professor made Thomas Jefferson—and his elusive, complicated and sometimes duplicitous nature—the subject of  American Sphinx . “The best and worst of American history are inextricably entangled in Jefferson,” he wrote in the  New York Times  in 1997.

The book—one volume in length and written in layman’s terms—is perhaps a more digestible read than Malone’s series. “While I certainly hope my fellow scholars will read the book, and even find the interpretation fresh and the inevitable blunders few, the audience I had in my mind’s eye was that larger congregation of ordinary people with a general but genuine interest in Thomas Jefferson,” writes Ellis in the preface.

From Leepson:  An insightful, readable look at Jefferson’s character .

Twilight at Monticello  (2008), by Alan Pell Crawford

Alan Pell Crawford, a former political speechwriter and Congressional press secretary who now covers history and politics, pored over archives across the country, at one point holding a residential fellowship at the International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello, to research this book. And the digging paid off. He found documents and letters of Jefferson’s relatives and neighbors, some never before studied, and pieced them together into a narrative of the president’s twilight years. During this far from restful period, Jefferson experienced family and financial dramas, opposed slavery on principle and yet, with slaves working on his own plantation, did not actively push to abolish it, and founded the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.

From Leepson:  The best treatment by far of Jefferson’s life post-presidency (1809-26) .

The Jefferson Image in the American Mind  (1960), by Merrill D. Peterson

“The most important thing in my education was my dissertation,” said Merrill D. Peterson in 2005, about his time studying at Harvard in the late 1940s. Instead of researching the president’s life, Peterson focused on his afterlife, studying the lasting impact he had on American thought.

The idea became the basis of his first book,  The Jefferson Image in the American Mind , published in 1960. And the book, which won a Bancroft Prize for excellence in American history, established Peterson as a Jefferson scholar. After stints teaching at Brandeis University and Princeton, Peterson filled the big shoes of Jefferson biographer Dumas Malone as the Thomas Jefferson Foundation Professor of History at the University of Virginia. He wrote  Jefferson and the New Nation , a 1970 biography of the president, among other books, and edited the Library of America edition of Jefferson’s collected writings.

From Leepson:  A revealing history of Jefferson’s historical reputation from the 1820s to the 1930s .

The Hemingses of Monticello  (2008), by Annette Gordon-Reed

Harvard law and history professor Annette Gordon-Reed tells the story of three generations in the family of Sally Hemings, a slave of Thomas Jefferson’s thought to have bore him children. She starts with Elizabeth Hemings, born in 1735, who with Jefferson’s father-in-law, John Wayles, had Sally, and then follows the narrative through Sally’s children. Without historical evidence, no one can be certain of the nature of Jefferson’s relationship with Hemings. But Gordon-Reed argues that it was a consensual romance. She won the 2008 National Book Award for nonfiction, the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for history and, in 2010, a MacArthur “genius grant.”

From Leepson:  No list would be complete without a book on Jefferson, slavery and the Hemings family. This is the best one .

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Thomas Jefferson

The 3rd President of the United States

The biography for President Jefferson and past presidents is courtesy of the White House Historical Association.

Thomas Jefferson, a spokesman for democracy, was an American Founding Father, the principal author of the Declaration of Independence (1776), and the third President of the United States (1801–1809).

In the thick of party conflict in 1800, Thomas Jefferson wrote in a private letter, “I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”

This powerful advocate of liberty was born in 1743 in Albemarle County, Virginia, inheriting from his father, a planter and surveyor, some 5,000 acres of land, and from his mother, a Randolph, high social standing. He studied at the College of William and Mary, then read law. In 1772 he married Martha Wayles Skelton, a widow, and took her to live in his partly constructed mountaintop home, Monticello.

Freckled and sandy-haired, rather tall and awkward, Jefferson was eloquent as a correspondent, but he was no public speaker. In the Virginia House of Burgesses and the Continental Congress, he contributed his pen rather than his voice to the patriot cause. As the “silent member” of the Congress, Jefferson, at 33, drafted the Declaration of Independence. In years following he labored to make its words a reality in Virginia. Most notably, he wrote a bill establishing religious freedom, enacted in 1786.

Jefferson succeeded Benjamin Franklin as minister to France in 1785. His sympathy for the French Revolution led him into conflict with Alexander Hamilton when Jefferson was Secretary of State in President Washington’s Cabinet. He resigned in 1793.

Sharp political conflict developed, and two separate parties, the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans, began to form. Jefferson gradually assumed leadership of the Republicans, who sympathized with the revolutionary cause in France. Attacking Federalist policies, he opposed a strong centralized Government and championed the rights of states.

As a reluctant candidate for President in 1796, Jefferson came within three votes of election. Through a flaw in the Constitution, he became Vice President, although an opponent of President Adams. In 1800 the defect caused a more serious problem. Republican electors, attempting to name both a President and a Vice President from their own party, cast a tie vote between Jefferson and Aaron Burr. The House of Representatives settled the tie. Hamilton, disliking both Jefferson and Burr, nevertheless urged Jefferson’s election.

When Jefferson assumed the Presidency, the crisis in France had passed. He slashed Army and Navy expenditures, cut the budget, eliminated the tax on whiskey so unpopular in the West, yet reduced the national debt by a third. He also sent a naval squadron to fight the Barbary pirates, who were harassing American commerce in the Mediterranean. Further, although the Constitution made no provision for the acquisition of new land, Jefferson suppressed his qualms over constitutionality when he had the opportunity to acquire the Louisiana Territory from Napoleon in 1803.

During Jefferson’s second term, he was increasingly preoccupied with keeping the Nation from involvement in the Napoleonic wars, though both England and France interfered with the neutral rights of American merchantmen. Jefferson’s attempted solution, an embargo upon American shipping, worked badly and was unpopular.

Jefferson retired to Monticello to ponder such projects as his grand designs for the University of Virginia. A French nobleman observed that he had placed his house and his mind “on an elevated situation, from which he might contemplate the universe.”

He died on July 4, 1826.

Learn more about Thomas Jefferson’s spouse, Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson .

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U.S. Presidents / Thomas Jefferson

1743 - 1826

Thomas jefferson.

…some honest men fear that a republican government can not be strong, that this Government is not strong enough; but would the honest patriot…abandon a government which has so far kept us free and firm…? I trust not. I believe this, on the contrary, the strongest Government on earth. First Inaugural Address

Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, spent his childhood roaming the woods and studying his books on a remote plantation in the Virginia Piedmont. Thanks to the prosperity of his father, Jefferson had an excellent education. After years in boarding school, where he excelled in classical languages, Jefferson enrolled in William and Mary College in his home state of Virginia, taking classes in science, mathematics, rhetoric, philosophy, and literature. He also studied law, and by the time he was admitted to the Virginia bar in April 1767, many considered him to have one of the nation's best legal minds.

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Miller Center of Public Affairs, University of Virginia. “Thomas Jefferson.” Accessed May 14, 2024. https://millercenter.org/president/jefferson.

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Professor Peter Onuf is the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation Professor of History at the University of Virginia.

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By Jill Abramson

• Nov. 2, 2012

The political biographies most popular in the modern era often tell us less about their subjects than about the moment in which the books themselves are published. John F. Kennedy’s “Profiles in Courage” won the Pulitzer Prize in 1957. But few remember its portraits of Senate lions like Thomas Hart Benton and George Norris. What lingers is its status as a kind of campaign document that set the table for Kennedy’s own rise from the Senate to the presidency. Similarly, “The Age of Jackson,” Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.’s vivid book, published in 1945, the year Franklin D. Roose­velt died, recast the populist Andrew Jackson as the bold progenitor of the New Deal — and also won a Pulitzer. Schlesinger’s multivolume history of the New Deal was called “The Age of Roose­velt” — tightening the link between the two projects and the two presidents.

In our time, presidential historians have been reaching back even further, to the founders, either in search of lessons useful for current debates or to re-examine the characters and leadership of those colossal figures in ways that can help clarify our own preoccupations. Thus, Joseph Ellis (in 1993) and David McCullough (in 2001), reviving John Adams, who had fallen into disrepute (in part because of the infamous Alien and Sedition Acts), depicted him as a farsighted statesman whose conservative instincts could be held up as a counterexample to the destructive passions of the Clinton and Bush years. Some recastings of the founders have been so original or counterintuitive as to alter their current reputations. This happened with “American Sphinx,” Ellis’s study of “the character of Thomas Jefferson,” which argued that the author of the Declaration of Independence and putative father of American democracy was also a scheming and even paranoid anti-monarchist, deficient in both wisdom and judgment, unlike his adversary, the stolid if unromantic Adams. This stinging revisionism was amplified in 2008, with the publication of “The Hemingses of Monticello,” Annette ­Gordon-Reed’s majestic study of Jefferson’s “other” family, his slave mistress and the children Jefferson had with her. The author’s exhaustive research resulted in both a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award and “gave fresh energy to the image of Jefferson-as-hypocrite,” as Jon Meacham observes in his new book, “Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power.”

Meacham is one of several journalists turned historians who belong to what might be called the Flawed Giant School. Other members include Walter Isaacson (on Benjamin Franklin), Evan Thomas (on Robert F. Kennedy and Dwight Eisenhower) and Jonathan Alter (on Roosevelt and the New Deal). Books in this mode usually present their subjects as figures of heroic grandeur despite all-too-human shortcomings — and so, again, speak directly to the current moment, with its diminished faith in government and in the nation’s elected leaders.

Few are better suited to this uplifting task than Meacham. A former editor of Newsweek, he has spent his career in the bosom of the Washington political and New York media establishments. His highly readable biographies are well researched, drawing on new anecdotal material and up-to-date historiographical interpretations (thereby satisfying both journalistic and scholarly expectation). At the same time his rendering of people and events reflects and reifies Establishment values and ideals. His new book lacks the conceptual boldness of those by Ellis and Gordon-Reed but lies close to his own preoccupations — as gleaned from the many glittering names in his acknowledgments, from Robert Caro to Mika Brzezinski, that exhibit an impressively well-tuned appreciation for the social status quo.

And Meacham has been here before. His previous book, “American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House,” published just as a grass-roots tide swept Barack Obama into office, was a best seller and also won the Pulitzer. The quintessential Flawed Giant biography, it made the case that Jackson was a fresh voice of the people who protected individual liberty yet simultaneously “pressed the known limits of presidential power.” Meacham didn’t sugarcoat Jackson’s ruthless handling of slavery and American Indians, even as he made the case that Jackson’s presidency was among the greatest in history.

Meacham reaches the same conclusion about Jefferson, this time writing on the heels of a bruising presidential campaign in which voters have openly expressed their alienation from politicians as a class and have objected to the ever-growing partisan divide and the resulting near-­paralysis of the federal government. The time does seem right to highlight Jefferson’s skills as a practicing politician, unafraid to wield “the art of power” or to put it to uses often at odds with his small-government ideology. So insistently does Meacham stress Jefferson’s pragmatism, which at times made him appear hypocritical to his followers no less than to his opponents, that in places the book has a curiously focus-grouped quality, as though Meacham has carefully balanced the consensus view of Jefferson the visionary “framer” and “founder” against the dissenting claims of assorted critics and skeptics, apportioning equal time to each. But to be fair, he also suggests that Jefferson himself was attuned to the medley of voices and competing interests. And what could be more reassuring in 2012 than a biography that explains how in turbulent, divided times a great president actually managed to govern?

“Jefferson understood a timeless truth,” Meacham writes, “that politics is kaleidoscopic, constantly shifting, and the morning’s foe may well be the afternoon’s friend.” One hears the ice cubes clinking in President Reagan’s highball as he and House Speaker Tip O’Neill shared drinks and jokes in the White House and hammered together a deal on Social Security. Jefferson too “believed in the politics of the personal relationship,” Meacham observes, and “saw himself as a political creature,” not only the philosophe and dreamer others supposed. In moves that Meacham clearly admires — and that he implies are instructive today — Jefferson repeatedly reached out to his enemies and showed ideological flexibility. A momentous example came in 1790, when he was George Washington’s secretary of state. Jefferson’s archenemy Alexander Hamilton, the Treasury secretary, had laid out a plan for the federal assumption of states’ debts, anathema to Jefferson, since it “would create the need for federal taxes to pay down the debts,” Meacham explains, “and the power to tax was, as ever, the most fundamental and far-reaching of all the powers of government.” The issue bitterly divided the states, and Jefferson’s great friend and ideological soul mate, James Madison, had led the forces in Congress that voted down Hamilton’s proposal. Jefferson, for his part, had come “to see Hamilton as the embodiment of the deepest of republican fears: as a man who might be willing to sacrifice the American undertaking in liberty to the expediency of arbitrary authority,” Meacham writes. But then, one night in New York (then the nation’s capital), the two cabinet adversaries met near Washington’s door. Hamilton, looking “somber, haggard and dejected beyond description,” as Jefferson later remembered, pleaded for help. Realizing “matters were dire,” Jefferson pitched in. “The beginning of wisdom, Jefferson thought, might lie in a meeting of the principals out of the public eye,” Meacham writes. “So he convened a dinner,” on the grounds that, as Jefferson put it, “men of sound heads and honest views needed nothing more than explanation and mutual understanding to enable them to unite in some measures which might enable us to get along.” And in this case the stakes were high, for “if everyone retains inflexibly his present opinion, there will be no bill passed at all,” Jefferson warned, and “without funding there is an end of the government.” Needless to say, a compromise was reached. “Jefferson had struck the deal he could strike, and for the moment, America was the stronger for it.” President Obama and Speaker Boehner, are you listening?

But Meacham doesn’t simply dispense soothing history lessons. He argues persuasively that for Jefferson the ideal of liberty was not incompatible with a strong federal government, and also that Jefferson’s service in the Congress in 1776 left him thoroughly versed in the ways and means of politics. “He had defined an ideal in the Declaration, using words to transform principle into policy, and he had lived with the reality of managing both a war and a fledgling government,” Meacham writes. “A politician’s task was to bring reality and policy into the greatest possible accord with the ideal and the principled.”

Not that Jefferson was lavishly endowed with obvious political gifts. “Shy in manner, seeming cold; awkward in attitude, and with little in his bearing that suggested command” — so Henry Adams described him, in his great study of Jefferson’s two presidential terms. Though a peerless rhetorician, he did not always use this skill to best effect when in office. As the historian Eric McKitrick has pointed out, Jefferson gave no speeches during his entire presidency apart from reading, inaudibly, his two Inaugural Addresses.

One wishes Meacham offered more concrete details about Jefferson’s highest political achievements — including drafting, at age 33, the Declaration of Independence and, one year later, the seminal Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. Both define the fundamental liberties that are the heart of democracy as well as Jefferson’s sweeping political vision for the new nation. Meacham does justice to other writings, especially the 158 letters Jefferson and Adams exchanged in the winter of their lives when, after decades of bitterness over perceived betrayals, they reconciled, two “aging revolutionaries” rekindling the shared intellectual and moral interests that had bound them together so many years before when both emerged as leaders in the Continental Congress, and renewing their longstanding debates about democracy and America.

“Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power” guides us through the entire life, but without much color or drama. When Meacham offers revealing details — for instance illustrating Jefferson’s lifelong love of horses by listing the funny names he gave his own (Polly Peachum, Peggy Waffington) — the book comes alive, and Jefferson does too. But other opportunities are missed. Sally Hemings has only a few walk-on scenes, leaving the reader hungry for more on this fascinating, and troubling, relationship. For Meacham, pronouncement trumps storytelling. Often he resorts to the formulaic summarizing sentence: “Though he had hardly left the arena, he was now unmistakably back in it,” Meacham writes of Jefferson during Washington’s second term. Jefferson then lost the presidency, barely, to Adams in the Electoral College. It was an ugly fight, but Meacham, characteristically, covers it with balm: “However different in form presidential contests were, one feature has been constant from the beginning,” he reminds us. “They have been rife with attacks and counterattacks.”

We have heard this before, of course. But then, Jefferson’s life and career have been subjected to exhaustive scrutiny since at least 1943, when Dumas Malone began work on the definitive six-volume biography, completed some 40 years later, that sealed Jefferson’s place as the most interesting and conceivably greatest president.

Meacham touches all the familiar bases, beginning with Jefferson’s birth in 1743. The son of distinguished parents — his father a successful planter and surveyor, his mother from one of Virginia’s best families — Jefferson “was raised to wield power,” Meacham writes, and to “grow comfortable with authority.”

His range of talents was almost limitless. He was 26 when he sketched the first designs for Monticello, his grand construction project, the 33-room mansion that was his home until his death, though never definitively completed. (Visitors reported having to step over beams or piles of soil from one of Jefferson’s constant renovations.) After studying with a tutor and attending the College of William and Mary, he served in the House of Burgesses and in the Continental Congress and was chosen to draft the Declaration over elders, including John Adams, who said, “You can write 10 times better than I can.”

But Jefferson’s first executive position, as governor of Virginia during the Revolutionary War, ended in near disgrace. When the British troops massed, Jefferson fled to Monticello and was accused of both dereliction of duty and cowardice. He was exonerated, but the episode haunted him for many years. Sent to the Continent after the war to help negotiate treaties with the great powers, he came to love European culture and food. He then returned to Washington’s cabinet, where he pursued his battles and compromises with Hamilton, the two elucidating the quarrel, over the size and role of the federal government, that still shapes our most profound political disagreements. When Jefferson became president, in 1801, it was the first time in our history that leadership transferred from one party to another.

The Louisiana Purchase and the Lewis and Clark expedition highlighted his first term, while his second bogged down in an unsuccessful effort to prevent further war with England and possibly France. When he left office, he returned to his beloved Monticello, where he resumed his many extrapolitical enthusiasms — horses, literature and the serious study of science, agronomy and architecture. He also undertook his last great project, founding the University of Virginia and designing many of its buildings, including the magnificent rotunda. He died, as did John Adams, on the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, on July 4, 1826. He was 83.

It is easy to see why such a life, with its grand sweep and many events so central to American history, took up so many volumes by Henry Adams and then Dumas Malone. Meacham wisely has chosen to look at Jefferson through a political lens, assessing how he balanced his ideals with pragmatism while also bending others to his will. And just as he scolded Jackson, another slaveholder and champion of individual liberty, for being a hypocrite, so Meacham gives a tough-minded account of Jefferson’s slippery recalibrations on race, noting, “Slavery was the rare subject where Jefferson’s sense of realism kept him from marshaling his sense of hope in the service of the cause of reform.” In 1814 Jefferson wrote, “There is nothing I would not sacrifice to a practicable plan of abolishing every vestige of this moral and political depravity.” This wasn’t true. Jefferson “was not willing to sacrifice his own way of life, though he characteristically left himself a rhetorical escape by introducing the subjective standard of practicability,” Meacham observes. In fact, his slaves were his most valuable possessions. He also believed emancipation would precipitate a race war. The only solution was for free blacks to be exiled to another country. These were the reasons, or excuses, that underlay Jefferson’s justifications of slavery, though they were not his ideas alone. Lincoln, too, considered expatriation a viable solution to the slavery problem.

The art of power often involves brutality — and other offenses too. Jefferson was sometimes more sneaky than artful. Meacham lets him off fairly easily for having smeared John Adams, though it was Jefferson who secretly paid for a poisonous anti-Adams pamphlet prepared by the hack journalist James Thomson Callender. Joseph Ellis, referring to this bleak campaign, accuses Jefferson of “paying off hired character assassins.” Meacham, in extenuation, says first that Callender was someone “whom Jefferson had supported financially” and later that this support “had been based on opposition to the sedition laws and his agreement” with Callender’s politics, as if these reasons justified Jefferson’s collusion.

Elsewhere Meacham is more convincing. Where other historians have found hypocrisy in Jefferson’s use of executive power to complete the Louisiana Purchase, Meacham is nuanced and persuasive. His solid argument is that in order to transform the United States into a continental power, Jefferson sensibly drew on all of his political skills to secure the vast territory from France, but did so without abandoning his distrust of strong, centralized power.

Meacham, so determined to celebrate Jefferson and his use of power, departs from others as well in his relatively kind assessment of Jefferson’s second term, marked by a trade embargo that failed to prevent European wars and also exacted severe hardship at home. Going further, Jefferson, the enemy of federal power, assumed total control over American shipping. Meacham concedes that “history has not been kind to Jefferson’s embargo” but concludes it was a pragmatic power play that at least delayed war. If not a good idea, “it was the least bad.” Others disagree. Henry Adams, writing in the 1880s, judged Jefferson’s second term a failure “under which his old hopes and ambitions were crushed,” and added that the ensuing “loss of popularity was his bitterest trial.” Yet Meacham is right to note that Jefferson influenced almost all the presidents who came immediately after him, with the exception of John Quincy Adams, and right as well to reckon this as an immense political legacy. As an Establishment man, Meacham ultimately celebrates the art of political compromise in service of moving the nation forward. It is an argument unlikely to meet with disapproval.

THOMAS JEFFERSON

The art of power.

By Jon Meacham

Illustrated. 759 pp. Random House. $35.

An earlier version of the caption with the picture showing a group of the founders drafting the Declaration of Independence reversed the identifications of John Adams and Robert Livingston.

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Jill Abramson is the executive editor of The Times.

My Journey Through the Best Presidential Biographies

The Best Biographies of Thomas Jefferson

16 Thursday May 2013

Posted by Steve in Best Biographies Posts , President #03 - T Jefferson

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American history , best biographies , book reviews , Dumas Malone , John Boles , Jon Meacham , Joseph Ellis , Kevin Hayes , Merrill Peterson , presidential biographies , Presidents , Thomas Jefferson , Willard Sterne Randall

After nearly two months with Thomas Jefferson involving five biographies (ten books in total) and over 5,000 pages of reading, I still feel I know Jefferson less well than many other revolutionary-era figures…including some like Alexander Hamilton who I’ve only encountered through his numerous appearances in various presidential biographies.

But that’s part of the intriguing mystery that Jefferson presents – even the most dedicated Jefferson scholars such as Malone and Peterson have admitted difficulty in getting to know our third president on a personal level.  In his biography of Jefferson, Merrill Peterson acknowledged being mortified in confessing he still found Jefferson “impenetrable” after years of study.

Part of what seems to make Jefferson so complex is that he is not merely a two-dimensional figure.  The set of internal rules governing his behavior resembles a multi-variable differential equation whose output seems maddeningly inconsistent at times.  But on a basic level, Jefferson is no different than most of us – guided by a small number of core convictions, steered by a larger set of general principles, and influenced by a broad group of more nebulous forces.

Only that smallest group of convictions seemed to guide Jefferson as if they were immutable laws of physics.  His other principles and beliefs were more maleable, able to change under great strain, competing forces, or compelling circumstances of the moment.  He was a passionately private man, yet ended up in public office for most of his adult life.  He professed the evils of slavery, yet owned slaves (and may have even had a long-term relationship with one).  He was intensely afraid of the power of a broad federal government under the direction of a strong president, yet as president did very little to curb that power and in many instances did just the opposite.

* Dumas Malone’s six-volume series (“Jefferson and His Time”) took over three  decades to complete – it was begun when my parents were not old enough to walk, and finished when I was almost entering middle school. This series, to which Malone dedicated a huge chunk of his adult life, took me just five (rather intense) weeks to read.

Although this series does not receive high marks as a means of “entertainment” it receives the very best marks for its content and scholarship. The first five volumes won the Pulitzer Prize in 1975.

Volume 1 (“Jefferson the Virginian”) covers the first four decades of Jefferson’s life, up to the point when became a diplomat in Europe. Volume 2 (“Jefferson and the Rights of Man”) covers the years 1784-1792 which Jefferson spent in Europe as a diplomat and as George Washington’s first Secretary of State.

Volume 3 (“Jefferson and the Ordeal of Liberty”) covers the last year of Jefferson’s tenure as Secretary of State, his three-year retirement at Monticello, his years as John Adams’ Vice President and his election to the presidency in 1800. Volumes 4 and 5 (“Jefferson the President”) cover his eight year presidency while Volume 6 (“The Sage of Monticello”) covers the final seventeen years of Jefferson’s life.

As thorough and comprehensive as any biography on Jefferson could possibly be, the series suffers only from being less “readable” than more recent biographies which are written in modern, well-flowing verse, and perhaps for not addressing the Hemings controversy with evidence that has only recently come to light.

Malone’s series on Thomas Jefferson reminds me of Thomas Flexner’s series on Washington and Page Smith’s on John Adams – together, these three great works are in a class all to themselves. (Full reviews: Vol 1 , Vol 2 , Vol 3 , Vol 4 , Vol 5 , Vol 6 )

Merrill Peterson’s “ Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation, ” published in 1970, was written while Malone was about halfway through his series on Jefferson. In no other single-volume biography of any of our first three presidents can a reader find a more comprehensive book, chock-a-block with such an impressive level of relevant detail. Yet compared to Malone’s series, while it seems to contain proportionately similar granularity, it also seems to contain relatively fewer interesting conclusory remarks and insights.

Without a doubt, no serious library would be complete without a copy of Peterson’s classic. But with the benefit of hindsight, if I were forced to choose between reading Malone’s six-volume series or Peterson’s single-volume biography, I would not hesitate to invest the additional time required to experience Malone’s series. ( Full review here )

Joseph Ellis’s “ American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson ” was published in 1996, three years after he published his biography of John Adams. This is by far my favorite of Ellis’s books, and the second most “enjoyable” read among the Jefferson biographies.

Like each of Ellis’s works I’ve read so far, this book is not quite a biography and should not be read as such. In my opinion, the best way to enjoy “American Sphinx” is to first read either Malone’s series or Peterson’s biography. Ellis not only observes Jefferson’s behavior throughout life, as have other authors, but also synthesizes his observations into a set of characteristics that seems to have defined Jefferson’s personality. This book comes as close to getting into Jefferson’s mind as any book I’ve read. ( Full review here )

“ Twilight at Monticello: The Final Years of Thomas Jefferson ” by Alan Pell Crawford was published in 2008 and, despite a number of imperfections, proves quite an enjoyable and easy read. Although it exudes a slight tabloid “feel” Crawford has exploited a niche never before fully explored – even Malone’s last volume focusing on Jefferson’s retirement years seems slightly incomplete in hindsight.

By the end of the book, though, it feels as thought the author may have tried too hard to make his case. Rather than coming across as insightful and revealing, the book finally beings to feel hyperbolic and melodramatic. Nonetheless, as my next-to-last book on Jefferson, it was perfectly timed and absorbingly provocative. ( Full review here )

“ Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power ” by Jon Meacham was published in 2012 and is currently the most popular of the Jefferson biographies. As I’ve discovered from readers of this site, Meacham is a polarizing author. Those who love him do so because his primary mission seems to be to entertain and, only secondarily, to inform. Others find him distressing for exactly the same reason, sensing that he merely puts new wrapping paper on an old treasure.

But no matter your take on Meacham, “The Art of Power” is both easy and enjoyable to read. At times it is thoroughly engrossing and contains its own interesting perspective on Jefferson’s life. Although it is lighter on penetrating, recently-uncovered insights and heavier on clever one-liners than previous Jefferson biographies, it probably serves as the perfect “second” biography of Jefferson. ( Full review here )

– – – – – – –

[ Added January 2020 ]

* In 2013, I read four single-volume biographies of Jefferson and the six-volume series described above. Since then I’ve had the chance to read a biography of Jefferson I missed on that first trip through Jefferson: Willard Sterne Randall’s “ Thomas Jefferson: A Life ” which was published in 1993. But while it is uniquely valuable as a study of Jefferson’s legal studies and career, it covers most of the remainder of his life – including his presidency – with less dexterity and it turned out to be my least-favorite biography of Jefferson thus far.  ( Full review here )

[ Added October 2021 ]

* I’ve also now read John Boles’s 2017 biography “ Jefferson: Architect of American Liberty .” With 520 pages of text, this biography proves uncommonly thoughtful, thorough and revealing. Boles expends no small effort in attempting to unravel Jefferson’s complexity and perplexing contradictions – including the large gap between his attitude toward slavery and his actions – and here the book is quite successful. Less ideal is the relative lack of focus on understanding and revealing Jefferson’s friendships with figures such as James Madison and John Adams. And Boles’s writing style, while crisp and articulate, is rarely particularly colorful or engrossing. But overall this is perhaps the best modern, single-volume introduction to Jefferson’s life and times. ( Full review here )

[ Added August 2022 ]

* Published in 2008, Kevin Hayes’s “ The Road to Monticello: The Life and Mind of Thomas Jefferson ” is a dense, detailed 644-page intellectual biography of the third president focused on the literature he read, wrote and collected. Although it provides much of the framework of a traditional biography, it is decidedly not one and cannot serve as an adequate substitute for anyone seeking a thorough and broad introduction to Jefferson. The natural audience for this book is quite limited, but for someone already familiar with T.J. who is interested in exploring his intellectual evolution through an analysis of the words that shaped his world, this book may prove ideal.  ( Full review here )

[ Added December 2022 ]

* Published two weeks ago, Fred Kaplan’s “ His Masterly Pen: A Biography of Jefferson the Writer ” resembles Kevin Hayes’s “The Road to Monticello” –  in spirit . However, the two books are quite different in approach. This book by Kaplan looks deceptively like a traditional biography – its chapters proceed chronologically and the narrative includes large chunks of Jefferson’s  non -literary life. But it’s focus is on understanding Jefferson’s character, contradictions and philosophy as revealed by his letters, speeches, declarations and books (and not by the books he bought, borrowed or merely read). As a supplemental text for readers acquainted with Jefferson, this book may prove uniquely intellectual and insightful. For readers seeking a traditional biography of Jefferson it is not ideal. ( Full review here )

Best Overall: Dumas Malone’s six-volume series

Most Enjoyable Biography: “ Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power ”

Best Single-Volume Biography: “ Jefferson: Architect of American Liberty ”

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62 thoughts on “the best biographies of thomas jefferson”.

May 25, 2013 at 9:24 pm

It’s sad how so many modern “scholars” now dismiss Malone’s work.

May 26, 2013 at 4:33 pm

Reblogged this on Practically Historical .

May 17, 2020 at 6:21 pm

Great website. Fantastic overviews of presidential historiography.

I believe you are a bit easy perhaps on Malone re: the Hemmings issue with “and perhaps for not addressing the Hemings controversy with evidence that has only recently come to light.”

Malone, of course did not have DNA, however, if you look closely at the evidence he did have, he systematically approached what was available to reach a preconceived conclusion. Malone knew that Sally’s children were TJ’s and wrote it otherwise. He simply could not abandon his position as the pied piper of the TJ cult.

And while his work is masterful. It is important to understand his limitations in being objective.

October 15, 2013 at 12:59 pm

Unfortunately I started my book on TJ – “In Pursuit of Reason” by Noble Cunningham – before discovering your blog, and stupidly chose it only because it was $1 in my library’s bookstore. It wasn’t awful, just not terribly well written or compelling. I’ll happily admit that I’m interested in the presidents’ family lives as well as their political lives, and this was one shortcoming in Cunningham’s book, though not the only one. I think it’s a problem that the author did not even mention the Sally Hemings scandal, since it did come out during TJ’s presidency, via a man who had turned against TJ. The scandal was discussed in McCullough’s book on John Adams, and in the book I just finished on Madison (by Brookhiser). To have it ignored in a TJ bio seemed disingenuous, to put it nicely. I honestly feel I learned more about TJ the man (not the pol) from the Adams bio than from Cunningham’s book!

April 5, 2014 at 9:17 am

Just discovered your site — really good work. In your work on Jefferson did you run into any assessment of Fawn Brodie’s controversial bio?

May 24, 2014 at 5:46 am

Not in the biographies themselves, but there were numerous references to Fawn Brodie’s work in reviews I later read of the books I had read, and one of my frequent visitors makes no secret of his views: http://practicallyhistorical.net/?s=fawn+brodie

April 5, 2014 at 9:39 am

In your readings on Jefferson, did you ever run into any assessments of Fawn Brodie’s controversial biography?

April 5, 2014 at 1:42 pm

None of the books I read referenced Brodie’s biography in a substantive way (not that I remember, anyway) though I recall thee book being referenced in the bibliography of a few. I shied away from Brodie when I was selecting Jefferson bios to read given the overwhelming and consistently negative feedback I saw, but it’s on my “must read” list for my second pass through the presidents – out of curiosity, if nothing else.

April 5, 2014 at 1:51 pm

I also found the following assessment of Brodie’s biography thought-provoking (so much so that it convinced me to add the book to my follow-up list on Jefferson: http://practicallyhistorical.net/2013/03/06/classic-historical-takedowns-pt-1-2/

April 14, 2015 at 2:31 pm

I’d also toss into the mix Henry Wiencek’s “Master of the Mountain.” Like American Sphinx, not a full bio, and even less complimentary. But a fully documented dismantling of many of the myths that surround Jefferson and much Jefferson scholarship.

June 13, 2015 at 1:09 pm

I have also been reading presidential bios in order and am just finishing Trefousse’s Andrew Johnson. I’m wondering if you read Willard Sterne Randall’s Jefferson: A Life and what your thoughts were. So glad to find your blog….onto Grant!

June 14, 2015 at 6:21 pm

Good luck finishing up the A Johnson bio(!) I have not read Willard Sterne Randall’s bio of Jefferson – if you have, let me know what you thought. I seem to remember looking it up and finding it got mixed reviews, and since I had what I thought was a full plate of Jefferson bios I didn’t add it into the mix.

June 17, 2015 at 7:38 am

Randall did a very good job of detailing Jefferson’s early life. His Presidency was not emphasized as much, but there are plenty of other great books that do that as you have pointed out. The focus is more on his early life and his years in France. It was a nice insight into the man. Randall’s writing style can be a bit meandering and repetitive, something that he corrects in his Alexander Hamilton bio, but overall I felt It was a worthy read.

November 5, 2015 at 4:29 pm

One short bio that merits attention is RB Bernstein’s very fine study for Oxford’s series of shorter biographies. I recall a lot of insight in a very little space (<300 pages) in this volume. Felt like I had a better understanding of the man and his legacy than Meacham.

November 6, 2015 at 7:27 am

Thanks, I’ve had a couple people tell me I need to read that one (as sort of a turbo-charged substitute for an American President Series bio of Jefferson) so I’ll probably add it to my follow-up list.

September 22, 2017 at 5:37 pm

I agree enthusiastically with you about the brief R.B. Bernstein biography of Thomas Jefferson.

March 3, 2016 at 7:19 pm

not even a mention of Henry Adams’s work on the jefferson administration?

March 10, 2016 at 3:37 pm

Steve, have you been inclined to read Chernow’s Hamilton biography, or another Hamilton work, during your journey? Reading through biographies of Washington and Adams and gearing up for Jefferson and Madison it feels like not reading a Hamilton biography would do a disservice to the revolutionary era. Also thank you for the recommendation of Ferling’s John Adams: A Life, really enjoying it.

March 14, 2016 at 7:01 am

Will, I do have a large-ish (and ever expanding!) list of biographies I would like to read about the supporting cast of characters who worked with the presidents over time. One of the first to make the list was Alexander Hamilton (I’ve owned the Chernow bio of Hamilton longer than I’ve owned his book on Washington!) I haven’t given myself the flexibility of reading these non-presidential biographies yet for fear I would never get through the presidents themselves, but I really can’t wait to read about Hamilton, Ben Franklin, Calhoun, Henry Clay, Seward, Elihu Root, etc.

November 2, 2016 at 4:56 pm

I’m currently reading Brands bio of Franklin, then moving on to Chernow’s Hamilton as preludes before starting on Washington in January

November 2, 2016 at 5:01 pm

I have to admit to being a bit jealous – those are two of the non -presidential biographies that are sitting in front of me begging to be read! I hope you enjoy them and let me know what you’re reading when you work through the presidents!

September 2, 2016 at 11:51 am

Six volumes for the first two presidents, doubled as I read Dumas Malone’s six volume series. This was a serious investment in time, but absolutely worth it. I found a set of 5 on eBay in very good shape with djs and had to obviously buy one separately. After finishing I felt like I had lost a friend, the books were so absorbing. Even when I am done with this journey, I don’t feel like I need to read any more on Jefferson, I understand him as much as possible as a man and politician.

September 2, 2016 at 8:46 pm

Congrats on getting through so many volumes in your first three presidents! With limited time I don’t think you can go wrong with Chernow (Wash), McCullough (Adams) and Meacham (Jefferson) but the Flexner, Smith and Malone series on those three really provide penetrating, readable depth that’s hard to find in single-volume biographies. I can’t wait to see where you go from here!

October 13, 2016 at 3:15 pm

This one may answer my question! Loved Chernow’s Washington and am now finishing McCullough’s Adams, which I’ve also enjoyed. Given that, and given that I want to stick to one volume, would Meacham be your recommendation here?

October 13, 2016 at 3:41 pm

If I had to read a single-volume bio of Washington I would probably choose Meacham’s (with Ellis’s in second place). But be forewarned…based on comments I’ve gotten it is clear that “The Art of Power” appeals to most people (as it did me) but there is a not insignificant group who felt let down by the book for one reason or another. If you read it let me know what you thought! (As you probably know I loved the Washington and Adams bios you read. LOVED them.)

January 9, 2017 at 4:03 pm

Finished “The Art of Power,” it was a bit up and down for me, but I liked it on the whole, as I thought that it gave a really good insight into the way Jefferson thought and worked. I did find it to be lacking in detail and context for many of the events Jefferson lived through. McCullough and Chernow, for example, seemed to delve more deeply into the events of Adams’s and Washington’s lifetimes and give you a better sense of understanding of the age. Meachem seemed to give a very brief (couple paragraphs) intro, then moved immediately to how Jefferson interpreted it and exercised his power. They also seemed to spend more time than Meachem introducing and providing meaningful insight on the other power players so you had a better sense of the people their subjects were working with/around.

Having said that, I thought it provided a really fair assessment of TJ, without overly glorifying him and didn’t ignore his many faults. I also thought it did a nice job of going out of its way to be fair to Hamilton’s point of view, and noted that neither Jefferson or Hamilton was the caricature that their opponents (up to the modern day) have painted of them. On the same note, however, I felt it was at times unfairly critical of Adams, but maybe that was just because I had just finished McCullough’s book!

Maybe since Jefferson was more of a personal enigma than Washington or Adams, that’s what consumed Meachem’s efforts, but I felt that if I hadn’t already had a fairly strong grasp on the events of the 1770s-1800s I might have been lost at certain points in this book.

Taking a bit of a presidential break and moving to Hamilton and Lafayette bios next, but I’ll be back for Madison soon, so I’m sure you’ll hear from me again!

January 2, 2017 at 3:24 pm

I’m curious if anyone has an opinion about Fawn Brodie’s, “Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History,” which I just started reading on the heels of completing Ron Chernow’s superb Washington biography. Brodie is interesting so far, but it doesn’t seem to be in the first rank of presidential bios. Any thoughts?

January 2, 2017 at 3:39 pm

I’ve not read Brodie’s biography but it receives reviews “all over the map.” These two discussions caught my eye back when I was deciding which Jefferson bios to read: Gary Wills’ note and Practically Historical blog’s view .

January 2, 2017 at 3:41 pm

Thanks Steve! I’ll check ’em out.

September 22, 2017 at 5:34 pm

Excellent job with your website. It is one of a kind. Thank you. I agree with your reviews and rankings of biographies — at least the ones I have read. I have not read as many as you.

For example, the FDR biographies you reviewed and the ranked order of those books is spot on.

For Thomas Jefferson, I think an important brief book to add to your list is “Thomas Jefferson” by R.B. Bernstein. A brief biography of this character, who I understand and love (despite his shortcomings), is nearly impossible. I loved this brief book.

Again, thank you for your website.

February 21, 2018 at 3:49 pm

I am curious if you’ve looked at, or if any one else has, Alf Mapp’s two volume bio on Jefferson from the 1980s, “Passionate Pilgrim” and “The Strange Case of Mistaken Identity.” I own this set but haven’t read it yet. I’ve generally heard good things about it, and know it was well regarded upon its release.

February 22, 2018 at 8:22 am

I never ran across these biographies until well after I finished Jefferson. Because they seem rarely read, I haven’t come across any particularly insightful reviews (not that I’ve looked all that hard) so I’ve got these sitting in a list that’s the literary equivalent of purgatory – I’m not sure whether to make them part of the my follow-up list or whether to avoid them altogether. If you or anyone else does or has read these volumes, I’d love to know what the verdict is…!

February 22, 2018 at 9:45 am

I’d suggest leaving Mapp’s books in purgatory. Your follow-up list is already massive (and will undoubted grow), includes three (four if you count Dr. Wood’s Friends Divided) Jefferson titles already, and the Jefferson literature is vast enough to keep it there.

By the way, Friends Divided is a wonderful book. The last few chapters dealing with their reconciliation and correspondence are the best parts. Summed up nicely by the final sentence comparing Jefferson’s Idealism v Adams’s Realism: “That’s why we honor Jefferson and not Adams.”

April 3, 2018 at 11:51 am

How would you rate Mapp’s books? Since I already own them, I’m curious now if they’re still worth reading, or if they’re only sub par. Given the amount of Jefferson scholarship, I can see why you’d recommend not adding them to the follow-up list, even if they’re worth reading. They may not offer anything unique enough to warrant reading them after having already read so much! I do plan on reading Malone’s 6 volume work first, as I already own that one as well.

April 7, 2018 at 12:42 pm

I don’t think you can really understand Jefferson until you understand Hamilton. I suggest Alexander Hamilton by Chernow.

April 8, 2018 at 4:15 am

That is the very first “non presidential biography” I’m planning to read once I get through Obama…!

February 26, 2020 at 4:43 pm

I would love some advise on choosing a single-volume biography on Jefferson. I am interested in Meacham’s “The Art of Power,” But I’ve also seen good reviews of the 2017 bio “Jefferson: Architect of American Liberty” by John B. Boles.

Most posts above were made prior to the latter’s publishing. I would love to hear some thoughts on either (or both for those who have read them). With opinion of Jefferson being so varied and he being so complicated a person, I am looking for the most “fair” and informative bio.

February 26, 2020 at 4:48 pm

For what it’s worth, I’m also looking forward to hearing from anyone who has feedback on Boles’s biography. Earlier this year I read Willard Sterne Randall’s bio of Jefferson but wonder whether I should have tackled Boles’s instead…?

May 9, 2020 at 5:04 am

I’ve read both Boles and Meacham, but not Randall (not yet, at least). I think Boles’s book was definitely more on the “informative” side of the scale, as compared to Meacham’s, which is more on the “entertaining” side. So for anyone trying to choose between the two, it really depends which kind of treatment is most appealing to you.

To me, Boles’s book was more factual and straightforward and not as much of an enjoyable, engaging read, to the point that his depiction of Jefferson made him feel a little lifeless and passive – things just happened to Jefferson and he went along with them, as opposed to Meacham’s depiction of an active, ambitious Jefferson who knew what he wanted and controlled his own destiny. I get the sense the truth was somewhere in between.

Joseph Ellis’s was my favorite Jefferson book, but I think you have to read a full-scale biography like Boles or Meacham first before you can fully appreciate Ellis.

So while they all have their strengths, none, to me, stand out as being a definitive single-volume Jefferson biography. Maybe he’s just too complicated to cover in just one book!

August 12, 2020 at 8:48 am

Six months later you have probably solved this dilemma, but I have read the Meacham book and the Ellis book. In my opinion the Meacham book reads like a collection of chronological facts about Jefferson with not much attempt to provide any insight into Jefferson or any context for his actions.

The Ellis book is much better in my opinion but it is not a biography, as stated above. You might want to read the Meacham book first just to get an idea of what his life was like. You might also want to read a general history of America during the Revolution and the Early Republic years just to get a sense of historical context to Jefferson’s actions.

August 12, 2020 at 8:54 am

Your note & observation underscores one of the numerous reasons I’m now glad I didn’t initially choose “just one” biography per president to read – different authors with differing styles, often from different eras themselves, with access to different information each create a uniquely informative view of their subject. Reading several books on someone (like Jefferson in particular!) provides a far more nuanced, colorful and often complicated portrait of the person. I do think Meacham and Ellis create a particularly interesting duo when attempting to uncover Jefferson (who, I must say, remains a mystery to me even today)…

August 3, 2020 at 2:29 pm

Has anyone read: 1. The Life of Thomas Jefferson. Three volumes. by Henry S Randall? or 2. The Life of Thomas Jefferson William Linn?

These are efforts from the 1800s.

November 6, 2020 at 8:12 pm

I have not read either, but Randall’s may be interesting. He was the first (only?) biographer to interview Jefferson’s immediate family.

For reading and historical purposes there are probably much better options, but the immediacy of it is interesting.

November 7, 2020 at 10:21 am

Thank you for your comments. Randall looks interesting.

January 7, 2021 at 12:25 pm

I’d like to have your thoughts on Boles’ Jefferson: Architect of American Liberty. Having just read Chernow’s Hamilton, which is pretty negative about TJ, I’ve seen comments that Boles offers a more balanced perspective.

January 7, 2021 at 1:37 pm

I haven’t read Boles’s biography of Jefferson yet. It was published after I’d already gotten through my biographies of Jefferson, but I’ve added it to my “follow-up” list and plan to read it later this year.

January 23, 2021 at 11:26 pm

I finally got a chance to go over to the next town and hit their used bookstores.

I was able to procure an immaculate like new set of Dumas’ 6 volumes for just $35 total.

Also found Rayback’s Millard Fillmore (Easton Press edition) for just $10.

And then I ran over to the other store and found a copy of Peterson’s Jefferson biography for $7.

Was completely happy with my trip as I have all the biographies I wanted for the first 3 presidents.

January 25, 2021 at 5:27 am

I wish my town had a next-town-over with a bookstore like that!

March 13, 2021 at 8:00 pm

I posted briefly on the Madison discussion about Meacham’s Art of Power, and I was just really disappointed by that one. Unfortunately, unless I venture into Malone’s six-volume series, I might not find what I am looking for (and even with this there is still no guarantee). The one beacon of hope of finding a good one-volume bio might be with Boles. I am really hoping you can review that soon, because I really don’t want to sit down for another disappointing Jefferson experience!

In my opinion, Meacham gives only a very broad overview of the life of Jefferson. All of the details, especially the political interactions, seem to be given only superficial treatment. So many of the concluding thoughts of the author read like a high school term paper (like somewhat cringe-worthy filler material). It seems strange that I obtained a better understanding of Jefferson’s mind through his cameo appearances in other books. This is surprising, especially considering that over 200 pages of this volume are dedicated solely to notes. Even then, some of the conclusions are suspect.

For example, Meacham states that the causes of the revolution are not quite clear, and then goes on to suggest it was merely the brainchild of plantation owners who were heavily in debt to Britain and who didn’t like the idea of being taxed, and that Britain’s treatment of the colonies really wasn’t all that bad. Maybe this is true for some folks in Virginia, but thankfully I found much more thorough explanations in recent reads of H.W. Brands’ biography on Franklin and Les Standiford’s Desperate Sons. I was also disappointed that there was hardly more than a couple of pages dedicated to the debate and internal controversy of the Louisiana Purchase, as well as over the repeal of and passage of new Judicial Acts. These seem to be the most important parts of the Jefferson presidency, and yet, I learned next to nothing.

For a book titled “The Art of Power”, I really expected a greater in-depth look at the political dealings of Jefferson. Instead, we just get a broad overview of his personal life, and politics seem somewhat ancillary to that discussion.

March 15, 2021 at 8:19 am

Of all the books I’ve enjoyed over the years, this is the one that people seem to disagree on the most. In hindsight, most of the criticism is well-deserved but at the time I remember finding Meacham’s treatment more readable and penetrating if not quite as thorough as much of what I read elsewhere (with Malone and Peterson most notably and in most instances).

I was hoping to fall in love with Willard Sterne Randall’s bio of Jefferson, or perhaps John Boles 2017 biography. The former was disappointing. The latter is on tap for later this year!

March 19, 2021 at 8:18 pm

I just finished Boles’ biography and it is one of the finest biographies I’ve ever read. It is well-written. He is even-handed. His discussion of slavery and Jefferson’s relationship with Sally Hemings is thorough. I cannot imagine a better treatment of the Jeffersonian paradox: a man who enslaved other human beings, but was also thwarted in his efforts to move the country toward gradual emancipation – and then he didn’t even free most of his own slaves in his will (paradox x 2). Boles ponders the questions these facts raise. He covers all periods of Jefferson’s life. It is well-researched. And the bibliographical essay at the end almost by itself makes owning the book worthwhile. I could not have been more pleased. Thanks, Steve, for your excellent work.

March 20, 2021 at 4:32 am

Well…now I’m REALLY looking forward to reading Boles’s bio of Jefferson later this year (currently scheduled for September)!

March 20, 2021 at 5:03 pm

Hi Mark, if you don’t mind my asking, how well did Boles’ go into other controversial details? For context, I should have been a bit more specific in my criticisms of Meacham in my earlier comment. In terms of Sally Hemings and the contradiction of Jefferson’s slave ownership, I think that this was actually the strongest aspect of the Art of Power (although I have read some criticize that perhaps Meacham did not explore the nature of the relationship more, i.e., the possible power and subservient dynamics of such a relationship). I was instead concerned with other controversies and contradictions that may not be as popularly known, but which I find fascinating. Some examples, all of which are either glossed over or not mentioned at all by Meacham:

1. Chapter 23 of Hamilton: “Citizen Genêt … wanted the United States to extend more funds to France and supply foodstuffs and other army provisions. Much more controversially, he wanted to strike blows against Spanish and British possessions in North America and was ready to hire secret agents for that purpose. Jefferson became his clandestine accomplice when he furnished Genêt with a letter introducing a French botanist named André Michaux to the governor of Kentucky. Michaux planned to arm Kentuckians and stir up frontier settlements in Spanish Louisiana. Jefferson’s aid violated the policy of neutrality and made Hamilton’s unauthorized talks with George Beckwith seem like tame indiscretions in comparison.” I don’t know what others believe, but this seems borderline treasonous to me.

2. Chapter 2 of “Three Lives of James Madison” notes that as governor of Virginia, Jefferson secretly imprisoned British General Henry Hamilton in the dungeon of the Williamsburg jail for nearly two years, even after General Washington advised Jefferson to release him (Madison was also complicit in this). The implication was that they might have been attempting to conceal atrocities committed by the Virginia militia against native civilians, and that Hamilton’s release was conditioned on his silence. 3. Jefferson’s many contradictions regarding the French Revolution, not the least of which his previous admiration of Louis XVI and subsequent ambivalence over his murder and several other officers who served alongside American soldiers in the Revolutionary War.

4. Freneu’s newspaper – Jefferson putting an obviously unqualified person on the State Department payroll in order to entice (i.e., bribe or finance) a partisan newspaper.

5. Completely brushing off Shay’s Rebellion – “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants”. Incomprehensible words, really, from a figure in government.

Thank you in advance for indulging me! I know this is somewhat detailed and specific. Just hoping to not have to dive into the six-volume series if Boles does the job.

March 21, 2021 at 8:31 am

Hi Brandon: I’m not sure my response will make your decision any easier, but here goes.

1. Boles’ definitely discusses Genet and Michaux, but to me Jefferson does not come across in the book as a clandestine accomplice.

2. I am finishing a book on Baron de Steuben now and the “Three Lives of James Madison” is my next book. I regret to say that I remember nothing about Henry Hamilton in Boles’ book and there is no mention of the name in the index under Hamilton. I should add that the text of the Boles book is a mere 520 pages. He mentions in the acknowledgements that he submitted a much longer manuscript. Perhaps his discussion of this episode ended up on the cutting room floor.

3. Certainly, there is much in the book about Jefferson’s attitudes toward France and his time there. My sense is that the Federalists – Hamilton, Adams, and Gouverneur Morris – were more hypocritical in their views of the revolution than Jefferson. They clearly viewed the revolutionaries in France as the rabble. Jefferson enjoyed the finer things that France offered and this can appear as an inconsistency. But ultimately, he was true to his republican principles, Boles would say almost to a fault. Boles states, Jefferson “was almost in a state of denial regarding matters in France, or, perhaps more accurately, he was willing to tolerate dreadful means for such an important end.” 242. Without question, Boles includes some Jefferson quotes that can make Jefferson seem callous when it comes to bloodshed and loss of life. But Boles does a good job of contextualizing Jefferson’s statements to make them a bit less damning.

4. Boles definitely addresses the Freneau newspaper controversy. It’s hard to tell whether it would be in sufficient detail to satisfy you. Hamilton’s use of John Fenno was almost, not quite maybe, as objectionable. I think the closeness of these politicians to these newspaper men shocks our conscience today, but rules regarding conflicts of interest and the like were a little less formal back then. Despite his mild manners, Jefferson could be a no holds barred type of guy. The fact that Jefferson wasn’t drummed out of government when the whole Freneau thing came to light shows the differences between then and now.

5. I thought I remembered the language you quoted, but I couldn’t find it when I went back to look for it. (That doesn’t mean it isn’t in there; I just couldn’t locate it.) Nonetheless, Boles does reference Jefferson’s views on Shay’s Rebellion. Of course, it’s critical to keep in mind that Jefferson was in France when it occurred. Boles states, Jefferson “missed how seriously many in the United States took the threat.” (Please see answer to #3 about Jefferson’s callousness.)

What I liked about the Boles book is his effort to contextualize the things that Jefferson said and did, but it didn’t come across as hagiographic. I loved the book, but Jefferson as a person continues to disappoint as compared with the Jefferson many of us were taught to revere in grade school.

That’s all I’ve got. Not sure this really helps you. Boles does a stellar job in 520 pages, but it’s tough to compete in terms of comprehensiveness with six volumes.

October 28, 2021 at 12:33 pm

Totally agree with your assessment of John Boles’ biography of Jefferson. I found him sympathetic but critical to his subject – a masterful, thoughtful treatment of a life lived in its historical context. I felt he spoke effectively to many of the contemporary controversies surrounding Jefferson’s legacy. Have you read Kevin Hayes’ The Road to Monticello? Another terrific insight into Jefferson’s life.

January 7, 2023 at 10:52 am

I realize I’m replying to my original reply, but I was drawn back to this page by the recent activity (see below). Regarding Tim Rosenfield’s comment, which should be above, and Steve’s subsequent review, I wondered the extent to which Kevin Hayes in The Road to Monticello addressed the evolution of Jefferson’s views on slavery. How did he evolve from someone who apparently at one point believed in gradual emancipation to someone who didn’t free most of his slaves at his death? Is this discussed in Hayes’ book? (I still haven’t read the Hayes book despite the comment below.) Are there other recent studies of Jefferson that delve into this topic in any detail? Thanks.

October 28, 2021 at 5:34 pm

I have not read the Hayes’ book, but it looks interesting. I will add it to my very long list. Thank you for the recommendation.

March 18, 2022 at 10:17 am

Thank you so much for this website and all the work you have put into it (and time spent reading)! Have you heard much about Christopher Hitchens’ “Thomas Jefferson: Author of America”? I was discussing my presidential reading campaign with my English professor the other day (some 12 years after I took his class) and he said it was excellent. Hitchens seems like an interesting fellow, though maybe a little sharp around the edges, and am curious how a personality like that examines a president like Jefferson. Thanks again!

March 21, 2022 at 5:38 am

I’ve heard about it but haven’t read it. Hitchens was, indeed, a fascinating fellow, and at some point I’ll probably read his book on Jefferson. But for the moment I have too many traditional biographies to get to, so I’ll probably wait on this for awhile.

January 6, 2023 at 5:59 am

Hi there! I am such a fan of this site and probably browse it daily at this point, reading various reviews, etc.

I would love to know which of TJ’s biographies gave the most extensive treatment of the Burr Conspiracy. Do you remember off hand?

January 7, 2023 at 6:48 am

The Malone series probably provided the most thorough review, followed by Merrill Peterson’s biography. After that, I’d say the most useful coverage was probably Jon Meacham’s.

January 7, 2023 at 7:15 am

Malone, of course, will win on sheer page count. However, he his rarely objective when it comes to TJ the man of marble. Always the highest and best motives attached, whilst is opponents make up a who’s who rogue gallery of miscreants and Burr is enemy number one.

There are a number of book length studies on the conspiracy as such that provide a more balanced approach and wider source use than Malone.

The debate over Burr will never end because it rests at the very interpretation of what America could be, should be and sometimes actually is. Thus every generation will rework the Burr conspiracy influenced by more contemporary events.

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Thomas Jefferson: Significant Facts and Brief Biography

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Thomas Jefferson was the third President of the United States. Perhaps Jefferson's greatest accomplishment was the drafting of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, decades before he became president.

Thomas Jefferson

Life span: Born: April 13, 1743, Albemarle County, Virginia Died: July 4, 1826, at his home, Monticello, in Virginia.

Jefferson was 83 at the time of his death, which occurred on the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, which he had written. In an eerie coincidence, John Adams , another Founding Father and early president, died on the same day.

Presidential terms: March 4, 1801 - March 4, 1809

Accomplishments:  Jefferson's greatest accomplishment as president was probably the acquisition of the Louisiana Purchase . It was controversial at the time, as it was unclear if Jefferson had the authority to buy the enormous tract of land from France. And, there was also a question of whether the land, much of it still unexplored, was worth the $15 million Jefferson paid.

Because the Louisiana Purchase doubled the territory of the United States, it is viewed to have been a very shrewd move, and Jefferson's role in the purchase a great triumph.

Jefferson, though he did not believe in a permanent military, dispatched the young U.S. Navy to fight the Barbary Pirates . And he had to contend with a number of problems related to Britain, which harassed American ships and engaged in the impressment of American sailors .

His response to Britain, the Embargo Act of 1807 , was generally thought to be a failure which only postponed the War of 1812 .

Political Affiliations

Supported by:  Jefferson's political party was known as the Democratic-Republicans, and his supporters tended to believe in a limited federal government.

Jefferson's political philosophy was influenced by the French Revolution. He preferred a small national government and a limited presidency.

Opposed by:  Though he served as the vice president during the presidency of John Adams, Jefferson came to oppose Adams. Believing that Adams was accumulating too much power in the presidency, Jefferson decided to run for the office in 1800 to deny Adams a second term.

Jefferson was also opposed by Alexander Hamilton, who believed in a stronger federal government. Hamilton was also aligned with northern banking interests, while Jefferson aligned himself with southern agricultural interests.

Presidential Campaigns

When Jefferson ran for president in the  election of 1800  he received the same number of electoral votes as his running mate,  Aaron Burr  (the incumbent, John Adams, came in third). The election had to be decided in the House of Representatives, and the Constitution was later amended to avoid that scenario from ever being repeated.

In 1804 Jefferson ran again and easily won a second term.

Spouse and Family

Jefferson married Martha Waynes Skelton on January 1, 1772. They had seven children, but only two daughters lived to adulthood.

Martha Jefferson died on September 6, 1782, and Jefferson never remarried. However, there is evidence that he sexually assaulted Sally Hemings, an enslaved woman who was the half-sister of his wife, regularly. Scientific evidence indicates that on one of the occasions that Jefferson raped her, Sally Hemings became pregnant.

Jefferson was rumored to be "involved" with Sally Hemings during his lifetime, meaning that he likely forced her into sexual relations without her consent. And political enemies spread rumors about "illegitimate" children Jefferson might have had as a result of raping Hemings.

The rumors about Jefferson never entirely disappeared, and, in fact, in recent decades they have come to be accepted as credible. In 2018, administrators at Monticello, Jefferson's estate, unveiled new exhibits focused on the lives of the people Jefferson enslaved. And the role of Sally Hemings in Jefferson's life has been highlighted. The room in which she is believed to have lived has been restored.

Education:  Jefferson was born into a family living on a Virginia farm of 5,000 acres, and, coming from a privileged background, he entered the prestigious College of William and Mary at the age of 17. He was very interested in scientific subjects and would remain so for the rest of his life.

However, as there was no realistic opportunity for a scientific career in the Virginia society in which he lived, he gravitated to the study of law and philosophy.

Early career:  Jefferson became a lawyer and entered the bar at the age of 24. He had a legal practice for a time, but abandoned it when the movement toward independence of the colonies became his focus.

Later Career

After serving as president Jefferson retired to his plantation, where he enslaved many people to work for him, in Virginia, Monticello. He kept a busy schedule of reading, writing, inventing, and farming. He often faced very serious financial problems, but still lived a comfortable life.

Unusual Facts

Unusual facts:  Jefferson's great contradiction is that he wrote the Declaration of Independence, declaring that "all men are created equal," but he enslaved hundreds of people throughout his lifetime.

Jefferson was the first president to be inaugurated in Washington, D.C., and he began the tradition of inaugurations being held at the U.S. Capitol. To make a point about democratic principles and being a man of the people, Jefferson chose not to ride in a fancy carriage to the ceremony. He walked to the Capitol (some accounts say he rode his own horse).

Jefferson's first inaugural address was considered  one of the best  of the 19th century. After four years in office, he gave an  angry and bitter inaugural address  considered one of the worst of the century.

While living in the White House he was known to keep gardening tools in his office, so he could step out and tend the garden he kept on what is now the mansion's south lawn.

Death and funeral:  Jefferson died on July 4, 1826, and was buried in the graveyard at Monticello on the following day. There was a very simple ceremony.

Legacy:   Thomas Jefferson is considered one of the great Founding Fathers of the United States, and he would have been a notable figure in American history even if he had not been president.

His most important legacy would be the Declaration of Independence, and his most enduring contribution as president would be the Louisiana Purchase.

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Biography Online

Biography Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743–July 4, 1826) was a leading  Founding Father of the United States, the author of the Declaration of Independence (1776) and he served as the third President of the US (1801–1809). Jefferson was a committed Republican – arguing passionately for liberty, democracy and devolved power. Jefferson also wrote the Statute for Religious Freedom in 1777 – it was adopted by the state of Virginia in 1786. Jefferson was also a noted polymath with wide-ranging interests from architecture to gardening, philosophy, literature and education. Although a slave owner himself, Jefferson sought to introduce a bill (1800) to end slavery in all Western territories. As President, he signed a bill to ban the importation of slaves into the US (1807).

Jefferson’s Childhood

“Still less let it be proposed that our properties within our own territories shall be taxed or regulated by any power on earth but our own. The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time; the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them. This, sire, is our last, our determined resolution;”

Thomas Jefferson – A Summary View of the Rights of British America (1774). ( Wikisource )

Thomas Jefferson and The Declaration of Independence (1776)

Thomas Jefferson was the primary author in drafting the American Declaration of Independence. The act was adopted on July 4th, 1776 and was a symbolic statement of the aims of the American Revolution.

 “We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness…”

– Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence , July 4th, 1776. Jefferson received suggestions from others such as James Madison. He was also influenced by the writings of the British Empiricists, in particular, John Locke and Thomas Paine . The importance of the Declaration of Independence was summed up in The Gettysburg address of Abraham Lincoln in 1863.

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

However, Jefferson was disappointed that a reference to the evil of slavery was removed at the request of delegates from the South. From 1785 to 1789 Jefferson served as minister to France, succeeding Benjamin Franklin . In France, Jefferson became immersed in Paris society. He was a noted host and came into contact with many of the great thinkers of the age. Jefferson also saw the social and political turmoil which resulted in the French Revolution. On 26 August 1789, the French Assembly published the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen , which was directly influenced by Jefferson’s US Declaration of Independence. On his return to America Jefferson served under George Washington as first Secretary of State. Here he began debating with the Hamilton factions over the size of government spending. Jefferson was an advocate of minimal government. At the end of his term 1783, he retired temporarily to Monticello, where he spent time amongst his gardens and with his family.

Jefferson – President in 1800

In 1796 Jefferson stood for President but lost narrowly to John Adams ; however, under the terms of the constitution, this was sufficient for him to become Vice President. In the run-up to the next election of 1800 Jefferson fought a bitter campaign. In particular, the Alien and Sedition Act of 1798 led to the imprisonment of many newspaper editors who supported Jefferson and were critical of the existing government. However, Jefferson was narrowly elected and this allowed him to promote open and representative government. On being elected, he offered a hand of friendship to his former political enemies. He also allowed the Sedition Act to expire and promoted the practical existence of free speech. The Presidency of Jefferson was eventful, but importantly he was able to preside over a period of relative stability and generally kept America out of conflict.

“I love peace, and am anxious that we should give the world still another useful lesson, by showing to them other modes of punishing injuries than by war, which is as much a punishment to the punisher as to the sufferer.”

At the time American neutrality was imperilled by the British-French wars, which raged around Canada. In 1803 Jefferson was able to double the size of the US, through the Louisiana Purchase, which gave America many states to the west. He also commissioned the Lewis and Clark Expedition, which crossed America seeking to explore and create friendships with the Native American populations.

Jefferson’s Retirement in Monticello

Thomas Jefferson’s Personal Life

Thomas Jefferson married Martha Wayles Skelton in 1772. Together they had six children, including one stillborn son. Martha Jefferson Randolph (1772–1836), Jane Randolph (1774–1775), a stillborn or unnamed son (1777), Mary Wayles (1778–1804), Lucy Elizabeth (1780–1781), and Lucy Elizabeth (1782–1785). Martha died only 10 years later. Thomas Jefferson remained single for the rest of his life. It was alleged that Jefferson fathered some of Sally Hemings’ daughters. Jefferson never denied it in public, but he did deny it private correspondence. There has never been any conclusive proof that this occurred.

Personal qualities

Jefferson was over 6’2″; this was very tall for his age. He didn’t relish public speaking, he preferred to express his opinions through his writings. His friends and family remarked on Jefferson’s many fine qualities. He was sympathetic and engaging in conversation. Never bored, he always found different avenues of interest to explore. Thomas Jefferson left a profound mark on America, through his influential shaping of the American constitution and political practices. Jefferson died at the age of 84 on the afternoon of July 4; it was the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. A few hours later on the same day, his longtime friend and fellow Founding Father John Adams also passed away. On his tombstone, Jefferson had inscribed three achievements he was proudest of:

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.

Citation: Pettinger, Tejvan . “ Biography of Thomas Jefferson ”, Oxford, UK – www.biographyonline.net . Published 22 June 2014 Last updated 22 October 2019.

Thomas Jefferson: A Life

Thomas Jefferson: A Life at Amazon

Light and Liberty – Quotes of Thomas Jefferson

Light and Liberty – Quotes of Thomas Jefferson at Amazon

Related pages

• Thomas Jefferson – Achievements
• Thomas Jefferson – minor accomplishments
• Thomas Jefferson’s views on religion

External Links

• Thomas Jefferson – Light and Liberty
• Monticello –  The home of Thomas Jefferson

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Thomas Jefferson and the new nation; a biography

Peterson, Merrill D.

Oxford University Press

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Thomas Jefferson is the most enigmatic of the American Founding Fathers. The author of the Declaration of Independence, he is sometimes called the “Author of America.” As a son of the Enlightenment and the American founding, he is claimed by many sides.

And as Thomas Kidd reminds us in his splendid new biography, we still haven’t quite got Thomas Jefferson right, especially in his religious and philosophic views. What Kidd reveals is that Jefferson was, and remains, America’s chief political theologian articulating a theology of liberty.

Jefferson is the author of the Declaration of Independence, the third president of the United States, a former governor of Virginia, and former secretary of state. That is generally how his political life is remembered, and in that order.

But what many people also remember of this spirited statesman and Founding Father is that he was a quasi-philosopher and theologian, a man energized by the new discoveries of science and pushing the edge of moral philosophy that verged on radicalism. He was, and remains, America’s great political intellectual.

Kidd entered the always fruitful world of Jeffersonia, and we certainly benefit from his entry into this garden of abundance. “ Thomas Jefferson: A Biography of Flesh and Spirit ” offers a new reading of Jefferson — one sorely needed in today’s polarized environment in which Jefferson, of all the Founding Fathers, is the most mischaracterized and misrepresented by admirers and critics alike. In entering the rich world of Jeffersonia, Kidd reveals the portrait of a man who is “hardly … a secularist hero, or (even less so) of a predecessor of the Christian Right.”

Age of Intellectual Experimentation

Jefferson the thinker, and “sect unto himself,” was a man who combined elements of “Christianity, Epicureanism, the Enlightenment emphasis on rationalism and universal rights, and the republican values of virtue, limited government, and political liberty.” The problem with discerning Jefferson’s moral universe and commitments from our standpoint comes from the fact that we live in an age of dogmatic ideology.

We impose a dogmatic reading of Jefferson, whereas Jefferson lived in age of intellectual experimentation that usually left contradictory and incompatible philosophies contesting, without seeking to resolve them. Jefferson’s mishmash of views was only possible to weave together because of the intellectual excitement and relative openness the Enlightenment afforded.

Dogmatists of the secularist post-Enlightenment want an only secular and rationalist Jefferson and misleadingly (ignorantly or otherwise) present the third president in that light. Dogmatists of the new Christian right present a misleading portrait of what Kidd describes as a “brilliant but troubled person,” as they selectively cobble together some of Jefferson’s positive comments about the relationship of Christianity and public virtue with contemporary anti-statist politics.

There they find tentative resonance with Jefferson’s worry of a centralized federal government. Jefferson, however, was always a favorite among dissenting Christians in America for his stance on religious freedom, which benefitted Baptists, Methodists, and other lower-class Christian groups fearful of established Anglican and congregational churches.

Jefferson’s Education

The reality is the Enlightenment era was very fluid in intellectual experimentation in which Jefferson perfectly fit. Jefferson’s universe was one of open and exhilarating experimentation. That also characterized the Christianity of the same period, giving birth to new denominations and movements. In guiding through this open and experimental moral universe, we discover Jefferson anew.

Jefferson’s moral universe begins, naturally, with his childhood and the lovesickness many of us also experience. “At the threshold of adulthood,” Kidd writes, “Thomas Jefferson’s mind was brimming with thoughts of Bible characters, satanic torments, and a desirable young lady.” The Jefferson at “the threshold of adulthood” was a young man steeped in the writings of Anglican Christianity, the Greek and Latin classics, English literature (especially Shakespeare), and, upon his entry into the College of William and Mary, the latest trends in Enlightenment science and the jurisprudence of English Common Law.

All of the above contributed to Jefferson’s moral imagination. And not a moment too soon, either, for it wasn’t long after his graduation that the French and Indian War and the gradual drift toward revolution and independence demanded the contributions of Jefferson’s intellectual gifts.

A God of Liberty and Justice

The French and Indian War, Stamp Act, and the beginning of the American Revolution coincide with Jefferson’s development of political thought that had started back in college within the Common Law tradition. In the 1770s, on the eve of revolution, Jefferson’s political beliefs in personal liberty shaped by his attitudes of the Common Law and some personal law cases gave rise to a “mastery of providential rhetoric in the defense of colonists’ rights,” Kidd writes.

Jefferson wove together what was already commonplace in colonial America but made it distinctively his own: the belief in a God of liberty and just judgment overseeing the advancement of human and political liberty.

As Jefferson continued to mature, so too did his reliance on the classical tradition of thinkers — the republican historians of Rome and the harmonist philosophers of Greece, foremost among them the Epicureans and Stoics. Jefferson’s moral universe, a universe undergirded by a God of justice, a moral order knowable through rational inquiry, and an individual soul seeking the felicity of tranquility in all relations, becomes the spirit and flesh that comes to govern — however imperfectly, and imperfect it was — Jefferson’s life.

Jefferson’s life seeking union with the moral universe that he conceived in his mind became, in soft cultural form, the moral universe of the United States and its people, even if we don’t always realize it. We too want a God of justice, a moral order to conform to by the dictates of reason, and a tranquil soul and community where liberty abounds within that harmony under God’s justice and moral rationalism. In sum, we are still Jefferson’s children. Jefferson’s political theology has become our own.

A Man of Many Worlds

We find in Jefferson a man of many worlds, not just one world. He was a son of the Enlightenment in the sense that this world was one of intellectual openness and experimentation rather than the post-Enlightenment dogmatism of Steven Pinker or Michael Shermer.

He was a son of the classics — revealed in the aesthetic of Monticello and the University of Virginia as well as in his steadfast commitment to republican political principles drawn from Cicero, Livy, and Demosthenes — who nevertheless read modern writers and absorbed their discoveries and insights. He was, most of all according to Kidd, America’s own political theologian, developing a political theology of liberty, justice, and judgment couched in biblical rhetoric but whose conceptualization of God leaned toward an enlightened providentialism compatible with certain strands of Christianity.

Because Jefferson’s moral imagination and universe drew upon many worlds, Jefferson remains an enigma for narrow-minded dogmatists who want an equally narrow Jefferson contrary to who Jefferson actually was. But, as Kidd shows in this splendid biography, we benefit by entering Jefferson’s worlds on his terms, not ours. We do ourselves, and Jefferson, a gross abuse by trying to impose our ideological presuppositions on him rather than becoming better humans by learning from the life and intellect of the Sage of Monticello. And Jefferson’s moral universe was one in which God, liberty, and man were meant to be united

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The 10 Best Books on President Thomas Jefferson

Essential books on thomas jefferson.

There are countless books on Thomas Jefferson, and it comes with good reason, aside from serving as America’s third President (1801-1809), he was a founding father and the principal author of the Declaration of Independence.

“Determine never to be idle,” he remarked. “No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time, who never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be done, if we are always doing.”

In order to get to the bottom of what inspired one of history’s most consequential figures to the heights of societal contribution, we’ve compiled a list of the 10 best books on Thomas Jefferson.

Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power by Jon Meacham

Thomas Jefferson hated confrontation, and yet his understanding of power and of human nature enabled him to move men and to marshal ideas, to learn from his mistakes, and to prevail. Passionate about many things – women, his family, books, science, architecture, gardens, friends, Monticello, and Paris – Jefferson loved America most, and he strove over and over again, despite fierce opposition, to realize his vision: the creation, survival, and success of popular government in America.

Jon Meacham lets us see Jefferson’s world as Jefferson himself saw it, and to appreciate how Jefferson found the means to endure and win in the face of rife partisan division, economic uncertainty, and external threat. Drawing on archives in the United States, England, and France, as well as unpublished Jefferson presidential papers, Meacham presents Jefferson as the most successful political leader of the early republic, and perhaps in all of American history.

The father of the ideal of individual liberty, of the Louisiana Purchase, of the Lewis and Clark expedition, and of the settling of the West, Jefferson recognized that the genius of humanity – and the genius of the new nation – lay in the possibility of progress, of discovering the undiscovered and seeking the unknown.

Thomas Jefferson and the Tripoli Pirates by Brian Kilmeade

When Thomas Jefferson became president in 1801, America faced a crisis. The new nation was deeply in debt and needed its economy to grow quickly, but its merchant ships were under attack. Pirates from North Africa’s Barbary Coast routinely captured American sailors and held them as slaves, demanding ransom and tribute payments far beyond what the new country could afford.

Over the previous 15 years, as a diplomat and then as secretary of state, Jefferson had tried to work with the Barbary states (Tripoli, Tunis, Algiers, and Morocco). Unfortunately, he found it impossible to negotiate with people who believed their religion justified the plunder and enslavement of non-Muslims.

These rogue states would show no mercy – at least not while easy money could be made by extorting America, France, England, and other powers. So President Jefferson decided to move beyond diplomacy. He sent the US Navy’s new warships and a detachment of marines to blockade Tripoli – launching the Barbary Wars and beginning America’s journey toward future superpower status.

American Sphinx by Joseph J. Ellis

For a man who insisted that life on the public stage was not what he had in mind, Thomas Jefferson certainly spent a great deal of time in the spotlight – and not only during his active political career. After 1809, his longed-for retirement was compromised by a steady stream of guests and tourists who made of his estate at Monticello a virtual hotel, as well as by more than one thousand letters per year, most from strangers, which he insisted on answering personally.

In his twilight years Jefferson was already taking on the luster of a national icon, which was polished off by his auspicious death (on July 4, 1826); and in the subsequent seventeen decades of his celebrity – now verging, thanks to virulent revisionists and television documentaries, on notoriety – has been inflated beyond recognition of the original person.

For the historian Joseph J. Ellis, the experience of writing about Jefferson was “as if a pathologist, just about to begin an autopsy, has discovered that the body on the operating table was still breathing.” In this gem among books on Thomas Jefferson, Ellis sifts the facts shrewdly from the legends and the rumors, treading a path between vilification and hero worship in order to formulate a plausible portrait of the man who still today “hover[s] over the political scene like one of those dirigibles cruising above a crowded football stadium, flashing words of inspiration to both teams.”

Jefferson and Hamilton by John Ferling

The decade of the 1790s has been called the “age of passion.” Fervor ran high as rival factions battled over the course of the new republic – each side convinced that the other’s goals would betray the legacy of the Revolution so recently fought and so dearly won. All understood as well that what was at stake was not a moment’s political advantage, but the future course of the American experiment in democracy. In this epochal debate, no two figures loomed larger than Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton.

Both men were visionaries, but their visions of what the United States should be were diametrically opposed. Jefferson, a true revolutionary, believed passionately in individual liberty and a more egalitarian society, with a weak central government and greater powers for the states. Hamilton, a brilliant organizer and tactician, feared chaos and social disorder. He sought to build a powerful national government that could ensure the young nation’s security and drive it toward economic greatness.

This is the story of the fierce struggle – both public and, ultimately, bitterly personal – between these two titans. It ended only with the death of Hamilton in a pistol duel, felled by Aaron Burr, Jefferson’s vice president.

Jefferson: Architect of American Liberty by John B. Boles

John B. Boles plumbs every facet of Jefferson’s life, all while situating him amid the sweeping upheaval of his times. We meet Jefferson the politician and political thinker – as well as Jefferson the architect, scientist, bibliophile, paleontologist, musician, and gourmet. We witness him drafting the Declaration of Independence, negotiating the Louisiana Purchase, and inventing a politics that emphasized the states over the federal government – a political philosophy that shapes our national life to this day.

Boles offers new insight into Jefferson’s actions and thinking on race. His Jefferson is not a hypocrite, but a tragic figure – a man who could not hold simultaneously to his views on abolition, democracy, and patriarchal responsibility. Yet despite his flaws, Jefferson’s ideas would outlive him and make him into nothing less than the architect of American liberty.

Madison and Jefferson by Andrew Burstein

The third and fourth presidents have long been considered proper gentlemen, with Thomas Jefferson’s genius overshadowing James Madison’s judgment and common sense. But in this revelatory book about their crucial partnership, both are seen as men of their times, hardboiled operatives in a gritty world of primal politics where they struggled for supremacy for more than fifty years.

With a thrilling and unprecedented account of early America as its backdrop, this gem among books on Thomas Jefferson reveals these founding fathers as privileged young men in a land marked by tribal identities rather than a united national personality. Esteemed historians Andrew Burstein and Nancy Isenberg capture Madison’s hidden role – he acted in effect as a campaign manager – in Jefferson’s career. In riveting detail, the authors chart the courses of two very different presidencies: Jefferson’s driven by force of personality, Madison’s sustained by a militancy that history has been reluctant to ascribe to him.

Friends Divided by Gordon S. Wood

Thomas Jefferson and John Adams could scarcely have come from more different worlds, or been more different in temperament. Jefferson, the optimist with enough faith in the innate goodness of his fellow man to be democracy’s champion, was an aristocratic Southern slaveowner, while Adams, the overachiever from New England’s rising middling classes, painfully aware he was no aristocrat, was a skeptic about popular rule and a defender of a more elitist view of government.

They worked closely in the crucible of revolution, crafting the Declaration of Independence and leading, with Franklin, the diplomatic effort that brought France into the fight. But ultimately, their profound differences would lead to a fundamental crisis, in their friendship and in the nation writ large, as they became the figureheads of two entirely new forces, the first American political parties. It was a bitter breach, lasting through the presidential administrations of both men, and beyond.

Jefferson and the Virginians by Peter Onuf

In  Jefferson and the Virginians , renowned scholar Peter S. Onuf examines the ways in which Thomas Jefferson and his fellow Virginians – George Washington, James Madison, and Patrick Henry – both conceptualized their home state from a political and cultural perspective, and understood its position in the new American union. The conversations Onuf reconstructs offer glimpses into the struggle to define Virginia – and America – within the context of the upheaval of the Revolutionary War.

Onuf contends that Jefferson and his interlocutors sought to define Virginia’s character as a self-constituted commonwealth and to determine the state’s place in the American union during an era of constitutional change and political polarization. Thus, the outcome of the American Revolution led to ongoing controversies over the identity of Virginians and Americans as a “people” or “peoples;” over Virginia’s boundaries and jurisdiction within the union; and over the system of government in Virginia and for the states collectively.

“Those Who Labor For My Happiness” by Lucia Stanton

Our perception of life at Monticello has changed dramatically over the past quarter-century. The image of an estate presided over by a benevolent Thomas Jefferson has given way to a more complex view of Monticello as a working plantation, the success of which was made possible by the work of slaves. At the center of this transition has been the work of Lucia “Cinder” Stanton, recognized as the leading interpreter of Jefferson’s life as a planter and master and of the lives of his slaves and their descendants.

Stanton’s pioneering work deepened our understanding of Jefferson without demonizing him. But perhaps even more important is the light her writings have shed on the lives of the slaves at Monticello. Her detailed reconstruction for modern readers of slaves’ lives vividly reveals their active roles in the creation of Monticello and a dynamic community previously unimagined.

The essays collected here address a rich variety of topics, from family histories (including the Hemingses) to the temporary slave community at Jefferson’s White House to stories of former slaves’ lives after Monticello. Each piece is characterized by Stanton’s deep knowledge of her subject and by her determination to do justice to both Jefferson and his slaves.

The Autobiography of Thomas Jefferson

During his remarkable lifetime, Thomas Jefferson served his country in many capacities – among them, as President of the United States. But ultimately, this great and talented man – an accomplished architect, naturalist, and linguist – wished to be remembered primarily as the author of the Declaration of Independence.

In his autobiography, begun in 1821 at the age of 77, Jefferson presents a detailed account of his young life and the period during which he wrote the Declaration. A first draft of the document is included in this edition, as are his comments on the Articles of Confederation, his experiences as a wartime governor of Virginia, minister to France and observations during the French Revolution.

Also featured here are rich remembrances and insights as Jefferson recalls his roles as Washington’s secretary of state and vice president under John Adams, and his life in retirement.

If you enjoyed this guide to books on Thomas Jefferson, be sure to check out our list of The 10 Best Books on President George Washington !

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20 Best Books on Thomas Jefferson (2022 Review)

September 16, 2020 by James Wilson

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When asked to look back on some of the most well-known and famous presidents of the United States, the third president Thomas Jefferson is often one of the first to come to mind. Thomas Jefferson served as president between the years 1801 to 1809, and before that, served a term as the Vice President. While he was known for this, he holds even higher esteem in history books as one of the Founding Fathers of the United States.

What are the Best Thomas Jefferson Books to read?

There are some common facts known about Thomas Jefferson in this way, but much like any renowned historical figure, there are little details about his life, work and strategies that remain unknown. Books about Thomas Jefferson have been printed again and again, each with its own bits of knowledge to take away. When it comes to finding the book on Thomas Jefferson that will interest you most, there are a few things to take into consideration.

No matter what sort of issues surrounding Jefferson pique your interests, there is a book out there for you, and this Thomas Jefferson buying guide will help you find it. With these books, you can uncover the truth in the myths surrounding him and understand some of the most important facts about the Founding Father himself.

Best Books on Thomas Jefferson: Our Top 20 Picks

Here are some of the best Thomas Jefferson books that you can consider to expand your knowledge on the subject:

1. Thomas Jefferson and the Tripoli Pirates: The Forgotten War That Changed American History

During the time that Thomas Jefferson started his presidency in the year 1801, the brand new nation of America was already in deep debt and was in need of a swiftly growing economy. To make matters worse, its merchant ships were constantly under siege by pirate ships from North Africa that regularly kidnapped American sailors and took them as slaves and hostages, demanding ransoms higher than what the budding nation could afford to pay.

Because Jefferson found it next to impossible to negotiate with these pirates who showed little mercy for religious reasons, he moved past diplomacy, sending warships to fend off the Tripoli pirates and ultimately taking the first strides of America’s journey toward becoming a future superpower.

All of this is detailed in the book through exciting chapters that document events like cannon battles on the sea, night raids of enemy harbors and General Eaton’s 500-mile journey to the port of Derna from Egypt where, after a surprise attack, the American flag stood victorious on foreign land for the very first time.

• Authors : Brian Kilmeade (Author), Don Yaeger (Author)
• Publisher : Sentinel; Illustrated Edition (October 24, 2017)
• Pages : 304 pages

2. Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power

From Pulitzer prize winning author Jon Meacham comes Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power , an in-depth biography of Thomas Jefferson that deals with the man’s time on Earth in vivid detail, chronicling him through his extraordinary life and all of the feats that came with him. The book shows Thomas Jefferson as a complex and compelling man who spend his life engaged in wars, blending his philosophical mind with the skill of a politician to help get America off on the right foot to becoming what it is today.

This biography takes a deeper look at Jefferson as we know him today, showing the inner workings of his mind and his understanding of human nature and humanity as a whole, approaching the difficult tasks of the president of a fledgling nation while touching on his passions that included books, family, architecture, gardens, Paris and even women, painting a wholly human picture of the Founding Father.

• Authors : Jon Meacham (Author)
• Publisher : Random House; Illustrated Edition (November 13, 2012)
• Pages : 800 pages

3. The Jefferson Bible

Thomas Jefferson was famous for and talked about for many reasons, and perhaps one of the most peculiar was the fact that he essentially rewrote the Christian bible. In the book, you can see for yourself the man’s take on the bible itself, as even though he was not a devout Christian, still found himself inspired by some of the passages and uncomfortable with some of the others and sought to make it his own.

The Jefferson Bible is full of the words, passages and ideas that Jefferson believed to be the most important, writing in bits that resonated with him and leaving out things that didn’t. This is the original Government Printing Office 1904 edition of his version of the bible, the same one presented to members of Congress with its original Cyrus Adler introduction intact.

• Authors : Thomas Jefferson (Author), Cyrus Adler (Introduction)
• Publisher : Digireads.com (December 3, 2009)
• Pages : 72 pages

4. The Jefferson Lies: Exposing the Myths You’ve Always Believed About Thomas Jefferson

Perhaps the most controversial book about Thomas Jefferson, the book is a highly argued-over book that underwent campaigns to stop its publication. Thought of as perhaps the very first history book to ever make history, this book tackled all of the various misconceptions about what had once been the beloved Founding Father and sought to shine light on the truths of his character. Cutting through the struggle of having the pages pulled from shelves, the book tears through the layers of political correctness that sought to change the image of the former president, deconstructing all of the myths surrounding the man and leaving in its wake information given through Jefferson’s own words and accounts from his close contemporaries at the time.

The Jefferson Lies: Exposing the Myths answers questions about the rumors of his fathering a slave’s child, as well as potential racist ideologies and the idea that he even rewrote the bible to suit his beliefs.

• Authors : David Barton (Author)
• Publisher : WND Books; Reprint Edition (January 12, 2016)
• Pages : 416 pages

5. Thomas Jefferson: Author of America (Eminent Lives)

Social critic and journalist Christopher Hitchens authors Thomas Jefferson: Author of America , a book that offers a provocative and brand new take on one of the most famous of the Founding Fathers of the United States. This biography takes a look at the author of the formative Declaration of Independence, given immense power through the creation of the document and as the ambassador to France when, really, all he wanted was a smaller, quieter place in the Virginia legislature.

The book explores the contrast present between Jefferson being an awkward public speaker but a masterful writer, showing his personality in a new light. The contrast continues in the way that he opposed slavery but still owned his own slaves. Thomas Jefferson: Author of America will surely give you an insight into the life and times of Jefferson in a way you’ve never before seen.

• Authors : Christopher Hitchens (Author)
• Publisher : Harper Perennial; Illustrated Edition (May 5, 2009)
• Pages : 206 pages

6. American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson

Anyone who has taken a few basic history classes knows the basics of Thomas Jefferson, including his role as a Founding Father and President of the United States; however, much like every human being, his life extended well past what he did for a living. Even for a man who did not want to live his life on the public stage, much of what he did was ultimately turned into a public affair. With so much information surrounding the life and times of Thomas Jefferson, the author of American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson delves into the rumors, facts, accounts and tales of him to give an insight into the mind of Thomas Jefferson himself.

In this book, you can learn little-known facts about him, like the fact that he only delivered two public speeches in his eight years serving, to smaller facts like he liked to constantly sing under his breath.

• Authors : Joseph J. Ellis (Author)
• Publisher : Vintage Books (April 7, 1998)
• Pages : 440 pages

7. Thomas Jefferson Reprint Edition

Taking cues from the concise and straightforward epitaph on Thomas Jefferson’s tombstone, the Thomas Jefferson biography by R. B. Bernstein is just as straightforward and short, giving you an unbiased view of the Founding Father in a way that seeks to educate in a simple way. Between the covers of Thomas Jefferson , you will find all of Jefferson’s failings, triumphs and many contradictions spelled out that leave him as one of the most discussed people in history.

The book explores everything from his passionate belief in and desire to uphold democracy while also arguing toward reasons why slavery should still be permitted to his complicated relationship with Sally Hemings. More than just a Founding Father, Thomas Jefferson was an inventor, diplomat, architect, writer and more, and you’ll learn about all of his many roles in this biography.

• Authors : R. B. Bernstein (Author)
• Publisher : Oxford University Press; Illustrated Edition (September 15, 2005)
• Pages : 253 pages

8. Autobiography of Thomas Jefferson

A principle author of the Declaration of Independence and one of America’s Founding Fathers, Thomas Jefferson is known as a main proponent of democracy and republicanism that drives the nation today. In Autobiography of Thomas Jefferson , you will learn about his passion for individual rights and his efforts toward helping the fledgling nation continue to break away from Great Britain to become their own entity.

The book explores his brief time practicing law and defending slaves to his representation in the American Revolution and his anonymous publications that sought to embolden those looking to strengthen states’ rights as he was so passionate about doing. Follow along with Jefferson’s timeline where he organized the Louisiana Purchase and fought off pirates while trying to work out the British trade policies and see why he is one of the most talked about historical figures to this day.

• Authors : Thomas Jefferson (Author)
• Publisher : CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (July 6, 2017)
• Pages : 98 pages

9. The Real Thomas Jefferson (American Classic Series)

One of the most central and important actors in America’s history and democracy, it would stand to reason that Thomas Jefferson is one of the most heavily discussed and debated historical figures in American history. In The Real Thomas Jefferson , you can get a clear and concise look at who Thomas Jefferson was as a person outside of just his political career.

Over the years, he has been both deified and vilified by authors and historians with different motivations. Author Andrew M. Allison takes an unbiased, facts-based look at the former president, using Jefferson’s own words to describe his life to allow his own spirit to shine through history instead of the biases of historians so you can form your own understanding of who the Founding Father as was a person, according to him.

• Authors : Andrew M. Allison (Author)
• Publisher : National Center for Constitutional Studies; 2nd Edition (June 1, 1983)
• Pages : 709 pages

10. Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy

One of the most controversial and debated topics surrounding Thomas Jefferson’s life is the rumor that he was involved with Sally Hemings, one of his own slaves. In Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy , you can learn about all of the compelling arguments toward this purported relationship as well as the many inconsistencies within the stories, leaving you the ability to come to your own conclusions about this heavily debated topic.

The story begins in the early 1800’s and debunks the story from there with historians and scholars having their ideas challenged by biographers who heavily studied Jefferson’s character, beliefs and overall life long enough to give them substantial evidence against the claim. This telling and personal book takes a peek into the controversial topic in a way you’ve never read about it before.

• Authors : Annette Gordon-Reed (Author)
• Publisher : University of Virginia Press; Updated ed. Edition (March 29, 1998)
• Pages : 320 pages

11. A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the Twenty-First Century

For educators in a professional and homeschooling environment alike, A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the Twenty-First Century is a book that will help you learn how to best teach your students through tried and true methods that have been proven to work.

The book takes a new approach to education thought to be the Thomas Jefferson approach that will help you craft an individualized leadership-based education plan by showing you the way that the greatest thinkers and leaders in history were taught to get your students in the right state of mind as they take in new information. Also detailed is the manner in which these men and women were educated and able to produce lasting impacts and effects on the country that are still felt today.

• Authors : Oliver DeMille (Author)
• Publisher : TJEdOnline.com; First Paperback Edition (September 1, 2009)
• Pages : 198 pages

12. Friends Divided: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson

Friends Divided: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson compares and contrasts two of the prominent Founding Fathers and showcases all of the ways that they were different, both in their upbringing and in their differences in temperaments and ideals. Jefferson, a southern slave owner, has been painted as an optimist that had plenty of faith in the goodness present in people which could fuel their democracy, while Adam was a New England-born overachiever from the middle class that was skeptic about most people and held a rather elitist style review about government as a whole.

Though they worked closely together during the difficult times, their differences were too profound to ever truly come together, leaving them to hold interesting arguments against one another’s beliefs while at the same time rising to the top as figureheads for the budding political parties in America.

• Authors : Gordon S. Wood (Author)
• Publisher : Penguin Books; Reprint Edition (October 23, 2018)
• Pages : 512 pages

13. The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams

Take a peek into the minds of two prominent founding fathers, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, in The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams . In this compilation are numerous back and forth letters that show the high-minded, intellectual conversations between the two men spanning over half a century that offer insight into the type of thought processes that helped build the nation.

Between the pages are conversations of religion, government, philosophy and even deeply human and personal topics such as griefs and joys surrounding their respective families. The book features letters that were previously unpublished in other similar compilations, helping fill in the gaps and give you a clearer look at the exchanges between these two influential leaders up until the days of their deaths.

• Authors : Lester J. Cappon (Editor)
• Publisher : University of North Carolina Press; 1st Edition (September 30, 1988)
• Pages : 690 pages

14. Thomas Jefferson : Writings : Autobiography / Notes on the State of Virginia / Public and Private Papers / Addresses / Letters (Library of America

One of the best ways to get to know historical figures is through the terms of their own words and ideas, written out by the men and women themselves, and in Thomas Jefferson : Writings : Autobiography/Notes on the State of Virginia/Public and Private Papers/Addresses/Letters , you get a firsthand look at the inner workings of Thomas Jefferson, one of the most famous Founding Fathers of America.

In between the pages of this book, you are given access to more than 287 letters as well as addresses to the public and both the original and the revised drafts of the Declaration of Independence—giving you plenty of insight into the way this great leader once thought and seeing how his various thought processes culminated in the ultimate success of his goals that are still felt today.

• Authors : Thomas Jefferson (Author), Merrill D. Peterson (Editor)
• Publisher : Library of America (August 15, 1984)
• Pages : 1600 pages

15. Jefferson: Architect of American Liberty

In Jefferson: Architect of American Liberty , John B. Boles has taken on the ambitious endeavor of creating the most comprehensive biography of one of the nation’s most complex and hotly debated Founding Fathers. In the book, the author explores every available access to Thomas Jefferson’s life, taking note of even the smallest details all while keeping him appropriately situated against the remarkable levels of chaos and upheaval in his times to keep everything in perspective.

Through this book, you’ll meet Thomas Jefferson in his various forms, including Jefferson the scientist, architect, musician, gourmet chef and bibliophile to the more famous parts of him such as his status as the author of the Declaration of Independence, his part in the Louisiana Purchase and the way he worked hard for states’ rights.

• Authors : John B. Boles (Author)
• Publisher : Basic Books; 1st Edition (April 25, 2017)
• Pages : 640 pages

16. Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History

Through the educated eyes of a novelist who has been studying Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History is a biography that tackles the many issues and thought processes that will help you understand the Founding Father through an unbiased scholarly lens. This book highlights different parts of his life, including the more famous aspects such as the writing of the Declaration of Independence, his ideas on revolution, race, love, religion and power, giving a comprehensive look at who he was as a person, not just as a political, revolutionary figurehead.

This novel also features a new introduction by the Pulitzer-Prize winning author Annette Gordo-Reed who talks about the impact of this book and why it is one of the most accurate and powerful accounts of what is arguably one of the greatest presidents of this country.

• Authors : Fawn M. Brodie (Author), Annette Gordon-Reed (Introduction)
• Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company; Illustrated Edition (September 6, 2010)
• Pages : 624 pages

17. Notes on the State of Virginia (Penguin Classics)

Understand the history of Thomas Jefferson through his own eyes in Notes on the State of Virginia authored by the man himself. In this book, you will learn about the time period through the words of Thomas Jefferson as he chronicles the social, political and natural history, giving you a look into the past from his perspective. Notes on the State of Virginia offers a unique look at what defines America as well as the Founding Father’s examination of what it really means to have freedom.

It is published by Penguin Classics, a renowned publisher with integrity and a history of publishing English-speaking classic literature. They work once again to provide you with authoritative texts that censor nothing and offer you notes and introductions that will help you further understand what you’re reading without interrupting the author.

• Authors : Thomas Jefferson (Author), Frank Shuffelton (Editor)
• Publisher : Penguin Classics; Annotated Edition (December 1, 1998)
• Pages : 384 pages

18. Thomas Jefferson’s Education

While Thomas Jefferson was a famously complex man, there are usually only a select few themes that are explored when it comes to his life. In Thomas Jefferson’s Education , you can read directly about the historical events that led up to the eventual creation of his historic university and what sort of social climate this institution was built in.

While following the path to its creation, the book keeps you enveloped in the planters experiencing a decline in their business, the trials and tragedies of enslaved black families that were ripped apart by their sales, and the interesting intricacies of male honor. It includes the way he advocated for overall emancipation of slaves while being reluctant to give up his own and the way that he hypocritically supported education for white children but eventually just worked toward building this rather elite university.

• Authors : Alan Taylor (Author)
• Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company; Illustrated Edition (October 15, 2019)
• Pages : 448 pages

19. Thomas Jefferson: The American Presidents Series: The 3rd President, 1801-1809

It is believed that very few presidents have been as impactful as Thomas Jefferson both during the times he was alive and in the decades following. In Thomas Jefferson: The American Presidents Series , you can explore all of the reasons that he is considered to have been one of the greatest embodiments of the American spirit.

Being the originator of various principles that were crucial to the founding of American democracy, his ideals are ones that still ripple through time and reach us in the modern age, making them an important point of study for anyone interested in modern politics, such as his introduction of bills that mandated free public education and the separation of church and state. Follow along with the compelling words of historian Joyce Appleby as she examines all of the aspects of Jefferson’s character and life in an impactful new way.

• Authors : Joyce Appleby (Author), Arthur M. Schlesinger (Editor)
• Publisher : Times Books; First Edition (February 1, 2003)
• Pages : 184 pages

20. The Writings of Thomas Jefferson Library Edition – Vol. 6 (of 20)

Commonly believed to be one of the finest, most compelling thinkers and activists in history, Thomas Jefferson, one of the most prominent founding fathers, is a topic of limitless interest, debate, and controversy. The Writings of Thomas Jefferson Library Edition is the sixth volume in a 20 volume continuation that breaks down all of the interesting aspects of his life for you to digest and ponder.

In this particular volume, you can learn more about Thomas Jefferson’s inner workings through the thoughts and ideas of the man himself delivered on a firsthand account through various mediums such as many of his letters and addresses that were written in the mid 1780s, as well as two biographical essays that will give you a third-party view on the firsthand information you’ve read.

• Authors : Thomas Jefferson (Author), Taylor Anderson (Editor)
• Publisher : CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (September 13, 2017)

Choosing the Best Thomas Jefferson Books

Thomas Jefferson was a wildly complex man with inner workings every bit as interesting and compelling as the feats he performed on the public stage as the third President of the United States. Throughout the books listed here, you will learn remarkable tidbits and facts about one of the Founding Fathers, allowing you to see him in a new light not previously shone before. Each of these books presents new information on the president that will change your view of this famous president and allow you to see him for what he really was at the end of the day—a passionate human being.

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