Thomas Jefferson

tran said:

Thomas Jefferson was a very remarkable man who started learning very early in life and never stopped.

At 5, began studying under his cousins tutor.

At 9, studied Latin, Greek and French.

At 14, studied classical literature and additional languages.

At 16, entered the College of William and Mary.

At 19, studied Law for 5 years starting under George Wythe.

At 23, started hisown law practice.

At 25, was elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses.

At 31, wrote the widely circulated "Summary View of the Rights of British America" and retired from his law practice.

At 32, was a Delegate to the Second Continental Congress.

At 33, wrote the Declaration of Independence.

At 33, took three years to revise Virginias legal code and wrote a Public Education bill and a statute for Religious Freedom.

At 36, was elected the second Governor of Virginia succeeding Patrick Henry.

At 40, served in Congress for two years.

At 41, was the American minister to France and negotiated commercial treaties with European nations along with Ben Franklin and John Adams.

At 46, served as the first Secretary of State under George Washington.

At 53, served as Vice President and was elected president of the American Philosophical Society.

At 55, drafted the Kentucky Resolutions and became the active head of Republican Party.

At 57, was elected the third president of the United States.

At 60, obtained the Louisiana Purchase doubling the nation’s size.

At 61, was elected to a second term as President.

At 65, retired to Monticello.

At 80, helped President Monroe shape the Monroe Doctrine.

At 81, almost single-handedly created the University of Virginia and served as its first president.

At 83, died on the 50th anniversary of the Signing of the Declaration of Independence along with John Adams.

Thomas Jefferson knew because he himself studied the previous failed attempts at government. He understood actual history, the nature of God, his laws and the nature of man. That happens to be way more than what most understand today. Jefferson really knew his stuff. A voice from the past to lead us in the future:

John F. Kennedy held a dinner in the white House for a group of the brightest minds in the nation at that time. He made this statement: "This is perhaps the assembly of the most intelligence ever to gather at one time in the White House with the exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone."

When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe. �

Thomas Jefferson

The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not. �

Thomas Jefferson

It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world. �

Thomas Jefferson

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them. Thomas Jefferson

My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government. �

Thomas Jefferson

No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. �

Thomas Jefferson

The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government. �

Thomas Jefferson

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. �

Thomas Jefferson

To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical. �

Thomas Jefferson

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property - until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. �

Thomas Jefferson said in 1802



I wish we could get this out to everyone!!!

I'm doing my part. Please do yours......

Click to expand...

LightningCrash said:

Some of those quotes weren't from Jefferson.

No mention of the slaves he owned?

Click to expand...

In recent years, historians have focused on Jefferson's attitudes to the enslaved people he held. His ambivalence was reflected in his treatment of those slaves who worked most closely with him and his family at Monticello and in other locations. He had inherited slaves as a child, and he owned upwards of 700 different people at one time or another. Some biographers take the position that Jefferson's debt prevented his freeing his slaves; other scholars say that freeing slaves was "not even a mildly important goal". Unlike Jefferson, some planters allowed slaves to "hire out" and pay off their purchase prices to gain freedom and generate income for the planter. Finkelman notes that leading slaveholders, such as George Washington, Robert Carter III, and Henry Laurens, did find ways to free their slaves. Jefferson's cousin John Randolph of Roanoke died in 1833; he freed 383 slaves in his will and provided money to buy land for them in the free state of Ohio.

According to historian Stephen Ambrose: "Jefferson, like all slaveholders and many other white members of American society, regarded Negroes as inferior, childlike, untrustworthy and, of course, as property." He believed they were inferior to whites in reasoning, mathematical comprehension, and imagination. Jefferson thought these "differences" were "fixed in nature" and was not dependent on their freedom or education. He thought such differences that created the "innate inferiority of Blacks compared to Whites". The historian Nicholas Magnis says of his writings: "This is the essence of racial bias."

Jefferson did not believe that African Americans could live in American society as free people together with whites. For a long-term solution, he thought that slaves should be freed after reaching maturity and having repaid their owner's investment; afterward, he thought they should be sent to African colonies in what he considered "repatriation", despite their being American-born. Otherwise, he thought the presence of free blacks would encourage a violent uprising by slaves' looking for freedom. Jefferson expressed his fear of slave rebellion: "We have the wolf by the ears; and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other."

In 1809, he wrote to Abbé Grégoire, whose book argued against Jefferson's claims of black inferiority in Notes. Jefferson said blacks had "respectable intelligence", but did not alter his views. In August 1814 the planter Edward Coles and Jefferson corresponded about Coles' ideas on emancipation. Jefferson urged Coles not to free his slaves, but the younger man took all his slaves to the free state of Illinois and freed them.

Click to expand...

Dale00 said:

The implication of some of these postings seems to be that because of his personal shortcomings, Jefferson and his writings are not worthy of respect.

I don't think that is correct. Imperfect people (all of us) can accomplish worthwhile or even great things. Jefferson was a great man.

Click to expand...

ignerntbend said:

I would have thought you would be a strong believer in tribalism.

Click to expand...

ignerntbend said:

If he was the greatest man of his time, (and I don't deny that he was) it seems to me that he could have easily seen beyond the blindness of his time.

Click to expand...

Dale00 said:

The implication of some of these postings seems to be that because of his personal shortcomings, Jefferson and his writings are not worthy of respect.

I don't think that is correct. Imperfect people (all of us) can accomplish worthwhile or even great things. Jefferson was a great man.

Click to expand...