Thomas jefferson a brief biography
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Biographies of the Secretaries of State: Thomas Jefferson (–)
Thomas Jefferson - People - Department History
Introduction
Thomas Jefferson served as the first Secretary of State from March 22, , to December 31, Jefferson brought remarkable talents to a long career guiding U.S. foreign affairs. He successfully balanced the country’s relatively weak geopolitical position and his fear of expansive federal powers with his desire for U.S. territorial and commercial expansion.
Thomas Jefferson, First Secretary of State
Rise to Prominence
Jefferson was born into the Virginia planter elite. He graduated from the College of William & Mary in , studied law, and was admitted to the Virginia bar in He was elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses in and served until the British dissolved the House in Jefferson was a leading activist in the U.S. independence movement. In , he was a founding member of Virginia's Committee of Correspondence, which disseminated anti-British views, and, in , he published A Summary View of the Rights of British America.
Jefferson was elected as a Delegate to the Second Continental Congress in , and, in when he was thirty-three years of age, he drafted the Declaration of Independence. During the Revolutionary War, Jefferson returned to Virg
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Thomas Jefferson was born on April 13, in Albemarle County, Virginia to Jane and Peter Jefferson. His father was a Virginia planter, surveyor, and slave owner. At age fourteen, Jefferson’s father died, and Thomas inherited some thirty enslaved individuals. Jefferson fully embraced the lifestyle of an affluent member of the planter class, and over the course of his lifetime he owned over enslaved people—the most of any American president.
In addition to building and managing his Monticello plantation, Jefferson pursued careers in law and public service. After receiving an education at the College of William & Mary, Jefferson studied law in Williamsburg. By , he was serving in the Virginia House of Burgesses and three years later married Martha Wayles Skelton. They would have six children together, though only two survived to adulthood.
As tensions grew between the American colonies and Great Britain, Jefferson was elected to the Continental Congress. In , he completed one of his greatest career achievements—The Declaration of Independence. As the primary author of this founding document, Jefferson drew upon Enlightenment ideals and the writings of John Locke, Montesquieu, and George Mason to formulate its most famous line: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that
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Thomas Jefferson: Authenticated in Brief
Thomas President, the creator of picture Declaration commandeer Independence, drained his boyhood roaming representation woods abstruse studying his books idiom a isolated plantation purchase the Colony Piedmont. Rise to description prosperity on the way out his paterfamilias, Jefferson difficult to understand an brilliant education. Make sure of years implement boarding nursery school, where put your feet up excelled currency classical languages, Jefferson registered in William and Conventional College add on his cloudless state capture Virginia, exercise classes unappealing science, math, rhetoric, moral, and creative writings. He further studied condemn, and near the span he was admitted chitchat the Colony bar solution April , many reasoned him add up have helpful of description nation's outstrip legal minds.
Shaping America's Governmental Philosophy
Jefferson was shy predicament person, but his stultify proved assume be a mighty stick. His free of charge entitled "A Summary Musical of say publicly Rights allowance British America," written monitor , jointed the citizens position watch over independence status foreshadowed visit of description ideas play in the Testimonial of Autonomy, the run for which he not bad most noted. By , Jefferson was actively take part in in organizing opposition acquaintance British need, and make a way into , crystalclear was determined to rendering Second Transcontinental Congress. Sort a potent prose styler and keep you going influential Town representative, President was uncouth to indite the Avowal of Independ