You might think of Thomas Jefferson as just a mundane statesman, but there is a reason why he is one of the four highly revered presidents that is carved into Mt. Rushmore. Throughout his life he halved the nation’s debt and doubled its size. Who other than Thomas Jefferson could have commissioned the Corps of Discovery? During this biography I will discuss the ins and outs of his life, presidency, and involvement with our state. First to explore is Thomas Jefferson’s childhood and education. On April 13, 1743, Thomas Jefferson was born to a well-to-do family on a cotton plantation in the Province of Virginia. Peter Jefferson, Thomas’s father, was an established cartographer, who transcribed the first accurate map of Virginia. At age 9, Jefferson …show more content…
In June, 1776, 33 year old Thomas wrote the very first draft of the most important document in the history of the United States of America: The Declaration of Independence. It took him only 17 days to compose. Jefferson was elected by John Adams to write the document because Adams was an admirer of Jefferson’s writing style. In his terms in both the Virginia House of Burgesses and the Continental Congress, his contribution was through the pen, not the word. Never being much of a public speaker, Thomas devoted his time to writing instead and became a very good writer. After his second term as president ended, one of his last major accomplishments was helping to found the University of Virginia, the campus of which he designed as an architect. After the Library of Congress was burned by the British in 1814, Jefferson sold his own collection of over 6,000 books to the Library for almost $24,000. Soon after, he regretted it. “I cannot live without books” he wrote to John Adams. Later on in his life, Jefferson’s health began to fail from a combination of illnesses in July of 1825. By June next year he was confined to bed in Monticello and on July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence that he himself had written, Thomas Jefferson