What Are Thomas Jefferson's Major Accomplishments

Just to start off, Thomas Jefferson was the third president of the United States if you didn’t know. He was also the writer of the most important writings in history, The Declaration of Independence. During the Revolutionary War, Jefferson served as the Virginia legislature, the Continental Congress and was the governor of Virginia. He served as the United States minister to French and Secretary of state for the president. He also was the vice president to John Adams. During his two year term he purchased the Louisiana Territory, which Lewis and Clark Explored. but with this information you probably want to know how it all started Thomas Jefferson was born on April 13, 1743 at Shadwell. It’s a plantation that’s on a large tract of land near

He was a gifted writer and now it was time for him to actually write the Declaration of Independence. It showed why the 13 colonies should be free from the British rule and it was adopted on July 4, 1776. In the fall of 1776 Thomas left the Continental Congress and then got back into the Virginia House of Delegates. He then drafted the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, which he authored in the late 1770s. Then 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. Thomas was elected governor from 1779 to 1781. In his brief private interval in his life following his governorship, Jefferson then wrote Notes on the State of Virginia. In 1783 to 1784, Thomas did a second stint in Congress. In 1785, he succeeded Benjamin Franklin 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. 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

In the fall of 1789, Jefferson accepted an appointment from President George Washington to become the new nation’s first secretary of state. 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. So at the start he couldn’t be president, but that didn’t stop Thomas. Four years later Jefferson ran against Adams again in the presidential election of 1800. Jefferson defeated Adams, but due to a flaw in the electoral system, Jefferson tied with fellow Democratic-Republican Aaron Burr. The House of Representatives broke the tie and voted Jefferson into office. In order to avoid a repeat of this situation from ever happening again, Congress proposed the Twelfth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. This required separate voting for president and vice president. The amendment was ratified in 1804. Jefferson was then sworn into office on March 4, 1801. One of Thomas Jefferson’s best achievements was buying the Louisiana Purchase at 15 million dollars in 1803. This land is more than 820,000 square miles long. Jefferson then commissioned Lewis and Clark to explore the uncharted lan. At the time, most Americans lived within 50 miles of the Atlantic Ocean. The expedition, known today as the Corps of Discovery, lasted from 1804 to 1806 and provided valuable information about the geography,