Thomas Jefferson

• Vice President to:       John Adams - Federalist, from Massachusetts.
  
  
• Dates Served: Jefferson served as Vice President from 1797 - 1801.
  
• Political Party: Jefferson was a Democratic-Republican, from Virginia.
  
• Born: 1743.
  
• Died: 1826, at the age of 83.
  
• The presidential opponent during the 1796 campaign was:
  
  
  • Thomas Jefferson
    (During this time, the looser in a Presidential race was automatically sentenced to the Vice Presidency)
    
    
• Campaign issues in 1796:
  
  
  • Strong Central Government (Adams) vs. distributed power held by the States (Jefferson). George Washington endorsed John Adams but his fellow Federalists distrusted him. He won, but by a narrow margin.
    
    
  
  
• Notable Facts about Thomas Jefferson:
  
  
  • Religious affiliation: Jefferson was very much a Deist. He was raised an Anglican but as an adult he was not a member of any church, and professed a belief in a distant "blind watchmaker" God, one who gave birth to the universe but then left it alone to run under it's predefined laws. He respected the basic morals of the Bible but didn't think that God was much involved in human affairs, and therefore Jefferson was opposed to any kind of organized religion. He felt that the original wise teachings and observations of Jesus had long-since been perverted by the Church.
    
    Jefferson was often accused of being an Atheist, which was buttressed by his admiration of all things French, including their anti-religious Revolution and their "Rights of Man" declaration, which wasn't exactly Church-affirming. He wrote the Virginia Statute of Religious Liberty in 1786 which legislated that "no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship". Jefferson wasn't so much anti-religion as he was simply not interested in the subject. He once said, "It does me no injury for my neighbor to say that there are 20 gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg".
    
    
  • Jefferson was a member of the House of Burgesses prior to the Revolutionary War, where he was opposed to British dominance over the Colonies.
    
    
  • During June 11 - 28 of 1776, Jefferson wrote the text of the Declaration of Independence, when he was 33 years old. Congress accepted it pretty much as he wrote, it with only minor changes made to it. One change was the deletion of a paragraph in which he harshly criticized King George III for the Slave Trade, which the delegates from Georgia and South Carolina found offensive. It was ironic, given his own conflicting views on slavery, being a slave-owner himself.
    
    
  • He was a member of the Virginia House of Delegates from 1776 - 1779.
    
    
  • Was the Governor of Virginia from 1776 - 1781.
    
    
  • Member of the Constitutional Congress from 1783 - 1784 where, among other things, he pressed for the establishment of the Decimal System in America. (a project that is still in progress, 218 years later. What's the rush?)
    
    
  • Was US Minister to France from 1785 - 1789.
    
    
  • Was US Secretary of State under George Washington, from 1790 - 1793.
    
    
  • Became Vice President to John Adams when Adams received the most number of votes from the Electoral College, and Jefferson won the second most.
    
    
  • Jefferson once commented on the offices of President and Vice President by saying, "The second office of this government is honorable and easy, the first is but a splendid misery."
    
    
  • Jefferson became the first President to become a grandfather in the White House, when his daughter Mary gave birth during his ### term.
    
    
  • Jefferson was the first President to shake hands with guests. Both George Washington and John Adams greeted guests with a slight bow, similar to how Japanese people greet each other. Jefferson gave a mighty good handshake.
    
    
  • Jefferson claimed to have discovered a cure for the common cold. He soaked his feet in cold water every morning and claimed to be free of any cold symptoms.
    
    
  • Like George Washington, Jefferson also grew marijuana. He invented a machine that could turn hemp into fiber. He also invented the Lazy Susan, so he could display his hemp. He also applied the Lazy Susan concept to the chair, and invented the first swivel chair. Thomas was one sharp Vice President.
    
    
  • After Jefferson's 2 terms in office as President, he returned to his estate at Monticello, in debt to the tune of $24,000, a huge amount in those days. He was able to pay off some of it via income from the sale of crops and nails produced on his estate. In 1815, after the British had burned down the Capitol building, destroying the Library of Congress, Jefferson sold his collection of 6,500 books to the government for $23,950, which formed the core of the new national library. As luck would have it, about two-thirds of these books were destroyed in a second fire at the Library of Congress in 1851. (Strange, how the 2 fires happened in years in which the last two digits were transposed, 1815 and 1851...)
    
    
  • Jefferson founded the University of Virginia. He designed the buildings, directed their construction, and wrote up the first course of study, deliberately leaving out any courses in religion.
    
    
  • Jefferson was the inventor of the Elective, a collection of optional courses from which a student could choose a subset that matched their interest. The University opened for business in 1825, one year prior to Jefferson's death.
    
    
  • Prior to his death, Jefferson had decided on the inscription for his tombstone, in which he left out any mention of his presidency. It says, "Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, Author of the Declaration of Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and the Father of the University of Virginia". (Presumably there are plenty of things more impressive than being president.)
    
    
  • Jefferson was probably the most intelligent man to ever serve as either Vice or real President, a fact recognized by most subsequent presidents. John F. Kennedy once had this to say to a group of Nobel Prize winners who were gathered for dinner at the White House, "Gentleman, you are probably the most distinguished gathering of intellectuals to have dined at the Executive Mansion, with the possible exception of when Mr. Jefferson dined here alone".
    

Notable events during his Vice Presidency:

• The XYZ Affair in 1797. French "privateers" (pirates) had been harrassing US ships on the high seas, so President Adams sent a delegation to France to resolve the dispute. But instead of receiving them, the French government sent 3 officials to them with an offer: if the US payed France $250,000 in tribute money then "maybe" the problems would stop.
  
  This put Adams in a tizzy and he wanted to declare war on France for their ungentlemanly treatment of the American delegation. Congress asked for proof of the incident, and Adams submitted documents relating to the encounter, with the names of the 3 French officials substituted with the letters X, Y, and Z.
  
  Congress, and Vice President Jefferson, thought Adams was exaggerating the incident and refused to declare war. As a result, over the next 2 years, there dragged on the so-called "Quasi-War" with France, with US frigates engaging French pirates at sea. The whole mess was resolved in 1799 when another US delegation was sent to France and the French government had a change of heart. As a result, France and America lived happily ever after. (By amazing coincidence, just prior to the second meeting with the French, the US just happened to grant France the status of "most favored nation" trade partner).
  
  
• The Alien and Seditions Acts of 1798, which made it more difficult for immigrants to become citizens, and allowed for the arrests of enemy aliens during war-time. When Jefferson became president he let the Acts expire in 1800 without renewal.
  
  
• January 7, 1798, Great Britain introduces the world's first income tax, which was originally said to be a temporary tax. (Aren't they all?) Governments around the world quickly imitate them. The US waits 64 years before trying one out, in 1862 when a limited form of an income tax is implemented to finance the Civil War. The modern income tax wasn't formalized for another 51 years, with the passing of the 16th Amendment in 1913.
  
  
• The Fries Rebellion in 1799, which was in reaction to President Adams levying federal property taxes. A group of people in Pennsylvania, led by someone named John Fries, staged an armed resistance against the tax collectors, resulting in Fries' arrest, conviction of treason, and death sentence. But the following year Adams pardoned Fries and all who had joined him in the short-lived rebellion.