Thomas Jefferson: A Life from Beginning to End

At a White House dinner in 1962 honoring the Nobel Prize winners of the Western Hemisphere, President John Kennedy greeted them by saying: “I want to tell you how welcome you are to the White House. I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.” The laureates might have been a trifle nonplussed to hear themselves compared to one man, but Thomas Jefferson left his imprint on his home state of Virginia, on his young country, on France where he served as ambassador, and on the world, where his opposition to tyranny and advocacy of freedom have inspired generations to believe that the pursuit of happiness, as he wrote in the Declaration of Independence, is an unalienable right.

Jefferson himself opted for less opulent praise. The epitaph he composed for his own tombstone left space only for his birth and death dates, listing three accomplishments: author of the Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and father of the University of Virginia. Between Kennedy's description and Jefferson's own modest accounting resides the enigma of an American philosopher who ardently believed in freedom yet owned slaves; a patriot who served his country with talent and energy, yet was embroiled in the political machinations that surfaced as soon as the first president took office; a man who doubted the intellectual equality of African-Americans yet maintained a decades-long relationship with a much younger enslaved woman, with whom he fathered several children; a brilliant innovator who lived his life in debt; and a man accustomed to fine living who championed a simple, agrarian vision for the nation he helped found. Jefferson, the Founding Father, remains one of history's great unresolved contradictions.