Thomas Jefferson, a spokesman for democracy, was an American Founding Father, the principal author of the Declaration of Independence (1776), and the third President of the United States (1801–1809). Show
In the thick of party conflict in 1800, Thomas Jefferson wrote in a private letter, “I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.” This powerful advocate of liberty was born in 1743 in Albemarle County, Virginia, inheriting from his father, a planter and surveyor, some 5,000 acres of land, and from his mother, a Randolph, high social standing. He studied at the College of William and Mary, then read law. In 1772 he married Martha Wayles Skelton, a widow, and took her to live in his partly constructed mountaintop home, Monticello. Freckled and sandy-haired, rather tall and awkward, Jefferson was eloquent as a correspondent, but he was no public speaker. In the Virginia House of Burgesses and the Continental Congress, he contributed his pen rather than his voice to the patriot cause. As the “silent member” of the Congress, Jefferson, at 33, drafted the Declaration of Independence. In years following he labored to make its words a reality in Virginia. Most notably, he wrote a bill establishing religious freedom, enacted in 1786. Jefferson succeeded Benjamin Franklin as minister to France in 1785. His sympathy for the French Revolution led him into conflict with Alexander Hamilton when Jefferson was Secretary of State in President Washington’s Cabinet. He resigned in 1793. Sharp political conflict developed, and two separate parties, the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans, began to form. Jefferson gradually assumed leadership of the Republicans, who sympathized with the revolutionary cause in France. Attacking Federalist policies, he opposed a strong centralized Government and championed the rights of states. As a reluctant candidate for President in 1796, Jefferson came within three votes of election. Through a flaw in the Constitution, he became Vice President, although an opponent of President Adams. In 1800 the defect caused a more serious problem. Republican electors, attempting to name both a President and a Vice President from their own party, cast a tie vote between Jefferson and Aaron Burr. The House of Representatives settled the tie. Hamilton, disliking both Jefferson and Burr, nevertheless urged Jefferson’s election. When Jefferson assumed the Presidency, the crisis in France had passed. He slashed Army and Navy expenditures, cut the budget, eliminated the tax on whiskey so unpopular in the West, yet reduced the national debt by a third. He also sent a naval squadron to fight the Barbary pirates, who were harassing American commerce in the Mediterranean. Further, although the Constitution made no provision for the acquisition of new land, Jefferson suppressed his qualms over constitutionality when he had the opportunity to acquire the Louisiana Territory from Napoleon in 1803. During Jefferson’s second term, he was increasingly preoccupied with keeping the Nation from involvement in the Napoleonic wars, though both England and France interfered with the neutral rights of American merchantmen. Jefferson’s attempted solution, an embargo upon American shipping, worked badly and was unpopular. Jefferson retired to Monticello to ponder such projects as his grand designs for the University of Virginia. A French nobleman observed that he had placed his house and his mind “on an elevated situation, from which he might contemplate the universe.” He died on July 4, 1826. The Presidential biographies on WhiteHouse.gov are from “The Presidents of the United States of America,” by Frank Freidel and Hugh Sidey. Copyright 2006 by the White House Historical Association. Learn more about Thomas Jefferson’s spouse, Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson. Henry Clay February 2, 3, and 6, 1832 From the nation's earliest days, Congress has struggled with the fundamental issue of the national government's proper role in fostering economic development. Henry Clay's "American System," devised in the burst of nationalism that followed the War of 1812, remains one of the most historically significant examples of a government-sponsored program to harmonize and balance the nation's agriculture, commerce, and industry. This "System" consisted of three mutually reinforcing parts: a tariff to protect and promote American industry; a national bank to foster commerce; and federal subsidies for roads, canals, and other "internal improvements" to develop profitable markets for agriculture. Funds for these subsidies would be obtained from tariffs and sales of public lands. Clay argued that a vigorously maintained system of sectional economic interdependence would eliminate the chance of renewed subservience to the free-trade, laissez-faire "British System." In the years from 1816 to 1828, Congress enacted programs supporting each of the American System's major elements. After the 1829 inauguration of President Andrew Jackson's administration, with its emphasis on a limited role for the federal government and sectional autonomy, the American System became the focus of anti-Jackson opposition that coalesced into the new Whig party under the leadership of Henry Clay. Henry Clay has been aptly labeled "the most influential member"' of the Senate during its golden age of the 1830's and 1840's. His personal 'Magnetism--his passionate, charming, and ingratiating manner--made Clay one of America's best-loved politicians; but his consuming ambition for the presidency led him to compromise his principles in a series of major blunders that frustrated those public figures and private citizens who sought his forceful leadership. One biographer concluded that "there was a serious statesman in him along with the gamester-politician; behind his never-ending series of plausible expedients there was a consistency of purpose. Clay has been overrated as a politician and underrated as a statesman." The Kentuckian took his first Senate oath of office in 1806 at age twenty-nine, despite being three months under the constitutionally required age for membership. Filling out an unexpired term, he served less than three months, and in January 1810 he returned for another brief period. Moving to the House of Representatives in 1811, Clay was chosen Speaker on his first day in that body, a post he held intermittently for a decade. He served as Secretary of State in John Quincy Adams' administration, and following Andrew Jackson's 1828 defeat of Adams, Clay returned to the Senate in November 1831. Within months, the National Republican party nominated Clay to oppose Jackson in the 1832 election. Clay's move to the Senate in 1831 symbolized the increasing prestige of the upper chamber, which was rapidly becoming the principal theater for the nation's intensifying legislative battles. Early in 1832, as the Jackson administration moved closer to paying off its national debt, Clay recommended abolishing tariffs on foreign goods that did not compete with American products. This would have obvious political appeal to the purchasers of those goods and would reduce the flow of revenue into the treasury, preventing Jackson from extinguishing the debt in time to take credit for it in the 1832 election campaign. Southerners who hated protective tariffs argued that Clay's reductions were inadequate. By 1831, the Kentucky senator enjoyed a national reputation as an outstanding orator. A book entitled The Speeches of Henry Clay had appeared four year ' s earlier, "the first such volume to be published in the United States and [an indication of] the importance parliamentary eloquence had attained in the nation's life. Clay's oratorical power, unlike that of Webster, lay not in his choice of words or extent of his knowledge, but in his style of delivery. Raised in a western tradition that valued oratory for its entertainment rather than educational value, Clay tailored his remarks for a wide audience, filling them with popular allusions while omitting the learned quotations that other classical orators favored. Unlike Calhoun, who delivered scholarly addresses with a maximum of speed and a minimum of ornamentation, Clay adopted a deliberative style that made effective use of calculated pauses, well-timed body gestures, and simple direct arguments. Carl Schurz, who served in the Senate in the 1870's with those who had known Clay, believed the Kentuckian possessed "the true oratorical temperament, that force of nervous exaltation that makes the orator feel himself, and appear to others, a superior being, and almost irresistibly transfuses his thoughts, his passions, and his will into the mind and heart of the listener." On February 2, 1832, Clay used the first speech of his Senate career to launch a major attack on the Jackson administration. This three-day speech, entitled "In Defense of the American System," (pdf) focused principally on the importance of maintaining protective tariffs, despite complaints of such southern spokesmen as Senator Robert Y. Hayne of South Carolina and Vice President John C. Calhoun that they would ruin the region's economy. Historian Merrill Peterson reconstructed the image Clay conveyed to his audience during delivery of this address. "The chamber was packed to hear the man whose powers of persuasion—now charming, now badgering; now beseeching, now deprecating; now subdued, now vehement—were legendary, and who, if he did not command assent by the strength of his views, won it with his captivating manner and seductive voice." Friends and foes alike admired the sound of Clay"s voice. Another scholar concludes, "His voice was a magnificent instrument to express his emotions and ideas, remarkable clear, at times 'soft as a lute' and other times 'full as a trumpet,' beautifully modulated." Clay's modern biographer, Robert Remini, offers this cogent evaluation of the American System address:
________________________________________ Reprinted from Robert C. Byrd, The Senate, 1789-1989: Classic Speeches, 1830-1993. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1994. Return to Classic Senate Speeches Who was the president of the United States at the start of the Cold War quizlet?Truman, who had only a high-school education and had been vice president for just 82 days before FDR's sudden death, inherited the monumental task of leading the United States through the end of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War.
Which of the following events represented a continuation of the development discussed in the excerpt?15) Which of the following events represented a continuation of the development discussed in the excerpt? The advocacy for the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Which of the following best explains how the Red Scare following the Second World War reflected?Which of the following best explains how the Red Scare following the Second World War reflected the larger historical context? The ideas demonstrate efforts by the federal government to ensure domestic security.
What new role did the federal government assume under the Great Society initiatives?What new roles did the federal government assume under Great Society initiatives, and how did they extend the New Deal tradition? They gained the new roles of improving society by providing scholarships for college students and national health care.
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Which Presidents primary goal in enacting the program described in the excerpt?
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