The Bicentennial celebrations of the Library of Congress will include an exhibition about the Library's very own "founding father," Thomas Jefferson, whose personal library of 6,487 books was the seed from which the nation's library grew. View the exhibition online.
Thomas Jefferson in a 1786 painting by Mather Brown, while the subject was a diplomat in Paris. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; Jefferson's daughter Martha joined him in Paris when she was 12. 1789 miniature by Joseph Boze. - U.S. Department of State
Opening on April 24, "Thomas Jefferson" relies primarily on Jefferson's written legacy contained in the Library's unparalleled Jefferson manuscript collection. The exhibition delves into this complex man whose views influenced, and continue to influence, virtually every major political and social course in the country.
Born April 13, 1743, and raised a Virginia Piedmont planter, Thomas Jefferson became a primary exponent of revolutionary republicanism throughout his service as a Virginia and United States revolutionary leader, American minister to France, secretary of state, vice president, president, founder of a public university and advocate for cultural, personal and political freedoms.
"Thomas Jefferson" portrays the complexities and contradictions of this flawed idealist and hardheaded realist. Jefferson deplored inequality among men, yet he owned slaves, supported servitude and relegated women to a secondary role. He sought to preserve Native American culture, but planned to "civilize" Native Americans and through his own expansionist policies pushed them out of areas settled and governed by Euro-Americans. He hailed freedom of the press as a bulwark of republican government until his own foibles and politics became its focus. He expounded the virtues of public education and founded a public university, but assumed access would be strictly limited. He argued that opposition political parties could be treasonous, but established the first opposition political party and won the presidency in 1800 in what he called the second American Revolution.
These complexities of Jefferson's public and private struggles and triumphs are at the core of this exhibition, which traces the development of Jefferson through his personal development to an ever-expanding realm of public influence — the Virginia Piedmont; the American Revolutionary state, local and national governments; the revolution of republicanism and personal rights in America and Europe.
"Thomas Jefferson" contains more than 150 items drawn from the Library's Jefferson collection and augmented by key loans from Monticello, the University of Virginia, the Virginia State Library, the National Portrait Gallery, the Pike County (Ohio) Historical Society, the James Monroe Law Office Museum, the Smithsonian Instituion, Randolph Mason County Museum in Kentucky, the National Archives and the American Antiquarian Society.
Among the many rare objects are two that have been rejoined for the first time since 1943; the "original rough draught" of the Declaration of Independence and the desk on which Jefferson wrote that draft (on loan from the Smithsonian Institution). The last section of the exhibition is a display of Jefferson's library, the seed from which the Library was restarted after the British burned the Capitol building during the War of 1812, destroying the original collection of some 3,000 volumes. A fire in 1851 in the Capitol destroyed two thirds of the books sold to Congress by Jefferson in 1815.
The display of Jefferson's library in this exhibition will be the first time ever that the public will be able to view Jefferson's library. It is also the first time that the volumes have been assembled in one place in the original order that Jefferson devised since the collection came to Washington in 1815. Visitors to the exhibition will be able to tell which volumes were owned by Jefferson and sold to Congress in 1815, which were recently identified and pulled from the Library's general collections, which have been recently purchased and which are still missing.
Life and Labor at Monticello
Isaac Jefferson was a blacksmith and tinsmith at Monticello in Jefferson's day and provided lively details of his life there in an 1847 interview. - Daguerreotype, ca. 1840, University of Virginia Library.
Eighteenth century Virginia was marked by extensive geographic movement from the Tidewater to the Piedmont beyond the fall lines of the Potomac, Rapidan, and James rivers and even over the Blue Ridge and Allegheny mountains. Yet land-use patterns, life-styles, labor systems and social structures were replicated, refined and even reinforced by the upland movement. The Jefferson family, led by Peter and Thomas (as seen in their 1751 map of Virginia), had key roles in the emergence of the Piedmont. Thomas's identification with Western exploration and settlement grew from his father's early movement from east of Richmond west to the Piedmont. Thomas's acceptance of the social obligation of public service and his lifelong adherence to the plantation-slave system of agriculture were also products of his family experience in Virginia's plantation system. Jefferson's "Memorandum Book for 1773," "Promise of Freedom for James Hemings" and crop rotation plan are illustrative of plantation life. There is also notable testimony from former slaves at Monticello, including Madison Hemings, Israel Jefferson, Isaac Jefferson and James Hemings. Isaac Jefferson best described Thomas Jefferson in his library: "Old Master had abundance of books; sometimes he would have twenty of 'em down on the floor at once — read first one, then tother."
Also illustrative are a number of three-dimensional objects, such as Martha Jeffererson's thread case. Throughout his life at Monticello and Poplar Forest, Thomas Jefferson sought to create a classic example of the country gentleman's estate, based on his experiences in Virginia and France and his vicarious experiences through his vast personal library and broad network of correspondents. Jefferson's world of books provided him with opportunities throughout his life to experience other aspects of the world and learn selectively from them in an idealized realm, sometimes untempered by the reality of life experiences. Jefferson's own words are incorporated in his Literary Commonplace Book and his June 10, 1815, statement to John Adams that "I cannot live without books."
Creating a Virginia Republic
Jefferson prepared this map of four states from his "Notes on the State of Virginia," 1787. - Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress.
Virginia was the ground in which Jefferson planned to plant the roots of his ideal republic. Governmental, cultural, educational and societal institutions and activities were encompassed in Jefferson's broad vision of a republican society. Virginia's political, legal and educational systems were to be reformed and molded as a model to America and Europe.
From the onset of the American Revolution, Jefferson eagerly sought to rewrite Virginia's constitution and laws. Reforming his state's laws regulating crime, inheritance, established religion, education and the importation of slaves was a major focus of his activities. This quickly became for Jefferson "the whole object of the present controversy."
Like many admirers of the Enlightenment, Jefferson was convinced that science and the scientific method held the keys to learning and education in the broadest sense. Jefferson promoted studies of natural history, botany, archaeology and architecture. His library, which was the largest personal library in the United States by 1815, was a testament to his conviction that all subjects of learning fell within his and all learned men's purview.
Privately educated in grammar schools, the College of William and Mary and most important, through his books, Thomas Jefferson was an ardent advocate of public education as a cornerstone of a free republican society. Throughout his life, Jefferson promoted public education, primarily for white males but tangentially for women and African Americans. The founding of the University of Virginia (chartered in 1819) was the capstone of Jefferson's educational advocacy, and he devoted most of the last decade of his life to the university's establishment and well-being.
Letters and documents of Jefferson, including his exchange of letters with and about Benjamin Banneker; his own "Notes on the State of Virginia"; his scientific exchanges with French philosopher Comte de Buffon; his letter to Bishop James Madison, president of the College of William and Mary, on the optics of a rainbow; his plans for the University of Virginia; his 1796 letter to Robert Pleasants, a Richmond Quaker, on a plan for the public education of free blacks and slaves; and his own report to the American Philosophical Society on the Kentucky dinosaur, Magalonnyx Jeffersoni, are among the key items in this section.
Declaration of Independence
Michel Sokolnicki after Thaddeus Kosciuszko, Thomas Jefferson, a Philosepher a Patriote and a Friend, 1798 or 1799. - Prints and Photographs Division
Drafting the Declaration of Independence in June and July 1776 became the defining event in Thomas Jefferson's life. Despite his desire to return to Virginia to help write that state's constitution, Jefferson was appointed by the Continental Congress to the five-person committee for drafting a declaration of independence and subsequently assigned the task of producing a document for the committee.
Drawing on contemporary documents, such as the Virginia Declaration of Rights, state and local calls for independence and his own draft of a Virginia constitution, Jefferson wrote a stunning statement. It told of the United States' right to rebel against the British government and establish its own based on the premise that all men are created equal and have the inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Through the many revisions made by Jefferson, the committee and then by Congress, Jefferson retained his prominent role in writing the defining document of the American Revolution, and indeed the United States. Jefferson was particularly critical of changes that removed paragraphs attacking the slave trade and the British people for supporting their government's attempts to repress the revolution. Jefferson was justly proud of his role in writing the Declaration and skillfully defended his authorship of this hallowed document.
Jefferson's "original Rough draught" and composition fragment of the Declaration of Independence are the central documents. But there are other notable ones, such George Mason's Fairfax County Resolves and the Virginia Declaration of Rights, Jefferson's draft of the Virginia constitution, George Washington's personal copy of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson's notes on the writing of the Declaration of Independence and his copy of the Declaration as first presented to Congress, which he later gave to James Madison.
Establishing a Federal Republic
Jefferson at age 48 in 1791, painted by Charles Willson Peale. - Independence National Historical Park Collection
Although Thomas Jefferson was in France serving as United States minister when the federal Constitution was written in 1787, he was able to influence the development of the federal government through his writings and his roles as secretary of state, vice president, leader of the first political opposition party and third president. As an idealist, Jefferson supported the concept of a continuing revolution and the importance of individual and state rights, which are illustrated by his Nov. 13, 1787, letter to William Smith in which he wrote, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure." In a Dec. 20, 1787, letter to James Madison, he wrote "I will now add what I do not like. First the omission of a bill of rights. …"
As secretary of state, vice president and then president, Jefferson sought to establish boundaries for a federal government of limited powers, which can be seen in his annotated copy of the Federalist Papers, his draft of A Manual of Parliamentary Practice for the Use of the Senate (1801) and his Feb. 15, 1791, report on the constitutionality of a national bank.
Jefferson was a primary force in the planning, design and construction of a national Capitol building and the federal district, as illustrated by his 1791 map of the capital district.
Jefferson led his political party to victory in 1800. He called this victory the second American revolution and explained it most notably in his first inaugural address in 1801, and in a Sept. 6, 1819, letter to Spencer Roane in which he wrote, "They contain the true principles of the revolution of 1800, for that was as real a revolution in the principles of government as that of 1776 in its form."
Jefferson's partisan political activities are seen in a July 7, 1793, letter to James Madison urging him to attack Alexander Hamilton and "to cut him to pieces." The public scandals involving the personal sexual affairs of Hamilton and Jefferson are also illustrated by letters, documents, books and newspapers. When the deadlocked presidential election of 1800 between Jefferson and Aaron Burr created a constitutional crisis, Jefferson and the defeated incumbent, John Adams, established the principle of a peaceful transition of power and solution of the constitutional crisis.
Jefferson's key role in ending the importation of slaves in 1808 is seen in his Message to Congress, Dec. 2, 1806, and his principled public stand on the importance of the separation of church and state is illustrated by his Jan. 23, 1808, letter to the Rev. Samuel Miller: "I consider the government of the U.S. as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions. …"
The West
Rembrandt Peale's 1805 portrait of the president. - New-York Historical Society
Thomas Jefferson acquired an interest in Western exploration early in life from his childhood experiences in the Blue Ridge mountains on the western edge of the Virginia Piedmont settlements. He was also influenced by his father, Peter, surveyor and map maker of the Virginia frontier. Jefferson never physically ventured beyond the Virginia Blue Ridge, but he had a lifelong commitment to supporting exploration and asserting American claims to Western lands. In 1783 Jefferson asked Revolutionary War hero George Rogers Clark (brother of William Clark, who later joined with Meriwether Lewis) to lead an expedition to California. In 1786, as minister to France, Jefferson urged John Ledyard, Connecticut native and veteran of Cook's voyage to the Pacific, to attempt to find a land route from Vancouver to the Mississippi via Russia, as recounted in his autobiography.
As president, Jefferson successfully acquired the Louisiana Territory from France in 1803 and sent Lewis and Clark (1803-1806) on a mapping and scientific expedition up the Missouri River to the Pacific. This is illustrated by Jefferson's 1803 instructions to Meriwether Lewis and Nicholas King's 1803 map, which Lewis and Clark used on their expedition. Jefferson also sent government expeditions to find the headwaters of the Red, Arkansas and Mississippi rivers, as seen in his 1806 report to Congress. In seeking to establish what he called "an Empire for Liberty," Jefferson formed the foundation of federal policies toward Native Americans. Despite a lifelong interest in their languages and intellectual support for their culture and government, President Jefferson was a strong advocate of policies forcing Native Americans westward or abandoning their Native American culture and way of life in the face of Euro-American land claims and settlements. Jefferson's differing voices on Native Americans are illustrated by a June 7, 1785, letter to the Marquis de Chastellux, a French philosopher and veteran of the American Revolution; an 1820 vocabulary of the Nottoway and Iroquois tribes from Philadelphia lawyer and fellow student of linguistics Peter DuPonceau; and a June 11, 1812 letter to John Adams in which Jefferson warned that many Native Americans "will relapse into barbarism and misery, lose numbers by war and want, and we shall be obliged to drive them, with the beasts of the forest into the stony mountains."
At the end of his presidency, Jefferson looked forward to having "such an empire for liberty as she has never surveyed since the creation," as he said in his April 27, 1809, letter to James Madison.
Jefferson was also interested in the extension of slavery to the Western territories, which he opposed in his proposed plan for the Northwest Ordinance in 1784, but supported with great trepidation in an April 22, 1820, letter to John Holmes during the Missouri Crisis, which sanctioned the spread of slavery into the Western territories by admitting states west of the Mississippi into the Union.
A Revolutionary World or Revolutionary Times
Recognized in Europe as the author of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson quickly became a lightning rod for revolutionaries in Europe and the Americas.
As United States minister to France when revolutionary fervor was rising toward the storming of the Bastille in 1789, Jefferson became an ardent supporter of the revolution, even allowing his residence to be used as a meeting place for revolutionaries, led by Lafayette. This is illustrated by Lafayette's draft of the Rights of Man with Jefferson's annotations, 1789. Jefferson maintained his support for the French Revolution, although he wavered during the most violent and bloody stages, and this became a key policy of his opposition political party, as can be seen in his famous letters to Philadelphia merchant Tench Coxe and American diplomat to France William Short in 1793. To Coxe he wrote, "This ball of liberty, I believe most piously, is now so well in motion that it will roll round the globe." Speaking to Short on the French Revolution, Jefferson said, "And was ever such a prize won with so little innocent blood … but rather than it should have failed, I would have seen half the earth desolated."
A revolution led by blacks in St. Domingue (Haiti) proved to be a crucible for testing the Jeffersonian right of revolution. Jefferson's solution was to consider the successful black government as a place for relocating black rebels and convicts from the United States, as he explained in 1801 and 1803 letters to James Monroe.
Jefferson reached the edges of his influence with attempts to intrude republican principles in Russia, Poland, Greece and the emerging South American nations. Jefferson's exchange of letters with Czar Alexander I in 1804 and 1805 illustrates his interest in spreading knowledge of republican society throughout the world.
Until his death, Jefferson was convinced that "this ball of liberty…will roll round the world," aided by the beacon of the Declaration of Independence.
Epitaph
Jefferson prepared for his own death, designing his own tombstone and drafting a short epitaph. - Manuscript Division
An immortal legacy was Thomas Jefferson's goal in his twilight years. During his final decade, Jefferson drafted an autobiography, created political memorandum books, became increasingly concerned about the preservation of historical documents and staunchly defended his role as author of the Declaration of Independence. At key points in his life Jefferson had drawn up lists of his achievements, and on the verge of death he designed his own gravestone and epitaph: "Author of the Declaration of Independence [and] of the Statute of Virginia for religious toleration & Father of the University of Virginia." Facing public critics of his role in writing the Declaration of Independence and as symbol of individual freedom, Jefferson defended his opposition to slavery and asserted his authorship of the Declaration of Independence in a letters to Henry Lee, May 8,1825, and to Roger Weightman, July 4, 1826. To Lee he wrote, "This was the object of the Declaration of Independence. Not to find out new principles or new arguments never before thought of…but to place before mankind the common sense of the subject…" Speaking of the Declaration of Independence to Weightman, Jefferson wrote, "May it be to the world, what I believe it will be (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all), the signal of arousing man to burst the chains."
Nevertheless, Jefferson undoubtedly knew at his death on July 4, 1826, that the vagaries of life had left a vulnerable legacy. His slaves, land and library would have to be sold to satisfy his creditors. His concern for the canker of slavery is illustrated by an 1825 exchange of letters with his granddaughter Ellen Randolph Coolidge, his own will and a newspaper advertisement for the sale of his slaves. Responding to her comment that "I fear our Southern States cannot march the prosperity of New England whilst the canker of slavery eats into our hearts," Jefferson lamented that "one fatal stain deforms what nature had bestowed on us of her fairest gifts."
Fear for his reputation and public legacy led him to beg his closest friend, James Madison, to "take care of me when dead," in a Feb. 17, 1826, letter. In his final letter, June 24, 1826, to Roger Weightman, Jefferson espoused the central role of the United States and the Declaration of Independence as signals of the blessings of self-government to the world.
Re-Creation of Jefferson's Library as It Was Delivered to the Library of Congress
Throughout his life books were vital to Thomas Jefferson's education and
well-being. When his family home, Shadwell, burned in 1770, Jefferson most
lamented the loss of his books. During the American Revolution
and while United States minister to France in the 1780s, Jefferson
acquired thousands of books for his library at Monticello. Jefferson's library
went through several stages, but books were always critically important to
him. They provided the little-traveled Jefferson with a broader knowledge
of the contemporary and ancient worlds than most contemporaries of broader
personal experience. By 1814, when the British burned the nation's Capitol
and the Library of Congress within, Jefferson had acquired the largest personal
collection in the United States. He offered to sell his library to Congress
as a replacement for the collection destroyed by the British.
Jefferson's library as it was sold to Congress in 1815 is the core of this exhibit. Through a generous grant of Mr. and Mrs. Jerry Jones, the Library of Congress is reassembling Jefferson's library as it was sold to Congress. Although the broad scope of Jefferson's library was a cause for criticism of the purchase, Jefferson extolled the virtue of its broad sweep and established the principle of acquisition for the Library of Congress: "There is in fact no subject to which a member of Congress may not have occasion to refer." Proclaiming that "I cannot live without books," Jefferson began rebuilding his collection of several thousand books, which was sold at auction in 1829 to help satisfy his creditors.
