At the beginning of the American Revolution, Jefferson served in the Continental Congress, representing Virginia. He then served as the wartime Governor of Virginia (1779–1781), barely escaping capture by the British in 1781. After a controversial term, Jefferson failed to be reelected. From mid-1784mthrough late 1789, Jefferson served as a diplomat. He was stationed in Paris, initially as a commissioner to help negotiate commercial treaties. In May 1785, he succeeded Benjamin Franklin as the United States Minister to France.
He was the first United States Secretary of State, (1789–1793). During the administration of President George Washington, Jefferson advised against a national bank and the Jay Treaty. He was the second Vice President, (1797–1801) under President John Adams. Winning on an anti-federalist platform, Jefferson took the oath of office and became President of the United States in 1801. As president he negotiated the Louisiana Purchase (1803), and sent the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804–1806) to explore the vast new territory and lands further west. Jefferson always distrusted Britain as a threat to American security; he rejected a renewal of the Jay Treaty that his ambassadors had negotiated in 1806 with Britain and promoted aggressive action, such as the embargo laws, that contributed to the already escalating tensions with Britain and France leading to war with Britain in 1812 after he left office.
Jefferson idealized the independent yeoman farmer as exemplar of republican virtues, distrusted cities and financiers, and favored states' rights and a limited federal government. Jefferson supported the separation of church and state and was the author of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom (1779, 1786). Jefferson's revolutionary view on individual religious freedom and protection from government authority have generated much interest with modern scholars. He was the eponym of Jeffersonian democracy and the co-founder and leader of the Democratic-Republican Party, which dominated American politics for 25 years.Jefferson was born, and married into, prominent planter families; he was a loving husband to his wife Martha, who died in childbirth, and an affectionate father to their children. As a planter, Jefferson owned hundreds of slaves throughout his life; he held views on the racial inferiority of Africans common for this period in time. While historians long discounted accounts that, after his wife died, Jefferson had an intimate relationship with his slave Sally Hemings; since the late 1990s it has been commonly accepted that he did, and that he had six children by her.
Jefferson was a polymath who spoke five languages and could read two others. He was a major book collector with an enormous library, much of which he sold to the Library of Congress in 1814 after the British set fire to the Capitol which destroyed most of its works. He wrote more than sixteen thousand letters and was acquainted with nearly every influential person in America, and many throughout Europe.[ Jefferson is consistently rated by historical scholars as one of the greatest U.S. presidents.
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