Trusted Writing on History, Travel, and American Culture Since 1949
SEARCH 75 YEARS OF ESSAYS!
Thomas Jefferson
The black naturalist, astronomer, surveyor, and almanac-writer Benjamin Banneker took issue with Thomas Jefferson’s attitude toward “those of my complexion.”
Peter Waddell's "A
Important new information on the central figure in the early American republic has surfaced with the publication of new volumes of Jefferson's journals and correspondence.
In late autumn of 1793, Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson was in Germantown, Pennsylvania, then the nation’s temporary capital.
Important new information on the central figure in the early American republic has surfaced with the publication of new volumes of Jefferson's journals and correspondence.
In late autumn of 1793, Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson was in Germantown, Pennsylvania, then the nation’s temporary capital.
When the leading European naturalist visited America and met with Thomas Jefferson, it had a profound impact on the young nation.
Editor’s Note: Eleanor Jones Harvey is a senior curator at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence announced a new epoch in world history, transforming a provincial tax revolt into a great struggle to liberate humanity from the tyrannies of the past.
Congress debated a resolution to impeach Jefferson because of an appointment that Federalists thought suspicious — an early precedent that clarified Congressional roles in oversight.
Jefferson had children with his wife, Martha, and then with his and slave, Sally Hemings, and these children lived very different lives as a result of their race.
Excerpted from the George Washington Book Prize finalist Jefferson's Daughters:
Jefferson transformed an elegant country house into an American symbol, a paradigm for the young nation’s architecture.
Incensed that many leading European scientists had belittled North America's climate and fauna, Thomas Jefferson shipped them evidence and published a long reply in Notes on the State of Virginia.
It has been called one of the most consequential debates in American history. The Revolution's greatest orator later fought to stop ratification of the Constitution because of his worries about the powers proposed for the federal government.
Under the Articles of Confederation, these United States were barely united. Unable to agree on either foreign or domestic policy, they sank into economic depression. In May 1787, delegates from 12 states (Rhode Island sent none) arrived in Philadelphia to define a new federal government.
The 1807 prosecution of Aaron Burr for treason was a highly flawed and failed endeavor.
In late March of 1807, Aaron Burr arrived in Richmond, Virginia, in a vile mood, filthy, and stinking. He had just endured a month of hard travel under heavy guard through the dense forests of the Southeast.
Thomas Jefferson took his scissors to the Bible in search of a higher truth.
LIKE A CURMUDGEON who writes cranky letters to the editor, retired president Thomas Jefferson wanted to get the news without editorial bias or commentary—the Good News, that is, because he was reading the Bible.
An impetuous and sometimes corrupt Congress has often hamstrung the efforts of the president since the earliest days of the republic.
On a little-remarked, steamy day in late June 1973, a revolution took place in Washington, D.C., one that would transfer far more power and wealth than did the revolt against King George III in 1776.
Over the question of whether Missouri should be admitted to the Union as a free or slave state in 1820, creative moderates brokered an ingenious compromise that averted civil war.
On February 13, 1819, the 35-year-old Congressman William Cobb unfolded his six-foot frame from his chair in the chamber of the Old Brick Capitol building in Washington, D.C., and locked his gray eyes on James Tallmadge Jr. of New York. There was little love lost between the grandson of Georgia’s most famous patriarch and the accomplished city lawyer. They had tangled on issues before, Cobb eloquently if savagely attacking Andrew Jackson over his campaign in Florida against the Seminoles; Tallmadge had defended the general with equal vigor.
Without major compromises by all involved, and the agreement to avoid the contentious issue of slavery, the framers would never have written and ratified the Constitution.
In September 1789, at the end of the Constitutional Convention, James Madison wrote in dismay to his old friend Thomas Jefferson, who was an ocean away in Paris. “I hazard an opinion,” he lamented, “that the plan should it be adopted will neither effectively answer the national object nor prevent the local mischiefs which everywhere excite disgust against the state governments.”
To call it a loaded question does not begin to do justice to the matter, given America’s tortured racial history and its haunting legacy.
Sharp business skills ensured the first president’s phenomenal success.
America’s greatest leader was its first—George Washington. He ran two start-ups, the army and the presidency, and chaired the most important committee meeting in U.S. history, the Constitutional Convention. His agribusiness and real-estate portfolio made him America’s richest man. He was as well-known in his time as any star actor, rapper, or athlete is now. Men followed him into battle; women longed to dance with him; famous men, almost as great as he was, some of them smarter or better-spoken, did what he told them to do. He was the Founding CEO.
Why have our presidents almost always stumbled after the first four years?
Suppose they could go on "Meet The Press"...
The explorers who set out 200 years ago were in danger for three years. Their legacy was in danger for decade after decade, and it was Meriwether Lewis who almost killed it.
“WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS…”
On July 4, 1776 in Philadelphia, the Continental Congress brought a new nation into the world by adopting the Declaration of Independence.
A descendant of Thomas Jefferson comments on the quarrel over who can be allowed in the family graveyard, and the missing remains of Sally Hemings. The outcome of the dispute is important to every American.
When John Adams was elected president, and Thomas Jefferson as vice president, each came to see the other as a traitor. Out of their enmity grew our modern political system.
VOTER TURNOUT MAY BE DOWN IN RECENT YEARS, BUT THE INVOLVEMENT OF THE COMMON CITIZEN HAS GROWN TO FAR SURPASS ANYTHING THE FOUNDING FATHERS EVER DREAMED OF.
A Jefferson descendant's thoughts on luck, ancestry, and the meaning of the DNA findings
David McCullough explains why he thinks that history is the most challenging, exhilarating, and immediate of subjects.
Bernard A. Weisberger’s balanced look at the Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings story (“In the News,” November 1997) led me to wonder anew at both the staying power and the meaning of this tale. Just what is it that is so scandalous here?
After three times traveling the trail they blazed, the author imagines what the two captains of Jefferson’s Corps of Discovery would make of the civilization we have built on the tremendous promise they offered.
Why the possible liaison between Thomas Jefferson and his slave Sally Hemings matters to us.
When the Supreme ruled that President Clinton was not immune during his term of office from Paula Jones’s suit charging alleged sexual harassment, I thought at once of writing a column about the accusations of sexual misconduct brought against previous Presidents.
Featured Authors
