Thomas Jefferson

Attacking federalists" policies, he opposed a strong centralized government and champions the rights of states.
             As reluctant candidate for president in 1796, Jefferson came within three votes of election. Through a flaw in the construction, 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 budget, eliminated the tax on whiskey so unpopular in the west, yet reduced the national debt by 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 surmised 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 mind on an elevated situation, from which he might contemplate the universe.
             The question of Jefferson-Hemings Liaison remained a bone of contention among the branches of the Jefferson, Randolph, and Heming's family-as well as Jefferson scholars- throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.