Browse By Category
Creating America
Impacting America
Leading America
Building America
Thomas Jefferson, the Virginia Barrister
In 1765, Parliament passed the Stamp Act, the first internal tax on the American colonies, and thus began a decade of missteps by the British. Their miscalculations would take their country and their colonists on a direct path to Lexington Green and Concord Bridge on April 19, 1775. During this same year, Thomas Jefferson was concluding his time studying law under George Wythe and began to turn his eye towards the world at large and, more specifically, politics in the Colony of Virginia.
The Early Life of Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson is one of America’s most iconic Founding Fathers. Best known for his inspirational words in the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson was a brilliant man with diverse interests who spent the bulk of his life in service to his country and his later years in retirement at his beloved mountain home of Monticello, near Charlottesville, Virginia.
The House of Representatives Chooses Thomas Jefferson
The presidential election of 1800 ended in a tie, as the two Democratic-Republican candidates, Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, each received 73 electoral votes under the original guidelines of the Constitution.
The Election of 1800
The Presidential election of 1800 was one of the most controversial and consequential in the history of the United States. It represented a true changing of the guard as the Federalist party of Washington, Hamilton, and Adams gave way to the Democratic-Republican ideals of Jefferson and Madison and took the United States in a different direction for a generation to come.
The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions
In response to the Alien and Sedition Acts passed by the Federalist controlled Congress and signed by President John Adams in July 1798, Democratic-Republicans howled long and loud about the legislation that they viewed as an assault on both their party and the Constitution. They turned to their leader, Vice President Thomas Jefferson, to counter these Acts and, if possible, use them to their political advantage.
The Election of 1796
After serving two terms as President, George Washington decided to not seek a third and instead retire from public life. His decision led to the country’s first contested presidential election in the fall of 1796, pitting Thomas Jefferson against Vice President John Adams. Arguably, no presidential election in the history of the United States has ever featured a choice between two such American titans.
Virginia’s House of Burgesses, British America’s First Elected Legislature
The Colony of Virginia was established at Jamestown by the Virginia Company in 1607 as a for-profit venture by its investors. To bring order to the province, Governor George Yeardley created a one-house or unicameral General Assembly on July 30, 1619.
John Adams Dominates Second Continental Congress
John Adams dominated the Second Continental Congress like no other man and was tireless in his efforts to move the assembly towards independence. He sat on ninety committees and chaired twenty-five of them. No other delegate matched his workload.