Jefferson symbolizes for many both the promise and the contradictions of America's historical heritage. He was a plantation owner from Virginia who helped formulate the American Revolution and became the third President of the new country. He wrote the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson's manifesto asserted that God had not created masters and servants, aristocrats and commoners. All had been "created equal". All were entitled to human dignity. Jefferson was a landowner and engaged in ambitious building projects at Monticello and Poplar Forest. He unsuccessfully looked for an alternative crop to tobacco, and like many American farmers after him he was heavily in debt to the banks. Jefferson's plantations were worked by slaves he owned an estimated two hundred slaves. During his presidency, his political enemies published charges that the had several children with one of his slaves, Sally Hemings which was not in the book I read but a point I wanted to bring up. How can a man so intelligent and brave write the Declaration of Independence and own slaves? The man, who wrote, "all men are created equal." He seems to be so what of a hypocrite. I will take into consideration that in the eighteenth-century, Virginia slaveholders might have wished freedom for slaves, but the difficulties of finding viable places of residence and means of livelihood may have been a factor. Although we may find Jefferson guilty of failing to make adequate allowance for the conditions in which slaves were forced to live, Jefferson did not take the next step of concluding that slaves were fit only for slavery. Did Jefferson mean to include blacks or women in the language of the Declaration? Writing from retirement at he age of seventy-three, he told a correspondent the "laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind." I respect Thomas Jefferson for his intelligence, work, and actions took to form our country today. Jefferson was a very intelligent man for his time and find it amazing of all the work he did in his lifetime. I believe he is the most important president of all the presidents of America.

vise. Thomas not formally educated himself; he studied at Revered Mr. Maury's school, not far from Shadwell. After two years' in the spring of 1760, he left his native Albemarle to

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