Thomas Jefferson Essay

Thomas Jefferson was a very peculiar man. He was a wealthy aristocrat from the colony of Virginia and was a Democrat in the government. His ideas were very inconsistent with the life he lived. Many of his ideas contradicted his own life which made him a consistently inconsistent man. Thomas Jefferson’s political philosophy contradicted Jefferson’s own life and allow for the less fortunate colonists to prosper. Thomas Jefferson lived a very prosperous and comfortable life in which his political philosophy was the opposite. He was the son of Peter Jefferson and Jane Randolph. His father was a self-made man but his mother came from a distinguished Virginia family which assured the social position of Thomas. In 1575, Thomas’s father died leaving him with over 2,700 acres and a large number of slaves. This privilege Thomas had allowed him to write about human liberty which was supported by the three generations of slaves he encountered. With Thomas writing about human liberty, he was contradicting his own beliefs because he had over 200 slaves himself. Also, under the leadership of Jefferson, Virginia reformers abolished primogeniture. The policy of primogeniture however was the basis of Jefferson’s social and economic success. If the policy of primogeniture was not in place, Jefferson would not have succeeded to the position he had because he would not have received the land his father had after his father passed away. Jefferson also represented a number of different groups in politics that were very different. In American politics, he became the leader of the yeoman farmers and was also the leader of great planters. These two groups were exact opposites which revealed the nature of Jefferson’s political basis- befriend the poor and the wealthy. Jefferson was also the head of a popular group that went against the commercial interests of the nation but the group was also a popular group with economic goals of its own. Jefferson believed that society should keep the agricultural basis but he believed in progress. Jefferson was a very impulsive man. His familiarity with many different countries and nations allowed him to absorb and relay the most abstract ideas of his time. He believed in these abstract ideas and changed them in order to become prevalent in the American society. However he was not quick to break these rules in try to fulfill them. Jefferson lived an unusually long life for a person living during his time and saw many changes in society. This resulted in his ideas varying based on the circumstance. Jefferson was a very inconsistent man but his ideas allowed for the basis of the American government. Jefferson’s inconsistent ideas laid a basis for the American government and allowed the poorer citizens to prosper. Jefferson’s ideas laid the basis for the constitution and the Bill of Rights. When he was part of the Virginia government, Jefferson helped the Virginia reformers lay a base for freedom of thought and religion by disassembling the Anglican Church and forbidding legal or political disabilities for religious dissent. This is the basis of the first Amendment of the Constitution. In 1774, he wrote a very daring treatise in which he applied the natural right doctrine to the controversy in the colonies. This treatise brought immediate attention to Jefferson and gave him the reputation of a literary genius which gave him the job as the draftsman of the Declaration of Independence. After drafting the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson refrained himself from expressing his more unacceptable ideas in public because his ideas guided the direction in which society should be guided. Jefferson greatly affected the poorer society in America which allowed him to become a man who had a perspective of each side of society. He sided with the Agrarians but he also sided with the wealthy. Thomas Jefferson greatly affected American society as a whole by expressing his ideas which were widely accepted and including everyone in society. Thomas Jefferson’s political philosophy contradicted Jefferson’s own life and allow for the less fortunate colonists to prosper. Thomas Jefferson lived a very prosperous and comfortable life in which his political philosophy was the opposite. Jefferson’s inconsistent ideas laid a basis for the American government and allowed the poorer citizens to prosper. Thomas Jefferson was a very consistently inconsistent man who greatly affected American society.