Thomas Jefferson began studying with a tutor at the age of five. By age nine he had mastered three languages, Latin,Greek and French. At age fourteen he was studying additional languages and literature. By the age of sixteen he had entered into college. He studied law for five years and by age twenty-three he owned his own law practice. When he was twenty-five he was elected into the Virginia House of Burgesses. By age thirty-one, he retired from law and wrote the widely circulated "Summary View of the Rights of British America." He was a delegate to the Second Continental Congress when he was thirty-two. Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence when only thirty-three years old, then took three years to revise Virginia's legal code, wrote the Public Education bill, and a Statute for Religious Freedom. At age thirty-six he was elected the second governor of Virginia. When he was forty he served two years in Congress. He was forty-one when be became the American minister to France and negotiated commercial treaties with European nations along with Benjamin Franklin and John Adams. When he was forty-six he served as the first Secretary of State under George Washington. At fifty-three he was vice president of our country and also elected president of the American Philosophical Society. He drafted the Kentucky Resolutions and became the active head of the Republic party at fifty-five and by fifty-seven he was elected the third president of the United States of America. At age sixty Jefferson obtained the Louisiana Purchase and doubled the nation's size. He was elected to a second term as president when he was sixty-one. He retired for a time at age sixty-five to Monticello. By age eighty he assisted President Monroe in shaping the Monroe Doctrine and at eighty-one he created the University of Virginia and served as its first president. At eighty-three he died on the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
President John F. Kennedy held a dinner in the white house for a group of the brightest minds in the nation at that time. President Kennedy made this statement, "This is perhaps the assembly of the most intelligence ever gathered at one time in the White House with the exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone."
Quotes from a brilliant leader: Thomas Jefferson
"When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe."
"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not."
"When the people fear the government, there is tyranny' when the government fears the people, there is liberty."
"Those who surrender freedom for security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one."
"It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world."
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."
"My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government."
"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms."
"The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
"To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical."
"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies; and the principles of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale."
"Thomas Jefferson desired to build from the people up! This extra ordinary man lived in ordinary times, yet he shaped our county with his brilliant mind and high ideals. Today our country is being threatened by a government that has become the very "beast" that our forefathers fled. We must elect leaders who will reestablish the principles this nations was founded upon. If not, we will watch a great nation be swallowed up in the quagmire of rampant government. If we don't reclaim our integrity, the words freedom and liberty will only exist in the history books. We deserve to have conservative, moral, and ethical values leading the future of this country!"
By, Linda Sumner Urza, One fine day.
