Americas third president Thomas Jefferson, focusing on his words and actions on slavery and raise. This video is courtesy of the university. Its from their great live lecture series great lives lecture series. A i am pleased to announce special miniseries of six lectures entitled great president ial lives. This series is particularly attractive for two main reasons. The first being its timeliness. A president ial election year, it will be an insight all of us can be in. The second is the speaker himself. ,ur esteemed umw Professor William b crawley, who has just completed 50 years on the faculty of the university of mary washington. Century, he has contributed in innumerable ways and significant ways. Certainly not least of all the creation of our renowned Historic Preservation program and the creation of this amazing great lives series. But it is for his excellence and teachings that he is perhaps best known, and to literally thousand of our students who through our halls, he has received our institutions highest honors and teaching. Both from his colleagues and from his students. Many of whom through the years have voted him as a faculty member who has made the greatest impact upon their lives. Dr. Crawley, through these years, has become a true icon of this community. Great, it is with pleasure that i introduced Professor William b crawley. Drawing upon his years of teaching political history he has truly worked and shared so much of his knowledge, and will be sharing it again with us today as he looks at the lifes of one of six highly interesting and sometimes controversial president s. And like many modernday are sonts, none straightforward as the story may recall, were that history may have told us. Would you please share with us . Today, talk about Thomas Jefferson. Let me begin with something of a disclaimer. Whenever i have spoken on jefferson, i am reminded of a prominent historian who said that he never fully trusted anyones views on jefferson that attended the university of virginia. Well i have to plead guilty on that score, having spent four years in graduate school in mr. Jeffersons academical village in charlottesville. Jefferson himself was quite proud of that institution, specifically directed at the words father of the university. . The one of only three accomplishments that had and thenstitute author of the virginia statute of religious freedom. And the university has been very proud of its founder, treating his memory with such reverence taft oncedent william said after delivering a lecture, people still talk of mr. Jefferson as though he was in the next room. I trust having my association with uva does not render me in to assess jeffersons career. I am not much given to hero worship. And professionally i have believe that my goal should not be to indoctrinate, but to enlighten, and thus not be the two, demonize my subjects. With that said, the truth is that Thomas Jefferson has long held a place, and to many, the highest place within the pantheon of american political healers. Founders, heions provided a strange amount of talents and produced the most accomplishments. He has been regarded as the most intellectual, recalling that off quoted comment by president john f. Kennedy, who, when offering a dinner toast to a group of nobel lawyers at the white house, said that they constituted the most extraordinary collection of tenant talent and Human Knowledge that has ever been gathered together at the white house. With the possible exception of when jefferson died alone. It was the eloquent voice that jefferson gave to the american democracy that made him so revered and most notably, his proposition to the declaration of independence, thats why we hold these truths to be selfevident that all mens are created equal and they are endowed to inequitable unalienable rights and the pursuit of happiness. The very core of the american creed. One historian has claimed that no figure and hour past has embodied so much of our heritage and so much of our hopes. It is with that reason, near the end of the 20th century and also the end of the millennium, that the congressman went so far to suggest that Thomas Jefferson was the most significant person on the planet for the last 1000 years. Well, it sounds pretty extravagant, but it will make a case. The argument for jefferson is that history is essentially the history of the human mind. Preeminently the mind of the revolution thats received. It is often in the book of the first modern nation that in the 20th century saved the world from tyranny. Ideal. Essed the he expressed it in eloquent phrases, but also the way he lived. A statesman, scientists, architect, educator. Regarding his own legacy, it implored James Madison to take care of him when did. He need not worry, for the most part, certainly up to the first five or six decades of the 20th century, historians share the popular view of jefferson being beyond reproach. Wasextraordinary career seem to have justified that reputation. Lookts take a very quick at jeffersons career very briefly. He was born april 13, 1743 and your charlottesville. His father his father became a successful planter. He married jane randolph. Harrisjefferson and wealth, status and tradition of public service. And he himself became a successful and wellknown lawyer in virginia. He was imposing an appearance standing over six feet tall and with red hair. And avoided public appearances whenever possible. He was elected to the state legislator, which was in the house of purchase these in 1769. By which time he owned more than 2500 acres of land and a substantial number of slaves. Widow, married a young through whom he doubled his property and increased his number of slaves. He was cast into a deep depression by the death of his wife in 1782. He never remarried. A supporterown as of independence from britain and the coauthor of the declaration of independence, along with Benjamin Franklin and john adams. He served in congress in the 1780s. In 1785 he replaced franklin as minister to france and spent five years in europe. During that time he became Close Friends with lafayette and wrote the notes on the state of virginia about moral labor. He returned to america at the end of 1780 90 was appointed secretary of state by george washington. In 1797 he became Vice President and finished a close second behind his rival john adams in his contest to the presidency. He was elected president. Of greatest accomplishment his administration was the acquisition of louisiana from france in 1803. He was reelected to a second term in 1804, but it proved to be trouble by developments in europe as napoleon rose to power. After leaving the presidency he retired to monticello and concerned himself with establishing the university of virginia, which was founded in 1819. Fate,nally, by strange and i think this must be the most extraordinary coincidence, the most extraordinary that i can ever recall reading about, both jefferson and john adams, died on july 4, 18 26. The celebration of the 50th anniversary of the declaration of independence. You probably have heard this, and allegedly adams last words were, jefferson lives. But he did not comment he had died earlier that day. The sketch indicates that these are great competence. But as i alluded to earlier, i was shattered by different interpretation and decided on the more negative interpretation that has risen among the latest of scholars. The reason for his decline is hard to find. These writers have focused major attention on that area of jeffersons life that he is the least attractive in the most vulnerable, that is his views on slavery and race. Perhaps it was predictable that this would happen in in america, that in the wake of the civil rights movement, became more aware of racial injustice. The damageappened, to jeffersons unblemished stature was under bowl. These newer critics have struck , which waslles heel the heel of oppression that he crowned into the backs of his slaves