Writers often depict Thomas Jefferson as a narrow-minded defender of states' rights and Virginia's interests, despite his authorship of the Declaration of Independence and vigorous defense of the young republic's sovereignty. Some historians claim he was particularly hostile to the New England states, whose Federalist electorate he regarded as enemies of his Democratic-Republican Party. This study of Jefferson's lifelong relationship with New England reveals him to be a consistent nationalist and friend of the region, from his first visit to Boston in 1784 to his recruiting of Massachusetts scholars to teach at the University of Virginia. His nationalist point of view is most evident where some historians claim to see it least: in his opinions of the people and politics of New England. He admired New Englanders' Revolutionary patriotism, especially that of his friend John Adams, and considered their direct democracy and town-meeting traditions a model for the rest of the Union.

Thomas Jefferson's writings on morality have largely been ignored. His thoughts on the subject, never developed in any formal work, are said to be unsystematic--a judgment reinforced by his shift from Stoicism (intentions are critical) to Utilitarianism (consequences are critical) later in life. Yet his writings and the moral works he recommended reveal much about his moral sense and views on good living. Jefferson valued personal moral improvement, had great respect for moral exemplars and drew inspiration from moralists, sermonizers, novelists, poets, historians and such role models as Professor William Small and his friend George Wythe.

Who was the "real" Thomas Jefferson? If this question has an answer, it will probably not be revealed reading the many accounts of his life. For two centuries biographers have provided divergent perspectives on him as a man and conflicting appraisals of his accomplishments. Jefferson was controversial in his own time, and his propensity to polarize continued in the years after his death as biographers battled to control the commanding heights of history. To judge from their depictions, there existed many different Thomas Jeffersons. The essays in this book explore how individual biographers have shaped history—as well as how the interests and preoccupations of the times in which they wrote helped to shape their portrayals of Jefferson. In different eras biographers presented the third president variously as a proponent of individual rights or of majority rule, as a unifier or a fierce partisan, and as a champion of either American nationalism or cosmopolitanism. Conscripted to serve Whigs and Democrats, abolitionists and slaveholders, unionists and secessionists, Populists and Progressives, and seemingly every side of almost every subsequent struggle, the only constant was that Jefferson’s image remained a mirror of Americans’ self-conscious conceptions of their nation’s virtues, values, and vices. Thomas Jefferson’s Lives brings together leading scholars of Jefferson and his era, all of whom embrace the challenge to assess some of the most important and enduring accounts of Jefferson’s life. Contributors:Jon Meacham, presidential historian * Barbara Oberg, Princeton University * J. Jefferson Looney, Thomas Jefferson Foundation at Monticello * Christine Coalwell McDonald, Westchester Community College * Robert M.S. McDonald, United States Military Academy * Andrew Burstein, Louisiana State University * Jan Ellen Lewis, Rutgers University * Richard Samuelson, California State University, San Bernardino * Nancy Isenberg, Louisiana State University * Joanne B. Freeman, Yale University * Brian Steele, University of Alabama at Birmingham * Herbert Sloan, Barnard College * R. B. Bernstein, City College of New York * Francis D. Cogliano, University of Edinburgh * Annette Gordon-Reed, Harvard University * Gordon S. Wood, Brown University

On October 3, 1807, Thomas Jefferson was contacted by an unknown traveler urgently pleading for a private "interview" with the President, promising to disclose "a matter of momentous importance". By the next day, Jefferson held in his hands two astonishing manuscripts whose history has been lost for over two centuries. Authored by Muslims fleeing captivity in rural Kentucky, these documents delivered to the President in 1807 were penned by literate African slaves, and written entirely in Arabic. Jefferson's Muslim Fugitives reveals the untold story of two escaped West Africans in the American heartland whose Arabic writings reached a sitting U.S. President, prompting him to intervene on their behalf. Recounting a quest for emancipation that crosses borders of race, region and religion, Jeffrey Einboden unearths Arabic manuscripts that circulated among Jefferson and his prominent peers, including a document from 1780s Georgia which Einboden identifies as the earliest surviving example of Muslim slave authorship in the newly-formed United States. Revealing Jefferson's lifelong entanglements with slavery and Islam, Jefferson's Muslim Fugitives tracks the ascent of Arabic slave writings to the highest halls of U.S. power, while questioning why such vital legacies from the American past have been entirely forgotten.

The alleged affair between Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, and his slave Sally Hemings was proven as a fact by DNA analysis in 1998. While many historians continue to deny the affair, some have accepted the love affair between Jefferson and Hemings as fact, and many historical omissions regarding the affair have been revised since the 1998 DNA results. However, the identity and the dignity of the Hemings family, which were previously ignored in the official history, have been restored not only by science but also by literature. This book examines how African American writers have depicted the issues of race, gender, and identity for Sally Hemings and her descendants in modern and postmodern novels.

What did Thomas Jefferson look like? How did he carry himself? Such questions, reasonable to ask as we look back on a person who lived in an era before photography, are the starting point for this boldly original new work. Maurizio Valsania considers all aspects of Jefferson’s complex conception of "the body," from eighteenth-century clothing and fashion to manners, adornment, posture, gesture, and visual and material culture. Drawing also from the fields of medical science, psychology, and cultural anthropology, the author conjures a vivid and detailed re-creation of the third president as a living, breathing—and pondering—human being. Having situated Jefferson in his own body, Valsania looks at the embodied Jefferson in the world of his fellow humans. Any one of the other people in Jefferson’s society—whether that other person was male or female, free or enslaved, African American or Native American—was a critical counterexample for the eighteenth-century Virginian to define himself against, and Valsania’s explorations here lead to numerous insightful discoveries about race, gender, and structures of power. The first comprehensive exploration of Jefferson’s corporeal world, Jefferson’s Body brings the man vividly to life for the modern reader while deepening our understanding of what it meant to Jefferson to be alive.

The classic study of gravestone art

Aaron Burr fells Alexander Hamilton in a duel in July, but Jefferson, caring little for either adversary or for disruptive partisan warfare, gives the event only limited notice. He contends with the problem of filling the offices necessary for the establishment of Orleans Territory on October 1. He is constrained by his lack of knowledge about potential officeholders. Meanwhile, a delegation with a memorial from disgruntled Louisianians travels to Washington. In August, the U.S. Mediterranean squadron bombards Tripoli. The United States has uneasy relationships around its periphery. Jefferson compiles information on British "aggressions" in American ports and waters, and drafts a bill to allow federal judges and state governors to call on military assistance when British commanders spurn civil authority. Another bill seeks to prevent merchant ships from arming for trade with Haiti. Contested claims to West Florida, access to the Gulf of Mexico, tensions along the Texas-Louisiana boundary, and unresolved maritime claims exacerbate relations with Spain. Jefferson continues his policy of pushing Native American nations to give up their lands east of the Mississippi River. Yellow fever has devastating effects in New Orleans. Abigail Adams terminates the brief revival of their correspondence, musing that "Affection still lingers in the Bosom, even after esteem has taken its flight." In November, Jefferson delivers his annual message to Congress. He also commences systematic records to manage his guest lists for official dinners.