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Thomas Jefferson (April 13 &#91;O.S. April 2&#93; 1743 – July 4, 1826) was an American lawyer, a Founding Father and principal author of the Declaration of Independence (1776). He was elected the second Vice President of the United States (1797–1801) and the third President of the United States (1801–1809). Jefferson was born and educated in Virginia, where he graduated from the College of William & Mary, practiced law, and married Martha Wayles Skelton; they had six children, two of whom survived to adulthood. Most historians believe that after Martha's death, he also had a long-term relationship with his slave Sally Hemings, and fathered at least some of her children.

Jefferson was an important proponent of democracy, republicanism and individual rights. During the American Revolution, he represented Virginia in the Continental Congress that adopted the Declaration, drafted legislation on religious freedom for the Virginia legislature, and served as a wartime governor (1779–1781). He became the U.S. Minister to France in 1785, where he supported the French Revolution, and the first U.S. Secretary of State in 1790. In the formation of the First Party System, Jefferson and James Madison organized the Democratic-Republican Party to oppose the Federalist Party led by Alexander Hamilton. Jefferson was elected Vice President in 1796, serving in the administration of his Federalist opponent, John Adams. In 1798-99, he and Madison secretly wrote the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions advocating the rights of states to oppose federal government actions.

As president, Jefferson significantly reduced the national debt, banned the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and achieved victory in the First Barbary War, the nation's first foreign conflict. In 1803, he purchased the Louisiana Territory from France, doubling the size of the U.S. The following year, he commissioned the Lewis and Clark Expedition to explore the new land and began a policy of Indian removal. His second term is generally considered less successful than his first, due to the treason trial of his first vice president, Aaron Burr, and his unpopular and unsuccessful 1807 embargo of British shipping. Overall, however, historians rank Jefferson as one of the most successful U.S. Presidents, and his ideals (known later as Jeffersonian democracy) defined American politics for a generation.

A champion of the Age of Enlightenment, Jefferson was diversely talented in the arts, sciences, agriculture and politics. He designed his home Monticello and the Virginia State Capitol, wrote the philosophical tract Notes on the State of Virginia (1895), served as president of the American Philosophical Society, and founded the University of Virginia. While advocating for innate human rights, Jefferson continued to use slave labor, a contradiction for which many historians have criticized him. He shunned organized religion, but was influenced by both Christianity and deism. Jefferson died at his home on the fiftieth anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence.