Thomas Jefferson was born April 13, 1743, at Shadwell, on the western edge of settlement in the colony of Virginia, an area that later became Albemarle County. He was the first son born to Peter Jefferson, a pioneer farmer and surveyor, and Jane Randolph, a member of one of the Virginia colony's wealthiest, most influential, and well-established families. Peter Jefferson died in 1757, leaving land holdings of about 7500 acres, a widow, and eight children. At the age of 17, Jefferson entered the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, furthering the education he had commenced at the age of five with a tutor employed by his father. As a boy Jefferson also attended formal schools taught by clergymen in the region, where he learned Greek and Roman, among other subjects. Jefferson's eagerness to attend college was shared by the executors of his father's estate, who also acted as his guardians. Jefferson began at William and Mary in the spring of 1760, and was introduced to the world of the Enlightenment. He would thereafter be a devoted disciple of the Age of Reason. Jefferson regarded his education at William and Mary as one of the major transforming experiences of his life. Of his work with Dr. William Small, professor of mathematics and moral philosophy, Jefferson said, "It was my great good fortune, and what probably fixed the destinies of my life." It was also Small who introduced Jefferson to George Wythe, who became Jefferson's mentor in the law. Jefferson completed his college study in two years. He then read law with George Wythe for five years, and was admitted to the bar in 1767. Jefferson's promising legal practice was interrupted by the American Revolution, and he never resumed the profession. Jefferson's political career began in 1769 when he was elected to Virginia's House of Burgesses. During the next seven years Jefferson served as a legislator and became a leader in the movement for American independence. As Jefferson responded to actions by the British parliament that increased economic and political pressure on the colonists of Virginia, he based his opposition on a belief in the philosophy of natural rights. He denied the authority of parliament and cautioned George III that he was "no more than the chief officer of the people, appointed by the laws, and circumscribed with definite powers. . . ." He urged George III to "no longer persevere in sacrificing the rights of one part of the empire to the inordinate desires of another." In 1772 Jefferson married Martha Wayles Skelton, a 23-year-old widow whose father, John Wayles, had accumulated a large fortune to which Martha was the principal heir. Jefferson and Martha made their home at Monticello, a Palladian villa Jefferson built near Shadwell. In September 1772 the young couple had the first of their six children, a daughter named Martha. Only two of their children survived to adulthood. John Wayles died in 1773, leaving his daughter an estate of over 11,000 acres and 135 slaves. The debts to English merchants that accompanied the Wayles estate plagued Jefferson for the rest of his life. Jefferson's reputation for protesting Britain's colonial taxation policies put him in league with Patrick Henry and Richard Henry Lee in the Virginia Assembly. Jefferson drafted many resolutions calling for the repeal of taxes and the lifting of restrictions on American trade and manufacturing. In A Summary View of the Rights of British America (1774), his first published work, Jefferson reached the radical conclusion that Americans possessed the natural right to govern themselves. In June 1775 Jefferson assumed a seat in the Second Continental Congress at Philadelphia. Two days after his arrival he wrote what became the "Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms." The following year Jefferson was appointed to a committee to draft a declaration to announce and justify the cause of American independence. After much debate and considerable alteration, Jefferson's Declaration of Independence was adopted by the Congress on July 4, 1776. Jefferson returned to Virginia in the fall of 1776 and entered the newly constituted House of Delegates, intent on reforming the old order in the commonwealth. In 1778 he wrote a Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge, which outlined a complete plan of public education from elementary schools through to a state university. The bill was defeated, its opponents calling the plan "impractical" and even "godless." In 1779 Jefferson was elected governor of Virginia, succeeding Patrick Henry. Jefferson's term of office took place during one of the darkest times of the war and the period in which Virginia was most directly threatened by British military conquest. Benedict Arnold’s army invaded Virginia in January 1781. Later General Charles Cornwallis marched his troops into Virginia, chasing the governor and the government from Richmond to Charlottesville, near Jefferson's home. By June 1781, after his term of office had expired but before a successor could be elected, Jefferson was chased from Monticello. Following this, Jefferson resolved to quit politics and retire from the public stage. On September 6, 1782, Martha Jefferson died after never regaining her health following the birth of the couple's daughter, Lucy Elizabeth, the previous May. Jefferson grew despondent. His friends rallied to pull him out of his depression and in early June 1783 the Virginia Assembly elected him a delegate to the Continental Congress that was to begin in November. Six months after Jefferson began his term, the Congress appointed him to a commission to negotiate treaties of commerce with European states. The commission, which met in Paris, also included John Adams and Benjamin Franklin. In early 1785 Congress accepted Franklin's resignation as minister to France and elected Jefferson to succeed him. The four years Jefferson spent in France were some of the happiest of his life. He was captivated by the infinitely varied pleasures of the mind and spirit he found in France. He indulged his appetite for art, music, and theater, and developed deep admiration for ingenious inventions, architecture, and cuisine. These feelings, however, were offset by the luxury, debauchery, ignorance, and oppression he witnessed during his tenure as minister to France. Jefferson proved a friend to the French Revolution of 1789, seeing it as an extension of the American Revolution. He advocated liberal reform of the Bourbon monarchy including the establishment of representative assemblies and guarantees of individual liberties. Jefferson returned to the United States on leave in the fall of 1789, expecting to return to Paris. President George Washington, however, prevailed upon Jefferson to become secretary of state in the new government under the Constitution. Jefferson agreed, and took up his new duties in New York, the temporary capital, in March 1790. As secretary of state over the next four years Jefferson endeavored to regularize relations with Britain, strengthen the alliance with France in order to expand American commerce, end European colonialism in the West, and work toward American neutrality in any current or future European war to advance American national interests. Upon leaving office at the end of 1793 Jefferson returned to Virginia and farming. He began rebuilding Monticello, a project that would continue for the next 15 years. The pastoral life eluded Jefferson when, in 1796, he assented to the request of Republicans to run as their candidate for president against John Adams. Jefferson lost the election in a close contest and, according to the rule of the day, became vice president. Serious contention between Federalists, who controlled all branches of the national government, and Republicans led to the enactment of the Alien and Sedition Laws, which Jefferson was convinced were a thinly veiled attempt by the Federalists to destroy the Republican party. In 1800 Jefferson was elected president over Adams, and became the first president inaugurated in Washington. His inaugural address appealed for national unity after a divisive election. Jefferson reminded those who heard him that "this sacred principle that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will, to be rightful, must be reasonable, that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal laws must protect, and to violate would be oppression." Jefferson, averse to dissension and confrontation, sought to influence those who opposed Republicanism by appeasement, and by subtle persuasion. In foreign affairs Jefferson faced a crisis during his first term as president when American peace and prosperity were threatened by Spain's retrocession of Louisiana, including the port of New Orleans, to France. Jefferson did not succumb to pressure from Federalists for military action against France and Spain. Instead he devised a plan whereby the United States would attempt to buy New Orleans and West Florida by offering Napoleon enough money to tempt him before he took possession of Louisiana. On May 2nd, 1803, French ministers and American ambassadors signed a treaty for the purchase of the entire Louisiana Territory for a total price of $15 million. The Louisiana Purchase more than doubled the size of the United States. Prior to the Louisiana Purchase in January 1803, Jefferson had asked Congress for an appropriation of $2500 to fund a small expedition to explore the Missouri River to its source and search for a river flowing to the Pacific within portage of the Missouri. To command the expedition Jefferson chose Meriwether Lewis, his private secretary and fellow Virginian. Lewis in turn asked William Clark to join him as co-leader and the two made the journey together. The widespread public approval of the transfer of Louisiana to the United States was made manifest in Jefferson's re-election to the presidency in 1804. The total electoral vote was 162 for Jefferson to 14 for Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, the Federalist candidate. Despite this decisive victory Jefferson’s second term proved to be an ordeal. While the Burr conspiracy with its threat of revolution in the West posed an internal threat, war between France and Great Britain left the United States the unsavory challenge of remaining neutral for the sake of maintaining trade with the belligerent nations. Neutrality proved untenable when Britain impressed thousands of American seamen into its service, and plundered American ships in American waters. In response, Congress, on Jefferson's recommendation, enacted an embargo of American commerce and navigation from the oceans. The embargo, an attempt at peaceable coercion, had noticeable affect abroad, but produced more compelling privations and discontents at home. In the waning days of Jefferson's administration the embargo was repealed. Three years later the United States was drawn into war with Great Britain. Jefferson retired to Monticello in 1809 and spent the rest of his life in the home he so loved. He filled his days reading the ancient classics, carrying on a large correspondence, and serving as president of the American Philosophical Society, the nation’s premier scientific institution. In 1814 Jefferson revived his plan for a public education system in Virginia. While the legislature again rejected the overall plan, it approved one part, the state university. Jefferson provided the architectural design for the campus, hired the faculty, formed the curriculum, acquired the library, and attended to countless details. Jefferson's health began to fail in 1818, and at the same time he faced financial ruin, and sank into bankruptcy. He died at Monticello on July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of American independence. Methodical to the end, he designed his own tombstone and wrote his own epitaph. Of all the accomplishments of his life, he chose to be remembered as the author of the Declaration of Independence and the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, and as the father of the University of Virginia.