The Later Years and Legacy of Thomas Jefferson

        Jefferson left the post of president in the good hands of his close friend and long-time political ally, James Madison. Following his departure from the most powerful position in the government of the United States in 1809, Thomas Jefferson would spend the remainder of his life in Monticello, his manse in rural Charlottesville, Virginia that was an architectural representation of his character. Jefferson began the construction of Monticello in 1768 as his private home and finally finished it after the end of his presidency in 1809. Meacham described Monticello, stating that “the eleven-thousand-square-foot, thirty-three-room-house… in which he woke every morning was his joy,” and was filled with the “artifacts and emblems of America’s natural and political worlds.” The house contained numerous portraits, busts, statues, and artifacts of figures such as John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, Voltaire, and Jefferson himself. “Anything represented within Monticello was meaningful to Jefferson in some way to another.”          

          

          Jefferson’s final effort in his life was the founding of the University of Virginia. Meacham describes that for Jefferson, “education had been a perennial interest.” Jefferson further mentioned in a letter, “I think by far the most important bill in our whole code is that for the diffusion of knowledge among the people,” further describing the importance he placed on education.  Jefferson began the construction of the University of Virginia in 1817 not far from his home, Monticello, where it would endure and education numerous generations of students into the present day.

          Over the course of his life, Thomas Jefferson accomplished a number of marvelous feats. He wrote the Declaration of Independence, served as Secretary of State, Vice President, and President. He doubled the size of the continental United States, kept the nation out of war, and founded a university. Yet, of all the great accomplishments that Jefferson is remembered for today, he listed three on his gravestone as what he believed to be his greatest accomplishments; those which he chose to be truly representative of his legacy. They include authorship of the Declaration of Independence, authorship of the Virginia bill of religious liberty, and founder of the University of Virginia. These listed accomplishments tell us a lot about what Jefferson chose to be remembered for. They tell us that Jefferson was a staunch supporter for individual rights, in both freedom and religion, and that he placed education at highest importance. In this manner Jefferson chose to perpetuate his legacy primarily with the importance of freedom and education, two of the qualities that have enabled him to reach his high status in early American society and have allowed him to make the weighty contributions in society and science that he had in his day.