Thomas Jefferson: Statesman of the Old South

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Originally published in 1911 as a portion of the author’s larger “Statesmen of the Old South,” this Kindle edition, equivalent in length to a physical book of approximately 60 pages, describes the life and career of Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence and the third President of the United States.

Sample passage:
The events of 1774 and 1775 made the Virginia leaders world figures and Jefferson, not Henry, was soon to become the author of the Declaration of Independence, the champion before mankind of the oppressed. Henry essayed the national role in 1774; but he was clearly the man to lead the party at home, not in the greater arena. Lee was in the congress of 1776 and as the oldest and most aristocratic member of the delegation, he introduced the resolution for independence and logically he should have headed the committee which drafted the famous Declaration. But the old feud with the Washingtons was not yet quieted. It would have been a great risk to allow Lee too much prominence and the plan to substitute Jefferson was proposed and Lee found it necessary to hasten off to Virginia to “mend his political fences.” Jefferson, Henry and Washington were on good terms. Washington’s friends and, what was more important, the large group of old families still smarting under the chastisement which Lee had given them in 1765–66 were spared the humiliation of seeing the renegade Lee a national hero. Devious are the ways of high politics.

Notwithstanding the intrigue and wire-pulling which was employed to retire Lee at that time, Jefferson was entirely worthy of the honor which came to him—he was indeed the man of all Virginians to become the spokesman of America; the language of the Declaration was the language of dissent and complaint which had been heard in Virginia for a quarter of a century, and Jefferson could well lead a fight against the same kind of privilege and arbitrary power as applied to all America which he and his neighbors had overthrown in Virginia. The cause of the West in Virginia was the cause of America before the world.

About the author:
William Edward Dodd , an expert on Thomas Jefferson, was Professor of History at Virginia’s Randolph-Macon College and then Professor of American History at the University of Chicago. Other works include “Jefferson Davis” and “Woodrow Wilson and His Work.”