Thomas Jefferson's Greatest Achievements

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Jefferson was a primary organizer for the independence of the American colonies. He was the principal writer for The Declaration of Independence. He considered The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom one of his greatest achievements. Jefferson was a Governor of Virginia, the first Secretary of State and the second Vice President (Probst). As U.S. president, he continued his dedication to the new nation.
This short informational essay reviews some of Jefferson’s accomplishments and major activities as President of the United States (1801-1809).
Thomas Jefferson’s first presidential election was rancorous. After divisiveness within the Federalist Party, Jefferson and Aaron Burr were nominated as compromise candidates and won the 1800 election by a close vote in the U.S. House of Representatives. This marked the first peaceful transfer of power from one party to another “in a modern republic” (“Thomas Jefferson …show more content…
He removed trappings of European royalty from the presidency, advocated equality and universal rights for ordinary white men, reduced the size of armed forces and government bureaucracy, increased participatory politics and reduced the national debt from $80 million to $57 million in only two years. In 1803, he paid France about $15 million for over 800,000 square miles of Louisiana Territory, effectively doubling the size of the United States and opening western lands to development and settlement. In 1804, Jefferson authorized Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to explore, map and report on the new territories and find a water passage between the Pacific Ocean and the Mississippi River. Jefferson deployed new U.S. warships to stifle Barbary pirates disrupting American vessels in the Mediterranean Sea. The Constitution did not explicitly sanction this action and the Louisiana Purchase but this did represent a notable expansion of national government power (Probst; Appleby, 2003, 1 and 3; “Thomas Jefferson
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