Thomas Jefferson — 3rd President of the United States
Portrait: Rembrandt Peale, portrait of Thomas Jefferson, 1800 (public domain), via Wikimedia Commons
3rd President of the United States, Democratic-Republican
Thomas Jefferson
Term: Mar 4, 1801 – Mar 4, 1809
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) was the third president of the United States, serving from 1801 to 1809, and the principal author of the Declaration of Independence. As president he oversaw the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, which doubled the size of the nation, and commissioned the Lewis and Clark Expedition to explore the new western territories. He also founded the University of Virginia and pursued wide-ranging interests in architecture, philosophy, and the natural sciences.
“We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists. If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.”