American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson

I was incredibly disappointed in this book. From the time I was a teenager, I have been a John Adams fan. As such, my feelings towards Alexander Hamilton were pretty negative and my feelings towards Thomas Jefferson were somewhat ambivalent. I read Chernow's biography of Hamilton. I felt like he did a good job of addressing Hamilton, "warts and all" and I came away from that book liking Hamilton a lot more, but liking Jefferson a lot less. I was looking for a good book that could do the same thing for me with Jefferson that Chernow did with Hamilton. Since I loved Ellis's book on Washington, I chose this book. It didn't do that.

The first things that was a disappointment for me was that it wasn't an actual full on biography. I guess I should have been expecting it since the title says it is the "character" of Thomas Jefferson. It takes Jefferson's life -- or portions of it anyway -- from 1776 to his death.

My biggest frustration, though was that Ellis didn't really deal with Jefferson "warts and all". While Jefferson's "warts" weren't photo-shopped completely out, they were definitely DRASTICALLY reduced. Jefferson's time as governor was glossed over, the time when he was Secretary of State and fighting with Hamilton was marginalized and his time as vice-president, as well as his 2nd term as president were practically non-existent. It left a VERY incomplete picture of Jefferson's "character". He did address a little bit of Jefferson's ability to be devious, and talked about how Jefferson could justify it in his own mind, but it didn't help me get a greater appreciation of Jefferson. I came away feeling like the only way to really love Jefferson, is to ignore major parts of his life.

The biggest redeeming factor for me was the way he dealt with the Adams-Jefferson reconciliation at the end of their lives.

I will still have to look for a good biography on Jefferson.. One that can help me like him in spite of him.

My native Virginian wife says the trouble with Jefferson is that you always expect him to be better than he was. This book is very much in line with that assessment.

Elllis's portrayal is often nothing short of sublime. I had no idea Jefferson was such a weird, introverted and uncompromising guy. I was also blown away by Ellis's bio of John and Abigail Adams. Washington not so much. Ellis drills into the emotions of these figures. For me he bridges the gap between now and back when brilliantly. (Maybe Washington provided a more limited range of emotional material.)

That said, I thought the epilogue, with an effort to look back at TJ from the vantage point of 1998 took a bit of the edge off. Conservative Republicans have taken up the Jefferson cause, okay, and even more so nineteen years later, but the whole effort seemed to me to diminish the vast biographical scale somehow--all the big themes, what is America.

I mean it's hardly worth noting any quibbles. Marbury v Madison could have been explained a little more clearly. This is not the kind of biography to fill in every detail of the man's life, if that's what you're looking for, a la Chernow say (not knocking Chernow!).

Joseph Ellis gives a commendable portrait of Thomas Jefferson.

First things first. Sally Hemings was very much part of the campaign of 1801 to besmirch Jefferson's character. So Jefferson's relationship was hardly some sort of secret. The 1801 doggerel portrayed her as "mahogany" which means that people had not really seen her but only heard of her, since she was clearly White looking. Ellis wrote this book in 1997. Even in 1997, Sally Hemings was a well established character in the Jefferson Scholarship. DNA tests done in 1998 essentially confirmed the reality of that relationship which produced 6 children. In 1997, Ellis essentially discounts the story as unreliable fabrication. In 2017, a room was found in Monticello that seems to have been her own private room. There are all kinds of questions re this relationship: did she share his dinner table; was she present when quests were, did she share Jefferson's bed, or did he go unto her, in her own room, could she read and write? And so on. There is also a revelation of Jefferson's character regarding granting her freedom. While in France, as nursemaid to his child Polly, Sally would have been within her legal right to demand freedom; Jefferson would have been within legal right to give her freedom. That he didn't, speaks to something. Jefferson at the end of his life freed many of his slaves, including several of their common children, but he did not free her. One wonders why. What and who benefited from her continued enslavement.

I know we cannot look at Jefferson's America and challenge him for the moral obtuseness that was slavery; we would spend a great deal of time on what is essentially wasted energy. Governeur Morris in the Constitutional Convention warned the assemblage of delegates, many of whom were slave-holders, that slavery would be the Nation's undoing; when he was finished, there was apparently deadly silence; people heard but failed to heed.

Jefferson ended up writing the "Declaration of Independence" because others were too busy for that task. And it is, of course, that we find Jefferson so wanting: all men are created equal, and yet he himself saw fit to own people and all the implications of such ownership. Jefferson's obtuseness did not end there. He seemed particularly blind to the chaos and nihilism and butchery of the French Revolution; he is, indeed, cited by the 2nd Amendment aficionados as defender of weapons for armed citizen revolt, which they psychotically (and interpret erroneously) is an embedded right of the 2nd Amendment.

The Election of 1800 saw Jefferson & Burr receiving the same number of votes, 73, thus leaving it to the House of Representatives to vote. At the 36th ballot on the 7th day, and with active lobbying by Hamilton in support of Jefferson since he hated Burr, Jefferson won and Burr became Vice-President. One must always look upon politics as one of those huge crap--shoots. Subsequent events in Burr's life would confirm Hamilton's impression that Burr had no principles. In 1804, with the duel that saw Burr murdering Hamilton, Burr was essentially a Vice-President who was a wanted fugitive from New Jersey and New York.

Jefferson, as Republican, would prefer a less intrusive government than that envisioned by the Founding Fathers and by John Marshall whom he despised and who despised him. In Marbury vs. Madison (1803) Marshall would expand the Judiciary (and the Government) by supporting the Court as final arbiter of Congressional or Presidential actions. And it was Jefferson who took the almost dictatorial step of actually buying the Louisiana land from Napoleon thus extending America's domain.

Ellis takes a thematic approach to his study of Jefferson; that is to say, he writes of Jefferson in particular times and places of his life. One come away with a Jefferson beset by a fate that would take away his wife, his children, and in some sense, even his integrity as slave owner (and owner of a slave with whom he would cohabit thus inflicting an ultimate humiliation on her) in violation of his own dictate that all men are created equal.

Joseph EIllis has written an admirable study.

If you have never read about Jefferson, and you want to read only one, this may be the only book you'll ever have to read. The author is an beautiful writer, assembles all the best information from all the various sources, and lays his project out beautifully. This is not a comprehensive biography, the author simply limits this book to Jefferson's character. The author was quite fair. He didn't talk about Jefferson's disastrous second term as president. Jefferson was a walking contradiction; a man who spoke for freedom and against slavery while owning slaves. He preached against active government except when elected to the presidency. He supported the constitution unless it didn't serve his purposes. The book is extremely well written and a joy to read. Unfortunately, learning more about Jefferson only made me like him less. And this isn't because of his politics or my inability to understand he was "a man of his times." Instead, I view him in light of his contemporaries and question his judgment in this company.

My journey to meet all forty-four Presidents via reading a biography on each recently lead me to number three. Thomas Jefferson's enigmatic quality allows him to be all things to all people, or as Joseph Ellis puts it, an 'American Sphinx'. Rather than run through the typical biographical device of a timeline that starts with the early years and concludes with death, Ellis chooses five different periods in Jefferson's life through which to understand him: the time around the Declaration of Independence, his time in Paris, seclusion at Monticello, first term as President and final years before his death. It's the contradictions that make Jefferson so fascinating and also hard to figure out. He championed personal freedom but owned slaves; preached the simple life yet was mesmerized by his time in Paris and French culture which lead to an extravagant lifestyle that brought financial ruin. He's an American icon who hated public speaking and the limelight. The Sally Hemings scandal is always raised when discussing Jefferson. When Ellis first wrote this book he concluded that we'll never really know if Thomas Jefferson fathered children with his slave Sally Hemings. However, Ellis had to revise his Appendix to acknowledge that DNA evidence has now shifted the tide where it can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Jefferson and Hemings did indeed have at least one child. Despite what the Tea Party says, The Constitution, is leaving, breathing and subject to Amendment. So is the legacy of one of its' primary authors, even though he has been dead for almost 200 years.

Having read “Hamilton”, and the controversial nature of the relationship between him and Jefferson, I needed to explore the other side of the argument. This book, which paints an interesting and unbiased portrait, allowed me to assess one of our most heralded and esteemed Founding Fathers. Given the reverence allotted Jefferson, his face upon Mt.Rushmore alongside, Washington, Lincoln and T.Roosevelt and his own Memorial in Washington, D.C., in conclusion I found his god-like stature to be, dare I say, questionable.

In my own assessment, it seemed that three notable events encapsulated his career and immortalized his name to history; his scripting of The Declaration of Independence, his presiding over the acquisition of the Louisiana Purchase, and finally bring the founder and mentor of the first opposition party, the Democratic-Republican.

All these accomplishments, it turns out warranted closer scrutiny. First, the wording of The Declaration was on closer examination not exclusively his own, since initial drafts being found to be too harsh were reworded by other co-signers, also it seems some of the notable phrases came from other sources. Secondly, the Louisiana Purchase, which has few comparable examples in history, was certainly a massive stroke of fortune in which Napoleon essentially gave the US an opportunity to expand their boundaries in a fire sale that saw our country literally double in size. His last contributions might be regarded as the formation of our modern day political structure of a two-party system, which I assume was inevitable.

However, looking back on Jefferson in totality, it does appear that he was more an idealist than a visionary. Both Adams and Hamilton were far more perceptive in their vision of the future of the nation, Adams with respect to our foreign alliances and the function and purpose of our institutions, while Hamilton had a clearer grasp of the the financial instruments needed to support a budding nation.

In the end, Jefferson was a man who held unrealistic views that were all a part of an idealism that were born out of the hopefulness that this nation was somehow unique and special, which it was. Yet he lacked essential understanding of the nuts and bolts needed to maintain that vision for future generations. In my humble opinion, he livied in a bubble of his own making once he retired to his beloved Monticello.

Joseph Ellis seems bent of disproving the idea that people are tired of reading about dead white men with this monograph on one of our Founding Fathers. Ellis covers the periods when Thomas Jefferson was serving out nation at the national level. First he dwells upon the time spent in the Second Continental Congress followed by the long diplomatic period Jefferson was in France. These periods represented a young Jefferson who wrote about lofty ideas which came down to us via the Declaration of Independence, his only book Notes on the State of Virginia, and his vast correspondence. Of that correspondence, part of it concerns Jefferson’s relationship with John Adams. The two men played a major role in the development of the United States government albeit not necessary in harmony.

Ellis also covers the time Jefferson spent as Secretary of State in George Washington’s first administration, but lightly touches upon the years he spent between that period and the time Jefferson spent as vice president and later president. When Ellis does cover those years, he presents to us a picture of a Jefferson who could not quite reconcile his ideas with the reality of actually governing a country. Instead, we read about the many conflicts Jefferson encountered when trying to put those idea into practice. Rather than blame Jefferson for not being able to make those ideas reality, the reader comes away understanding why Jefferson learned as millions of Americans would learn over time; that it takes time to implement ideas and turn them into reality. It is a process through which they become reality, and not just with the stroke of a pen.

When this book was published in 1998, Ellis wrote about the alleged affair between Jefferson and Sally Hemings. At that time Ellis believed that the affair was a made up attempt to discredit Jefferson. He would later change his mind based upon DNA evidence as well as the extraordinary research conducted by Annette Gordon-Reed. This evidence along that of the last historian Fawn Brodie who noted that Sally only conceived when Jefferson was present changed Ellis’ mind on the matter. Since the thesis of this book was about the character of Thomas Jefferson, one does have to question why Ellis overlooked this issue in this book.

It is worth noting that Ellis focused on character and not other issues when writing the book. One comes way understanding that character played a major role in the way Jefferson did things. Not only did he have the great and lofty ideas for which he was well known for by later generations, but precisely why he had those ideas underlies the motivation for examining Jefferson’s character. When looked at through this lens, Ellis is able to shed light on why Jefferson thought the way he did. Even with this in mind, Ellis still states what many of the Thomas Jefferson scholars have also noted, that Jefferson was a very complicated man who was contradictory in his words and actions.

Overall, this is a very good book to read. While it is not a complete and exhaustive study of Jefferson, it is one through which a different angle has been used to develop an analysis of Jefferson. It also reveals just how interested the public is in our Founding Fathers while also showing that these men were definitely products of their time. Thomas Jefferson may have been one of the most controversial and in the end, influential Founders which is saying quite a lot for a group of men who changed the course of history.

"American Sphinx" is not the place to begin a study of the life of Thomas Jefferson. In the introduction, Joseph Ellis comments that before joining the plethora of published analyses and biographies of Jefferson, the historian had better be prepared to bring some new insights to the life of this most revered of the Founders. Ellis chose for his subtitle, "The Character of Thomas Jefferson", and it is Jefferson's character that Ellis explores, in snippets that leap forward from scene to scene in Jefferson's life, as if Ellis were a time-traveler checking in periodically on his subject while Jefferson the man moves through a life that is now considered hallowed history. Ellis assumes that his reader is already familiar with the larger moments of Jefferson's life, as well as the surrounding history, and so skips over these. The reader who is new to Jefferson, therefore, should start elsewhere.

"American Sphinx" was published a few years before the DNA tests in 1998 which proved that some of Sally Hemings' children did indeed carry the Y chromosome of the Jefferson family, probably from Thomas himself or his brother Randolph. Because the DNA evidence cannot narrow the paternity of Sally Hemings' children any further, Ellis' arguments against Thomas Jefferson as their father still hold up, and remain as reasonable as they could also be inaccurate. Despite a wealth of circumstantial evidence that can swing either way, any final judgment must be taken simply on faith.

And "taken on faith" seems to be how Jefferson's life must be viewed. He represents so much to so many about the founding spirit of the United States that he is often worshipped along the lines of a Joshua or other prophet. Ellis seems to hold Jefferson up to this same hero-worship status, but through lines of often dry prose and some confusing sentence structure (Ellis does not set off his prepositional phrases with commas), the reader begins to get the queasy feeling that Jefferson may not have been the man that we have all wanted him to be. He begins to come across as petty and insecure, with a naïve outlook on humanity that carried on even into his waning years. It was always easy to write off Jefferson' sharper declarations (The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants) as youthful enthusiasm, but his convictions against a governing structure for the United States apparently never changed, leaving John Adams to question Jefferson's sanity while even James Madison had to shake his head from time to time. Ellis almost appears to have been startled by these revelations, and struggles to keep Jefferson atop a pedestal even as the evidence tries to topple the whole thing.

All in all, "American Sphinx" is a sobering exercise in the realities of greatness; that in the end the Founding Fathers--and Jefferson in particular--were all very human and just as capable of error as anyone; that the founding of the United States was neither a clear-cut goal of rationality nor even a consensus, but was rather a struggle of ideology pulled toward the center by camps who were alarmingly polarized even in the eighteenth century. But even as the dichotomies of Jefferson's life descend into disingenuousness, we can still ask with some reverence: Where would we have been without him?

Thomas Jefferson, according to the author, was an American Sphinx. And, indeed, there is an elusive quality to Jefferson. As the biography outlines, he could be as vicious a political assassin as there was (e.g., his attacks on John Adams through others, while trying to keep his own hands "clean"), but he did not appear to want to accept or confront this in himself.

At one time, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were great friends, founding cousins, as it were, of the new republic. Both added greatly to the republic as diplomats abroad. However, Jefferson's "dark side" led to a rupture that lasted some time before they began to repair that relationship.

Ellis' statement following begins to identify his approach to Jefferson (page xvi): ". . .affection and criticism toward Jefferson are not mutually exclusive postures. . . " He goes on to say that (page xvii): "As I have found him, there really is a core of convictions and apprehensions at his center. Although he was endlessly elusive and extraordinarily adroit at covering his tracks, there were bedrock Jeffersonian values that determined the shape of the political vision he projected so successfully onto his world and that remain such a potent factor in ours." Ellis characterizes Jefferson as (page 26) ". . .a flawed creature, a man who combined massive learning with extraordinary naïveté, piercing insights into others with daunting powers of self-deception, utter devotion to great principles with a highly indulged presumption that his own conduct was not answerable to them."

This volume traces his adult career from the Constitutional Convention (and his role in authoring the Declaration of Independence) to his service as a diplomat in Paris to his work in the Washington Administration and retirement to Monticello to his service as President and his subsequent retirement. His great accomplishments and his sometimes nasty actions are documented, as are his continuing unsuccessful efforts to establish a sound economic footing for his plantation. There is also a useful appendix on Sally Hemings.

This is not a massive biography, but it is useful and does a nice job of portraying the "Sphinx"-like quality of one of the most fascinating of our Founders.

Thomas Jefferson left a powerful legacy in America (and, to some extent, around the world). No other Founding Father evokes as much passion in contemporary society as Jefferson, nor is any figure harder to understand. When it comes to reflecting on Jefferson and what he stood for, author Joseph Ellis notes that "[i]t seems impossible to steer an honorable course between idolatry and evisceration." In other words, you either love him or you hate him. Ellis' objective is to steer that honorable course in an attempt to understand and appreciate the "true Jefferson," which the third president tended to hide from everyone, including (and above all) himself. For the most part, Ellis is successful in his goal of balance, although one gets the sense that the author tilts decidedly toward evisceration.

And Ellis endeavors only to understand Jefferson given his upbringing in colonial Virginia, the experience of the Continental Congress, Paris in the late 1780s, the partisan rancor of the 1790s, and the international upheaval that overshadowed his presidency. There is no effort to extract any core and timeless Jeffersonian principles for present and future generations to latch on to. As Ellis notes, "Lifting Jefferson out of [his historical] context and bringing him into the present is like trying to plant cut flowers."

Given his unique objective, it isn't surprising that Ellis took a unique approach. He zooms in on Jefferson at critical moments in his life and explains his motivations and beliefs at the time and where they came from. Ellis reviews just four periods of Jefferson's storied career, but he does so in great depth and with great insight.

The Jefferson that emerges from these vignettes is an able and earnest statesman, but also a whimsical dreamer with pathological powers of self-deception. For Jefferson, the American Revolution was the opening salvo in a global war on despotism and corruption, with the French Revolution being just the second act. His return to public life in 1796 (and Ellis says Jefferson's retirement in the early 1790s was sincerely meant to be permanent) was motivated by a genuine fear that the Federalists intended to rollback the American Revolution. In that vein, his whole life was dedicated to promoting and protecting a utopian vision of a country of small, yeoman farmers (Jefferson lived on an inherited plantation), with little debt (Jefferson died bankrupt) and no slavery (Jefferson owned hundreds, relied on them for his livelihood and didn't set them free on his death). Ideally, the federal government would be reduced to handling foreign affairs. Jefferson's hostility to a large and active central government was so deep and unshakable that Ellis likens his election to the presidency in 1800 to Martin Luther being named Pope (Jefferson's presidency witnessed one of the most audacious executive acts in American history, the Louisiana Purchase - a contradiction that Ellis ascribes to the unique place "the West" held in Jefferson's view of the future America).

In the end, I found that my sense of "understanding Jefferson" was actually diminished by reading this book, yet it was excellent, beautifully written and I would unhesitatingly recommend it to someone with a solid background on the sage of Monticello. We don't live in "Jefferson's America" today, yet large and highly educated swaths of society believe we do. Perhaps the same pathological self-deception exhibited by Jefferson was somehow collectively inherited by future generations of Americans.

Just imagine the man had been born poor, like Hamilton. We would never have heard of him. Being from the Virginia gentry pushed him into the political limelight, and being a lousy speaker, he got pushed into the writer's role: that way his fame was born, and from there he moved into positions of power.

A fascinating person, obviously a key to understanding America's history.

The book is not a bio, and does not claim to be one. It says it is about the 'character'. Ellis plays with the dichotomic structure of TJ's thinking and carries it through several stages of the life. (Actually, this mental structure implies easy access to binary analysis...)

The book is not a good first book about the subject. Better get that from somewhere else. But it is worth reading to fill some gaps. It helped me a lot to understand some of the contradictions or rather complexities in American political terms and culture. A democratic Republican.

My favorite phrase of the book, paraphrased: TJ's duplicity was of the kind that is only possible to the pure of heart. Not exactly a great verdict on his analytical rigor, but since when would that be a relevant political category?

Thomas Jefferson had a unique political and philosophical character that sets him apart from all other U.S. presidents. Author Joseph Ellis tries his best to accurately portray Jefferson without getting too technical and contradictory. This is not an easy task, given the person that this book focuses on. Jefferson was a complex idealist and he believed in the ideals of self government without federal interference to an uncompromising degree.
I was surprised that Ellis did not give any coverage to the Adams- Jefferson feud in the election of 1800. There are many pages in this book that cover the reconciliation between the two men that followed Jefferson's retirement from public service. But little, if any, is said about the political showdown leading up to the election of 1800. Also, the author tries to solve the Sally Hemings controversy once and for all. Ellis states that he doesn't think there was any sexual relationship (I think there was) although he admits that there is no conclusive proof, one way or the other.
This biography does a good job explaining the true meaning behind Jefferson's political philosophy. For example, despite what some extremists in the religious community have tried to say, Jefferson was ABSOLUTELY, COMPLETELY, 100% against church- state relations! He did not even allow theology to be taught at the school he founded, the University of Virginia. He felt that a nation based on personal liberty was the ideal utopian state that the new republic should guarantee to all citizens.
I am often disgusted when I see our two major political parties, Republican and Democratic (especially Democrats) try to claim Jefferson as one of their own. Thomas Jefferson would be sickened by both of them if he were alive today! His ideas of personal liberty and free choice would place him in the Libertarian sector, if he could even be placed at all.
Thomas Jefferson is, and will always be, an American icon. We are not likely to ever see another individual in public life quite like the ! man from Monticello.

No one has impressed his personality into the American social consciousness and the reality of its political system as much as Thomas Jefferson. Ellis' psychological and character study portrays the complexities and contradictions of this enigmatic figure. He tackles the subject with level headed curiosity and objectivity, rather than the polemics or propaganda which often accompanies breathless tributes to American political icons. An individual capable of the most reasoned idealism and imagination exemplified in the Declaration of Independence, a romantic in his belief in the fundamental goodness of the human condition and its corruption by the exercise of government-- he was also capable irrational suspicion and bitter antipathy to those who differed with him. His trust in individual human nature and distrust of institutions and social organization was representative of the purest manifestation of the Enlightenment in American political thinking during this formative period. So also did he represent the pragmatism & disingenuousness of the slave owning, aristocratic Virginia planters class, to which he was born, and which was so profoundly conflicted with the egalitarian idealism of the new republic. All are admirably explored in this book, which should be read by those interested in the interplay between the subjective character and the political architecture wrought by one of world's great political minds.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It was very easy to read and very informative. The book does a good job of staying away from hero-worship that so often slants the biographies that may fill a Jeffersonian student's shelves. This is NOT the book to read, though, if you are not already familiar with Jefferson. The book is not a biography and it skips over many of the events in his life. For instance, there is nothing at all on Jefferson's second term as president and very little on his time in the state govt of VA. BUT that is the intent of the book. It is meant to give snapshots of his thinking and personality that the biographies normally do not capture. The book uses much of the prolific subject's writings to make his points, as would be expected of this type of book, and he rarely if ever misquotes Jefferson. Ellis also does not harp on the rumor and gossip surrounding the Sally Hemming subject, which is refreshing. There are many books on this controversial and impossible-to-resolve issue, and Ellis only devotes 5 pages as an addendum at the end of the book to gloss over the Hemming basics.

This is an elegant, informative and well researched book. I've learned many things about Thomas Jefferson (for example: he didn't like public attention) and Mr. Ellis' analysis is certainly worth of praise.

The book is divided into five parts:
- Philadelphia: 1775 -76
- Paris: 1784-89
- Monticello: 1794 - 97
- Washington D.C.: 1801 - 04
- Monticello: 1816 - 26

As you can see, the book starts at the dawn of the American Revolution with Jefferson's arrival in Philadelphia as the delegate from Virginia to the Continental Congress and follows him to his later years in Monticello.

While I highly recommend this book to any history fan, I'd just like to say that for me it was rather difficult to read. I don't know why as I love history and history books - maybe because the text seemed more like a lecture than a "story".

Ellis try's to intellectualize why we (Americans) irrationally like Jefferson.

Let me take a leap like Ellis does with his many "Leaps of Faith" about Jefferson and say that Adam's would think this book is an unfair attack on his friend and soul-mate.

Imagine what Adams would eloquently say in this the store comment space to Ellis. Read this knowing he does not like Jefferson.

"American Sphinx" is not the place to begin a study of the life of Thomas Jefferson. In the introduction, Joseph Ellis comments that before joining the plethora of published analyses and biographies of Jefferson, the historian had better be prepared to bring some new insights to the life of this most revered of the Founders. Ellis chose for his subtitle, "The Character of Thomas Jefferson", and it is Jefferson's character that Ellis explores, in snippets that leap forward from scene to scene in Jefferson's life, as if Ellis were a time-traveler checking in periodically on his subject while Jefferson the man moves through a life that is now considered hallowed history. Ellis assumes that his reader is already familiar with the larger moments of Jefferson's life, as well as the surrounding history, and so skips over these. The reader who is new to Jefferson, therefore, should start elsewhere.

"American Sphinx" was published a few years before the DNA tests in 1998 which proved that some of Sally Hemings' children did indeed carry the Y chromosome of the Jefferson family, probably from Thomas himself or his brother Randolph. Because the DNA evidence cannot narrow the paternity of Sally Hemings' children any further, Ellis' arguments against Thomas Jefferson as their father still hold up, and remain as reasonable as they could also be inaccurate. Despite a wealth of circumstantial evidence that can swing either way, any final judgment must be taken simply on faith.

And "taken on faith" seems to be how Jefferson's life must be viewed. He represents so much to so many about the founding spirit of the United States that he is often worshipped along the lines of a Joshua or other prophet. Ellis seems to hold Jefferson up to this same hero-worship status, but through lines of often dry prose and some confusing sentence structure (Ellis does not set off his prepositional phrases with commas), the reader begins to get the queasy feeling that Jefferson may not have been the man that we have all wanted him to be. He begins to come across as petty and insecure, with a naïve outlook on humanity that carried on even into his waning years. It was always easy to write off Jefferson' sharper declarations (The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants) as youthful enthusiasm, but his convictions against a governing structure for the United States apparently never changed, leaving John Adams to question Jefferson's sanity while even James Madison had to shake his head from time to time. Ellis almost appears to have been startled by these revelations, and struggles to keep Jefferson atop a pedestal even as the evidence tries to topple the whole thing.

All in all, "American Sphinx" is a sobering exercise in the realities of greatness; that in the end the Founding Fathers--and Jefferson in particular--were all very human and just as capable of error as anyone; that the founding of the United States was neither a clear-cut goal of rationality nor even a consensus, but was rather a struggle of ideology pulled toward the center by camps who were alarmingly polarized even in the eighteenth century. But even as the dichotomies of Jefferson's life descend into disingenuousness, we can still ask with some reverence: Where would we have been without him?

Thomas Jefferson may be the hugest fraud in American history. After his Presidency he cared nothing about democracy and everything about slavery. He created an athest anti-christian slave power. If Jefferson wasn't the devil, he certainly came close. Yes. Jefferson almost stopped slavery from moving west in his Land Ordinance of 1784 and he did stop the slave trade in 1808. His Land Ordinance, although, failed, did influence the Ordinance of 1787 that stopped or curbed slavery in the Northwest Territory. Stopping the slave trade increased the value of his own slaves as well as other Southern slave owners. Jefferson, for the most part, only cared for riches and wealth while over 600 of his black slaves toiled and hundreds remained in slavery after his death. Racist historians appauled Jefferson's racist views on blacks as inferior and could not live with whites. Jefferson was a man of the middle ages, backwards, and evil. Jefferson deserved jail time for all his crimes against humanity. Jefferson with his Louisiana purchase extended slavery and started the Civil War. Jefferson established a slave power dictatorship the ruined any chances that America could be a light on the hill. Ulysses S. Grant was a much better President who established equality in our nation. He lived a life of luxury but died a pauper at Monticello.

Professor Ellis is a very intelligent man, but he plays fast and loose with the facts, and sometimes he uses his gift for writing prose in ways that mislead the reader especially in, American Sphinx. Ellis has obviously covered all of the ground with regard to what is known about Jefferson--but he doesn't objectively present all of the factual scholarship existing about our 3rd President.

If you want to know more of the detail of what was all involved with Sally Hemings, you MUST read Douglass Adair's essay "The Jefferson Scandals." This essay is found in the book: Fame of the Founding Fathers: Essays by Douglass Adair. Published by W.W. Norton. Sally Hemings was the daughter of Jefferson's father-in-law; and Sally's lover was not T.J. but T.J.'s nephew (his sister's son). That's why Jefferson never talked about the "scandal" because his close family relatives were involved; however, not the way Prof. Ellis says. The unfortunate fact is that Prof. Ellis mentions Douglass Adair in American Sphinx, but he never mentions Adair's research (which Ellis cannot reasonably be ignorant of) on the alleged Sally Hemings-Thomas Jefferson liason. It's obvious from American Sphinx that Ellis has read Adair's essays. Prof. Ellis must know that the best evidence exonerates Thomas Jefferson, but he never tells us about that. The well publicized DNA test does NOT prove TJ was the father of any of Hemings' children. TJ never fathered any children with Hemings and Ellis knows it. Prof. Ellis is intellectually dishonest on this point, and on many other points of Jefferson's life. Too bad because he would otherwise have written a tour-de-force. Instead it's a tour-de-FRAUD.

Few American presidents are as complex as Thomas Jefferson. In looking at the history of the Presidency, few men stand out as having a mind as thoughtful, engaging, mischievous and ultimately probing as Jefferson. It is often said that in the greatest of our leaders, there is something for everybody, whether they be conservative or liberal. The resurgent conservative movement which began in 1964 tried to make Jefferson the prophet of less government, individual initiative and minimalist intrusions into the market place. While New Deal liberals can point to his rather presumptuousness (at the time) claim of executive power to buy Louisiana from the French. However, as a thinker, Jefferson saw no difference between his actions as President, and the man who drafted the Declaration of Independence. For him, the revolution of 1800, was a continuation of the revolution of 1776 and 1789 in France. Mr. Ellis points out that the writer of the Declaration of Independence owned slaves, or that the supporter of the agrarian lifestyle turned Monticello into a nail making warehouse. Yes, these are contradictions, but one in which a Virginia gentleman like him was bound too. Yet, to call Mr. Jefferson ahypocrite because of the difference between his words and his actions is to miss the point about what he means to America. He was the only man, out of great men of 1776, who was the ultimate true believer, to borrow a modern term. Mr. Jefferson always stuck to the point that the American Revolution was just the beginning shot in the liberation of mankind from the forces of idolatry, religious intolerance and bigotism. Whether one agrees with this or not is not the point, but Jefferson always held firm to this belief, even though he did not put it into action that often. We like to look back on our historical figures with a sort of patronizing glare, but, despite historial revisionism, those words of the Declaration are still America's one and only credo.

Ellis has a problem. He makes claims that he can's support, and he makes claims that are inconsistent. To borrow one of his techniques, he writes like a pathological liar. He seems to forget what he has said from page to page or even from the start of a paragraph to the end - more interested in calling attention to himself than he is to the truth. I recognize the pattern. I was a pathological liar once.

Here are some examples. On the last paragraph of page 87 (paperback edition), he claims that Jefferson had compartmentalized conflicting beliefs. That may be the case, but the rest of the paragraph is poor evidence at best.

On the bottom of 123 he says that Jefferson's remarks on ratification were inconsistent and contradictory. The evidence? He changed his mind about the timing of support: oppose after 9 states ratify to force a bill of rights, and later oppose from the beginning to force a boll of rights. What a flip-flop. I'm shocked.

I don't have the page now but he's says that Jefferson withdrew into an emotional shell when Martha died to protect himself from future hurt. Then a few pages later he describes Jefferson's intimate relationship with the Adams family, and then his heads-over-heels crush on a young woman in Paris.

I'm suspicious of the way he footnotes. He begins a paragraph with a few quotes from Jefferson's correspondence. Then he psychoanalyzes Jefferson extensively making claims that aren't supported by the quotes, and then ends the paragraph with a footnote. The footnote gives the citation for the quotes early in the paragraph but is mum on his interpretation.

A couple more. The first paragraph pn page 137. He quotes a letter from Madison. Some of the quote is in italics added by Ellis to indicate coded language without saying how he knows what words are coded or where he found the key to decode the language. It reminds me of the movie, A Beuatiful Mind. He uses the coded language to state that Jefferson expected to retire and return to Paris. Wow.

I'm on page 190; it's 1797 or there abouts. Ellis is claiming that Jefferson is coming out of retirement to solve the nation's debt problem because he can't solve his own debt problem. What hogwash. Mr. Ellis, there are a myriad of other explanations. Perhaps, Jefferson's financial problems made him acutely aware of the problems debt represented to the nation. He wasn't entering public life to duck the problem of his private debt. Given the acerbic mood at the time, entering public life would make it harder to confront his own debt demon.

That's enough for now. I will continue reading because I told my nephew, a history student, that I would. Keeping ones word is such a burden.

The very meaning of the title of Joseph Ellis' book "American Sphinx" literally means American Enigma. Yes indeed Thomas Jefferson was a mysterious person.
As pointed out by Michiko Kakutani in her New York Times book review "Jefferson became accustomed to constructing worlds of great imaginative appeal that inevitably collided with the more mundane realities." For instance Mr. Jefferson abhorred slavery, but he indeed remained a slaveholder throughout his life. His take on people of African descent was that their mental aptitude was inferior to whites comes into conflict with his romantic attachment to Sally Hemings a slave on his estate at Monticello.
Mr. Jefferson comes from the founding Fathers who believed in States rights and less Federal government. It does seem as confusing that as President he was responsible for the Louisiana Purchase, a rather Federalist move if I do say so myself.
Mr. Ellis' prose explains all these contradictions and in the end do we really know who Thomas Jefferson really was? In effect Ellis has shown us the very first true American Politician. Jefferson bends with the breeze. He can agree with a position on States rights in one context and go out and make the largest purchase of land in American history in another context.
While George Washington became our first Soldier Statesman and John Adams was our first American intellectual President, Thomas Jefferson really was our first Political President. In many respects he doesn't appear as he really is. Who is this man? Come to think of it does anybody really know Franklin D. Roosevelt? Franklin was the ultimate politician.
Hence Jefferson remains an enigma. Ellis has used his superb knowledge of this time of American history to explain the political and personal mind of Thomas Jefferson. Excellent read! Yes, Michiko Kakutani yours was a good review of a good book.

Prior to his Pulitzer Prize winning examination of the revolutionary generation in "Founding Brothers," Joseph Ellis tackled the biography of probably the most difficult member, Thomas Jefferson, in "American Sphinx." As Ellis points out in the beginning of the book Jefferson remains one of the most popular founders as well as one that has been adopted across the political spectrum. Ellis sets off to discover what Jefferson's actual beliefs were and how they changed during the course of his life. Rather then presenting a regular biography of Jefferson, the readers are presented with "snapshots" of Jefferson at various times in his life - in 1776 as he is preparing to write the Declaration of Independence, in the 1780s as the first United States minister to France, in the mid-1790s when he returns to Monticello after retiring as Secretary of State, in 1801 at his first inaugural and in the 1810s during his famous correspondence with John Adams. Each "snapshot" is not limited to a specific year but gives a survey of Jefferson's life during the period and how his political thought was evolving.

Ellis's "snapshots" of Jefferson give his biography a unique feel; it is more then just the re-telling of the story of Jefferson's life. Each glimpse of Jefferson that we get gives a feel for not only Jefferson the man, but Jefferson the political thinker as well. Ellis examines Jefferson's frame of mind at the time he wrote the Declaration of Independence and the many different "sources" that may have affected that writing. Ellis not afraid to stay away from the more controversial aspects of Jefferson's thinking - his views on slavery vs. his prose in the Declaration that "all men are created equal" and his affair with Sally Hemmings.

This book is an illuminating biography of an often misunderstood Founding Father. Ellis' unique format gives the book a different feel and still manages to give the reader a greater understanding of Jefferson. Readers who are looking for a more conventional, straightforward biography of Jefferson may come away disappointing. This biography is aimed at readers who already have a background understanding of the early American republic but are interested in unearthing the political ideas of one of its greatest heroes.

I thought the book was very good. It separates the myth from the man. The author does a good job of trying to explain the thought process of Jefferson as he dealt with issues on which he seemed to take positions on both sides such as slavery. We also know about his personal life and this man was truly a spent-thrift leaving nothing for his heirs and forcing the auction of Monticello after his death. Jefferson did not want to be remembered as president or primary author of the Declaration of Independence but the Founder of the University of Virgina.

If you think politics are messy today, his battles with the Federalists were fierce and as loud as the ones we hear today on CNN or C-Span.

The author also updated this edition of the book to present updated DNA evidence that verfies that Mr. Jefferson indeed fathered several and perhaps all of Sally Hemming's (his slave) children. Modern DNA testing verfied this from the samples taken from Sally's descendents.

That famous quote , from Yogi Berra, certainly does not apply here: Jefferson said it all. In fact, as Ellis points out, you can quote him to prove ANYTHING. [Including the right of secession]

I am going to respectfully disagree with a couple of other reviewers: I think that this book IS a good place to start. Of course, Ellis doesn't have Jefferson "figured out", any more than anyone else does. Thomas Jefferson was, and remains, the most complicated character in all of history. The contradictions are just too numerous: the man who hated slavery while owning slaves [as did Washington, Marshall, Henry, Wythe, and others], the apostle of fiscal responsibility who died broke, the advocate of limited government who expanded the government far beyond what Washington and Adams had, and then bought Louisiana, the athiest who "swore on the altar of God" [Jefferson had his own ideas about religion, as he did everything else, but he was NOT an athiest...he and Patrick Henry are the two men mainly responsible for our own religious freedom].

Thomas Jefferson may have been, in some respects, the real "Father of our Country". Washington won the war, but it remained for Jefferson to invent the governmental theories that make our nation work. Today, he would be an unknown speech writer. The personal scandals, and conflicting quotes, not to mention a complete lack of public speaking ability, would have finished him. [An effective attorney who couldn't speak in public? Sure--another contradiction]. But, Thomas Jefferson was a man of just the right time and place, and we are all richer for it. If you want the definitive study of Jefferson, try Dumas Malone. For those who lack the time, or interest, for six long volumes, this book is a great place to begin.

I wanted to understand the revolutionary period of our country so I set out to do this. I've read many, many books of this era which include several about Jefferson and this book briings us back to reality. Jefferson has been made into a god and when that happens we stop seeing the truth. Joe Ellis is a terrific historian and I recommend any of his books. I highly recommend this book

Nice flowing and well written book on Thomas Jefferson that brought forth information that I was not aware of which always adds to a books attraction. One of the goodies brought forth is the misconception that Jefferson was a strict agrarian when in fact he had his own nail factory at Moniticello that was more productive than his land that featured mostly clay. The book also notes Jefferson's shyness which may have been one of the reasons John Adams suggested that Jefferson write the Declaration of Independence. Adams assumed incorrectly that his own spoken word would predominate over anything Jefferson wrote even though he and Franklin contributed to the document. The Declaration was also influenced by the writings of George Mason. Other gems of information concern Jefferson's conflicts with Patrick Henry who became a political enemy in which I wish there was even more detail since it's very interesting that two of VA.'s most prominent leaders had a mutual distaste for each other. The book covers Jefferson's role as governor including his escape from the British, his Presidency where he was fiscally tight, his own destruuctive personal finances and his views on religion, slavery, agriculture and government including his relationship with both of the Adams. Quite a story on how Jefferson's lean government financing during his term as President were so frugal that his failure to build up a navy and army may have resulted in the US being unprepared by the War of 1812. In contrast, his own personal finances were so out of control as he spent lavishly and continued to tinker with building Monticello that he died a penniless man losing the estate at the time of his death. His views on slavery and religion are conficting, expressing one thing but practicing another. The Sally Hemmings controversy is covered revealed initially as a political attack generated by his enemies yet its inconclusive that he fathered Sally's children although the circumstances lend it to be a serious possibility. A very interesting book about a quiet man that rose to the national spotlight yet seemed happiest when semi reclusiive at Monticello. His grand ideas were also expressed during the building of the University of Virginia with Madison and Monroe and perhaps if all his plans were executed the buildings would have looked grand, unfinished and outrageously expensive. Jefferson comes across as a highly educated philosopher who sometimes was challenged on application.

It had been years since I read anything about Jefferson. I think Ellis does a good job at presenting the complexities of Jefferson--a very talented and passionate man, but certainly not a saint. I like Ellis' writing style and found it easy and enjoyable to read.

Wonderful insights and analysis of one of the most enduring figures in American history. The book gets slow and tedious at times, but it's last third are terrific. How is it that Jefferson could be a walking contradiction yet still remain relevant? The book does an outstanding job of analyzing character, scouring the historical record, mixing in speculation, and making it all tie to the present day. I can't imagine a better book about Jefferson.

Joseph Ellis continues to intrigue me with his approach and style. I only recently discovered his books, and this is the third that I'ave read over the past few months. I look forward to "His Excellency."

It is interesting the way the author analyses Jefferson's strengths and weaknesses. He probably was the first real "politician" of the age. His views were very broad in democratic theory but contradictory in actions.

This biography is very readable, yet it glosses over fundamentally complex matters, or simply does not refer to them at all (such as Jefferson's reactions to the French Revolution). I recommend it to the arm chair historian, or a book to meander over whilst sitting lazily on a beach. More serious readers will be disappointed, not least with the frustrating tendency of Ellis (and other american historians lest I demonize just him) to label certain facets of Jefferson as typically Jeffersonian, a wholly academically redundant exercise because of course Jefferson was Jeffersonian! This is so patently obvious that it appears "self evident" to use the founding father's favourite term. Just like you are you, and me myself, so was Jefferson Jeffersonian.... It might seem a pedantic quibble, but this useless phrase is repeated so frequently that the initial friction caused rapidly escalates until one is left questioning the very utility of the book at all. Even worse, it feels rushed and disappointingly unacademic considering the author's scholarly credentials. Add to this half backed conjecture that pollutes many chapters and an unhealthy dose of intellectually uninspired metaphors. The net result is a mishap of a book, a premature baby that should have been aborted.

I thought I knew a lot about Jefferson. Ellis opened my eyes to the many facets of Jefferson,including the certainty of his affair with Sally. I just started reading Aaron Burr as a resut of the Jefferson book. BRAVO

I highly reccomend this book. It is difficult to find an American political group (Conservative to Liberal) that does not feel TJ directly supports their polical establishment. As someone who 'Knew the Jefferson facts', I wanted something that took on more the views and sentiments of Jefferson. This did just that. If you are looking for a straight bio, you may look elsewhere. However, you are after a study of Jefferson's view and potentially reasoning for these views, this is the book for you.

This biography is not about Jefferson's life than it is about his mind: how he thought and what he thought about. Ellis is critical of aspects of Jeffersonian thought that require logical fallacies, false dichotomies, rewriting of history, and, of course, racism and slavery. However, there is also much Ellis admires in the man. I came away from this appreciating Jefferson more as an idealist and less as a thinker, which I think was the point. The only major problem with the book is its treatment of Sally Hemings, but this isn't entirely Ellis's fault since the DNA evidence had not come to surface at the time of publication.

Ellis combines his typically exhaustive research with insightful analysis in this well-written biography. He doesn't succumb to the temptation to obscure or excuse the many inconsistencies between Jefferson's rhetoric and the way he lived. A must-read for students of the founding of the United States and the ongoing debate over the role of government.

Great biography of Jefferson. I enjoyed the usual "birth do death" linear biography style was exchanged for a more non linear back and forth story telling of Jefferson's life. The way it focused on Jefferson's years in the limelight gave the book a refreshingly brisk pace, great read.

I salute Professor Ellis for a valiant, and very readable, effort to plumb the mind of Jefferson without resorting to misty-eyed "Founding Father" sentiments and myth, as most Jefferson biographers invariably do, albeit often unintentionally. I disagree with the reviewer who found that the author dodged the tough issues and the reviewer who kindly stated that Professor Ellis "demystified" Jefferson.
I believe that the book very effectively illuminates the context in which Jefferson expressed and acted upon (or failed to act upon) many of his most cherished ideas and beliefs. What troubles me about the book, however, is its implicit suggestion that Jefferson in a vague sense was essentially a failure who, incredibly, was perpetually "out of the loop" (as we say today) when it came to the critical points of history that occurred in his time, except perhaps for the Declaration of Indpendence. But even there, Professor Ellis reduces Jefferson's role to a quasi-plagiarist who, in apparent denial of his own lack of creativity, publicly seethes at the thought of his fellow revolutionaries editing what Professor Ellis describes as, and what they therefore must also have known was, essentially George Mason's work!
According to Professor Ellis, Jefferson's view of the "Spirit of '76" was a little delusional and inferior to Adams' more accurate recollections. The book basically dismisses Jefferson as a bumbler when it comes to constitutional questions, although Madison was without peer in that regard. John Marshall was clever and legally facile, but not necessarily evenhanded in his constitutional interpretations. As to the role of the new government, Professor Ellis paints Jefferson as almost an irrational "spoiler" who had no positive vision about where he wanted to lead the country.
Perhaps I'm overreading Professor Ellis' conclusions, which, I am sure, he did not intend to come across the way I think they did. On the other hand, Professor Ell! is does usually place Jefferson on the wrong end of the stick when he comes to his closure on the issues he chose to address, such as the American and French Revolutions, slavery, the role of government, North-South relations, the role of the West, finances (personal and governmental), farming, political thought, politics, constitutional thought, sex, family, and friendship. While his analysis of each of these issues is interesting, plausible, and usually even-handed on the surface, Professor Ellis ultimately seems willing to cast as historical fact conclusions that are, in the end, also only "reasonably speculative," like those he admittedly offers with respect to Sally Hemmings.
This book must be read, but with the understanding that if Professor Ellis's treatment of Jefferson is 100% correct, then perhaps rather than building a statue of John Adams next to the Jefferson Memorial, as Professor Ellis suggests in his John Adams' biography, we should remove Mr. Jefferson's statue altogether and let it quitely sink into the Tidal Basin. Professor Ellis, I believe, gave a great effort, but in the end got so close that his view became myopic, with the result being that Jefferson slipped deftly through his analytical fingers.

Professor Ellis delivers a wonderful and insightful look into the life and mind of one of our most influential, and least understood, revolutionary "band of brothers". His research is clearly first rate, but it is in his analysis that he sheds much needed light on Thomas Jefferson. Ellis details Jefferson's mindset vs. the Federalist camp of Hamilton and Adams, his vissitudes regarding the political and social issue of slavery (while dismissing with equal aplomb both sides claims of "conclusive proof" of the Sally Hemming love child). Ellis also brings the reader a great understanding of Jefferson the politician, ie his "unwillingness to leave his beloved Monticello" for political calling. He describes in great detail the "rift" between Jefferson and Adams and their letters for the ages later in their lives. He doesn't fall into the pitfall of many apologists who argue these letters showed these men later in life changing their views, rather he shows them healing a long strained relationship while maintaining vastly different political philosphies about a burgeoning nation they both passionately loved.
This is really a great book and a wonderful and enjoyable read. I would encourage all with any familiarity of the period to read it without delay.

Joseph J. Ellis is a noted Pulitzer Prize winning author, so obviously many readers will disagree with my assessment of AMERICAN SPHINX: THE CHARACTER OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. While I did learn things here about TJ that other authors passed over, I can't really say I learned anything of great relevance.

When reading Founding Brothers, for which Ellis won the aforementioned Pulitzer, I found the book painfully slow, but gradually building momentum. That book improved with each chapter (or subject, if you will). I began reading this one and found it too to be painfully slow. The difference is, this one remained so to the end, save the last 10 or so pages. Perhaps that was simply my own induced enthusiasm at reaching the end.

I've found Ellis's books to be somewhat like walking through a plowed field after a hard rain. You'll get there eventually, but you'll have to stop and rest along the way and will be exhausted when you reach the other side.

There are things to learn here, and the TJ enthusiast will want to read this, but for my money, there are countless other volumes available that blow this one away. For me, the highpoint of this volume is the colossal 40 page bibliography.

Arugably the most enigmatic of the founding fathers--extremely brilliant, yet highly contradictory. Ellis does a masterful job of narrating Jefferson's career from his early years to after his presidency. In this study the reader walks away angry at Jefferson for not being the light in the darkness of things such as the issue of slavery. However the reader walks away with great affection for the man as was an extraordianry figure.

This is an elegant, informative and well researched book. I've learned many things about Thomas Jefferson (for example: he didn't like public attention) and Mr. Ellis' analysis is certainly worth of praise.

The book is divided into five parts:
- Philadelphia: 1775 -76
- Paris: 1784-89
- Monticello: 1794 - 97
- Washington D.C.: 1801 - 04
- Monticello: 1816 - 26

As you can see, the book starts at the dawn of the American Revolution with Jefferson's arrival in Philadelphia as the delegate from Virginia to the Continental Congress and follows him to his later years in Monticello.

While I highly recommend this book to any history fan, I'd just like to say that for me it was rather difficult to read. I don't know why as I love history and history books - maybe because the text seemed more like a lecture than a "story".

I have been a fan of President Jefferson for nigh on to 70 years. Thus I have read many biographies. An older one by Saul Padover is quite good and of course, the Dumas Malone six volume bio is unsurpassed. Jefferson was so much more than our third president, and Ellis doesn't really do him justice in that regard. Jefferson was a statesman and his policies shaped our government in many areas, i.e. freedom of religion and public education. These accomplishments need to be noted always.