President George Washington

May 10, 1786

The favourable terms in which you [Lafayette] speak of Mr Jefferson gives me great pleasure: he is a man of whom I early imbibed the highest opinion—I am as much pleased therefore to meet confirmations of my discernment in these matters, as I am mortified when I find myself mistaken.

President John Adams

Auteuil August 27th 1784

He is an old Friend with whom I have often had Occasion to labour at many a knotty Problem, and in whose Abilities and Steadiness I always found great Cause to confide.

Quincy Summer 1811

I always loved Jefferson & still love him.

Quincy June 10, 1813

You may expect many more expostulations from one who has loved and esteemed you for Eight and thirty Years.

Quincy January 22, 1825

Our John [John Quincy Adams] has been too much worn to contend much longer with conflicting factions. I call him our John, because when you was at Cul de sac at Paris, he appeared to me to be almost as much your boy as mine, I have often speculated upon the consequences that would have ensued from my taking your advice, to send him to William and Mary College in Virginia for an Education.

Quincy April 19, 1825

I have lost your last letter to me, the most consolatory letter I ever received in my life, what would I not give for a copy of it—

Your friend to all eternity

John Adams

President John Quincy Adams

Executive Order [on the deaths of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams]

July 11, 1826

The General in Chief has received from the Department of War the following orders:

The President with deep regret announces to the Army that it has pleased the Disposer of All Human Events, in whose hands are the issues of life, to remove from the scene of earthly existence our illustrious and venerated fellow-citizen, Thomas Jefferson.

This dispensation of Divine Providence, afflicting to us, but the consummation of glory to him, occurred on the 4th of the present month--on the fiftieth anniversary of that Independence the Declaration of which, emanating from his mind, at once proclaimed the birth of a free nation and offered motives of hope and consolation to the whole family of man. Sharing in the grief which every heart must feel for so heavy and afflicting a public loss, and desirous to express his high sense of the vast debt of gratitude which is due to the virtues, talents, and ever-memorable services of the illustrious deceased, the President directs that funeral honors be paid to him at all the military stations, and that the officers of the Army wear crape on the left arm, by way of mourning, for six months.

Major-General Brown will give the necessary orders for carrying into effect the foregoing directions.

J. BARBOUR.

It has become the painful duty of the Secretary of War to announce to the Army the death of another distinguished and venerated citizen. John Adams departed this life on the 4th of this month. Like his compatriot Jefferson, he aided in drawing and ably supporting the Declaration of Independence. With a prophetic eye he looked through the impending difficulties of the Revolution and foretold with what demonstrations of joy the anniversary of the birth of American freedom would be hailed. He was permitted to behold the verification of his prophecy, and died, as did Jefferson, on the day of the jubilee.

A coincidence of circumstances so wonderful gives confidence to the belief that the patriotic efforts of these illustrious men were Heaven directed, and furnishes a new seal to the hope that the prosperity of these States is under the special protection of a kind Providence.

The Secretary of War directs that the same funeral honors be paid by the Army to the memory of the deceased as by the order of the 7th (11th ?) instant were directed to be paid to Thomas Jefferson, and the same token of mourning be worn.

Major-General Brown is charged with the execution of this order.

J. BARBOUR.

Never has it fallen to the lot of any commander to announce to an army such an event as now calls forth the mingled grief and astonishment of this Republic; never since History first wrote the record of time has one day thus mingled every triumphant with every tender emotion, and consecrated a nation's joy by blending it with the most sacred of sorrows. Yes, soldiers, in one day, almost in the same hour, have two of the Founders of the Republic, the Patriarchs of Liberty, closed their services to social man, after beholding them crowned with the richest and most unlimited success. United in their end as they had been in their highest aim, their toils completed, their hopes surpassed, their honors full, and the dearest wish of their bosoms gratified in death, they closed their eyes in patriot ecstasy, amidst the gratulations and thanksgivings of a people on all, on every individual, of whom they had conferred the best of all earthly benefits.

Such men need no trophies; they ask no splendid mausolea. We are their monuments; their mausolea is their country, and her growing prosperity the amaranthine wreath that Time shall place over their dust. Well may the Genius of the Republic mourn. If she turns her eyes in one direction, she beholds the hall where Jefferson wrote the charter of her rights; if in another, she sees the city where Adams kindled the fires of the Revolution. To no period of our history, to no department of our affairs, can she direct her views and not meet the multiplied memorials of her loss and of their glory.

At the grave of such men envy dies, and party animosity blushes while she quenches her fires. If Science and Philosophy lament their enthusiastic votary in the halls of Monticello, Philanthropy and Eloquence weep with no less reason in the retirement of Quincy. And when hereafter the stranger performing his pilgrimage to the land of freedom shall ask for the monument of Jefferson, his inquiring eye may be directed to the dome of that temple of learning, the university of his native State--the last labor of his untiring mind, the latest and the favorite gift of a patriot to his country.

Bereaved yet happy America! Mourning yet highly favored country! Too happy if every son whose loss shall demand thy tears can thus soothe thy sorrow by a legacy of fame.

The Army of the United States, devoted to the service of the country, and honoring all who are alike devoted, whether in the Cabinet or the field, will feel an honorable and a melancholy pride in obeying this order. Let the officers, then, wear the badge of mourning, the poor emblem of a sorrow which words can not express, but which freemen must ever feel while contemplating the graves of the venerated Fathers of the Republic.

Tuesday succeeding the arrival of this order at each military station shall be a day of rest.

The National flag shall wave at half-mast.

At early dawn thirteen guns shall be fired, and at intervals of thirty minutes between the rising and setting sun a single cannon will be discharged, and at the close of the day twenty-four rounds.

President Andrew Jackson

Washington City March 6th. 1825

Yesterday Mr Adams was inaugurated amidst a vast assemblage of citizens, having been escorted to the capitol with a pomp and ceremony of guns & drums not very consistent, in my humble opinion, with the character of the occasion. Twenty four years ago when Mr [Thomas] Jefferson was inducted into office no such machinery was called in to give solemnity to the occasion-he rode his own horse and hitched him him self to the enclosure. But it seems that times are changed — I hope it is not so with the principles that are to Characterise the administration of Justice and constitutional law. These in my fervent prayers for the prosperity and good of our country will remain unaltered, based upon the sovereignty of the people and adorned with no forms or ceremonies save those which their happiness and freedom shall command.

Nashville, July 26, 1826.

I have been led here to make arrangements for paying the last respect due to the memory & manes of the sage of Monticello, the Father of Liberty, the patron of science, and the author of our declaration of Independence, who had the boldness by that instrument to declare to the despots of Europe in 1776, that we of right ought to be free, that all well organized governments are founded on the will of the people —established for their happiness and prosperity — This virtuous Patriot, Thos Jefferson is no more — he died on the 4th of July 10 minutes before one P.M. On yesterday when we met to make arrangements for this melancholy occasion the mail brought us the sad intelligence that another of the signers of the declaration of Independence was no more, that John Adams had departed this life also on the 4th of July at 6 o'clock P.M. Was well in the morning, heard the celebration, sickened at noon and died at 6 o'clock P.M. of the 4th inst. What a wonderful coincidence that the author and two signers of the declaration of Independence, two of the Ex-Presidents, should on the same day expire, a half a Century after that, that gave birth to a nation of freemen, and that Thos. Jefferson should have died the very hour of the day that the declaration of Independence was presented to and read in the Congress of 1776. Is this an omen that Divinity approbated the whole course of Mr. Jefferson and sent an angel down to take him from the earthly Tabernacle on this national Jubilee, at the same moment he had presented it to Congress and is the death of Mr. Adams a confirmation of the approbation of Divinity also, or is it an omen that his political example as President and adopted by his son, shall destroy this holy fabric created by the virtuous Jefferson.

President Abraham Lincoln

Springfield, Ills, April 6, 1859

Messrs. Henry L. Pierce, & others.

Gentlemen

Your kind note inviting me to attend a Festival in Boston, on the 13th. Inst. in honor of the birth-day of Thomas Jefferson, was duly received. My engagements are such that I can not attend.

Bearing in mind that about seventy years ago, two great political parties were first formed in this country, that Thomas Jefferson was the head of one of them, and Boston the head-quarters of the other, it is both curious and interesting that those supposed to descend politically from the party opposed to Jefferson should now be celebrating his birthday in their own original seat of empire, while those claiming political descent from him have nearly ceased to breathe his name everywhere.

Remembering too, that the Jefferson party were formed upon its supposed superior devotion to the personal rights of men, holding the rights of property to be secondary only, and greatly inferior, and then assuming that the so-called democracy of to-day, are the Jefferson, and their opponents, the anti-Jefferson parties, it will be equally interesting to note how completely the two have changed hands as to the principle upon which they were originally supposed to be divided.

The democracy of to-day hold the liberty of one man to be absolutely nothing, when in conflict with another man's right of property. Republicans, on the contrary, are for both the man and the dollar; but in cases of conflict, the man before the dollar.

I remember once being much amused at seeing two partially intoxicated men engage in a fight with their great-coats on, which fight, after a long, and rather harmless contest, ended in each having fought himself out of his own coat, and into that of the other. If the two leading parties of this day are really identical with the two in the days of Jefferson and Adams, they have perfomed the same feat as the two drunken men.

But soberly, it is now no child's play to save the principles of Jefferson from total overthrow in this nation.

One would start with great confidence that he could convince any sane child that the simpler propositions of Euclid are true; but, nevertheless, he would fail, utterly, with one who should deny the definitions and axioms. The principles of Jefferson are the definitions and axioms of free society.

And yet they are denied and evaded, with no small show of success.

One dashingly calls them "glittering generalities"; another bluntly calls them "self evident lies"; and still others insidiously argue that they apply only to "superior races."

These expressions, differing in form, are identical in object and effect--the supplanting the principles of free government, and restoring those of classification, caste, and legitimacy. They would delight a convocation of crowned heads, plotting against the people. They are the van-guard--the miners, and sappers--of returning despotism.

We must repulse them, or they will subjugate us.

This is a world of compensations; and he who would be no slave, must consent to have no slave. Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it.

All honor to Jefferson--to the man who, in the concrete pressure of a struggle for national independence by a single people, had the coolness, forecast, and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document, an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times, and so to embalm it there, that to-day, and in all coming days, it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling-block to the very harbingers of re-appearing tyranny and oppression.

Your obedient Servant
A. Lincoln

President Ulysses S. Grant

June 13, 1870

From 1789 to 1815 the dominant thought of our statesmen was to keep the United States out of the wars which were devastating Europe. The discussion of measures of neutrality begins with the State papers of Mr. Jefferson when Secretary of State. He shows that they are measures of national right as well as of national duty; that misguided individual citizens can not be tolerated in making war according to their own caprice, passions, interests, or foreign sympathies; that the agents of foreign governments, recognized or unrecognized, can not be permitted to abuse our hospitality by usurping the functions of enlisting or equipping military or naval forces within our territory.

President Theodore Roosevelt

Oyster Bay, N.Y.,
July 5, 1904.

My dear Mr. Page:

I have received your letter about the movement to raise a Thomas Jefferson memorial fund as an endowment for the University of Virginia. I most earnestly wish you success, and I feel that the moment you have chosen is most opportune, owing to the reawakened interest in Jefferson's great work caused by the centenary of the Louisiana Purchase. Your work should commend itself not only to those who are especially interested in the cause of higher education in the South, but to all who are interested in the cause of higher education throughout our country. You need a large sum for such a memorial, and I can not help feeling that you will get it if the most eminent men of the country, irrespective of section or party, can have the matter laid before then and are satisfied, as they should be satisfied, as to the great merit of the movement.

The University of Virginia occupies a unique position among our educational institutions. On the first board of visitors to the institution were Jefferson, Madison and Monroe. The university was one of Jefferson's cherished ideas - a project which occupied his whole time and attention during the latter years of his life. It has never had an endowment requisite to its barest needs.

Now in the great exposition at St. Louis the country is proclaiming the centennial of the achievement in which Jefferson took the leading part; the achievement which, in the purchase of the then territory of Louisiana, definitely established this country as the greatest nation of the Western Hemisphere. Surely this celebration should not be brought to a close without leaving on the nation some other mark than the memory of its grandeur. The movement to this end can most properly take the form of a monument forever to Jefferson's genius; a moment far more enduring than bronze, and which will fully realize one of his greatest ideals.

It would be a good thing if the people of this country, North and South, East and West, should come forward and establish a Jefferson Fund for the university as a fit culmination for the great celebration of the present year. Jefferson wrote his own epitaph to be inscribed on the granite shaft that marks his grave at Monticello. In this epitaph he did not recite the offices he had held, but the three deeds he had done which he esteemed of most worth to his fellow men, and the epitaph runs as follows:

“Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, Author of the Declaration of American Independence, the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia.”

The American people can surely be, appealed to with confidence to carry out Jefferson's work in the way which he would himself have regarded as most gratifying, by endowing, as it should be endowed, the noble institution of learning which he founded. I earnestly hope for the success of your movement.

Sincerely yours,

Theodore Roosevelt

President Woodrow Wilson

April 13, 1916

The immortality of Thomas Jefferson does not lie in any one of his achievements, or in the series of his achievements, but in his attitude towards mankind and the conception which he sought to realize in action of the service owed by America to the rest of the world ... one of the things which has immortalized the influence of Thomas Jefferson has been that his was the spirit of humanity exemplified upon the field of America. Thomas Jefferson was a great leader of men because he understood and interpreted the spirits of men ... It is not a circumstance without significance that Jefferson felt, perhaps more than any other American of his time, except Benjamin Franklin, his close kinship with like thinking spirits everywhere else in the civilized world. His comradeship was as intimate with the thinkers of France as with the frontiersmen of America, and this rather awkward, rather diffident man carried about with him a sort of type of what all men should wish to be who love liberty and seek to lead their fellow men along those difficult paths of achievement.

The only way we can honor Thomas Jefferson is by illumining his spirit and following his example. His example was an example of organization and concerted action for the rights of men, first in America and, then, by America’s example, everywhere in the world. And the thing that interested Jefferson is the only thing that ought to interest us ... God forbid that we should ever become directly or indirectly embroiled in quarrels not of our own choosing ... but if we should ever be drawn in, are you ready to go in only where the interests of America are coincident with the interests of mankind ... If you are ready, you have inherited the spirit of Jefferson, who recognized the men in France and the men in Germany who were doing the liberal thinking of their day as just as much citizens of the great world of liberty as he was himself, and who was ready in every conception he had to join hands across the water or across any other barrier with those who held those high conceptions of liberty which had brought the United States into existence.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt

April 13, 1943

Today, in the midst of a great war for freedom, we dedicate a shrine to freedom.

To Thomas Jefferson, Apostle of Freedom, we are paying a debt long overdue.

Yet, there are reasons for gratitude that this occasion falls within our time; for our generation of Americans can understand much in Jefferson's life which intervening generations could not see as well as we.

He faced the fact that men who will not fight for liberty can lose it. We, too, have faced that fact.

He lived in a world in which freedom of conscience and freedom of mind were battles still to be fought through—not principles already accepted of all men. We, too, have lived in such a world.

He loved peace and loved liberty—yet on more than one occasion he was forced to choose between them. We, too, have been compelled to make that choice.

Generations which understand each other across the distances of history are the generations united by a common experience and a common cause. Jefferson, across a hundred and fifty years of time, is closer by much to living men than many of our leaders of the years between. His cause was a cause to which we also are committed, not by our words alone but by our sacrifice.

For faith and ideals imply renunciations. Spiritual advancement throughout all our history has called for temporal sacrifices.

The Declaration of Independence and the very purposes of the American Revolution itself, while seeking freedoms, called for the abandonment of privileges.

Jefferson was no dreamer-for half a century he led his State and his Nation in fact and in deed. I like to think that this was so because he thought in terms of the morrow as well as the day—and this was why he was hated or feared by those who thought in terms of the day and the yesterday.

We judge him by the application of his philosophy to the circumstances of his life. But in such applying we come to understand that his life was given for those deeper values that persist throughout all time.

Leader in the philosophy of government, in education, in the arts, in efforts to lighten the toil of mankind—exponent of planning for the future, he led the steps of America into the path of the permanent integrity of the Republic.

Thomas Jefferson believed, as we believe, in Man. He believed, as we believe, that men are capable of their own government, and that no king, no tyrant, no dictator can govern for them as well as they can govern for themselves.

He believed, as we believe, in certain inalienable rights. He, as we, saw those principles and freedoms challenged. He fought for them, as we fight for them.

He proved that the seeming eclipse of liberty can well become the dawn of more liberty. Those who fight the tyranny of our own time will come to learn that old lesson. Among all the peoples of the earth, the cruelties and the oppressions of its would-be masters have taught this generation what its liberties can mean. This lesson, so bitterly learned, will never be forgotten while this generation is still alive.

The words which we have chosen for this Memorial speak Jefferson's noblest and most urgent meaning; and we are proud indeed to understand it and share it:

"I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."

President Harry S. Truman

May 17, 1950

I accept with great pleasure the first copy of Volume One of "The Papers of Thomas Jefferson." On behalf of the people of the United States, I congratulate Princeton University and the Princeton University Press on undertaking to edit and publish the great series which this volume begins.

I should like to add a personal word of appreciation and encouragement to the editors for the years of hard work that are still ahead of them. I am very well acquainted with what many people call "paper work," and I appreciate the immense amount of painstaking effort which each of these volumes requires.

We should also be grateful to the New York Times for the financial assistance which that newspaper has given to help compile this complete edition of the writings of one of the greatest Americans. This edition will be of lasting value to our Nation for generations to come.

As many of you know, I returned to Washington yesterday from a visit to the Pacific Northwest. Traveling at what is today a very leisurely rate, in 9 days I went nearly 7,000 miles through 16 States. In 1803 President Jefferson sent out two young pioneers to explore the same area I have just been through. Jefferson wanted to find out what was in the great new territory he had just bought from Napoleon.

Meriwether Lewis and William Clark took 28 months to make the round trip from the banks of the Mississippi to the mouth of the Columbia River on the Pacific coast. Where they found only Indian villages, herds of buffalo, and trackless wilderness and sagebrush, I saw great cities, immense structures like Grand Coulee Dam, and rich farmland. These sharp contrasts are only a few of many that point up the dramatic changes that have occurred in our country since Jefferson's day. Since the United States today scarcely resembles the United States when Jefferson knew it, why should the publication of his letters be so important to us?

The answer should be obvious, as we turn the pages of this first volume. Throughout his life, Jefferson waged an uncompromising fight against tyranny. The search for human liberty was a goal which he pursued with burning zeal. The spirit of democracy shines through everything he ever wrote.

Today, when democracy is facing the greatest challenge in its history, the spirit which Jefferson expressed in his battle against tyranny, and in his search for human liberty, stands out as a beacon of inspiration for free peoples throughout the world.

Jefferson lived in a time of great struggle, when this Nation was trying to establish itself as a democracy of free men. We today, in a different time and under different conditions, are in a great struggle to preserve and expand human freedom.

Our stage is larger--our struggle must be waged over the whole world, not merely in our own country. But the essential nature of the struggle is the same; to prove, by hard work and practical demonstration, that free men can create for themselves a good society, in which they live together at peace, and advance their common welfare.

When freedom is at stake, we need to draw upon every source of strength we can. Jefferson thought deeply about how to make liberty a living part of our society, and he proved the rightness of his thinking by practical demonstration. That is why I think it is particularly important that we are reasserting Jefferson's ideals by publishing these volumes.

History can be fairly written only when all the facts are on record. Jefferson has suffered at the hands of unscrupulous biographers and biased partisans ever since his death. The publication of his papers should correct the mistakes that have been made about him and should help prevent misinterpretations in the future.

There are others like Jefferson whose lives have enriched our history, but about whom we know too little. Many of them have been victims of unfair treatment at the hands of historians; others have been neglected because the record of their work is scattered about in remote places.

I hope that this edition of the writings of Thomas Jefferson will inspire educational institutions, learned societies, and civic-minded groups to plan the publication of the works of other great national figures. In far too many cases, there are incomplete and inaccurate editions of the writings of the great men and women of our country. In some distressing instances, we have only fragmentary records of men whose ideas and actions have helped shape our history.

I am convinced that we need to collect and publish the writings of the men and women who have made major contributions to the development of our democracy.

I am, therefore, requesting the National Historical Publications Commission, under the chairmanship of the Archivist of the United States, to look into this matter and to report to me. I am sure this Commission will wish to consult with scholars in all fields of American history, and to report what can be done--and should be done--to make available to our people the public and private writings of men whose contributions to our history are now inadequately represented by published works.

I am interested not just in political figures, but in the writings of industrialists and labor leaders, chemists and engineers, painters and lawyers, of great figures of all the arts and sciences who have made major contributions to our democracy.

Obviously, we cannot hope to collect, edit, and publish all the writings of all such leaders, but we can and should select the works of those who have been too long neglected and who need to be better known if we are to understand our heritage. This is a big undertaking. If will take a long time. It should be done as far as possible by private groups and not by the Federal Government, although the Federal Government can and will be of assistance whenever possible. The editions should be in every instance completely objective and should maintain the same high editorial standards that are evident in this first volume of "The Papers of Thomas Jefferson." They should aim to place the facts beyond debate and distortion.

At a time when democracy is meeting the greatest challenge in its history, we need to turn to the sources of our own democratic faith for new inspiration and new strength. These volumes of Thomas Jefferson will be a great reservoir of hope and faith during the critical years ahead. I sincerely hope that similar editions of the writings of other great men and women who have made our Nation what it is today can be placed with them.

President John F. Kennedy

April 29, 1962

Ladies and gentlemen:

I want to tell you how welcome you are to the White House. I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.

Someone once said that Thomas Jefferson was a gentleman of 32 who could calculate an eclipse, survey an estate, tie an artery, plan an edifice, try a cause, break a horse, and dance the minuet. Whatever he may have lacked, if he could have had his former colleague, Mr. Franklin, here we all would have been impressed.

President Gerald Ford

April 13, 1976

Thank you very, very much, Secretary Kleppe. Captain Barnes, distinguished guests--including the fine choir from the College of William and Mary, Thomas Jefferson's alma mater--ladies and gentlemen:

Today we pay tribute to Thomas Jefferson. Two hundred years of American history have produced no man whose achievements are better known. In his own epitaph he cited just three--author of the Declaration of American Independence, author of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and father of the University of Virginia.

Had those been only his basic accomplishments, he would have earned his place in history and our unyielding gratitude. But we know Jefferson in other ways as well. We know the character of the man who embodied our national heritage by encompassing the spirit of pioneer and aristocrat, American and world citizen, the values of nature and the values of civilization.

In politics, we know him as a lawyer and as a legislator, as a member of the Continental Congress, Ambassador to France, our Nation's third President, and its first Secretary of State. In our national life, we know him as a scientist and agronomist, as an artist, architect, and inventor.

Thomas Jefferson's achievements range from our decimal system of coinage to the great area of our Nation itself, which he doubled through the Louisiana Purchase. But Thomas Jefferson's contribution to our Nation's history is far, far more than the sum of these diverse accomplishments. The very range of his interests has heightened his impact on later generations.

It is a quirk of history that Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, both signers of the Declaration of Independence, died on July 4, 1826, 50 years to the day of its adoption. John Adams' last words were, "Jefferson still lives." History shows Adams was wrong, because Jefferson had died a mere 5 hours earlier. But history also has confirmed Adams' words, because Thomas Jefferson lives in each of us.

We are all his successors, and it is up to us, not history, to see that Jefferson's faith survives. Great citizens and their great thoughts are not just for their own time but forever. And Jefferson's true importance lies in the fact that he continues to speak of the American experience.

In every generation, Americans have turned to Jefferson for comfort and inspiration. They have found new meanings, often conflicting meanings, in his words. In their search for Jefferson's spirit, Americans have sought themselves. To Abraham Lincoln, the principles of Jefferson were the definitions and axioms of free society, a society he was struggling to preserve. And Lincoln, the Great Emancipator, gave those principles new significance.

Three generations later, another great American leader, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, locked in another war for freedom, dedicated this memorial as a shrine to freedom. On the 200th anniversary of Jefferson's birth, he called for a commitment to Jefferson's cause not by words alone, but by sacrifice.

In this 200th year of the Nation Jefferson helped to found, it seems our America has changed so much that when we compare it with Jefferson's America, the differences are more striking than the similarities. We are no longer a young, isolated, agricultural nation, but an industrial giant in a nuclear age.

Thomas Jefferson would have been the first to recognize that different times demand different policies. He stressed that the Earth belongs always to the living generation. In our Bicentennial Year, we turn once again to Jefferson's words and find them surprisingly modern. Jefferson's principle of limited government, his concern about excessive centralization of governmental power at the expense of State and local responsibility and individual freedom are as much a part of the debate of 1976 as they were in 1776.

I believe that in this debate, the wisdom and the philosophy of Jefferson will prevail. We find he believed that not every difference of opinion is a difference of principle and that he tolerated error in the confidence that truth would triumph.

Jefferson was a fervent believer in freedom of the press. Although harshly attacked and often vilified, he maintained an unfettered press was essential to American freedom. We find the meaning of democracy in his immortal words, that "though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal laws must protect."

We find he put his trust in the people whom he believed to be basically moderate, patriotic, and freedom-loving. And we find above all else his love for freedom and independence. Today, we recognize this in two symbolic gestures.

Jefferson's belief in the freedom and independence of the human mind we honor today by an act of Congress, which names one building of the Library of Congress after him. And Jefferson's belief in the freedom and independence of the American people we honor today by an act of Congress, which designates today as Thomas Jefferson Day.

I believe as we move into our third century of independence, there will be an even greater emphasis by our people to find ways and means to meet our needs, while limiting the role of government in the classical Jeffersonian sense. I see the third century of American independence as a century of individualism. I see it as a century of personal achievement and fulfillment for all Americans.

Let us honor Thomas Jefferson this year and throughout the next century of our independence by weaving into our national life the qualities, the talents, and the ideals which were the warp and woof of his.

Let us practice the responsible individualism, and thereby pay tribute to the man we commemorate here. Let us dedicate ourselves to achievement, so that we may make this country what it has the potential to be. Let us maintain for America its rightful place of leadership in the councils of nations of the world. Let us extend the boundaries of human freedom here at home and beyond our shores. Let us accept and discharge the responsibility as a people upon whom providence has bestowed so much. Let us be enlightened as a nation with appreciation for learning, for reason, and for justice for all our people.

In this way, my fellow Americans, we shall pay honor to the man from Monticello. It is now my honor to sign two pieces of legislation relating to Thomas Jefferson. I would like to ask the Members of Congress present to join me at the signing table.

It is now my pleasure to sign House Joint Resolution 670, designating April 13 as Thomas Jefferson Day. Representative Bob McClory was the principal sponsor, and so as I sign this, I will give him this pen and we will distribute the others.

Now, it is my honor to sign S. 2920, the legislation which officially designates the Library of Congress Annex as the Library of Congress Thomas Jefferson Building. And I think on this occasion, it would be appropriate to give this pen to the senior Senator from Virginia, the Honorable Harry Byrd.

Thank you.

President Jimmy Carter

October 3, 1980

One of Virginia's greatest sons, about whom I think frequently, living in the White House, Thomas Jefferson, set forth the dream of a system of general education which shall reach every description of our citizens from the richest to the poorest. Making Jefferson's dream live and come true has been the business of our Nation under Presidents and Congresses of both parties…

We Americans do not fear competition in the marketplace of ideas. We do not repress those who have a different ideology from us. We do not stifle competing thoughts. Instead we followed Jefferson's advice, "Enlighten the people generally," he said, "and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits in the dawn of a new day."

We often bear the argument that education deserves our support because it contributes to the economic strength of our Nation. That's certainly true. But the real meaning of education goes far beyond that, much deeper. In its broadest sense, education, the question of understanding and knowledge of ourselves, our fellow human beings and God's universe, is not a means to some end, but rather an end in itself.

Education and liberty are part of the same search for truth, and education and liberty are unthinkable without each other. Let me quote Jefferson once more. "The education of the people," he wrote, "can alone make them the safe, as they are the sole repository of our political and religious freedom." So, political and religious freedom depend upon education.

President Ronald Reagan

April 13, 1982

Thomas Jefferson remains one of the towering figures in American history 239 years after his birth. Statesman, scholar, inventor, farmer, and philosopher, he was, first and foremost, a champion of individual liberty. Throughout his life he was a tireless advocate of free expression and the sanctity of property, for he knew that, to be whole, freedom must be economic as well as political.

Thomas Jefferson also knew that too much government threatened human rights. ``What has destroyed liberty and the rights of man in every government that has ever existed under the Sun?'' he asked. And he answered, ``The generalizing and concentrating all cares and powers into one body.'' Limited government, in a sound Federal system with essential powers properly distributed among local, State, and national bodies was his goal. For all governments his admonition was straightforward: ``A wise and frugal government,'' he declared in his first Inaugural Address, ``. . . shall restrain men from injuring one another, . . . shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.''

Much has changed in the last two centuries, but the principles Thomas Jefferson espoused still lie at the heart of our democratic society. May his 239th birthday be a time of national renewal when we commit ourselves anew to the proud, free heritage Jefferson bequeathed us.

President Bill Clinton

April 13, 1993

Today we observe the birthday of perhaps the most brilliant of our Founding Fathers in a setting Thomas Jefferson would have very much approved: one that joins the beauty of human architecture with the rapturous side of nature, with the cherry blossoms bursting all around us in a wreath.

Mr. Jefferson used to say with some pride that the Sun never found him in bed, that he always rose early, and he was very proud of the fact that well into his seventies, he could ride a horse several miles a day without tiring. Well, in honor of his birthday, I rose early this morning and finding no horses around The White House, I ran over here and jogged around this magnificent Tidal Basin, seeing many of my fellow citizens who were here even before me, at the dawn, to see this magnificent sight.

Today we have come to lay our wreaths in honor of Thomas Jefferson, as his likeness towers behind us. And yet, no amount of bronze can capture the measure of the man who helped to cut a path for our Nation, who personally forged the principles that continue to guide us as Americans and as lovers of freedom.

As has already been said, this monument was dedicated a half a century ago, on the 200th anniversary of Jefferson's birthday by President Franklin Roosevelt, a worthy heir to the spirit of Jefferson. Were Jefferson here today, I think he would not want very much to talk about the America of his time; instead, he would be talking about the America of our time. He would certainly not be at a loss for ideas about what we ought to be doing, for he was a man blessed with an eye for invention, an ear for music, the hands of a farmer, the mind of a philosopher, the voice of a statesman, and the soul of a searcher for truth.

The genius of Thomas Jefferson was his ability to get the most out of today while never taking his eye off tomorrow, to think big while enjoying the little things of daily life. Perhaps most important, he understood that in order for us to preserve our timeless values, people have to change. And free people need to devise means by which they can change profoundly and still peacefully. If you go back to this monument after the ceremony, you will see on the wall in part the following quotation: "Laws and institutions must go hand-in-hand with the progress of the human mind as that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made and new truths discovered, and manners and opinions change. With the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times."

A very modern statement from our third President. In his own time, the pace of change was enormous. just think back, during Jefferson's Presidency the steamboat made its debut, revolutionizing travel. The importing of slaves was banned, paving the way toward emancipation and the realignment of society. And he acquired the Louisiana Purchase for the then massive sum of $15 million. Turns out it was an awfully sound investment. It doubled the size of our Nation, it opened up a new frontier, and it enabled me to be born in the United States of America, and many of you as well, I suspect.

But believe it or not, every step along the way, Thomas Jefferson was opposed. There were people who opposed the Louisiana Purchase, people who opposed his then radical conception of human liberty, and both the power of individuals and the limitations of the Government. He fought, and he prevailed.

I wonder what he would say about our time, in which the pace of change is even greater. I think he would take great pride in the fact that we have now found ways to literally double the volume of knowledge every few years. But I think he would be terribly disappointed that our understanding in this country of the science and mathematics that he loved so much is still so limited and so inadequate when compared to that of many other nations.

I think he would be delighted that the principles of freedom for which he stood all his life finally resulted in the end of the cold war and the demise of communism. But I think he would be deeply disappointed that ethnic and racial and other hatreds had kept this world such a dangerous and unstable place, in ways that are blatantly unreasonable, as he defined reason.

I think he would be proud of the technological and economic advances of this time, of the increasing interconnection of peoples across national borders in a global economy. But I think he would be profoundly disturbed that even the richest countries are now having enormous difficulty in finding enough jobs for their people, including his own beloved United States, and that so much technological advance seems to bring the destruction of much of the environment, about which he cared so deeply.

I think Jefferson would be impressed at the enormous advances in health care. He cared a lot about his health, and he lived to be 83 largely by taking good care of himself. And I think he would be a little disappointed that more of us don't take better care of ourselves and appalled to think that the United States is the only advanced country where every person doesn't have access to affordable health care, something I hope we can change before long.

If you go up there and read what's on those walls, there is an incredibly moving statement where Jefferson said, he trembles to think that God is just when he considers the real meaning of the institution of slavery. So I think he would be delighted at the progress we have made in human rights and living together across racial lines. Because he had such a passionate belief in individual liberty, I think he would be delighted by the range of personal choices and freedom of speech that the American people enjoy today, even to say things that he would find offensive, for he understood the clear meaning of the First Amendment.

But I think he would be appalled at the lack of self-respect and self-control and respect for others which manifests itself in the kind of mindless violence to which this city and others have been subject for the last several years, and appalled at the millions of young people who will never know the full measure of their freedom because they have been raised without order, without love, without family, without even the basic safety which people need to be able almost to take for granted in order to be citizens of a real democracy. In short, I think Thomas Jefferson would tell us that this is one of those times when we need to change.

Clearly, the call for change that Jefferson made, he intended to be echoed generation after generation after generation. He believed if we set up the Constitution in the way that it was set up, that Americans of courage and good sense would always, always find themselves in the majority for change when they needed to be there. He believed in Government constantly being reformed by reason and popular will.

That is what this administration is trying to do now. We know that we have an economy that, even in growth, does not produce new jobs. We know that we have increased by 4 times the debt of this Nation over the last 12 years, and we don't have much to show for it. We know that the people have now courageously asked us to take on the problems of jobs and the deficit, the environment and education and health care, to try to put our people first again and make Government work for them.

The American people, deep in their bones, without even thinking about it, are the agents of change that Thomas Jefferson sought to write in perpetuity into our Constitution. For in the end, Thomas Jefferson understood that no politician, no government, no piece of paper could do for the American people what they would have to do for themselves. He understood better perhaps than any of his colleagues that the people of this country would always have to be not only the protectors of their own liberty but the agents of their own transformation and change. But he also knew that Government must be willing to supply the tools of that change. And that, very simply, is our task today. After all, what is a good education but a tool to a better life. What is a job but a tool to build self-sufficiency, self-esteem, and dignity for a worker and a family.

As I look around this Nation, I know that Thomas Jefferson would be very proud and pleased by much of what has happened here. I suspect it would amuse and surprise him and make him very proud to think that for most Americans, on most days, people from 150 and more racial and ethnic groups live together in not only peace and law abidingness but also mutual respect and reinforcing strength. I think that would make him proud. I think he would be proud of the generosity of spirit that characterizes our people and manifests itself most clearly at a time of national crisis and national tragedy. After all, in Jefferson's time people gave food and shelter to travelers who came to their doors at night, even when they were total strangers. Jefferson himself, at Monticello, often offered his home over the years to bone-weary travelers.

Today many of our people would do the same thing. But together, together, we have not faced the problems of the bone-weary travelers in our own land, nor have we faced the problems that we all share in common. We cannot turn the problems away. It is time for reasonable change. It is time for the Americans in our time to live up to the principles etched in stone in this magnificent memorial.

Just look at the beauty around us today. Do you know that in Mr. Jefferson's time almost all of this was a swamp? People avoided this place like the plague, because they were afraid of the plague. But with a plan, with investment, with effort, with vision, Americans transformed it. And from this inhospitable terrain rose the city before us, one of the most magnificent capitals in the history of the world. But the structures around us are simply buildings. They come to life only when they shake from the will of the people. That is what Thomas Jefferson knew.

We are the inheritors of Jefferson's rich legacy. On this the 250th anniversary of his birth, we can honor him best by remembering our own role in governing ourselves and our Nation: to speak, to move, to change, for it is only in change that we preserve the timeless values for which Thomas Jefferson gave his life, over two centuries ago.

President George W. Bush

April 14, 2008

We're here tonight to commemorate the 265th birthday of Thomas Jefferson, here in a room where he once walked and in a home where he once lived. In this house, President Jefferson spread the word that liberty was the right of every individual. In this house, Jefferson sent Lewis and Clark off on the mission that helped make America a continental nation. And in this house, Jefferson was known to receive guests in his bathrobe and slippers. (Laughter.) Laura said no. (Laughter.) I don't have a bathrobe. (Laughter.)

With a single sentence, Thomas Jefferson changed the history of the world. After countless centuries when the powerful and the privileged governed as they pleased, Jefferson proclaimed as a self-evident truth that liberty was a right given to all people by an Almighty.

Here in America, that truth was not fully realized in Jefferson's own lifetime. As he observed the condition of slaves in America, Jefferson said, "I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just" and "that his justice cannot sleep forever." Less than 40 years after his death, justice was awakened in America and a new era of freedom dawned.

Today, on the banks of the Tidal Basin, a statue of Thomas Jefferson stands in a rotunda that is a memorial to both the man and the ideas that built this nation. There, on any day of the week, you will find men and women of all creeds, colors, races and religions. You will find scholars, schoolchildren and visitors from every part of our country. And you will find each of them looking upward in quiet reflection on the liturgy of freedom -- the words of Thomas Jefferson inscribed on the memorial's walls.

The power of Jefferson's words do not stop at water's edge. They beckon the friends of liberty on even the most distant shores. They're a source of inspiration for people in young democracies like Afghanistan and Lebanon and Iraq. And they are a source of hope for people in nations like Belarus and Burma, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, Syria, North Korea and Zimbabwe, where the struggle for freedom continues.

Thomas Jefferson left us on July 4, 1826 -- fifty years to the day after our Declaration of Independence was adopted. In one of the great harmonies of history, his friend and rival John Adams died on the very same day. Adams' last words were, "Thomas Jefferson survives." And he still does today. And he will live on forever, because the desire to live in freedom is the eternal hope of mankind.

President Barack Obama

February 10, 2014

As one of our Founding Fathers, the person who drafted our Declaration of Independence, somebody who not only was an extraordinary political leader but also one of our great scientific and cultural leaders, Thomas Jefferson represents what’s best in America.  But as we see as we travel through his home, what he also represents is the incredible bond and the incredible gifts that France gave to the United States, because he was a Francophile through and through.

He drew inspiration from the Enlightenment ideas that had been developed in France and throughout Europe, but he also drew from the arts, from the architecture, from the writings, from the culture and from the cuisine of France.  And so, in this sense, this home represents the bonds that helped lead to the American Revolution, helped to influence the French Revolution, figures like Lafayette, who played such a central role in our own independence -- all this is signified here at Monticello. 

And our hope in starting our visit this way is that, just as we can extend back through generations to see the links between the United States and France, tomorrow we'll have an opportunity to talk about not only our current bonds and alliance but also ways that we can strengthen our cooperation in the future.

President Joe Biden

April 26, 2024

Howard Stern:

Who do you think was the greatest president of all time? I have an answer for this, but I want to hear yours.

President Joe Biden:

Well, I think Jefferson was one of my favorite presidents of all time. But also there were people who came along in periods. I think the fact that Roosevelt came when he did and the way he did and the way he stood up.

President Donald Trump

July 4, 2020

Thomas Jefferson — the great Thomas Jefferson — was 33 years old when he traveled north to Pennsylvania and brilliantly authored one of the greatest treasures of human history, the Declaration of Independence.  He also drafted Virginia’s constitution, and conceived and wrote the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, a model for our cherished First Amendment.

After serving as the first Secretary of State, and then Vice President, he was elected to the Presidency.  He ordered American warriors to crush the Barbary pirates, he doubled the size of our nation with the Louisiana Purchase, and he sent the famous explorers Lewis and Clark into the west on a daring expedition to the Pacific Ocean.

He was an architect, an inventor, a diplomat, a scholar, the founder of one of the world’s great universities, and an ardent defender of liberty.  Americans will forever admire the author of American freedom, Thomas Jefferson.  (Applause.)  And he, too, will never, ever be abandoned by us.  (Applause.)