“The main objects of all science, the freedom and happiness of man. . . . [are] the sole objects of all legitimate government.(A plaque with this quotation, with the first phrase omitted, is in the stairwell of the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty.)”

American statesman, writer, and philosopher

Thomas Jefferson was an American statesman, writer, and philosopher, and the third president of the United States, serving from 1801 to 1809. He was one of the Founding Fathers and is closely associated with the political ideals that came to be called Jeffersonian democracy. He was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, and his political thought shaped early American politics alongside federalism. Jefferson remains a defining figure in American political history, admired for his ideas and also remembered as a lifelong slave owner, a fact that makes his legacy deeply contested.