ABSTRACT
The standing of Thomas Jefferson as a person and a statesman is fraught with contradictions: a leading figure among a band of aristocrats who founded a government based on the authority of “We the People;” a Founder who owned vast tracts where over his lifetime the hundreds of slaves he owned to work it could not produce the bounty necessary to sustain the expenditures of the life he lived but who believed that every man ought to own land in order to be a fearless critic of government; a staunch believer in the rule of law under the Constitution who exceeded its presidential authority to make the Louisiana Purchase; a cultivated, well-travelled, and learned man who trusted the moral and aesthetic judgment of ordinary people.
