21 Great Leaders: Learn Their Lessons, Improve Your Influence (25 page)

Not only did Dr. Small introduce young Thomas Jefferson to the intellectual rigors of mathematics and science, but he also inspired in Jefferson a love for philosophy, metaphysics, and
belles lettres
—aesthetic literature such as poetry, fiction, and drama. Dr. Small also opened doors for Jefferson, introducing him to George Wythe, a leading expert on law, and Francis Fauquier, the governor of Virginia. Young Jefferson often dined with Dr. Small, Mr. Wythe, and Governor Fauquier, recalling, “I owed much instruction” to those dinner conversations.
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George Wythe ignited young Jefferson’s interest in the law, and Jefferson recalled, “Mr. Wythe continued to be my faithful and beloved mentor in youth, and my most affectionate friend through life. In 1767, he led me into the practice of the law at the bar of the General Court, at which I continued until the Revolution shut up the courts of justice.”
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Jefferson completed a four-year course of studies at William and Mary College in only two years, graduating in 1762. He studied law while working as a law clerk for George Wythe and was admitted to the Virginia bar in 1767. Jefferson’s college education intensified his lifelong passion for books. In 1770, when Jefferson was twenty-six, his family home in Shadwell, Virginia, burned to the ground, along with the family’s two-hundred-book library. Within three years, he replaced the lost library and expanded it by more than a thousand titles.

(Many years later, after the British burned the Library of Congress in 1814, Jefferson cataloged his book collection, numbering more than six thousand titles. He sold the bulk of his collection to the Library of Congress for $23,950 and planned to use the money to pay off his debts. But as he wrote in a letter to John Adams, “I cannot live without books,” and he immediately began buying new books and rebuilding his library.)

In 1768, Jefferson began construction of his neoclassical home, Monticello (“Little Mountain” in Italian). He studied books on architecture while in college, and his library contained such titles as
I Quattro Libri dell’Architettura
(
The Four Books of Architecture
) by Andrea Palladio,
A Book of Architecture
and
Rules for Drawing the Several Parts of Architecture
by James Gibbs, and
Ten Books on Architecture
by Vitruvius.

Jefferson might have preferred a formal education in architecture, but no American school offered architectural training at the time. Yet his self-education through books left no gaps in his knowledge.

Though it was traditional for plantation owners to build their homes near the river, Jefferson built Monticello atop a mountain. From Monticello, he had a beautiful view in all directions, and he felt closer to the heavens. As a boy, he had often hiked and played on that mountain. Monticello was the fulfillment of a cherished boyhood dream.

Jefferson was an avid student of the violin and is said to have mastered it during his two years at William and Mary. His musicianship was a great asset to his love life.

Around 1770 or 1771, Jefferson began courting Martha Wayles Skelton, a young widow of a Williamsburg attorney. Slender and attractive, still in her early twenties, Martha (whom Thomas called “Patty”) had many suitors. It’s said that two of her suitors came to call on her, and as they arrived, they heard music—a harpsichord and violin duet. Knowing that Jefferson was the only violinist in the county, they said, “We’re wasting our time,” and left.

Thomas married Martha on January 1, 1772. During their ten years of marriage, Martha bore six children, only two of whom survived to adulthood. She was physically frail and suffered from diabetes. In 1782, after the birth of their last child, it became clear that Martha was dying. She had lost her own mother when she was young, and she’d had two stepmothers, both of whom she hated. So she begged Thomas not to remarry, because she didn’t want him to bring a stepmother into her children’s lives. He solemnly promised he wouldn’t.

Martha died at age thirty-three. The inscription Thomas had carved on her headstone stated that she was “torn from him by Death, September 6, 1782.” Grief nearly destroyed Jefferson. He isolated himself in his room, pacing and weeping, seeing no one for three weeks. For months afterward, he took long carriage rides or would stand on the hilltop at Monticello, staring into the distance, silently grieving. He kept his promise and never remarried.
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Thomas Jefferson was a walking contradiction—a slaveholder troubled by the existence of slavery in a nation dedicated to freedom and equality. It was Jefferson himself who inscribed these words into the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

When he wrote those words, he knew they contradicted his lifestyle and the chief source of his income. The Declaration of Independence was the highest expression of Enlightenment ideals. When he wrote that document, his conscience condemned him. For some reason, Jefferson felt he could not, or would not, live up to those high ideals himself.

Thomas Jefferson hated slavery. He feared what slavery was doing to his country. Reflecting on the injustice of slavery in
Notes on the State of Virginia
(1781), he wrote:

As a lawyer, Jefferson represented a number of slaves who went to court to win their freedom. One of those cases was his April 1770 defense of Samuel Howell. Opposing counsel was Jefferson’s mentor George Wythe. Under the law, Howell was scheduled to be emancipated at age thirty-one on the basis of his mixed race (his grandmother was white). Jefferson argued that Howell should be freed at once, not kept in slavery until the statutory age of emancipation. Arguing from natural law, Jefferson said, “All men are born free [and] everyone comes into the world with a right to his own person and using it at his own will.”

The judge cut Jefferson off in midsentence and ruled against his client—a discouraging, but not unexpected, defeat. Jefferson didn’t take a fee for defending Samuel Howell. In fact, he gave money to Howell out of his own pocket, which Howell used to escape to freedom a few months later.
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How did Jefferson reconcile his Enlightenment ideals with the ownership of more than two hundred slaves? Historian Andrew Burstein grapples with the paradox this way:

It would be easy to judge Thomas Jefferson by our current moral standards. This is a common logical fallacy called
presentism
—applying present-day values to cultural attitudes of the past. I’m not saying we should practice moral relativism. Slavery has always been evil. I’m only saying that Jefferson’s perception was shaped by the times in which he lived.

Thomas Jefferson’s father was a slave owner who bequeathed slaves to young Thomas in his will. His father-in-law, John Wayles, was a slave trader. His friend George Washington was a slave owner. Jefferson saw himself as an
enlightened
slave master. The institution of slavery was all he had known. If you had been born into that culture, your perspective might have been similar. We tend to be products of our times.

Something happened to Jefferson that enabled him to transcend his times and write the timeless words of the Declaration of Independence. In 1760, when Jefferson was sixteen, he encountered Dr. William Small. This young scion of a Virginia plantation owner suddenly discovered a much wider world of ideas. Jefferson said that Dr. Small’s influence “fixed the destinies of my life.” That may have been an understatement.

Dr. Small introduced Jefferson to empirical thinking through the writings of Isaac Newton and other great thinkers. He plunged young Jefferson into the depths of Enlightenment idealism. He introduced Jefferson to philosophers who taught him to empathize with the sufferings of others. As Jefferson absorbed these truths, he came to conclude that equality and liberty were self-evident truths. Someday, he believed, America would live out those ideals, but not in his lifetime. And he would not practice those ideals on his plantation.

That decision left a stain on his legacy for all time.

Elected president in 1800, Jefferson took the oath of office on March 4, 1801. He rode into Washington, DC, on horseback, alone and dressed in the simple clothes of a farmer. He passed along the streets unnoticed. His rejection of the regal trappings of the office contributed to his reputation as “the People’s President.”

The White House had been completed in 1800, and Jefferson used his architectural skills to expand the building. Jefferson referred to his election as “the Revolution of 1800,” and he proceeded to make revolutionary changes. He dramatically cut taxes (his elimination of the whiskey excise tax made him especially popular) and reined in spending by closing unnecessary government offices and cutting defense spending. The only declared war during his two terms in office was the First Barbary War, when Jefferson sent American warships to protect merchant ships from the Barbary pirates of North Africa.

In 1803, at the beginning of the Napoleonic Wars, President Thomas Jefferson struck a bargain with France, authorized the Louisiana Purchase, and doubled the size of the United States with the stroke of a pen. America paid about $15 million for 828,000 square miles of land, which works out to about four cents per acre—the best bargain in American history.

In his post-presidential years, Jefferson devoted much of his time to planning and constructing the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. The institution opened its doors in 1819, and its initial Board of Visitors included three US presidents—Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe. Always mindful of how his education at William and Mary had impacted his competency as a leader, he envisioned the University of Virginia as a leadership academy.

Jefferson suffered a succession of debilitating illnesses in 1826. By May, he was a shut-in, though he continued to manage Monticello from his sickbed. He declined an invitation to go to Washington for the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

On July 3, Jefferson was stricken with fever. With his daughter and grandson at his side, he gave instructions for a simple private funeral. Then he said, “I have done for my country and for all mankind all that I could do, and I now resign my soul without fear to my God.”
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Jefferson slept through most of that day, awakening later that evening. He asked, “Is it the Fourth?”—his last words.

His doctor replied, “It soon will be.”

Jefferson slept through the night. On July 4, on the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, at ten minutes before one in the afternoon, he died. He was eighty-three.
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Five hours later, in Quincy, Massachusetts, Jefferson’s friend John Adams spoke his last words. Unaware that Jefferson had died, Adams said, “Thomas Jefferson survives.” Adams died the same day, July 4, 1826.
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Jefferson’s simple funeral was officiated by his friend, the Reverend Charles Clay. Jefferson’s epitaph, which he himself wrote, makes no mention of his presidency:

Let’s look at the lessons that emerge from both the brilliance and the defects in Jefferson’s leadership legacy:

1.
Seek mentors
. You are never too young or too old to have mentors. Jefferson described his friendship with Dr. William Small as “my great good fortune.” Mentors instruct and counsel you, hold you accountable, and open doors of opportunity for you. Jefferson’s competence was shaped not only by his formal education, but also by the many informal contacts he made through his mentor. Who is your Dr. Small?

2.
Don’t compartmentalize your leadership life from your private life
. Practice your values and ideals at all times. Jefferson allowed his leadership legacy to be called into question because he advocated the abolition of slavery yet refused to relinquish his own slaves. In your leadership life, don’t be a walking contradiction. Be consistent in every facet of your life, and leave a legacy that is unstained and beyond reproach.