Thomas Jefferson Quotes
A rising nation, spread over a wide and fruitful Land, traversing all the seas with the rich production of their Industry.
Jefferson, Thomas. "First Inaugural Address." 4 Mar. 1801. The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, edited by Barbara B. Oberg, vol. 33, Princeton University Press, 2006, p. 149.
Many of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1787 had invested in land that had formerly belonged to the Iroquois Indians who had sided with the British in the Revolution and been driven up to Canada. They had paid very little and wanted to sell it at large profits. However, there was little gold and silver left in the colonies after the war and there was great reluctance in the rest of the world to lend gold and silver backed money to a new country that did not have a rule of law and courts to collect debts. For example, Madison and Monroe had formed a partnership and bought former Iroquois land near Rome, New York. There was idealism to be sure but there was also self-interest functioning in the secret Constitutional Convention.
Thomas Jefferson was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He had previously served as the second vice president of the United States under John Adams between 1797 and 1801. The principal author of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson was a proponent of democracy, republicanism, and individual rights, motivating American colonists to break from the Kingdom of Great Britain and form a new nation; he produced formative documents and decisions at both the state and national levels.
