At least as far as Mount Rushmore would indicate, Thomas Jefferson is one of America’s top four presidents. Jefferson’s presidency oversaw the Louisiana Purchase, which doubled the size of America’s land holdings, but much of the rest of his reputation rests on things he wrote. As a scholar of considerable intelligence, Jefferson wrote doctrines and statutes that helped determine what American ideals of freedom would be. He is, of course, most known for writing the Declaration of Independence, in which he famously declared that all men are created equal.
However, despite the revolutionary idealism of these words, Jefferson was an enslaver and unlike Washington, Jefferson never made an effort to free those enslaved by him. Over the course of his lifetime, Jefferson enslaved over 600 people, with as many as 140 at any one time. One of the worst truths about Thomas Jefferson is that he had at least six children by an enslaved woman named Sally Hemings, and in such a relationship, it is impossible for the less-powerful person to truly consent. Furthermore, Jefferson is known to have lied and bribed people to try to keep this relationship a secret.
Additionally, Jefferson was a profligate spender in his personal life and pretty much always in debt. And, like many presidents, his record on relations with Native Americans was pretty bad. Jefferson could write elegantly about freedom and equality in the abstract, but in some areas, seemed incapable of instituting it in practice.
