Thomas Jefferson, a spokesman for democracy, was an American Founding Father, the principal author of the Declaration of Independence (1776), and the third President of the United States (1801–1809).

"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal. . . ." "it is the great parent of science & of virtue: and that a nation will be great in both, always in proportion as it is free."

Jefferson acquired most of the over six hundred people he owned during his life through the natural increase of enslaved families. He acquired approximately 175 enslaved people through inheritance: about 40 from the estate of his father, Peter Jefferson, in 1764, and 135 from his father-in-law, John Wayles, in 1774.

John Adams and Thomas Jefferson died on the same day, July 4, 1826. Both were old men—Adams was 90, and Jefferson was 83—and both were ill, though Adams had been in comparatively robust health until just a few months earlier and Jefferson had been ill for an extended period.