Founding Father Thomas Jefferson, who authored the Declaration of Independence, was a leading figure in the development of the United States.
Born into a prominent family near Charlottesville, Va., on April 13, 1743, Jefferson was one of eight children and the eldest son of Peter and Jane Randolph Jefferson. In 1762, he graduated from William and Mary College in Williamsburg, where he reportedly enjoyed studying for 15 hours before practicing his violin playing for a few more hours each day.
He went on to study law under the tutelage of respected Virginia attorney George Wyeth, whose other pupils included future Chief Justice John Marshall and statesman Henry Clay.
As a member of Virginia’s House of Burgesses from 1769 to 1775, Jefferson gained recognition after penning “A Summary View of the Rights of British America,” which argued that the British Parliament had no authority over the American colonies. Jefferson inherited his father's estate, and in 1768 he began clearing a mountaintop in order to build an elegant red brick mansion called Monticello, which means “little mountain” in Italian.
With a keen interest in architecture and gardening, Jefferson designed the estate and over the years remodeled and expanded it, filling it with art, fine furnishings, interesting gadgets and architectural details. He kept records of everything that took place on the 5,000-acre plantation, including daily weather reports, a gardening journal, and notes about his slaves and animals.
On Jan. 1, 1772, Jefferson married Martha Wayles Skelton, a young widow. The couple had six children, only two of whom survived into adulthood. In 1772, Martha Jefferson died of complications from childbirth at the age of 33. Jefferson never remarried, but it is believed he fathered several children with one of his slaves, Sally Hemmings, who was his wife’s half-sister.
Though he advocated for individual liberty and at one point promoted a plan for the gradual emancipation of slaves in America, Jefferson owned slaves throughout his life. While he wrote in the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal,” he believed that African Americans were biologically inferior to whites and thought the two races could not coexist peacefully in freedom.
He inherited 175 slaves from his father and father-in-law, owning more than 600 slaves over the course of his life. He freed only a small number of them in his will, leaving most to be sold at auction.
In 1775, Jefferson was a delegate to the Second Continental Congress. At the age of 33 he was asked to draft the Declaration of Independence, written to explain why the 13 colonies wanted to be free of British rule and to detail the importance of individual rights and freedoms. The declaration was adopted in July 1776.
President George Washington asked him to serve as the country’s first Secretary of State. Favoring strong state and local government, Jefferson founded the Democratic-Republican Party in opposition to Alexander Hamilton’s Federalist Party, which advocated centralized federal power.
Jefferson was elected vice president in 1796 and defeated President John Adams in 1800, becoming the third U.S. president. His inauguration on March 4, 1801, was the first to be held in Washington, D.C. He broke with tradition by walking to the ceremony instead of riding in a carriage. Jefferson won a second presidential term in 1804. In 1808 he was succeeded by his friend James Madison.
He returned to Monticello and helped to establish the University of Virginia nearby. He died at the age of 83 on July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence and was buried at Monticello.
A close friend of Jefferson’s, James Madison grew up on a Virginia plantation, Montpelier, and served in the state Legislature. An advocate for a strong national government, Madison composed the first drafts of the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights, earning him the nickname “Father of the Constitution.”
After studying other world governments, Madison developed the system of checks and balances for the new American government, creating three equal branches of government — legislative, executive, and judicial — with no branch having greater power over the other. He co-founded the Democratic-Republican Party in 1792. Jefferson, Madison and James Monroe were the only Democratic-Republicans ever to be elected president, as the party divided into competing factions.
In 1794, the 43 year old Madison married 26-year-old Dolley Payne Todd, an outgoing Quaker widow. The two were rarely apart during their 41 years of marriage. Madison served as Jefferson’s secretary of state and oversaw the 1804 Louisiana Purchase from the French, which doubled the size of the U.S.
In 1808, Madison was elected the fourth president of the United States After being reelected, Madison was forced to flee Washington during the War of 1812, as the British burned the White House, the Capitol, and the Library of Congress.
He retired in 1817 but remained active in civic causes. In 1826, he became rector at the University of Virginia. He died June 28, 1836, from heart failure at the age of 86.
Though he is not as well-known as his Founding Father cohorts, John Jay played a pivotal role in the creation of the United States. Born in 1745 to a wealthy merchant family, Jay began his career as a lawyer in 1764 after graduating from the newly established King’s College, now Columbia University.
He became prominent in New York politics, being elected to the First Continental Congress in 1774. Initially promoting a peaceful resolution with Great Britain, Jay supported the American Revolution as war became likely. In 1782, he joined the five-member peace commission tasked with negotiating a peace treaty with Great Britain following the American-French victory at Yorktown, which ended the fighting in the American colonies. He helped secure all land east of the Mississippi River, with the exception of British territories in Canada and Spanish territory in Florida, effectively doubling the size of the new nation.
Washington appointed Jay as the first chief justice of the Supreme Court in 1789. Though he decided just four cases during his tenure, Jay was influential in establishing rules and procedures for the American judicial system. After being elected governor of New York in 1795, Jay resigned from the Supreme Court.
As governor Jay signed a bill in 1799 which outlawed slavery, though he owned slaves until 1798. He retired in 1801, staying out of politics for the most part, though in 1819 he condemned efforts to admit Missouri to the Union as a slave state, noting slavery “should not be introduced nor permitted in any of the new states.” Jay died May 17, 1829.
Many other patriots have been cited as Founding Fathers (or Mothers) including John Hancock, Gouverner Morris, Thomas Paine, Paul Revere, George Mason, Charles Carroll, Patrick Henry, John Marshall and Abigail Adams, who implored her husband John to “remember the ladies” while crafting the documents that created the new government.