American Encyclopédiste: Jefferson at Home and Abroad

Abstract

In 1809, a few days before he retired as President of the United States after eight years in the post, Thomas Jefferson wrote to the French physiocrat, Dupont de Nemours: ‘Nature intended me for the tranquil pursuits of science, by rendering them my supreme delight But the enormities of the times in which I have lived have forced me to take a part in resisting them, and to commit myself on the boisterous ocean of political passions.’ And when Jefferson came to design his own tombstone, he stipulated a plain cube surmounted by an obelisk with this inscription, ‘& not a word more’:

Here was buried

Thomas Jefferson

author of the Declaration of American Independence

of the Statute of Virginia for religious freedom

& Father of the University of Virginia

He did not record that he had also been President of the United States.¹