Crash Course US History #10, Thomas Jefferson & His Democracy — notes and timestamps

Updated 2026-10-11 · Video: CrashCourse, published 2013-04-11 · 13 min

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The tenth episode of John Green’s Crash Course US History is about Thomas Jefferson as president, from 1801 to 1809. Green opens with the heroic version: the most consistent of the Founders, who built a nation of free, independent farmers. Then he spends 13 minutes showing how messy the record is. Jefferson’s election in 1800 was a real step toward democracy, but his “liberty” left out most people. He wanted a small government, yet he doubled the size of the country with a purchase the Constitution did not mention and stopped all foreign trade with an embargo. Along the way the episode covers Gabriel’s Rebellion, John Marshall and the Supreme Court’s power of judicial review. These notes follow the episode’s order, mark the jokes, and add short corrections where the quick version leaves something out. Episode 9, on the first parties and the fight between Hamilton and Jefferson, is useful background.

Key takeaways

The election of 1800 was the first peaceful handover of power between rival parties. A flaw in the Electoral College produced a tie, the House picked Jefferson, and the 12th Amendment followed (0:42).
“Jefferson and Liberty” did not include everyone. Only some white men could vote, and Jefferson enslaved hundreds of people and wrote that Black people were inferior (2:22).
Enslaved people wanted liberty too. Gabriel’s Rebellion of 1800 was discovered before it began, and Virginia answered with harsher slave laws (3:42).
Jefferson’s program was a small, cheap government. Lower taxes, less debt, a smaller army and navy, and a republic of farmers, although the Barbary pirates soon showed why a navy mattered (6:01).
Marbury v. Madison (1803) gave the Supreme Court judicial review, a power not written in the Constitution, under the Federalist chief justice John Marshall (7:07).
The Louisiana Purchase broke Jefferson’s own rule of strict construction, but it gave him land for the farming republic he wanted (8:31).
The Embargo of 1807 failed on every count. It did not change British or French policy, it hurt the economy, it encouraged manufacturing, and it expanded federal power (10:16).

Chapter notes

0:00 – 0:42 The heroic version of Jefferson

Green starts with a deliberately wrong summary. In it, America becomes the richest country in the 19th century by staying a nation of small farmers who avoid factories and world trade, all thanks to Jefferson, the most consistent of the Founders. Both halves are false. The US did become a great economic power, but by industrializing, and the episode will show that Jefferson was far from consistent. The true details are thrown in as decoration: Jefferson did found the University of Virginia (in 1819, after his presidency), and he was a keen gardener at Monticello, his Virginia plantation. “Me from the past” falls for it, and Green’s verdict is that Jefferson is more complicated than that.

John Green in a green T-shirt at his desk beside a globe, with a pop-art portrait of Jefferson on the chalkboard — 0:03 — The opening, with Jefferson in pop-art colors on the chalkboard. The heroic summary Green gives here is the myth the rest of the episode tests.

0:42 – 2:02 The election of 1800

The 1800 race pitted Jefferson, leader of the Republicans (often called Democratic-Republicans), against the sitting president, John Adams, a Federalist. Green calls it the first election in which both parties ran candidates and really campaigned. A small qualification: the 1796 race had also been Adams against Jefferson, but in 1800 the parties were much better organized, with newspapers, local committees and agreed tickets. The Federalists’ tone, which Green sums up as “vote for Adams because he is better than you”, did not win.

Green at his desk in a blue polo shirt in front of the chalkboard with the pop-art Jefferson — 0:47 — Green explains that this is Jefferson's third time on the chalkboard, hence the Andy Warhol style. The real subject of the chapter is the 1800 contest.

Turquoise title card with the words "Vote for" in white type — 1:01 — The joke version of the Federalist pitch. The real point is that the Federalists looked elitist to many voters, and the Republicans used that against them.

The tie happened because of how the Constitution first worked. Each elector cast two votes for president, without marking one for vice president; the runner-up became vice president. A party’s electors were supposed to give one fewer vote to its vice-presidential candidate, but the Republican elector meant to “throw away” his second vote did not. Jefferson and his running mate, Aaron Burr, tied at 73 votes each.

Handwritten eighteenth-century ledger listing states such as New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Rhode Island with columns of vote numbers — 1:16 — The electoral vote tally, state by state. The matching columns show the problem: Republican electors gave both their votes to the same two men.

Portraits of Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr facing each other over the vote ledger — 1:21 — Jefferson (left) and Burr (right), tied. Burr, who was meant to be vice president, did not step aside, so the contest went on.

Under the Constitution the tie went to the House of Representatives, where each state delegation had one vote. It took 36 ballots, in February 1801, before Jefferson won. Alexander Hamilton helped by urging Federalists to accept Jefferson, whom he disagreed with, over Burr, whom he distrusted. Green adds that the hatred between Burr and Hamilton was real: in 1804 Burr, then vice president, killed Hamilton in a duel at Weehawken, New Jersey.

Portraits of Jefferson and Burr in front of a drawing of the House of Representatives chamber — 1:26 — The deadlock moves to the House. Because each state voted as a unit, a candidate needed a majority of state delegations, which took six days and 36 ballots.

Modern photograph of a president and his former election rival shaking hands in the Oval Office — 1:34 — A modern handshake between rivals, for Green's contrast with today's polite dislike. Politics in 1800 could be much more personal.

Engraving of two men in tailcoats facing each other with pistols at a duel by a river, with seconds watching — 1:39 — The Burr–Hamilton duel of July 1804. Hamilton died the next day; Burr's political career never recovered.

Soon after, the 12th Amendment (ratified 1804) made electors cast separate votes for president and vice president, which ended this kind of tie. Green jokes that the Electoral College is still not as simple as one person, one vote, and that without it the country would not have had Rutherford B. Hayes and his beard. That is roughly true: Hayes lost the popular vote in 1876 and won only after a special commission awarded him disputed electoral votes.

Handwritten congressional resolution on aged paper, headed Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives — 1:47 — The congressional resolution proposing the 12th Amendment. It fixed the tie problem but left the Electoral College itself in place.

Pop-art card of a bearded man in a green coat on a starred background, captioned Fig 10.1 Rutherford Hayes, with a 'Murica Moment box — 2:01 — The "'Murica Moment" card for Rutherford B. Hayes, president from 1877 to 1881. A beard joke; nothing about Hayes is needed for this episode.

2:02 – 3:11 “Jefferson and Liberty”, and who it left out

Green’s verdict on 1800 is positive. Voters showed that they wanted a more democratic politics, the Federalists never won the presidency again, and Adams handed power to his rival in an orderly way. Historians often call this the “Revolution of 1800” for that reason: power passed between opposing parties without violence. But the Republican slogan, “Jefferson and Liberty”, had limits. Many states still required voters to own property or pay taxes, so only part of the white male population could vote, and enslaved people had no liberty at all.

Cartoon of Jefferson standing beside the Statue of Liberty under a red, white and blue banner reading Jefferson and Liberty — 2:23 — The campaign slogan. The Statue of Liberty is an anachronism (it arrived in 1886); the question the episode asks is liberty for whom.

Then Green gives his own view on Jefferson and slavery. Jefferson was a racist by any standard: in his Notes on the State of Virginia he wrote that Black people were inferior to white people and to Native Americans. He also fathered children with Sally Hemings, an enslaved woman at Monticello, and Green says that relationship does not change the judgment. (Historians now generally accept that Jefferson was the father of Hemings’s children, based on DNA evidence and the historical record.)

2:41 — The "two cents" joke turns into a nickel, which carries Jefferson's portrait. It is the lead-in to a serious point about how he is remembered.

For comparison, Green brings in George Washington. Washington’s will freed the people he enslaved after his wife Martha’s death; Martha, uneasy living among people who were waiting for her to die, freed them early, in 1801. Note that this covered only Washington’s own slaves. The larger group that belonged to Martha’s first husband’s estate stayed enslaved. Jefferson, by contrast, freed only a handful of people, all members of the Hemings family. He sold enslaved people to pay for his way of life, and after his death most of the rest were sold to pay his debts.

Pop-art card of George Washington wearing shutter shades, captioned Fig 10.2 George Washington, with a 'Murica Moment box — 2:54 — Washington's "'Murica Moment" card, with novelty sunglasses. The comparison that follows is real: Washington arranged to free his slaves, and Jefferson mostly did not.

Engraved group portrait of Martha Washington seated with George Washington and a child — 3:00 — Martha and George Washington. Martha freed her husband's slaves about a year after his death in 1799, sooner than the will required.

Faded, cracked portrait of Jefferson holding handwritten papers — 3:07 — Jefferson with his papers. The writer of America's most famous words on liberty enslaved more than 600 people over his life.

3:11 – 3:42 Two hard questions about Jefferson

Green turns this into two questions for the viewer. First, if Jefferson did not see Black people as equals and was comfortable keeping them enslaved, what did he mean when he wrote in the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal”? Second, and broader: should the bad parts of a historical figure’s character reduce how we judge their achievements? Green says he has no tidy answer. His example is Richard Nixon, who signed the law creating the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970 but is remembered almost entirely for Watergate. Both questions make good essay prompts.

The engrossed Declaration of Independence headed In Congress, July 4, 1776 — 3:23 — The Declaration of Independence, mostly drafted by Jefferson in 1776, nine episodes' worth of history before his presidency.

The Declaration with the words "all men are cre" overlaid in large black script — 3:25 — The key phrase, "all men are created equal". Green's first question is what it can mean when its author held people in slavery.

Portrait photograph of Richard Nixon framed by blue flowers — 3:40 — Richard Nixon, for the second question: one scandal can outweigh a real achievement in public memory.

3:42 – 4:25 Gabriel’s Rebellion

Green stresses that enslaved people knew the ideas of liberty and wanted it for themselves. In 1800, the year of the election, an enslaved blacksmith near Richmond named Gabriel (often called Gabriel Prosser, after his enslaver) organized one of the first large slave uprisings in the US. The plan was to take the Virginia capital, kill some of its white residents and hold others hostage until slavery was ended. A storm delayed the attack and two enslaved men told the authorities, so it never began. Gabriel and 25 others were hanged. Virginia’s response was harsher laws: enslaved people could no longer gather on Sundays without white supervision, and it became harder for owners to free the people they enslaved.

Green speaking to camera at his desk in front of the pop-art Jefferson chalkboard — 3:53 — Green tells the story of Gabriel's planned uprising without images. The thing to remember: the revolt failed, and Virginia tightened slavery in response.

4:25 – 6:01 Mystery Document: George Tucker on slave revolt

The Mystery Document is a passage arguing that the love of freedom is born into every person, including the enslaved. Slavery can hold that feeling down for a time, the writer says, but knowledge brings it back, and enslaved people everywhere have revolted whenever they had the chance. Green rules out an enslaved author, since enslaved people were kept from education for exactly this reason. He guesses John Jay and is shocked.

Wide shot of the Mystery Document set with a gold armchair, a fireplace and a banner reading Mystery Document — 4:26 — The Mystery Document set. The rule: name the author or get a (fake) electric shock.

Scrolling text in large capitals on parchment, beginning The love of freedom, sir, is an inborn sentiment — 4:39 — The opening of the document. Its claim is that the wish to be free is natural and cannot be removed by law, only pushed down for a while.

The author was George Tucker, a young Virginia lawyer who later served in Congress and taught at Jefferson’s University of Virginia. He wrote the pamphlet, addressed to a member of the Virginia General Assembly, after Gabriel’s Rebellion. His point was that revolts would keep happening, so his solution was to move freed slaves out of the state to a separate colony; the episode says he proposed land in Georgia’s Indian territory. Green points out the flaw: that land was itself about to be taken from Native nations. Tucker’s argument is a useful example of a white Southerner who saw slavery as dangerous but still could not imagine Black and white Americans living together as free people.

5:37 — The reveal card for George Tucker, an author Green admits almost no one knows. Remember him for the argument, not the name.

6:01 – 7:07 Small government, and the Barbary pirates

Back to Jefferson’s plan as president: a smaller government, lower taxes, a smaller military, and an “empire of liberty” made of farms rather than an English-style industrial, trading state. At first it worked well. With his Treasury Secretary, Albert Gallatin, he repealed the internal taxes, including the unpopular whiskey tax, leaving the tariff on imports as the main source of federal money. He paid down a large part of the national debt and cut the army and navy. Green’s claim that this kept America from becoming a centralized state for 60 years points ahead to the Civil War, when the federal government grew sharply.

Portrait of Jefferson in front of Monticello with a pink box listing Reduce size of government, Lower taxes, Shrink the military, Enable agrarian utopia — 6:04 — Jefferson's program in four lines: smaller government, lower taxes, a smaller military, and a farming republic. A good summary to copy into notes.

Old colored map of the eastern seaboard of North America — 6:08 — The young republic on an old map. In 1800 most Americans still lived on farms in the east.

The same old map covered with a grid of tiny farm plots — 6:12 — Jefferson's dream drawn over the map: farm after farm, each owned by an independent family. Keep this picture in mind for the Louisiana Purchase.

Painting of a large smoking factory complex under a dark, fiery sky — 6:14 — The future Jefferson wanted to avoid: an English-style industrial landscape. He thought factory workers, dependent on wages, could not be truly free citizens.

The weak point was the navy. North African states on the Barbary Coast (Tripoli, Algiers, Tunis and Morocco) seized American merchant ships in the Mediterranean and enslaved their crews unless the US paid tribute. Here Green’s “no navy” line goes too far: Jefferson did send warships. When Tripoli demanded more money in 1801, he refused, and the First Barbary War (1801–1805) followed. The Marines’ line about “the shores of Tripoli” comes from the 1805 attack on Derna. Green’s broader point stands: events abroad kept getting in the way of Jefferson’s plan to spend little on defense.

Pop-up cartoon of a pirate wearing headphones next to Green at his desk — 6:42 — A pirate in headphones, a pun on modern "piracy". The Barbary corsairs were state-backed raiders, not freelance pirates.

Painting of American sailors fighting North African sailors in close combat on a ship's deck — 6:46 — American sailors in hand-to-hand fighting during the war with Tripoli. The war ended with a treaty in 1805, though payments to other Barbary states went on until 1815.

Green then jokes that Jefferson was the last Republican president who did not want to spend money on the military, and adds that Democrats can do it too, with a look at Lyndon Johnson. The on-screen note is the correction: Jefferson’s Democratic-Republicans are not today’s Republican Party. In fact the modern Democratic Party traces its roots to them.

Green at his desk with a pink note box beside the globe explaining that Jefferson's party is not the modern Republican Party — 7:00 — The show's own disclaimer that the party name is a joke. Do not confuse Jefferson's Republicans with the Republican Party founded in the 1850s.

Green looking sideways at a portrait of Lyndon B. Johnson on the chalkboard — 7:06 — Lyndon Johnson, a Democrat who spent heavily on the Vietnam War. A one-line aside; skip it if short on time.

7:07 – 8:31 John Marshall and judicial review

Jefferson filled most government jobs with Republicans, but he could not touch the Supreme Court, whose justices serve for life and had all been appointed by Federalists. (Green says the Court was “imminently conservative”; he means eminently.) The most important of them was the chief justice, John Marshall, a Federalist whom Adams appointed in 1801. Marshall led the Court for 34 years, until 1835, and Green calls him the most important figure in the Court’s history.

Pop-art card of a man in a black coat on a green starred background, captioned Fig 10.4 John Marshall, with a 'Murica Moment box — 7:28 — The "'Murica Moment" card for John Marshall. Unlike most of these cards, the person is central to the episode.

Portrait of John Marshall with a pink note saying he was the fourth chief justice and that the Court had heard only 10 cases before 1801 — 7:35 — The on-screen note: Marshall was the fourth chief justice, and before him the Court had heard only about ten cases, few of them important. He turned a weak branch into an equal one.

His most important decision was Marbury v. Madison (1803). In it, the Court claimed the power of judicial review: the power to decide whether a federal law fits the Constitution and to strike it down if it does not. The Court later applied this to state laws in Fletcher v. Peck (1810) and, in time, to actions of the president. Green’s key point is that judicial review is not spelled out anywhere in the Constitution. Without it, he argues, the Court would be a footnote. The background, from the on-screen note: Marbury was one of Adams’s last-minute appointees, a justice of the peace, and Jefferson’s Secretary of State, James Madison, refused to deliver his commission. Marshall ruled that Marbury had a right to the job but that the law letting the Court order it was unconstitutional. So Marbury lost, Jefferson got his way, and the Court gained a much bigger power.

Green at his desk with a pink note explaining that Marbury was appointed justice of the peace but Madison refused to deliver the commission — 7:46 — The facts of the case. Marbury did not win; what mattered was the precedent that the Court could rule on whether a law was constitutional.

Jefferson and the Republicans believed in strict construction: reading the Constitution as literally as possible, so the federal government could do only what the text clearly allows. The trouble is that a government will sometimes want to do things the framers never thought of, such as buying a huge piece of land from Napoleon.

8:31 – 10:15 Thought Bubble: the Louisiana Purchase

The Thought Bubble tells the story of the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, which roughly doubled the size of the United States. Napoleon was willing to sell for two reasons. The revolution in Haiti, where formerly enslaved people defeated a large French army, had ended his hopes of a rich empire in the Americas, and he needed money for his wars in Europe.

Thought Bubble title card reading Sec 10.0 Jefferson & 1812, with a row of cartoon historical figures — 8:32 — The Thought Bubble title card. Everything from here to 10:15 is animated.

Cartoon map of North America labeled America, 1803, with a lighter area in the middle of the continent — 8:36 — North America in 1803. The pale region is French Louisiana, stretching from the Mississippi to the Rocky Mountains.

Cartoon of armed Black revolutionaries fighting French soldiers among palm trees, with a banner reading Haitian Revolutions — 8:42 — The Haitian Revolution. The defeat of the French army sent by Napoleon, worn down by Haitian forces and yellow fever, is a big reason Louisiana was for sale. Haiti declared independence in 1804.

Jefferson had only wanted New Orleans. Western farmers shipped their crops down the Mississippi and out through the port, so whoever held it could cut off their trade. When his diplomats, Robert Livingston and James Monroe, asked about the city, France offered the whole territory. The US paid $15 million. Green says that is about $250 million in today’s money, a bargain beside a $4.5 billion aircraft carrier. Modern estimates of the figure vary a lot depending on the method, but it was cheap by any measure: roughly three cents an acre.

Cartoon map with crops growing along the Mississippi valley and a star marking New Orleans — 8:48 — Crops in the Ohio and Mississippi valleys flowing toward New Orleans. Control of that port mattered to every western farmer.

Cartoon Napoleon holding out a map while cartoon Jefferson holds a bag of money marked with a dollar sign — 8:56 — Napoleon offers the whole of Louisiana and Jefferson pays. In practice the negotiating was done by Livingston and Monroe in Paris.

Cartoon aircraft carrier on a yellow sunburst with the caption $4.5 billion — 9:06 — The aircraft-carrier comparison. It is a joke about scale, not a careful conversion of 1803 dollars.

The problem was constitutional. Nothing in the Constitution says the president can buy land to enlarge the country, and Jefferson, the strict constructionist, knew it. He considered asking for a constitutional amendment, then dropped the idea rather than risk losing the deal, and the Senate ratified the treaty. Green calls the purchase “kind of unconstitutional” and a big power grab for the president. Most historians would put it more gently: it rested on the treaty-making power, but it did go against the narrow reading Jefferson had argued for. Jefferson then sent Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to explore the new land (1804–1806), and they went beyond it, all the way to the Pacific.

Cartoon Jefferson sitting by a fireplace in a book-lined study, holding a document, with a banner reading Jefferson's Study — 9:14 — Jefferson in his study, weighing the deal against his reading of the Constitution. In the end he set his doubts aside.

Cartoon map showing the Louisiana territory in a lighter color next to the United States — 9:28 — Louisiana beside the existing United States. What the US bought was France's claim; the land itself was home to many Native nations, who were not part of the sale.

Cartoon map with a dotted trail heading west and two small explorer heads, under a banner reading Lewis & Clark Expedition, 1804–1806 — 9:34 — The Lewis and Clark Expedition. Its guides and interpreters included the Shoshone woman Sacagawea, and it reached the Pacific coast in 1805.

Cartoon Jefferson reaching up with a grabber tool toward a hanging sign that reads Power — 9:40 — Jefferson grabbing "power": the episode's image of a small-government president expanding his office.

So why did he do it? Federalists complained, in a line the animation shows on screen, about spending money the country did not have on land it already had too much of. Jefferson’s reason was his ideal of the agrarian republic. With twice as much land, every white man could own a farm. A farmer who fed and housed himself did not depend on a boss or the market, and Jefferson believed only such independent men could be good citizens of a free nation. Green adds the uncomfortable exception: many of those independent farmers, Jefferson among them, depended on enslaved labor.

Cartoon log farmhouse with a smoking chimney, a field of corn and a horse-drawn covered wagon — 9:44 — The family farm Jefferson imagined spreading across the West. A covered wagon brings new settlers.

Animated quotation in large letters: We are to give money, of which we have too little, for land, of which we already have too much — 9:52 — The Federalist objection. Many New England Federalists also feared that new western states would vote Republican and weaken their region.

Cartoon farmer in a white hat resting in a rocking chair while figures work in the cornfield behind him — 9:54 — The farmer at rest while others work his field. The image hints at the contradiction Green names: "independence" often rested on slavery.

Cartoon farm family of four standing behind a fence in a beam of light — 10:00 — The virtuous farm family, glowing. For Jefferson, owning land was what made a man independent and fit to vote.

Cartoon of enslaved workers carrying bundles through a dark field at dusk — 10:10 — Enslaved workers in the fields: the "except slaves" part of Green's sentence. Much of the land bought in 1803 later became slave territory.

Cartoon farmer standing proudly beside crates of produce and an American flag — 10:12 — The self-sufficient farmer with his surplus. In Jefferson's plan, crops like these would be traded abroad for manufactured goods, which leads straight to the embargo.

10:15 – 12:02 The Embargo of 1807

The same farming ideal helps explain Jefferson’s other big controversy, the embargo. Britain and France were at war again (or still: the fighting had only paused). Britain blockaded France and practiced impressment, stopping American ships and forcing sailors into the Royal Navy, often claiming they were British deserters. The 1807 attack by HMS Leopard on the US frigate Chesapeake made Americans furious. Jefferson’s answer was the Embargo Act of December 1807, which banned American ships from sailing to any foreign port.

Old print of men with clubs seizing and dragging away a man while women plead with them — 10:25 — A press gang at work. The British navy took thousands of sailors from American ships this way.

Faded drawing of sailing warships in battle — 10:32 — British and French warships, at war on and off since 1793. Their blockades of each other caught American merchants in the middle.

Green points out the irony: Jefferson wanted free trade among nations, and his tool was to stop all American trade. The theory was that Britain needed American raw materials, such as timber and cotton, so badly that it would give in. It also fit his ideal: America would sell farm goods and buy Europe’s manufactures, so it would never need factories of its own.

It failed on every count. Britain and France were too busy with each other to change course. The American economy suffered badly, with exports down about 80 percent, and smuggling became common, especially through New England and Canada. Without European imports, Americans began making those goods themselves, which pushed the country toward the manufacturing Jefferson hoped to avoid. (Green’s list of imports ends with microwaves, which is a joke.) And enforcing the embargo was a huge use of federal power over citizens’ lives, the opposite of small government. Congress repealed it in 1809, just as Jefferson left office. The underlying dispute with Britain did not go away, and it led to the War of 1812, the first war the US formally declared. The earlier Quasi-War with France and the Barbary War were never declared.

Pop-up cartoon of a microwave oven beside Green at his desk — 11:34 — The microwave joke. Americans in 1808 missed teapots, cloth and clocks, not microwaves, which did not exist until the 20th century.

Pop-up cartoon of a bald man in a black hat and glasses beside Green — 11:49 — A TV-drama reference for Green's joke that the embargo limited federal power about as well as meth prevents cavities. The serious point: the embargo greatly expanded federal power.

Painting of two sailing warships firing at each other, with a banner reading War of 1812 — 12:01 — The War of 1812, the subject of episode 11. Impressment and trade rights were two of its main causes.

12:02 – 12:44 The best and the worst

Green’s closing verdict is that Jefferson is both admired and condemned in almost equal measure. The Declaration of Independence, which he mainly drafted, stated heroic ideals and also built in some of the country’s deepest failures. His presidency was the same: he championed small government but expanded federal power more than Washington or Adams; he imagined a republic of farmers but his policies boosted manufacturing; he praised freedom while enslaving people and taking Native land. Green says this is why he is worth studying closely, not just praising or dismissing.

The domed Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C., seen across water through cherry blossoms — 12:05 — The Jefferson Memorial, dedicated in 1943: the "revered" side of his reputation.

John Trumbull's painting of the Declaration of Independence being presented to Congress — 12:13 — John Trumbull's painting of the Declaration being presented to Congress. Jefferson wrote the first draft, and Congress edited it, notably cutting a passage that blamed the slave trade on the king.

Skip list

0:33 – 0:42 Theme music.
1:55 – 2:02 The Rutherford B. Hayes beard joke.
5:26 – 5:44 Green’s wrong guess and the shock.
6:58 – 7:07 The Republican/LBJ military-spending joke.
11:31 – 11:37 The microwave aside.
12:44 – 13:19 Credits and the closing fake-out.

Key terms

Election of 1800 (“Revolution of 1800”) — Jefferson’s defeat of John Adams; the first transfer of the presidency between rival parties.
Electoral College — the body of electors from each state who formally choose the president; before 1804 each elector cast two votes for president.
12th Amendment (1804) — requires electors to cast separate votes for president and vice president.
Gabriel’s Rebellion (1800) — a planned slave uprising near Richmond, Virginia, discovered before it began; Gabriel and 25 others were executed.
First Barbary War (1801–1805) — US naval war with Tripoli over attacks on American shipping and demands for tribute.
Judicial review — the power of courts to strike down laws or government actions that conflict with the Constitution.
Marbury v. Madison (1803) — the case in which John Marshall’s Supreme Court first struck down part of a federal law, establishing judicial review.
Fletcher v. Peck (1810) — the case in which the Court first struck down a state law.
Strict construction — reading the Constitution narrowly, so that the federal government has only the powers it clearly lists.
Louisiana Purchase (1803) — the US purchase of France’s claim to the territory between the Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains for $15 million.
Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804–1806) — the Corps of Discovery sent to explore the Louisiana territory; it reached the Pacific.
Agrarian republic / “empire of liberty” — Jefferson’s ideal of a nation of independent landowning farmers.
Impressment — the British navy’s practice of forcing sailors, including Americans, into service.
Embargo Act (1807) — the law banning American ships from foreign trade, repealed in 1809.

Review questions

What went wrong in the Electoral College in 1800, and how did the 12th Amendment fix it?
Why does Green count the election of 1800 as a step toward democracy, and what limits did “Jefferson and Liberty” have?
What two questions does Green raise about Jefferson, slavery and the Declaration of Independence?
What did Gabriel’s Rebellion show about enslaved people’s views of liberty, and how did Virginia respond?
What did George Tucker argue about slave revolts, and what was the flaw in his proposed solution?
Which parts of his small-government program did Jefferson carry out, and how did the Barbary pirates complicate it?
How did Marbury v. Madison give the Supreme Court the power of judicial review, and why does Green call it so important?
Why was the Louisiana Purchase hard to square with strict construction, and why did Jefferson go ahead anyway?
What was the Embargo of 1807 meant to achieve, and in what ways did it backfire?
In what three ways, according to Green, did Jefferson’s presidency contradict his own ideals?

FAQ

Why did the election of 1800 end in a tie between Jefferson and Burr?

Under the original Constitution, each elector cast two votes for president and did not say which one was meant for vice president. The plan was for one Republican elector to leave Aaron Burr off his ballot so that Jefferson would finish first, but nobody did, and the two men tied at 73 votes each. The House of Representatives, voting by state delegation, needed 36 ballots in February 1801 to choose Jefferson. The 12th Amendment, ratified in 1804, fixed the problem by having electors vote separately for president and vice president.

What did Marbury v. Madison decide?

William Marbury had been named a justice of the peace in John Adams's last days in office, but Jefferson's Secretary of State, James Madison, never delivered his commission. In 1803 Chief Justice John Marshall ruled that Marbury deserved the job but that the Court could not order it, because the part of the Judiciary Act of 1789 that gave the Court that power went against the Constitution. Marbury lost, but the Court gained the power of judicial review: the power to strike down a federal law as unconstitutional.

Why was the Louisiana Purchase a problem for Jefferson?

Jefferson was a strict constructionist: he believed the federal government could do only what the Constitution clearly allowed, and the Constitution says nothing about buying land from a foreign country. He even thought about asking for a constitutional amendment, then gave up the idea so as not to lose Napoleon's offer. The Senate ratified the treaty in 1803. Buying about 828,000 square miles for $15 million was popular, but it was a large use of federal and presidential power by a man who had argued against exactly that.

What was the Embargo Act of 1807, and why did it fail?

It banned American ships from sailing to foreign ports. Jefferson hoped that cutting off American food, timber and cotton would force Britain to stop impressing American sailors and to lift its blockade of France. Britain and France, busy fighting each other, did not change course. American exports fell by about 80 percent, smuggling spread, and shortages of imported goods pushed Americans to start making those goods themselves. Congress repealed the embargo in 1809, and the dispute with Britain helped lead to the War of 1812.

Did Jefferson's presidency match his small-government ideas?

Only partly, which is the episode's main point. He cut internal taxes, paid down the national debt and shrank the army and navy. But the Louisiana Purchase and the embargo were two of the biggest uses of federal power up to that time, and the embargo pushed the country toward manufacturing, the opposite of his ideal of a republic of farmers. He also spoke for liberty while enslaving more than 600 people over his lifetime.

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