American Literature Essay, Research Paper

Thomas Jefferson was a man of many life issues. He struggled with problems in political life as well as well as personal life. While in presidency Jefferson struggled with the burden of keeping America out of war, and also struggled with problems using the embargo act. Earlier he was struggling with slavery, and the idea of a National Bank.

When Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, he included in his first draft that ?all men were created equal,? including slaves. This part on slavery had to be dropped because the Americans did not treat slaves as equals and he also says; ?each man has certain god given rights.? Jefferson had always struggled with this because even though he was totally against slavery and tried to abolish it in the west, he owned slaves and realized their value to the southern economy.

Also when Jefferson was Secretary of State, his collogue Alexander Hamilton proposed a National Bank. Jefferson believed in a small government not one big central government, but he also had to look out for the benefit of America. Jefferson was ?strong to the writing? meaning that he followed the constitution because there was nothing written in it about a National Bank. This idea was later approved, and is the basis of the National Bank we have today.

While Jefferson was president, the British and the French started fighting and got mad at America for not getting involved. Jefferson thought that America was not strong enough to withstand a war, so he avoided it. This made the British and the French even more mad and they started a neutral ship ban. This meant that no neutral ship, could enter French or British ports. With this Jefferson thought it was best to use an embargo, and not trade at all with them. This did not sit well with the Americans, and they opposed it. The embargo did not have time to act and failed. The people wanted war,so following Washington?s footsteps, and not wanting to fight a war, Jefferson did not run again.

Jefferson was one of the best American presidents in history in things he did. He kept us out of war, doubled the size of our country these two factors alone were great achievements for both America and Jefferson. With the exception of only a couple of mistakes, like the National Bank, his ideas were well planed out and carried through. This is why his presidency was strong.

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