“Author of the Declaration of American Independence[,] of the
Statute of Virginia for religious freedom & Father of the
University of Virginia”: when Thomas Jefferson composed the epitaph
for his tombstone, these were the three achievements which he
listed, as he put it, “as testimonials that I have lived”
(Jefferson, Writings 706). Instead of enumerating, for
instance, his various political offices – secretary of state, vice
president, and president of the United States among them –
Jefferson chose to present himself to posterity as a man of the
Enlightenment committed to the ideas of political and religious
liberty, member of a generation who had given, as he claimed in his
last political statement, “the …

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2354Thomas Jefferson1Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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