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How Did Jefferson Contribute To The American Revolution

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Thomas Jefferson was the third President of the United States. He was born on April 13th, 1743 into one of the most prominent families of Virginia’s planters elite. Jefferson began his formal education at the age of nine, studying Latin and Greek at a local private school run by the Reverend William Douglas. In 1757, at the age of fourteen, he took up further study of the classical languages as well as literature and mathematics. Later, the Anti-Federalist was elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1768 and joined its radical bloc. In 1775, He attended the Second Continental Congress, which created the Continental Army and appointed Jefferson's fellow Virginian, George Washington, as its commander-in-chief. Furthermore, he went on to draft the Declaration of Independence, and following that served as the Vice President of the United States to John Adams (“Thomas Jefferson”). …show more content…
“The Haitian Revolution has often been described as the largest most successful slave rebellion in the Western Hemisphere” (Sutherland). It was frightening to Thomas Jefferson, despite the sudden absence of France as a regional threat, Jefferson could not bring himself to support a nation of former slaves who had successfully rebelled. North American policies towards the revolution in Saint-Domingue shifted dramatically with the election of Thomas Jefferson. Although trading continued, and France blamed the United States for supplying Louverture with guns and ammunition, there was growing U.S. hostility to the regime in Saint-Domingue. An easing of U.S. relations with the French also reduced the political value of a U.S alliance with Louverture's regime (“Haiti’s Revolution and the United States”). “Regardless of his ideals of liberty and equality, Jefferson acted out of fear and perceived necessity when he called for an embargo on Haiti that would cripple its recovery from the war for freedom”

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