Pop Culture Presidents: #3 Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson was elected in 1801 as the third U.S. president, and this marked the first time the press played a major role in persuading the public, transforming what had been a polite affair during the elections of George Washington and John Adams into a bitter partisan fight. Much like today's Republicans, Jefferson believed executive powers were excessive and promised to dismantle the federal government he would be leading.

He would be the first president in the new capital city, Washington, D.C. - a "mosquito-infested swamp with ... stumps still protruding" all down the main street, Pennsylvania Avenue.

Sex

This would probably be considered the "doozy" section when it comes to Jefferson. His wife, Martha Jefferson, had died way back in 1782, which means Thomas had been widowed for a long time before he took office. Being taller than even George Washington might have made him attractive to suiters; however, Jefferson negated some of that handsomeness by his often slouched way of sitting and his tendency to greet ambassadors in his "slippers and shirtsleeves." His wife had been described as pretty before dying from childbirth complications. The daughter they had would also die at the age of three. 

It gets, believe it or not, far rougher here. Jefferson would take up with Sally Hemings, one of his slaves, who happened to be a half-sister of Martha's. Sally was the child a Martha's father and one of his own slaves. Back to Thomas, he had six children with Sally and maintained their relationship for decades. There is some debate as to whether this was a consensual relationship. But that's ridiculous because Jefferson owned her, which qualifies him as one of the few U.S. presidents who can qualify for the title rapist. Despite his own complicated relationship with slavery, Jefferson succeeded in getting Congress to ban the importation of slaves in 1807.

Drugs

Throughout his adult life, Jefferson spent lavishly on wine and beer, and even attempted to cultivate wine grapes at Monticello. But it doesn't appear he did drugs very much, at least until very late in his life when he acquired chronic diarrhea. Although those poops may have been the cause of his ultimate demise, he used laudanum to ease the pain. He noted in his letters that the drug had become a habit, and he appears to have had more success growing opium at Monticello than he had earlier with wine grapes.

Rock n' Roll

Jefferson loved playing music and listening to it, he liked to draw, and he was also a huge Shakespeare fan, but there isn't much other evidence that he was a true rock n' roll president. Unless you consider that he had one of his slaves apprentice with a top French chef, which resulted in Jefferson being able to claim that he introduced macaroni and cheese and french fries to the U.S.

Policy

Jefferson followed through as a governmental minimalist by writing, rather than presenting in person, his legislative proposals to Congress. He rarely appeared publicly - making only two speeches (his inaugurations) over eight years - other than on his horseback rides in D.C.’s Rock Creek Park.

His main goal was to eliminate the national debt, which he calculated he could do in seven years if the federal government operated on a budget of $2 million annually over that span. He even cut the city’s 130 federal employees by nearly half, partly as a way to "drain the swamp" of holdovers from opposition parties. His dream to eliminate the rest was stymied when Napoleon, in 1803, busy focusing on the Anglo-French War, sold the Louisiana Territory to the Union for $12 million. Jefferson recognized the possibilities of nearly doubling the country’s land mass. When his advisors told him it would take a constitutional amendment to proceed with such a large land deal, Jefferson decided to skip that process and cut the deal before Napoleon could withdraw the sale offer. This also meant that Jefferson's planned debt elimination would not happen, but the big blue skies of the west were calling. He got Lewis and Clark to begin their exploration even before the deal was done, which, even under the pretense of science and as "a literary pursuit," was illegal according to international law.

In other land-use news and accomplishments, in 1806, during the 8-year Jefferson presidency, Congress authorized the building of the first public road, from Cumberland, Maryland to Wheeling, West Virginia.

His second term was marred by the ongoing Anglo-French War, which caused troubles in the Caribbean and forced Jefferson to halt trade, giving the federal government a huge role in enforcing his Embargo Act - like the Louisiana Purchase, a contradiction to his limited-government principles - and severely crippling the economy.

See the rest of this series on Pop Culture Presidents.