RateItAll: The Opinion Network

He helped build our country and make it into the nation it is today. Too bad he was racist, though.

One of the best leaders our country's ever had. Huge advocate for separation of church and state.

yes, he initiated the Declaration of Independance...however, I know that most of the men that signed that had ulterior motives...nuff said

A visionary.

Excellent choices in "man of few words" department at a time when articulating American values was a work in progress. Loses one point for owning slaves, and one more for admiring the French a little too much.

The original Republican, small government. The original revolutionary (he REALLY felt revolution...just look up any of his quotes.) "Dissent is the greatest form of patriotism..."
Kinda screwed the French out of Louisiana though...

Jefferson was the first to ignore the rules of his position, thus providing a precedent claimed and utilized by some of the worst officials to fill the office of President.

I agree with Mysteryman that without Jefferson there may not have been a United States. Let me up that one, without a Constitution based on The Ten Commandments and God fearing, there would not be a U.S. The great Forefathers understood that it cannot be left up to man to decide what is right and wrong. The only thing that divides a Democracy and Communism is GOD. "The GOD who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time." ~~~Thomas Jefferson

THOMAS JEFFERSON POONS ASS.

If we rate him simply as a president, rather than as a man with many other accomplishments to his name, Jefferson must be regarded as a mixed success. His administration was unprincipled, and he tended as president to violate the precepts he'd established earlier in his writing. As a congressional representative he counted the ballots that ensured his own election. As President he purchased Louisiana on the sly, without consulting congress. His Embargo was a thorough disaster. Jefferson was a fascinating and fallible human being, and one of those fascinations is the fact that, for me, he was a great writer but only a somewhat above-average president.

A great President! Very astute, well-read, and practical. His famous quotes mean more today than they ever did!

one of the best

this man was the author of the declaration of independence. he was the third president of the united states. he was an OVER-achiever in any sane-thinking persons' books.

Over-rated underachiever. He managed almost to destroy USA economy with his bone-headed embargo and foreign relations.

He was a coward during the Revolutionary War. He was Governor of Virginia and totally dropped the ball. He fled when the going got tough and the Fathers of Virginia had to replace him!

Louisiana purchase moves him up to two stars.

He cribbed the Declaration of Independence and was heavily edited, in any case.

If you dispute my analysis, why, look it up for yourself. The Iron Verdict of History is there for everyone to peruse!

A great president. One of the countries founding fathers. Wrote parts of the United States Constitution. Recieved the best bargain in American History when the French sold the Louisiana Purchase for $15 Million. However, he was a hypocrit in the sense that he spoke out against slavery even though he had slaves himself.

I believe that Jefferson would have ended slavery had that been a viable option at the time. He warned repeatedly that future generations would bleed because of the institution. He made some bad decisions regarding trade and economic policy, but overall a great President. On a side note- I find him perhaps the most interesting of all the Presidents. He was such a genius that I believe he sort of lived in his own world, operating on a different plane. Probably the only "Mozart" to ever serve as Pres.

A great man who presided over a good although uncongenial presidency, Jefferson didn't think enough of his time in office to have it listed on his tombstone. It was eight years of peace and rapid expansion for the U.S. under Jefferson's Administration.

The most well-rounded President in history with talents in not just leadership, but writing and architecture as well.

The writer of the Declaration of Independence (One of the greatest written documents of all time) Was a man of superlative intelligence- and along with Madison are the two pillars of the 'checks and balances' that are the framework of our form of Government. Of all the Presidents ,Jefferson was truly a renaissance man of the ages.

This president loved the "sistas." Different strokes for different folks dudes.

Major author of the declaration, and key member of the constitutional convention.

The best of them all. I think he did the most for our country and was also the brightest. I would have loved to know him. Did you ever see the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C. - it says it all!

The most fascinating figure, and probably the most brilliant, eloquent, intelligent, and well-read man, ever to be president. His integrity can hardly be questioned, yet his contradictions make him a fascinating character study. And his commitment to the ideals of liberty and the building of a new nation leave him with few peers among the towering pantheon of Founding Fathers. His commitment to religious freedom and his unwavering desire to protect religion from government encroachment and, likewise, the government from religious encroachment, are unparalleled in American history. The "Wall of Separation" was a concept that came from his own hand. He was also, however, a philosopher and an idealist -- qualities not always suited to effective leadership, for it sometimes meant his head was in the clouds and his ideals couldn't find traction in the down-and-dirty world of politics. And when he became president, he indeed found that many of his high-minded principles didn't translate to the real world. His embargo may have been rooted in strong principle, but it was economically crippling. He believed in small government and decried extra-Constitutional actions by the federal government, yet he oversaw the purchase of a huge tract of land (the Louisiana purchase, naturally) that the Constitution gave him no authority to do. But perhaps his most enduring contribution to America is one that's not celebrated so much, probably because we take it for granted today: His ascendancy to the presidency ensured that democracy would prevail. Under the Federalists, American government was drifting toward a "Father Knows Best" type of pseudo-monarchical aristocracy, in which the common people were expected to defer their important political decisions (and opinions) to the government and essentially be happy with what rights were granted to them. Jefferson reversed that trend -- and Federalists like Adams and Hamilton were downright panicked about it -- by championing political involvement and activism from all Americans, in the democratic style that we all cherish today. For that achievement alone, he should be remembered as one of the giants of the presidency. It would take many more years for the democratic process to be opened up to all Americans, but Jefferson got the ball rolling, against considerable odds.

I used to like Jefferson a lot. IN the last year, I have read Bio's on Washington, Franklin, Adams, and Hammilton. I now see him as a guy who wrote the declaration(franklin eddited it) then disapeared during the Rev. He did not fight, in fact often fled in terror, then attacked Hamiliton (a war hero) on his war record. He acts nice in public and goes around stabbing in the back anyone who disagreed with him politically. the only good thing he did as a Pres was the louisanna purchase otherwise some bad choices. and to user Chagoth who said that Jefferson left Adams midnight packing of the courts alone.... umm justice S Chase was impeached but was not voted out, had he been Jefferson would have gone after Marshall. Thankfully he failed. He was a petty man who should have been better.

While Lincoln wrote and spoke like an idealist Jefferson was a realist.

Thomas Jefferson warned, When the government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. Considering the times we live in today, Jefferson proved to be quite the visionary. Questioning ones government does not equate to treason.

With the Louisiana Purchase, he doubled the size of the United States. Jefferson believed in small government and believed that people should govern themselves. He also banned the slave trade as president and had the vision to fund the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Jefferson also knew how to handle the judiciary. Right before Adams left office, Adams packed the courts with partisan federalist judges. When Jefferson assumed the presidency, he didn't try to remove the judges or have them impeached, Jefferson simply wouldn't pay them thereby eliminating half of Adams horrible appointees. Brilliant!

Thomas Jefferson was worthless slave owning trash and I wish he never would've been Presedent!!!

Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law. -Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814 Just one of many quotes of Jefferson indicating that the ten commandments had nothing to do with the constitution. You have to be both brain damaged and ignorant to believe Jefferson was a Xian, he was, at best, a diest, who flatly rejected all attempts to impose Xianity into govt. I encourage people to do their own research on this.

the best. pure and simple

probably the most intelligent man ever to occupy the white house; and basically tripled the United States in size overnight with the Louisiana purchase; he also made sure he kept us out of the Napoleonic Wars in Europe

Thomas Jefferson was a brilliant man. He spoke several languages, was a very prolific writer and inventor. From this we know he was always thinking, always looking at new ideas. I believe he probably fathered children by at least one of his slaves. While I don't approve of slavery from what I've gathered it was much more complicated freeing slaves than we know. I don't know what the relationship was between these two. I do believe he probably treated his slave as well as you can treat someone you own. Though the only black mark I can give Jefferson is that he was a slaveowner. If I could I'd give a 4.5 for that.

He was an intelligent man who graced his place in history, by contributing every cell of his brain to God and his Country.

Our great national creep, famous for doing the opposite of what he said, Jefferson did greatly expand the size of the country _ bad luck, Native Americans _ as well as the power of the presidency.

The greatest president ever.

Let me go in between. There is no way in hell Jefferson should be #2. He was not a great president under any circumstances, he was average. I know this has become semi-redundant, but he was much better outside of the presidency than inside it. Should he be rated bad (2), no way. He was OK.

Sage of Monicello.

i hear he was all about the sexual chocolate

Thomas Jefferson was a paradoxical man. As secretary of state he favored paying tribute to the Barbary States to end their attacks on U.S. shipping. But as president, he stopped the bribery and launched a four-year war that led to the vanquishing of those countries. He was a Federalist because he feared a strong central government would abolish slavery and he, of course, was a slave holder. He engineered one of the great real-estate deals of all time when he negotiated the Louisiana Purchase for a paltry $15 million. Despite his slave holdings, he insisted that Montana and other western areas of the Purchase be slave free. Yet he resolutely resisted extending those guarantees to the East since he, after all, lived in the East. He made significant contributions to government and politics. He helped found the University of Virginia, and was an inveterate botanist and a creative inventor. He was also a dirty political infighter who squabbled so ferociously with Alexander Hamilton, the first treasury secretary, that Washington told both of them to cool it (they didn't). By the end of his second term, Jefferson had become a weakened, unpopular president.

Horray for Tommy J!

The first democrat. He deserves major props for that

Jefferson: one of the best and brightest U.S. Presidents. A giant mentally and historically. Yes, he owned slaves, and he rightfully gets dinged for that. However, he had enough good qualities and massive brainpower to make some amends. One of the greatest minds in our country's history, along with Benjamin Franklin.

Loses points for cofounding the two party system. I could see why people rated him low, he only doubled the size of the United States!

A bad president. That's why he didn't even want President written on his headstone.

Possibly our smartest President. Looses a point for sleeping with his slave, but at least it seems to have been consensual ;) Anyway, he was such a humble man, that he didn't even list President of the United States as one of his accomplishments on his epitaph. But I don't really know where people get the idea that he was some fundamentalist Christian. Run a Google search on founding father+religion and you'll find mounds of evidence showing that the guy was anything but. Several letters exist which show that he often distrusted religion, and leaned more toward Deism (as did Washington and most of the Founders, it seems).

Great thinker, not a great president. I give him higher points for his work during the struggle for independence.

A better founding father than a president, but who cares - his contributions to the nation before becoming president are huge.

Without Jefferson, there would be no United States of America. It is ironic that another great American president of our time also bore the name of Jefferson in a testament to a concept known as 'thinking.' Not only was he a Great Prez, he had the ability to be a 'Master of Many Trades.'

Made clear the importance of the separation of church and state. I wish Americans today could understand that. Faith is just that, a belief without solid evidence. We need leadership that can evaluate the information available to them without letting their faith lead them down a path that is only understood by those who share the faith. We speak poorly about Muslim people who follow their faith and their religious leaders blindly, hopefully we don't find ourselves behaving similarly.

probably the smartest man ever to sit the whitehouse.

Who cares if he did Sally Hemmings? Besides, it was only sex. That doesn't matter. Anyway, he never admitted to it, and she didn't leave a blue dress anywhere.

Thomas Jefferson was quite possibly one of the greatest thinkers to occupy the White House. He was a critical figure in the American Revolution; a strong advocate of Lockean ideas that fueled our separation from Britain. At the core of his philosophy was the belief that the government which governs closest to the people is the one that is most accountable and transparent. As President, Jefferson cut back on government expenditures and weakened the power of the judiciary. He believed that the federal government should remain concerned with trade and foreign affairs primarily. He believed in a federalist system of government, the states and localities administer their affairs in accordance with the desires of the locals. He added an extensive chunk of territory to the United States through the Louisiana Purchase. This move helped remove the influence of Napoleonic France from the Americas. He took a genuine interest in exploring the West, even going as far as organizing the Lewis and Clark Expeditions that explored the interior of the Continent all the way to the Pacific. Jefferson is one my favorite Presidents, but he gets a star off for his weak response to attacks on our neutral ships by Britain and France, who were at war during the early 1800's. He reacted by using diplomacy and an embargo and non-importation act. Jefferson wanted to prove the value of neutral trade to the British and the French. It really ended up hurting us, products were left rotting on docks up and down the Eastern seaboard. Merchants attempted to dodge the embargo by trading with both France and Britain. New Englanders truly resented this, being that trade was their livelihood. Most saw this as a Virginian trying to destroy their lives. The lesson that we constantly fail to learn is that unilateral embargoes never work. When a cartel, or a group of countries, embargo against another country, like what happened with South Africa a few years ago, you usually get the concessions you want. But on the balance, Jefferson was a good President. I would argue however that his Presidency wasn't the greatest contribution to this country he made.

The most innovative thinker of the early days of our country. If only our country would listen to Thomas Jefferson's interperetation of the Constitution, we wouldn't have all the social spending we have today. A true believer in independence.

Jefferson was a true believer in modern democracy, but the failed and costly Embargo and the fact that he was a slaveowner tarnish his presidency and himself.

Despite being so instrumental in declaring America's independence to the world, Jefferson, as President, had a mixed record. On the positive side, Jefferson took advantage of an oppurtunity to double the size of our nation by purchasing the Louisiana Territory from France, thus creating the dream of Manifest Destiny (the idea that someday the United States would stretch from sea to shining sea). Considering the amount of land we got at such a low price, Jefferson was wise to make the deal. Despite this purchase, the national debt under Jefferson decreased from $80M to $55M, no doubt due to Jefferson's advocacy of a limited government. Furthermore, Jefferson was wise in calling for the repeal of the Alien and Sedition Acts, which were no longer needed to protect U.S. national security. Jefferson also reduced the size of the federal bureaucracy, and his belief in a limited government should serve as an example for today. However, despite doubling the size of our nation and reducing the national debt, Jefferson had substantial faults as President. In response to continued British impressment and harassment of American ships, tensions arose. Jefferson, rather than advocating the use of force, attempted to impose economic sanctions on England, and believed that this would force England to stop harassing American ships. The Embargo Act, which banned trade with all of Europe, devastated the economy, and in the end, hurt us more than it hurt them. The Non-Intercourse Act of 1808 banned trade with only England and France. The harassment of American ships at sea continued and the crisis was left to Jefferson's successor to deal with. In the final analysis, while Jefferson was very instrumental in American independence, he did not fulfill his abilities as President of the United States.

CONFIRMED hypocritical slave raping bigot.Better identified by his foreskin than as a forefather. Known for this great quote in the Declaration of Independence...We hold these truths to be self evident...that all men are created equal (but first I'll enslave them, beat them, lynch them, and rape their wives and children because I can). That is how the phrase goes...right, Tom?

Yes, he owned slaves. Yes, he impregnated Sally Hemmings. Yes, he was a flawed man. But what a mind. To quote the Ken Burns film, Jefferson is the "American Sphinx" His character and intellect cast a gigantic shadow over every other president. You can quibble about his philosophies, but there was no greater pure intellect who held the office of the president.

TJ was truly the first GOOD president. He was good at everything he did, actually; definitely the American counterpart to da Vinci. Helped launch the expansion of this country, and relatively peacably, too.

He was a smart man and did a very good job as president...but when he had children with that slave and denied they were his children...thats pretty bad...he loses a star for that

He was smart, a great leader and true polition of the peopel.

Jefferson was effectively the father of the Declaration of Independance. Had his clause regarding the introduction of slavery to the colonies by Great Britian not been voted out of the Declaratiion, we might have had fewer problems later.

Jefferson was a great philospher and a progressive thinker. Too bad he forgot his republican ideals once he arrived at the White House. He did a slightly above-average job as president, though (except for that whole embargo thing). I bet Madison wasn't too happy with the mess he left for him, either. He was a good diplomat in international relations after his presidency, but his service as chief executive was largely mediocre.

I take one for the team to prevent the nation being split apart, and historians write me as the villain. At least Vidal got it right.

Jefferson was one of the best Presidents this country has ever known. #4 on the list...#4!? He should be at #1 without competition! Jefferson fought for everyone to have free speech (not just the government and those who agreed with the government, as some of us today would have), free religion (not just warring Catholics and Protestants) and freedome of the press (not just the conservative media). Conservatives make it sound as though all the Founding Fathers thought alike and acted alike. WRONG! Jefferson even wrote his own interpretation of the Bible, fought for the searation of church and state while (Pa)Tricky Henry fought against it. He opposed slavery and treated what slaves he had like human beings. I don't care what he did with Sally Hemings. He was a great American legacy. Take care, everyone!

He was a genius. The most intelligent president we've ever had. Overall, he was a good president. He doubled the size of our country with the Louisiana Purchase.

The man who saved civilization (so far...)

Hello - TJ is the #1 politician ever - the father of modern democracy and author of most Constitutions still in use today. "All men are created equal" - he was the first to have the balls to put it in writing.