Thomas Jefferson’s Advice for Pursuing American Happiness

You know you have lived a life of towering significance when you write your own gravestone by cataloging your three greatest achievements and being a two-term American president fails to make the cut.

There is Jefferson the man with perhaps the greatest résumé in the history of American politics: a revolutionary member of the Second Continental Congress, where he wrote the soaring prose of the Declaration of Independence; an ambassador to France where, he took over for Benjamin Franklin; a consequential governor of Virginia; the first secretary of state; the second vice president and third president.

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About the Author

Jeremy S. Adams

Jeremy S, Adams has taught high school and college political science for 26 years in Bakersfield, Calif.

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You know you have lived a life of towering significance when you write your own gravestone by cataloging your three greatest achievements and being a two-term American president fails to make the cut.

There is Jefferson the man with perhaps the greatest résumé in the history of American politics: a revolutionary member of the Second Continental Congress, where he wrote the soaring prose of the Declaration of Independence; an ambassador to France where, he took over for Benjamin Franklin; a consequential governor of Virginia; the first secretary of state; the second vice president and third president.