Thomas Jefferson

Jefferson also made himself into a true renaissance man – a scholar, a philosopher, a diplomat, an aesthete, and an architect. As a young man, he was transformed by the fire of the Enlightenment into America’s most articulate voice for human liberty.

Jefferson’s last years were spent founding the University of Virginia and reestablishing his friendship, after decades of estrangement, from his onetime rival John Adams. His influence on and vision for our country reverberates to this day.