The founders of our country understood that a fresh start under federal law is so essential to the fiscal health and economic vitality of our country; they included the right to file bankruptcy in Article 1, Section 8 of the United States Constitution.

Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 - July 4, 1826) was the third President of the United States (1801-1809), the principal author of the Declaration of Independence (1776), and - for his promotion of the ideals of republicanism in the United States - one of the most influential Founding Fathers. Jefferson envisioned America as the force behind a great "Empire of Liberty" that would promote republicanism and counter the imperialism of the British Empire. He was the eponym of Jeffersonian democracy and the cofounder and leader of the Democratic-Republican Party, which dominated American politics for 25 years. Jefferson served as the wartime Governor of Virginia (1779-1781), first United States Secretary of State (1789-1793), and second Vice President of the United States (1797-1801). Major events during his presidency include the Louisiana Purchase (1803) and the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804-1806), as well as escalating tensions with both Britain and France that led to war with Britain in 1812, after he left office.

Throughout his life Jefferson was intensely interested in theology, biblical study, and morality. Jefferson was the author of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom (1779, 1786). Although the concept of "separation of church and state" is attributed to him, the "wall of separation" originally conceived by Jefferson in a letter to a minority religious denomination in Connecticut was for the sole purpose of reassuring the denomination members that they need not fear government interference in their religious beliefs or practices. Without doubt, he would have found the application of the phrase as promoted by some to be a perversion of the liberties guaranteed by the first amendment. In fact, "separation of church and state" is not mentioned in the first amendment or elsewhere in the Constitution. Furthermore, neither the Constitution nor Jefferson's "separation" letter ever intimates that religious expression must be kept out of the public arena. Jefferson's outlook on religion and government is more fully revealed in another 1802 letter in which he wrote that he did not want his administration to be a "government without religion," but one that would "strengthen - religious freedom."

As a political philosopher, Jefferson was a man of the Enlightenment and knew many intellectual leaders in Britain and France. He idealized the independent yeoman farmer as exemplar of republican virtues, distrusted cities and financiers, and favored states' rights and a strictly limited federal government. Jefferson believed that each individual has "certain inalienable rights." That is, these rights exist with or without government; man cannot create, take, or give them away because they are endowed by God. It is the right of "liberty" on which Jefferson is most notable for expounding. He defines it by saying, "Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law,' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual." Hence, for Jefferson, though government cannot create a right to liberty, it can indeed violate it. The limit of an individual's rightful liberty is not what law says it is but is simply a matter of stopping short of prohibiting other individuals from having the same liberty. Jefferson believed a proper government is one that not only prohibits individuals in society from infringing on the liberty of other individuals, but also restrains itself from diminishing individual liberty.

Jefferson was an outspoken abolitionist, but he owned many slaves over his lifetime. Although these facts seem contradictory, biographers point out that Jefferson was deeply in debt and had encumbered his slaves by notes and mortgages; he could not free them until he was free of debt, which never happened. As a result, Jefferson seems to have suffered pangs and trials of conscience. His ambivalence was also reflected in his treatment of those slaves who worked most closely with him and his family at Monticello and in other locations. He invested in having them trained and schooled in high quality skills. He wrote about slavery, "We have the wolf by the ears; and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other." During his long career in public office, Jefferson tried many times to abolish or limit the advance of slavery. He sponsored and encouraged Free-State advocates like James Lemen.

A polymath, Jefferson achieved distinction as, among other things, a horticulturist, political leader, architect, archaeologist, paleontologist, inventor, and founder of the University of Virginia. When President John F. Kennedy welcomed 49 Nobel Prize winners to the White House in 1962 he said, "I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent and of human knowledge that has ever been gathered together at the White House - with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone." To date, Jefferson is the only president to serve two full terms in office without vetoing a single bill of Congress. Jefferson has been consistently ranked by scholars as one of the greatest of U.S. presidents.

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