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Twenty-Five Greatest Champions of America: Part Six

© Brian Tubbs

In this series covering champions of America's founding principles, we have looked at some of the most remarkable men and women in our nation's history. They are:

Bob Hope(#25)
Robert E. Lee(#24)
Walt Disney(#23)
Billy Graham(#22)
Rosa Parks(#21)
Mark Twain(#20)
Dorothea Dix(#19)
John Quincy Adams(#18)
Eleanor Roosevelt(#17)
Helen Keller(#16)
William Jennings Bryan(#15)
George C. Marshall(#14)
Samuel Adams(#13)
Franklin D. Roosevelt(#12)
Ronald W. Reagan(#11)
Susan B. Anthony(#10)
John Adams(#9)
Benjamin Franklin(#8)
John Marshall(#7)
Frederick Douglass(#6)
James Madison(#5)

This article will profile the fourth and third greatest champions of the United States in all of history.

Number Four: Thomas Jefferson

Our fourth place finisher is the man who gave us the words by which we have measured each of the preceding champions of American principles. Drawing from his neighbor, George Mason, and other political philosophers, it was this man that penned the very words that express the very meaning of the United States of America:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

Thomas Jefferson emerged onto the Virginia political landscape as an impressive scholar, plantation owner, and lawyer. He became a staunch supporter of the Patriot cause clamoring for the right of self-government within the British Empire and finally for a complete break from it. As a member of the Continental Congress, he helped write the Declaration for the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms, and later, was given the critical task of penning that body's most famous and enduring work, the Declaration of Independence.

After the Revolution and a brief stint in Paris as Benjamin Franklin's replacement, Jefferson is appointed Secretary of State to President George Washington. And he soon becomes embroiled in partisan politics, where he helps create the nation's modern two-party system by erecting the Democratic-Republican Party (which evolved eventually into today's Democratic Party). It was during these days that Jefferson engages in some rather backhanded political maneuvers against his own boss, President Washington, even putting a 'journalist' on the State Department payroll solely to lash out at his political opponents, particularly the Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton.

Jefferson doesn't serve through all of Washington's two terms, but reenters the political fray in 1796 to stand for President himself (though he claims to only be reluctantly "available"). Instead of denying the presidency to John Adams, Jefferson winds up as Adams's Vice-President. Rather that cooperate with Adams, Jefferson distances himself and even, at times, speaks out against him.

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