Thomas Jefferson's Achievements as The President of The United States

Although Thomas Jefferson was widely known for wanting to create a small government that was not involved in the economy and did not trade with other countries, some of the things that he did during his presidency went against those beliefs. Thomas Jefferson is known for quoting that all men were created equal, but he was also a supporter of slave ownership. During his presidency, everybody who wasn’t a white, male, landowner had extremely limited rights. In 1803, Jefferson purchased a large amount of land and doubled the size of America. Jefferson was known for being a strict constructionist, but it was never explicitly said in the constitution that government was granted the right to buy land leading to many questions of whether or not what he did was considered constitutional. Thomas Jefferson also enforced the embargo act during his presidency which closed off ports to be able to let british goods into the country. The embargo act is contradicting to his beliefs of having the government staying completely out of the economy.

Even though Thomas Jefferson did not fully stick to his original ideas about how to run government, he still limited it in some ways. One very important thing that Jefferson accomplished was allowing the alien and sedition act to expire. The act prevented citizens from being able to speak critically or negatively against the country which infringed the 1st amendment that guaranteed the right to free speech. In order to maintain a laissez faire economy, Thomas Jefferson made sure that all of the country’s debt was paid off in order to ensure independence. He also cut internal taxes, including the whiskey tax which was widely despised by the american people. As a result of cutting these taxes, it allowed the economy to run itself without assistance from the government like he envisioned.

I think that the most important thing that Thomas Jefferson accomplished during his time as president was allowing people to be able to speak out freely against the government without punishment. That is a very important right that many people take for granted today, but without it our lives would be extremely different. He also made a very wise business choice with the Louisiana Purchase, even though it may have went against his belief of the government not being able to use implied powers. The quote “all men are created equal” is seen as a very important quote even today, but I don’t think that Jefferson truly believed that everybody was truly seen as equal since he still deprived slaves and women of many rights.