Thomas Jefferson
Videos
Thomas Jefferson was a Founding Father and the third president of the United States, serving from 1801 to 1809. He was also the second vice president under John Adams from 1797 to 1801. A prolific wri
Portrait, c. 1800
The Wren Building at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, where Jefferson studied in 1761 and 1762
Monticello, Jefferson's home near Charlottesville, Virginia
The Declaration of Independence, which Jefferson largely wrote in isolation between June 11 and 28, 1776, from a floor he was renting in a home at 700 Market Street in Center City Philadelphia, contain "the most potent and consequential words in American history," historian Joseph Ellis later wrote.
James Madison
Videos
James Madison was a Founding Father and the fourth president of the United States from 1809 to 1817. Before his presidency, Madison was a statesman and diplomat. Madison was popularly acclaimed as the
Thomas Jefferson
…Washington then appointed Jefferson the nation's first secretary of state, where he served from 1790 to 1793. In 1792, Jefferson and political ally James Madison organized the Democratic-Republican Party to oppose the Federalist Party during the formation of the nation's First Party System. Jefferson and Federalist…
Portrait, 1816
Virginia historic marker for Birthplace of President James Madison in Port Conway, Virginia
Madison as a student at Princeton, portrait by James Sharples
First page of the original handwritten copy of the U.S. Constitution