When President-elect Bill Clinton stopped off at Thomas Jefferson's beloved Monticello estate during his inaugural bus trip to Washington in January, a youngster who had won a "Dear Mr. President" essay contest asked him what governmental job he would give to the great American statesman and patriot today.
"If Thomas Jefferson were alive today, I would appoint him secretary of state, and then I would suggest to Sen. [Al] Gore that he and I resign so [Jefferson] could become president," Mr. Clinton replied.
What a fitting tribute to the nation's third president and the author of the Declaration of Independence on the 250th anniversary of his birth.
Mr. Clinton's ceremonial visit to Monticello in Charlottesville, Va., marked the official beginning of a yearlong celebration of Jefferson's life. A national coordinating committee has developed a calendar of events for this landmark birthday year that includes Jefferson-related lectures and exhibitions at locations nationwide. Planning is also under way for a Jefferson symposium to be held in the fall in cities around the world.
(The Maryland Historical Society in Baltimore plans an exhibition, tentatively scheduled for November, that will focus on Jefferson's relationship to Maryland.)
But the heart of the celebration will be in Charlottesville, a collegiate town nestled in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. This was where Jefferson made his home for most of his 83 years -- when he wasn't practicing law in Williamsburg, writing the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia, serving as minister to France or tending to presidential matters in Washington.
His official birthday last Tuesday was remembered in Charlottesville with music, speeches, dedications, readings and fireworks. There were commemorative ceremonies at his birthplace at Shadwell -- the Jefferson family farm near Monticello -- and at the University of Virginia, which Jefferson designed and founded.
There were also festivities on the West Lawn at Monticello, where an exhibition has transformed the house to more closely resemble its original appearance -- down to the color of the walls and floors.
Jefferson, born in 1743, began building Monticello in 1769. It's a neoclassical home on a 5,000-acre plantation in the middle of a wilderness where all other homes of the time were log cabins. Throughout his life, Jefferson continued to redesign and remodel the home.
