Thomas Jefferson Randolph

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Thomas Jefferson Randolph (born September 12, 1792 on Monticello near Charlottesville , Virginia , † October 8, 1875 ) was an American planter , businessman , politician , Rector of the University of Virginia and Colonel in the Confederate Army .

Origin and family

Thomas Jefferson Randolph was the second child and eldest son of Thomas Mann Randolph and Martha Jefferson Randolph , daughter of third US President Thomas Jefferson . On March 6, 1815, he married Jane Hollins Nicholas. The couple had twelve children, nine girls and three boys:

  • Margaret Smith Randolph (1816-1843)
  • Mary Randolph (1818-1821)
  • Martha Jefferson Randolph (1817-1857)
  • Carey Anne Randolph (1820-1859)
  • Ellen Wayles Randolph (1823-1896)
  • Maria Jefferson Carr Randolph (1826-1902)
  • Caroline Ramsey Randolph (1828-1902)
  • Thomas Jefferson Randolph (1829–1872)
  • Jane Randolph (1831-1868)
  • Wilson Cary Nicholas Randolph (1834-1907)
  • Meriweather Randolph (1837–1871)
  • Sarah Randolph (1839-1892 or 1895)

Live and act

youth

Randolph's years of education took place at home and when he was 15 he was sent to Philadelphia . In his studies of botany , natural history and anatomy he was supervised by his grandfather Thomas Jefferson .

Life

After his marriage, he and his wife moved from Monticello to Tufton in 1817 . His father-in-law's financial ruin and his father's mismanagement weighed heavily on him and also resulted in alienation from his father during his efforts to mitigate the damage. For a brief period, Randolph began administering Monticello for his mother and grandfather. When Thomas Jefferson died on July 4, 1826, Thomas Jefferson Randolph was appointed executor on his will . To pay his grandfather's debts, he ordered the sale of Monticello and most of the 130 slaves. He described the sale as a "sad scene".

In 1829, Randolph's Memoir, Correspondence And Miscellanies: From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson , published the first collection of the writings of his grandfather Thomas Jefferson. From 1857 to 1864 Randolph was principal at the University of Virginia , which was founded in 1819 at the instigation of Thomas Jefferson.

Like his father Thomas Mann Randolph, Randolph was a member of the Masonic Lodge "Door to Virtue Lodge No. 44".

politics

Randolph served as a member of the Virginia House of Representatives . In 1831 a slave revolt broke out in Virginia under the leadership of Nat Turner . 55 white people were killed in the uprising before a militia finally put down the uprising. Turner was captured on October 30, 1831 and executed on November 11. In response to this uprising, Randolph put forward a plan that provided for the gradual emancipation of slave children from a certain age and after completing an apprenticeship . Furthermore, Randolph advocated the state-paid deportation of free negroes to specially created colonies in Africa . His grandfather Thomas Jefferson made the same suggestion in his book " Reflections on the State of Virginia ", which appeared in 1785. However, the plan was rejected.

After the presidential election in the United States in 1844 , Randolph was one of the electors for Electoral College in his home state of Virginia in 1845 .

American Civil War

Randolph was a staunch supporter of the secession of the Southern and Confederate States of America . When the Civil War began in 1861, Randolph was 68 years old, too old to fight. Still, he was awarded the rank of colonel on a commission in the Confederate Army . He criticized abolitionism in the northern states as a slave-directed revolution that would result in slave rebellion and civil war, while he praised abolitionism in the southern states as a peaceful reform aimed at the white population of the slave states .

Businessman

Randolph was, in addition to his activity as a planter , also active in the trade and banking . He was also a shareholder in a textile factory in Charlottesville , whose president he was from 1873 to 1875.

Last years

At the age of almost 80, u. a. Randolph in 1872 the Democratic National Convention , in which Horace Greeley was nominated as the Democratic Party candidate for the presidential election in 1872 . At this convention, Randolph admitted that he "spent eighty years of his life in the Democratic Republican Party", probably an allusion to the Democratic Republican Party founded by his grandfather Thomas Jefferson , which was only founded under the seventh US President Andrew Jackson was transformed into the Democratic Party and first appeared on the political stage as such in the 1828 presidential election .

Thomas Jefferson Randolph died on October 7, 1875 as a result of a carriage accident at Edgehill at the age of 83.

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personal data
SURNAME Randolph, Thomas Jefferson
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American politician, planter, and officer
DATE OF BIRTH September 12, 1792
PLACE OF BIRTH Monticello , Virginia
DATE OF DEATH October 8, 1875