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Re:Who is your hero? by hop on Tuesday August 10, 2010 @03:22AM (#1590749)
Add to that architect, champion of liberty, states rights, and freedom of religion.

Also drafting the declaration of independence and being responsible for the Louisiana Purchase and the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

Re:Who is your hero? by philwelch on Tuesday August 10, 2010 @04:03AM (#1590819)
Yeah, but everyone knows about that stuff. (Maybe not the architecture.) He also founded the University of Virginia. But his more "hackerly" accomplishments are among the less historically noteworthy ones.

He was personally very disappointed in his presidency, despite all the accomplishments you note, plus winning the First Barbary War. He was in many ways a frustrated idealist, most dramatically in his moral disgust at slavery contrasted with his lifelong ownership of slaves.