Summary: Depending on who you ask, Thomas Jefferson is either much loved, or the founding father you love to hate. Not only did he write the Declaration of Independence, but he also presided over the Louisana Purchase and pushed for the Lewis and Clark expedition. On the other hand, he sat out most of the revolution as an ambassador to France, wrung his hands over how awful slavery was while being one of Virginia’s largest slave owners, and had an affair with one of his slaves (who was also his late wife’s teenage half-sister). On the other hand, no one ever talks about how Thomas Jefferson kept a vicious sheep on the white house lawn when he was president, or that the sheep went around murdering people.
