“Liberty is the great parent of science and virtue,” wrote Thomas Jefferson in a 1789 letter to the President of Harvard. “A nation will be great in both always in proportion as it is free.”
Jefferson taught our nation to treasure freedom.
Some historians call him the President who most loved liberty—and it is no coincidence he was also the President with the greatest passion for books.
Jefferson’s personal library—thousands of volumes—became the basis of our modern-day Library of Congress.
Our third president was a man of both science and virtue. He was deeply learned in fields as diverse as architecture, botany, law, mathematics, and music. His legacy was the tradition of limited government and individual responsibility that guides us back to our true north when America gets off track.
Today, as we celebrate the launch of the Founder’s Museum here at the Eisenhower building, I’d like to recall the