Hi, I'm Jeff Sickinga, executive director of the Ashbrook Center, and this is the American

idea, where we discuss the ideas, people, and events that have made America what it is today.

We believe that by understanding our history and our principles, we can better

live up to the promise of the American founding and preserve our ongoing experiment in self-government.

Welcome to the American Idea. Well, I want to welcome everyone to this episode of the American idea. Today we're going to

be talking about one of the most important figures, maybe in all of American history, certainly

one of the most important figures of the late 18th and early 19th century in American history,

Thomas Jefferson. We're history, Thomas Jefferson.

We're talking about Thomas Jefferson.

We know him as the author of the Declaration of Independence, but of course, he had a long and varied career and wrote and was involved in the production of many important documents.

And we're going to be talking today about some of those other documents and their role and place in Jefferson's life and Jefferson's legacy.

And I'm joined for that conversation today by Professor Todd Estes.

For those of you who don't know Todd, he's professor of history at Oakland University, not Oakland, California, but near Detroit in the state of Michigan.

He holds his PhD in history from the University of Kentucky.

Todd is a real expert on the early American Republic and its political culture.

He teaches courses at Oakland and also, of course, for our Master of Arts in American History program in early

American history, the American Revolution, all the way through the Jacksonian era.

Todd has written a number of very interesting and important articles on early American political

culture and is the author of several books.

For our listeners, just let me mention a couple founding visions, the ideas, intersections,

and individuals who created America.

And then a wonderful book on an important topic in an early American history that I don't

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