Few presidents are as misunderstood as Thomas Jefferson.

By all rights, he should have been one of the least successful presidents of all time.

His first major elected office was as governor of Virginia, where he failed to prepare for a British invasion, saw the state overrun, and left office in disgrace.

He then served as ambassador of France, where he never emerged out of Benjamin Franklin's shadow and failed to leave any lasting impact

other than a trade deal that had to be entirely negotiated by his fellow diplomat, John Adams,

because Jefferson found himself unable to understand the intricacies of high finance involved.

He then served as Washington's Secretary of State, where his only accomplishment was to needlessly

antagonize the British. The major foreign policy accomplishment of

the Washington administration, the J Treaty, only occurred after Jefferson left office. As president,

he oversaw a self-inflicted recession and ushered the U.S. toward a needless and disastrous war with

Great Britain. In his personal life, he was so in debt that his entire estate had to be auctioned off

at his death leaving his children with no inheritance.

So this is a man who experienced enormous failure in his life.

And yet, despite all of this, he was the most successful politician of the early American

Republic.

His Democratic Republican Party dominated the American political system for decades.

For 36 of the 40 years following

800, either Jefferson or one of his protégés occupied the presidency, a Jeffersonian dynasty

unmatched in U.S. history. His political dominance was so complete that elections in the United

States were only competitive again after his party split in two shortly after Jefferson's death.

When you compare Jefferson and Hamilton, it's interesting.

Hamilton had a sterling wartime record of bravery and genius.

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