Vice presidency of Thomas Jefferson

The vice presidency of Thomas Jefferson lasted from 1797 to 1801, and was the second vice presidency in the history of the United States. Thomas Jefferson was the first opposition politician to be elected to the vice presidency, and was elected president himself in the 1800 election, sometimes called the Revolution of 1800 for entrenching the norm of a peaceful transition of power between opposing parties in the United States.

Jefferson was born into the Colony of Virginia's planter class, dependent on slave labor. During the American Revolution, Jefferson represented Virginia in the Second Continental Congress, which unanimously adopted the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson's advocacy for individual rights, including freedom of thought, speech, and religion, helped shape the ideological foundations of the revolution and inspired the Thirteen Colonies in their revolutionary fight for independence, which culminated in the establishment of the United States as a free and sovereign nation.

Jefferson served as the second governor of revolutionary Virginia from 1779 to 1781. In 1785, Congress appointed Jefferson U.S. minister to France, where he served from 1785 to 1789. President Washington then appointed Jefferson the nation's first United States Secretary of State, where he served from 1790 to 1793. In 1792, Jefferson and political ally James Madison organized the Democratic-Republican Party to oppose the Federalist Party during the formation of the nation's First Party System. Jefferson and Federalist John Adams became both personal friends and political rivals.

In the 1796 U.S. presidential election between the two, Jefferson came in second, which made him Adams' vice president under the electoral laws of the time. Four years later, in the 1800 presidential election, Jefferson again challenged Adams and won the presidency. Jefferson became the second vice president in a row to be elected president. Incumbent vice presidents would not be elected to the presidency again until Martin van Buren in 1836 and George H. W. Bush in 1988. President Jefferson would have a bitter and cold relationship with his vice president Aaron Burr.