Deceased US Presidents
By Dr Khalid Siddiqui
Ohio
3. Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809): He was one of the four US Presidents who lost the elections the first time but won the second time. He was one of the six former US vice presidents who ran for president and won.
He had two different vice presidents during his tenure. Aaron Burr, while in office as the vice president, killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel in 1804. Duel was illegal but, because of some connections higher up, he was not charged with murder. Jefferson, for that reason, didn’t choose him as the running mate for his second term.
Like Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Jackson, Jefferson also did not have any religious affiliations. He owned more than 600 slaves – most by any US president. He could read or speak at least seven languages including Arabic. He was ambidextrous.
Jefferson was the primary author of the Declaration of Independence. In 1806, Jefferson's grandson James Madison Randolph became the first child born in the White House. He founded the University of Virginia in Charlottesville in 1819. He doubled the size of the United States by authorizing the Louisiana Purchase.
He was one of the four US presidents who remained a widower throughout his tenure. He had an affair with Sally Hemmings, a black female slave and, allegedly, fathered several children with her. The results of the DNA testing of the descendants of Jefferson and Hemmings provided support for the idea that Jefferson was the father of at least one of Sally Hemmings’ children.
He and President John Adams died on the same day - July 4, 1826. They were the first two presidents to die in the 19 th century. He had designed his own tombstone on which he cited his accomplishments but didn’t mention his service as the president of the USA for eight years. He is one of the four presidents sculptured at the Mount Rushmore Memorial in S. Dakota. His nickname was Red Fox.
4. James Madison Jr (1809-1817): He was a distant cousin of President Zachary Taylor. At 5 ft 4 in he was the shortest US president; and at 100 lbs he was also the lightest US president. He had two different vice presidents during his tenure.
Like Jefferson and Washington, Madison was a wealthy slave owner. He did not free any of his slaves, either during his lifetime or in his will. In 1787, the issue of counting the slaves to determine a state’s total population arose. This count would determine the number of seats in the House; the number of electoral votes to be allocated to each state; and how much each state would pay in taxes. An agreement called The Three-fifths Compromise was reached which restricted each state to count only three-fifth (60%) of the slave population. This gave large slave-holding Southern states more power. Free slaves and indentured labors were counted as one full person. The Fourteenth Amendment of 1868 repealed this compromise. Madison and his wife Dolly had no children together. His nickname was Little Jemmy.
The first private telegraphic message using Morse Code was sent in 1844 from Washington to Baltimore by President Madison’s widow, Dolly, from Washington to her friend Mrs Wethered in Baltimore. Dolly Madison was a very popular former First Lady. She died in 1849. Hers was the largest funeral procession ever held in Washington, DC, until that time. (By the way, JFK's funeral procession was the all-time largest.)
