“The care human life and happiness is the only legitimate object of good government.” In a period when the ideals of democracy were assailed as treason, Thomas Jefferson, author of The Declaration of Independence and the third President of the United States, stood undaunted as herald of the new freedoms that were stirring across the world. Called traitor and demagogue by his enemies, he became the conscience of a fledgling nation a prophet of the new age of human liberty.