--- description: He contemplated walking away from the chance title: Thomas Jefferson: Founding Father Almost Didn't Run for President image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcf439e23a664d0b3/698786aa35ba6f88bfc07e3d/tj.jpeg?branch=production&width=1440&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [History](/section/history/) ## History Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close * [White House](/tag/white-house/) ## White House Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # Thomas Jefferson Almost Didn't Run for President  by [Lily Rothman](/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Apr 13, 2015 11:00 AM CUT  An 1805 portrait of Thomas Jefferson An 1805 portrait of Thomas JeffersonPrint Collector/Getty Images  by [Lily Rothman](/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Apr 13, 2015 11:00 AM CUT It’s hard to imagine a version of American history in which Thomas Jefferson, born on this day, April 13, in 1743, was never President. And yet, before he became the United States’ third President, he nearly walked away from politics entirely. As Walter Kirn explained as part of a special 2005 TIME report on Thomas Jefferson’s legacy, the vast trove of letters that Jefferson left behind reveals that he was pretty sure he was done with politics in 1781, a full two decades before his inauguration: --- > “” --- That, of course, turned out not to be true. (“Nearly everything he wrote was contradicted at some point by something he did,” Kirn notes, from that very letter to his stance on slavery.) There’s no easy answer as to why Jefferson changed his mind, but by doing so he continued his strong track record of changing history. **_Read TIME’s 2005 special issue about Thomas Jefferson, here in the archives:_** [Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Thomas Jefferson](http://content.time.com/time/magazine/0,9263,7601040705,00.html "undefined") ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3770987/thomas-jefferson-almost-wasnt-president/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3770987/thomas-jefferson-almost-wasnt-president/"},"headline":"Thomas Jefferson Almost Didn't Run for President","datePublished":"2015-04-13T11:00:57.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T05:41:49.570Z","description":"He contemplated walking away from the chance","url":"https://time.com/3770987/thomas-jefferson-almost-wasnt-president/","keywords":["White House","politics","Thomas Jefferson"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcf439e23a664d0b3/698786aa35ba6f88bfc07e3d/tj.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Lily Rothman","jobTitle":"Rothman is managing editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcf439e23a664d0b3/698786aa35ba6f88bfc07e3d/tj.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"'Thomas Jefferson', 1805. Artist: Rembrandt Peale","caption":"'Thomas Jefferson', 1805. Artist: Rembrandt Peale","creditText":"Print Collector/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/white-house/","name":"White House"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3770987/thomas-jefferson-almost-wasnt-president/","name":"Thomas Jefferson Almost Didn't Run for President"}}]}] ```