On this episode of Our American Stories, for more than two centuries, Americans who agreed on almost nothing have found something to admire in Thomas Jefferson. Presidents, abolitionists, liberals, and conservatives have all claimed the man who wrote that “all men are created equal” while holding hundreds of people in slavery. He's a complicated figure, and that might say something about all of us.

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Joseph J. Ellis, author of American Sphinx, shares why Jefferson remains one of the most fascinating and contradictory figures in the American story, and why those contradictions make him America's first true "everyman." We'd like to thank the U.S. Library of Congress for providing this audio to the American public.

Support the show (https://www.ouramericanstories.com/donate)