Jefferson is fascinating and frustrating. The guy was undoubtedly brilliant, a voracious reader, and interested in a host of subjects. He invented writing deskd, leaning chairs, and measuring devices. He wrote beautifully. He espoused great ideals about liberty and government.
On the other hand, he didn’t treat his slaves like people, evidently had that affair with Hemings, didn’t free his slaves (who mostly had to be sold at his death to pay his debts). He msade a mess of his term as governor of Virginia during the Revolution. He worked to undermine Adams during his presidency. During his own presidency he did things that seem outrageously against the highfalutin’ democratic principles he espoused. His passage of the Mbargo Act created an incredible mess, hurt the country economically, and turned the Northeast against him.
Half the time I want to admire him and half the time I want to kick him. a genuine intellectual who gave us the Declaration of Independence, the University of Virginia, decimal currency, the Louisiana Purchase, and a raft of other things, but who (as notred above) was sometimes unable to put into practice his ideas and could act in ways totally opposed to his philosophy.