Thomas Jefferson and Library of Congress

Good morning, it’s April 24. This day in U.S. history is a milestone for those who cherish the symbols of a strong federal government – and those who do not.

It was on this date in 1800 that President John Adams signed a bill authorizing moving the nation’s capital from Philadelphia to Washington. Tucked into that legislation was a modest $5,000 appropriation for a reference library in the new Capitol for “such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress - and for putting up a suitable apartment for containing them therein ...”

Out of this language, and out of the fires set by invading British troops 14 years later, would emerge the Library of Congress - but not without the intercession of a famous benefactor.

Initially, the Library of Congress was housed inside the U.S. Capitol. To stock its shelves, orders went out to London. The first volumes began arriving in 1801 when Thomas Jefferson became president. By April 1802, a catalogue of the library’s inventory listed 964 books and nine maps.

Jefferson and James Madison encouraged the library’s expansion, and by the time invading the British troops pillaged the library and torched the Capitol in August 1814, the growing collection boasted some 3,000 volumes.

On his mountaintop outside Charlottesville, Va., Jefferson grieved for their loss. He had taken pride in the Library of Congress’ growth, and he knew first-hand what it was like to lose valuable books. He’d been distraught when a 1770 fire destroyed Shadwell, his family home, along with his personal library.

Jefferson had spent the next four-and-a-half decades acquiring books, and by the time the Capitol was destroyed, he owned the largest library in America. Strapped, as always, for cash – and wanting to restore the library he and John Adams had helped create, Jefferson offered to sell his own collection to the government.

The offer was not without controversy – what, in politics, isn’t? – but in the end lawmakers did the sensible thing. For the price of $23,950, Congress doubled the previous size of the Library of Congress, receiving nearly 6,500 volumes in Jefferson’s library.

Thomas Jefferson is credited for a saying - “I cannot live without books” – that still adorns book bags and the walls of independent book-sellers. Jefferson really did make that observation, but it is a partial quote, and it came in the context of him rationalizing his feelings upon relinquishing his beloved library.

"I cannot live without books,” he wrote to Adams on June 10, 1815, “but fewer will suffice where amusement, and not use, is the only future object.”

One could say that the Sage of Monticello coined the adage “I cannot live without books” in the same sentence that he unknowingly created the intellectual antecedent for the “small is beautiful” movement.