Analyze and explain the evidence discussing the inconsistencies between Jefferson in theory and Jefferson in practice (how he actually lived his...

One obvious inconsistency is that Jefferson, while advocating freedom and liberty in his public life, was a lifelong slave owner. He owned more than one working plantation (Monticello being the most famous) and was surrounded by, almost certainly fathered children with enslaved people. While Jefferson prided himself on what he deemed his humane treatment of slaves, he sold several for disciplinary reasons, separating them from their families, and he, like most wealthy Virginians, owed his...

One obvious inconsistency is that Jefferson, while advocating freedom and liberty in his public life, was a lifelong slave owner. He owned more than one working plantation (Monticello being the most famous) and was surrounded by, almost certainly fathered children with enslaved people. While Jefferson prided himself on what he deemed his humane treatment of slaves, he sold several for disciplinary reasons, separating them from their families, and he, like most wealthy Virginians, owed his lifestyle to their labor. For much of his life, Jefferson was a gradual emancipationist, that is, he hoped that a means could be found by which Virginians could gradually grant freedom to slaves, who would then be sent to a colony in Africa. In matters of race, Jefferson was very much a man of his time--he often described African-Americans as inferior (most famously in his Notes on the State of Virginia) and he believed that emancipation without removing free blacks from Virginia would be a disaster. 

Another way that Jefferson's words were inconsistent with his actions emerges during his presidency. While Jefferson was a strict constructionist, believing that the government should not exceed the powers specifically granted to it in the Constitution, he did not strictly follow this philosophy while President. He undertook the Louisiana Purchase, a power not granted to the President in the Constitution and he secured the passage of an embargo, a massive expansion of federal power.

Jefferson (like almost all of his contemporaries) also professed an aversion to political factions and the ugliness of partisan politics. Yet for much of his political career, he probably did more than any other public figure to promote the development of political parties. He employed or encouraged journalists like James Callender and Philip Freneau to use their skills to attack his political rivals, especially Alexander Hamilton. He encouraged James Madison to use his influence in the House of Representatives to defeat Hamilton's program. He left Washington for Monticello while Vice President under John Adams, but continued a vigorous letter-writing campaign to build a political coalition. 

None of this is to suggest that Jefferson was not an important and inspirational voice for liberty. But in many ways, he was a man of his own time.