It was 372 years ago when America's greatest thinker was born

If he had lived, today would have been Thomas Jefferson's 372nd birthday.

Things have gotten a little rough for TJ the last few decades as revelations of his relationship with Sally Hemings, leaving an entire branch of his family tree with names he could never acknowledge.

Jefferson was, of course, a man of his time. And while the fact he cohabited with at least one slave is unfortunate, it shouldn't detract from what he did and the ideas he passed down.

In 1999, when CNN did a series of shows on the millennium then ending, its historians called Jefferson the greatest mind of the 18th century.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident ..."

Even 239 years after they were written, they are words that stir the soul and get the blood flowing.

John F. Kennedy, who could turn a phrase himself, told a dinner of Nobel Prize winners at the White House that they were a very special group.

"I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered at the White House -- with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone."

Louisiana Purchase (in green)

Jefferson was a great president if for no other reason than the Louisiana Purchase. With one simple transaction, for just $15 million, he added 828,000 square miles to what had been little more than a coastal nation.

It cost four cents an acre.

The man accomplished amazing things, but when he wrote his own epitaph, he mentioned only three of them. Author of the Declaration of Independence and of the Virginia Statutes of Religious Freedom and founder of the University of Virginia.

Not president. Not secretary of state. Not the man who made manifest destiny possible.

He was an idea man, maybe the best our nation ever had.

Happy birthday, Tom.