Jeffersonian democracy was one of two dominant political outlooks in the United States from the 1790s to the 1820s. The Jeffersonians were named for Thomas Jefferson, the Virginian founding father who had authored the US Declaration of Independence in 1776, and they were strong supporters of American republicanism. They were antagonistic to the aristocratic elitism of merchants, bankers, and manufacturers, as well as to corruption and to a strong central government; Jeffersonians championed the yeoman farmer, planters, and the plain folk. The Jeffersonians supported universal white male suffrage, abolishing property requirements in more than half of the United States by the 1820s. Jeffersonians also opposed any form of centralization, as they supported a weak federal government and strong state governments; they believed that power should rest in the hands of voters at a local level. Finally, they supported the propagation of republican ideals overseas, supporting the French Revolution and the French Republic. During the Era of Good Feelings in the 1810s, the Jeffersonians became the most powerful party in the country, controlling most offices from city halls to the presidency for over ten years. Jeffersonianism was weakened due to compromises made with the Federalists, as they ultimately supported a national bank and centralization. However, it persisted as an element of the Democratic Party into the early 20th century in the form of Jacksonian democracy and in William Jennings Bryan's populist candidacy, and then in the Republican (in its support for agrarianism and states' rights) and Libertarian parties into the 21st century.
Views[]
For[]
- Agrarianism - championing the yeoman farmer, planters, and the plain folk against the elite
- Populism - supporting the common American and his right to participate in the American democracy
- States' rights - supporting a weak federal government and strong state governments
- Strict constitutionalism - believing in strict adherence to the US Constitution
- Tariffs on imported articles - protecting America's economy from foreign competition
- Overseas interventions - supporting the French Republic against Great Britain during the French Revolutionary Wars
- Manifest Destiny - supporting the acquisition of new lands for the growing United States, by means of both purchasing land from Native Americans and Europeans (Louisiana Purchase and Adams-Onis Treaty) and through war (War of 1812, wars with Indians)
- Economic decentralization - opposing the creation of a national bank which would assume states' debts, and supporting separate economies for each state
Against[]
- Industrialization - seeing industrialization as a factor in the spread of corruption and the destruction of American values
- Elitism - opposing the mercantile, banking, and manufacturing elites and the concentration of power in the hands of the few
- Centralization - opposing a strong central government due to the threat which it posed to democracy and to states' rights
- Loose constitutionalism - opposing the federal government's altering of the Constitution to give itself more power
- International trade - opposing reliance on foreign goods and currency, as well as foreign competition
- Isolationism - opposing the Jay Treaty and friendship with Great Britain
- Slavery - Although opposing immediate abolition on practical grounds, most Jeffersonians supported containing and a gradual end to slavery through means like the end of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade
- Anti-expansionism - Jeffersonians supported the expansion of the United States through Manifest Destiny, and did not believe that the United States could thrive with just thirteen states
- National bank - Jeffersonians saw a national bank (run by the banking elite) as being too powerful for the nation's own good, although this stance changed during the Era of Good Feelings