Jefferson: The American Political Tradition

Jefferson was a very complex individual with many ideas that upset the Federalist Party and everyone else associated with them. He can be seen as a revolutionist; he encouraged uprisings in the people to keep them involved in how they ran their own lives. But Jefferson was not willing to try to force upon people things they were not ready for. Regarding his idea of gradual emancipation that he never introduced, “ that the public mind would not bear the proposition… Yet the day is not distant when it must bear and adopt it, or worse will follow.” He believed the people governing themselves, not some outside force giving them orders. “Dupont loved them as infants who must be nursed, while he loved them as adults who could govern themselves.” He strongly believed that power should not be granted to a central core. He believed that power manifested itself in the minds of man would be corrupt and cause tyranny.
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