History of the United States I / Unit 8 USH1 1088 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
Jefferson in Office
The idea
Jefferson championed participatory democracy and majority rule, and extended them exclusively to White yeoman farmers. His empire of liberty was a rural republic of land-owning White men, with America as the breadbasket of the world. In office he reversed Federalist policy, offering cheap western land, ending all internal taxes including those on whiskey and rum, championing the rights of states, and insisting on limited federal government and limited taxes.
In practice
A president who cut military and naval spending sharply on principle.
Where people slip
The phrase participatory democracy is the anchor's, and so is the word exclusively. Jefferson's expansion of political life was real and it was bounded by race, sex and property in ways he did not regard as exceptions. A course that reports the expansion without the boundary teaches the eighteen twenties as a puzzle instead of a consequence.
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