Jeffersonian
Americanadjective
noun
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Industrialization posed the question, the author writes, of whether, as the historian James Truslow Adams put it, “a Jeffersonian democracy could survive in a Hamiltonian economy.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 22, 2026
Their opposition to transportation projects and other infrastructure, though supposedly grounded in Jeffersonian principle, was a roundabout way of retarding industrial development and ensuring that slavery did not become an economic anachronism.
From Salon ● Jul. 26, 2025
“You can actually be Jeffersonian and have a career: Go serve your city, go serve your state, go serve your country and then go back to private life,” Caruso said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 16, 2022
In nearby Byesville, Ohio, village administrator Brennan Dudley said that even though their council meetings are public, “we count on the Jeffersonian to provide that much information” to the community.
From Washington Post ● Aug. 28, 2022
Thomas Jefferson’s version of the story follows a plotline that illustrates the natural and almost nonchalant way that history happens in an ideal Jeffersonian world.
From "Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation" by Joseph J. Ellis
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