Jeffersonian democracy

Cultural  

1. A movement for more democracy in American government in the first decade of the nineteenth century. The movement was led by President Thomas Jefferson. Jeffersonian democracy was less radical than the later Jacksonian democracy. For example, where Jacksonian democracy held that the common citizen was the best judge of measures, Jeffersonian democracy stressed the need for leadership by those of greatest ability, who would be chosen by the people.

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Example Sentences

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

“Some people were thinking in terms of Jeffersonian democracy, but that’s just not going to happen in Afghanistan.”

From Seattle Times • Dec. 10, 2019

Jackson’s predecessor, John Quincy Adams, knew well the strains rending Jeffersonian democracy.

From Washington Post • Apr. 24, 2017

If you want to read an uplifting story about Jeffersonian democracy in action, this post isn’t for you.

From The New Yorker • Feb. 18, 2015

The original shape was traced on the lines of Jeffersonian democracy; and it will remain in that shape until it becomes shapeless.

From What I Saw in America by Chesterton, G. K. (Gilbert Keith)