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

“That is a very Jeffersonian democracy approach on siting and permitting,” said Silverman, a former top official at the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities.

From Seattle Times

“You cannot build a Jeffersonian democracy overnight,” he said in an interview.

From New York Times

The larger lesson should have been learned in Vietnam when so many of our political leaders, foreign policy experts and military commanders let a limited mission expand into an attempt to build a Jeffersonian Democracy in a foreign land caught up in civil war.

From Seattle Times

There was also the long-held dream of such neoconservative think tanks as the Project for a New American Century of a Pax Americana, a grandiose plan to bring Jeffersonian democracy to the world at the hands of the mighty U.S. military.

From Salon

The real effort, however, became one of nation building, importing a Jeffersonian democracy at the point of a gun.

From New York Times