Liberty, State, & Union : the Political Theory of Thomas Jefferson

Author of the Declaration of Independence, diplomat in France, leader of the opposition to the Federalists in the 1790s, president of the United States from 1801 to 1809, critical conscience of the country until his death on July 4, 1826, Thomas Jefferson is the most widely studied, fascinating and genuinely representative Founding Father of the entire age, a classical liberal “philosopher-king” that America produced in the birth throes of the Republic. Bassani surveys Jefferson’s views in the twofold articulation—the rights of man and state’s rights—that represents the core of all his political ideas. While recent scholarship on the subject tends to portray a union devotee, nonindividualistic, antiproperty rights Jefferson, with possible communitarian, if not even protosocialist undertones, this work will do Jefferson justice. After careful examination of his political theory, the readers will recognize the third president as a champion of limited government, natural rights, and antagonism of the states towards interference by federal powers.