But Jefferson ideas were a tad more mingled than that, particularly toward the end of his life. Chomsky makes the following broadly important point:
... if you look at the *ideology* of the
founding fathers -- not what they actually *believed* -- but
at the doctrines that they professed, which is something
quite different, they were opposed to centers of power and
authority. In the 18th century that meant they were opposed
to the feudal system, and the absolutist state and the
church and so on.
Chomsky elsewhere gives a good example of Jefferson's "dark side":
The doctrine of seditious libel was also upheld in the American
colonies. The intolerance of dissent during the revolutionary
period is notorious. The leading American libertarian, Thomas
Jefferson, agreed that punishment was proper for "a traitor in
thought, but not in deed," and authorized internment of political
suspects. He and the other Founders agreed that "traitorous or
disrespectful words" against the authority of the national state
or any of its component states was criminal. "During the
revolution," Leonard Levy observes, "Jefferson, like Washington,
the Adamses, and Paine, believed that there could be no
toleration for serious differences of political opinion on the
issue of independence, no acceptable alternative to complete
submission to the patriot cause. Everywhere there was unlimited
liberty to praise it, none to criticize it." At the outset of the
Revolution, the Continental Congress urged the states to enact
legislation to prevent the people from being "deceived and drawn
into erroneous opinion." It was not until the Jeffersonians were
themselves subjected to repressive measures in the late 1790s
that they developed a body of more libertarian thought for
self-protection --- reversing course, however, when they gained
power themselves.
---Noam Chomsky, "Force and Opinion", *Z*, July/August
1991, p. 23-24
Another example of Jefferson's elitism:
After the American revolution, rebellious and independent farmers
had to be taught by force that the ideals expressed in the
pamphlets of 1776 were not to be taken seriously. The common
people were not to be represented by countrymen like themselves,
that know the people's sores, but by gentry, merchants, lawyers,
and others who hold or serve private power. Jefferson and Madison
believed that power should be in the hands of the "natural
aristocracy," Edmund Morgan comments, "men like themselves" who
would defend property rights against Hamilton's "paper
aristocracy" and from the poor; they "regarded slaves, paupers,
and destitute laborers as an ever-present danger to liberty as
well as property." The reigning doctrine, expressed by the
Founding Fathers, is that "the people who own the country ought
to govern it" (John Jay). The rise of corporations in the 19th
century, and the legal structures devised to grant them dominance
over private and public life, established the victory of the
Federalist opponents of popular democracy in a new and powerful
form.
---Noam Chomsky, *Deterring Democracy*, Chapter 12.
but then:
For working people, David Montgomery observes, the most important
part of the Jeffersonian legacy was the shelter it provided to
free association, diversity of beliefs and behavior, and defiance
of alleged social superiors in society. The structures of civil
society obstructed bourgeois control of American life at every
turn. Hence, the unremitting campaigns to demolish the
independent press and eliminate effective forms of community
solidarity, from trade unions to political clubs and
organizations. They have been conducted with passionate intensity
and considerable success.
---Noam Chomsky, letter to *CAQ*, 09/01/1995
Jefferson was strongly opposed to the growing banking interests and corporate dominance, and very late in his life admitted that the people themselves were though perhaps not the "wisest", were the "best" ones to determine the conduct of public policy.
Bill