Abstract
The dawning of the nineteenth century brought with it a new American president, one whose vision both foreshadowed and encompassed many of the changes that the United States was to undergo during the next several decades. Thomas Jefferson held out the promise of majoritarianism and egalitarianism to Americans. He stated in his 1801 inaugural address that “the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail,” although “the minority possess their equal rights, which equal laws protect, and to violate would be oppression.” While Jefferson’s vision was complex and often tempered by the realities of political negotiations, it was clear that his notions of majoritarianism and egalitarianism depended upon homogeneity; only an agrarian society composed of intelligent, independent farmers, who spoke a common language, could create a nation of equals. Despite the fact that “faith in majority rule.... was constantly on his lips,” America’s third president thought he saw a tremendous threat to his democratic principles; what he saw was the rise of commerce in the new nation. Jefferson was leery of the budding manufacturing interests in the United States because he foresaw the “incompatibility of an immense proletariat and an equalitarian political democracy.” The triumph of Jefferson’s Republican Party in the national election of 1800 did not mean that “majority rule” and individualism would prevail over the drive for the elite control and centralization that the Federalists so desired.
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Notes
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Ramsey, P.J. (2010). Laying the Foundation for the Boardinghouse: The Context of Nineteenth-Century Schooling and Bilingualism. In: Bilingual Public Schooling in the United States. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230106093_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230106093_2
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