Jeffersonian democracy

Jeffersonian Era
1801–1825
The 1805 Jefferson medallion portrait by Gilbert Stuart
Location	United States
President(s)	Thomas Jefferson James Madison James Monroe
Key events	Louisiana Purchase Lewis and Clark Expedition Marbury v. Madison War of 1812
Chronology Federalist Era Era of Good Feelings

Jeffersonian democracy, named after its advocate Thomas Jefferson, was one of two dominant political outlooks and movements in the United States from the 1790s to the 1820s. The Jeffersonians were deeply committed to American republicanism, which meant opposition to what they considered to be elitism, opposition to corruption, and insistence on virtue, with a priority for the "yeoman farmer", "planters", and the "plain folk".^[4] They were antagonistic to the elitism of merchants, bankers, and manufacturers, distrusted factory work, and strongly opposed and were on the watch for supporters of the British Westminster system. They believed farmers made the best citizens and they welcomed opening up new low-cost farmland, especially the Louisiana Purchase of 1803.

The term was commonly used to refer to the Democratic-Republican Party, formally named the "Republican Party", which Jefferson founded in opposition to the Federalist Party of Alexander Hamilton. At the beginning of the Jeffersonian era, only two states, Vermont and Kentucky, established universal white male suffrage by abolishing property requirements. But by the end of the Jeffersonian period, more than half of the states had followed suit, including virtually all of the states in the Old Northwest. States then moved on to allowing white male popular votes for presidential elections, canvassing voters more modernly. Jefferson's party was then in full control of the apparatus of government – from the state legislature and city hall to the White House.

Jeffersonian democracy persisted as an element of the Democratic Party until the early 20th century, exemplified in the rise of Jacksonian democracy and the three presidential candidacies of William Jennings Bryan.