Thomas Jefferson, who died in 1826, looms ever larger as a figure of special significance.
Americans, of course, are familiar with Jefferson as an early statesman, author of the Declaration of Independence, and a high-ranking presidential Founding Father. But there is another Jefferson less well known. This is the Jefferson who, as the outstanding American philosopher of democracy, has an increasing appeal to the world's newly emerging peoples.
There is no other man in history who formulated the ideas of democracy with such fullness, persuasiveness, and logic. Those interested in democracy as a poetical philosophy and system—even those who do not accept his postulates or are critical of his solutions—must reckon with his thought.
What, then, is his thought, and how much of it is still relevant under modern conditions？
Of all the ideas and beliefs that make up the political philosophy known as Jefferson democracy, perhaps three are paramount. These are the idea of equality, the idea of freedom, and the idea of the people's control over government. Underlying the whole, and serving as a major premise, is confidence in man.
To Jefferson; it was virtually axiomatic that the human being was essentially good, that he was capable of constant improvement through education and reason. He believed that "no definite limit could be assigned" to man's continued progress from ignorance and superstition to enlightenment and happiness. Unless this kept in mind, Jefferson cannot be understood properly.
What did he mean by the concept of equality, which he stated as a "serf-evident" truth？ Obviously, he was not foolish enough to believe that all men are equal in size or intelligence or talents or moral development. He never said that men are equal, but only that they come into the world with "equal rights". He believed that equality was a political rather than a biological or psychological or economic conception. It was a gift that man acquired automatically by coming into the world as a member of the human community.
Intertwined with equality was the concept of freedom, also viewed by Jefferson as a "natural right." In the Declaration of Independence he stated it as "self-evident" that liberty was one of the "inherent" and "unalienable rights" with which the Creator endowed man. "Freedom", he summed up at one lime, "is the girl of Nature."
What did Jefferson mean by freedom and why was it necessary for him to claim it as an "inherent" or "natural" right？ In Jefferson thought there are two main elements in the idea of freedom. There is, first, man's liberty to organize his own political institutions and to select periodically the individuals to run them. The other freedom is personal. Foremost in the area of individual liberty, Jefferson believed, was the untrammeled fight to say, think, write, and believe whatever the citizen wishes m provided, of course, he does not directly injure his neighbors.
It is because political and personal freedom are potentially in conflict that Jefferson, in order to make both secure, felt the need to found them on "natural fight". If each liberty derives from an "inherent" fight, then neither could justly undermine the other. Experience of the past, when governments, were neither too strong for the ruled or too weak to rule them, convinced Jefferson of the desirability of establishing a delicate natural balance between political power and personal fights.
This brings us to the third basic element in the Jeffersonian idea: the people's control over government. It is paradoxical that Jefferson, Who spent most of his adult years in politics, had an ingrained distrust of government as such. For the then-existing governments of Europe, virtually all of them hereditary monarchies, he had antipathy mixed with contempt. His mistrust of strong and unchecked government was inveterate. "I am not," he said, "a friend to a very energetic
A．Equality, freedom and people's control over government,
B．Equality, confidence in man and people's control over government.
C．Equality, freedom and confidence in man.
D．Freedom confidence in man and people's control over government.
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