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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs
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To: RMF who wrote (17636)2/12/2007 5:06:52 PM
From: TimF  Read Replies (2) of 71588
 
Jefferson may have been a liberal by the meaning of the term at the time, but he was hardly a liberal in the modern sense of the term. He wasn't a fan of big intrusive government, particularly of an overly intrusive federal government. He and Madison wrote the "Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions"

en.wikipedia.org

Support of states rights, limited government... Hardly a "liberal Democrat".

He also believed in a limited role for courts, going as far as to oppose Marbury v. Madison and the concept of judicial review.

"To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions [is] a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men and not more so. They have with others the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps. Their maxim is boni judicis est ampliare jurisdictionem [good justice is broad jurisdiction], and their power the more dangerous as they are in office for life and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control. The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots. It has more wisely made all the departments co-equal and co-sovereign within themselves."

Letter to William C. Jarvis, 1820

en.wikipedia.org
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