preview

Thomas Jefferson : A Building Block

Decent Essays

Thomas Jefferson: A Building Block to America
Thomas Jefferson wrote important letters to James Madison and John Adams when he was around the age of forty-four. He was very a very intelligent and opinionated individual, but was always trying to do what he thought was best for the United States of America. His goal was to make the government of this country the best that it could possibly be. This is ultimately why Jefferson has been given the name of a founding father. Jefferson had his own philosophies on what he thought the United States should become. His way of getting these philosophies know was by writing a letters to James Madison and John Adams to state his opinion. In these letters, he began to inform Madison and Adams what he …show more content…

He felt that there needed to be laws for everyone to follow and that they should all be equal. Jefferson felt that there needed to be “A literal listing of the individual human freedoms guaranteed under the new American government” (Barefoot). The second thing that Jefferson disliked was “the abandonment in every instance of the necessity of rotation in office, and most particularly in the case of the President” (312). Thus, meaning that the first president will always be re-elected if the constitution allows it. Jefferson does not agree with this because that makes the person an elected officer for life. He believes that after someone is elected, when the second election comes around and they are outvoted, it is very easy for the person to put in fake votes so they can stay in office. This is not a reliable system that they had established and Jefferson believed it should be changed. Jefferson thought that the people should re-elect someone every four years.
The letter that Jefferson wrote to John Adams was on the subject of aristocracy. It was about the differences in natural and artificial aristocracy. At the beginning, Jefferson stated, “I agree with you that there is a natural aristocracy among men” (314). By using the phrase “natural aristocracy,” they mean people who are at the top of society and have great virtue and

Get Access