Nature, the nation and the federal republic: the American exceptionalism of Thomas Jefferson

Abstract

This paper gives account of the main republican and federal theoretical principles developed by Jefferson from his seminal Notes on the State of Virginia, to some extent shared by Madison. «Great principle» that fuels a new collective action logic, giving birth to the «Republican Party», and later the «Democratic-Republican Party». This question of principles –true «war of principles» (Hamilton)– about what sort of Nation and State the United States of America was to be, appears notoriously at the origin of the first party system and electoral competition in USA. The disagreement between the «republicans» (Jefferson, Madison) and «federalists» (Hamilton) was very deep and insurmountable, beginning by the idea of Nature as rural rather than urban landscape of the American society, the plural Idea of the American nation, the kind of American Republic defended («ward» based and democratic participative in Jefferson views), and the institutional design of federalism (dualist and defender of the States rights in Jefferson and Madison). The critic of Hamilton not only as «centralist» but as «monarchist» evidenced the substantive ideological and political differences among this three Founding Fathers.