The Constitution was the expression not only of a political faith, but also of political fears. It was wrought both as the organ of the national interest and as the bulwark of certain individual and local rights.

In the long run men inevitably become the victims of their wealth. They adapt their lives and habits to their money, not their money to their lives. It preoccupies their thoughts, creates artificial needs, and draws a curtain between them and the world.

When Jefferson and the Republicans rallied to the Union and to the existing Federalist organization, the fabric of traditional American democracy was almost completely woven.

The only fruitful promise of which the life of any individual or any nation can be possessed, is a promise determined by an ideal.

Of course, Americans have no monopoly of patriotic enthusiasm and good faith.

The majority of men cannot be made disinterested for life by exhortation, by religious services, by any expenditure of subsidized works, or even by grave and manifest public need. They can be made permanently unselfish only by being helped to become disinterested in their individual purposes. In the complete democracy a man must in some way be made to serve the nation in the very act of contributing to his own individual fulfillment. Not until his personal action is dictated by disinterested motives can there be any such harmony between private and public interests.

In Jefferson's mind democracy was tantamount to extreme individualism.