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PARTISAN REVIEW
Virginia Republicans drove the Northern Federalists from office, and here
begins one of the most curious ideological turns in American history. A
new Jeffersonian ideology would arise to rule in the name of democracy;
a movement led by an aristocrat, slaveholder, and cultural elitist. But
Thomas Jefferson, who himself believed in the leadership of a "natural
aristocracy" based on talent and virtue, struck a chord that crossed class
lines. He ran not for but against government.
Henceforth in American history, both conservatives and radicals, the
wealthy and the workers, would invoke a populist appeal to the people at
the expense of government, which the Federalists had identified as the last
remnant of virtue in an emergent commercial society. Adams and
Hamilton had stood for control, balance, surveillance, and public respon–
sibility; the Jeffersonian ethos promised freedom, democracy, and individ–
ual opportunity. With the "pursuit of happiness" elevated to a moral stan–
dard, good government became that which benefited the governed the
most by governing least. No longer would government be guided by
knowledge of the public good, nor would theory and political philosophy
have any significant role in American history. Political language itself
would no longer provide a guide to political conduct. Using the language
of liberty, the Jeffersonians ran against government as a power-machine
established by Hamilton for the protection of the propertied classes. The
Jeffersonians stood morally tall as they called for reducing the debt and
limiting the scope of national power. The Republicans believed, wrote
Henry Adams, "government must be ruled by principle, to which the
Federalist answered, government must be ruled by circumstances."
Once in office, however, the Jeffersonians betrayed their principles as
they continued Hamilton's banking programs, purchased the Louisiana
territory, imposed tariffs and embargoes and other measures that meant
the once- small agrarian Republic would be an expanding, commercial
empire. That the Jeffersonians could simply out-federalize the Federalists
- as two centuries later, the Republicans out-democratized the Democrats
by running against government and then expanding it - indicated that in
American history no party needed to stand on principles, that theory
ceased to guide practice, and that rhetoric would rationalize reality as
politicians and their constituents pursued interest and power in the name
of rights and liberty.
It was not the case that politics flexibly adapted to circumstance while
adhering to principle; rather, principles and ideals disappeared from politi–
cal life and lingered in the realm of language. To the post-structuralist,
who remains skeptical of the reality of the world beyond language, a ren–
dezvous with rhetoric is all that is left to analyze. Lincoln, of course, ana–
lyzed the language and reasoning of slave apologists to illustrate what they
excluded and refused to acknowledge. Yet he scrutinized language as
