Thomas Jefferson And Adams Dbq

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Thomas Jefferson was elected to be president in 1801. Jefferson was built to be a political leader. At the age of 26 he sat in the chair of burgesses for six years, he was the governor of Virginia for three years and he also served as secretary of state for three years. Thomas Jefferson’s election as President was “The Revolution of 1800” because he cut back on spending, believed in states rights, and he wanted a small government which many would feel otherwise. Compared to George Washington and John Adams, Thomas Jefferson represented a real revolution. Jefferson and Adams would disapprove on many things, everything was an argument between them. They spent most of their political lives debating, disagreeing, and arguing with each other. Adams …show more content…
He did what no one else would do. He gave the people a say, he believed that everyone should be educated, cut off foreign trade, and he did things he didn 't believe he could do. Such as the Louisiana purchase. Jefferson believed if something wasn 't stated in the constitution, that it wasn 't allowed. Purchasing the Louisiana territory, that almost doubled the size of the county was not allowed because it doesn 't say in the constitution otherwise. However signing and negotiating foreign treaties were allowed. Jefferson had to act fast, he signed the treaty and purchased the territory. He believed in an agrarian society, so he also promised to provoke agriculture and handmaid commerce, but on December 22, 1807 the Embargo Act was passed. The Embargo Act closed all of the United States imports with the intent to pressure Europe. Britain was seizing American ships so Jefferson felt that the best way to prevent this from happening was to cut off all foreign trade. He then came up with the Non-Intercourse Act which was similar to the Embargo Act but, neither one worked and both were hard to enforce. The Embargo Act gave Jefferson exactly what he didn 't want. It resulted in the United States to be 90% rural. Jefferson strictly didn 't want a rural society. The Alien and Sedition Acts were passed by John Adams in 1797. The direction changed when Jefferson opposed the acts because he felt that the acts did not allow freedom of speech and was too harsh towards immigrants. Jefferson put a more lenient naturalization law into place that gave immigrants a normal life. “The constitutional freedom of religion [is] the most inalienable and sacred of all human rights.” Thomas Jefferson believed in non religious government because he interprets the first amendment of the constitution to be the separation of church and state.

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