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Article: Republicans, Jeffersonian
- Article from:
- Dictionary of American History
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REPUBLICANS, JEFFERSONIAN
REPUBLICANS, JEFFERSONIAN.
The Jeffersonian Republicans emerged within three years of the inauguration of the Constitution, as Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and lesser figures in the infant federal government united with, encouraged, and assumed the leadership of popular opposition to Alexander Hamilton's economic and financial programs. As their name implied, the coalition came together out of fear that the American experiment in popular self-governance
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a revolutionary vision only twelve years old at the adoption of the Constitution
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was profoundly threatened by the policies of the first secretary of the Treasury, the broad interpretation of ...