Thomas Jefferson's View Of The Constitution Essay

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Thomas Jefferson was a devout Republican and viewed the Constitution as it should be followed strictly by text and empowered congress to enact laws that were mandatory and respectable. He was also a strong supporter of states’ rights and decisions should be left to them to vote on. Here is an example where his stance stood when president Washington ask for advice from his cabinet, while as Secretary of Sate if the United Sates should charter a national bank, “The Bank of the United States”. Jefferson took advantage at every opportunity to express his own views on how to interpret the Constitution and he viewed this as this was not a Congress’s obligation to raise money and was against it. Jefferson sought to limit the powers of the federal government and …show more content…

He often opposed Hamiltons ideals and views but he did agree on a Federal Mint and a need for federal currency. As Jefferson he had several failures as President like establishing the Embargo Act on 1807 barring ships leaving ports or trading with Britain or France thinking he was protecting shippers and having the warring Napoleon and King George III realize to leave America Neutral to their war and stop pirating US ships to ships and soon resume trade again while putting 30,000 sailors out of work at bringing 103 million at its peak in exporting goods to zero when the the opposing countries had other locations they could get their resources from around the world. This Act backfired loosing two of it’s biggest trade partners and ruined his reputation as the enemy of centralized government and the champion of the common people. The biggest failure I noticed was he did not fight against slavery and continued to have slaves on his Virginia Plantation through out his lifetime even though it was DNA proven almost 200 years later he fathered children with his slave mistress Sally Hemmings rumored during his

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