Atlas / Organisations / Jeffersonian Republicans

Jeffersonian Republicans

Democratic-Republicans · 1792–1825 · United States · Liberal · Electoral party · coding confidence high

+07ECmarket
+03CUtraditional
−07AUpluralist
−07SClocal
+05IDascriptive
−04CHlawful

Each axis runs from −10 to +10, with zero a genuine mixed or balanced position rather than an absence of opinion. A score describes a stated position and a governing record; it is not a judgement of merit. What each score means →

Core principles

Agrarian republic, states' rights, suspicion of banks, standing armies and concentrated wealth.

Economic model

Independent yeoman farming, free trade, hostility to central banking — alongside plantation slavery.

Organisation of powers

Strict construction of federal power, strong states, weak executive.

Reading note

An early demonstration that anti-centralism and egalitarian rhetoric can coexist with the most extreme exclusion rule of all.

Check a claim about Jeffersonian Republicans. The interactive atlas measures the distance between any two organisations across all six axes and shows which ones carry the disagreement.

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The evidence for every score

All six cells are sourced. A rationale explains what the score is measuring and each artefact is something a third party can check without taking anyone's word for it.

EC · Economic organisation · scored +07

Coded +7: yeoman farming, free trade and hostility to central banking.

  • Documented act or statuteThe First Bank's charter was allowed to lapse in 1811.

CU · Social and cultural order · scored +03

Coded +3: religious freedom and anticlericalism within a slave society.

  • Programme textThe Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom of 1786 was Jefferson's own drafting.

AU · Organisation of power · scored −07

Coded −7: strict construction, strong states, weak executive.

  • Programme textThe Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions of 1798 asserted state authority to judge federal acts.

SC · Scale of decision · scored −07

At the local end: states as the primary units.

  • Programme textFederal power was to be confined to enumerated purposes.

ID · Rule of membership · scored +05

Coded +5: the most extreme exclusion rule of all, coexisting with egalitarian rhetoric.

  • Documented act or statuteThe party's electoral base was the slaveholding South and its leaders were slaveholders.

CH · Method and tempo · scored −04

Coded −4: electoral, with the 1800 transfer of power as the founding precedent.

  • Documented act or statuteThe peaceful transfer after the 1800 election was the first between rival parties in a modern republic.

Where it came from, and what came after

Nearest organisations by measured distance

Straight-line separation across all six axes, out of a maximum of 49.0. Proximity means similarity of stated position, not endorsement and not resemblance in outcome.

Countries

United States

Cite this page

Scores are revised on evidence, so a citation should carry the version it refers to. Version 4.3.1 is current; the revision log records every change.

McGrath, K. (2026). Jeffersonian Republicans. The Political Atlas, version 4.2. https://thepoliticalatlas.com/organisations/usdr/ (accessed 2026-08-01).

Free to quote and reproduce with attribution. This is a synthesis rather than a peer-reviewed dataset — where an authoritative figure is needed, cite the Chapel Hill Expert Survey, the Manifesto Project or V-Dem.