Jefferson’s tone in his First Inaugural was the repudiation of the years prior, setting the footing of American governance at the people’s feet instead of its supposed superiors. It began with civil liberties: “Let us, then, fellow-citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things.”

I’m reminded of John Ledyard, who didn’t live to see Jefferson’s election but would’ve been an ardent supporter, who upon his deportation from Russia, wrote: “Though born in the freest of the civilized countries, yet, in the present state of privation, I have a more exquisite sense of the amiable, the immortal nature of liberty, than I ever had before. It would be excellently qualifying, if every man, who is called to preside over the liberties of a people, should once—it would be enough— actually be deprived of his liberty unjustly. He would be avaricious of it, more than of any other earthly possession… There are two kinds of people I could anathematize, with a better weapon than St Peter's; those who dare deprive others of their liberty, and those who suffer others to do it.”

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