The idea—breath-taking, radical, and revolutionary at the time (in many places in the world, it still is)—is that not kings, not priests, not big-city bosses, not dictators, not a military cabal, not a de facto conspiracy of the wealthy, but ordinary people, working together, are to rule the nations. Not only was Jefferson a leading theoretician of this cause; he was also involved in the most practical way, helping to bring about the great American political experiment that has, all over the world, been admired and emulated since.
