LAD #9

Thomas Jefferson's first Inaugural Address was a deferential, but memorable beginning to a very productive presidency for the United States of America. Jefferson’s speech has become a very famous one in our history as it was a document that helped to further develop the idea of  a democracy in America. He stated early in his speech that the constitution requests a free land, where people are equal and there is toleration of other groups. Jefferson’s strong federalist beliefs showed through early in the speech with his admiration of the constitution and how closely he follows the document that he will soon rule under. He also talks about how equal law must protect these rights, especially for the people. While these statements may pertain to other things, they could have been related to the feud between the federalists and anti federalists. Later in his speech the line that stuck out was, “We are all Republicans, We are all Federalists” was for sure directed at this issue. The Sedition Acts passed by John Adams, the former president and the anti federalist that Jefferson had just beaten out in the prior election, were causing problems all around America as they seemed to be very fascist in their goals. The acts were mostly to prevent opposition to the government, mainly aimed at the Federalists, and with the statement mentioned earlier, Jefferson showed his reign would be much different, that he stood behind the ideas of the constitution and had no right to deny the rights of anyone else despite different sets of beliefs. The speech of Jefferson that began his rule was a great one, regarded as one of the most famous Democratic documents of its time. The strong start to the presidency for Thomas Jefferson was just one of many things good to come.