Once these conditions were secured, the motto of a democratic government should simply be "Hands Off." There should be as little government as possible, because persistent governmental interference implied distrust in popular efficiency and good-will; and what government there was, should be so far as possible confided to local authorities.

The vitality of a democracy resided in its extremities, and it would be diminished rather than increased by specialized or centralized guidance.

Its individual members needed merely to be protected against privileges and to be let alone, whereafter the native goodness of human nature would accomplish the perfect consummation.
Thus Jefferson sought an essentially equalitarian and even socialistic result by means of an essentially individualistic machinery.

His theory implied a complete harmony both in logic and in effect between the idea of liberty and the idea of equality; and just in so far as there is any antagonism between those ideas, his whole political system becomes unsound and impracticable.

Neither is there any doubt as to which of these ideas Jefferson and his followers really attached the more importance.