In Hofstadter's book The American Political Tradition, Jefferson, according to the author, is an extremely complex man. Jefferson is usually thought of as an incredibly important and respected figure in American history, but the way Hofstadter explains it, over time Jefferson has been heavily dramatized and is much less the person he is commonly made out to be. Hofstadter states that Jefferson was a huge hypocrite, as his ideals are completely contradictory to his actions most of the time. To piece together Hofstadter's views on Jefferson; Jefferson is not the man he is normally portrayed as, but rather a hypocrite whose place in American history has been existentially exaggerated. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Hofstadter in his book states that Jefferson was quite the hypocrite, as his ideals were largely contradictory to the way he actually lived his life. Jefferson wanted the United States to be a Meritocracy, a place where skilled workers were the highest class. Since Jefferson wanted a meritocracy, Jefferson was still in full support of the people he surrounded himself with, the wealthy upper class politicians of the United States. According to Hofstadter, "Under his leadership the Virginia reformers abolished primogeniture and entailed..." (27). This helps show how Jefferson's ideals largely contradict who he is as a person. Jefferson was in full, a huge recipient of primogeniture when his father died. Because of the primogeniture laws, Jefferson was granted “2,700 acres and a large number of servants” (26). Jefferson abolished primogeniture later in his life, but he never really had to work for anything as he was bestowed with immediate wealth. In addition to the abolition of primogeniture, Jefferson worked for a long time on a project for the emancipation of slaves and the total abolition of slavery. Again, another contradictory action, as Jefferson was a benevolent slave owner who owned more than 600 slaves, and although he tried to free the slaves, he never freed the ones he owned. One reason he never carried out his slavery proposal was, as Jefferson stated in Hofstadter, "that the public mind would not bear the proposal... Yet the day is not far distant when it will have to endure and adopt it, or worse will follow." "(29). Jefferson was too afraid to go against public opinion, despite being considered a "revolutionary", since never in his life would he go against public opinion. “... after writing the Declaration of Independence and the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom, he avoided expressing his most unacceptable ideas in public” (33). Jefferson's choice to never go against majority opinion is one of the many reasons Hofstadter argues that Jefferson. it's not really a true “revolutionary” and that Jefferson's hypocrisy is a major proponent of exaggerating his place in history. Jefferson argues that Hofstadter is being a very complex man, this is partly about his thoughts in relation to his expressed views Jefferson he always sided with the masses on every important issue, but in reality how he truly felt about something differed from his vocalized opinion. For example, Hofstadter uses a quote from Charles M. Wiltse: “He remains aloof from the masses, and if he claims equality for all men, it is not because he feels that all men are equal, but because he believes that they must be so” ( 26 ). Hofstadter usesthis quote to demonstrate that Jefferson, a man who truly believes he is better than the common people, takes the side of the common people on the issue of all men being equal. Once again, his ideas contradict his actions. Another position Jefferson took was that he was totally convinced that the agrarian United States was as it should be and that these "Jeffersonians" (people who followed Jefferson's agrarian ideals) would be the face of the nation. As Hofstadter argues, “…but when he entered the White House it was after he had satisfied the Federalists that he and they had come to some sort of understanding” (44). Jefferson, fully believing in a “Jeffersonian democracy,” still largely supported the people he surrounded himself with, the Federalists, who believed in federalism, a concept far from a Jeffersonian democracy. Jefferson, as explained in the quote, believed in something far from federalism but obviously his “strong” beliefs were shattered as he made do with the nation's prominent Federalists. Jefferson's appeasement of the Federalists is a sign of weakness in his thoughts, as he reshaped his original thoughts with those that were influenced by the Federalists. He pandered to them to get their vote, but throughout his presidency he remained true to his word on agreed-upon intentions. Jefferson's true thoughts were in most cases never reflected in the statements he made to the public, and this highlights the fact that people really couldn't trust the things he said, there was usually an underlying opinion that didn't he wanted to reveal. In American history, Thomas Jefferson is commonly known and praised for his accomplishments and how he helped shape America, but Hofstadter makes it clear that Jefferson has some great failures that are never really talked about. It is always known that the American history surrounding Jefferson is only positive, and you would never know that he had some huge failures in his past, as his "over-dramatized" achievements drown out his failures. One such failure was the Embargo Act of 1807. The Embargo Act aimed to convince Great Britain and France to end maritime seizures and give the United States the power it deserves by substantially limiting American exports to Great Britain and France . As Hofstadter explains, “The embargo not only failed to force Britain and France to respect American rights on the high seas, but it also brought economic paralysis to the trading cities of the Northeast and the farms and plantations of the West and North. South. Jefferson finally admitted that the fifteen months of his activity cost more than a war” (51). Hofstadter uses this example because it shows that this was an incredibly great failure on Jefferson's part, one that cost more than the cost of a war. Not only was Jefferson unsuccessful in creating the Embargo Act, but he continued to ban trade afterward, creating the Nonintercourse Act, which opened trade to only a limited part of Europe. The Nonintercourse Act in the eyes of Americans was a horrible decision, as Jefferson, by settling for Britain and France, was psychologically demonstrating and affirming that America was weaker than Britain and France by continuing to allow maritime seizures. Another failure of Jefferson's regarding the Embargo Act was Jefferson's vision of an "agrarian America." This was a great failure because, as Hofstadter exclaimed, “… it was expansionism – what John Randolph called “agrarian greed” – rather than free trade that ultimately led to the War of 1812” (52). Jefferson's ideals for the United States ended up causing a war between the Northern and Southern United States, as the.