The Jeffersonian Republicans and the Democratic Movement

Abstract

Against those who argue that the term democracy only became a broadly positive term in the 19th century, this article shows that it already had become a positive political term in the 1790s in the USA. With the Jeffersonian revolution, groups that used democracy positively triumphed over the anti-democratic Federalists. By transforming the connotation of the word democracy, however, Democratic Republicans also transformed the concept/theory associated with it – from radical direct democracy to a representative system.