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WAS JEFFERSON A GOOD PRESIDENT?
>Hi I was wondering why you think Thomas J. was a good President? The greatest act of Thomas Jefferson as President, besides the Louisiana Purchase, and the Lewis & Clark Expedition, and keeping the U.S. out of war until they had more time to prepare, was something that is now taken for granted and mostly overlooked by historians. It was reversing the course that the United States had taken and returning the nation to its republican principles. History books ignore it today, but the nation was moving towards autocratic rule, the most obvious evidences of which were the Alien and Sedition Acts. Jefferson put an end to that, turned the country around, and set it on a course which it has more or less maintained ever since. Besides his own presidency, he was followed by two of his proteges -- James Madison and James Monroe -- who continued the nation on its republican course and thus made it firmly established. Sorry to be so long in responding. Best wishes, Eyler Coates