At the turn of the nineteenth century, the United States had managed to survive and prosper, but the experimental new republic needed a philosophy to direct its future. Thomas Jefferson—educated in the Enlightenment’s values of freedom and representation, writer of the Declaration of Independence, and believer in the common sense of the common man—proved to be the philosopher. Jefferson was a visionary, a quality that his fellow revolutionaries had seen in him during the Revolutionary War. He was also flexible. Opposed to the idea of political faction when the Constitution was written, he was practical enough to form his own faction, the Democratic Republicans, when the Federalists’ elitism seemed dangerous to the republic’s future. Even the hypocrisy of his ownership of slaves while he penned the statement that “all men are created equal” was testament to his ability to focus on the goal—to establish a viable, working republic, to make it as democratic as possible, and to allow all of its citizens to succeed economically. If that goal did not allow for slaves to be defined as republican, democratic, or citizens, so be it—the historians would sort out the details.