Jefferson was also strongly opposed to creating international debt. Great, you say, we wouldn't have our current fiscal crisis. Except that some debt was a necessary step for the United States to become the financial powerhouse it is, based upon international trade. If Jefferson had gotten his way on debt, we'd be a small nation of rather poor farmers, at least until a richer nation invaded.
So, be cautious in quoting the wisdom of the founding fathers. They were by no means infallible, though selective quoting of their vast writing might lead one to believe that they were.
We were a small nation of rather poor farmers, right up until a handful of Canadians (British at the time) beat the snot out of our military and burned our capital in the War of 1812. If the marines hadn't been funded during the First Barbary War in 1800-1805, we probably would have lost the War of 1812. It really put the lie to Jefferson's agrarian utopia.
Not a pacifist, but he was against the idea of a standing army. And really, after seeing how Britain's army was behaving at the time, I don't blame him. http://teachinghistory.org/history-content/ask-a-historian/2... The War of 1812 made it clear that any mechanized force could just walk all over us, and we needed a mechanized army simply for defense. This would require some industrialization.
Of course the War of 1812 didn't cause the industrialization of America, it was just one huge reason an economy based almost completely on agriculture wasn't going to work for us.
Jefferson wasn't against industrialisation, nor was he against a strong army. He just didn't want it to be a "standing army". He imagined that you might end up with an organization that is run by an elite, using canon fodder made up of the poor, that serves its own purposes. Would any of the founding fathers be surprised that we have a standing army and two totally pointless wars?
Instead, he wanted every citizen to be required to do military service, as the swiss and israelis do. He believed that if every US citizen had military training, we would have wiped the floor with the canadians in 1812. I agree.
So, be cautious in quoting the wisdom of the founding fathers. They were by no means infallible, though selective quoting of their vast writing might lead one to believe that they were.