Characterization of Democratic Republicans

The Democratic Republicans were almost always characterized as believing in following the strict construction of the constitution. They were opposed to the loose interpretation the Federalists used. The presidencies of Jefferson and Madison proved this characterization to be somewhat accurate. It is true that both Jefferson and Madison supported the ideas of the Democratic Rebublicans but, they also did many things that contradicted them. In Thomas Jefferson's letter to Gideon Granger, Jefferson shows his ideas …

…the United States needed a strong central government in order to maintain itself. In 1816, Jefferson stated his new policy in a letter to Samuel Kercheval he said that some men percieve the constitution as sacred and should not be amended. He now believed that as the human mind progressed so should the constitution and that as the times change, so must the constitution. Here, again the characterizations do not seem to be at all accurate.