How would you define and describe the beliefs and values of Jeffersonian liberalism?

Jeffersonian liberalism was characterized above all by a faith in the ability of the people (by which Jefferson meant white men) to govern themselves. This belief was reflected in his words in the Declaration of Independence as well as his opposition to the expansion of federal power at the expense of the states later in his political career. Jeffersonian liberalism, in short, was more democratic than that of many of his contemporaries who could also...

Jeffersonian liberalism was characterized above all by a faith in the ability of the people (by which Jefferson meant white men) to govern themselves. This belief was reflected in his words in the Declaration of Independence as well as his opposition to the expansion of federal power at the expense of the states later in his political career. Jeffersonian liberalism, in short, was more democratic than that of many of his contemporaries who could also be described as liberal.

Jeffersonian liberalism was also rooted in a strong belief that the future of the nation was to be essentially an agrarian republic. He thought that the vast expanses of land available to Americans (Native Americans, he hoped, would be assimilated) would create the possibility of a nation of small independent landowners. The obvious consequence of this was that he strongly believed in westward expansion. He hated cities, which he associated with poverty and corruption of his republican ideal. While he believed in producing for the market, and was not oblivious or even opposed to the rise of a capitalist ethos in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, an important part of his liberalism was an opposition to high finance--the bankers and "stockjobbers" that he thought swindled honest people out of their money by using the mechanisms of a strong centralized financial structure. 

Finally, one of the aspects of Jeffersonian liberalism that most strongly appeals to modern readers is his commitment to many civil liberties. As a sort of skeptic himself, he valued religious freedom in particular. This conviction was shared by many so-called "classical" liberals on both sides of the Atlantic, and Jefferson thought it so important that he had his authorship of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom included alongside the Declaration of Independence and the University of Virginia on his tombstone. Indeed, his commitment to religious freedom was one of the few easily identifiable constants in the life of a man notorious for his complexity.