Thomas Jefferson had great disdain for large cities
Jefferson's experience with the yellow fever epidemic of 1793 reinforced his dislike of cities and shaped a radical plan for the development of a new nation that even included his concept of urban design.
www.governing.com
Firstly, large cities spread a Pandemic at that time that killed 1 in 10 people, just like we saw New York City have the biggest numbers of people dying during our Pandemic. Considering this, cities are the least ideal places to be in a Pandemic for obvious reasons, and just a tender box waiting for the flame.
Secondly, Jefferson saw large cities as full of corruption which created an underclass that would eventually threaten the Republic at some point.
To his closest friend, James Madison, he wrote in 1787, the year of the American Constitution, “When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as in Europe.”
From his disciplined reading of the Latin and Greek classics, Jefferson derived his belief that the ideal citizen of a republic was a modest family farmer living on the land, growing his own food, and providing his own shelter and clothing. Since this farmer depended on no other person or institution for his livelihood, he was truly free. His relations with the state were entirely voluntary rather than necessary. City dwellers, by contrast, could not grow their own food. By living away from the fecundity of nature, they were dependent on others for food, shelter, clothing and employment. This made them less free. But “those who labor in the earth,” Jefferson wrote, “are the chosen people of God.”
Jefferson believed that cities were breeding grounds not just for economic and political dependency, but that they generally attracted an urban underclass. An unemployed and perhaps unemployable urban proletariat was dangerous to peace and social stability.
“The mobs of great cities,” he wrote, “add just so much to the support of pure government, as sores do to the strength of the human body. It is the manners and spirit of a people which preserve a republic in vigor. A degeneracy in these is a canker which soon eats to the heart of its laws and constitution.”
He knew enough of European history, particularly of ancient Rome, to understand that urban mobs are susceptible to the blandishments of demagogues, who use what the French called the “canaille” (packs of urban “dogs”) to further their own despotic goals. In his only book, Notes on the State of Virginia, Jefferson wrote, “Dependance begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.” Better that everyone find happiness on what Jefferson called “the republic of the farm.”
Jefferson believed that cities were unhealthy places. In the absence of modern sewage systems, people merely tossed the contents of their chamber pots (and often enough dead animals) into the gutters of the streets and waited for rain to carry it untreated down to the river. Garbage, mostly organic, was discarded out the back of the house. Pigs, dogs, and horses roamed the streets leaving their excrement behind. Colonial streets were narrow; urban crowding put people into close contact with each other. Modern notions of cleanliness and hygiene had not yet been formulated. There were no adequate storm drains to carry away standing water. Modern police forces did not exist. Nor did streetlamps except in a few privileged neighborhoods.
On the surface, it seems only logical that people in larger cities are more dependent on government for pretty much everything, which is why I think Europe has been so farther to the Left since everyone there lives in a major city.
All of the support for the DNC resides mostly in large cities, otherwise, it does not exist.
