Jeff Taylor, author of the interesting-sounding new book on the Democratic Party Where Did the Party Go?: William Jennings Bryan, Hubert Humphrey, and the Jeffersonian Legacy, has an essay adapted from the book on Imperialism and Isolationism: Contrasting Approaches to Foreign Policy.
Taylor tries to dispel some myths about isolationism:
To some, isolationism may imply ostrich-like, willful ignorance of the rest of the world, but this was never the case with its most famous practitioners. The isolation is not one of intellect, trade, or travel, but one of entangling alliances, military conflict, and imperial domination. For isolationists, national self-determination for colonies and national sovereignty for America are closely-related principles emanating from a common source: a commitment to democracy, freedom, and decentralization. Isolationism is the foreign policy of traditional liberals.
We also get this great quote from Jefferson: “I know but one code of morality for men, whether acting singly or collectively. He who says I will be a rogue when I act in company with a hundred others, but an honest man when I act alone, will be believed in the former assertion but not in the latter.”
The Jeffersonian-Hamilton divide that Taylor identifies is a perennial one in American politics that extends to both foreign and domestic questions and doesn’t track the left-right divide. In other words, it’s possible to be a right- or left-wing Jeffersonian or a right- or left-wing Hamiltonian. While Jeffersonian ideals of freedom and decentralization might seem to lead in a (right-wing) libertarian direction, they can also manifest themselves in a distrust of big business and moneyed interests, a suspicion of technological progress, and a devotion to the ideals of agrarianism and communitarianism (Wendell Berry could probably be described as a left-wing Jeffersonian, as could someone like Kirkpatrick Sale).
Likewise, “national greatness” liberals and neoconservatives are both species of Hamiltonian (John McCain, subject of the previous post, would be an arch-Hamiltonian). They emphasize a untiy of national purpose which is to be concentrated and expressed through the federal government and have largely made peace with the “bigness” of modern society (big business, big government, etc.). They also want the US to take a very activist role in foreign affairs, whether to promote American commercial interests (which isn’t the same thing as laissez-faire) and/or to promote loftier ideals like democracy and human rights.
Personally, I have strong sympathies with the Jeffersonian vision, but not without a sneaking suspicion that it would be impossible, and maybe undesirable, to put it into practice. A nation of small craftsmen and yeoman farmers has a certain romantic appeal, but I think this can easily be over-romanticized and the benefits of a society of “mass affluence” overlooked. As I mentioned in my review of Bill Kauffman’s Jeffersonian manifesto, the tight-knit small community is not necessarily or in any straightforward way a “solution” to the alleged problem of urban (or suburban) anomie. Rural, small-town, suburban and urban life all have their unique blessings and problems. And decentralization is not a magic bullet solution to political problems, however desirable it might be in some ways. For one thing, the nation-state is currently the only existing political unit capable of addressing some of the inequities generated by a global economy.
Nevertheless, in our current situation it sure looks like we could use a little more of the Jeffersonian impulse if that means a certain level of government restraint, especially in foreign affairs. Not to mention that a renewal of federalism might help defuse some of our more hotly contested social issues. Like pacifism and other “radical” views, Jeffersonianism isn’t in any danger of sweeping the nation, but may provide a useful counterpoint to the existing consensus within the political class.
A Thinking Reed 
I find two-way analyses of American politics over the long term to be really limiting. There are Jeffersonians in America, but unlike the Hamiltonians they don’t own a major party.
The key thing these analyses mistake is that the collapse of the Populist movement marked a watershed in American politics, the end of Jeffersonianism as a serious vote-getting political creed and its replacement as Hamiltonianism’s main rival by what I call “Old Progressivism” (think the Roosevelts).
Good point, though it might be possible to see the 60s New Left as, in part, an attempt to recover Jeffersonian values. But, yeah, there’s no Jeffersonian party in America anymore. Though, I’d be curious to hear what you think distinguishes Hamiltonianism from “Old Progressivism” (a greater concern for econmic equality on the part of the latter?).