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The rating is for the historical relevance and prose quality. If I were to evaluate all of the ideas, I'd have to give it four stars. Jefferson's thought is both better and worse than I remembered. It is worse because he was not as consistent an advocate of freedom as I remembered; he used "democracy" in an honorific context and endorsed the will of the majority (with no further context or elaboration). It is better because he explicitly advocated the Enlightenment advocacy of reason that, consistently practiced, leads to individual liberty (and not the majority rule of a democracy). (Metaphysically, he was less consistent and more Deist than I thought.) Adrienne Koch and William Peden's notes are instructive, highlighting passages struck from the Declaration of Independence and elaborating on Jefferson's correspondents.
