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Political, social, and religious views
Jefferson subscribed to the political ideals expounded by John Locke, Francis Bacon, and Isaac Newton, whom he considered the three greatest men who ever lived.[7][8] He was also influenced by the writings of Gibbon, Hume, Robertson, Bolingbroke, Montesquieu, and Voltaire.[9] Jefferson thought that the independent yeoman and agrarian life were ideals of republican virtues. He distrusted cities and financiers, favored decentralized government power, and believed that the tyranny that had plagued the common man in Europe was due to corrupt political establishments and monarchies. He supported efforts to disestablish the Church of England,[311] wrote the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, and he pressed for a wall of separation between church and state.[312] The Republicans under Jefferson were strongly influenced by the 18th-century British Whig Party, which believed in limited government.[313] His Democratic-Republican Party became dominant in early American politics, and his views became known as Jeffersonian democracy.