Jefferson

Over the next 100 years the importance of productive, privately-held land ownership became a backbone of  the United States.  Nearly all of the founding fathers, those who had a hand in the Constitution and the federal government, were farmers who believed in the ethical value of using private land productively and were suspicious of the moral laxity of cities and the wastefulness of industry.  Classically educated, they drew their inspiration from ancient Greek and Roman traditions of the moral small farmer, as well as the Protestant work ethic, and the political ideas of John Locke.

Thomas Jefferson quoted Hesiod by saying in one of his letters that "cultivators of the earth are the most vigorous, and the most independent, the most virtuous [of men]."  Although we now view Jefferson as somewhat of a Renaissance Man, with interests across the board, he saw himself as a farmer.  In his own words, "I have made researches into nothing but what is connected to agriculture.  I am entirely a farmer, soul and body."  He believed that "agriculture is the surest road to affluence and best preservative of morals."  In fact, Jefferson's belief in the virtue of farming was so strong that he believed only farmers should be elected to Congress because they were "the true representatives of the great American interest."  Everything that was morally superior in the world, Jefferson believed, was derived from the productive use of private property.  John Locke's Two Treatises of Government was Jefferson's inspiration for the Declaration of Independence.