There is a particularly unsettling truth about Thomas Jefferson. That truth is that, for a man who railed against government acting outside of its constitutional bounds, he sure was not averse to acting outside of the Constitution's bounds when it suited him. To put it simply, Jefferson’s anger at big government was, at most times, inversely proportional to his level of power within said government. The higher the office he held, the less likely he was to bemoan limits on government. Nothing better illustrates this fact than the Louisiana Purchase.
