What was true of individuals was true of the States coalescing to form a union or confederation. Each individual State remained sovereign and yielded only part of certain rights in order to obtain more security against foreign aggressors. To the right of expatriation for the individual corresponded the right of secession for the State. But from this recognition of the right to denounce the compact, it did not follow that Jefferson would have encouraged either the individual or the States to withdraw from the society thus formed in order to resume a precarious life by themselves. Even if he had been an anarchistic instead of being a truly "socialistic" political thinker, a few meetings of the committees on which he sat would have sufficed to demonstrate that, to the necessity of society for the individuals, corresponded the necessity of a union for the individual States. The Virginian had developed into a true American. Jefferson was thinking nationally and not sectionally; he was ready for the great rôle he was about to assume.
His five-year stay in Europe confirmed him in the opinion that there existed in America the germ of something infinitely precious, if somewhat precarious, and he realized that his country had really become the hope of the world. He was too fond of good music, good architecture, good dinners, good wines and long conversations not to appreciate fully the good points of life while in Paris. He praised the French for their achievements in the arts and sciences, and formed with many of them long-enduring friendships; but neither France, nor England, and even less Italy or Spain, were countries toward which men could turn their eyes when looking for a political "polar star." Traditions were too deeply rooted, prejudices of too long standing, class distinctions too sharply defined to leave room for any hope of ever seeing them establish within a reasonable time a tolerable form of government. On the contrary, unhampered by such hoary traditionalism and free to shape her destinies, America, provided she carefully avoided the dangers under which Europe was laboring, could not only establish the best possible form of government, but set an example to be followed by the rest of mankind.