Final answer:
Jefferson believed that a large national debt would lead to high taxes and corruption, favoring the wealthy and undermining the republic's agrarian foundation. He opposed Hamilton's financial plans and the establishment of a national bank, advocating for the prosperity of yeoman farmers.
Step-by-step explanation:
Thomas Jefferson believed that a large national debt would lead to high taxes and corruption. He was concerned that economic policies favoring debt would benefit the commercial classes and speculators more than the nation’s yeoman farmers. Jefferson argued that policies, like those of Alexander Hamilton, which centralized financial power, encouraged economic inequalities and worked against the ordinary American.
As a staunch supporter of an agrarian economy, Jefferson worried that a large national debt would undermine self-sufficient, property-owning citizens which he saw as the backbone of the republic. He strongly opposed Hamilton’s plan to create a national bank and fulfill all debts at face value, fearing it would favor the wealthy creditor class and lead to a system where the government was deeply entangled with economic elites.
Jefferson’s vision of America was rooted in the belief that prosperity and virtue lay in rural land ownership and that a large debt held by the nation would threaten this ideal by concentrating power and wealth in the hands of a few, contrary to republican principles.