Perhaps more accurately, they were of two minds about mob rule.
Jefferson believed in the idealized "happy yeoman farmer;" that common people, allowed to seek their own fate, would make a better government. Virtue (as a quasi-religious concept) dwelt in the heart of the aggregate public.
Adams believed in significant risks letting an uneducated mass of people determine their own fate. He didn't have to dig too far into the history books to find examples of why a government given over to the people tended to devolve into rule by a strongman. Government of a virtuous people demanded an elite who would be dedicated to the cause and educated to do it right.
The government built from people in these two camps of thought was a compromise government intended to tame the catastrophic risk-factors of the excesses of both scenarios.
Jefferson believed in the idealized "happy yeoman farmer;" that common people, allowed to seek their own fate, would make a better government. Virtue (as a quasi-religious concept) dwelt in the heart of the aggregate public.
Adams believed in significant risks letting an uneducated mass of people determine their own fate. He didn't have to dig too far into the history books to find examples of why a government given over to the people tended to devolve into rule by a strongman. Government of a virtuous people demanded an elite who would be dedicated to the cause and educated to do it right.
The government built from people in these two camps of thought was a compromise government intended to tame the catastrophic risk-factors of the excesses of both scenarios.