Jeffersonian Governmental Analysis

I was reading Notes on the State of Virginia today, after a reader linked me the site here. In it, Jefferson recounts many of the facts about the Indians living around him. He also, however, offers social commentary about their lives and societies: ... had separated into so many little societies. This practice results from the circumstance of their having never submitted themselves to any laws, any coercive power, any shadow of government. Their only controuls are their manners, and that moral sense of right and wrong, which, like the sense of tasting and feeling, in every man makes a part of his nature. An offence against these is punished by contempt, by exclusion from society, or, where the case is serious, as that of murder, by the individuals whom it concerns. Imperfect as this species of coercion may seem, crimes are very rare among them: insomuch that were it made a question, whether no law, as among the savage Americans, or too much law, as among the civilized Europeans, submits man to the greatest evil, one who has seen both conditions of existence would pronounce it to be the last: and that the sheep are happier of themselves, than under care of the wolves. It will be said, that great societies cannot exist without government. The Savages therefore break them into small ones. This is, about as close as can be found, a Founding Father publicly supporting anarchism. What Jefferson describes, and envies, in the preceding paragraph is prototypical anarchistic society - perhaps the best example in known history. The lack of a governing body, a police force, prisons, industry, and other trappings of modern society have led some to label the society "primitive". I contend, however, that the measure of the advancement of a society is not the level of bureaucracy and industry it contains, but rather the level of equality and human decency that all of its citizens enjoy. In this measure, Indian society is much more advanced than current industrial society. I find the analysis of Indian society by one of the leading Founding Fathers to be interesting and enlightening. This backdrop will change the way I read both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, now that I know what Jefferson really thought about government.