Joyce Appleby's very constructive commentary rightly locates my article philosophically and historiographically amid the intellectual eddies of the postindustrialist sensibility. At the same time she is sensitive, I think, to my ambition to tell more than a relativist's tale. If that ambition has led me to splash my colors too indiscriminately across Jefferson's broad canvas, however, Appleby is right to chide me for it. Thus, for example, while I would not accept that energetic government and police are conceptually synonymous, they are certainly related. As Appleby implies, many of Jefferson's political opponents from Hamilton on down were far more enthusiastic in their advocacy of energetic government—once granted control of the agenda—than was Jefferson.