WHAT DID THE FOUNDERS THINK?

They had a lot of thoughts, of course, but I didn't realize how little I knew of their mental outlook until I read Daniel J. Boorstin's The Lost World of Thomas Jefferson. They still believed the Genesis story that all life on Earth was created at once, so when the bones of wooly mammoths were discovered, they believed that the mammoths were still alive somewhere on Earth:

When the Philosophical Society instructed its permanent committee to procure skeletons of the mammoth and other rare creatures, the information they sought was of 'unknown' and not of extinct animals. By definition there could be no such study as paleontology. Every buried skeleton or any bone which could be unearthed must be a clue to a still-living creature. (Boorstin, p. 37)

Jefferson and like-minded American thinkers such as Benjamin Rush also believed in a "best of all possible worlds" view of life on Earth:

The man who died of yellow fever in Philadelphia reaped no inward personal reward; but he benefited the human species, which was thereby discouraged from leaving the wholesome farm habitat. The 'economy of nature' thus emphasized a general benevolence and material well-being, rather than the happiness or consciousness of the individual.
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When the Jeffersonians spoke of 'happiness' it was rather in such phrases as 'the happiness of the species' or 'the happiness of mankind' which signified material prosperity and survival power. The very idea of an economy of nature thus became a way of implying the insignificance of individual man, of his sensations and his consciousness, in comparison with the health and prosperity of the biological group. (Boorstin, p.53)

Jefferson carried this line of thinking to its logical extreme, as did de Maistre:

Man's dominion, described in the Book of Genesis, had meant also his own freedom from decimation by the lower animals; and his industry, adaptability, and reason saved him from many other natural perils. The Creator, therefore, must have made some special and substantial provision against human overpopulation. It was to attain this purpose that He had set man against his own species. As we have seen, Jefferson considered man the Creator's barrier against the too great multiplication of other animals; and against the fecundity of man himself, He had ordained the human species to be eternally and systematically engaged in its own decimation. (Boorstin, p. 175)