In practical terms, that means he had a vision of the USA as a land of self-sustaining farmers so that no one would be dependent on others to live or think.

I'm going to fire from the hip here because I'm not a scholar.

First, that is a completely a-historical, unnatural idea of how people and societies work. Humans are social groups and have formed cities since the dawn of history. It's nonsense and sounds like a personal hell for me.

Cities are where stuff happens. A country that's just self sustaining farmers living in isolation is not going to produce a lot. Not a lot of culture, not a lot of science.

Like, I don't think we'd even have writing if cities hadn't been developed.