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Extract from Thomas Jefferson to Volney, 9 Apr. 1797 [Quote]

I hope I shall see you in Georgetown, and certainly shall if the movements of the stage will permit it: for I prefer that conveyance to travelling with my own horses, because it gives me, what I have long been without, an opportunity of plunging into the mixed characters of my country, the most...

Extract from Thomas Jefferson to Volney, 9 Apr. 1797 [Quote]

I have been in the enjoiment of our delicious spring. the soft genial temperature of the season, just above the want of fire, enlivened by the reanimation of birds, flowers, the fields, forests & gardens, has been truly delightful & continues to be so ... indeed my experience of the...

Extract from Thomas Jefferson to Elbridge Gerry, 13 May 1797 [Quote]

When I retired from this place and the office of Secretary of state, it was in the firmest contemplation of never more returning here. There had indeed been suggestions in the public papers that I was looking towards a succession to the President’s chair. But feeling a consciousness of their...

Extract from John Adams to Uriah Forrest, 20 June 1797 [Quote]

I received yesterday your favor of the 23rd ... The paper inclosed in it is a serious thing. It will be a motive, in addition to many others, for me to be upon my guard. It is evidence of a mind, soured, yet seeking for popularity, and eaten to a honeycomb with ambition, yet weak, confused,...

Extract about Thomas Jefferson, by John Bernard [ca. 1797–1800] [Quote]

through the kindness of General Washington I was introduced to Mr. Jefferson, who proved one of my sincerest, though not most fortunate, friends ... In all the chief requisites of the social character Mr. Jefferson appeared to me to possess few equals. His heart was warmed with a love for the...

Extract from Thomas Jefferson to St. George Tucker, 28 Aug. 1797 [Quote]

as to the mode of emancipation, I am satisfied that that must be a matter of compromise between the passions the prejudices, & the real difficulties which will each have their weight in that operation. perhaps the first chapter of this history, which has begun in St Domingo, & the next...

Extract from Thomas Jefferson to Arthur Campbell, 1 Sept. 1797 [Quote]

we owe gratitude to France, justice to England, good will to all, and subservience to none ... it was by the sober sense of our citizens that we were safely and steadily conducted from monarchy to republicanism, and it is by the same agency alone we can be kept from falling back.

Extract from Thomas Jefferson to Peregrine Fitzhugh, 23 Feb. 1798 [Quote]

I do not think it for the interest of the general government itself, & still less of the Union at large, that the state governments should be so little respected as they have been. however I dare say that in time all these as well as their central government, like the planets revolving round...

Extract from Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, 26 Nov. 1798 [Quote]

I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our constitution; I would be willing to depend on that alone for the reduction of the administration of our government to the genuine principles of it’s constitution; I mean an additional article taking from the federal government the power...

Extract from Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 5 Feb. 1799 [Quote]

the bill for continuing the suspension of intercourse with France & her dependencies is still before the Senate, but will pass by a very great vote. an attack is made on what is called Toussaint’s clause, the object of which, as is charged by the one party and admitted by the other, is to...