Extract from Thomas Jefferson to John Melish

an honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens ... this is my belief of it; it is that on which I have acted; and had it been a mere contest who should be permitted to administer the government according to it’s genuine republican principles, there has never been a moment of my life in which I should have relinquished for it the enjoiments of my family, my farm, my friends & books.

PoC (DLC). Published in PTRJS, 5:562–3.
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January 13, 1813
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