Extract from Thomas Jefferson to Louis H. Girardin

As to what is to be said of myself, I of course am not the judge. but my sincere wish is that the faithful historian, like the able Surgeon, would consider me in his hands, while living, as a dead subject: that the same judgment may now be expressed which will be rendered hereafter, so far as my small agency in human affairs may attract future notice ... the only exact testimony of a man is his actions, leaving the reader to pronounce on them his own judgment.

RC (PPAmP: Thomas Jefferson Papers). PoC (DLC). Tr (Arthur M. Schlesinger, Cambridge, Mass., 1945); posthumous copy.