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Subject Area: Political Theory
Topic: The American Revolution and Constitution

TO THOMAS JEFFERSON. - George Washington, The Writings of George Washington, vol. XII (1790-1794) [1891]

Edition used:

The Writings of George Washington, collected and edited by Worthington Chauncey Ford (New York and London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1890). Vol. XII (1790-1794).

Part of: The Writings of George Washington, 14 vols.

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Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


TO THOMAS JEFFERSON.

Dear Sir,

I yesterday received, with sincere regret, your resignation of the office of Secretary of State.1 Since it has been impossible to prevail upon you to forego any longer the indulgence of your desire for private life, the event, however anxious I am to avert it, must be submitted to.

But I cannot suffer you to leave your station without assuring you, that the opinion, which I had formed of your integrity and talents, and which dictated your original nomination, has been confirmed by the fullest experience; and that both have been eminently displayed in the discharge of your duty.

Let a conviction of my most earnest prayers for your happiness accompany you in your retirement; and while I accept, with the warmest thanks, your solicitude for my welfare, I beg you to believe that I always am, dear Sir, &c.

[1 ]Mr. Jefferson’s Letter.—“Dear Sir: Having had the honor of communicating to you in my letter of the last of July my purpose of retiring from the office of Secretary of State, at the end of the month of September, you were pleased for particular reasons to wish its postponement to the close of the year. That time being now arrived, and my propensities to retirement daily more and more irresistible, I now take the liberty of resigning the office into your hands. Be pleased to accept with it my sincere thanks for all the indulgences, which you have been so good as to exercise towards me in the discharge of its duties. Conscious that my need of them has been great, I have still ever found them greater, without any other claim on my part than a firm pursuit of what has appeared to me to be right, and a thorough disdain of all means, which were not as open and honorable as their object was pure. I carry into my retirement a lively sense of your goodness, and shall continue gratefully to remember it.

“With very sincere prayers for your life, health, and tranquillity, I pray you to accept the homage of the great and constant respect and attachment, with which I have the honor to be,” &c.—Philadelphia, December 31st.