The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 8 · Thomas Jefferson
TO HIS EXCELLENCY GOVERNOR WRIGHT.
MONTICELLO, April 3, 1809. DEAR SIR,--Your friendly note of March 3d, was delivered to me on that day. You know the pressure of the last moments of a session of Congress, and can judge of that of my own departure from Washington, and of my first attentions here. This must excuse my late acknowledgment of your note. The assurances of your approbation of the course I have observed are highly flattering, and the more so, as you have been sometimes an eye-witness and long of the vicinage of the public councils. The testimony of my fellow citizens, and especially of one who, having been himself in the high departments, to the means of information united the qualifications to judge, is a consolation which will sweeten the residue of my life. The fog which arose in the east in the last moments of my service, will doubtless clear away and expose under a stronger light the rocks and shoals which have threatened us with danger. It is impossible the good citizens of the east should not see the agency of England, the tools she employs among them, and the criminal arts and falsehoods of which they have been the dupes. I still trust and pray that our union may be perpetual, and I beg you to accept the assurances of my high esteem and respect.
TO THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK. MONTICELLO, April 12, 1809. I receive with respect and gratitude, from the Legislature of New York, on my retirement from the office of chief magistrate of the United States, the assurances of their esteem, and of their satisfaction with the services I have endeavored to render. The welfare of my fellow citizens, and the perpetuation of our republican institutions, having been the governing principles of my public life, the favorable testimony borne by the Legislature of a State so respectable as that of New York, gives me the highest consolation. And this is much strengthened by an intimate conviction that the same principles will govern the conduct of my successor, whose talents, and eminent services, are a certain pledge that the confidence in him expressed by the Legislature of New York, will never be disappointed. Sole depositories of the remains of human liberty, our duty to ourselves, to posterity, and to mankind, call on us by every motive which is sacred or honorable, to watch over the safety of our beloved country during the troubles which agitate and convulse the residue of the world, and to sacrifice to that all personal and local considerations. While the boasted energies of monarchy have yielded to easy conquest the people they were to protect, should our fabric of freedom suffer no more than the slight agitations we have experienced, it will be an useful lesson to the friends as well as the enemies of self-government. That it may stand the shocks of time and accident, and that your own may make a distinguished part of the mass of prosperity it may dispense, will be my latest prayer.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.