he, that in executing it, I have aimed at that plainness and modesty of language, which you had in view, and which, indeed, are so peculiarly becoming the character and the occasion; and that I had little more to do as to the matter, than to follow the just and comprehensive outline which you had sketched. I flatter myself, however, that, in everything which has depended on me, much improvement will be made, before so interesting at paper shall have taken its last form."* Before concluding his letter, Madison expressed a hope that Washington would reconsider his idea of retiring from office, and that the country might not, at so important a juncture, be deprived of the inestimable advantage of having him at the head of its councils. On the 23d of May, Jefferson also addressed a long letter to Washington on the same subject. When you first mentioned to me your purpose of retiring from the government, though I felt all the magnitude of the event, I was in a considerable degree silent. I knew that, to such a mind as yours, persuasion was idle and impertinent; that, before forming your decision, you had weighed all the reasons for and against the measure, had made up your mind in full view of them, and that there could * Washington's Writings. Sparks, xii., 382. Opposition of Jefferson 285 be little hope of changing the result. Pursuing my reflections, too, I knew we were some day to try to walk alone, and, if the essay should be made while you should be alive and looking on, we should derive confidence from that circumstance, and resource if it failed. The public mind, too, was then calm and confident, and therefore in a favorable state for making the experiment. But the public mind is no longer so confident and serene; and that from causes in which you are no ways personally mixed." Jefferson now launched out against the public debt and all the evils which he apprehended from the funding system, the ultimate object of all which was, said he, "to prepare the way for a change from the present republican form of government to that of a monarchy, of which the English constitution is to be the model." He concluded by pronouncing the continuance of Washington at the head of affairs, to be of the last importance. "The confidence of the whole Union," writes he, "is centered in you. Your being at the helm will be more than an answer to every argument which can be used to alarm and lead the people in any quarter into violence or secession. North and South will hang together, if they have you to hang on; and, if the first corrective of a numerous representation should fail in its effect, your presence will give time for trying others not inconsistent with the union and peace of the States. "I am perfectly aware of the oppression under which your present office lays your mind, and of the ardor with which you pant for retirement to domestic life. But there is sometimes an eminence of character on which society have such peculiar claims, as to control the predilections of the individual for a particular walk of happiness, and restrain him to that alone, arising from the present and future benediction of mankind. This seems to be your condition, and the law imposed on you. by Providence, in forming your character, and fashioning the events on which it was to operate; and it is to motives like these, and not to personal anxieties of mine or others, who have no right to call on you for sacrifices, that I appeal from your former determination and urge a revisal of it, on the ground of change in the aspect of things. Should an honest majority result from the new and enlarged representation, should those acquiesce, whose principles or interests they may control, your wishes for retirement would be gratified with less danger, as soon as that shall be manifest, without awaiting the completion of the second |