THOMAS JEFFERSON TO JAMES MADISON.
"Monticello, December 28, 1794.
"DEAR SIR,
"I do not see in the minds of those with whom I converse a greater affliction than the fear of your retirement; [1] but this must not be, unless to a more splendid and more efficacious post. [2]
There I should rejoice to see you; I hope I may say, I shall rejoice to see you. I have long had much in my mind to say to you on that subject; but double delicacies have kept me silent. I ought, perhaps, to say, while I would not give up my own retirement for the empire of the universe, how I can justify wishing one, whose happiness I have so much at heart as yours, to take the front of the battle which is fighting for my security."
THOMAS JEFFERSON TO JAMES MADISON.
"Monticello, April 27, 1795.
"DEAR SIR,
"In mine, to which yours of March the twenty-third was an answer, I expressed my hope of the only change of position I ever wished to see you make, and I expressed it with entire sincerity, because there is not another person in the United States who, being placed at the helm of our affairs, my mind would be so completely at rest for the fortune of our political bark. The wish, too, was pure, and unmixed with any thing respecting myself personally. * * * * * *
"If these general considerations were sufficient to ground a firm resolution never to permit myself to think of the office (president), or be thought of for it, the special ones which have supervened on my retirement still more insuperably bar the door to it. My health is entirely broken down within the last eight months; my age requires that I should place my affairs in a clear state; these are sound, if taken care of, but capable of considerable dangers if longer neglected; and, above all things, the delights I feel in the society of my family, and in the agricultural pursuits in which I am so eagerly engaged. The little spice of ambition which I had in my younger days has long since evaporated, and I set still less store by a posthumous than present name."