Th:  Jefferson,

LETTER LXVI.—­TO RICHARD M. JOHNSON, March 10, 1808

TO RICHARD M. JOHNSON.

Washington, March 10, 1808.

Sir,

I am sure you can too justly estimate my occupations, to need an apology for this tardy acknowledgment of your favor of February the 27th.  I cannot but be deeply sensible of the good opinion you are pleased to express of my conduct in the administration of our government.  This approbation of my fellow-citizens is the richest reward I can receive.  I am conscious of having always intended to do what was best for them:  and never, for a single moment, to have listened to any personal interest of my own.  It has been a source of great pain to me, to have met with so many among our opponents, who had not the liberality to distinguish between political and social opposition; who transferred at once to the person, the hatred they bore to his political opinions.  I suppose, indeed, that in public life, a man whose political principles have any decided character, and who has energy enough to give them effect, must always expect to encounter political hostility from those of adverse principles.  But I came to the government under circumstances calculated to generate peculiar acrimony.  I found all its offices in the possession of a political sect, who wished to transform it ultimately into the shape of their darling model, the English government; and in the mean time, to familiarize the public mind to the change, by administering it on English principles, and in English forms.  The elective interposition of the people had blown all their designs, and they found themselves and their fortresses of power and profit put in a moment into the hands of other trustees.  Lamentations and invective were all that remained to them.  This last was naturally directed against the agent selected to execute the multiplied reformations, which their heresies had rendered necessary.  I became of course the butt of every thing which reason, ridicule, malice, and falsehood could supply.  They have concentrated all their hatred on me, till they have really persuaded themselves, that I am the sole source of all their imaginary evils.  I hope, therefore, that my retirement will abate some of their disaffection to the government of their country, and that my successor will enter on a calmer sea than I did.  He will at least find the vessel of state in the hands of his friends, and not of his foes.  Federalism is dead, without even the hope of a day of resurrection.  The quondam leaders, indeed, retain their rancor and principles; but their followers are amalgamated with us in sentiment, if not in name.  If our fellow-citizens, now solidly republican, will sacrifice favoritism towards men for the preservation of principle, we may hope that no divisions will again endanger a degeneracy in our government.

*****

I pray you to accept my salutations, and assurances of great esteem and respect.