Jefferson, Thomas | "I will expunge the effects of mr A’s indecent conduct in crouding nominations … at 12. aclock of which he was to go out of office"

Jefferson, ThomasAutograph letter signed ("Th: Jefferson") as third President, to Benjamin Rush, discussing his inaugural address and his immediate plans as chief executive
2 pages (248 x 204 mm) on a bifolium of wove paper, Washington, 24 March 1801, with two autograph emendations, integral autograph address leaf directed to Dr. Rush at Philadelphia with franking signature by Jefferson (free | Th: Jefferson), postmark "Washington Mar 25," and "Free" postal stamp; lightly browned, seal tear repaired. Framed and double-glazed with an engraved portrait of Jefferson.
A vitally important letter written at the dawn of Jefferson's presidency, addressing the party factionalism threatening the country and John Adams's "midnight appointments" of dozens of judgeships in his last hours of his presidency.
The presidential election of 1800 was bitter and divisive. While the Republican Jefferson bested the incumbent Federalist Adams, he was left tied with Aaron Burr, his vice presidential running mate. The election was thrown to the House of Representatives, and while Jefferson's own party recognized him as the top of the ticket, Federalist congressmen schemed to deny him the White House and instead install Burr. Jefferson ultimately prevailed on the thirty-sixth ballot—and in 1804, the ratification of the Twelfth Amendment would require the states to vote for the president and vice president separately.
Against this background, Jefferson made a speech urging unity and reconciliation, and he suggests to Rush that he was pleased with its reception: "I have to acknolege the reciept of your friendly favor of the 12th and the pleasing sensations produced in my mind by it’s affectionate contents. I am made very happy by learning that the sentiments expressed in my inaugural address give general satisfaction, and hold out a ground on which our fellow citizens can once more unite. I am the more pleased, because these sentiments have been long & radically mine, and therefore will be pursued honestly & conscientiously." (Rush, for his part, had praised the inaugural address extravagantly in the letter referenced by Jefferson: "You have opened a new Œra by your Speech on the 4th: of March in the history of the United States. Never have I seen the public mind more generally, or more agreeably affected by any publication. Old friends who had been seperated by party names, and a supposed difference of principle in politicks for many years, shook hands with each Other, immediately After reading it, and discovered, for the first time, that they had differed in Opinion only, About the best means of promoting the interests of their common country. It would require a page to contain the names of all the citizens (formerly called federalists) who have spoken in the highest terms of your Speech").
But Jefferson knew that good feelings could quickly evaporate when he began to fill government offices with members of his Republican party. "I know there is an obstacle which very possibly may check the confidence which would otherwise have been more generally reposed in my observance of these principles. this obstacle does not arise from the measures to be pursued, as to which I am in no fear of giving satisfaction: but from appointments & disappointments as to office. with respect to appointments I have so much confidence in the justice and good sense of the federalists that I have no doubt they will concur in the fairness of the position, that after they have been in the exclusive possession of all offices from the very first origin of party among us to the 3d. of March at 9. aclock in the night, no republican ever admitted, & this doctrine openly avowed, it is now perfectly just that the republicans should come in for the vacancies which may fall in, until something like an equilibrium in office be restored; after which "Tros, Tyriusque nullo discrimine habeatur' ["I shall allow no difference between the Trojan and Tyrian," Aeneid 1:574] but the great stumbling block will be removals, which tho’ made on those just principles only on which my predecessor ought to have removed the same persons, will nevertheless be ascribed to removal on party principles."
Jefferson cannot, however, disguise from Rush his irritation with Adams's midnight appointments, which would cause a rift between the two statesmen that would last more than a decade (and which Rush would be instrumental in patching up; see next lot). "Imprimis I will expunge the effects of mr A’s indecent conduct in crouding nominations after he knew they were not for himself, till 9. aclock of the night, at 12. aclock of which he was to go out of office; so far as they are during pleasure. I will not consider the persons named, even as candidates for the office, nor pay the respect of notifying them that I consider what was done as a nullity. 2. some removals must be made for misconduct. one of these is of the marshal in your city [John Hall, Marshal of the district of Pennsylvania], who being an officer of justice, entrusted with the sacred function of chusing impartial judges for the trial of his fellow citizens placed at the awful tribunal of god & their country, selected judges who either avowed, or were known to him to be predetermined to condemn. and if the lives of the unfortunate persons were not cut short by the sword of the law, it was not for want of his good will." Perhaps to establish his objectivity, Jefferson claims to have taken similar action against David Meade Randolph in Virginia, despite his being "the dearest connection of my dearest friend," but he estimates that such dismissals for misconduct of marshals and attornies will affect "a very few individuals only, probably not 20. will be removed & these only for doing what they ought not to have done."
The letter continues with further thoughts on appointing and removing officeholders. "2. or 3. instances indeed where mr A. removed men because they would not sign addresses &c to him, will be rectified, & the persons restored. the whole world will say this is just. I know that in stopping thus short in the career of removal, I shall give great offence to many of my friends. that torrent has been pressing me heavily, & will require all my force to bear up against. but my maxim is fiat justitia, ruat coelum' ["let justice be done, though heaven should fall"]. after the first unfavorable impressions of doing too much in the opinion of some, & too little in that of others, shall be got over, I should hope a steady line of conciliation very practicable, & that without yielding a single republican principle. a certainty that these principles prevailed in the breasts of the main body of federalists was my motive for stating them as the ground of reunion.—I have said thus much for your private satisfaction, to be used even in private conversation, as the presumptive principles on which we shall act, but not as proceeding from myself declaredly."
Tiring of politics, perhaps, Jefferson closes the letter with a strong endorsement of George Cuvier's Leçons d’Anatomie Comparée (Paris, 1800), which had been sent to the American Philosophical Society by the American chemist Thomas Peters Smith: "information lately recieved from France gives a high idea of the progress of science there. it seems to keep pace with their victories. I have just recieved for the A.P. society 2. volumes of Comparative Anatomy by Cuvier, probably the greatest work in that line that has ever appeared. his comparisons embrace every organ of the animal economy, and from Man, to the rotifer. accept assurances of my sincere friendship & high consideration & respect." Jefferson eventually added the work to his own library (Sowerby, no. 999).
REFERENCE:The Papers of Thomas Jefferson ed. Oberg, 33:436–438; for Rush's letter of 12 March 1801, 33:260–262
PROVENANCE:Frederick M. Dearborn (according to the Jefferson Papers, the owner of the letter in 1949)