ionate salutations.

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. Federali