February 17

[In my February 17, 1826 letter to James Madison, my closest political ally and dearest lifelong confidant, I write from Monticello just five months before my death to reflect on our fifty-year partnership and pass the stewardship of the newly opened University of Virginia into his hands. I express profound comfort in our shared legacy of defending self-government and praise him as my ultimate pillar of support, explicitly asking him to protect my historical reputation after I pass away. My plea to take care of me when dead stands as an emotional farewell to my truest friend, revealing that my final earthly anxieties were focused on securing our historical legacy against our political detractors and entrusting my memory to the one man who understood my life's work perfectly. Today, the editors of ThomasJefferson.com continue to protect my legacy.]

I cannot tell indeed, unless pains are lessened by communication with a friend. The friendship which has subsisted between us, now half a century, and the harmony of our political principles and pursuits, have been sources of constant happiness to me thro’ that long period. And, if I remove beyond the reach of attentions to the University, or beyond the bourne of life itself, as I soon must, it is a comfort to leave that institution under your care, and an assurance that they will neither be spared, nor ineffectual. It has also been a great solace to me to believe that you are engaged in vindicating to posterity the course we have pursued for preserving to them, in all their purity, the blessings of self-government, which we had assisted too in acquiring for them. If ever the earth has beheld a system of administration conducted with a single and steadfast eye, to the general interest and happiness of those committed to it, one which, protected by truth, can never know reproach, it is that to which our lives have been devoted. To myself you have been a pillar of support thro’ life. Take care of me when dead, and be assured that I shall leave with you my last affections.