January 25

[In this letter dated January 25, 1810, written from Monticello during my retirement as a private citizen following the conclusion of my second presidential term, I address my young cousin J. Garland Jefferson, a Virginia lawyer. The political landscape of the preceding decade had been defined by intense partisan scrutiny between republicans and those of the opposing faction, where charges of monarchical corruption and political favoritism were frequently traded. Having received a past request from my cousin seeking a government appointment during my presidency, I write to soothe his wounded pride and explain that my refusal was a matter of strict systemic policy rather than a personal slight. I explicitly articulate that a weaker nation can only become unconquerable by a stronger adversary if its citizens possess total confidence in the absolute disinterestedness of their Chief Magistrate, viewing the president as operating with a single eye to the public good rather than nepotism and family fortune.]

Your favor of December 12th was long coming to hand. I am much concerned to learn that any disagreeable impression was made on your mind, by the circumstances which are the subject of your letter. Permit me first to explain the principles which I had laid down for my own observance. In a government like ours, it is the duty of the Chief Magistrate, in order to enable himself to do all the good which his station requires, to endeavor, by all honorable means, to unite in himself the confidence of the whole people. This alone, in any case where the energy of the nation is required, can produce a union of the powers of the whole, and point them in a single direction, as if all constituted but one body and one mind, and this alone can render a weaker nation unconquerable by a stronger one. Towards acquiring the confidence of the people, the very first measure is to satisfy them of his disinterestedness, and that he is directing their affairs with a single eye to their good, and not to build up fortunes for himself and family, and especially, that the officers appointed to transact their business, are appointed because they are the fittest men, not because they are his relations. So prone are they to suspicion, that where a President appoints a relation of his own, however worthy, they will believe that favor and not merit, was the motive.

I therefore laid it down as a law of conduct for myself, never to give an appointment to a relation. Had I felt any hesitation in adopting this rule, examples were not wanting to admonish me what to do and what to avoid. Still, the expression of your willingness to act in any office for which you were qualified, could not be imputed to you as blame. It would not readily occur that a person qualified for office ought to be rejected merely because he was related to the President, and the then more recent examples favored the other opinion. In this light I considered the case as presenting itself to your mind, and that the application might be perfectly justifiable on your part, while, for reasons occurring to none perhaps, but the person in my situation, the public interest might render it unadvisable. Of this, however, be assured that I considered the proposition as innocent on your part, and that it never lessened my esteem for you, or the interest I felt in your welfare.