The Gallery of Portraits: with Memoirs. Volume 7 (of 7)Malkin, Arthur Thomas
History
The Gallery of Portraits: with Memoirs. Volume 7 (of 7)
Malkin, Arthur Thomas
Biography
In May, 1784, Mr. Jefferson was appointed by Congress minister to
France; where he remained five years, during which he was actively
employed in promoting the general interests of his country, and in
keeping up an extensive correspondence. His industry and methodical
habits enabled him to devote a great deal of his time to the examination
of everything that could in any way prove beneficial to his countrymen.
His correspondence during this period shows the variety of his pursuits,
his unwearied industry, and unbounded zeal for every improvement that
could benefit the social condition of man. His remarks on the political
troubles of France, of which he witnessed the beginning, are
characterized by his usual closeness of observation, and his sanguine
anticipations of the benefit that would result from the people being
called to participate in the exercise of the sovereign power. After all
that has been written on the subject, they will still be read with
interest.
He returned to America at the close of 1789, and early in the next year
he was appointed Secretary of State by the President, General
Washington. He held this office till the end of 1793, when he resigned.
From 1793 to 1797 he lived in retirement. In 1797 he was elected
Vice-President of the United States; and in 1801 was chosen President,
in place of Mr. Adams, by the House of Representatives, on whom the
election devolved in consequence of the equal division of the electors’
votes between Mr. Jefferson and Colonel Burr. He was elected a second
time, and after fulfilling his term of eight years retired to his
favourite residence at Monticello, near the centre of the State of
Virginia.
On Mr. Jefferson’s retirement from the Presidency of the United States
he received, in the form of a farewell address, the thanks of the
General Assembly of his native State, Feb. 9, 1809. After briefly
recapitulating the leading measures of his administration, most of which
faction itself must allow were eminently calculated to promote the
happiness of the nation, and secure those republican principles on which
the constitution was founded, the General Assembly conclude with bearing
testimony to his unvarying singleness of purpose, from the days of his
youth when he resisted the Governor Dunmore, to his retirement from the
highest honours which the united nation could bestow. This address,
which, in point of style, is more free from objection than most American
productions of the same class, is such as few men on retiring from power
have received, and it was offered for services which few have performed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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