1714. CONSTITUTION (French), Cooperation of Jefferson invited.—
The Assembly
appointed a committee for the “reduction of a projet” of a constitution, at the head of
which was the Archbishop of Bordeaux. I received
from him, as chairman of the committee,
a letter of July 20th [1789], requesting me to
attend and assist at their deliberations; but I
excused myself, on the obvious considerations
that my mission was to the King as Chief Magistrate
of the nation, that my duties were limited
to the concerns of my own country, and forbade
me to intermeddle with the internal transactions
of that in which I had been received under
a specific character only.—
Autobiography. Washington ed. i, 103.
Ford ed., i, 143.
(1821)
