8819. VICE-PRESIDENCY, Tranquil and unoffending.—
I thank you for your
congratulations on the public call on me to
undertake the second office in the United
States, but still more for the justice you do
me in viewing as I do the escape from the
first. I have no wish again to meddle in public
affairs, being happier at home than I can
be anywhere else. Still less do I wish to
engage in an office where it would be impossible
to satisfy either friends or foes, and
least of all at a moment when the storm is
about to burst, which has been conjuring up
for four years past. If I am to act, however,
a more tranquil and unoffending station
could not have been found for me, nor one
so analogous to the dispositions of my mind.
It will give me philosophical evenings in the
winter, and rural days in summer.—
To Dr. Benjamin Rush. Washington ed. iv, 165.
Ford ed., vii, 113.
(M.
Jan. 1797)
