University of Virginia Library

TO HENRY LEE.

Your letter of Novr. 14 came safely tho' tardily to
hand.

I must confess that I perceive no ground on which
a doubt could be applied to the statement of Mr.
Jefferson which you cite. Nor can it I think be
difficult to account for my declining an Executive
appointment under Washington and accepting it
under Jefferson, without making it a test of my comparative
attachment to them, and without looking
beyond the posture of things at the two epochs.

The part I had borne, in the origin and adoption
of the Constitution, determined me at the outset
of the Govt. to prefer a seat in the House of Representatives;
as least exposing me to the imputation
of selfish views; and where, if anywhere I could be
of service in sustaining the Constitution agst. the
party adverse to it. It was known to my friends
when making me a candidate for the Senate, that
my choice was the other branch of the Legislature.
Having commenced my Legislative career as I did,

I thought it most becoming to proceed under the
original impulse to the end of it; and the rather
as the Constn. in its progress, was encountering
trials, of a new sort in the formation of new Parties
attaching adverse constructions to it.

The Crisis at which I accepted the Executive appointment
under Mr. Jefferson is well known. My
connexion with it, and the part I had borne in promoting
his election to the Chief Magistracy, will
explain my yielding to his pressing desire that I
should be a member of his Cabinet.

I hope you received the copies of your father's
letters to me, which were duly forwarded; and I am
not without a hope that you will have been enabled
to comply with my request of Copies of mine to him.