The Correspondence of Thomas Jefferson
By Subject
PUBLIC SERVICE / SECRETARY OF STATE
I have received at this place the honor of your letters of October
the 13th and November the 30th, and am truly flattered by your
nomination of me to the very dignified office of Secretary of State;
for which, permit me here to return you my humble thanks. Could any
circumstance seduce me to overlook the disproportion between its
duties and my talents, it would be the encouragement of your choice.
But when I contemplate the extent of that office, embracing as it does
the principal mass of domestic administration, together with the
foreign I cannot be insensible of my inequality to it; and I should
enter on it with gloomy forebodings from the criticisms and censures
of a public, just indeed in their intentions, but sometimes
misinformed and misled, and always too respectable to be neglected. I
cannot but foresee the possibility that this may end disagreeably for
me, who, having no motive to public service but the public
satisfaction, would certainly retire the moment that satisfaction
should appear to languish. On the other hand, I feel a degree of
familiarity with the duties of my present office, as far at least as I
am capable of understanding its duties. The ground I have already
passed over, enables me to see my way into that which is before me.
The change of government too, taking place in a country where it is
exercised, seems to open a possibility of procuring from the new
rulers, some new advantages in commerce, which may be agreeable to our
countrymen. So that as far as my fears, my hopes, or my inclinations
might enter into this question, I confess they would not lead me to
prefer a change.
But it is not for an individual to choose his post. You are to
marshal us as may best be for the public good; and it is only in the
case of its being indifferent to you, that I would avail myself of the
option you have so kindly offered in your letter. If you think it
better to transfer me to another post, my inclination must be no
obstacle; nor shall it be, if there is any desire to suppress the
office I now hold, or to reduce its grade. In either of these cases,
be so good only as to signify to me by another line your ultimate
wish, and I shall conform to it cordially. If it should be to remain
at New York, my chief comfort will be to work under your eye, my only
shelter the authority of your name, and the wisdom of measures to be
dictated by you and implicitly executed by me. Whatever you may be
pleased to decide, I do not see that the matters which have called me
hither, will permit me to shorten the stay I originally asked; that is
to say, to set out on my journey northward till the month of March.
to George Washington, 15 December 1789
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