Jefferson, Thomas, as Third President

1 page (9 1/2 x 7 7/8 in.; 240 x 200 mm) on a bifolium, Washington, DC, 22 June 1808,  with docketing; browned with mat burn from early framing, two-inch square removed from address leaf apparently not affecting text, two small marginal stains from prior mounting, remains of seal. Accompanied by an engraved portrait of Jefferson by H.B. Hall after Gilbert Stuart.

Washington, H.A., ed. Writings of Thomas Jefferson (1853), 5:303

The Jefferson administration is governed by the same principles as the Society of Friends.

The President writes to William Franklin, son-in-law of Ben Franklin's associate Samuel Rhoads, thanking him for sending a copy of his address to the Society of Friends which apparently supported peaceful neutrality. He brings up, without mentioning it explicitly, the opposition he endured to his Embargo Act of 1807 trying to maintain American neutrality by restricting trade with Britain and France.

He writes: "The appeal both to facts and principles is strong, and their consistency will require an able advocate. Conscious that the present administration has been essentially pacific, and that in all questions of importance it has been governed by the identical principles professed by that Society, it has been quite at a loss to conjecture the unknown cause of the opposition of the greater part, & bare neutrality of the rest. The hope however that prejudices would at length give way to facts has never been entirely extinguished & still may be realized in favor of another administration."