Thomas Jefferson

"I do believe that General Washington had not a firm confidence in the durability of our government. He was naturally distrustful of men, and inclined to gloomy apprehensions; and I was ever persuaded that a belief that we must at length end in something like a British constitution, had some weight in his adoption of the ceremonies of levees, birthdays, pompous meetings with Congress, and other forms of the same character, calculated to prepare us gradually for a change which he believed possible, and to let it come on with as little shock as might be to the public mind."

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Source: Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies: From the Papers of Thomas Jefferson”, p.237

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Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson

Politician, Founding Father

Thomas Jefferson was the third President of the United States and the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, advocating for liberty and democracy.

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