For this high place Washington chose Thomas Jefferson, who was then
our minister in Paris, and who did not return to take up his official
duties until the following March. Of the four cabinet offices, this
was the only one where Washington proceeded entirely on public
grounds. He took Jefferson on account of his wide reputation, his
unquestioned ability, his standing before the country, and his
experience in our foreign relations. With the other three there was
a strong element of personal friendship and familiarity. With the
secretary of state his intercourse had been, so far as we can judge,
almost wholly of a public character, and, so far as can be inferred
from an expression of some years before, the selection was made by
Washington in deference simply to what he believed to be the public
interest. The only allusion to Jefferson in all the printed volumes of
correspondence prior to 1789 occurs in a letter to Robert Livingston,
of January 8, 1783. He there said: "What office is Mr. Jefferson
appointed to that he has, you say, lately accepted? If it is that of
commissioner of peace, I hope he will arrive too late to have any hand
in it." There is no indication that their personal relations were then
or afterwards other than pleasant. Yet this brief sentence is a
strong expression of distrust, and especially so from the fact that
Washington was not at all given to criticising other people in his
letters. What he distrusted was not Jefferson's ability, for that
no man could doubt, still less his patriotism.
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