The Correspondence of Thomas Jefferson

By Subject

PUBLIC SERVICE / DESIRE TO REMAIN OUT OF OFFICE

You ask me if I would accept any appointment on that side of the water? You know the circumstances which led me from retirement, step by step, and from one nomination to another, up to the present My object is a return to the same retirement; whenever, therefore, I quit the present, it will not be to engage in any other office, and most especially any one which would require a constant residence from home.

to James Madison, 28 August 1789