The Correspondence of Thomas Jefferson
By Subject
CONSTITUTION / UNITED STATES / PRESERVATION OF
I do then, with sincere zeal, wish an inviolable preservation of our
present federal Constitution, according to the true sense in which it
was adopted by the States, that in which it was advocated by its
friends, and not that which its enemies apprehended, who therefore
became its enemies; and I am opposed to the monarchizing its features
by the forms of its administration with a view to conciliate a first
transition to a President and Senate for life and from that to a
hereditary tenure of these offices, and thus to worm out the elective
principle.
to Elbridge Gerry, 26 January 1799
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