Thomas Jefferson

On Monday, February 18, we celebrate President’s Day, to honor all the past presidents who have served the United States. Thomas Jefferson, who was our nation’s third president, would surely have appreciated such a holiday, since he knew that being president was often a difficult and thankless job, with many responsibilities. Jefferson had a vision of how the presidency should work. He wrote:

“Permit me first to explain the principles which I had laid down for my own observance. In a government like ours it is the duty of the Chief Magistrate, in order to enable himself to do all the good which his station requires, to endeavor, by all honorable means, to unite in himself the confidence of the whole people. This alone, in any case where the energy of the nation is required, can produce an [sic] union of the powers of the whole, and point them in a single direction, as if all constituted but one body & one mind, and this alone can render a weaker nation unconquerable by a stronger one. Towards acquiring the confidence of the people the very first measure is to satisfy them of his disinterestedness, & that he is directing their affairs with a single eye to their good, & not to build up fortunes for himself & family: & especially that the officers appointed because they are the fittest men, not because they are his relations. So prone are they to suspicion that where a President appoints a relation of his own, however worthy, they will believe that favor & not merit, was the motive. I therefore laid it down as a law of conduct for myself never to give an appointment to a relation.”

Even following strict rules regarding nepotism and other forms of corruption did not necessarily protect a president safe against public disapproval. Jefferson knew it was almost impossible for a person to emerge from the presidency with as much respect as he had when he entered office. Jefferson wrote:

“No man will ever bring out of that office the reputation which carries him into it.”