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JEFFERSON, Thomas (1743-1826). Autograph letter signed ("Th:Jefferson") as President, to William Keteltas (ca. 1765-1812), Washington, 17 July 1801.
One page, 160 x 202mm, with recipients' name written in Jefferson's hand affixed to verso (marginal losses infilled with period paper affecting one letter of text, several weak folds reinforced on verso, recipient's name).
Early in his first administration, Thomas Jefferson outlines his philosophy on political appointments. A candid and revealing letter, written in response to an impassioned plea requesting Jefferson reconsider his choice of David Gelston as Collector of the Port of New York. To this Jefferson replied: "No more welcome service can be rendered me than by information as to characters. My own knowledge of them through the extent of the union is very circumscribed. The consequence is that appointments, which are not the best, will sometimes be made, when my wish is purely to make the best. I suffer no personal views to affect my choice; but relying on the information of others, who with very laudable intentions sometimes form an estimate of a particular character different from that of others, must sometimes fail in effecting the best choice. I always wish to have information from different quarters, & from a view of the whole to form the best judgment I can."
Keletas, a New York Democratic-Republican partisan, was the son of a Presbyterian clergyman and an attorney in New York who had been jailed for publishing attacks against the New York legislature in 1796. In his letter to Jefferson, Keteltas warned that Gelston was the member of a committee appointed to oversee the New York gubernatorial election of 1792 in which he and his associates invalidated the ballots of three counties in the state, tipping the contest in favor of George Clinton over John Jay. According to Keteltas, the action, "convulsed the State, and put at Hazzard the Very Existance [sic] of the Constitution, and though passed over by the Moderation of the people, is Not, or Ever ought to be forgotten by [those] Who truly Estimate the Sacred Right of suffrage." Yet Keteltas conceded that if Jefferson could "dispense with the Objection I have Stated Against Mr. Geltson, he is in Every Other Respect Qualified for the trust." Evidently Jefferson chose to overlook the affair, and Gelston served as the Collector of the Port of New York until 1821.
One page, 160 x 202mm, with recipients' name written in Jefferson's hand affixed to verso (marginal losses infilled with period paper affecting one letter of text, several weak folds reinforced on verso, recipient's name).
Early in his first administration, Thomas Jefferson outlines his philosophy on political appointments. A candid and revealing letter, written in response to an impassioned plea requesting Jefferson reconsider his choice of David Gelston as Collector of the Port of New York. To this Jefferson replied: "No more welcome service can be rendered me than by information as to characters. My own knowledge of them through the extent of the union is very circumscribed. The consequence is that appointments, which are not the best, will sometimes be made, when my wish is purely to make the best. I suffer no personal views to affect my choice; but relying on the information of others, who with very laudable intentions sometimes form an estimate of a particular character different from that of others, must sometimes fail in effecting the best choice. I always wish to have information from different quarters, & from a view of the whole to form the best judgment I can."
Keletas, a New York Democratic-Republican partisan, was the son of a Presbyterian clergyman and an attorney in New York who had been jailed for publishing attacks against the New York legislature in 1796. In his letter to Jefferson, Keteltas warned that Gelston was the member of a committee appointed to oversee the New York gubernatorial election of 1792 in which he and his associates invalidated the ballots of three counties in the state, tipping the contest in favor of George Clinton over John Jay. According to Keteltas, the action, "convulsed the State, and put at Hazzard the Very Existance [sic] of the Constitution, and though passed over by the Moderation of the people, is Not, or Ever ought to be forgotten by [those] Who truly Estimate the Sacred Right of suffrage." Yet Keteltas conceded that if Jefferson could "dispense with the Objection I have Stated Against Mr. Geltson, he is in Every Other Respect Qualified for the trust." Evidently Jefferson chose to overlook the affair, and Gelston served as the Collector of the Port of New York until 1821.