Few die, none resign (Quotation)
From Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia
"Few die, none resign", is a paraphrase of a statement Thomas Jefferson made in a letter to a group of New Haven, Connecticut merchants in 1801:
"if a due participation of office is a matter of right, how are vacancies to be obtained? those by death are few. by resignation none."[1]
It appears that this shortening of Jefferson's statement has been in use for quite some time. Jefferson's 1801 letter to the New Haven merchants was published in a number of newspapers within a matter of weeks after it was written. By 1836, the phrase was described in one journal as "that remarkable apothegm of Mr. Jefferson."[2]
Footnotes
- ↑ Jefferson to the New Haven Merchants, Washington, D.C., July 12, 1801, in PTJ, 34:556. Press copy available online from the Library of Congress.
- ↑ http://books.google.com/books?id=ZKZLAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA41
See Also
Further Sources
- Cunningham, Noble E. The Jeffersonian Republicans in Power: Party Operations, 1801-1809. Chapel Hill, NC: UNC Press, 1963. See especially Chapter Two, "The Party and the Patronage: The Initiation of Policy," which discusses at length the political context and meaning of the letter quoted above.
