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To His Excellency Thomas Jefferson: Letters to a President

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Jack McLaughlin has put together a volume dedicated to the letters written to Thomas Jefferson asking for help, money, adoring admiration, or passionately political. Jefferson wrote back or was silent, but he had feelings for all of them whether irritation or callousness, civility or graciousnes. Jefferson wrote letters from earily sunrise till one or two in the afternoon in his later years. He wrote at his writing table up till nine days prior to his death. He had arthritis in his writing hand from older injuries, but if he recieved a civil letter he nonetheless found time to answer it... even if not knowing the person who wrote it.

This book is extreamly valuable to see the American psychi of that time... a looking glass into the past. We see the intellectual and cultural lives of the people who wrote to Jefferson. The letters are fun to read... eaves-dropping on history, peeking into the lives of Americans long forgotten.

All the letters have a strong feeling for the purpose to which they were written, capitvating the reader. I found the book to have a fascinating but charming view into the Jefferson mailbag.

If you want to live history vicariously at its rote basic, what better way than to live it through the letters of the time. And letters seemed to follow Jefferson, as Jefferson wrote many. As the general public of undstinguished Americans wrote, they recorded their thoughts for posterity... it is with a distinct pleasure to relive their lives.

This book is a piece of priceless Americana at its finest, enjoyable to read and it will captivate.