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Jefferson’s Concern about Method of Electing President (67)

Letter from Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, November 13, 1787. Manuscript. Thomas Jefferson Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (67)
[Digital ID# us0067]

Jefferson’s Concern about Method of Electing President 

Because they were serving as American ministers abroad during the constitutional debates John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were not involved in the Constitutional Convention. Neither saw major flaws in the new constitution. However, Jefferson thought that the legislature would be too restricted and greatly feared that the manner of electing the president would weaken the office. Jefferson asserted that the United States president “seems a bad edition of a Polish King,” a reference to the custom in eighteenth-century Poland of electing kings, which undercut royal authority.