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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Richard Luscombe

Thomas Jefferson letter goes on the market – containing a prescient warning for Trump today

An antique letter next to an antique book
The 1787 letter from Thomas Jefferson to his friend and fellow member of the American Philosophical Society David Rittenhouse. Photograph: Raab Collection

A remarkably prescient letter written by Thomas Jefferson, the third US president, advising how the newly created country could prosper, has been put up for sale by a private collector. The handwritten document from 1787 warns specifically against many of the missteps Donald Trump has taken to drag down his own second term of office.

Written in Paris, where Jefferson was the fledgling government’s minister to France, the note to David Rittenhouse, a friend and fellow member of the American Philosophical Society, muses on the priorities and principles he believed future presidents should follow.

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