Dr. James Schouler says: "That Jefferson did not enter into the
rhapsodies of his times which magnified the first President into a
demigod infallible, is very certain; and that, sincerely or insincerely,
he had written from his distant retreat to private friends in Congress
with less veneration for Washington's good judgment on some points of
policy than for his personal virtues and honesty, is susceptible of
proof by more positive testimony than the once celebrated Mazzei letter.
Yet we should do Jefferson the justice to add that political differences
of opinion never blinded him to the transcendent qualities of
Washington's character, which he had known long and intimately enough to
appreciate with its possible limitations, which is the best appreciation
of all. Of many contemporary tributes which were evoked at the close of
the last century by that great hero's death, none bears reading so well
in the light of another hundred years as that which Jefferson penned
modestly in his private correspondence."