[Previous page]...ign ministers, arriving at the
seat of government, receive the first visit from those of the
national ministers, as from all other residents.
2d. Members of the Legislature and of the Judiciary,
independent of their offices, have a right as strangers to receive
the first visit.
II. 1st. No title being admitted here, those of foreigners
give no precedence.
2d. Differences of grade among diplomatic members, gives no
precedence.
3d. At public ceremonies, to which the government invites the
presence of foreign ministers and their families, a convenient seat
or station will be provided for them, with any other strangers
invited and the families of the national ministers, each taking place
as they arrive, and without any precedence.
4th. To maintain the principle of equality, or of pele mele,
and prevent the growth of precedence out of courtesy, the members of
the Executive will practice at their own houses, and recommend an
adherence to the ancient usage of the country, of gentlemen in mass
giving precedence to the ladies in mass, in passing from one
apartment where they are assembled into another.
Epitaph [1826]
could the dead feel any interest in Monuments
or other remembrances of them, when, as
Anacreon says {Olige de keisomestha
Konis, osteon lythenton}
the following would be to my Manes the most
gratifying.
On the grave
a plain die or cube of 3.f without any
mouldings, surmounted by an Obelisk
of 6.f height, each of a single stone:
on the faces of the Obelisk the following
inscription, & not a word more
`Here was buried
Thomas Jefferson
Author of the Declaration of American Independance
of the Statute of Virginia for religious freedom
& Father of the University of Virginia.'
because by these, as testimonials that I have lived, I wish
most to
be remembered. to be of the coarse stone of which
my columns are made, that no one might be tempted
hereafter to destroy it for the value of the materials.
my bust by Ciracchi, with the pedestal and truncated
column on which it stands, might be given to the University
if they would place it in the Dome room of the Rotunda.
on the Die of the Obelisk might be engraved
`Born Apr. 2. 1743. O.S.
Died
_ '
.