Jefferson's 1787 letter, for sale at a $285,000 guide price, urges peace, debt repayment, constitutional improvement and agricultural growth. Dealer Nathan Raab sees parallels with Trump's Iran war, US debt above $40tn and tensions with farmers.
Jefferson wrote from Paris, where he was serving as the US minister to France, to David Rittenhouse, his friend and fellow American Philosophical Society member. The sale also includes a book he gave Rittenhouse, described as a major European scientific work; the pair was previously displayed at Texas A&M University.
Raab said Jefferson could not have known the Philadelphia convention had finished on the day he wrote: letters took about three weeks, and Jefferson would learn of its conclusion only weeks later. The letter also discusses his affection for the West and concern about another conflict with England, four years after the Revolutionary War.
