From Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 17 April 1804
To James Madison
Monticello Apr. 17. 04.
Dear Sir
I recieved yesterday your letter of the 12th. and now return the letters it covered. I recieved also thro’ mr Gallatin, Govr. Claiborne’s information to you that he had chartered a state bank at N. Orleans. as the act of Congress for a bank there, & the Charter of the Bank of the US. renders Claiborne’s charter a nullity, he should revoke it on that ground, as given before information was recieved of the act of Congress. I imagine this notification to him must go officially from you. the extreme situation of my daughter renders me incapable of adding more than my affectionate salutns.
Th: Jefferson
PrC (DLC); at foot of text: “The Secretary of State.” Notation in SJL: “Claiborne’s bank at N.O.” Enclosures: see Madison to TJ, 12 Apr.
extreme situation of my daughter: Thomas Mann Randolph recounted the somber situation from Monticello on 16 Apr., concluding “we have no longer ground left whereon to build the fondest and most phantastic hope of Mrs. Eppes’ recovery.” Resigned that “her fate is decided,” he added his concern for his father-in-law. “How the President will get over this blow I cannot pronounce: I will not conjecture from my knowledge of the firmness of his mind or the recollection that he has past forty years in the constant practice of a rigid control over his feelings; for I do not believe his understanding has strengthened at the expence of his heart. I can tell you how he bears it now. He passed all last evening with his handkerchief in his hand.” In his financial memoranda for 17 Apr., TJ recorded, “This morning between 8 & 9. aclock my dear daughter Maria Eppes died” (Thomas Mann Randolph to Caesar A. Rodney, 16 Apr. 1804, in NjP: Andre De Coppet Collection; , 2:1125; Thomas Jefferson’s Prayer Book, ed. John Cook Wyllie [Charlottesville, 1952], plate 11).