To James Madison from Augustus B. Woodward, 25 January 1817
From Augustus B. Woodward
City of Detroit, Jan. 25. 1817.
Mr. Woodward has the honor to present his respects to the President of the United States of America, and to submit to his perusal a discussion on the organization of the executive departments of the government of the United States.1
The papers are the property of the honorable Judge Duvall, of the Supreme Court of the United States; to whom Mr. Woodward solicits of the President the favor that they may be, eventually, returned.
RC (DLC). Docketed by JM.
1. Woodward had earlier treated this subject in his Considerations on the Executive Government of the United States of America (Flatbush, N.Y., 1809; 19261). He proposed that “the executive authority of the nation” be vested “in a permanent body, composed in a manner appropriated to our political circumstances, and of the construction designated in the Appendix, rather than in an individual character, according to the existing provisions of the Constitution” (ibid., 14).