RC (DLC); partially dated; endorsed by TJ: “Smith Wm. (S.C.).”

William Loughton Smith (1758–1812), a staunchly Federalist congressman from South Carolina, 1789–97, and minister to Portugal, 1797–1801, authored vitriolic pamphlet attacks on TJ in 1792 and 1796 (Editorial Note on opinions on the constitutionality of the Residence Bill, in Vol. 17: 178–80). The leading defender of Alexander Hamilton during the recent debates in the House of Representatives on the Giles resolutions, Smith around this time also requested detailed statements from the Treasury Department on the domestic and foreign debt for “his own Information,” probably hoping to use this data, as well as what he requested from TJ, to counteract Republican criticisms of Hamilton’s fiscal management during a forthcoming visit to South Carolina (Syrett, Hamilton description begins Harold C. Syrett and others, eds., The Papers of Alexander Hamilton, New York, 1961–87, 27 vols. description ends , xiv, 212–13, 338–41). See also George C. Rogers, Jr., Evolution of a Federalist: William Loughton Smith of Charleston (1758–1812) (Columbia, S.C., 1962), 241–6.