MS not found; reprinted from Ford, description begins Paul Leicester Ford, ed., The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Letterpress Edition, New York, 1892–99, 10 vols. description ends vi, 168–71, where it is described as “From the original courteously loaned me by Miss S. N. Randolph,” captioned by the editor as “Jefferson’s Draft,” and assigned the conjectural date of “[February? 1793].” Elsewhere Ford described this text more specifically as a “rough draft of the resolutions, in the handwriting of Thomas Jefferson,” and printed resolutions 1, 3, 9–10 with their numbers in parentheses, the word Resolved in roman, and minor differences in punctuation (Paul L. Ford, description begins Paul Leicester Ford, ed., The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Letterpress Edition, New York, 1892–99, 10 vols. description ends “The Authorship of Giles’s Resolutions,” The Nation, lxi [1895], 164).

These resolutions were based in large measure on information provided by Alexander Hamilton himself in three of the four reports he submitted to the House of Representatives in February 1793 in defense of his administration of the Department of the Treasury. Thus, the fourth through the sixth resolutions were founded primarily on the basis of Hamilton’s own defense of his handling of foreign loans in the second of his two 13 Feb. 1793 reports to the House on this subject (Syrett, Hamilton description begins Harold C. Syrett and others, eds., The Papers of Alexander Hamilton, New York, 1961–87, 27 vols. description ends , xiv, 26–67). The information recited in the seventh resolution was drawn from Hamilton’s 19 Feb. 1793 report on his relations with the Bank of the United States, submitted to the House one day later (same, 94–7, 109–10). Finally, the indecorum to which the eighth resolution referred was the impugning, in Hamilton’s 4 Feb. 1793 report to the House on his handling of public revenues, of Congressman William B. Giles’s motives in offering to the House on 23 Jan. 1793 the resolves on the conduct of the Treasury that elicited the three reports from the Secretary of the Treasury, as well as another one of 13 Feb. 1793 on the subject of foreign loans (same, xiii, 542, 553, xiv, 17–26). The third resolution could have been based on either Hamilton’s 3 Jan. 1793 report to the House on foreign loans or the one of 13 Feb. 1793 first mentioned above (same, xiii, 451–62; Notes on Alexander Hamilton’s Report on Foreign Loans, printed under 4 Jan. 1793).

For a discussion of the 28 Aug. 1790 instructions of the president referred to in the third resolution, which concerned the negotiation of foreign loans under the acts of Congress of 4 and 12 Aug. 1790, and the charge in the fourth resolution that Hamilton deviated from them, see Notes on Alexander Hamilton’s Report on Foreign Loans, [ca. 20 Feb. 1793]. Concerning the functions of the commissioners for purchasing the public debt (of whom TJ was one) mentioned in the sixth resolution, see Report of the Commissioners of the Sinking Fund, [17 Nov. 1792], and note. For Hamilton’s accounting to the House of his handling of the loans contracted for the redemption of the domestic debt, see Syrett, Hamilton description begins Harold C. Syrett and others, eds., The Papers of Alexander Hamilton, New York, 1961–87, 27 vols. description ends , xiv, 30–2, 52–3, 60–3, 100–3.

The subjects of the reference in the eighth resolution concerned two requests by the House to Hamilton, the first that he supply it with such information about public finances as it would require to determine whether additional revenues were needed to fund a proposed increase in the army, and the second that he submit to it a plan for repaying the government’s debt to the Bank of the United States (JHR description begins Journal of the House of Representatives of the United States, Washington, D.C., Gales & Seaton, 1826, 9 vols. description ends , i, 493, 625; for Hamilton’s responses, see Syrett, Hamilton description begins Harold C. Syrett and others, eds., The Papers of Alexander Hamilton, New York, 1961–87, 27 vols. description ends , x, 531–6, xiii, 271). Hamilton’s failure to inform the House in either case of the money he had drawn to the United States from European loans contracted to pay the foreign and redeem the domestic debt was evidently the basis for the charge in this resolution that he had not provided the House with all necessary information within his knowledge.

Since the treasurer of the united states was already responsible for the keeping and disbursement of public revenues, the proposal in the ninth resolution to make this office a separate department of government independent of the Secretary of the Treasury was obviously designed to prevent what TJ and other Republicans perceived to be misapplications of public funds by Hamilton or his successors (ASP description begins American State Papers: Documents, Legislative and Executive, of the Congress of the United States, Washington, D.C., Gales & Seaton, 1832–61, 38 vols. description ends , Finance, i, 285). TJ had apparently favored this reform as early as the summer of 1792 (Note of Agenda to Reduce the Government to True Principles, [ca. 11 July 1792]).