Thomas Jefferson Papers
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https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-36-02-0112

From Thomas Jefferson to the Senate and the House of Representatives, 23 December 1801

To the Senate and the House of Representatives

Gentlemen of the Senate & of
the House of Representatives

Another return of the Census of the State of Maryland is just recieved from the Marshal of that state, which he desires may be substituted as more correct than the one first returned by him and communicated by me to Congress. this new return with his letter is now laid before you.

Th: Jefferson
Dec. 23. 1801.

RC (DNA: RG 233, PM, 7th Cong., 1st sess.); endorsed by a House clerk. PrC (DLC). RC (DNA: RG 46, LPPM, 7th Cong., 1st sess.); endorsed by a Senate clerk. Recorded in SJL with notation “Census of Maryland.” Enclosures: (1) Reuben Etting to Madison, 21 Dec. 1801, Baltimore, enclosing a revised return he made out after a letter from John Archer, which alerted him to errors in the return for Harford County, led him to review all the returns on which the earlier return for the state had been based; explaining that he had little time to work with the assistants’ returns before he had to submit the original return for the state (Tr in DNA: RG 233, PM, in a clerk’s hand, endorsed by a House clerk; Tr in DNA: RG 46, LPPM; Madison, Papers, Sec. of State Ser., 2:329–30). (2) “Schedule of the whole Number of Persons in the District of Maryland,” 21 Dec. 1801 (Tr in DNA: RG 233, PM, endorsed by a House clerk; a note in DNA: RG 46, LPPM, by a Senate clerk states that the Senate’s copy of the return was delivered to “Smith the printer”). (3) “Abstract of the Whole Number of Persons in the District of Maryland,” 21 Dec. 1801 (Tr in DNA: RG 233, PM, endorsed by a House clerk). Message and enclosures printed as Message from the President of the United States, Communicating a Letter from the Marshal of the State of Maryland, and a Return of the Census of that State (Washington, 1801), printed by order of the House of Representatives (Shaw-Shoemaker description begins Ralph R. Shaw and Richard H. Shoemaker, comps., American Bibliography: A Preliminary Checklist for 1801–1819, New York, 1958–63, 22 vols. description ends , No. 1510), and in the Return of the Whole Number of Persons (Shaw-Shoemaker description begins Ralph R. Shaw and Richard H. Shoemaker, comps., American Bibliography: A Preliminary Checklist for 1801–1819, New York, 1958–63, 22 vols. description ends , No. 1559, cited at Madison to TJ, 8 Dec.).

The House of Representatives received the above message and the accompanying papers from Meriwether Lewis on 23 Dec. and referred the documents to the committee composed of John P. Van Ness and others who were considering the apportionment of representation (see TJ to the Senate and the House of Representatives, 22 Dec.). The Senate also received the documents from Lewis on the 23d. After the papers were read, the Senate ordered that they “lie for consideration” (JHR description begins Journal of the House of Representatives of the United States, Washington, D.C., 1826, 9 vols. description ends , 4:19, 25; JS description begins Journal of the Senate of the United States, Washington, D.C., 1820–21, 5 vols. description ends , 3:163–4).

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