To James Madison from Thomas Jefferson, 3 August 1804
From Thomas Jefferson
Monticello Aug. 3. 04.
Th: J. to J. M.
I inclose you the S. Carolina ratification of the amendment to the constitution,1 & presume it possible that in a week more you may recieve that of Tennisee, after which I suppose no time should be lost in publishing officially the final ratification. Prevost accepts the office of judge of the Orleans territory, & Dickerson that of Attorney.2 But as J. T. M.3 declines the place of A. G. US. can we find a fitter person than Dickerson for this last? Can you think of any body better? I write to mr. Gallatin also on this subject, as he made the application to Dickerson; and it is necessary the decision should be made before we meet again. Will you be so good as to order a commission for Philip Greene as Collector of the district of Marietta,4 & another as Inspector of the revenue for the port of Marietta, in the room of Griffin Greene his father decd. Affectionate salutations.
RC (DLC); FC (DLC: Jefferson Papers).
1. The ratification papers of South Carolina (5 pp.) are dated 17 May and 1 June 1804 (DNA: RG 11, U.S. Documents Having Legal Effect, Ratified Amendments).
2. John B. Prevost accepted his appointment in a letter to Jefferson on 26 July 1804 (Carter, Territorial Papers, Orleans, 9:269). Mahlon Dickerson (1770–1853), a graduate of the College of New Jersey at Princeton and a Philadelphia lawyer, was selected to be district attorney at New Orleans but seems never to have filled the post (ibid., 9:291; Woodward and Craven, Princetonians, 1784–1790, 369–85).
3. Someone, probably JM, interlined “John Thomson Mason” above these initials in the RC.
4. Griffin Greene (1749–1804) served in various capacities under his first cousin Gen. Nathanael Greene during the American Revolution. After the war he moved to Marietta, Ohio, where he was a justice of the court of quarter sessions and postmaster. In 1803 Jefferson appointed him collector and inspector of the revenue at Marietta. In November 1804 Jefferson nominated Philip Greene to replace his father in both posts, and the Senate confirmed the appointment (Richard K. Showman et al., eds., The Papers of General Nathanael Greene [12 vols. to date; Chapel Hill, N.C., 1976–], 1:107 n. 1; , 1:433, 437, 471,473.