1To James Madison from James V. S. Ryley, 16 February 1814 (Madison Papers)
I hope you will not think it presumption in me, in addressing you in the following manner— Often have I meditated upon the subjects on which I am about to address your Excellency; especially since the decliration of the present war, which I think a necessary one, I say necessary, if itself, it was on no other account, but our Northwestern frontiers, inhabeted (as I well know) by a poor...