Thomas Jefferson Papers
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From Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 17 September 1800

To James Madison

Monticello Sep. 17. 1800.

Dear Sir

I now send by Bp. Madison the balance which should have gone from our last court by mr Barber: but not seeing him the first day of the court, & that breaking up on the first day contrary to usage & universal expectation, mr Barber was gone before I knew that fact.—is it not strange the public should have no information of the proceedings & prospects of our envoys in a case so vitally interesting to our commerce? that at a time when, as we suppose, all differences are in a course of amicable adjustment, Truxton should be fitted out with double diligence that he may get out of port before the arrival of a treaty, & shed more1 human blood merely for the pleasure of shedding it?—I have a letter from mr Butler in which he supposes that the republican vote of N. Carolina will be but of a bare majority. Georgia he thinks will be unanimous with the republicans; S.C. unanimous either with them or against them: but not certainly which. Dr. Rush & Burr give favorable accounts of Jersey. Granger & Burr even count with confidence on Connecticut. but that is impossible. the revolution there indeed is working with very unexpected rapidity: before another Congressional election it will probably be complete. there is good reason to believe Massachusets will increase her republican vote in Congress, & that Levi Lincoln will be one. he will be a host in himself; being undoubtedly the ablest & most respectable man of the Eastern states. Health, respect & affection.

Th: Jefferson

44. D 53 c

RC (DLC: Madison Papers, Rives Collection); at foot of text: “James Madison.” PrC (DLC); lacks sum at foot of text.

TJ sent by Bishop James Madison the balance of $44.53 to be transmitted to James Madison (MB description begins James A. Bear, Jr., and Lucia C. Stanton, eds., Jefferson’s Memorandum Books: Accounts, with Legal Records and Miscellany, 1767–1826, Princeton, 1997, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Second Series description ends , 2:1027).

A letter from Pierce Butler to TJ of 24 Aug. is recorded in SJL as received on 5 Sep. but has not been found.

Aaron Burr traveled to Rhode Island and Connecticut in late August and early September, and while his first report on Republican prospects was optimistic, the Federalists won a majority in both branches of the Connecticut legislature. Levi Lincoln, a leader of the Republican Party in Massachusetts, was elected in 1800 to fill the remainder of Dwight Foster’s term in the House of Representatives after Foster resigned. Although later elected to the Seventh Congress, Lincoln stepped down when TJ appointed him attorney general (Kline, Burr description begins Mary-Jo Kline, ed., Political Correspondence and Public Papers of Aaron Burr, Princeton, 1983, 2 vols. description ends , 1:446–47; ANB description begins John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes, eds., American National Biography, New York and Oxford, 1999, 24 vols. description ends ).

1Preceding word interlined.

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