Gallatin’s Draft of Authorization for Payment on Maryland Loan, [7 July 1802]
ENCLOSURE
Gallatin’s Draft of Authorization for Payment on Maryland Loan
A sale of the city lots1 pledged for the repayment of the within mentioned loan, cannot, in my opinion be made at present, without an unwarrantable sacrifice of the property. The Secretary of the Treasury will direct the interest now due to be paid out of the Treasury in conformity to the provisions of the act entitled “an Act to abolish the Board of Commissioners in the city of Washington, and for other purposes”
Signed T.J.
MS (DLC); undated; entirely in Gallatin’s hand.
PROVISIONS OF THE ACT: Section 5 of the legislation called for the president to decide if money for the repayment of interest and installments on the Maryland loan should be paid directly from the U.S. Treasury or from the sale of lots (, 2:175–6).
1. Gallatin first wrote “The sale of lots” before altering the beginning of the sentence to read as above.