Thomas Jefferson Papers
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https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-36-02-0424

From Thomas Jefferson to the Senate and the House of Representatives, 25 February 1802

To the Senate and the House of Representatives

Gentlemen of the Senate &
of the House of Representatives.

No occasion having arisen, since the last account rendered by my predecessor, of making use of any part of the monies heretofore granted to defray the contingent charges of the government, I now transmit to Congress an official statement thereof to the 31st. day of December last, when the whole unexpended balance, amounting to 20,911. D 80 c was carried to the credit of the Surplus fund, as provided by law; and this account consequently becomes finally closed.

Th: Jefferson
Feb. 25. 1802.

RC (DNA: RG 46, LPPM, 7th Cong., 1st sess.); endorsed by a Senate clerk. PrC (DLC). RC (DNA: RG 233, PM, 7th Cong., 1st sess.); in Meriwether Lewis’s hand, signed and dated by TJ. Recorded in SJL with notation “Contingent fund.” Enclosure: “Account of the Application of Grants made by Congress for the Contingent Charges of Government,” Register’s Office, Treasury Department, 23 Feb., covering 31 Dec. 1800 to 31 Dec. 1801; showing a beginning balance of $19,950, no expenditures, and credits of $261.80 and $700, paid to Winthrop Sargent and John Steele, as governor and secretary, respectively, of Mississippi Territory, from the contingency fund but subsequently charged to Timothy Pickering’s account as secretary of state, for a closing balance of $20,911.80, which was carried to the surplus fund on 31 Dec. 1801 (MS in DNA: RG 46, LPPM, in a clerk’s hand, signed by Joseph Nourse, endorsed by a Senate clerk; MS in DNA: RG 233, PM, in a clerk’s hand, signed by Nourse; MS in DLC, in a clerk’s hand, signed by Nourse).

Meriwether Lewis delivered this message and statement to Congress on 26 Feb. In both houses the documents were read and ordered to lie on the table (JHR description begins Journal of the House of Representatives of the United States, Washington, D.C., 1826, 9 vols. description ends , 4:108; JS description begins Journal of the Senate of the United States, Washington, D.C., 1820–21, 5 vols. description ends , 3:186). They were printed as Message from the President of the United States, Accompanying an Official Statement of the Monies Heretofore Appropriated to Defray the Contingent Charges of Government, to the 31st of December, 1801, Inclusive. 26th February, 1802 (Washington, D.C., 1802). See 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. 3342.

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