To James Madison from Tench Coxe, [ca. 19 September 1814]
From Tench Coxe
[ca. 19 September 1814]
The Comme. of Defense determined, on Thursday (I think), the 15th., to request a comme: from each ward to be appointed to receive from them a communication, which they could not make publickly. Saturday, at 10. OClock, was appointed to make it: Committees were to be appointed in the short interval by the 120.000 persons (or the freemen among them) in the city and various suburbs. Notices were given on Thursday afternoon, for such meetings in the Gazette of the United States but in many of the words none were given for the D. Press & Aurora.1 Hence, out of all the deputies, (60 or 70) but 10 were reps. Eleven pages of explanation tending as, I am told, to inculpate the Governor & the genl. Govt. were read. I have heard objections to furnishing the two Govts. with copies.2 The public safety & the rights & interests of the Genl & State Administrations require that such information be not kept from them. It ought to be given. Ought it not to be required of the Comme. Had we Commissioners of the genl. Government (who are charged with the public defense) to impart the proceedings of this local body, evils would be avoided. All the proceedings of such a body should be open to the General & state Governments, especially considering the language of very active member[s], and the conduct of some whom they employ. At any time an imperium in imperio,3 of this nature, ought to be well observed, but it is peculiarly necessary now, when such things are spoken & written concerning our constituted authorities, at home & abroad.
RC (DLC). Undated; unsigned; dated 1814 in the Index to the James Madison Papers. Conjectural date assigned here based on the fact that 15 Sept. 1814 was a Thursday, and evidence in n. 1. Writer identified as Coxe based on his known hand, and on JM’s docket: “C. T.” at the top of the second page.
1. The Philadelphia Poulson’s American Daily Advertiser, a Federalist newspaper, also published notices on Friday, 16 Sept. 1814, calling on the residents of several Philadelphia sub-municipalities to meet “for the purpose of appointing ten Citizens, to confer with the General Committee of Defence.”
2. After the statement of the committee of defense was read to the ward committees on 17 Sept. 1814, the committee of defense determined that delegates from the ward committees might “have access to the documents which have been read to them, under the injunction that nothing communicated shall find its way into the public prints.” When the ward delegates proposed, however, that the “substance” of the statement “be made known to the citizens of the different wards, townships and districts … under the restrictions as to publication suggested,” the committee of defense replied that they “deem[ed] it inexpedient to have their communication of yesterday promulgated in the manner contemplated … having only in view, in making their communication, to exonerate themselves from any imputation of neglect of the important duties confided to them by their fellow-citizens.” The statement was not published in the committee’s minutes, but its contents may have included reports on the committee’s attempts to obtain greater federal and state contributions to Philadelphia’s defense (Minutes of the Committee of Defence of Philadelphia, 1814–1815, Memoirs of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, vol. 8 [Philadelphia, 1867], 128–29, 132–35, 138–39, 142–44, 148–51).
3. Imperium in imperio: “an empire within an empire, an independent or supreme authority exercised or claimed within the jurisdiction of another authority” ().