From Thomas Jefferson to the Senate and the House of Representatives, 29 November 1803
To the Senate and the House of Representatives
To the Senate and
House of Representatives of the US.
I now communicate an Appendix to the information heretofore given on the subject of Louisiana. you will be sensible from the face of these papers, as well as of those to which they are a sequel, that they are not, and could not be, official, but are furnished by different individuals as the result of the best enquiries they had been able to make, and now given, as recieved from them,1 only digested under heads to prevent repetitions.
Th: Jefferson
Nov. 29. 1803.
RC (DNA: RG 233, PM, 8th Cong., 1st sess.); endorsed by a House clerk. RC (DNA: RG 46, LPPM, 8th Cong., 1st sess.); endorsed by a Senate clerk. PrC (DLC). Recorded in SJL with notation “Louisiana Appendix.” Enclosure: see below. Message and enclosure printed as “Digest of the Laws of Louisiana” in , Miscellaneous, 1:362-84.
Lewis Harvie delivered TJ’s message and the appendix to the Senate and the House on 29 Nov. After the papers were read, the Senate ordered both to lie for consideration and the House referred them to the select committee, composed of John Randolph, John Rhea, William Hoge, Gaylord Griswold, and George M. Bedinger, that was appointed earlier to provide arrangements for the governance of Louisiana (, 3:316-17; , 4:463; Vol. 41:584n). information heretofore given: see TJ to the Senate and the House of Representatives, 14 Nov., for the Account of Louisiana previously submitted by TJ.
TJ sent printed copies of the Appendix to Congress, but the edition has not been identified. Perhaps it was the separate Appendix to an Account of Louisiana, Being an Abstract of Documents in the Offices of the Departments of State, and of the Treasury printed in Philadelphia in 1803 (see , No. 3622). The Appendix was also published with its own title page as an addition to the Account of Louisiana (see , Nos. 5197, 5199). One appendix included a translation of the laws of Spain promulgated by authorities for the governance of the province and “the ordinances formed expressly for the colony.” The five remaining appendices included the census of Louisiana in 1785 and other population tables, which were summarized in William Duane’s newspaper on 21 Nov. and reproduced as tables on the 29th, the same day TJ transmitted the Appendix to Congress (Account of Louisiana [Washington, 1803; , No. 5199], 30, i-xc; Aurora, 21, 29 Nov.).
1. In RC in RG 233, TJ first wrote “as we recieved them” before altering the text to read as above.