Monday Morn. [12 Dec. 1803]
Sir
I beg leave to inform you that
Mr. Breckinridge
Mr Wright
Mr Jackson
Mr Baldwin &
Mr. Adams compose the Committee, to prepare & report a bill for the Government of the Ceded Territories. I learn they have met two or three times, but Cannot agree on the principles of a bill. Butlers proposed amendment to the Constitution is rejected. Those who voted in the affirmative are
Mr Anderson
Mr Butler
Mr Dayton &
Mr Jackson
The residue who were present voted in the negative. The House have sent up their agreement to the proposed Constitutional amendment of the Senate—And also a Joint Resolution requesting the Executive to transmitt copies of it to the several States.
I am Sir very respectfully your Humble Servt.
RC (DLC); partially dated; endorsed by TJ as received 12 Dec. and so recorded in SJL.
The Senate committee called to prepare for the governance of Louisiana was named on 5 Dec. (Annals description begins Annals of the Congress of the United States: The Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States … Compiled from Authentic Materials, Washington, D.C., Gales & Seaton, 1834-56, 42 vols. All editions are undependable and pagination varies from one printing to another. The first two volumes of the set cited here have “Compiled … by Joseph Gales, Senior” on the title page and bear the caption “Gales & Seatons History” on verso and “of Debates in Congress” on recto pages. The remaining volumes bear the caption “History of Congress” on both recto and verso pages. Those using the first two volumes with the latter caption will need to employ the date of the debate or the indexes of debates and speakers. description ends , 13:211).
The proposed amendment of Pierce Butler, who as a member of the Constitutional Convention in 1787 had played a key role in developing the electoral college and who opposed current efforts to alter the rules for electing presidents, would have limited presidents to three terms, with a minimum of four years separating the second and third terms (Annals description begins Annals of the Congress of the United States: The Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States … Compiled from Authentic Materials, Washington, D.C., Gales & Seaton, 1834-56, 42 vols. All editions are undependable and pagination varies from one printing to another. The first two volumes of the set cited here have “Compiled … by Joseph Gales, Senior” on the title page and bear the caption “Gales & Seatons History” on verso and “of Debates in Congress” on recto pages. The remaining volumes bear the caption “History of Congress” on both recto and verso pages. Those using the first two volumes with the latter caption will need to employ the date of the debate or the indexes of debates and speakers. description ends , 13:213-14; ANB description begins John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes, eds., American National Biography, New York and Oxford, 1999, 24 vols. description ends ). For the joint resolution, which concerned what became the Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution, see the following document.
