To Thomas Jefferson from Wheeler Martin, 2 March 1804
From Wheeler Martin
Providence March 2d 1804
Sir
you will please to excuse me for taking the liberty to inform you that the proposed amendment to the Constitution of the US. has passed the Senate of this State Uniamous, and in the House of Representatives yesterday 5 of PM by a majority of twenty four.
You Sir will believe me to be your real friend and Humble Servant in every Sentiment of Respect
Wheeler Martin
RC (ViW: Tucker-Coleman Collection); at head of text: “Thos Jefferson President of the United States”; endorsed by TJ as received 11 Mch. and so recorded in SJL.
Wheeler Martin (1765-1836) was first elected in 1791 as a justice of the court of common pleas and general sessions of the peace for Providence. Reelected to the position for many years, he also became a public notary as of 1803, and in 1819, chief justice of the court. He was an elector for president and an unsuccessful candidate for governor of Rhode Island in 1824 (Joseph Jencks Smith, comp., Civil and Military List of Rhode Island. 1647-1800 [Providence, 1900], 488; same, Civil and Military List of Rhode Island. 1800-1850 [Providence, 1901], 47, 262, 335; Providence Rhode-Island Republican, 3 July 1811; New-Bedford Mercury, 30 July 1824; Providence Patriot, 12 July 1826; Newport Mercury, 28 May 1836; Vol. 34:702).
proposed amendment: the Rhode Island General Assembly ratified the Twelfth Amendment with a unanimous vote of the senate on 29 Feb. and, after a lengthy debate on 1 Mch., a vote of 42 to 18 in the house (Providence Phoenix, 3 Mch. 1804; Providence Gazette, 3 Mch. 1804; Journal of the Rhode Island House of Representatives, Minutes of Proceedings, 27 Feb.-8 Mch. 1804, in William Sumner Jenkins, ed., Records of the States of the United States of America, microfilm ed. [Washington, D.C., 1950]).