I have received your letter of the 20th. informing me "that I have been unanimously elected President of the Washington National Monument Society, in the place of its late lamented President Cheif justice Marshall."

I am very sensible of the distinction conferred by the relations in which the Society has placed me; and feeling, like my illustrious predecessor, a deep interest in the object of the association, I cannot withhold, as an evidence of it, the acceptance of the appointment; tho’ aware that in my actual condition it cannot be more than honorary, and that under no circumstances, it could supply the loss which the Society has sustained.

A Monument worthy of the memory of Washington reared by the means proposed, will commemorate at the same time, a virtue, a patriotism and a gratitude truly national, with which the friends of liberty every where will sympathise, and of which our Country may always be proud.

I tender to the Society the acknowledgements due from me, and to yourself the assurance of my high & cordial esteem