Thomas Jefferson to Henry Baldwin, 15 February 1821

To Henry Baldwin

Monticello Feb. 15. 21.

Th: Jefferson returns his thanks to mr Baldwin for the able report on the Tariff he has been so kind as to send him. questions on Political economy are certainly among the most complicated of any within the scope of the human mind. that the public should have differed therefore so much on that which is the subject of this report, is not to be wondered at. it will end, it is to be hoped in a compromise of opinion reconcilable to all. he tenders to mr Baldwin his respectful salutations.

RC (PMA: John Earle Reynolds Collection); dateline at foot of text. PoC (DLC); on verso of reused address cover to TJ; endorsed by TJ.

Henry Baldwin (1780–1844), attorney and public official, was a native of New Haven, Connecticut. He graduated from Yale College (later Yale University) in 1797 and studied law under Tapping Reeve and James Gould in Litchfield and Alexander J. Dallas in Philadelphia before opening a practice in Pittsburgh in 1801. During service in the United States House of Representatives, 1816–22, Baldwin supported protective tariffs and chaired the Committee on Domestic Manufactures. Andrew Jackson appointed Baldwin an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court in 1830. On the bench he was neither a strict constructionist nor a follower of John Marshall. In 1837 Baldwin published his legal theories and dissenting opinions in A General View of the Origin and Nature of the Constitution and Government of the United States. Late in life he moved to Meadville, Pennsylvania. Despite his high judicial office, Baldwin was so poor when he died in Philadelphia that a collection was taken to pay for his burial (ANB description begins John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes, eds., American National Biography, 1999, 24 vols. description ends ; DAB description begins Allen Johnson and Dumas Malone, eds., Dictionary of American Biography, 1928–36, 20 vols. description ends ; Dexter, Yale Biographies description begins Franklin Bowditch Dexter, Biographical Sketches of the Graduates of Yale College, 1885–1912, 6 vols. description ends , 5:243–6; Leon Friedman and Fred L. Israel, eds., The Justices of the United States Supreme Court 1789–1969: Their Lives and Major Opinions [1969–80], 1:571–80; Litchfield Law School, 7; JEP description begins Journal of the Executive Proceedings of the Senate of the United States description ends , 4:41, 43 [5, 6 Jan. 1830]; Philadelphia North American and Daily Advertiser, 23 Apr. 1844).

Baldwin’s report on the tariff was probably the Report Of the Committee on Manufactures, on the various Memorials praying for, and remonstrating against, an increase of the duties on imports ([Washington, 1821]), which Baldwin as committee chair referred to the United States House of Representatives on 15 Jan. 1821 (JHR description begins Journal of the House of Representatives of the United States description ends , 14:138).

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You Are Looking At

Source Project: Jefferson Papers
Title: Thomas Jefferson to Henry Baldwin, 15 February 1821
Author: Jefferson, Thomas
Recipient: Baldwin, Henry
Date: 15 February 1821

Reference

Cite as: “Thomas Jefferson to Henry Baldwin, 15 February 1821,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-16-02-0515. [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Retirement Series, vol. 16, 1 June 1820 to 28 February 1821, ed. J. Jefferson Looney et al. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019, pp. 610–611.]