184301Editorial Note: Report on Commerce (Jefferson Papers)
Jefferson’s report on commerce was his last effort as Secretary of State to achieve his longstanding goal of fundamentally reordering the new republic’s political economy by lessening American economic dependence on Great Britain and fostering closer commercial ties with France. Based upon almost two decades of study and practical experience, it reflected Jefferson’s vision of the United...
184302Contemporary Translation: From Josef de Jaudenes and Josef Ignacio de Viar, 26 December 1793 (Jefferson Papers)
A part of the contents of the letter with which you honored us on the 21. instant, in answer to our two last, does not permit us to pass in silence, some reflections which occur to us on that subject. You consider as a base calumny, the expressions of the Governor of Louisiana, when he speaks of the reward of 500 dollars offered for the head of an individual, by the americans . As, from the...
184303Memorandums to Henry Remsen, 31 August 1790 (Jefferson Papers)
Note to the digital edition: A revised version of this document, transcribed from manuscript, has been added to Volume 17 in its chronological position as Memorandums to Henry Remsen, Jr., 31 August 1790
184304Editorial Note: Jefferson’s Letter to Philip Mazzei (Jefferson Papers)
On 24 Apr. 1796, Jefferson wrote a lengthy epistle to his former neighbor Philip Mazzei, who was by then living in Pisa ( Document I ). While the letter primarily discussed Mazzei’s lingering business affairs in Virginia and relayed news of his old friends, a single paragraph transformed this piece of private correspondence into the notorious “Mazzei letter” that plagued Jefferson for the...
184305Editorial Note: Documents Relating to the 1796 Campaign for Electors in Virginia (Jefferson Papers)
While Jefferson’s correspondence makes no mention of the Virginia campaign for presidential electors in 1796, a group of documents pertaining to the election, including three letters, five depositions or certificates (two of which are printed below, the first dealing with Jefferson’s indebtedness and the second with his relations with Aaron Burr), and a handbill are in his papers at the...
184306Editorial Note: Jefferson’s Letter to John Adams (Jefferson Papers)
Anticipating an administration headed by John Adams with himself as vice president, Jefferson apparently hoped with this letter to restore a political relationship that had become frayed following the unintended publication in 1791 of his endorsement of Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man and his implicit criticism of Adams’s “political heresies” (see Editorial Note and documents at 26 Apr. 1791,...
184307Editorial Note: Jefferson’s Letter to James Madison (Jefferson Papers)
Jefferson uncharacteristically failed to retain a press copy of this letter, making instead, as he did with the 28 Dec. letter to John Adams that he enclosed in this one, a “statement” of the contents based on recollection. It is not known if he indeed made the copy entirely from unaided memory, but if he drew on any draft or notes of the letter they have not been located. The effort he made...
184308Suit Against the Estate of William Ronald: Order and Report, 10 July 1797 (Jefferson Papers)
In the Court of Chancery Virginia: Between Thomas Jefferson plt and William Bentley administrator of the goods, and chattels of William Ronald deceased, and Betsey Ronald and Nancy Ronald infants under the age of twenty one years and Co-heiresses of the said William Ronald by the said William Bentley their guardian defendts. This cause, by consent of parties, came on this thirteenth day of...
184309Editorial Note: Petition to Virginia House of Delegates (Jefferson Papers)
It is not clear when Jefferson decided to take it upon himself to respond to the grand jury presentment against Samuel J. Cabell (see TJ to Peregrine Fitzhugh, 4 June 1797 ), but he must have begun working on the draft of a petition to the Virginia House of Delegates soon after he returned to Monticello. Believing it was dangerous to let the attack on circular letters to constituents go...
184310Editorial Note: Jefferson, the Aurora, and Delamotte’s Letter from France (Jefferson Papers)
When the Philadelphia Aurora of 3 Apr. 1798 printed a translation of “a letter from a well informed merchant in France to his friend in this city,” the newspaper gave no hint that the “friend” was Jefferson, or that the “merchant” was the U. S. vice-consul at Le Havre, F. C. A. Delamotte. The date of the letter had also been altered, from 23 Jan. to 1 Feb. 1798. Jefferson himself did not...
184311Editorial Note: The Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 (Jefferson Papers)
For all the significance of the Kentucky Resolutions, Jefferson’s papers reveal little about their composition. This is due in part to his caution about what he revealed in his letters at the time he wrote the resolutions. Too, for the remainder of his life he showed little interest in avowing or explaining his original authorship of the document. He did not seem displeased with the changes...
184312Editorial Note: Jefferson’s Letter to William Short (Jefferson Papers)
On 26 Mch. 1800 Jefferson promised William Short “a long letter containing a comprehensive view” of Short’s affairs under his management. Although he began writing the detailed epistle on 13 Apr., he worked on it, and presumably on several of the enclosures that he sent with it, “at intervals” for almost a month. After dispatching the letter, Jefferson realized that he had neglected to make a...
184313Editorial Note: Jefferson’s Reports of Balloting in the House of Representatives (Jefferson Papers)
On 12 Feb. Jefferson sent copies of Thomas Paine’s Compact Maritime , newly printed from manuscripts received in January, to eleven of his friends in Virginia. He accompanied at least some, and presumably all, of the pamphlets with brief letters, written at 7:00 a.m. and updated in a postscript at 1:00 p.m. , in which he gave a succinct account of the progress of voting in the House of...
184314Editorial Note: First Inaugural Address (Jefferson Papers)
At noon on 4 Mch. 1801 in the Senate chamber of the Capitol, fifty-seven-year-old Thomas Jefferson took the oath of office as the nation’s third president. The occasion was, in Margaret Bayard Smith’s often quoted words, “one of the most interesting scenes, a free people can ever witness.” According to Aaron Burr, the “Day was serene & temperate—The Concourse of people immense—all passed off...
184315Editorial Note: Notes on Resolution of American Debts to British Creditors, 13 June 1801 (Jefferson Papers)
Article 6 of the Jay Treaty provided for a bilateral commission to settle Americans’ pre-Revolutionary War debts to British creditors, but disagreements between the two sides brought the panel’s work to a halt in 1799. John Adams hoped that procedural changes might allow the commission to continue its work. However, when Rufus King suggested that the British might accept a lump-sum settlement...
184316Editorial Note: Drafting the Annual Message to Congress (Jefferson Papers)
Article 2, Section 3, of the Constitution specifies that the president “shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the union.” Washington and Adams performed the function by addressing Congress at the opening of the session in the fall. Adams gave his last such address on 22 Nov. 1800, soon after the convening of the second session of the Sixth Congress (Vol....
184317Editorial Note: Memorandum on the Seneca Annuity (Jefferson Papers)
In 1797, the Seneca Indians sold the last substantial tract of land held in the United States by any of the Six Nations Iroquois, approximately four million acres west of the Genesee River in western New York State. The negotiation at a place called Big Tree (now Geneseo, New York) was under the auspices of the United States government and overseen, nominally, by Jeremiah Wadsworth as U.S....
184318Editorial Note: Bill to Establish a Government for the Territory of Columbia (Jefferson Papers)
The Residence Act of 1790 gave Congress until 1800, when the government moved to the Federal City, to decide what form its exclusive jurisdiction over the seat of the federal government, as enumerated in the U.S. Constitution, would take, or if the right would be exercised at all. In his 22 Nov. 1800 address to Congress, President Adams reminded the legislators “to consider whether the local...
184319Editorial Note: Annual Message to Congress (Jefferson Papers)
On Monday, 7 Dec. 1801, the opening day of the first regular session of the Seventh Congress, a joint committee consisting of Joseph Anderson and James Jackson of the Senate and Samuel Smith, Roger Griswold, and Thomas T. Davis of the House of Representatives called on the president to report that both houses were “ready to receive any communications.” Jefferson had already decided that his...
184320Editorial Note: Presentation of the “Mammoth Cheese” (Jefferson Papers)
On New Year’s Day, 1802, Jefferson stood in the doorway of the President’s House to receive a most unusual gift from the citizens of Cheshire, Massachusetts: an enormous wheel of cheese, measuring more than 4 feet in diameter and weighing an estimated 1,235 pounds. Derisively dubbed the “Mammoth Cheese” by the Federalist press, the giant Cheshire cheese had become a national celebrity by the...
184321Editorial Note: Reply to the Danbury Baptist Association (Jefferson Papers)
On the first day of the new year, Jefferson prepared the final version of his response to an October address from the Danbury Baptist Association, a group of 26 churches in western Connecticut and eastern New York. He had received the address only two days earlier, almost three months after it was written, on the same day that a wheel of cheese from the citizens of Cheshire, Massachusetts,...
184322Editorial Note: Conference with Little Turtle (Jefferson Papers)
In the spring of 1801, the Miami Indian leader Little Turtle expressed an intention to travel from his home on the Wabash River to see the new president of the United States in Washington. Little Turtle’s interpreter and son-in-law, William Wells, apparently knew Meriwether Lewis, who had served with the army on the frontier, and Wells informed Lewis of the intended visit. “Our friend the...
184323Editorial Note: To the Senate: Interim Appointments, 6 January 1802 (Jefferson Papers)
Jefferson wrote his son-in-law, John Wayles Eppes, on 1 Jan. 1802 that although Republicans held an 18 to 14 majority in the Senate, through absences “hitherto we have been so nearly equal there, that I have not ventured to send in my nominations, lest they should be able to dismast the administration.” Meanwhile, the president was giving thought to the arrangement of the list of more than 120...
184324Editorial Note: Charges Against Arthur St. Clair (Jefferson Papers)
A former general in the Continental army and president of the Confederation Congress, Arthur St. Clair had served as governor of the Northwest Territory since its creation by Congress in 1787. With the establishment of a territorial legislature in 1799, St. Clair, a Federalist, found himself repeatedly at odds with the growing Republican presence in the territory, which centered on the town of...
184325Editorial Note: Conference with Black Hoof, 5 February 1802 (Jefferson Papers)
Early in January, during the visit to Washington by the delegation of Miami, Potawatomi, and Wea Indians led by Little Turtle, the secretary of war received word from the quartermaster general, John Wilkins, Jr., at Pittsburgh, that another deputation of Native Americans was on its way to Washington. Dearborn asked Wilkins to help the group, which consisted of “Chiefs of the Delaware and...
184326Conference with Handsome Lake, Cornplanter, and Blue Eyes: Editorial Note (Jefferson Papers)
When Israel Chapin, the U.S. agent to the Iroquois nations, informed the War Department in January 1802 that a delegation of Seneca Indians would be setting off on a visit to Washington, he identified Cornplanter as the head of the group. Similarly, when newspapers, which took little notice of the deputation, mentioned its passage through Pittsburgh, they described the group as consisting of...
184327Sentence in the Court-Martial of John Spence: Editorial Note (Jefferson Papers)
I. HENRY DEARBORN’S PRELIMINARY DRAFT [10 MCH. 1802] II. HENRY DEARBORN’S SECOND DRAFT, WITH JEFFERSON’S REVISIONS [20 APR. 1802] Among the myriad duties that devolved on Jefferson as president of the United States was the periodic review of general courts-martial proceedings. According to federal law, such proceedings were to be forwarded to the president in times of peace if the...
184328Method of Using Robert Patterson’s Cipher: Editorial Note (Jefferson Papers)
I. DESCRIPTION OF METHOD , [18 APR. 1802] II. SAMPLE ENCIPHERMENT : THE LORD’S PRAYER, [18 APR. 1802] III. SAMPLE ENCIPHERMENT : “TO THE PEOPLE OF GREAT-BRITAIN,” [N.D.] Jefferson received Robert Patterson’s letter of 19 Dec. 1801, in which Patterson described the cipher that he had invented, six days after it was written. On 22 Mch. 1802, Jefferson acknowledged the letter and informed...
184329Opinions on the Common Law, The Case of William Hardin: Editorial Note (Jefferson Papers)
I. OBSERVATIONS ON THE COMMON LAW AND HARDIN’S CASE, 11 NOV. 1802 II. ALBERT GALLATIN’S OPINION ON THE COMMON LAW AND HARDIN’S CASE, [CA. 11 NOV. 1802] III. ROBERT SMITH’S OPINION ON THE COMMON LAW AND HARDIN’S CASE, [CA. 11 NOV. 1802] The case of William Hardin evolved as an adjunct to the ongoing efforts by the Jefferson administration to bring accused Indian murderers John Williams, Martin...
184330Drafting the Annual Message to Congress: Editorial Note (Jefferson Papers)
At the close of the first session of the Seventh Congress in May 1802, the House of Representatives and the Senate adjourned to the first Monday in December, which would fall on the 6th ( Annals 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...
184331List of Appointments, with Notes by Gallatin and Jefferson (Jefferson Papers)
August 2 Commissions 25— George Wentworth Surveyor for the District of Portsmouth and Inspector of the Revenue for the same. { do. Joseph Farley—Collector for the District of Waldoborough and Inspector of the Revenue for the same. do. Joseph Wilson, Collector for the District of Marblehead and Inspector of the Revenue for the same— 28th. do. Abraham Bloodgood, Surveyor for the Port of Albany &...
184332Gallatin’s Notes on Appointments, with Jefferson’s Orders (Jefferson Papers)
The enclosed list contains all the alterations which seem necessary in the President’s list , so far as relates to this department. The errors in that list were 1st. That in every case where an officer is at once, either collector & surveyor of a port, and inspector of the revenue for the same port; he receives two distinct commissions, one as collector or surveyor, as the case may be, and the...
184333From Thomas Jefferson to the House of Representatives: Editorial Note (Jefferson Papers)
Among the papers that Jefferson sent to the House of Representatives on 22 Dec. was a copy of William C. C. Claiborne’s letter of 28 Oct. to Manuel de Salcedo, the Spanish governor of Louisiana, questioning the suspension of the deposit at New Orleans. The State Department received a copy of Salcedo’s reply to Claiborne by 30 Dec., and on that day Jefferson wrote a brief message to the House...
184334Circular on the Winchester Triumph of Liberty (Jefferson Papers)
for the enlargement, encouragement and continuation of the Winchester Triumph of Liberty and more particularly for the desirable purpose of procuring a Quantity of beautiful long primmer type—We , whose names are hereunto annexed, agree, to pay in advance the respective sums, by us subscribed, to accomplish the above laudable design. The object of the Editor is, to raise the sum of One Hundred...
184335Plan of a Dry Dock (Jefferson Papers)
Discription of the Drawing A The wet Dock, B twelve dry Docks, each to contain one Ship, C the upper Lock, by which the Ships are to pass in and out of the wet Dock, F the Canel to supply the Docks with water, E a branch of it leading into the wet Dock, D two other branches which surrounds the dry Docks and by gates opening into each, any one of them can be filled without the others. The water...
184336Description of the Physiognotrace (Jefferson Papers)
Explanation of Mr. Jno. I. Hawkins Physiognotrace A is a board that mooves up and down in the frame B, B. which is fastened to the wall with brackets C, C,— This moovement is convenient to suit the heigth of different persons, and it is secured to its place by means of a screw on the back part,—D, is a hollowed board projecting 2½ Inches, to allow the Pentagraph to moove behind it. The person...
184337List of Groceries Wanted from Marseilles (Jefferson Papers)
50. ℔ de Maccaroni. 50. ℔ de meme composition de differentes façons pour les potages. 6. paniers d’huile de la meilleure qualité. 8. caisses d’olives. 4. idem de capres fines. 2. idem d’Anchois. 20. ℔ de thon mariné. 8. douzaines de petites boetes historiés de 6. ou 7. fruits. 3. caisses de pruneaux. 3.
184338To Thomas Jefferson from Robert R. Livingston: Editorial Note (Jefferson Papers)
On 12 Mch., Robert R. Livingston began a letter to the president that reported on his activities in general terms, mentioning his efforts to influence Napoleon Bonaparte about Louisiana, his discussions with the Spanish ambassador concerning the Floridas, and French attitudes toward the United States and Great Britain. The next day, a Sunday, Livingston interrupted his writing to attend an...
184339Drafting Instructions for Meriwether Lewis: Editorial Note (Jefferson Papers)
A brief, undated set of four comments jotted in pencil by James Madison is the earliest evidence of Jefferson’s drafting of official instructions to Meriwether Lewis for the expedition to the Pacific ( Document I ). Due to an alteration that Jefferson made in his endorsement on that document, the date of its receipt is not clear but could be as early as 12 or 13 Apr. Jefferson’s practice,...
184340Preparations to Negotiate an Alliance with Great Britain: Editorial Note (Jefferson Papers)
On 8 Apr., the president posed a question to the four heads of departments and the attorney general: was it time to make “overtures to England” to ensure American access to the Mississippi River waterway? The French government had not given Robert R. Livingston assurance that the 1795 treaty between the United States and Spain—particularly those sections that pertained to American commerce...
184341Cipher for Meriwether Lewis: Editorial Note (Jefferson Papers)
In his instructions for the expedition to the Pacific, Jefferson anticipated that Meriwether Lewis might find opportunity to send dispatches back by way of western army posts, “putting into cypher whatever might do injury if betrayed” (see Document IV of the group of documents on drafting instructions for Lewis, at 13 Apr. above). Two undated manuscripts, in Jefferson’s handwriting and among...
184342Notes on William Eaton’s Accounts: Editorial Note (Jefferson Papers)
In the spring of 1802, confronting an expenditure by William Eaton of $16,000 primarily for the charter of a vessel to carry dispatches to the United States, James Madison wrote to remind the consul that he must submit a full statement of his accounts. Eaton complied reluctantly, agreeing in November 1802 to send the information but contending that he could not always obtain receipts, even...
184343Constitutional Amendment on Louisiana: Editorial Note (Jefferson Papers)
“I think it will be safer not to permit the enlargement of the Union but by amendment of the constitution,” Jefferson wrote to his secretary of the Treasury in January 1803. The president was responding to Gallatin’s rebuttal of arguments from the attorney general about the desired purchase of New Orleans and the Floridas. Jefferson, Levi Lincoln knew, thought that an amendment to the...
184344Queries on Louisiana: Editorial Note (Jefferson Papers)
EDITORIAL NOTE The news that had arrived on the evening of 3 July, of the cession of Louisiana to the United States, confirmed for the Jefferson Administration the correctness of its pacific approach to the crisis in the West. Much uncertainty remained, however, on just what the acquisition would entail. The exact boundaries of the vast territory, a very different expanse than that initially...
184345Party Affiliation of Federal Officeholders: Editorial Note (Jefferson Papers)
Spurred by dissension in Republican ranks in Philadelphia over Federalists who remained in lucrative offices, Jefferson decided to study the party affiliation of those who had received presidential appointments. Writing Peter Freneau on 20 May, he reviewed his administration’s patronage policy, noting that when he took office the Federalists “possessed all.” By removing those Federalists who...
184346The Boundaries of Louisiana: Editorial Note (Jefferson Papers)
The geographic limits of the purchase of Louisiana were ill-defined. Although Jefferson could rightly rejoice that Americans now controlled the entire Mississippi valley, including of course the prize of New Orleans, little else was known about what bounded the acquisition. The purchase treaty merely quoted the vague language of the Treaty of San Ildefonso, which defined Louisiana by “the Same...
184347Drafting the Annual Message to Congress: Editorial Note (Jefferson Papers)
Jefferson’s summoning of the new Congress to convene on 17 Oct. and his desire that the legislators be ready to take up the acquisition of Louisiana without delay meant that he would have to prepare his annual message earlier than had been the case in 1801 or 1802. He could, however, rely on the procedures for building the message that he had honed in the previous years. As he had done in...
184348Jefferson’s Letters to David Williams: Editorial Note (Jefferson Papers)
Joel Barlow introduced David Williams to James Monroe “as an old friend of Dr. Franklin.” On 20 Sep., Monroe informed the president that he was forwarding Williams’s 1802 London publication, Claims of Literature: The Origin, Motives, Objects, and Transactions of the Society for the Establishment of A Literary Fund . Monroe agreed to present any response Jefferson wished to make to the author....
184349Canons of Official Etiquette: Editorial Note (Jefferson Papers)
After Jefferson hosted the newly arrived British Minister Anthony Merry and his wife, Elizabeth, for dinner at the President’s House on 2 Dec., a debate over diplomatic protocol ensued. The British consul took umbrage when the widowed president did not accompany his wife to the dining room, but instead escorted Dolley Madison, whom he seated at his side. Secretary of State James Madison...
184350Bill in Chancery of Craven Peyton against John Henderson and Others: Editorial Note (Jefferson Papers)
In late April and early May 1804, in the aftermath of the death of his daughter and with other matters also demanding his attention, Jefferson faced obstacles in his efforts to begin operation of a new flour mill on the Rivanna River. By the end of the summer of 1803, he had determined to exercise a right given to him by the courts to dismantle an illegally constructed milldam that was part of...