From James Madison to Asbury Dickins, 19 July 1825
To Asbury Dickins
Montpellier July 19. 1825
J. Madison presents his respects to Mr. Dickins, and thanks him for the copy of his oration of the 4th. of July last.1
J. M. had previously an opportunity of reading it in the Newspapers: But it well deserves a place among the select discourses on that anniversary, in the more conservative form now given to it.
RC (NN: Ford Collection); draft (ViU: Special Collections). Minor differences between the copies have not been noted. Asbury Dickins (1780–1861), was born in North Carolina and moved to Philadelphia where he continued his father’s business as bookseller and printer. He left the United States for Great Britain in 1801 and worked for some years as chancellor in the U.S. consulate in London. JM nominated Dickins to be consul at London in 1815, but the Senate refused to confirm him. On his return to the United States, he became a clerk in the Treasury Department, 1816–33, and afterwards, chief clerk of the State Department, 1833–36. Dickins served as secretary of the U.S. Senate, 1836–61 (Powell, Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, 2:63–64; William Cobbett to JM, 12 June 1812, , 4:471–72 and n. 1).
1. Asbury Dickins, Oration, Delivered in the Capitol in the City of Washington, on the Fourth of July, 1825 (Washington, 1825; 20313). JM’s copy, with a partial title-page inscription, is in the Madison Collection, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.