Thomas Jefferson Papers

To Thomas Jefferson from Augustus B. Woodward, 4 March 1803

From Augustus B. Woodward

Mar. 4. 1803.

The senate having struck out the provision I contemplated in my late observations to the president, prevents any further attention to that point at this time. It is an object, which, for reasons that are obvious, interests me much; and I will be happy in the presidents retaining a recollection of it.

A. B. Woodward

RC (DNA: RG 59, LAR); addressed: “The president of the united states”; endorsed by TJ as received 4 Mch. and “his father Collectr. Washn.” and so recorded in SJL.

provision i contemplated: the House, on 24 Feb., amended the bill on new collection districts adding Washington, D.C., to the proposed ports of entry and delivery. The title of the bill as passed by the House and sent to the Senate on 25 Feb. began, “An act to make Beaufort, the City of Washington, and Passamaquoddy, ports of entry and delivery.” On 26 Feb., the Senate referred the bill to Robert Wright, Dwight Foster, and Stevens Thomson Mason. Wright reported the bill with amendments on 28 Feb. The next day the Senate adopted the amendments and on 2 Mch. passed the bill and sent it back to the House. The amended bill, agreed to by the House, did not include Washington as a new collection district (U.S. Statutes at Large description begins Richard Peters, ed., The Public Statutes at Large of the United States…1789 to March 3, 1845, Boston, 1855–56, 8 vols. description ends , 2:228–9; JHR description begins Journal of the House of Representatives of the United States, Washington, D.C., 1826, 9 vols. description ends , 4:365, 366, 382, 384, 387; JS description begins Journal of the Senate of the United States, Washington, D.C., 1820–21, 5 vols. description ends , 3:273, 274, 276, 280, 282). late observations: Woodward evidently recommended John Woodward, his father, as collector at Washington (see TJ’s endorsement above; Vol. 33:212n).

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