Notes on the Giles Resolutions, 2 March 1793
Notes on the Giles Resolutions
Mar. 2. 1793. See the papers of this date, Mr. Giles’s resolutions. He and one or two others were sanguine enough to believe that the palpableness of these resolutions rendered it impossible the house could reject them. Those who knew the composition of the house 1. of bank directors. 2. holders of bank stock. 3. stock jobbers. 4 blind devotees. 5 ignorant persons who did not comprehend them. 6. lazy and1 good humored persons, who comprehended and acknoleged them, yet were too lazy to examine, or2 unwilling to pronounce censure. The persons who knew these characters foresaw that the 3. first descriptions3 making ⅓ of the house, the 3. latter would make ½ of the residue, and of course that they would be rejected by a majority of 2. to 1. but they thought that even this rejection would do good, by shewing the public the desperate and abandoned dispositions with which their affairs were entrusted. The resolutions were proposed, and nothing spared to present them in the fullness of demonstration. There were not more than 3. or 4.4 who voted otherwise than had been expected.
It is known that Murray of Maryld. deals in paper.5
MS (DLC); entirely in TJ’s hand; written with “Anas” entries for 23 and 25 Mch. 1793 on the other side of a sheet bearing “Anas” entries for 30 and 31 Mch. 1793. Recorded in SJPL under 2 Mch. 1793, where it is listed between entries of 25 and 30 Mch. 1793 as “Notes on Giles’s resolns concerng. [T]reasury.” Included in the “Anas.” The line TJ drew underneath the first section raises the possibility that the sentence he wrote about Congressman William Vans Murray and the sentence he later canceled (see note 5 below) were added at a later date. In any event, the shade of ink in both sections is similar and suggests that TJ set them both down sometime between 2 and 23 Mch. 1793, when he compiled a list of stockholders in Congress. The canceled sentence very likely relates to revisions TJ made to that list.
1. Preceding two words interlined.
2. Preceding five words interlined.
3. TJ here canceled “taking.”
4. TJ here canceled “votes.”
5. At this point, possibly at a later date, TJ canceled a sentence so heavily as to render it illegible.