From Thomas Jefferson to the Senate and the House of Representatives, 26 February 1802
To the Senate and the House of Representatives
Gentlemen of the Senate and
of the House of Representatives.
Some statements have been lately recieved of the causes decided or depending in the courts of the Union, in certain states, supplementary, or corrective of those, from which was formed the general statement accompanying my message at the opening of the session. I, therefore, communicate them to Congress, with a report of the Secretary of State, noting their effect on the former statement, and correcting certain errors in it, which arose partly from inexactitude in some of the returns, and partly in analysing, adding, & transcribing them, while hurried in preparing the other voluminous papers accompanying that message.
Th: Jefferson
Feb. 26. 1802.
RC (DNA: RG 233, PM, 7th Cong., 1st sess.); endorsed by a House clerk. PrC (DLC). RC (DNA: RG 46, LPPM, 7th Cong., 1st sess.); in Meriwether Lewis’s hand, signed by TJ; endorsed by a Senate clerk. Enclosure: James Madison to TJ, 25 Feb. 1802, and enclosures.
Meriwether Lewis delivered this message and the accompanying documents to the House of Representatives on 26 Feb. The papers were read and referred to the Committee of the Whole House, which was considering the bill to repeal the Judiciary Act of 1801. The Senate also received the message and documents from Lewis on 26 Feb. They were read and ordered to lie for consideration (, 4:109; , 3:186).