To Thomas Jefferson from Allan B. Magruder, 7 February 1804
From Allan B. Magruder
Lexington, Kentucky—[before 7 Feb. 1804]
Sir,
It is with great diffidence that I have taken the liberty to send you a Series of Reflections on the late Cession of Louisiana, to the United States. They were digested and Commited to paper, last Summer, during the pendancy of that Negociation of Which, you are the parent; & Which, in its Ultimate issue, has added the most important advantages to our Country.—
Be so obliging, therefore, as to accept the pamphlet, Which I have the honor to send you. It is a Small testimony of the Sincere devotion I feel for an administration, Which, in every respect, Comports with the true genius & felicity of the American Nation.—
I am, Sir, with great respect, your mo: Ob Sevt
Allan B. Magruder
RC (ViW: Tucker-Coleman Collection); undated; endorsed by TJ as received 7 Feb. and so recorded in SJL. Enclosure: Allan B. Magruder, Political, Commercial and Moral Reflections, on the Late Cession of Louisiana, to the United States (Lexington, Ky., 1803; No. 3472), dedicated “To Thomas Jefferson, Esquire, as a testimony of high approbation, for his patriotic efforts to elude the calamities of war, upon the late question, relative to the free navigation of the Mississippi.”
Allan B. Magruder (1775-1822), a lawyer from Lexington, Kentucky, had requested TJ’s aid in 1791 in obtaining a clerkship in the Treasury or War Department. He was the author of a lengthy laudatory essay on the “Character of Thomas Jefferson,” which first appeared as an unsigned piece in the Kentucky Gazette in 1800. After TJ’s election, it was widely reprinted from the London Morning Post and reappeared in 1803 in American newspapers and in two issues of the Medley; or, Monthly Miscellany, a short-lived Lexington periodical. Magruder briefly considered writing a history of the Indian wars in the west as well as a biography of George Rogers Clark, but set aside the projects when he became involved in politics. He relocated to Orleans Territory, where he became a federal agent investigating land claims in the western district from July 1805 until his removal the following year, possibly because of intemperance. An elected delegate to the Louisiana constitutional convention in 1811, he chaired the committee to compose the document and was chosen as one of the two agents to convey the new Louisiana constitution to President Madison. Magruder won election as the first U.S. senator for his state (Lexington Kentucky Gazette, 29 May 1800, 11 Oct. 1803; New York Chronicle Express, 23 June 1800; Boston Independent Chronicle, 28 Oct. 1802; New York Evening Post, 1 June 1822; ; , 35 [1930], 297; Warren Billings and Edward F. Haas, eds., In Search of Fundamental Law: Louisiana’s Constitutions, 1812-1974 [Lafayette, La., 1993], 10, 13, 14, 19, 157; Jared William Bradley, Interim Appointment: W. C. C. Claiborne Letter Book, 1804–1805 [Baton Rouge, La., 2002], 369; The Medley; or, Monthly Miscellany [June and July 1803], 111-15, 124-9; , 12:647, 649; 24:246, 291; , 1:642n; Vol. 27:794n; Magruder to TJ, 10 Sep. 1804; Albert Gallatin to TJ, 19 Mch. 1806).