This list comprises potential appointments that TJ considered from January to May 1805. He almost certainly compiled it in several sittings, sometimes entering names shortly after receiving recommendations and other times recurring to information that had come to him long before the making of the list. Many of the names show up in TJ’s nominations to the Senate of 28 Jan., 26 Feb., 1 Mch., and 2 Mch., while others became recess appointments or ultimately were not nominated.

Although most names on the list were candidates for appointment, some were those of individuals who put forward the candidates. Pierce Butler, for example, had recommended George Cross for the consulship at Havana in October 1803. The commission ended up going to Henry Hill, Jr. (TJ to Madison, 11 Mch.). The administration received a recommendation for William Walton, Jr., from Samuel Sterett and possibly from Bishop John Carroll, although no such communication from Carroll has been found (Madison, Papers, Sec. of State Ser. description begins William T. Hutchinson, Robert A. Rutland, J. C. A. Stagg, and others, eds., The Papers of James Madison, Chicago and Charlottesville, 1962- , 43 vols.; Sec. of State Ser., 1986- , 12 vols.; Pres. Ser., 1984-2020, 11 vols.; Ret. Ser., 2009- , 3 vols. description ends , 8:82).

The nominees for positions in Orleans Territory reflect information TJ obtained early in January, when he received a recommendation for Andrew Porter and learned that James Brown would prefer to be U.S. attorney (see enclosure to William C. C. Claiborne to TJ, 25 Nov. 1804; TJ to Claiborne, 7 Jan. 1805). Porter and Buckner Thruston were nominated to the Senate on 26 Feb., but TJ waited until receiving Brown’s rejection of his previously issued judicial commission before giving him a recess appointment as U.S. attorney (see TJ to Madison, 11 Mch.).

The large number of emendations, many of them in pencil, indicate the unsettled status of TJ’s choices for Mississippi Territory and the newly created territories of Michigan and Louisiana. John Henderson was first recommended to become the receiver of the land office at Natchez in December (William Turnbull and Thomas Ewing to John Smith of Ohio, 7 Dec. 1804, in DNA: RG 59, LAR; endorsed by TJ: “Henderson John to be Reciever Natchez”). Next to Henderson’s name, TJ added in pencil the candidate William B. Shields, who had been recommended for the position by Caesar A. Rodney in a letter of 6 July 1804, not found (see Vol. 44: Appendix IV). For the receiver of the land office at Fort Stoddert (Stoddart) on the Mobile River, TJ may have chosen to replace his initial choice of Rodominick Gilmer with Joseph Winston before canceling that selection in favor of someone named Smith, possibly Thomas Smyth, Jr., who had been recommended to TJ as a customs officer several times, most recently in a letter of 8 Dec. 1804 from Gallatin that has not been found (Vol. 45: Appendix IV; see also Vol. 43:684).

For the judgeship of the federal District court of New York, TJ nominated Daniel Tompkins on 1 Mch. After learning that Tompkins had turned down the appointment, however, TJ determined by 16 May that a commission should go to Brockholst Livingston, who had been previously recommended for the position (William Keteltas to TJ, 16 Feb.; TJ to the Senate, 1 Mch.; Madison to TJ, 1 Apr.; TJ to the State Department, 16 May).