James Madison to Thomas Jefferson, 5 March 1822
From James Madison
Mar. 5. 1822
Dear Sir
This is the first mail since I recd yours of the 25 Ult: which did not come to hand in time for an earlier answer; having lain a day or two at Or: Ct House.
Regarding the New Socy for the benefit of the Indians, as limited to their civilization, an object laudable in itself; and taking for granted, perhaps too hastily, that the plan had not been formed & published without the sanction of the most respectable names on the spot; finding moreover that no Act of Incorporation from the Govt was contemplated, I thought it not amiss to give the inclosed answer to Mr Morse. In its principle, the Association, tho’ a great amplification, is analogous to that of the Academy of Languages & Belles lettres.
The project appears to me to be rather ostentatious than dangerous. Those embraced by it are too numerous, too heterogeneous and too much dispersed to concentrate their views in any covert or illicit object; nor is the immediate object a sufficient cement to hold them long together for active purposes. The Clergy who may prove a great majority of the whole, and might be most naturally distrusted are themselves made up of such repulsive Sects, that they are not likely to form a noxious confederacy, especially with ecclesiastical views.
On a closer attention than I had given1 to the matter before I recd your letter I perceive that the organization of the Board of Directors is a just subject of animadversion. The powers vested in it may devolve on too few to be charged with the collection & application of the funds. As the proceedings however will be at the seat of Govt and under the eye of so many of every description of Observers there will be no little controul agst abuses. It is pretty remarkable that Docr Morse and one of his own name may be ⅔ of a majority of a Board. This person has I believe lately returned from some Agency under the Govt along with Govr Cass, among the Northern Tribes of Indians; which makes it the more probable that his present plans are in accord with the ideas of the War Department at least.
Had I not written my answer, I should be led by my present view of the subject to suspend it till more should be known of this project, and particularly how far the high characters named,2 on the spot or elsewhere had embarked in it.
I find by a Gazette just recd3 that a member of the Senate has denounced the project in very harsh terms. He is from a State however not distant from the Indians, and may have opinions & feelings on topics relating to them not common to the members of the Body.
James Madison
RC (DLC: Madison Papers); addressed: “Mr Jefferson Monticello near Charlottesville Virga”; franked; postmarked Orange Court House, 6 Mar.; endorsed by TJ as received 7 Mar. 1822 and so recorded in SJL. FC (DLC: Madison Papers, Rives Collection); in Dolley Madison’s hand; unsigned; endorsed by James Madison. Enclosure: copy, not found, of Madison to Jedidiah Morse, Montpellier, 26 Feb. 1822, acknowledging receipt of Morse’s letter of 16 Feb. 1822 covering the constitution of the American Society for promoting the civilization and general improvement of the Indian Tribes within the United States, accepting the honor of being named in association with it, but warning that “good wishes” are “the only returns I shall be able to make”; agreeing that aid must be given the Indians “to save them from the extinction to which they are hastening, and from the vices which have been doubled by our intercourse with them”; suggesting that “the comforts & habits of civilized life” will help spread “moral and intellectual improvement”; and approving the goal of gathering enough information about “this untutored race” to obtain “a just picture of the human character, as fashioned by circumstances which are yielding to others which must efface all the peculiar features of the Original” (RC in NjP; Dft and FC in DLC: Madison Papers, the latter in Dolley Madison’s hand, both dated 16 Feb. 1822; printed in Madison, Papers, Retirement Ser., 2:486–7).
The officer of his own name was Jedidiah Morse’s son Sidney Edwards Morse. As second assistant secretary of the American Society for promoting the civilization and general improvement of the Indian Tribes within the United States, however, the younger Morse was not on the Board of Directors and thus could not help constitute a quorum (A New Society, for the Benefit of Indians, organized at the City of Washington, February, 1822 [(Washington, 1822)], 9). Accompanied by his son Richard C. Morse, the elder Morse had spent the summer of 1820 on a trip commissioned by the United States war department to ascertain the condition of American Indians (Jedidiah Morse, A Report to the Secretary of War of the United States, on Indian Affairs, Comprising a Narrative of a Tour [New Haven, 1822], 13).
On 22 Feb. 1822 Missouri senator Thomas Hart Benton denounced the project, arguing that in the past “great abuses had been committed on public and private charity, in the name of humanity to Indians” and warning that “The weak and credulous would give what was due to their children, their servants, or their poor neighbors, under the delusive idea that the great men whose names they saw were seriously engaged in converting Indians, and would faithfully apply all that was received to that object” ( , 17th Cong., 1st sess., 231, 234; Washington Daily National Intelligencer, 25 Feb. 1822).
1. Preceding four words interlined.
2. Here “whether” is canceled. Word not deleted in FC.
3. Preceding two words not in FC.
Index Entries
- American Academy of Language and Belles Lettres; mentioned search
- American Society for promoting the civilization and general improvement of the Indian Tribes within the United States; constitution of search
- American Society for promoting the civilization and general improvement of the Indian Tribes within the United States; J. Madison on search
- Benton, Thomas Hart; criticizes American Society for promoting the civilization and general improvement of the Indian Tribes within the United States search
- Cass, Lewis; and Indian affairs search
- clergy; and American Society for promoting the civilization and general improvement of the Indian Tribes within the United States search
- Indians, American; and U.S. War Department search
- Indians, American; plans for civilizing search
- Madison, Dolley Payne Todd (James Madison’s wife); as J. Madison’s amanuensis search
- Madison, James (1751–1836); and American Society for promoting the civilization and general improvement of the Indian Tribes within the United States search
- Madison, James (1751–1836); letters from search
- Madison, James (1751–1836); on clergy search
- Morse, Jedidiah; and American Society for promoting the civilization and general improvement of the Indian Tribes within the United States search
- Morse, Jedidiah; and report on Indians search
- Morse, Jedidiah; family of search
- Morse, Richard C.; and report on Indians search
- Morse, Richard C.; family of search
- Morse, Sidney Edwards; and American Society for promoting the civilization and general improvement of the Indian Tribes within the United States search
- Morse, Sidney Edwards; family of search
- War Department, U.S.; and Indians search