James Madison to Thomas Jefferson, 19 February 1823
From James Madison
Montpellier Feby 19. 1823
Dear Sir
The inclosed letters & papers being addressed to you as well as me, I am not at liberty to withold them, tho’ I know the disrelish you will feel for such appeals. I shall give an answer, in a manner for us both, intimating the propriety of our abstaining from any participation in the electioneering measures on foot.1
I congratulate you on the loan, scanty as it is, for the University; in the confidence that it is a gift masked under that name; and in the hope that it is a pledge for any remnant of aid the Establishment may need in order to be totus teres atque rotundus.
Can you not have the hands set to work without the formality of a previous meeting of the Visitors? I have recd no notice from Richmond on the subject.
James Madison
RC (DLC: Madison Papers); first half only; with notation in an unidentified hand at foot of text: “Taken off for an autograph for Mrs Judge White. March 12th 1838”; endorsed by TJ as received 23 Feb. 1823 and so recorded in SJL. RC (ViU: TJP); second half only; at foot of text (corner chipped): “[Mr] Jefferson”; with notation on verso in an unidentified hand: “Montpellier Feby 19th 1823.” Tr of second half (ViU: TJP); mutilated; filed with note in an unidentified hand reading: “The orignl in the Livingston Collection—N.B. Mrs Livingstons grandmothr who made this colection was a Miss Peyton and married Senr White of Tennesse.” Enclosures: Tench Coxe to Madison and TJ, 31 Jan., 1 Feb. 1823.
totus teres atque rotundus: “whole, smoothed and rounded” (Horace, Satires, 2.7.86, in , 230, 231).
1. DLC text ends and ViU: TJP texts begin here.
Index Entries
- Coxe, Tench; on presidential election of1824 search
- Horace; quoted by J. Madison search
- Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus); Satires search
- Literary Fund; and loans for University of Virginia search
- Livingston, Eliza McEvers (John R. Livinsgton’s wife) search
- Madison, James (1751–1836); and presidential election search
- Madison, James (1751–1836); and T. Coxe search
- Madison, James (1751–1836); as member of University of Virginia Board of Visitors search
- Madison, James (1751–1836); letters from search
- politics; elections search
- United States; and presidential election of1824 search
- Virginia, University of; Board of Visitors; and loans for University of Virginia search
- Virginia, University of; Board of Visitors; meetings of search
- Virginia, University of; Construction and Grounds; workmen at search
- White, Anne E. Peyton (Hugh Lawson White’s wife) search
- White, Hugh Lawson; family of search