To James Madison from Joseph B. McKean, 11 July 1806 (Abstract)
From Joseph B. McKean, 11 July 1806 (Abstract)
§ From Joseph B. McKean.1 11 July 1806, Philadelphia. “I am requested to state my knowledge of Mr; George Taylor late of this City, in whose behalf an application will be made for the appointment of Consul for the Island of St. Thomas. I have known Mr; Taylor, intimately, upwards of fifteen years. I do not hesitate to say from my knowledge of him that he is a Gentleman of strict veracity and integrity & I believe possessed of sufficient talents to execute the office which is solicited for him.”
RC (DNA: RG 59, LAR, 1801–9, filed under “Taylor”). 1 p.; docketed by Jefferson.
1. Joseph Borden McKean (1764–1826), the son of Pennsylvania governor Thomas McKean, graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1782 and was admitted to the Philadelphia bar in 1785. He served as attorney general of Pennsylvania from 1800 to 1808, under his father’s administration. In 1802 he and four other U.S. lawyers declared their opinion, in answer to a question no doubt posed by McKean’s brother-in-law Carlos Martinez de Yrujo, that given existing conditions, Spain was not responsible for French spoliations on U.S. shipping committed in Spanish waters. Not only was this conclusion directly opposed to the administration’s position, but JM considered the attorneys’ actions illegal and criticized McKean’s involvement in particular, owing to the latter’s family connection with Yrujo. Beginning in 1817, McKean served as associate and then presiding judge in the Philadelphia city and county district court (Cornelius McKean, McKean Genealogies from the Early Settlement of McKeans or McKeens in America to the Present Time, 1902 [Des Moines, 1902], 116–19; Smull’s Legislative Hand Book and Manual of the State of Pennsylvania [1922]: 993; 5:266, 270 n. 9, 6:440, 441 n. 5, 10:225, 226 n. 4).