From James Madison to Josiah Stoddard Johnston, 18 December 1827
To Josiah Stoddard Johnston
Montpellier December 18. 1827
Dear Sir
I return my thanks for the copy of the “Examination of the charges against Mr. Adams and Mr. Clay”;1 of which less cannot be said than that it exhibits very able & impressive views of the subject; and with a degree of moderation & fairness too little found in the political discussions of the period.
This acknowledgement of your politeness, would have been sooner made, but for an endemic indisposition from which I am just recovered. I hope no such interruption has befallen the health of yourself or of Mrs. Johnston, to both of whom Mrs. Madison unites with me in a tender of respectful & cordial salutations.
James Madison
Pardon the mistake of a broken sheet.
RC (CtY); draft (DLC). Addressed by JM to Johnston: “Senator of Louisiana in Congress Washington”; postmarked at Orange Court House, Virginia, 21 Dec. Josiah Stoddard Johnston (1784–1833), a Connecticut-born graduate of Transylvania University, was a Louisiana lawyer who served in the territorial legislature, 1805–12; as a state district judge, 1812–21; as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, 1821–23; and as a U.S. senator from 1824 until he was killed in a steamboat explosion on the Red River.
1. Hampden [Charles Hammond], An Examination of the Charge, Preferred by Gen. Jackson against Mr. Adams and Mr. Clay: First Published in the National Intelligencer (Washington, D.C., 1827; 28824).