183201Hamilton Takes Command: Editorial Note (Jay Papers)
As calls for military action against France grew louder during the summer of 1798, Jay tapped Alexander Hamilton to take charge of the various efforts then underway to put the City of New York on a wartime footing. Although Hamilton’s formal duties were those of chief superintendent of fortifications, he in fact served in a much broader capacity than this title suggests. Throughout the...
183202John Jay’s Moderate Response to the Whiskey Rebellion: Editorial Note (Jay Papers)
The enforcement of Secretary of the Treasury Hamilton’s 1792 excise tax on distilled spirits met with widespread protest along the Appalachian backcountry. Western Pennsylvania constituted a flashpoint as harassment, ostracism, and violence greeted officials sent to implement the measure and residents who publicly supported it. Protesters in the region also sought to coordinate their efforts...
183203Editorial Note (Adams Papers)
“To morrow morning we set out upon our tour into Silesia, where you shall accompany us if you please,” John Quincy Adams wrote to his brother Thomas Boylston Adams on 16 July (above). So began a fourteen-week journey by John Quincy and Louisa Catherine Adams through what is now southern Poland and southern Germany. John Quincy promised to chronicle the trip in a series of letters, adding that...
183204Drafting Instructions for Meriwether Lewis: Editorial Note (Jefferson Papers)
A brief, undated set of four comments jotted in pencil by James Madison is the earliest evidence of Jefferson’s drafting of official instructions to Meriwether Lewis for the expedition to the Pacific ( Document I ). Due to an alteration that Jefferson made in his endorsement on that document, the date of its receipt is not clear but could be as early as 12 or 13 Apr. Jefferson’s practice,...
183205Tensions between Allies over the Peace Negotiations Editorial Note (Jay Papers)
Congress received long-awaited dispatches from its commissioners in Europe in December 1782. On 16 December Robert R. Livingston submitted to Congress Jay’s brief note of 28 September, which clarified a reference to Oswald’s second commission in Franklin’s dispatch of two days earlier. Livingston included in his letter of transmittal a quotation from Jay’s private correspondence of 4 September...
183206Constitutional Amendment on Louisiana: Editorial Note (Jefferson Papers)
“I think it will be safer not to permit the enlargement of the Union but by amendment of the constitution,” Jefferson wrote to his secretary of the Treasury in January 1803. The president was responding to Gallatin’s rebuttal of arguments from the attorney general about the desired purchase of New Orleans and the Floridas. Jefferson, Levi Lincoln knew, thought that an amendment to the...
183207Anonymous Essay on Madison’s Character, December 1814 (Madison Papers)
Destined for the Bar, the youth of Madison was consecrated to the laborious studies of that vocation. At the age of twenty two years he commenced his carreer of public life, always occupying with superior talents, and fidelity, the most conspicuous places in the gift of his fellow citizens. When a member of Congress, the vigor of his mind, the wisdom of his views, and the force and facility of...
183208Introductory Note: From Oliver Wolcott, Junior, [3 July 1797] (Hamilton Papers)
The events described in this letter precipitated the final phase of what has come to be known as the “Reynolds Affair.” In pamphlets appearing in June and July, 1797, James Thomson Callender stated that Hamilton, while Secretary of the Treasury, had joined with James Reynolds in a series of speculative ventures that were at best improper and at worst illegal. Two months later Hamilton...
183209The American Commissioners to John Lamb, [7 July 1786] (Adams Papers)
The Importance of Peace with the Algerines, and the other Inhabitants of the Coast of Barbary, to the United States, renders it necessary that every information which can be obtained, should be laid before Congress: And as the demands for the Redemption of Captives as well as the amount of Customary Presents, are so much more considerable than seem to have been expected in America, it appears...
183210From Benjamin Franklin to Mary Franklin, 26 August 1766 (Franklin Papers)
ALS : American Philosophical Society It has pleased God at length to take from us my only remaining Brother, and your affectionate Husband, with whom you have lived in uninterrupted Harmony and Love near half a Century. Considering the many Dangers and Hardships his Way of Life led him into, and the Weakness of his Constitution, it is wonderful that he lasted so long. It was God’s Goodness...