Day-by-Day / March 22, 1803

March 22, 1803

Federalist folly

From Monticello, President Jefferson writes to Secretary of State James Madison about a Federalist editorial that recommends Kentucky succeed from the Union. Such an action ran counter to Jefferson’s plans to acquire and explore the Louisiana Territory.

Monticello Mar. 22. 1803.

Dear Sir [James Madison]

I see the federalists find one paper in Kentucky into which they can get what they write either here or there. Bradford’s Guardian of freedom of Mar. 4. has a piece recommending immediate separation. A cool calculation of interest however would shew that Eastern America would not be the greatest sufferer by that folly. Accept my affectionate salutations.

Th: Jefferson[1]Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, Founders Online, National Archives, founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/02-04-02-0531 accessed 15 May 2022. [Original source: The Papers of James Madison, … Continue reading

 

Notes

Notes
1 Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, Founders Online, National Archives, founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/02-04-02-0531 accessed 15 May 2022. [Original source: The Papers of James Madison, Secretary of State Series, vol. 4, 8 October 1802–15 May 1803, ed. Mary A. Hackett, J. C. A. Stagg, Jeanne Kerr Cross, Susan Holbrook Perdue, and Ellen J. Barber. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1998, p. 444.]

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