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A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774-1875
Dear Sir [May 10? 1782](1)
I have the pleasure to inform you that Congress have reconsidered their resolution & have struck out all that follows "Secy of foreign affairs" in lieu thereof have inserted "who shall give invita-
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tions in the name of Congress to the prest & Council of Pensylvania, the principals of the three executive departments under Congress & such other persons as he may think proper."(2)
This I hope will remove your difficulties & enable you to proceed in executing the business in such way as will do honor to your self as well as to Congress.
I have the honr to be Sr, Yr obt. humble Servt,
Cha Thomson
FC (DNA: PCC, item 55). In the hand of Charles Thomson.
1 Livingston had informed Congress on May 2 that La Luzerne desired "a public audience" in order to deliver a letter from Louis XVI "announcing the birth of a Dauphin," whereupon Congress assigned Monday May 13 for an audience. Livingston also submitted a description of the audience held in August 1778 for the first French minister to the United States, Conrad-Alexandre Gerard, with a few suggested alterations to make the ceremony suitable to the present occasion, which was referred on May 3 to a committee consisting of Elias Boudinot, James Madison and John Rutledge. See JCC, 22:235; and PCC, item 79, 2:133-40.
The committee's report, which was adopted May 7, described in considerable detail a "ceremonial . . . proper to be adopted on this occasion," which prescribed the roles of the principal officers of the three executive departments and other Continental officials. Livingston apparently balked at the part assigned to the secretary for foreign affairs, and accordingly directed the following note to President Hanson the following day. "Sir, I this moment received a Resolution of Congress, ordering an entertainment to be provided by Congress at the City tavern for the Minister of France and his Suite to be under my direction, and impowering me to invite thereto such Ceneral Officers and foreigners of distinction in town as the President shall approve. As the execution of this important trust (for which I find myself disqualified) will materially interfere with the business of this Office, I must beg leave to decline the Honor that Congress intend me. I have directed the Tavern keeper to be informed that it will be necessary to provide a dinner on Monday, in order that no time may be lost by my having been appointed."JCC, 22:246-48; and PCC, item 79, 2: 175-78.
The congressional response to this note is not known, but the following letter from Livingston to Secretary Thomson, dated May 9th, indicates that he had not been placated.
"You who know the respect I have for Congress, will easily conceive the reluctance I feel, in persisting to decline the direction of their Entertainment, while it stands upon its present footing-were it a duty annexed to my Office, I should think myself oblidged to perform it did the United States in Congress chuse to appoint me their Master of Ceremonies whom any occasion in which they appeared as a Sovereign, I should think they added greatly to the honor they have already conferred upon me- But Sir I feel that there is a respect which every Man owes to himself if he has been dignified by honorable Employments or if in Office to that Office and the Sovereign that appointed him, which forbids him to take a new Charge derogatory to the former.
"Congress call upon me to direct an Entertainment at which, I am not even a guest-to which none of the Principals in the great Departments, or the most respectable executive Officers are to be invited-From which the President and Council of the State-The field Officers in town tho' on duty, a number of genteel Strangers (not being Foreigners) some of whom were ten days ago members of Congress are excluded, and the general Officers implicatively since they never visit without their Aid de Camps-it is true the odium I should incur by my agentry on this occasion would be removed if I could plead the order of Congress, but I should find it difficult
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to make the world believe that an Officer whose past and present Employments give him some title to respect could be ordered to direct an entertainment without some little attentions having been paid to his recommendation-and were this to gain credit, I should want a sufficient Appology for taking upon myself a duty which placed me upon a level with the Presidents Steward-delicacy and respect for Congress kept me from assigning these reasons to them-if they must be brought before them, I wish you to do it in such a way, as to testify my veneration for their orders, and the pain I feel at being placed in such a situation as not to be capable of executing their commands on this occasion without degrading an Office which their honor and interest requires to be supported with some degree of dignity particularly in the Eyes of foreigners. Should Congress find it proper to alter their Resolution, which however I am far from taking the liberty to suggest, I shall think myself honored by carrying their commands into execution." Charles Thomson Papers, DLC.
For additional information related to this affair, see the following entry; and Thomson's Report on the Audience with La Luzerne, May 13, 1782.
2 For the placement of this emendation of Congress' May 7 resolution, see Thomson's journal entry for May 7, where it was inserted in the margin with the following notation in Thomson's hand: "May 10. reconsidered. & altered to read." PCC, item 1, 33:229. For the evolution of the original committee report on the audience with La Luzerne and a number of other documents related to Livingston's planning and management of the event, see also Madison, Papers (Hutchinson), 4:211-14; and PCC, item 79, 2:179-92, 197-98, item 119, fols. 104-7, 120-27.
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