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George Washington University Predecessor Being Saved by Congress
George Washington University Predecessor Being Saved by Congress
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McKenney Thomas

George Washington University Predecessor Being Saved by Congress

 

THOMAS L. McKENNEY, Autograph Letter Signed, to John C. Calhoun, February 18, 1828, Georgetown, District of Columbia. 4 pp., 7.875" x 9.625"  Expected folds; foxing.

 



This interesting letter by Thomas L. McKenney to his political ally Vice President John C. Calhoun, who served as president of the Senate, disavows any interest in a proposed relief for his benefit.

 

Baptist missionary and minister Luther Rice raised funds to purchase a site in Washington, D.C. for a college to educate students from throughout the nation, in response to an oft-stated recommendation of President George Washington for a university in the U.S. capital. In 1821, Congress chartered the non-denominational Columbian College, and President James Monroe approved the Congressional charter. After the Civil War, Columbian College became Columbian University, and in 1904, it became George Washington University.

 

From 1816 until Congress abolished the U.S. Indian Trade program in 1822, Thomas L. McKenney served as Superintendent of Indian Trade. In 1824, then Secretary of War John C. Calhoun created a position in the War Department without legislation entitled Superintendent of Indian Affairs, and President James Monroe appointed McKenney to the new position. To accept the position, however, McKenney had to settle his accounts as Superintendent of Indian Trade. In that settlement, it is unclear whether the United States owed McKenney or he owed the United States. Congress believed that Luther Rice, the treasurer of Columbian College underwrote the notes McKenney owed to the United States. In this letter, McKenney denies owing any debt to the United States. He insists that he assigned the amount the government owed him to Columbian College for the college’s benefit. Later in 1828, his Georgetown estate, Weston, was sold at auction because of his bankruptcy.

 



By 1828, Columbian College was in financial trouble, with debts of near $100,000. Apparently, $14,000 of that debt had been secured by Thomas L. McKenney, the Superintendent of Indian Affairs. On February 6, 1828, the U.S. Senate debated a bill for the relief of the Columbian College. Some senators favored giving up the debts the college owed to the United States to save the college, while others found it incredible that the college had amassed such debt in just a few years. The Senate decided to recommit the bill to the Committee for further details on the college’s debts and assets.

 



On February 14, Senator John Henry Eaton of Tennessee introduced an amended bill and also a bill for the relief of Thomas L. McKenney. On March 17, the bill for McKenney’s relief was discussed and laid on the table. Two months later, on May 16, an attempt to again table the bill failed, but the Senate does not appear to have considered it again.

 



Complete Transcript



To the Hon: The President of the Senate of the United States



Sir

           

I have this moment seen the report of the Hon. The Committee of the Senate of the District of Columbia, to whom was re-committed a bill for the relief of the Columbian College—also “a bill for the relief of Thomas L McKenney.” Entertaining the highest respect for the committee, I cannot doubt its purpose to be, in regard to myself, just what the title of the bill imports. It was, no doubt kindly intended—but as I did not seek this proffered relief, so I beg leave, respectfully, to decline the acceptance of it, and these are my reasons:



First—Because the bill assumes, at least by implication, that I am debtor to the United States, and



Second, That I have unsettled accounts to adjust, which recquire, before they can be settled, that the accompting officers the Treasury be clothed with equitable, as well as legal powers.

           

In regard to the first, it is wholly incorrect. I do not owe the United States one dollar, more or less, either in law or equity. No bill, therefore, however kindly it may be intended, can afford me any relief.

           

In regard to the second—so far as I can comprehend the law and regulations, and the usages of the Treasury, there needs no equitable authority to enable the accompting officers to adjust & settle the account under which I once claimed, but which the Columbian College now claims, by assignment, a balance. I need not add that the transaction is one of contract between individual citizens; and that my connexion once stood to the Government, in regard to this matter, it was, long since, by the assent of its legal representative, dissolved.

           

But I respectfully refer the Senate to the report of the Committee, & the papers accompanying it, for the origin & termination of the contract between the Revd Luther Rice, the accredited agent of the Columbian College & myself; & which relieved me, four years ago, & by order of the Secretary of the Treasury, from the obligations then due the Government by my Brother & myself, & possessed the College of a right to the balance claimed by me in the settlement of my accounts as Superintendent of Indian Trade. These are fully disclosed by the documents accompanying the report of the Committee. Further remark in regard to the transaction would be superfluous.

                                                                       

I have the honor to be with great Respect yr [Obft?

                                                                       

Tho L McKenney



Geo Town 

Feby. 18th 1828

 

 



Thomas L. McKenney (1785-1859) was born in Hopewell, Maryland, into a Quaker family. By 1815, he was a successful merchant in Georgetown, District of Columbia. President James Madison appointed McKenney to the position of Superintendent of Indian Trade in April 1816, a position he held until it was abolished in 1822. From August 1822 to May 1823, McKenney edited a newspaper, the Washington Republican and Congressional Examiner. President James Monroe appointed McKenney to the position of Superintendent of Indian Affairs in 1824, and McKenney held that position until 1830. He supported the removal of Native Americans to west of the Mississippi River, but that perspective did not prevent President Andrew Jackson from dismissing McKenney in 1830, when Jackson disagreed with McKenney’s statement that “the Indian was, in his intellectual and moral structure, our equal.” McKenney moved to Philadelphia, where he published The History of the Indian Tribes of North America in three volumes between 1836 and 1844. Much of the writing was done by co-author James Hall. McKenney died destitute in New York City.

 



John C. Calhoun (1782-1850) was born in Abbeville District, South Carolina, and graduated from Yale College as valedictorian in 1804. He studied law at Tapping Reeve Law School in Litchfield, Connecticut, and was admitted to the South Carolina bar in 1807. In 1811, he married Floride Bonneau Colhoun, with whom he had ten children. He won election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1810 and served until 1817, when President James Monroe appointed him as Secretary of War, a position he held until 1825. Initially a candidate for the presidency in 1824, Calhoun abandoned his candidacy in favor of Andrew Jackson. The Electoral College elected Calhoun as vice president by a landslide, in marked contrast to the position of president. Although Andrew Jackson won a plurality of the popular vote and the most electoral votes, the House of Representatives selected John Quincy Adams as president. In 1828, Calhoun supported Jackson’s campaign, and Jackson selected Calhoun as his running mate. When Jackson won, Calhoun continued in the position of vice president. As vice president, Calhoun presided over the Senate from 1825 to December 1832, when he resigned as vice president over disagreements with Jackson. From 1832 to 1843 and from 1845 until his death, Calhoun represented South Carolina in the U.S. Senate. During the eleven months between Senate terms, Calhoun served as John Tyler’s Secretary of State.

 

 



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