Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

Collection is open to research.

Use Restrictions

See the University of Virginia Library’s use policy.

Preferred Citation

A Guide to a James Madison Letter, Accession 11201-a, Special Collections Department, University of Virginia Library

Acquisition Information

This letter was purchased by the University of Virginia Library on September 20, 1995.

Funding Note

Funded in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities

Scope and Content

This collection consists of an one page matted autograph letter, July 19, 1825, from James Madison , Montpellier, Virginia , to Ashbury Dickins (1780-1861), thanking Dickins in the third person form for sending him a copy of his oration given on the fourth of July. Madison praises the work highly, "J.M. had previously an opportunity of reading it in the newspapers. But it well deserves a place among the select of those anniversary discourses in the more conservative form now given to it." A copy of Dickins' Oration, delivered in the Capitol in the city of Washington, on the Fourth of July, 1825, by Asbury Dickins , and printed in Washington by Gales & Seaton, can be found in the Madison Collection of the Rare Books Division, University of Virginia Library (AC901.M33v.12, no.6).