February 18

[Writing from Philadelphia on February 18, 1791, as Secretary of State, I am addressing Ebenezer Hazard, a pioneer archivist with whom I share a passion for safeguarding our nation’s heritage. The historical context is the fragile early federal era, a time when our infant country is struggling to rebuild its records after the Revolutionary War inflicted centuries' worth of destruction upon irreplaceable public files. I enthusiastically endorse Hazard’s plan to publish his collection of historical state papers to rescue them from the daily havoc of time. I aggressively reject traditional preservation methods, arguing that the best way to save precious historical records is not by locking them away in protective vaults, but rather by printing a massive multiplication of copies to ensure survival through widespread public distribution.]

I return you the two volumes of records, with thanks for the opportunity of looking into them. They are curious monuments of the infancy of our country. I learn with great satisfaction that you are about committing to the press the valuable historical and State papers you have been so long collecting. Time and accident are committing daily havoc on the originals deposited in our public offices. The late war has done the work of centuries in this business. The last cannot be recovered, but let us save what remains; not by vaults and locks which fence them from the public eye and use in consigning them to the waste of time, but by such a multiplication of copies, as shall place them beyond the reach of accident. This being the tendency of your undertaking, be assured there is no one who wishes it more success than, Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant.