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Signed book: Return of the Whole Number of Persons within the Several Districts of the United States, According to 'An Act Providing for the Enumeration of the Inhabitants of the United States.' First printing. Philadelphia: Printed by Childs and Swaine, 1791. Hardcover bound in 19th-century half morocco with marbled boards, 5 x 7.25, 56 pages. Boldly signed on the last page in ink as Secretary of State, "Th: Jefferson."
Tipped into the rear is a press copy of an autograph letter by Jefferson to John Barnes, dated at Monticello, October 8, 1797, regarding a financial matter involving James Monroe. Jefferson's letter begins: "Colo. James Monroe having immediate occasion for a sum of money in Philadelphia, I have concluded it better to let him have Mr. Short’s quarter’s dividends payable the 1st. instant, than to leave them lying in an unproductive state."
Autographic condition: very fine. Book condition: VG/None, with rubbing to the spine and covers, light staining and foxing to the free end pages, and the bookplate of "T. J. Coolidge, Jr." affixed to the front pastedown; interior pages are all clean and unaffected. In most copies the delayed returns for South Carolina are tipped to page 54; in this copy that slip is not bound in, leaving the page blank; lower margins of pages 34, 42 and 43 shaved by the binder.
Provenance: Property from a Direct Descendent of Thomas Jefferson, Christie's, June 21, 2013.
The first United States census was an essential act of nation-building: a constitutional mechanism for apportioning representation, measuring the young republic’s people, and translating the Revolution’s political ideals into functioning federal administration. Printed in Philadelphia in 1791 in a small official edition for government distribution, this "Return of the Whole Number of Persons" recorded the population of the thirteen states and Southwest Territory by county and town, breaking down results into legally consequential categories—free white males, free white females, “all other free persons,” and enslaved people.
Jefferson’s signature as Secretary of State certified the accuracy of these statistics, giving the volume the authority of the federal government at the very moment the United States was defining how power would be allocated amongst the states. Few such copies were printed, and not all were signed by Jefferson, making this example both a foundational demographic record and a tangible artifact of early American governance.
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