In the late summer of 1814—weeks before British troops burned Washington—the State Department and the Governor of Connecticut exchanged a set of documents about the Titles of Nobility Amendment (TONA). Read side-by-side with the State Department’s own papers from 1814–1816, they tell a crisp story:
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A Monroe letter dated July 29, 1814—now missing from the surviving federal files— prompted Connecticut to restate its earlier disagreement with TONA.
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Connecticut then produced a new, August 1814 certification packet (a two-page engrossed resolution under the state seal plus a gubernatorial cover letter) asserting that its negative resolution had already been sent to federal officers in June 1813.
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Despite that, the Executive Branch did not change course. In 1814 it continued implementing TONA’s rule in consular practice; in 1816 it put in writing that the requisite number of states had accepted the amendment and that it “has thus become a part of the Constitution.”
Below is what the August 1814 packet contains, why the missing Monroe letter matters, and how the State Department’s subsequent conduct shows that it did not credit Connecticut’s August 1814 certification as defeating adoption.
The August 1814 Connecticut packet
1) The engrossed resolution (two manuscript pages, state seal, Thomas Day attestation)
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The text recites the full language of TONA and then resolves that the General Assembly “do not ratify” the amendment.
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It orders transmission of copies to federal officers.
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At the foot appears the large embossment of the State of Connecticut seal and certification by Thomas Day, Secretary.
2) The Governor’s cover letter (Sharon, 16 August 1814) to James Monroe
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Governor John Cotton Smith encloses a “duplicate copy promised in my last” to the Secretary of State.
3) The Governor’s explanatory letter (Sharon, 9 August 1814), quoting his earlier dispatches
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Smith reminds Monroe that Connecticut’s resolution “disagreeing to the amendment” was passed at the May Session 1813 and that on 2 June 1813 he transmitted copies “to the Secretary of State, the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives” and that the journals of Congress showed receipt.
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He then promises to forward another transcript—the very certified duplicate that arrives a week later (16 August).
Trigger for the exchange: both August letters explicitly reply to Monroe’s inquiry of “29th ultimo” (29 July 1814)—a State Department letter that no longer survives in the present federal holdings. That missing letter is the key that started the August paper trail.
What the missing July 29, 1814 Monroe letter tells us—even in its absence
Because Smith answers Monroe twice (Aug. 9 and Aug. 16), and because he quotes Monroe’s date, we can infer the gist of Monroe’s lost query:
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State was reviewing the amendment’s state returns during wartime, and
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Monroe asked Connecticut to state its position and/or to supply copies of what it claimed to have sent in June 1813.
Smith’s August 9 reply reads like a defense of an earlier transmission—“we already sent this in 1813; Congress recorded it”—and his August 16 note encloses the promised duplicate. The Governor is, in effect, re-filing Connecticut’s negative resolution.
Why the Executive still treated TONA as adopted
Despite receiving (or re-receiving) Connecticut’s “disagreement” in August 1814, the State Department’s next-in-time actions do not budge:
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January 12, 1814 — Monroe’s Circular to Foreign Ministers
Earlier that same year, State had already announced that the amendment—“having been adopted by a large majority of the states”—made it improper to grant exequaturs to U.S. citizens to act as foreign consuls, and that existing permissions would be revoked. In practice, the Executive implemented TONA’s rule. -
May 11, 1815 — Monroe to the Swedish chargé (Kantzow)
State re-affirms that allowing Americans to hold foreign consular office is not conformable to U.S. principles, granting only a narrowly framed temporary indulgence. The policy line from the 1814 circular remains in force. -
October 30, 1816 — State Department to Ralph B. Forbes
After reviewing the returns, State writes that the “requisite number of the States” have accepted the amendment and that it “has thus become a part of the Constitution.” The letter then quotes TONA’s text.
Those are not the words—or the behavior—of an executive that regarded Connecticut’s 1814 package as negating the amendment. Rather, they show an Executive that continued to count the amendment as adopted, notwithstanding Connecticut’s late, duplicate certification of “disagreement.”
Why Connecticut’s August 1814 certification could have been discounted
The August packet raises several procedural and evidentiary issues that plausibly led State to treat it as non-dispositive:
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Transmission vs. tally timing. Smith admits the negative resolution dates to May–June 1813, yet State’s own posture by January 1814 presumes sufficient state acceptance to change policy. If State’s tally already counted TONA as functionally complete (or near-complete), a belated 1813 “disagreement” arriving (again) in August 1814 may not have altered the outcome.
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Re-filing during wartime disruption. Smith is not sending an original engrossment; he is sending a duplicate because, per his letter, State (and/or congressional offices) did not have the earlier Connecticut copy readily at hand. In wartime, lost or delayed returns were common; re-filings did not necessarily change the legal count.
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Internal Connecticut irregularities. Surviving Connecticut papers from the same episode include a committee report and resolution text that read as ratifications before being hand-edited into “do not ratify,” plus a non-genuine “Theodore Dwight” committee signature used to authenticate the reversal. Standing alone, the August 1814 engrossed copy looks tidy; in the wider file set, Connecticut’s record is not clean. An executive officer charged with reconciling state returns could plausibly discount a later “disagreement” coming out of a paper trail with visible alterations.
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Article V posture. Even if a state disagrees, Article V asks whether three-fourths have accepted. The Executive’s 1816 statement—“requisite number … have accepted”—signals the State Department concluded that Connecticut’s status did not keep the count below the threshold.
The upshot
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A State Department inquiry of July 29, 1814 (now missing) sparked Connecticut’s August replies.
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Connecticut re-filed a certified, sealed “disagreement” in August 1814.
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The Executive Branch did not treat that filing as defeating the amendment. It stayed the course in 1814–1815, and by October 1816 it put the conclusion in writing: the requisite number of states had accepted TONA and it “has thus become a part of the Constitution.”
In other words, the August 1814 Connecticut packet looks, from the federal vantage point, like a late, duplicate negative return that did not move the Article V needle. The missing July 29 Monroe letter explains why the packet exists at all; the 1814–1816 executive record explains why it did not change the outcome.
Why this matters to the larger TONA puzzle
This episode helps reconcile two realities that often seem at odds:
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State-level documents asserting non-ratification (Connecticut’s 1813/1814 papers, re-filed in August 1814), and
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Federal-level conduct and statements (1814 policy changes; 1816 adoption language) that treat the amendment as in force.
The simplest reading is administrative, not conspiratorial: the Executive Branch—tracking a war-era, decentralized flow of state returns—made a tally judgment that Connecticut’s negative certification either came too late to matter or was infirm in a way that left the requisite number of acceptances intact. And the Executive then governed accordingly.
