Autograph letter Signed, from James Sullivan to Elbridge Gerry, calling for frugality as a national characteristic, including at the President's dining table

7pp., on two folded sheets. Docketed by Gerry on verso of final leaf. Folio. Letter written by James Sullivan, a Massachusetts lawyer and politician, to Founding Father Elbridge Gerry, discussing the need for frugality to be a core American virtue. Sullivan was involved in the convention that wrote the state's first constitution, and led the movement to secure representation in the lower House for a representative from each town. He served as Massachusetts Attorney General from 1790 to 1807, when he resigned his post to assume the position of governor. He was a good friend of his correspondent, Elbridge Gerry. Gerry served in the Continental Congress and was a signer of the Declaration of Independence. He was an early and vigorous advocate of American Independence, and played a crucial role in the formation of the new United States government, insisting on a bill of rights being added to the new Constitution. His name is perhaps most remembered, however ignominiously, in connection with the term "gerrymandering." In his second term as governor of Massachusetts, Gerry redrew district lines to consolidate his party's control in the state senate. Though this was not necessarily a new practice, the name stuck. Gerry ran on the ticket with President Madison in 1812, for Madison's second term as President, and died in office in November, 1814. Espousing a very New England view of the situation, Sullivan imparts his thoughts on the subject of national character to his friend, emphasizing the ways in which frugality as a national trait will elevate America's position on the world stage. He advocates legislating the expense and extravagance of the President's table, in order to set a precedent that will filter down to the state leaders, &c., and be passed down as an example to all of the nation's future leaders. The letter reads, in part: "My dear Gerry, You will permit me to trouble you with one thought on public measures, which though unimportant in your eye, yet your candour & friendship will pardon the intrusion. I cannot but wish, however unfashionable I may be in it, that our national character (for one we must have) may be marked by industry and oeconomy [sic]. I wish it might be said to the traveller who shall be on his way to America, 'You will find then an hospitable people, but men who uniformly attend to the various calls of industry, & while their tables are crowned with plenty, they are governed in their expenses by the rules of frugality. Their state of life is such as affords the most happy presage of their young republic being lasting as the constitution of it is pure.' A character like this would raise us in the estimation of foreigners, would fix our private and establish our public credit among the nations of the world; it would yield us an infinite advantage over what we can possibly obtain in our present carreer [sic] of mimicking fops, and men of fortune in old countries. "I am persuaded that it is in the power of Congress immediately to lay such a foundation for table frugality throughout the union as will not be shaken for a long time yet to come. You have a gentleman at the head of the federal table whom I conceive to be not only a theoretic but a practical whig and in all instances a firm patriot. Should Congress now advise or direct that his table should be spread in a mode suitable to the state and situation of a young republic, that it should bare [sic] enough for the surrounding guests without groaning under an immense weight or the wasting surplusage, which we generally see at what are called polite tables, it would be an example aided by the strength of superior opinion while all the federal officers and all the governors of the separate states would hand it down with obligations to the people. It would very soon be rendered disreputable to gentlemen of private life to exceed the measure sanctified by so great an authority. I know it may be objected that foreign ministers keep tables which ought not to.…