Although President Thomas Jefferson spoke of national reconciliation in his first inaugural address on 4 March 1801, the same day he wrote to George Jefferson, a distant cousin who dealt with the president's business affairs in Richmond. George Jefferson was to inform James T. Callender that the fine he received under the Sedition Act would be remitted as soon as the new government of the United States was formed. During the presidential campaign of 1800, Republican propagandist Callender had received financial support and guidance from Jefferson, even though Jefferson denied a direct role in Callender's ferocious attacks on President John Adams. When Callender later turned against Jefferson, Abigail Adams remarked that it was as though the serpent Jefferson had "cherished and warmed" had turned and "bit the hand that nourished him."

Although Thomas Jefferson later would use a polygraph—a writing machine that made exact copies of letters as he wrote them—he made thousands of copies of outgoing letters by pressing a thin sheet of tissue-like paper against the original while the ink was still wet. His retained, letterpress copies were blurred but legible—at least by Jefferson.