1816 James Madison - Jefferson's Decimal System

Thomas Jefferson's Decimal system1

In 1789, the first Congress took to the task of establishing a standard system of weights and measures.   Since the metric system did not come to a practical realization until 1799 during the French Revolution, Thomas Jefferson the first Secretary of State submitted a report proposing a decimal-based system that had a mixture of familiar and unfamiliar names for the units.  It was actually very similar to the metric system in many ways except that instead of prefixes, Jefferson had a long list of names for each unit.   Jefferson's basic unit of distance was the foot which was divided into 10 inches.  Each inch was divided into 10 lines and each line into 10 points.   10 feet was a decade, 100 feet was a rood, and 1000 feet was a furlong.   Jefferson's mile was 10,000 feet about twice that of what we call a mile today.   A bushel was a cubic foot and a bushel of water weighed 1000 ounces.   Unfortunately, Congress provided little support for Jefferson's decimal system and instead chose to stick with the traditional English weights and measure system.

James Madison had always admired Thomas Jefferson. Indeed, Jefferson served as a mentor for James Madison, and as Madison's role in American government expanded, the relationship developed into a bond of friendship that lasted 50 years.  So it is no surprise, that at the end of James Madison's presidency, he would reach out to Congress to once again urge them to adopt a decimal system similar to that of Jefferson's.   While President Madison, did not mention Jefferson by name, he did refer to "preparatory steps" that were taken at an early stage of our Government to introduce a decimal system.   Madison suggested to Congress that a system of measurement fixed on the "easy rule of decimal proportions" was an obvious choice, and that completing the work started by Thomas Jefferson on a Decimal system would be greatly appreciated by the American government.

"Congress will call to mind that no adequate provision has yet been made for the uniformity of weights and measures also contemplated by the Constitution. The great utility of a standard fixed in its nature and founded on the easy rule of decimal proportions is sufficiently obvious. It led the Government at an early stage to preparatory steps for introducing it, and a completion of the work will be a just title to the public gratitude."

Unfortunately, Congress took no action at the time.  It wasn't until 1832 that Congress took any action on establishing a formal system of measurement.  In that year, Congress directed the Treasury Department to standardize the measures used by customs officials at U.S. Ports.   A traditional system, rather than a decimal or metric system was adopted by the department and Congress allowed this to stand without taking any formal action.   Thomas Jefferson's decimal system was dead.   Despite the efforts of two of our founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, the metric system would not be adopted in the United States.   Technically the metric system was adopted by the U.S. in 1866, but no actions were taken to restrict to prohibit the traditional units in areas such as construction, real estate, retail trade or education.  


http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=29458
https://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/units/usmetric.html 
1Thomas Jefferson, no date, Decimal System Weights and Measures. Manuscript/Mixed Material. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <https://www.loc.gov/item/mtjbib025807/>.