Rare government document, sent only to US Marshals and their assistants who administered the U.S. Census, this copy addressed to Eliakim Norton, Tisbury, (Martha's Vineyard), Massachusetts: "Repeated intimations have been made to this Department of the difficulty experienced by the assistants for taking the sixth census of procuring answers to the statistical inquiries... the reluctance to answer proceeds from an idea that the inquiries are made for the purpose of laying a direct tax...I understand that in Tennessee and elsewhere, there is, in some degree a misapprehension as to the objects of the various interrogatories…” President Van Buren's Secretary of State John Forsyth here tries to smooth over popular opposition to a dramatic changes in the ten-year U.S. Census. From 1790 to 1830 federal census-takers had recorded only the most basic information about American households. Then, as the 1840 Census approached, Congress passed a law providing for broader Census questioning, especially of Army veterans who received government pensions, and setting fines for those who refused to comply. In some states, there was near-violent resistance to the new Government intrusion – suspected to be the first step toward levying a personal income tax. In this circular, Forsyth backs down, allowing Census takers to use discretion in their door-to-door questioning. But ten years later, the 1850 Census would include new inquiries on social issues like taxation, poverty and crime - a notable expansion of Federal Government power that would continue apace during the Civil War.