On 1 and 2 January 1821 John Quincy Adams wrote this in his Memoirs:
January 1st.—At the drawing-room at the President’s.
It was more thronged with company than
I ever saw it on my similar occasion.
“Donec eris felix, multos numerabis amicos.”
Mr. Monroe by a vote with a single exception
unanimous of all the electoral colleges of this Union,
has just been re-elected President of the United States
for a second term of four years.
No such state of things as the present has existed
since the establishment of the present Constitution;
for although the second election of Washington,
like the first, was unanimous, yet the opposition
to his Administration was more organized and
more violent than it now is to that of Mr. Monroe.
I received a private letter from John Forsyth,
our Minister at Madrid, informing me that the
Cortes on the 5th of October had advised in
secret session the ratification of the Florida Treaty.
The letter is of the same day and is
the first direct information of the event.
It confirms that which had been received on the
16th of last month from R. Rush, who had been
notified of it by a private letter from the Duke of Frias,
the Spanish Ambassador in London on the 20th of October.
The rumor has been circulating here these
five or six weeks; but it would scarcely seem credible
that within four days three months should elapse
from the day of a transaction so important to us,
at Madrid, before any direct advice of it should come to us.
It shows that instructions should be given to the
representatives of the public in Spain to transmit
to us notice of all events of primary importance
by the way of London and Liverpool.
2nd. I made a draft of a report to the President with the
papers relating to the slave-trade, called for by resolution of
the House of Representatives; and also of a message from
the President to the House to communicate these papers.
Mr. Canning, to whom I had sent my answer to his
note of 20th of December on this subject, called at my
office, and we had a desultory conversation of at least
three hours on the slave-trade, the Queen’s trial,
European politics, literature, and indeed all sorts of topics.
Concerning the slave-trade he expressed the opinion that
the proposals in my note would be quite inadequate to
the object proposed, the effectual suppression of the trade.
But, he added, his only remaining duty was to transmit
them to his Government, which he should immediately do.
He also enquired what amount of force it was
contemplated by us to keep on the African coast;
what particular instructions it was proposed to give
in concert to the commanders; and in what manner
it was supposed they might cooperate together.
I told him the general instruction to cooperate,
if agreed upon in principle by the two Governments,
would lead to information from the officers themselves,
upon which more particular instructions might afterwards
be prepared; that for the present the instructions to
cruise in company together when they may find it useful,
and to communicate information mutually as opportunities
may offer, was all that was deemed advisable,
but there could be no doubt that a more special
concurrent exertion might hereafter be combined.1
Secretary of State Adams on January 5 wrote in his Memoirs:
5th. The Spanish Minister, General Vivés, called upon me
this morning and requested answers to several notes which
he has addressed to me, two of which are upon the case of
the Esperanza, a Spanish vessel taken upon a slave-trading
voyage by the United States sloop-of-war Cyane, Captain
Trenchard, sent into New York, one upon the case of a
Spanish Consul at New Orleans named Villavaso, who
has been arrested upon a civil process, and two upon
the case of the French ship Apollon, seized on the Spanish
side of St. Mary’s River for violation of our revenue laws
A second case of a similar character has occurred—
that of the Eugenie, which, after entering
St. Mary’s River, was forced to go away.
In these cases Vivés said, he was the more anxious
to receive an answer, because he was much urged
by Mr. Roth, the Chargé d’Affaires from France.2
On January 5 and 6 Adams also wrote about the Spanish acting Consul at St. Mary’s,
I told him that with regard to the cases of the Esperanza
and the Consul, delays had occurred from the necessity of
ascertaining facts, and of awaiting the judicial decisions.
In the cases of the French vessels I had waited in the
hope of the ratification of the Florida Treaty.
By that event the jurisdiction of both sides of
St. Mary’s River would belong to the United States,
the questions of right involved in the transactions
relating to the Apollon and the Eugenie would cease
to be important, and the unpleasant discussions
likely to result from them I hoped might be abridged.
Should that discussion take place, I should be under
the necessity of making serious complaint against
two Spanish officers—the Governor of East Florida,
for constituting a pretended port where there
was no settlement and could be no honest trade,
and the only possible object of which was to defraud
the revenue of the United States; and the Spanish
acting Consul at St. Mary’s, whose avowed object
in all those transactions, of which he had been
the principal agent, was to evade the laws
and defraud the revenue of the Union.
We were in possession of two private letters written
by him disclosing the whole project, and proving
that it was, in substance, a conspiracy against the
country where this man was residing under the
protection of the Consular character.
As in the event of the ratification of the treaty the
whole project would be at an end, I had hoped to
be spared the necessity of discussing it at all, and
wished him to assign this to his Government as
the reason for delaying the answer to his notes.
He said that the Governor of East Florida had no
authority to constitute the port of St. Joseph, unless
by a special power from the Governor-General of Cuba.
Whether Governor Coppinger had in this case
such a power, he (Vivés) did not know.
He had himself been surprised that Coppinger should
have taken such a step precisely at the moment when
the ratification of the treaty was hourly expected; and had
written to him and earnestly cautioned him against anything
which should be cause of complaint to the United States.
As to the treaty, he had been assured by his Government
that the ratification might be confidently expected, and he
hoped he should speedily receive it by a special messenger.
Mr. Poletica likewise called upon me and showed me
a communication which he had received from Count Bulgari,
the Russian Chargé d’Affaires at Madrid; being a copy of
a note from the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs to him
announcing the ratification by him of the Florida Treaty.
6th. At the office I was occupied in preparing
a dispatch to A. Gallatin, with which I sent copies
of all the papers relating to the seizure of the
French ship Apollon and the case of the Eugenie.
Mr. Roth, the Chargé d’Affaires from France,
has written several notes upon this subject,
the last of which enclosed a protest by the captain
of the Eugenie, couched in language so insulting
to this Government that I was somewhat angered.
I drafted an answer to Roth’s note and
sent it to the President for consideration.
The President wrote me that Roth’s note deserved
everything that I had said of it in my answer,
but advised that I should only communicate verbally with
Roth on the subject and wait for the arrival of Mr. Hyde
de Neuville to treat of it amicably, and to give friendly
explanations to the French Government through Mr. Gallatin.
I therefore withheld my letter to Roth
and answered him thus through Gallatin.3
On 9 January 1821 Secretary of State Adams wrote in his Memoirs:
Mr. Canning came to speak of the papers
communicated to the House of Representatives
by the President with his message relative
to the negotiations concerning the slave-trade.
There was one passage in a dispatch from me
to R. Rush which I was aware would, when published,
be displeasing to the British Government.
It was a reflection somewhat pointed at the principle
in the treaty between Great Britain and the Netherlands,
that the cruisers for slave-traders of each nation
should be authorized to search vessels of the other,
even under convoy of armed vessels of their own.
Canning alluded to it in general terms, intimating that
he could have wished that it had not been
included in the communication to Congress.
As a letter of instruction from this Government
to its own Minister, he had nothing to say of it,
but, as it was no part of the communications which
had passed between the two Governments, it did not seem,
he said, to be required by the call from the House,
and containing something like censure on the
British Government, might have been omitted
from papers communicated to Congress for publication.
I told him that the call of the House included whatever
had been done by direction of the President in this
negotiation, of which the instruction to Mr. Rush
was a very essential part; that I was not aware of
any censure, in the paper to which he alluded,
upon the British Government; the allusion was only to an
important difference of principle between them and us;
and the occasion was such as required that we should
be very explicit in the avowal of our principles.
I could assure him there was
nothing offensive in the intention.4
On January 19 Adams wrote,
19th. Mr. Dana, the Senator from Connecticut,
came to make further enquiries concerning the
expenditures in the Executive Departments.
He said after his manner, “It is my opinion
that the expenditures in the Executive Departments
are very extravagant; and now what have
you to say in defense of them?”
I answered in the same tone, “But before you put me upon
my defense, please to specify to which of the Departments,
and in what the charge of extravagant consists.”
“To all the Departments; and the special charge consists in
the increased amount of expenditures in each Department.
The expenses in the War and Treasury Departments
for instance are in the year 1820 three times
as great as they were in 1800.
In the Department of State they are increased
not in the same proportion, but are about doubled.”
I then said, “As to the increase in the other Departments
I must leave the defense to them, which
would be very easy, to their respective heads.
It would be enough for me to defend my own dominions.
As to the increase in the Department of State,
a small part of it was occasioned by an augmentation
of the salaries of the officers employed in it.
That of the Secretary had been only of two years’ standing;
as the salary now is; my individual and domestic expenses
exceed it from four to five thousand dollars every year,
and as a reduction of it would only increase by so much
the consideration of Congress that sacrifice be necessary
for an alleviation to the burdens of the country,
I am quite prepared to acquiesce in it.
But I should regret any reduction of the salaries
of the clerks, because none could be made which
in amount could be any object to the nation, and
because the best of them gave no more than a
comfortable subsistence to the holders; and none
were adequate compensation for the qualifications
which, to be fit for the offices, they ought to possess.
But the great increase of expense was owing
to the increase of the country and of the duties
to be performed at the Department.
The foreign correspondence, indeed, remained
much the same now as it was in 1800.
The only difference was a Legation in Russia now
instead of a Legation in Prussia then, and an
additional Chargé d’Affaires now in Sweden.
But the interior correspondence then was
with sixteen States; it is now with twenty-four.
It was then with a population of less than five,
and now of more than nine millions; to which must
be added the increase of the inquisitive spirit in Congress.
At that time there were in Congress about
one hundred and thirty members;
there are now upwards of two hundred and thirty.5
On 27 January 1821 Secretary of State Adams had a vigorous conversation
with George Canning before he became British Foreign Secretary:
Mr. Canning again repeated his surprise
at the tone and temper with which his
application yesterday had been received.
He said he had examined and re-examined himself,
and had in vain enquired what could have been the cause
of the asperity with which he had been treated by me.
“Sir,” said I, “suppose Mr. Rush should be present
at a debate in the House of Commons and should hear a
member in the course of a speech say something about the
expediency of sending a regiment of troops to the Shetland
Islands, or a new colony to New South Wales;
suppose another member of Parliament should
publish in a newspaper a letter recommending the
same project; and suppose Mr. Rush should then go
to Lord Castlereagh and formally allege those two facts
as his motives for demanding whether the British
Government had any such intentions; and if answered that
very probably they might, he should assume an imperious
and tragical tone of surprise and talk about a violation
of treaties; how do you think it would be received?”
He said that now he fully understood me
and could account for what had passed;
this answer was perfectly explicit.
But did I consider the cases as parallel?
“So far as any question of right is concerned,”
said I, “perfectly parallel.”
“Have you, “ said Mr. Canning, “an claim to
the Shetland Islands or New South Wales?”
“Have you any claim,” said I,
“to the mouth of Columbia River?”
“Why do you not know,” replied he,
“that we have a claim?”
“I do not know,” said I, what you claim
nor what you do not claim.
You claim India; you claim Africa; you claim—”
“Perhaps,” said he, “a piece of the moon.”
“No,” said I; “I have not heard that you claim exclusively
any part of the moon; but there is not a spot on this
habitable globe that I could affirm you do not claim; and
there is none which you may not claim with as much color
of right as you can have to Columbia River or its mouth.”
“And how far would you consider,”
said he “this exclusion of right to extend?”
“To all the shores of the South Sea,” said I.
“We know of no right that you have there.”
“Suppose,” said he, “Great Britain should undertake
to make a settlement there, would you object to it?”
“I have no doubt we should,” said I.
“But surely,” said Mr. Canning, “proof was made at the
negotiation of the Convention of October 1818, of the claims
of Great Britain, and their existence is recognized by it.”
“There was no proof,” I said, “made of any claim
nor to my knowledge any discussion of claim.
The boundary to the Stony Mountains was defined;
westward of them Great Britain had no settlement whatever.
We had one at the mouth of the Columbia,
which having been broken up during the war,
was solemnly restored to us by the British Government
in fulfillment of a stipulation in the treaty of peace.
We stipulated in the Convention that the ports and places on
the Pacific Ocean should be open to both parties for ten years,
and taking all these transactions together,
we certainly did suppose that the British
Government had come to the conclusion that
there would be neither policy nor profit in caviling
with us about territory on this North American continent.”
“And in this, ”said he, “you include
our northern provinces on this continent?”
“No,” said I; “there the boundary is marked,
and we have no disposition to encroach upon it.
Keep what is yours, but leave the rest of this continent to us.”
“But,” said he, “this affects the
right of Russia and of Spain.”
“Russia and Spain,” I replied,
“are the guardians of their own rights.
Have you, Mr. Canning, any right to speak in their name?”
“Why, sir,” said he, “I can assure you that
Great Britain is in very close alliance with them.”
“Yes, sir, Great Britain has strong allies;
we know that very well,” said I;
“but they have not authorized you to speak for them.”
“And do you wish me,” said he in a tone highly incensed,
“to report to my Government what you have now said to me?”
“Sir,” said I, “you may report to your
Government just what you please.
Report to them, if you think proper every word that
I have said to you, not only now, but at any time,
or that I ever shall say, provided you report
nothing but the truth, as I have no doubt you will.”
He said he thanked me for the addition of that opinion.
I said that I had no doubt he would report
nothing but the truth and should not by
anticipation admit any suspicion to the contrary.
“But,” added I, “if you do report our conversation to your
Government, I request you to state explicitly that
I took strong exception both to the form and to the
substance of your application to me on this occasion.
To the form, because you came to put questions to me
of an irritating nature upon the foundation of the speeches
and reports of individual members of Congress;
and to the substance, because the questions were
of a nature which we do not admit your right to ask.
I did in the first instance answer an improper question;
not in the name of the Government,
but merely by giving you an opinion of my own.
Upon which the tone and manner assumed by you
in reply convinced me that nothing useful to either party
could result from any further verbal conference between us.
If you meant to make a Falkland Island or Nootka Sound
affair of it, I thought it best the discussion should be in writing,
which would not be liable to misapprehension.”6
On 6 February 1821 John Quincy Adams at the
Department of State wrote this letter to Richard Rush:
Among the documents published in the files of the
Intelligencer, which will be transmitted to you by this
opportunity, you will observe two messages from the
President to the House of Representatives, communicating
in answer to a call from them the correspondence
which has taken place with the British government
relative to the suppression of the slave-trade.
From the zeal and earnestness with which Mr. Canning
since his arrival here has pressed the proposal of the
British government that we should accede to the mutual
right of search and anomalous tribunals of their treaties
with Portugal and the Netherlands, it would seem that they
had not in any adequate manner understood the force and
insuperable character of our objections to that proposal.
Mr. Canning urged and reiterated the wishes of
his government on the subject until it became
necessary to manifest a concern which we had at
every previous stage of this negotiation from motives
of conciliation anxiously endeavored to avoid.
From the first moment that this proposal had
been suggested to us, there had been neither doubt
nor hesitation shown in our manner of receiving it.
The nature of our objections had been disclosed in terms
as explicit and with a purpose as obviously fixed as
we thought candor to require and good humor to permit.
In the discussion with Mr. Canning his tenacious adherence
to the expedient which had been so unequivocally and
repeatedly declined by us elicited remarks upon the
character of that expedient, and its close analogy to the
causes of our late conflict with Great Britain, which,
though deemed indispensable, were very reluctantly made.
He has expressed some sensibility at the publication of the
instructions to Mr. Gallatin and you, and of your letter to me
alluding to the speech of Lord Castlereagh in Parliament.
The necessity for the communication to the house and
consequent publication of those documents with the
others arose from the feeble impression which the direct
correspondence between the two governments was found
to have made upon the minds of the British cabinet in their
estimate of our sentiments upon the main proposition.
It is not supposed probable that the British government
will renew the same proposal, but if any intimation of
such an intention should be suggested to you, candor will
require that with everything conciliatory in the manner,
you should leave no sort of doubt upon the substance
of the President’s determination, but let it distinctly be
understood that the right of mutual search can, on our
part, under no circumstances whatsoever be admitted.
You will observe that as a substitute for this proposal
we have offered a concert of operations between the
armed vessels of the two nations stationed upon the
coast of Africa for the suppression of the slave-trade.
This concert, it is believed, may be effected without
a formal convention, but by instructions to be given
on both sides to the commanders of the vessels.
Such instructions will be given to our officers employed
on that service in general terms and with a discretionary
power to apply them in such a manner as their experience
may point out as best adapted to the attainment of the end.
In the course of the last year four vessels engaged
in the trade have been captured by our cruisers,
sent into our ports and condemned.
There is good reason to expect that the
measures which have been taken, and will be
perseveringly pursued by this government for the
execution of the laws, will effectually suppress the
abuse of the flag of the United States to cover a traffic
which has incurred the general indignation of mankind.7
John Quincy Adams on 10 February 1821 wrote in his journal:
10th. General Vivés, the Spanish Minister, came
and informed me that Mr. De Barros had just arrived
with the Florida Treaty ratified by the King of Spain.
He said he had been so anxious to give me the
first notice of this event himself that he had not
even waited to open his dispatches, but had
hastened here without losing one moment of time.
I was much gratified with this mark of attention from
the General, and made him my acknowledgments for it.
Barros came in the Rapid from Bordeaux for Philadelphia
and landed from the vessel at Wilmington, Delaware.
He had a passage of eighty-eight days.
I called at the President’s and informed him of the
arrival of the treaty—an occurrence
which gave him great satisfaction.8
In the 9th United States Presidential election in 1820 John Quincy Adams
had received one electoral vote from William Plumer.
Adams commented on this in his Memoirs on 14 February 1821 writing,
If there was an electoral vote in the Union which
I thought sure for Mr. Monroe, it was that of Mr. Plumer.
I deeply regretted the loss of Mr. Plumer’s vote, because
it implied his disapprobation of the principles of the
Administration, and although by giving the vote for me
he obviously exempted my share in the Administration
from any essential portion of the censure, I could take
no pleasure in that approbation which, though bestowed
on me, was denied to the whole Administration.
My earnest desire had been that the Administration
should be prosperous and satisfactory to the nation,
and in this no consideration relative to myself
has entered, other than an anxiety to discharge
faithfully my own portion of the public duty.
The conduct of the Administration has been, upon the whole,
wise, honest, and patriotic; and it has been blessed with
good fortune for which I can never be sufficiently grateful.
Its great trials, however, are reserved
for its ensuing term of four years.
Its dangers are in its internal divisions, which
have been hitherto partly disguised and concealed,
and which a happy current of events has overborne.
They are now becoming manifest,
and assuming a formidable aspect.
May an overruling Providence turn them
eventually to the welfare of the country
and the improvement of public happiness and virtue!
The messages from the President, with the
Spanish ratification of the Florida Treaty, and
with Meade’s memorial and my report upon it,
were received by the Senate this morning.
Meade in the meantime had presented to the
President, and with an appendage of citations
from writers on the laws of nations, and
distributed copies to every member of the Senate.
He also sent several copies of the printed
memorial to the President, and one to the
Department of State, with a letter noticing the
corrections made in it of the manuscript memorial.9
Adams wrote in his Memoirs on February 20:
20th. There was a meeting of the members
of the Administration at the President’s.
The subjects to be considered were the
proceedings to be adopted after the ratification
of the Florida Treaty and the course to be pursued
in regard to the negotiation with France.
At the former ratification of the treaty there was an Act
of Congress authorizing the President to take possession of
the Territory and to make arrangements for its government
until the end of the then next session of Congress.
The Act was contingent, to take effect
on the exchange of the ratifications.10
On 22 February 1821 John Quincy Adams wrote in his Memoirs how the
Florida Treaty between Spain and the United States was signed and proclaimed:
22nd. Ratifications of the Florida Treaty exchanged.
General Vivés came, according to appointment,
at one o’clock to the office of the Department of State
with Mr. Salmon, his Secretary of Legation.
Our preparations were not entirely completed
when he came, but were ready within half an hour.
I then took the treaty with the King of Spain’s ratification
myself; the General took the treaty with the President’s
ratification; Mr. Ironside held one of the originals
executed by me and Mr. Onís, and Mr. Salmon another.
Mr. Brent held the printed copy
with the President’s proclamation.
Mr. Salmon read from the original in his hand the treaty, all
the rest comparing their respective copies as he proceeded.
I read in like manner the English from the treaty
which we retain with the Spanish ratification.
Both the ratifications were then examined and found correct.
The triplicate certificates of the exchange were then
signed and sealed, observing the alternative precedence
of signature, as had been done with Mr. Onís.
General Vivés and Mr. Salmon then withdrew,
taking with them the treaty ratified by the President,
and leaving that with the ratification of the King of Spain.
I went immediately to the President’s.
He signed the proclamation of the ratified treaty
and the messages to the two Houses
communicating it to them as proclaimed.
The messages were sent, and that to the House of
Representatives was received while they were in session.
The Senate had just adjourned when Mr. Gouverneur,
who carried the message, reached the Capitol.
I sent at the same time to both Houses the report
upon weights and measures, prepared conformably to a
resolution of the Senate of 3rd March, 1817, and one of the
House of Representatives of the 14th of December, 1819.
And thus have terminated, blessed be God,
two of the most memorable transactions of my life.
This day, two years have elapsed since
the Florida Treaty was signed.11
Also on February 22 Adams presented to the United States Senate his
Report on Weights and Measures containing about 250 pages which also
advised consulting with the British and the French.
Adams spent much time studying how to improve weights and measures.
On 17 October 1817 he had read Jefferson’s report on weights and
measures that he gave to the House of Representatives in January 1791.
Adams would eventually present his Report upon
Weights and Measures to Congress on 22 February 1821.
Secretary of State Adams on 26 February 1821 wrote in his Memoirs:
The Missouri question is still laboring in Congress.
On the 23rd upon a motion made the day before by
Mr. Clay, the House of Representatives chose by
ballot a committee of twenty-three members,
who were joined by a committee of seven from
the Senate, and their object was a last attempt
to devise a plan for admitting Missouri into the Union.
This day Mr. Clay made to the House
the report of this committee.
They propose a conditional admission upon terms more
humiliating to the people of Missouri than it would be to
require that they should expunge the exceptionable
article from their Constitution, for they declare it a
fundamental condition of their admission that the
article shall never be construed to authorize the passage
of any law by which any citizen of either of the States
in this Union shall be excluded from his privileges under
the Constitution of the United States; and they require
that the Legislature of the State by a solemn public Act
should declare the assent of the State to this condition
and transmit a copy of the Act by the first Monday of
November next to the President of the United States;
but in substance it binds them to nothing.
The resolution was, however, taken up
this day in the House, read three times, and
passed by a vote of eighty-seven to eighty-one.12
Adams wrote in his Memoirs on February 28:
28th. The Spanish Minister, General Vivés, was at
the office and urges answers to several notes and
letters that he has written me—some of them relating
to the execution of the treaty and others to different objects,
among which are the case of the French ship Apollon,
the capture by one of our armed ships of a slave-trading
vessel called the Esperanza, and the arrest for debt
at New Orleans of the Spanish Consul, Villavaso.
He also requested me to send him, as I had promised,
the answer to the observations which according
to his instructions he had verbally made to me
for the consideration of the President at the
time when he had declared his readiness
to exchange the ratifications of the treaty.
I accordingly drafted an answer, which was
approved by the President and sent together
with a short answer to one of the General’s notes.13
Also on 28 February 1821 Adams wrote this letter to Don Francisco Dionisio Vivés:
I have submitted to the consideration of the President
of the United States the observations which, in conformity
to the instructions of your government, were verbally
made by you at the conference which I had the honor
of holding with you, when you notified me of your
readiness to exchange the ratifications of the treaty of
22 February 1819 between the United States and Spain.
With regard to the omission on the part of the Spanish
negotiator of the treaty, to insist upon some provision of
indemnity in behalf of Spanish claimants to whom a pledge
of such indemnity had been stipulated by the previously
ratified convention of 1802 an omission stated by you to
have been peculiarly dissatisfactory to the Cortes,
I am directed to observe, that as in all other cases of the
adjustment of differences between nations, this treaty must
be considered as a compact of mutual concessions in which
each party abandoned to the other some of its pretensions.
These concessions on the part of the United States were
great; nor could it be expected by the Spanish nation
that they would be obtained without equivalent.
Probably the Spanish negotiator considered
the claims of Spanish subjects embraced by that
convention as so small in amount, as scarcely
to be worthy of inflexible adherence to them.
He certainly considered the whole treaty as highly
advantageous to Spain; a sentiment in which the
government of the United States always
entirely participated and still concurs.
This also furnishes the reply which most readily presents
itself to the proposition which you have also been instructed
to make, that some compensation should be allowed by the
United States for the benefit of the grantees of lands,
recognized by the treaty to have been null and void.
While appreciating in all its force the sense of justice,
by which after the matures deliberation and the fullest
examination, the Cortes have declared that those grants
were so, as at the signature of the treaty they had been
clearly, explicitly and unequivocally understood to be by
the plenipotentiaries who signed it, the President deems
it unnecessary to press the remark which must naturally
present itself, that to grantees whose titles were in fact
null and void, and by all parties to the negotiation were
known to be null and void, no indemnity can be due,
because no injury was done.
Nor can it be admitted that this is one of the cases
of misunderstanding from which the grantees could
be entitled to the benefit of a doubtful construction.
The construction of the article was in no wise doubtful.
For any construction which would have admitted the
validity of the grants, would have rendered impossible the
fulfillment of other most important stipulations of the treaty.
The discussion of this subject having already been
a subject of correspondence between the minister of
foreign affairs of your government and Mr. Forsyth,
could now be continued to no profitable purpose.
I take much more satisfaction in assuring you of the
pleasure with which the President has accepted the
ratification of the treaty as an earnest of that cordial
harmony which it is among his most ardent desires
to cultivate between the United States and Spain.
This disposition he cherishes the hope will be further
promoted by the community of principle upon which
the liberal institutions of both nations are founded,
and by the justice, moderation and love of order which they
combine with the love and the enjoyment of freedom.14
On 3 March 1821 John Quincy Adams wrote in his Memoirs:
At this moment, standing on the isthmus between the past
and the future, I look back with satisfaction solid and pure at
what has been accomplished of public service with humility
and regret that more has not been effected, and with
unbounded gratitude to the Disposer of all results;
forward, the prospect is beset with difficulties and dangers.
Let me advance cheerily to meet the dispensations of time;
pursuing with singleness of soul the path of duty;
imploring for the faculty to will and do; “to move in charity,
to rest in Providence, and to turn on the poles of truth.”15
President Monroe was inaugurated for a second term on Monday March 5.
On March 8 Secretary of State Adams wrote:
8th. Cabinet meeting at the President’s.
It was to consult upon the measures to be taken
for carrying the Florida Treaty into execution.
The President has determined to appoint
General Jackson Governor of the whole
Territory and wrote to inform him of it directly.
The reduction of the army by the Act of Congress passed
at their recent session commences on the 1st of June next.
It leaves only one Major-General and two Brigadiers.
Brown, as the eldest commissioned of the two
Major-Generals, is to be retained, and
Scott and Gaines are to be the two Brigadiers.
Brown as the eldest commissioned of the two
Major-Generals is to be retained, and
Scott and Gaines are to be the Brigadiers.
Jackson, therefore, from the 1st of June,
will be out of the military service, and this
office of Governor of Florida presented
itself as a fortunate occasion to save
the nation from the disgrace of even
appearing to discard without compunction
a man to whom they are so deeply indebted.16
John Quincy Adams described his conversation with Henry Clay
about the South American policy in his Memoirs on March 9:
He (Clay) said he regretted that his views
had differed from those of the Administration
in relation to South American affairs.
He hoped, however, that this difference
would now be shortly over.
But he was concerned to see indications of unfriendly
dispositions towards the South Americans in our
naval officers who were sent to the Pacific,
and he was apprehensive they would get into
some quarrel there, which might alienate the minds
of the people in the two countries from each other.
I said the instructions to the naval officers
were as positive and pointed as words could
make them to avoid everything of that kind.
I hoped no such event would occur, as we could have no
possible motive for quarrelling with the South Americans.
I also regretted the difference between his views and
those of the Administration upon South American affairs.
That the final issue of their present struggle would be
their entire independence of Spain I had never doubted.
That it was our true policy and duty to take
no part in the contest I was equally clear.
The principle of neutrality to all foreign wars was,
in my opinion, fundamental to the continuance
of our liberties and of our Union.
So far as they were contending for independence,
I wished well to their cause; but I had seen
and yet see no prospect that they would
establish free or liberal institutions of government.
They are not likely to promote the spirit
either of freedom or order by their example.
They have not the first elements
of good or free government.
Arbitrary power, military and ecclesiastical,
was stamped upon their education,
upon their habits and upon all their institutions.
Civil dissension was infused into all their seminal principles.
War and mutual destruction was in every member
of their organization, moral, political, and physical.
I had little expectation of any beneficial result
to this country from any future connection
with them, political or commercial.
We should derive no improvement to our
own institutions by any communion with theirs.
Nor was there any appearance of a disposition
in them to take any political lesson from us.
As to the commercial connection, I agreed with him
that little weight should be allowed to
arguments of mere pecuniary interest;
but there was no basis for much traffic between us.
They want none of our productions,
and we could afford to purchase very few of theirs.
Of these opinions, both his and mine, time must be the test;
but I would candidly acknowledge, nothing had
hitherto occurred to weaken in my mind the view
which I had taken of this subject from the first.
He did not pursue the discussion.
Clay is an eloquent man with popular manners
and great political management.
He is, like almost all the eminent men
of this country, only half educated.
His school has been the world, and in that he is a proficient.
His morals, public and private, are loose, but he has
all the virtues indispensable to a popular man.
As he is the first very distinguished man that the
Western country has presented as a statesman to the Union,
they are proportionably proud of him, and being a native of
Virginia, he has all the benefit of that clannish preference
which Virginia has always given to her sons.
Clay’s temper is impetuous and his ambition impatient.
He has long since marked me as the principal rival
in his way, and has taken no more pains to disguise
his hostility than was necessary for decorum
and to avoid shocking the public opinion.
His future fortune and mine are in wiser hands than ours;
I have never, even defensively, repelled his attacks.
Clay has large and liberal views of public affairs, and that
sort of generosity which attaches individuals to his person.
As President of the Union, his administration
would be a perpetual succession of intrigue
and management with the legislature.
It would also be sectional in its spirit, and sacrifice
all other interests to those of the
Western country and the slaveholders.
But his principles relative to internal improvements would
produce results honorable and useful to the nation.17
On 19 March 1821 Adams also had a conversation with Henry Clay
wrote about military fortification during Monroe’s second administration:
19th. There was a Cabinet meeting at the
President’s attended by all the members of
the Administration excepting Mr. Wirt,
the Attorney-General, who is confined by illness.
The object of the meeting was to determine what
should be done with regard to the fortifications upon
Dauphin Island at the mouth of the Mississippi River.
They are part of an extensive system for fortifying
the whole coast of the United States for their protection
in the event of any future war, against such invasions
as we suffered in the last war with England.
The President, who formed this project, chiefly from
the experience of the defenseless state of the country
in that war, had set his heart upon its accomplishment,
and looks to it as one of the great objects by which his
Administration may be signalized in the view of posterity.
Large appropriations have been made to effect it for
several successive years by Congress; but now in the
penury of the Treasury and the passion for retrenchment
they have not only reduced the amount of appropriations,
but withheld them for the fulfillment of contracts already
made—for that of Dauphin Island in particular.18
On March 20 Adams wrote about his conversations with
President Monroe and Secretary of War Calhoun:
20th. I called at the President’s concerning the
commissions and instructions to General Jackson for Florida.
He desired me to see Mr. Calhoun and concert
with him the corresponding instructions to
be issued from the War Department.
I called at the War Office, and Calhoun promised to
furnish me copies of the instructions from that Department.
I spoke to Mr. Calhoun of the decision at the Cabinet
meeting yesterday and told him that on this or any other
subject resorting from the War Department, which might
become a subject of general consultation by the whole
Administration, if he had any preference of views with
regard to measures, I should always take pleasure
in concurring with them and supporting them.19
Adams wrote in his Diary on March 22:
Washington, 22nd.—Mr. Calhoun called at my house,
and I went to the Navy Department to complete the
arrangements for taking possession of the Floridas.
We have stipulated to transport Spanish officers and troops
with their baggage to Havana, and by a liberal construction
of the article, have considered this engagement as including
that of furnishing provisions for them on the passage.
We have also engaged to provide an escort for them.
The Secretary of War issues, through the
Quartermaster’s Department, orders for hiring the
transports and supplying the provisions, and the
Secretary of the Navy issues the orders for the escort.
They are all to be provided at two points—
one for Pensacola and the other for St. Augustine.20
On 31 March 1821 John Quincy Adams in Washington wrote this letter
to Albert Gallatin, the United States Minister to France:
The latest dispatches received from you
are of 8 January, No. 170.
The newspapers and public documents, which have
since my last letter been forwarded to you,
will have informed you of the final ratification of the
Florida treaty, of the termination of the session of Congress,
and of the second inauguration of the President.
The Baron Hyde de Neuville arrived here so shortly
before the 4th of March, that had the prospects of a
satisfactory commercial arrangement with him been more
favorable than they were, it would scarcely have been
possible to bring them to a close in time to have submitted
the convention to the consideration of the Senate.
It was very soon after his arrival perceived that the
conjectures in your No. 169 were corroborated by every
indication to be drawn from his course of proceeding.
He began by manifesting a degree of irritation
at the seizure of the Apollon, for which neither
the importance of the case, nor the circumstances
which had attended it, appeared to call.
Besides the claim to exclusive privileges for French ships,
under color of the eighth article of the Louisiana cession
treaty, he intimated doubts whether he could enter upon the
discussion of merely commercial interests, until satisfaction
should be given for this seizure of the Apollon, and for
another vessel, the Eugène, which had been required
to depart from the same south side of St. Mary’s River.
He gave even some countenance to an idea
which Mr. Roth, in one of his written communications,
had suggested with some hesitation: that the flag
of France had in these cases been insulted.
This manifest effort to give a coloring to those transactions
entirely different from their real character could not
but excite some surprise until in the course of the
verbal discussion between us, he disclosed the fact
that the French government had been consulted by
some of their merchants to enquire whether this expedient
to evade our tonnage duties would be effectual; and
had been answered by his own advice, that it would be.
It thus appears that the project of Captain Edou was
part of a system which the French merchants would have
found very convenient, had it succeeded, but which was
altogether disconcerted by the seizure of the Apollon.
The Spanish minister, General Vivés, at the instigation
of Mr. Roth, had also addressed notes of complaint
for the alleged violation of the territorial rights
of Spain by the seizure of the Apollon.
Written answers to these notes had been delayed
from an unwillingness to pursue at the moment
when the ratification of the Florida treaty was expected,
a correspondence which necessarily required recrimination
upon officers of the Spanish government; upon the governor
of East Florida, for this establishment of a pretended port
where there was no town or settlement for trade,
for purposes so obviously hostile to the United States;
and upon the Spanish acting vice-consul at Savannah,
whose purposes thus hostile were not merely to be
inferred from his conduct in this transaction,
but were explicitly avowed in letters written by himself,
which had come to the possession of this government.
The Baron de Neuville after his arrival urged again
General Vivés to press his complaint; and since the
exchange of the ratifications of the treaty an answer
has been sent him, of which a copy is enclosed.
Copies are also now transmitted of the correspondence
between the Baron and this department,
both in relation to the claim under the eighth article
of the Louisiana treaty, and to the cases of the Apollon
and Eugène, to which a third case, that of the Edmond,
Captain Mestre, has recently been added.
This vessel by a general order from the
War Department issued shortly after
Amelia Island was taken into our possession in 1817,
could not have entered there with a cargo.
It happened very opportunely for her admission,
that she touched on the bar at St. Augustine, had been
only saved by unloading her cargo there, and then
resorted in distress to Amelia Island to repair her damages.
Admitted on the principle of humanity,
the extreme good faith of Captain Mestre induces him
to inquire of the French consul at Charleston, whether
he can take a cargo to be carried to him there from the
United States without payment of any duties of entry.
And the Baron has addressed two successive letters
to this Department, reiterating that inquiry.
These anxious exertions to interest the honor of the French
flag, and the sanctity of the territorial immunities of Spain in
defense of gross and glaring projects of fraud upon the laws
and revenue of the United States, portend a disposition little
favorable to any arrangement upon principles of reciprocity.
It is believed to be the first example of a government’s
being called upon by a foreign minister to mark the
precise point to which the smugglers of his nation
may venture without danger of being molested.21
On April 4 and 6 John Quincy Adams wrote in his Memoirs:
April 4th. I was occupied in preparing dispatches
to R. Rush, A. H. Everett, and H. Middleton to go
by the New York and Liverpool packet
which is to sail on the 10th of the month.
It is perhaps the most laborious and difficult part of the
duties of the State Department to hold at once the threads
of our different relations with all the European powers.
It is said of Julius Caesar that he dictated letters
to four secretaries at the same time—
an achievement which every statesman deeply involved
in business finds it necessary to accomplish.
Mr. Thompson gave me to read a letter from R. King,
the Senator from New York, concerning our relations
with South America and with France, and suggesting
again the expediency of sending a Minister to Brazil.
5th. I called at the President’s and left with him a
confidential letter from the Baron Hyde de Neuville,
dated yesterday and received this day.
It is upon the case of the Apollon, and written
in a spirit requiring such an answer as would
lead to the immediate rupture of the negotiation.
But as it is confidential, it may be best
to postpone the answer for the present.
6th. I received this morning a note from the
President with a notification for a meeting
of the members of the Administration at noon.
The meeting was held accordingly.
All present except Mr. Wirt.
The confidential note of the Baron de Neuville
was the subject of consideration.
It is a very long and sophistical defense of the captain
of the Apollon; an elaborate argument in support
of the assertion in a former note, that a great error had
been committed (meaning by the American Government),
and a final declaration that upon his conscience
he thinks that no arrangement of commercial interests
between France and the United States can take place until
this error shall have been acknowledged and repaired.
This peremptory demand of an acknowledgment of error
on one point as a condition precedent to an agreement
upon another, was of course deem inadmissible by us all.
But it was thought by Mr. Calhoun that it was Dr. Neuville’s
intention to break off the negotiation upon this point, so that
it might not have to the world the appearance of breaking
off upon the others, especially the navigation question.
The President inclined to the opinion that De Neuville
had indulged his passion, and that he would
not be supported in the ground he has taken
even by his own Government.
My own opinion is that De Neuville finds himself
personally implicated in this discussion.
He told me that the merchants in France had made
enquiries of the Royal Council of Commerce whether
they might come to Amelia Island and St. Mary’s River
and transact their business with the United States
without being subjected to the tonnage duties;
and the Council by his advice had answered that they might.
This I believe to be the principal cause
of the temper which he displays on this occasion.
But I observed that this letter was confidential;
that if I should now answer it as it deserves,
he might complain of unfair usage; he might say that
being confidential, if there was anything exceptionable in it,
I should have made it known by a verbal and friendly
remonstrance, upon which he might have withdrawn his
letter or altered it so as to render it entirely inoffensive.
I therefore proposed that I should write him a short note,
inviting him to suspend for the present this discussion;
and it was so determined.22
On 10 April 1821 Secretary of State Adams wrote in his Memoirs:
10th. The Baron Hyde de Neuville came to the office,
and we had a conversation upon
the subject of a commercial treaty.
He affects to think everything clear and easy.
But he perseveres in the claim of special
privileges for French vessels in Louisiana.
He insists upon a Consular Convention;
he demands an article stipulating to deliver up
deserting seamen; he asks a diminution of duties
upon the importation of French productions;
and he offers for all this a diminution,
to be reciprocal, of one-third of the tonnage duties,
direct and indirect, on both sides.
And I told him it was impossible we should ever
come to an agreement upon such terms.
He asked then that we should propose our terms.
I told him that we might agree to a Consular Convention,
differing much, however, from the old one;
that we might agree to an article for restoring
deserter seamen; that we might consent to a diminution
of duties upon French articles; but that for all this
we should ask entire reciprocity upon the tonnage article—
a total abolition of the discriminating duties on both sides.
He said that was altogether out of the question.
The French merchants knew that upon such
an arrangement the whole commerce between the
two countries would be carried by American vessels.
The French wished only for their portion of it.
Half the shipping concerned in the trade would satisfy them.
The Baron has shown great want of judgment
in coming back to this country, where it is impossible
he should accomplish anything, and whence,
having once got away with credit, he must now
go away without giving or receiving satisfaction.23
On May 5 Adams made this short comment in his Memoirs:
May 5th. The Russian Minister Poletica called at the office
and showed me in confidence a letter of instructions
from his Government, giving a general view of the
Emperor’s policy as essentially pacific; setting forth some
complaints against the Porte, but manifesting the intention
of maintaining the utmost moderation in the relations
of Russia with that power, and speaking with strong
disapprobation and alarm at the revolution in Spain.24
After that entry John Quincy Adams would not write again in his Diary,
which later became his Memoirs, until 7 October 1821.
On 4 July 1821 Adams in Washington delivered an address that was
22 pages including a reading of the Declaration of Independence in the middle.
After reading the names of those who signed that document, he said,
It is not, let me repeat, fellow-citizens, it is not the long
enumeration of intolerable wrongs concentrated in this
Declaration; it is not the melancholy catalogue of alternative
oppression and entreaty, of reciprocated indignity and
remonstrance, upon which, in the celebration of this
anniversary, your memory delights to dwell.
Nor is it yet that the justice of your cause was vindicated
by the God of Battles; that in a conflict of seven years, the
history of the war by which you maintained that Declaration,
became the history of the civilized world;
that the unanimous voice of enlightened Europe,
and the verdict of an after age, have sanctioned
your assumption of sovereign power;
and that the name of your Washington is enrolled upon
the records of time, first in the glorious line of heroic virtue.
It is not that the monarch himself, who had been your
oppressor, was compelled to recognize you as a
sovereign and independent people, and that the nation,
whose feelings of fraternity for you had slumbered
in the lap of pride, was awakened in the arms of
humiliation to your equal and no longer contested rights.
The primary purpose of this Declaration,
the proclamation to the world of the causes of our
Revolution, is “with the years beyond the flood.”…
Little less than forty years have revolved since
the struggle for independence was closed;
another generation has arisen, and in the assembly of
nations our republic is already a matron of mature age.
The cause of your independence is no longer on trial;
the final sentence upon it has long been
passed upon earth and ratified in Heaven.
The interest, which in this paper has survived the occasion
upon which it was issued; the interest which is of every
age and every clime; the interest which quickens with
the lapse of years, spreads as it grows old, and brightens
as it recedes, is in the principles which it proclaims.
It was the first solemn declaration by a nation of
the only legitimate foundation of civil government.
It was the corner stone of a new fabric,
destined to cover the surface of the globe.
It demolished at a stroke the lawfulness
of all governments founded upon conquest.
It swept away all the rubbish of
accumulated centuries of servitude.
It announced in practical form to the world the transcendent
truth of the unalienable sovereignty of the people.
It proved that the social compact
was no figment of the imagination;
but a real, solid, and sacred bond of the social union.
From the day of this Declaration, the people
of North America were no longer the fragment
of a distant empire, imploring justice and mercy
from an inexorable master in another hemisphere.
They were no longer children appealing in vain to the
sympathies of a heartless mother; no longer subjects
leaning upon the shattered columns of royal promises,
and invoking the faith of parchment to secure their rights.
They were a nation, asserting as of right,
and maintaining by war its own existence.
A nation was born in a day—
“How many ages hence
Shall this, their lofty scene, be acted o’er
In states unborn, and accents yet unknown?”…
The Declaration of Independence pronounced
the irrevocable decree of political separation between
the United States and their People on the one part,
and the British King, Government and Nation on the other.
It proclaimed the first principles on which civil
government is founded and derived from them
the justification before Earth and Heaven of this
act of sovereignty; but it left the people of this Union
collective and individual without organized Government.
In contemplating this state of things, one of the
profoundest of British statesmen, in an ecstasy of
astonishment exclaimed “Anarchy is found tolerable!”
But there was no Anarchy.
From the day of the Declaration, the people of the
North American Union and of its constituent States
were associated bodies of civilized men and
christians in a state of nature; but not of Anarchy.
They were bound by the laws of God, which they all,
and by the laws of the Gospel, which they nearly all,
acknowledged as the rules of their conduct.
They were bound by all those tender and enduring
sympathies, the absence of which in the British Government
and Nation towards them was the primary cause of the
distressing conflict into which they had been precipitated.
They were bound by all the beneficent laws and institutions
which their forefathers had brought with them from their
mother Country, not as servitudes, but as rights.
They were bound by habits of hardy industry,
by frugal and hospitable manners, by the general
sentiments of social equality, by pure and virtuous morals,
and lastly they were bound by the grappling hooks
of common suffering under the scourge of oppression.
Where then, among such a people,
were the materials for Anarchy?
Had there been among them no other Law,
they would have been a law unto themselves.
They had before them in their new position, besides the
maintenance of the Independence which they had declared,
three great objects to attain: the first, to cement and prepare
for perpetuity their common union and that of their Posterity;
the second, to erect and organize civil and municipal
Governments in their respective States; and the third, to form
connections of friendship and commerce with foreign Nations.
For all these objects, the same Congress which issued the
Declaration, and at the same time with it, had provided.
They recommended to the several States
to form civil governments for themselves.
With guarded and cautious deliberation
they matured a confederation for the whole Union;
and they prepared treaties of commerce to be
offered to the principal maritime nations of the world.
All these objects were in a great degree accomplished
amid the din of arms, and while every quarter of
our country was ransacked by the fury of invasion.
The states organized their governments, all in
republican forms; all on the principles of the Declaration.
The confederation was unanimously adopted by the thirteen
states, and treaties of commerce were concluded with France
and the Netherlands in which for the first time the same just
and magnanimous principles, consigned in the Declaration of
Independence were so far as they could be applicable to the
intercourse between nation and nation solemnly recognized.
When experience had proved that the Confederation
was not adequate to the national purposes of the country,
the people of the United States without tumult,
without violence by their delegates, all chosen upon
principles of equal right, formed a more perfect Union
by the establishment of the Federal Constitution.
This has already passed the ordeal of one human generation.
In all the changes of men and of parties through
which it has passed, it has been administered
to the same fundamental principles.
Our manners, our habits, our feelings, are all republican;
and if our principles had been, when first proclaimed,
doubtful to the ear of reason or the sense of humanity,
they would have been reconciled to our understandings
and endeared to our hearts by their practical operation.
In the progress of forty years since the acknowledgment
of our Independence, we have gone through many
modifications of peace and war with other powerful nations.
But never, never for a moment have the great principles,
consecrated by the Declaration of this day,
been renounced or abandoned.25
John Quincy Adams wrote in his Diary on October 15 and 20:
Oct. 15. — Mr. Calhoun came to mention the
determination of the President upon some question
relating to the barracks at St. Augustine.
He also spoke of the altercations between
General Jackson and Colonel Callava and Judge Fromentin,
about which he is much concerned.
He thinks that the President ought to come immediately
to the city and determine upon the course
to be pursued by the Administration in these cases.
I concur in that opinion.
Calhoun fears that a wrong direction may be given to public
sentiment on these transactions by the spirit of faction
and the crude precipitancy of newspaper commentaries.
Calhoun is a man of fair and candid mind,
of honorable principles, of clear and quick understanding,
of cool self-possession, of enlarged philosophical views,
and of ardent patriotism.
He is above all sectional and factious prejudices
more than any other statesman of this Union
with whom I have ever acted.
He is more sensitive to the transient manifestations
of momentary public opinion, than I am.
Oct. 20. — There were received this morning
from the President a number of bundles of papers,
forwarded by him from Oakhill, some of them
public papers to be deposited at the Department,
others which he had directed to be sent to his house.
Among them was a letter from Spencer Roane,
the Virginian Chief Justice, enclosing to him
his lucubrations in the Richmond Enquirer
against the Supreme Court of the United States.
George Hay told me last summer that Roane
as the author of the pieces signed “Algernon Sydney,”
against the Supreme Court, and that they had been
excited by the words “we command you”
in the mandamus in the case of Cohens vs. Virginia.
Roane in his letter to the President glorifies himself
as a very virtuous patriot, and holds himself
out as a sort of Jefferson or Madison.
All this is “close ambition varnished o’er with zeal.”
Jefferson and Madison did attain power by
organizing and heading a system of attack
upon the Washington Administration, chiefly under
the banners of State rights and State sovereignty.
They argued and scolded against all implied powers and
pretended that the Government of the Union had no powers
but such as were expressly delegated by the Constitution.
They succeeded.
Mr. Jefferson was elected President of the United States,
and the first thing he did was to purchase Louisiana—
an assumption of implied power greater in itself and
more comprehensive in its consequences than all the
assumptions of implied powers in the twelve years of
the Washington and Adams Administrations put together.
Through the sixteen years of the Jefferson and
Madison Administrations not the least regard was paid
to the doctrines of rejecting implied powers,
upon which those gentlemen had vaulted into the seat
of government with the single exception that
Mr. Madison negatived a bill for applying public money
to the public internal improvement of the country.
But the same Madison signed a bill for incorporating
the Bank of the United States against which
he and all the Virginian party had stubbornly
contended as unconstitutional.26
Adams wrote much in his Journal on 8 November 1821 that included this:
At this meeting it was also concluded that the note
from Mr. Gallatin to Baron Pasquier of 28th June last on
the case of the Apollon, should not be sent to the District
Attorney in Georgia, to be used in the defense of the
Collector of St. Mary’s against the action of Captain Edou.
Mr. Crawford first thought it might be sent, as enforcing the
view heretofore taken by him, that there was no Spanish
jurisdiction upon the spot where the Apollon was seized.
But Gallatin’s assertion is, that we had virtually taken
possession of the spot in taking possession of Amelia Island.
Now, this is directly contradicted by evidence which we
ourselves shall be obliged to introduce
which I explained to Mr. Crawford; and he then said
it would be best not to send a copy of Gallatin’s note.
He said also that this affair had brought up another
claim for indemnity to the concerned in a British
vessel which, under the Treasury Order of May 1818,
had been compelled to depart.
The most extraordinary part of Gallatin’s conduct is,
that after a long argument to the French Government
upon grounds entirely new and different from those
we had taken here, he gives us distinctly to
understand that he considers all these grounds,
ours and his own, as not worth a straw.
I asked Calhoun today what he thought it could mean.
He said perhaps it was the pride of opinion.
I think it lies deeper.
Gallatin is a man of first-rate talents, conscious and vain of
them, and mortified in his ambition, checked, as it has been,
after attaining the last step to the summit;
timid in great perils, tortuous in his paths,
born in Europe, disguising and yet betraying a
supercilious prejudice of European superiority of intellect,
and holding principles pliable to circumstances, occasionally
mistaking the left- for the right-handed wisdom.27
On November 17 Adams wrote in his Memoirs:
17th. I took to Mr. Wirt, the Attorney-General,
the note I had received last evening from Mr. Canning,
and a volume of Burlamaqui containing precisely
the same passage relating to the delivery of
fugitive criminals as that in Vattel.
Both these writers, as well as Grotius, do in very
explicit terms assert the moral obligation of nations
to deliver up fugitives guilty of heinous crimes….
Mr. Wirt did not seem to be satisfied with the authorities….
I told him that was the ground I had alleged
to Mr. Canning, though I was not entirely
satisfied that there was a want of authority.
It was made by the Constitution the duty of the
President to take care that the laws be faithfully executed;
by which may be understood the laws of nations
as well as the laws of Congress.
Now, if it were clearly and unquestionably the law of
nations that fugitives charged with heinous crimes should be
delivered up, it would be the duty of the President to take
care that that law should be faithfully executed as well as
others; and he could not be bound by the duty without
possessing the authority necessary for its discharge.
He said that doctrine was too bold for him;
he was too much of a Virginian for that.
I told him that Virginian Constitutional scruples
were accommodating things.
Whenever the exercise of a power did not
happen to suit them, they would allow of
nothing but powers expressly written;
but when it did, they had no aversion to implied powers.
Where was there in the Constitution
a power to purchase Louisiana?
He said there was a power to make treaties.
“Aye! A treaty to abolish the
Constitution of the United States?”
“Oh, no, no!”
But the Louisiana purchase was in substance
a dissolution and recomposition of the whole Union.
It made a Union totally different from that
for which the Constitution had been formed.
It gives despotic powers over the territories purchased.
It naturalizes foreign nations in a mass.
It makes French and Spanish laws
a part of the laws of the Union.
It introduces whole systems of legislation
abhorrent to the spirit and character of our institutions,
and all this done by an Administration which came
in blowing a trumpet against implied powers.
After this, to nibble at a bank, a road, a canal, the mere
mint and cumin of the law, was but glorious inconsistency.
He said the people sanctioned it.
“How the people?”
By their Representatives in Congress; they were the people.
“Oh,” said I, “that doctrine is too bold for ME.”
But as to this power of the President to take care that
the laws of nations be faithfully executed without waiting
for an Act of Congress, it had been executed by President
Washington, by seizing and restoring vessels illegally captured
at the commencement of the wars of the French Revolution,
before any Act of Congress upon the subject, and it was
now exercised continually by the admission duty-free of
baggage and articles imported by foreign Ministers.
All this seemed to make little impression upon Mr. Wirt;
and I asked him whether he thought the Governors of
the States had the power to deliver up fugitive criminals.
He thought they had.
I said it was no more delegated to them
than to the President, and they, no more than he,
possessed any other than delegated powers.
They were certainly not specially charged to
take care that the laws of nations should be
faithfully executed in their respective States,
nor had they any power to arrest or detain any individual
otherwise than conformably to the laws of the land.28
This is what Adams wrote in his Memoirs on 20 November 1821:
20th. The President had desired me yesterday
to send him a minute of the Acts of Congress and
proclamations relating to the repeal of
discriminating duties, which I did last evening.
I called this day at his house, and he read me the draft
of the part of his message relating to our Foreign Affairs.
It was a general review of our commercial system
founded upon the Act of Congress of 3 March 1815,
offering the reciprocal repeal of discriminating duties,
the treaties subsequently made, and the negotiations,
hitherto ineffectual, with France and Great Britain.
He said he meant to bring the whole subject
before Congress for their consideration and revisal.
They would thus have it in their power either
to persevere in the system, or further to modify it,
or finally to abandon it.
He himself believed that the wiser policy
would be to persevere.
But some parts of the country specially affected
by the operation of the system were uneasy under it,
and it was desirable that the subject should be
reconsidered in all its bearings by Congress.
I had only one or two remarks
to make upon the draft, which I did.
He said he was waiting for one or two other statements
from other Departments, to prepare the remainder of his
message, and he was happy to find by the statements from
the Treasury that we shall probably be able to get through
the ensuing year without resorting to new taxes.29
On 22 November 1821 Adams wrote,
In the slave case, however, it was the simplest of all
possible questions—a question upon the true meaning
of a single sentence; I had almost said, or a single word.
But the question upon the unsettled boundary,
on which the Commissioners, under the fifth article
of the Ghent Treaty, had been, after five years
of examinations and surveys and discussions,
unable to agree, was of a very different character.
It would be impossible for a foreign Government
even to understand the question without
an investigation which must consume years.
It would scarcely be prudent to refer a second question
to the Emperor of Russia, who could not fail to give
dissatisfaction to either party against which he should
decide the first, and there was no other sovereign
in Europe whom we could consider as sufficiently
independent for an umpire, unless it were the Emperor
of Austria, with whom we have no political relations.
I thought, therefore, that Mr. Rush should be instructed
to sound the British Government and ascertain whether
we cannot settle the affair by negotiation together
without recurring to the arbitration of any third power.
The President also assented to this.
I asked him whether, in the draft of the
message enumerating the documents relating
to the repeal of the discriminating duties,
the treaty with Sweden had not been omitted.
He said it had; but he would take care to supply the defect.
I mentioned likewise the second Algerine Treaty, and the
accident by which it had not yet been laid before the Senate.
He said it would be proper to explain this in the message
to be sent to the Senate with the treaty.30
Notes
1. Memoirs of Comprising Portions of His Diary from 1795 to 1848
by John Quincy Adams, ed. Charles Francis Adams, Volume V, p. 224-226.
2. Ibid., p. 228-229.
3. Ibid., p. 229-230.
4. Ibid., p. 232-233.
5. Ibid., p. 238-240.
6. Ibid., p. 251-253.
7. Writings of John Quincy Adams, ed. Worthington Chauncey Ford,
Volume VI 1814-1816, p. 92-94.
8. Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, Volume V, p. 266-267.
9. Ibid., p. 279.
10. Ibid., p. 286.
11. Ibid., p. 288-289.
12. Ibid., p. 301-302.
13. Ibid., p. 306.
14. Ibid., p. 316.
15. Writings of John Quincy Adams, Volume VII, p. 94-96.
16. Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, Volume V, p. 321-322.
17. Ibid., p. 324-326.
18. Ibid., p. 330-331.
19. Ibid., p. 333.
20. Ibid., p. 334-335.
21. Writings of John Quincy Adams, Volume VII, p. 97-100.
22. Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, Volume V, p. 338-340.
23. Ibid., p. 340-341.
24. Ibid., p. 354-355.
25. Speeches & Writings by John Quincy Adams ed. David Waldstreicher,
p. 222-223, 227-228.
26. Diary of John Quincy Adams 1794-1845, ed. Allan Nevins, p. 265-266.
27. Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, Volume V, p. 391-392.
28. Ibid., p. 400-402.
29. Ibid., p. 404-405.
30. Ibid., p. 407-408.
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