On 2 January 1822 John Quincy Adams in his Memoirs wrote about
General Andrew Jackson’s situation as Governor of Florida:
The President read a letter which he had written to General
Jackson, accepting his resignation as Governor of Florida.
It was expressed in warm though general terms of regard,
and Mr. Thompson objected that it would import the
President’s approbation of General Jackson’s
late transactions in Florida.
This led to some discussion of them in which Mr. Thompson
admitted that he had a very imperfect knowledge of all
the circumstances, not having seen a great portion of
the papers, but upon the facts, as far as he was acquainted
with them, his opinion was unfavorable to Jackson.
The President asked him to read all the papers;
which he promised to do.
The President asked me if I thought
the expressions in the letter were too strong.
I said they were such that, after receiving the letter,
General Jackson would naturally not expect
that the President would at any future period
express public disapprobation of anything done
by him as Governor of Florida.
But in my opinion there was not one word too much.
General Jackson, I thought, had done nothing
with the exception of the papers seized
at St. Augustine, but what he had a right to do.
It was indeed impossible for me to scan the actions of
General Jackson as I might those of an indifferent person.
General Jackson had rendered such services
to this nation that it was impossible for me to
contemplate his character or conduct without veneration.
But setting this aside, in the whole of his transactions
with Callava and Fromentin I saw nothing in what
Jackson did which he had not the right, nay more,
which he was not bound in duty to do.
As to the banishment of the Spanish officers,
as a question of expediency, General Jackson might perhaps
have despised their insolent publication in the newspapers,
but I had no doubt of his right to order them away;
and the same thing had been done in Louisiana.
Dr. Bronaugh told me he believed that General Jackson
did not know of the agreement between Butler and
Coppinger concerning the papers at St. Augustine.
And if Jackson should himself state this,
it would furnish an answer to that part of the complaint….
I should continue to act on the same principles as long
as it would be possible; but in the way things
were now working, I knew not how long this might be.
The President said he was fully aware that such always
had been my conduct; that he had been perfectly satisfied
with my service, and hoped I should continue it during
the remainder of his Administration; that from the
interest always taken by the members of Congress in
the Presidential election, it was natural that the prominent
members of an Administration should by their respective
friends be considered as competitors for the succession
to the Presidency, and there was no question but that
the diverse views of different members of Congress
with reference to the succession would affect very
materially their conduct in relation to depending measures.
He believed that any movement by members
of Congress now would be premature
and of little effect upon the ultimate result.
He had been during a certain period of
Mr. Madison’s Administration in a predicament
not unlike that of the present time.
With regard to the management of the war, General
Armstrong being at the Head of that Department,
he (Mr. Monroe) had from various circumstances
entertained the opinion that Mr. Madison
did not give due weight to his own opinions
of military measures to be adopted.
The succession then too mingled itself with everything
in Congress, and at a most critical period of the war.1
After writing in his Diary on January 6 Adams did not write again until April 1.
On January 31 Adams did write in a letter to
Edward Everett about the value of human sympathy:
To instance what your brother calls the doctrine of
sympathy, upon which he remarks that what the reviewer
says is pitiful, but adds no comment of his own; this
doctrine of sympathy in the address is merely incidental
to the demonstration from the moral and physical nature
of man that colonial establishments cannot fulfil the great
objects of government in the just purpose of civil society.
Is the demonstration complete and unanswerable?
I think it is.
Had it ever been exhibited before?
Not to my knowledge.
Let us assume it as a new but demonstrated axiom and
examine its bearing upon the past, present and future
history of mankind, upon the system of political morality,
and upon the future improvement of the human character.
1. It places on a new and solid ground the right
of our struggle for independence, considering the
intolerable oppressions which provoked our fathers
to revolt only as its proximate causes, themselves proof
of the viciousness of the system from which they resulted.
2. It settles the justice of the present struggle of
South America for independence, and prepares
for an acknowledgment upon the principle of
public law of that independence, whenever
it shall be sufficiently established by the fact.
3. It looks forward prospectively to the downfall
of the British Empire in India as an event which must
necessarily ensue at no very distant period of time.
4. It anticipates a great question in the national
policy of the Union which may be nearer at hand
than most of our countrymen are aware of:
Whether we too shall annex to our federative
government a great system of colonial establishments?
5. It points to a principle proving that such
establishments are incompatible with the
essential character of our political institutions.
6. It leads to the conclusion that great colonial
establishments are but mighty engines of wrong,
and that in the progress of social improvement
it will be the duty of the human family to abolish them,
as they are now endeavoring to abolish the slave trade.
Did I deceive myself in imagining that by asserting this
principle and supporting it by a demonstration, logical in
substance and highly, perhaps too highly, oratorical in form,
I was offering to the minds of my countrymen matter for
meditation other than the inquiry how many times the word
sympathy was repeated in the compass of three pages?
The eyes of the Boston reviewer see nothing in it,
nothing novel, nothing original, nothing comprehensive,
nothing dignified, nothing but shadowy
metaphysics about sympathy.
Nor to their idle orbs does sight appear
Of sun or moon or star throughout the year.
Let me give one instance more.
The Edinburgh reviewer of Mr. Walsh’s book,
foreseeing times of future turbulence in his own country,
and panting for a revolution with English and Scottish Whigs
at its head, descanted largely upon the importance
of a good understanding between the Americans
and that party, and upon the supposed duty of the
United States to take an active part in the impending
European conflicts between Power and Right.
This doctrine has already twice in the course of
our history brought the peace and the permanent
welfare of the Union into jeopardy:
under Washington’s administration at the early stage
of the French Revolution; under the present administration
in the efforts to entangle us in the South American conflict.
The address has presented a principle of duty directly
the reverse as that which ought forever to govern the
councils of the Union, and has assigned as a reason
for it the inevitable tendency of a direct interference in
foreign wars, even wars for freedom, to change the very
foundations of our own government from liberty to power.
Had this view of a question in political morality
transcendently important to the future destiny
of this country ever been presented before?
Certainly not to my knowledge.
It may be controverted no doubt, but I believe
the principle to be impregnably true, and it was assuredly
no commonplace topic of orations upon Independence.
The Boston reviewer is unconscious
that it exists in the address at all.
I will weary you no more with examples.
From the high opinion which your brother expresses
of my general style of writing, and from the avowal of
his judgment that this address has its merits as well as
its defects, I conclude that he discerned some of these
things which had escaped the optics of the reviewer.
I have given you the clue to the true cause of the
defects and perhaps the merits of my style,
and I will now point you to the source of all
the matter of my composition good or bad.
The merits of whatever compositions I have given
to the application of moral philosophy to business,
in the incessant reference direct or indirect of all narrative
argument and inference to the standard of right and wrong.
Erroneous moral principle is the most fruitful
of all the sources of human calamity and vice.
The leaders of nations and parties are generally
but accomplished sophists, trained to
make the worse appear the better reason.
The intercourse of private life is full of sophistical
palterings and human law itself, with deference
to Hooker be it said, law, itself national, civil and municipal,
is too often but a system of formal sophistry
substituted for eternal truth and justice.
Yet so congenial are truth and justice to the human mind,
that it is always vehemently moved by a skillful and
forcible appeal to them, and of appeals to them
direct or implied, explicit or deductive, the whole
substance of my public writings is composed.2
In 1822 President Monroe and his Cabinet discussed establishing
diplomatic
relations with the republics forming in Latin America.
On April 20 Adams wrote in his Memoirs:
20th. I made drafts of letters to Mr. Herrera,
the Secretary of State and Foreign Affairs in Mexico,
to Mr. Gual, the same officer in Colombia,
and to Mr. Torres in Philadelphia.
I took them to the President but found him
again hesitating as to the course he was to pursue.3
On April 26 President James Monroe sent this message to the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate, agreeably to their resolution
of yesterday a report from the Secretary of State, with
copies of the papers requested by that resolution, in relation
to the recognition of the South American Provinces.4
On 1-3 May 1822 John Quincy Adams faced
a difficult problem and wrote in his Memoirs:
May 1st. Mr. Fuller, a member of the
House of Representatives from Massachusetts,
called on me, having heard something of
these transactions relating to Russell’s letters.
I told him all that had passed concerning them, and that
I found myself in the most painful situation of my whole life;
compelled to renounce all private and friendly intercourse
with a man whom I had esteemed, and with whom I had
been associated in a trust of the highest public importance,
the result of which had been satisfactory to the nation;
and to expose him to shame in the face of the country.
This had never happened to me with any other man.
But Russell had brought it upon himself.
He had not only obtruded himself and me upon the
floor of the Congress to charge me with treachery to
a great public trust, but he had wantonly made me the
official vehicle to convey that charge against myself.
And such was the nature of the charge that if the letter
gave a true representation of the facts which it alleged,
it would, in my opinion, be the duty of the House of
Representatives even now to impeach the surviving
members of the majority of the Ghent mission.
It was therefore absolutely indispensable for me to
defend myself—which I could not do without exposing him.
I told Mr. Fuller that he was the only member of Congress
to whom I had spoken upon the subject.
I was aware of Mr. Russell’s present situation
as a member of the House and wished in no wise
any other member to take side with me against him.
But the President hesitated whether to send
Russell’s letters to the House in answer
to their call or to withhold them.
I had requested him to send them
with my remarks upon them.
Perhaps he might send them without my remarks.
In that case, I should address a letter to the
Speaker of the House, requesting their permission
to lay my remarks before them.
My wish was that if the President should in
any manner refer the production of the letters
to the discretion of the House, some member
would move another call for the papers.
If Mr. Floyd, the original mover for the Ghent papers,
and then for Russell’s letter, should move for them again,
or Mr. Russell or any of his friends, I wished that
every friend of mine would support the motion.
If, as I thought it not unlikely, the original movers
and Russell himself, should now hang back,
I wished some other member would move the call.
I did not ask it of him unless it would be entirely
agreeable to him, nor unless it should appear that
no other member made the motion of his own accord.
I was only desirous that if the papers should be withheld,
it should be known that it was not at my desire
nor from any purpose of screening me from disclosure.
Fuller said he would pay due attention to the subject….
After the other members of the Administration had
withdrawn, the President told me that he had made
up his mind to send both Mr. Russell’s letters to
the House in answer to their call; that it would
be of no use to withhold them, as they would
undoubtedly come before the public,
and he might as well give them at once.
I concurred entirely in that opinion and told the President
that upon reflecting further on the subject, and with a
view to relieve him even from every semblance of
cooperation with me, I would withdraw the request that
he would send my remarks to the House with the letters.
If he would send them in, I would address a letter
to the Speaker of the House requesting their permission
to submit my remarks upon the letters to them.
To this I understood the President
that he was now fully agreed.
I was occupied morning and evening
in making the draft of the remarks.
2nd. I received this morning a note from the President
requesting me to call at his house, which I did with
a draft of a report to him upon Russell’s duplicate,
omitting the request that he would communicate
my remarks upon it to the House.
And I read to him the draft of a letter which I had
prepared to the Speaker of the House, requesting
permission to submit may remarks upon
the letters of Mr. Russell to them.
He advised me not to send my letter with his message,
but within an hour afterwards,
which I told him was precisely my intention….
In no transaction have I ever seen so much indecision and
so many fluctuations of intentions in the President as in this.
He has time after time told me that he considered
Russell’s conduct throughout the whole transaction
as extremely reprehensible; that he had no doubt
he was acting in concert with Mr. Clay and Mr. Floyd,
and that their object was to work upon the prejudices
of a certain portion of the Union with a view to influence
future elections; that as to the proposed article to confirm
the right of the British to navigate the Mississippi,
neither he nor Mr. Madison had ever considered it as a
violation of our instructions, nor as in the slightest degree
affecting injuriously the interests of the Western country.
But from the moment of the detection of Russell’s
falsification of his own letter, the President’s aim
has been to screen him from exposure,
or at least to have no participation in effecting it.
Mine has been to bring the whole subject before
Congress and before the nation—not from choice,
or for a vindictive purpose against Russell,
but as indispensably necessary to my self-defense
against his conspiracy with Floyd and Clay….
3rd. Mr. Gouverneur, the President’s son-in-law
and private Secretary, called this morning at my
house with the message concerning Russell’s letters,
which he was taking to the House of Representatives.
It was that which was the President’s second thought—
stating the fact of Russell’s having left the duplicate
at the Department of State for communication to the House;
of his (the President’s) having found among his papers
the original, which was marked “private” by Russell himself,
and of my request that he would communicate my remarks
upon Russell’s letter with it to the House; and then declining
to send the letter unless the House on a view of all these
circumstances should repeat the call, in which case
it will be communicated with my report upon the duplicate.5
On May 4 the United States Congress appropriated $100,000
for diplomatic agencies with several nations.
The House passed it by a vote of 167 to 1, and the Senate did so 39 to 3.
The first country the United States recognized on June 19 was the Republic of Colombia,
followed by Chile and Argentina on 27 January 1823, Brazil on 26 May 1824,
the Federation of Central American States on 4 August 1824, and Peru on 2 May 1826.
On May 8 Adams wrote in his Memoirs:
Calhoun spoke to me with great bitterness of the
proceedings of both Houses of Congress at the present
session, and especially of the conduct of the Speaker.
I said to him, “Mr. Calhoun,
you may thank yourself for it all.
You, and you alone, made Mr. Barbour Speaker;
and I trust you have not forgotten how earnestly
I entreated you merely not to prevent the re-election of
Taylor, who had offered friendship and good will to the
Administration, and who would have kept his word.”
He said he remembered it,
and he now believed Taylor would have been friendly.
But he had been much otherwise before.
“Well,” said I, “you succeeded in turning him out,
and you have got one ten times worse in his stead.”
He said there had never been such a state
of things in this Government before.
I did not pursue the conversation.6
Adams wrote in his Memoirs about what he said on May 9:
As the time of the election approaches, it becomes
daily more apparent that the election will be a
contest between two factions in Congress, which is
now an open market for the purchase of votes.
The two Houses of Congress are the praetorian guards, who
will in substance, if not in form, set up the empire at auction.
It has been nearly so once before.
Were it consistent with my principles to work for my own
advancement any otherwise than by public service, it is now
too late for me to commence bidding for the Presidency.
Neither have I any faculty at driving such bargains.
I told Cook that I thought it impossible the
present Executive Administration should hold
together through another session of Congress.
It is now nothing but a system of mining and countermining
between Crawford and Calhoun to blow up each other,
and a continual underhanded working of both,
jointly, against me, which has been the more
effective because I have neither creature
nor champion in either House of Congress.
At this game Crawford is a much superior artist to Calhoun,
whose hurried ambition will probably ruin himself
and secure the triumph of Crawford.
Such is the present prospect.7
On 3 June 1822 John Quincy Adams wrote in his Memoirs:
The next question was about the sum of money
to be applied for the negotiation of a treaty with the
Cherokee Indians, to obtain cessions of lands for
the State of Georgia and indemnities for claims of
citizens of Georgia for property stolen from them.
This brought up the question again upon the allowance of
interest on the award of the Commissioner on the claims
of citizens of Georgia against the Creek Indians, and
Mr. Crawford immediately assumed in the broadest
terms that if interest should not be allowed, it would
be a refusal merely arbitrary; that the amount of the
claims being admitted by the Commissioner, interest
upon it was due of course, and to refuse it would
be an act merely of will and not of justice.
Crawford was a Georgian and was this day quite alone
in his opinion, the evidence upon which the Commissioner
admitted the claims being not only all ex parte, but such
as in no Court of Justice in the world would be admitted
to establish a claim to the value of a half a dollar.
The articles lost were negroes, horses, and cattle;
many of them lost nearly half a century since;
all perishable articles; specific restitution being the
only thing stipulated, for which the United States have
engaged to make indemnity; no proof having been
furnished that any of the individual articles were
existing at the time of the engagement to restore them,
and the whole being unquestionably valued in
the award at more than double their real worth.
Mr. Wirt said that Uncle Sam would fare in this case as he
did with most of his dealings—claims admitted without proof,
estimated at double their value, and then interest for
half a century upon the whole amount of the claim.
I observed that the compensation would amount in
most of the cases to about six times the value of the loss.
I added that from the excessive valuation of the articles,
I had no doubt that each claimant had, in fixing his estimate,
taken into the account his damages consequential
to the loss, as well as the value of the article.
I believed that the ninety-thousand dollars
admitted by the Commissioner would amply
repay all the loss actually sustained.
Perfect justice to every individual it was
impossible to do from the nature of the case.
Some would receive more, and some must receive
less than they were entitled to, and unfortunately,
the honest and conscientious, who had valued their
losses at their real worth, would have less than
entire indemnity, and those who had most
exaggerated would be most profusely paid.
But this could not be helped.
Justice on the whole would as
nearly be done as was practicable.
Mr. Thompson repeated, as his opinion, that interest
ought not to be allowed; with which Mr. Calhoun concurred.
Calhoun said, however, that if interest should be allowed,
the award must be sent back to the Commissioner
for a re-examination of the claims upon more
rigorous principles of proof and of estimation.
I thought the award ought not to be
sent back to the Commissioner.
That would only make a double labor, probably
to come to the same result—with more dissatisfaction
to the claimants and no better prospects for the public.
The whole of the award should be allowed, and I had
no doubt would be full indemnity for the whole of the loss.
Crawford made little or no reply, but examined the
book of the awards, said he knew personally most
of the claimants and declared the valuation of the articles
in almost every case to be at more than double what
could have been their real value at the time of the loss.
There were some cases, however,
in which they were not overvalued.
But, he said, he had always believed that the whole loss
did not exceed in value fifty thousand dollars.
The President appeared to be much embarrassed
in coming to a decision and said it would certainly
give dissatisfaction to the claimants if interest
should not be allowed, and to the public if it should.
Upon which I observed that in allowing the award of the
Commissioner a full written statement should be presented,
to be laid before Congress, showing the great liberality
with which evidence had been admitted to prove the losses,
and the excessive valuation at which they had been
estimated, and setting forth the reasons upon which
the allowance of interest had been refused.
I believed this would be satisfactory to Congress
and to the nation, and if the claimants should
press their demand for interest, Congress
might make provision for the allowance of it.
In the proposed treaty with the Cherokees the question was
at what sum the Commissioners should be limited as that
which must not be exceeded in the engagement of the
United States to assume the payment of similar losses.
The sum in the Creek treaty was limited at two hundred
and fifty thousand dollars, and Mr. Crawford proposed
that the same sum should be the limitation in the
Cherokee treaty, though he admitted that the losses
by Cherokee depredations had not been probably
one-fifth part in value so great as those by the Creeks.
I observed that a limitation of a million to cover an
amount unascertained but known not to exceed a
thousand dollars, would be a warning to all concerned
to swell as much as possible the real sum to be allowed.
I believed the limitation in the Creek treaty
had been much too high, and a principal cause
both of the profuse allowances of the award
and of the further claims of interest.
The President postponed his determination
upon the whole matter.8
On 7 June 1822 Secretary of State Adams described a meeting
with George Canning who would become the British Foreign Secretary
and Leader in the House of Commons in September.
7th. Mr. Canning paid me one of his long
two or three hours’ visits, at which he introduced
himself by showing me a letter from Lord Dalhousie,
the Governor-General of Canada, informing him
that Samuel H. Wilcocke had been discharged
from prison and had left Montreal for the United States.
I told Mr. Canning that I was very glad
he had been released, though not much gratified
at having him as a visitor in the United States.
He spoke also of the recognition of the
South American Governments and intimated that,
as no Ministers were sent to these Governments,
the recognition of them on our part was not complete.
He was evidently anxious to ascertain what
we had done and were about to do in this respect;
but I did not think proper to gratify his curiosity.
Another subject upon which he spoke was
the new instructions which he had received to
resume the negotiation concerning the slave-trade.
He asked me if I had been informed by Mr. Rush
that it was the intention of the British Government
to renew the application for admitting
the mutual right of search and capture.
I said I had, and should be ready to receive
any new proposals that he might make,
adding by way of a joke in earnest, that
I hoped he would not press them much in hot weather.
He spoke of the report of the committee of the
House of Representatives in Congress in favor of the
right to search, and intimated that there were other
members of the Administration less averse to it than I was.
I assured him that he was mistaken, as there was no
diversity of opinion in the Administration concerning it.
He hinted that some or one of them had spoken otherwise
of it to himself—which is not impossible; but I told him,
if they had, it was only by the complaisance of conversation,
avoiding to come to a direct issue of opinion.9
Adams on June 14th wrote in his Diary:
14th. At the office I finished the draft of a projected
Convention with France, which I sent to the French Minister
with a letter proposing to confer with him on the
remaining points of difference this day or tomorrow.
Received his answer promising to call tomorrow.10
On 15 June 1822 Adams explained to President Monroe why
the Convention with the French could be in two languages.
His last difficulty was that I had in the concluding
article expressed that the Convention was
drawn up original in both languages.
He said he was willing to do anything in that
respect for which there was a precedent,
but heretofore there had been a pretension on the
part of France of a preference for the French language.
They no longer had any such pretension;
but as this express assertion, that both sides were original,
was in no other treaty, he was afraid
it might make some difficulty with France.
I referred him to the former treaties with France,
but although they were all signed in both languages,
and all, except the Consular Convention of
14th November 1788 expressly says so, yet all the rest,
except the Convention of 30th September 1800, say they
were originally drawn up in French, and that says the
signing in both languages shall not be drawn into precedent.
He seemed to doubt the propriety of declaring
the copies in both languages original.
I told him it was certainly no novelty in French diplomacy;
and showed him the discussion between the French
and British Commissaries previous to the war of 1755,
in which the British Commissaries charge the French
with having quoted the Treaty of Utrecht in the
French translation instead of the original Latin;
to which the French Commissaries replied that
the French copy was original as well as the Latin.11
On June 19 Adams wrote about the reception of a new diplomat:
At one o’clock I presented Mr. Manuel Torres as Chargé
d’Affaires from the republic of Colombia to the President.
This incident was chiefly interesting as being
the first formal act of recognition of an
independent South American Government.
Torres, who has scarcely life in him to walk alone,
was deeply affected by it.
He spoke of the great importance to the republic of
Colombia of this recognition, and of his assurance
that it would give extraordinary gratification to Bolivar.
The President invited him to be seated,
sat down by him, and spoke to him with
kindness which moved him even to tears.
The President assured him of the great interest
taken by the United States in the welfare and
success of his country, and of the particular satisfaction
with which he received him as its first representative.
The audience was, as usual, only of a few minutes;
and Mr. Torres on going away gave me
a printed copy of the Constitution of Colombia.
I told the President of the French Minister’s
desire to have an audience to take leave,
which he promised to give before he should go to Virginia.
He also directed a Cabinet meeting for tomorrow
at one o’clock to consider again the question
whether Ministers shall immediately be sent
to the South American Governments.
On returning to the office I wrote a paragraph
to be inserted in the National Intelligencer tomorrow
announcing the reception of Mr. Torres by the President,
and prepared a letter to the French Minister
on the complaint against Lieutenant Stockton.12
On June 21 Adams wrote in his Memoirs:
21st. I received a note from the President,
directing me, after my letter to the French Minister
about Stockton’s seizures should be written,
to see the Baron and show it to him, so as to arrange
the matter to his satisfaction, to avoid a correspondence
which might delay the conclusion of the Convention.
Now this was undertow through Crawford
or through Thompson, the Secretary of the Navy.
De Neuville has worked through this
negotiation chiefly by such means.
He has wormed out of us a Convention which will give
great dissatisfaction here, and far less favorable to us
than I could have obtained but for this countermining.
Crawford has all along hung like a
dead weight upon the negotiation.
A bad Convention was precisely
the thing suited to his interest.
A good one would have been highly
creditable to the Department of State.
He has invariably been for conceding everything,
for agreeing to everything demanded by France;
and now he is for making humiliating concessions
upon the complaint against Stockton.
Thompson has not the same motives,
but there is a Secretary to the French legation
intimate in his family, and that gives access
to the President through another whispering-gallery.
Such is the way of the world!13
The United States and France agreed on a commercial treaty on 24 June 1822,
and the next day Adams began his writing with this:
25th. At one o’clock I presented the Baron
Hyde de Neuville to the President to take his leave.
He was attended by the Count de Menou,
Hersant, and Laborie.
He addressed the President with a set speech,
in substance much the same as that which
he had made two years ago.14
On June 26 Adams wrote in his Memoirs:
I called at the President’s and met there Mr. Thompson,
the Secretary of the Navy.
They were much concerned at a publication in the
Intelligencer of this morning by Lieutenant Stockton,
of the principal part of his letter to me in vindication
of his seizure of the French slave vessels.
The Baron de Neuville is much disturbed
at this publication, especially as appearing at this time;
and it worries the President.15
John Quincy Adams on July 8 wrote in his Diary:
The relations in which I stand with Calhoun
are delicate and difficult.
At the last session of Congress he suffered a few members
of Congress with an Irishman named Rogers, editor of a
newspaper at Easton, Pennsylvania, at their head to set
him up as a candidate for the succession to the Presidency.
From that moment the caballing in Congress,
in the State Legislatures, in the newspapers, and
among the people against me has been multiplied tenfold.
The Franklin Gazette of Philadelphia under the direction of
R. Bach, G. M. Dallas, T. Sergeant, and Ingham
in concert with Rogers opened immediately upon me,
and has kept up ever since an insidious fire against me.
Calhoun’s partisans have countenanced it,
and have been busy as those of Mr. Crawford
in their efforts to degrade me in the public opinion.
Meanwhile Mr. Calhoun has always professed to be
a friend and admirer of mine, and to persons whom
he knows to be my friends has said that he did not
mean to be a candidate against a Northern man,
and that he himself was decidedly for a Northern President.
There was a time during the last session of Congress
when so large a proportion of members was enlisted
for Calhoun that they had it in contemplation to
hold a caucus formally to declare him a candidate.
But this prospect of success roused all
Crawford’s and Clay’s partisans against him.
The administration of his Department was
scrutinized with severity, sharpened by
personal animosity and factious malice.
Some abuses were discovered
and exposed with aggravations.
Cavils were made against measures of the Department
in the execution of the laws, and brought the
President in collision with both Houses of Congress.
Crawford’s newspapers commenced and have kept up a
course of the most violent abuse and ribaldry against him,
and his projected nomination for the Presidency has met
with scarcely any countenance throughout the Union.
The principal effect of it has been to bring out
Crawford’s strength, and thus to promote the interest
of the very men whom he professes alone to oppose.
Calhoun now feels his weakness
but is not cured of his ambition.
My personal intercourse with him now is necessarily
an intercourse of civility and not of confidence.16
In July 1822 Secretary of State Adams provided these instructions
to aid diplomats in the State Department:
The following regulations are to be observed
with regard to the correspondence of the Department.
1. A register is to be kept of all the letters and dispatches
received at the Department in which all the letters are
to be entered as they are received from day to day.
2. The Chief Clerk will take care to have these
entries made every day, and in case of his absence
Mr. Bailey will attend to that duty.
3. After making the entries they will put
on file all the letters requiring no answer.
But they will return to the Secretary every letter
which requires an answer from him and take his
directions concerning any other answer to be given.17
On 11 and 12 July 1822 John Quincy Adams wrote in his Memoirs:
My cause is the cause of truth
and honesty and of my country.
There is hardly a bad passion in the
human heart but is arrayed against me.
But in controversies of this kind success depends
much upon the manner in which it is conducted.
I have my own errors to dread
more than the power of the adversary.
A single false step would ruin me.
I need advice very much and have no one to advise me.
I finished yesterday the draft of a rejoinder to Russell’s
publication in the Boston Statesman of 27th of June.
But it replies only to his false statements of the manner
in which his letters were brought before the House of
Representatives; and is already so long that it will
with difficulty be crowded into one newspaper.
I have so much more to say upon the subject
that it will at least fill another newspaper,
and I am apprehensive the public will grow weary
of the subject before it can be fully laid open to them.
I began this morning the draft of the sequel to my rejoinder.
12th. I was at the President’s this morning, and he spoke
to me of Mr. Russell’s publication in the Boston Statesman
of 27th of June, which he said he thought a feeble thing.
He also told me that since this affair had come to be
so notorious, he had been recollecting the
circumstances of his receiving Russell’s letter,
which had before passed away from his memory.
He now recollected that on receiving it
he had been surprised and embarrassed at its contents.
He had shown it to Madison, then President,
and consulted with him what he should do with it.
They were both of opinion that it ought not
to be put upon the files of the Department
and thus exposed to be at some day made public.
The publication they thought could only produce mischief.
They considered Mr. Russell as a man, at the time of the
Treaty of Ghent, very recently introduced into the
public service, whose advancement had outstripped his
consideration in the public opinion, and who had thought
he could best promote his own views by attaching himself
to the interests and by gaining the friendship of Mr. Clay.
As to the proposal for continuing the right of the British
to navigate the Mississippi, neither Mr. Madison nor
he (the President) had ever thought
there was anything objectionable in it.
He had no doubt that the object of bringing forward
Russell’s letter in Congress was to produce a prejudice
in the Western country, looking to future events;
but he thought it a very poor expedient, and that
it would fail of producing the effect intended by it.18
This is what John Quincy Adams wrote in his Memoirs on July 13:
13th. I received dispatches from Mr. Middleton
our Minister in Russia, containing the decision of
the Emperor upon the question submitted to him
by the Governments of the United States and of
Great Britain as to the construction of that part
of the first article of the Treaty of Ghent which
provides for the evacuation of our territories
by the British forces without carrying away any slaves.
The decision is in our favor, but is expressed
in language needing explanation more than
the paragraph of the article which was in question.
I took the dispatches to the President’s and
proposed to him that the decision be published in
the National Intelligencer; of which he approved.19
Adams on 27 August 1822 wrote in his Diary about Calhoun’s
view of Treasury Secretary William Crawford:
Aug. 27. — Mr. Calhoun called to make enquiries.
He noticed the decisive manner in which the
Washington City Gazette came out yesterday
in favor of Mr. Crawford and against me.
He has long considered the Gazette as edited from the
Treasury Department, and all the articles in it against
him as coming almost directly from Mr. Crawford himself.
He says the course Crawford is now pursuing is precisely
the same as he kept in 1815 and 1816, which he had great
opportunities of then observing, as he was of the same
mess with two or three of Crawford’s managing partisans.
He says that Crawford is a very singular instance of a man
of such character rising to the eminence he now occupies;
that there has not been in the history of the Union
another man with abilities so ordinary, with services
so slender, and so thoroughly corrupt, who has
contrived to make himself a candidate for the Presidency.
He thinks it, however, impossible that he should succeed.20
On August 10 Adams wrote,
10th. A woman by the name of Bridget Smith
came to apply for a pardon for her brother,
the man who is in prison at Boston for slave-trading.
Miss Smith operated with the usual female weapon,
a shower of tears.
It seldom fails to disconcert my philosophy, especially
when I see the spring is from the social affections.
Here it was a brother, necessary for the
comfort and subsistence of the mother.
I promised to do my best to obtain his release,
though in his own person he has very little claim
to mercy or even to compassion.21
On August 12 he wrote,
12th. I received this day a dispatch from R. Rush
with a printed copy of the Act of Parliament passed the
24th of June last, opening the ports of the British Colonies
in the West Indies, North and South America, and in the
island of Newfoundland, to the vessels of the United States.
I took them to the President’s and mentioned to him the
necessity of issuing a proclamation conformably to the
Act of Congress of the last session, which I promised
to prepare and bring to him tomorrow.22
On 7 September 1822 John Quincy Adams wrote this letter to Albert Gallatin:
In your dispatch No. 221 of 10 July you mention the
receipt of Mr. Russell’s letter of 11 February 1815 and
its duplicate, with my remarks upon both, and you
observe it would be with great reluctance that you would
find yourself obliged to write anything on the subject.
I do not imagine it will be necessary.
The public sentiment is rendering full justice to Mr. Russell,
and there is no probability that the transactions
to which his letter refers will ever be made
a political engine to dishonor you.
It was with the utmost reluctance that I found
myself compelled to notice it, but as he deliberately
made the Department of State the vehicle for
bringing it before the House of Representatives
I felt that I had no alternative but to comment upon it.
The communication to the House has been followed by
publications in the newspapers, and I am now preparing
a collection of all the documents relating to the
controversy which will form a volume of near 300 pages
and of which I will send you a copy when printed.
The primary object of the whole affair was
to raise a clamor in the western country against me.
But it has been so indifferently managed that
even that purpose has in a great measure failed.
It had been represented that I was the author
of the obnoxious proposal and the intention
was to fix it exclusively upon me.
Since the facts as they were have been disclosed,
even this purpose is in a great measure abandoned.
There has been so far as I have heard
not a word lisped against you for your share
in the offense nor do I believe there ever will be.23
Adams on October 5 wrote this letter to President James Monroe:
A Mr. Burckle called upon me this morning, just arrived
from Bogota charged with a project to negotiate a loan
of 3 millions of dollars for the government of the
Republic of Colombia upon very advantageous terms,
and which will, if successful, be useful as he says
to the commercial relations of the United States.
He wished to know whether the Executive would
be disposed to countenance this loan by a private
communication to persons in Philadelphia who may
be disposed to engage in the loan
(say to S. Girard, R. Ralston, the United States Bank, etc.)
that there may be yielded confidence in the borrowers.
Burckle is by birth a German, naturalized citizen
of the United States, has resided in this country upwards
of twenty years, but the two last years in Colombia,
brother-in-law of Mr. Gebhard, member of Congress
from New York and otherwise respectably connected.
He showed me his authority to contract for the loan
which appeared regular and complete.
He is well known in Philadelphia and
appears to be an intelligent man.
He says they are good Republicans in Colombia and are
much displeased with the royal propensities of San Martin in
Peru, and the Imperial dignity of Augustin the 1st in Mexico.
He says too they are afraid of Mexico.
And that Bolivar himself is thought better of
for a general than a Liberator President.
I told Mr. Burckle I could only report his wishes
to you but asked him to write me from Philadelphia
what success he might hope for his loan.
He left Bogota late in August, landed yesterday
at Baltimore, and came immediately here.
He goes tomorrow for Philadelphia.24
Adams on 9 November 1822 wrote in his Diary:
Reading further in Walpole’s Memoirs, or Secret History
of the British Administrations from 1750 to 1760,
I find in them many things that remind me
of the present state of things here.
The public history of all countries and all ages
is but a sort of mask, richly colored.
The interior working of the machinery must be foul.
There is much mining and countermining for power,
as many fluctuations of friendship and enmity,
as many attractions and repulsions,
bargains and oppositions, narrated in
these Memoirs, as might be told of our own times.
Walpole witnessed it all as a sharer in the sport,
and now tells it to the world as a satirist.
And shall not I too have a tale to tell?25
On 16 November 1822 John Quincy Adams advised President Monroe
on his foreign policy in his annual message and wrote in his Memoirs,
16th. The President read to me the paragraphs relating
to foreign affairs which he has drawn up for the message,
particularly those relating to Spain and Portugal,
to South America, to Russia, Turkey, and the Greeks,
and to the unsettled state of Europe.
I doubted most of those concerning Spain and Portugal,
in which he had spoken of their revolutionary prospects
more favorably than I thought the state of facts,
according to our most recent information, would warrant.
He said he would revise them and would attend
particularly to the last dispatch from Mr. Forsyth.
His paragraph concerning the Greeks with a strong
expression of sympathy in their favor, adds a sentiment
equally explicit, that neither justice nor policy would
justify on our part any active interference in their cause.
The President said he hoped to be ready to bring the
draft of the whole message before a meeting of the
members of the Administration next Tuesday.
He proposes also to say something of the repairs
of the Cumberland Road, being satisfied that Congress
have the right of appropriating money to that purpose.26
Secretary of State Adams wrote in his Memoirs for November 25:
I asked how much expense the settlement of Mexico
and Peru had cost Spain under Cortes and Pizarro.
I added, it was conquest and conversion; the bull of
Alexander the Sixth and the sword of injustice, in which
the exclusions of modern colonization had originated.
Spain had set the example.
She had forbidden foreigners from setting a foot
in her Colonies, upon pain of death, and the other
colonizing states of Europe had imitated the exclusion,
though not the rigor of the penalty.
The expense of colonizing had formed
no part of the consideration.
The whole system of modern colonization
was an abuse of government, and it was time
that it should come to an end.27
Adams on November 26 wrote in his Memoirs about a Cabinet meeting:
26th. Note from the President, directing a meeting
of the members of the Administration at one o’clock.
Present, Mr. Crawford, Mr. Calhoun, and Mr. Thompson.
The President read the draft prepared for his message
to Congress at the opening of the session of Congress.
It is very long and contains more of discussion
than seemed to me suitable for such a paper.
The meeting was adjourned to half-past one
tomorrow for reading it by paragraphs.
Very few observations upon it were made this day.
Calhoun proposed to substitute the words value of freight
for cost of freight, and I proposed the use of the
term freight alone, which was sufficient to express
the idea intended to be conveyed in the passage.
The criticism in Calhoun’s objection to the
term cost was minute, but ingenious and just.
It was in a paragraph concerning the comparative value
of our exports, and it had been drawn up by Crawford.
The term cost, as thus applied to freight, was incorrect,
and Calhoun’s objection to it showed that
he was deeper in political economy than Crawford.
Mr. Crawford objected to a passage
concerning the decision of the Emperor of Russia
on the Ghent Treaty question.
The President had said the documents,
including a Convention to carry the decision
into effect, would be communicated.
Crawford thought this mode of expression
would appear to imply that the Convention
had also been made by the Emperor.
He had not heard of this Convention before.28
On 27 November 1822 John Quincy Adams wrote in his Memoirs:
27th. At half-past one attended
the meeting at the President’s.
Present, as yesterday, Messrs.
Crawford, Calhoun, and Thompson.
The message was again read through by paragraphs,
and various alterations were suggested.
I questioned the use of the word internal as referring
to the Conventions with France and with Great Britain
under the Russian mediation, and to the proclamation
opening the ports to British vessels from the Colonies.
Also the word supervision as
applied to the Cumberland Road.
The part of the message relating to the affairs
of the Treasury Department was on a separate
sheet in the handwriting of Mr. Crawford.
It stated the receipts of the year as having
exceeded the anticipation of the last,
which it does by six or seven millions.
But after adding that the income of the year will be
more than adequate to defray its expenses, it proceeds
to say that, our exports having been less in value than
our imports, there will be a reaction, which will occasion
a deficiency of revenue in 1824, though not beyond what
the excess of income in 1823 will be sufficient to cover.
I questioned the expediency of
introducing either part of this prophecy.
I said there was no doubt that the value of our imports
this year had largely exceeded that of our exports.
The exposition of specie at least eight or nine
millions beyond the imports, and the rate of
exchange with England from ten to fourteen percent
against us, was decisive proof of that.
But whether it would produce a reaction sufficient
to occasion a deficiency of revenue in 1824 was
to me too doubtful to hazard upon it a prediction,
which if realized will be of no use, and if contradicted by
the event would make matter for animadversion hereafter.
It was looking forward two years, and although a diminution
of revenue is to be expected, yet there are so many not
improbable events which may produce an opposite result,
that I should deem it wiser not to foretell without necessity.
Calhoun said that eight percent of the rate of exchange
was owing to our proportional valuation of gold to silver.
And he further said that although there might probably
be a diminution of the revenue in 1824, it would certainly
not be such as to fall short of the expenditures of the year,
so as to require to be made up by the surplus of 1823.
Crawford said it was looking forward only eighteen
months, as the whole receipts of the year 1824 must
be secured before the 1st of July of that year;
that unless a war should break out in Europe, there
was no event within bounds of probability that could
prevent a reaction that must make the revenue fall short.
I had mentioned the contingency of scanty harvests in
Europe, the increase of our trade with South America,
and the annual increase of our population.
He said there was no prospect of an improvement
in the markets for our principal productions.
The prices of cotton were continually falling, and
though flour had borne during the present year a good price,
there was no prospect of its rising, but the contrary.
He did not think much was to be expected from the increase
of the trade to South America, and he had calculated that
the increase of our own manufactures would, in the effect
upon our revenue, about balance that of our population.
Mr. Calhoun observed that, notwithstanding the
great importations at New York during the last year,
the goods were going off so fast, and business
was so brisk, that it was doubtful whether any
diminution of the imports would take place.
Mr. Thompson also took up the objection to the prophecy,
and Mr. Crawford finally gave it up with a view to
introduce it into his own annual report, where, I told him,
I thought it would be more proper than in the message.
There was a paragraph upon the piratical States of
Barbary, containing severe reflections upon the maritime
powers of Europe for not suppressing the whole system.
I asked whether this would not be offensive to those
European powers, without answering any useful purpose—
the more so as there had been no exercise of the piratical
system, so called, since Lord Exmouth’s attack upon Algiers.
Great Britain had done something
towards the suppression of the system.
It had not since been practiced.
Would it not seem ill-timed to reproach them
now with not having done more?
The President said he had introduced it
in connection with our own exertions to suppress
the recent piracies in the West India seas.
I remarked that the West India piracies and the Barbary
system could hardly come under the same denomination.
The latter was regulated by a principle—
it was religious war, prescribed by the Koran,
which commanded war against infidels,
with the option to them of conversion or tribute.
Mr. Crawford, to whom this appeared to be new,
said that the Turks acted upon no principle;
as the Porte made no such alternative a
condition of peace with Christian powers.
I said no treaties could be made with them but by
presents, which they doubtless consider as tribute, and if
they ever made treaties of peace without them, their plea
for justifying themselves was necessity—compulsion.
After some discussion, the President said
he would perhaps omit the paragraph.
The message had also several paragraphs relating
to the Greeks with no little invective upon the
horrible despotism by which they are oppressed.
Mr. Crawford suggested that these might
give offense to the Sublime Porte.
I thought it doubtful whether they would ever see
that message; but he said there were those
who would take care to make them see it.
Some passages of high panegyric upon ourselves
were questioned; and there were two references
to the opinion of the President sent to the House
at their last session, upon the Constitutional
power of Congress to make internal improvements,
one of which I thought would be sufficient.
About three hours were occupied with these deliberations,
and the President will modify the message
as he shall think proper on consideration
of all the remarks that were made.29
Secretary of State Adams wrote about a Cabinet meeting
in his Memoirs for 28 November 1822:
28th. Note from the President calling a
Cabinet meeting at half-past one.
The object was to consult upon the expediency
of sending the missions to South America for which
appropriations were made at the last session of Congress.
There was much discussion upon this point,
in the course of which Mr. Crawford came out in character
with his opinion that the missions ought to be sent, but that
there was less reason for sending them now than there
had been when the appropriations were made last spring.
Mr. Calhoun and Mr. Thompson gave no decisive opinions.
Mine has invariably been that we ought to send
none but in return for Ministers sent by them here.
Mr. Crawford said he had understood it was determined
last spring to send none except in that manner.
The President said he had not so determined,
but the appointments had been
postponed on various considerations.
I observed that those countries were yet
all in a convulsive and revolutionary state.
Since the last session of Congress,
Yturbide had by the forms of election by a Congress,
but in fact by military usurpation, made himself
Emperor of Mexico, but without any of the
necessary means for carrying on his Government.
From the accounts we have, it is highly probable
that his Government will be overthrown within a year.
In the republic of Colombia, and in Peru the
Spanish party had rather gained ground this year.
There had even been a prospect of their re-occupying Lima,
while on the other hand the patriot General San Martín
appeared much disposed to react in Peru
the part of Yturbide in Mexico.
In Chile there had been a revolution in Government,
and a Congress called to establish a Constitution.
We had two very different views of these
transactions presented; one favorable by Mr. Prevost—
the other much otherwise by Jeremy Robinson;
while Commodore Stewart and Mr. Hogan
wrote with the utmost disgust and abhorrence
of all the leaders and ruling men in that country.
There had been recently a conspiracy against the
present Government of Buenos Aires, and Forbes himself,
who has always favored it as the purest and
most liberal that had ever been established there,
now almost despairs of its being able to defend itself.
From Mexico we have been informed of the
appointment of two successive Ministers Plenipotentiary
with assurances that they were coming immediately;
but there is no appearance of either of them yet.
Since Mr. Todd has arrived in Colombia,
the Vice-President Soublette has informed him that
probably they would there prefer to continue the diplomatic
intercourse with this country by Chargés d’Affaires,
and the newspapers mention that there is a Mr. Barrientes
who has been at the Havanna and is coming here.
The only view for the appointment of Ministers
Plenipotentiary to any of these States is to establish
with them commercial treaties, and if they are to be
appointed with that view, it would be necessary to settle
some principles upon which such treaties are to be formed.
Mr. Crawford said they all favored
the British commerce more than ours.
I said there was a distinction made in Colombia,
of which I had spoken to Mr. Torres before his death,
who assured me he would write immediately
to his Government concerning it.
Mr. Todd is likewise instructed to remonstrate against it.
Torres told me he had no doubt it would be
immediately removed, but he died so soon afterwards,
and was then so ill, that I do not know
whether he did write concerning it or not.
Crawford insisted that there were also discriminations to our
disadvantage at Buenos Aires; but I think he was mistaken.
Crawford finally said he thought the missions
ought all to be sent except that of Peru,
which should be postponed for the present.
He then launched out on the subject of Cuba and said that
the late French Minister, Hyde de Neuville, before he went
away last June, had made a communication to him entirely
confidential, and which must therefore now be received
as confidential; which was that the French Government
knew for certainty that the British Government had been for
two years negotiating with Spain for the island of Cuba, and
had offered them for it Gibraltar and a large sum of money;
that there was a British Agent living at the Havanna in
great splendor and with profuse expense; and he closed
all by remarking what a great misfortune it would be
if Great Britain should get possession of the island of Cuba.
Mr. Calhoun remarked that this story about a magnificent
British Agent at the Havanna had been enquired into by
several commanders of our vessels who had been there,
and they had found there was nothing in it.
The President mentioned the late correspondence
with Duponeau, and asked if General Mason
had left the papers with me.
He had not.
The President asked me to write to Mason and ask for them.
He repeated also that he thought we ought to have
an intelligent Agent at the Havanna.
As Crawford has views upon this subject which the President
does not appear to perceive, I said nothing about it till after
the meeting had broken up, and then asked what salary he
would allow to the Agent proposed to reside at the Havanna.
He said no less than three thousand dollars a year.
I said we could not have an avowed political Agent there,
as not even a Consul is admitted, and if it were even
known that we had a person as political Agent there,
he would be immediately ordered out of the island.
The President said it must be altogether secret.
I asked him if he had in his eye any person
who would at once be a trusty Agent and yet
would keep the secret of his being such.
Calhoun, who has a candidate always ready for everything,
immediately named Colonel McRae, who he said
was secret as the grave and would by temper
prefer concealing such an appointment to disclosing it.
I observed that the secrecy of such an appointment
would not depend upon the Agent alone.
A military man, going from the United States
to reside at the Havanna, must have
some ostensible motive for being there.
Calhoun asked if he could not connect himself
with some commercial establishment.
The President named E. Wyer; but it was now apparent
that the appointment of a political Agent to reside
in the island of Cuba is a measure requiring
more combinations than we are prepared for.
After the meeting was over, Calhoun spoke to me
about the South American missions again.
He said he had no opinion of the measure, and
thought if any appointment should be made,
it should be with a view to commercial negotiations only,
and that the Ministers appointed should be rigorously bound
by instructions to take no part in the internal struggles
of parties at the places to which they will be sent.
He said he supposed I had seen the course
that Crawford intended to take on this subject.
I said I had; but I did not think
he would make much of it.30
John Quincy Adams on November 30 wrote in his Memoirs:
30th. Mr. John W. Taylor, member of Congress from
the Saratoga district, State of New York, called on me
this morning and had a long conversation with me.
He has been re-elected to the next Congress in opposition
to what they call in that State a regular nomination.
In the National Advocate it has been stated that he
would be a candidate for the office of Clerk of the
House of Representatives; he assured me that he had
not at the time had a thought of it, but asked my advice
whether he should offer himself as a candidate or not.
He said he inclined himself against it; he thought it
would be a descent from his present station;
but several members had asked him if he would
be a candidate, and had promised him their votes
and support if he should be—even several of his colleagues
who had last year opposed his election as Speaker.
I told him I thought it was the least they could do for him,
by way of reparation for what they had done.
I thought with him that the situation of Clerk of the House,
though very respectable, would carry less consideration
than that of a member, especially of his long standing,
but it was more profitable and more permanent.
With regard to his personal views, I thought
he could take counsel only from himself.
If he concluded to be a candidate, he would
have my best wishes, and any services that
it might be in my power to bestow.
Upon public considerations I should prefer to have him
remain a member of the House, believing that he
would be more useful there, and that his sphere
of action would be much larger than in the Clerk’s office.
He entered very fully into particulars with regard to his
own situation, prospects, and purposes;
said Mr. Clay was coming to the next Congress with
the intention of making the Speaker’s chair a step for
his own promotion to the Presidency; as on the very
probable contingency that the election would fall to
the House of Representatives, his influence in the House
and the “esprit de corps” in favor of their own Speaker
would operate strongly upon the members in his favor.
But, he said, he had lately seen Mr. Shaw, formerly
a member of Congress from Berkshire, Massachusetts,
and a very particular friend of Mr. Clay, with whom
he is in correspondence, who told him that he believed
there had been some understanding between Mr. Clay and
me, or between our friends, who would move in concert.
He said he did not wish to draw from me anything I might
wish not to disclose, but his own views at present might
in some sort be influenced by the knowledge of the facts.
I told him that I had no motive for
concealment or hesitation with him.
There was no understanding or concert between
Mr. Clay and me on the subject and never had been.
When Mr. Clay left Congress two years ago,
we parted upon friendly terms, and although
Mr. Clay’s political course as a member of the House
had not been remarkably friendly to me,
I had never been unfriendly to him.
As to the next Presidential election,
I had no concert or understanding with anyone….
I said that as to the reduction of the army,
I had taken no part whatever in relation to it.
I had inclined against it because the head of the Department
immediately concerned as it had disapproved it.
And as a member of the Administration, I had been
governed by two general principles:
one, to support to the best of my power the Administration;
and the other, not to intermeddle with the Departments
at the head of which other persons were placed.
I believed Mr. Calhoun was now sensible he had been
misadvised in preventing the election of Taylor as Speaker;
but it was the prejudice raised by the Missouri
slave question that had been the cause of it.
A few days only elapsed after this entry was made,
when Mr. Clay came out with a remarkable demonstration,
somewhat ambiguous, but scarcely
significant of good will to the writer.
As making a part of the history of the time,
it will not be out of place here to insert the two publications
drawn out from the respective parties at this time.
The letter of Mr. Clay was addressed
to the editors of the National Intelligencer
at Washington, and was in these words:Lexington, 16th November 1822
Gentlemen—I have witnessed with very great
regret the unhappy controversy which has arisen
between two of my late colleagues at Ghent.
In the course of the several publications of which
it has been the occasion, and particularly in the appendix
to a pamphlet which has been recently published by the
Honorable John Q. Adams, I think there are some errors
(no doubt unintentional) both as to matters of fact and
matters of opinion in regard to the transactions of Ghent,
relating to the navigation of the Mississippi and certain
liberties claimed by the United States in the fisheries,
and to the part which I bore in these transactions.
These important interests are now well secured, and as
it respects that of the navigation of the Mississippi left, as
it ought to be, on the same firm footing with the navigation
of all the other rivers of the Confederacy, the hope may be
confidently cherished that it never will hereafter be deemed
even a fit subject of negotiation with a foreign power.
An account therefore of what occurred at Ghent on
these two subjects is not perhaps necessary to the
present or future security of any of the rights of the nation,
and is only interesting as appertaining to its past history.
With these impressions, and being extremely unwilling
to present myself at any time before the public,
I had almost resolved to remain silent, and thus
expose myself to the inference of an acquiescence
in the correctness of all the statements made by
both my colleagues; but I have on more reflection thought
that it may be expected of me, and be considered as a duty
on my part, to contribute all in my power towards a full
and faithful understanding of the transactions referred to.
Under this conviction I will at some time more
propitious than the present to calm and dispassionate
considerations, and when there can be no
misinterpretation of motives, lay before the public a
narrative of these transactions as I understand them.
I will not at this time be even provoked (it would at any time
be inexpressibly painful to me to find it necessary) to enter
into the field of disputation with either of my late colleagues.
As to that part of the official correspondence at Ghent
which has not been communicated to the public by the
President of the United States prior to the last session
of Congress, I certainly know of no public considerations
requiring it to be withheld from general inspection.
But I had no knowledge of the intentions of the
Honorable Mr. Floyd to call for it, nor of the call itself,
through the House of Representatives,
until I saw it announced in the public prints.
Nor had I any knowledge of the subsequent call
which was made for the letter of the Honorable Mr. Russell,
or the intention to make it, until I derived it
through the same channel.
I will thank you to publish this note
in the National Intelligencer, and to accept
assurances of the high respect of
Your obedient servant,
H. Clay
The reply of Mr. Adams follows:
To the Editors of the National Intelligencer.
Gentlemen,—In your paper of yesterday
I have observed a note from Mr. Henry Clay
which requires some notice from me.
After expressing the regret of the writer at the unhappy
controversy which has arisen between two of his late
colleagues at Ghent, it proceeds to say that in the course of
the several publications of which it has been the occasion,
and particularly in the appendix to the pamphlet recently
published by me, “he thinks there are some errors
(no doubt unintentional) both as to matters of fact and
matters of opinion in regard to the transactions of Ghent,
relating to the navigation of the Mississippi and certain
liberties claimed by the United States in the fisheries,
and to the part which he bore in these transactions.”
Concurring with Mr. Clay in the regret that the
controversy should ever have arisen, I have only to find
consolation in the reflection that from the send-time of 1814
to the harvest of 1822 the contest was never of my seeking,
and that since I have been drawn into it, whatever
I have said, written, or done in it has been in the
face of day and under the responsibility of my name.
Had Mr. Clay thought it advisable now to specify
my error of fact or of imputed opinion which he thinks
is contained in the appendix to my pamphlet, or in any other
part of my share in the publication, it would have given
me great pleasure to rectify by candid acknowledgment
any such error, of which by the light that he would
have shed on the subject, I should have been convinced.
At whatever period hereafter he shall deem the
accepted time has come to publish his promised
narrative, I shall, if yet living, be ready with
equal cheerfulness to acknowledge indicated
error and to vindicate contested truth.
But as by the adjournment of that publication to a period
“more propitious than the present to calm and dispassionate
consideration, and when there can be no misinterpretation
of motives,” it may chance to be postponed until both of us
shall have been summoned to account for all our errors
before a higher tribunal than that of our country,
I feel myself now called upon to say that let the appropriate
dispositions, when and how they will, expose the open day
and secret night of the transactions of Ghent, the statements
both of fact and opinion, in the papers which I have written
and published in relation to this controversy, will in every
particular, essential or important to the interest of the nation
or to the character of Mr. Clay, be found to abide unshaken
the test of human scrutiny of talents and of time.
John Quincy Adams
Washington, 18 December 1822.31
This controversy among the commissioners at Ghent was instigated by
Jonathan Russell who wrote a letter to Secretary of State Monroe in early 1815.
Adams responded by writing The Duplicate Letters, the Fisheries and the Mississippi
in which he proved that Henry Clay had proposed the Mississippi scheme and that Russell
had supported the proposal which the British rejected.
In 1822 Russell published a revision of his 1815 letter that he claimed
was the original and which criticized Adams, reviving the controversy.
Secretary of State Adams wrote on December 28 a 19-page letter to the freeholders
of the Washington, Wythe, Grayson, Russell, Tazewell, Lee, and Scott counties
in Virginia that was addressed to Friends and Fellow Citizens.
He defended himself from charges brought against him by General Smyth, and again
he criticized the books, Rights of Man and Age of Reason by Thomas Paine.
Adams also quoted this section that had aroused objections:
And be it further enacted, that until the expiration of
the present session of Congress, unless provision for the
temporary government of the said territories be sooner
made by Congress, all the military, civil and judicial
powers exercised by the officers of the existing government
of the same shall be vested in such person and persons,
and shall be exercised in such manner, as the President
of the United States shall direct, for maintaining and
protecting the inhabitants of Louisiana in the free
enjoyment of their liberty, property, and religion.32
Notes
1. Memoirs of Comprising Portions of His Diary from 1795 to 1848
by John Quincy Adams, Volume V ed. Charles Francis Adams, p. 472-473, 475-476.
2. Writings of John Quincy Adams, ed. Worthington Chauncey Ford,
Volume VII 1814-1816, p. 199-202.
3. Ibid., p. 494.
4. A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, A 1789-1908,
Volume II ed. James D. Richardson, p. 137.
5. Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, Volume V, p. 509-510, 512, 513, 515.
6. Ibid., p. 523-524.
7. Ibid., p. 525.
8. Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, Volume VI, p. 10-13.
9. Ibid., p. 13.
10. Ibid., p. 18.
11. Ibid., p. 20.
12. Ibid., p. 23-24.
13. Ibid., p. 27.
14. Ibid., p. 30.
15. Ibid., p. 33.
16. Ibid., p. 42-43.
17. John Quincy Adams and the Foundations of American Foreign Policy
by Samuel Flagg Bemis, p. 257.
18. Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, Volume VI, p. 44-45.
19. Ibid., p. 45.
20. Diary of John Quincy Adams 1794-1845, ed. Allan Nevins, p. 287-288.
21. Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, Volume VI, p. 52.
22. Ibid.
23. Writings of John Quincy Adams, Volume VII, p. 303-304.
24. Writings of John Quincy Adams, Volume VII, p. 314-315.
25. Diary of John Quincy Adams 1794-1845, p. 292-293.
26. Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, Volume VI, p. 102-103.
27. Ibid., p. 104.
28. Ibid., p. 105-106.
29. Ibid., p. 107-110.
30. Ibid., p. 110-113
31. Ibid., p. 113-114, 115-118.
32. Writings of John Quincy Adams, Volume VII, p. 339.
This work has not yet been published as a book;
all the chapters are free in this website.