On 4 January 1824 John Q. Adams wrote in his Memoirs:
4th. Called and saw Mr. Poinsett and conversed with him
upon Mr. Webster’s resolution respecting the Greeks.
I told him there was a person probably now at
Constantinople upon an errand which might
suffer by these movements in Congress.
He said Webster would be satisfied if the Government would
appoint Edward Everett as a Commissioner to go to Greece.
There were objections to that.
It would destroy all possibility of our doing anything
at Constantinople, and Everett was already
too much committed as a partisan.
He said Everett was to be here this day
or in a day or two more.
He said Clay was threatening to come out on
the affair of the Greeks and probably would suffer
in public estimation by the course he would take on it.
Mr. Blunt spent the evening here.
He gave me some information concerning
the Hawkins Dauphin Island contract.
Blunt spoke also in favorable terms of Mr. De Witt Clinton,
and intimated that there were projects
of coalition between him and Mr. Calhoun.
I repeated what I had said to Mr. McRae on this subject
and hoped no friend of mine would make advances of any
kind to Mr. Clinton, of whose talents I had a high opinion,
with whom I had no personal misunderstanding, and with
whose projects I had neither community nor enmity.1
Secretary of State Adams on 8 January 1824 wrote in his Memoirs:
8th. I called at the President’s, and while I was there,
Mr. Calhoun came with a deputation
of five Cherokee Indians.
This is the most civilized of all the tribes
of North American Indians.
They have abandoned altogether the life of hunters
and betaken themselves too tillage.
These men were dressed entirely according to our manner.
Two of them spoke English with good pronunciation,
and one with grammatical accuracy.
This was a young man of twenty-three, who has passed
three or four years at a missionary school in Connecticut.
He interpreted for his father, who made a speech
to the President in the figurative style of savage
oratory with frequent recurrence
to the idea of the Great Spirit above.
They gave me some account of their
present institutions which are incipient.
On returning to the office, I found Baron Tuyl there.
He read me extracts from two dispatches which he has
received from his Government—one expressing satisfaction
at the explanatory paragraph in the National Intelligencer;
the other stating the adjustment of the differences
between the Emperor Alexander and the Ottoman Porte.
I told Baron Tuyl that I should shortly send him a copy
of the Act of Congress concerning discriminating duties.
This being the anniversary of the victory at New Orleans,
we gave an evening party or ball to General Jackson,
at which about one thousand persons attended.
General Jackson came about eight o’clock
and retired after supper.
The dancing continued till near one in the morning.
The crowd was great, and the house
could scarcely contain the company.
But it all went off in good order and without accident.
The President this morning excused himself from attending,
as I had expected he would.2
On 9 and 10 January 1824 Secretary of State Adams wrote this in his Memoirs:
9th. At the President’s.
I found Mr. Poinsett there.
He was making some enquiries for the Committee
of Foreign Relations, of which he is a member—
whether it might be stated in debate on Mr. Webster’s
motion for an appropriation for a Commissioner to be
sent to Greece, that the Executive is averse to the measure;
also what would be the views of the Executive as to
an Act of Congress authorizing the blockade of Porto Rico,
and perhaps Cuba—as a measure of defense,
or retaliation upon piracies and piratical privateering.
10th. Received a note from the President,
calling a Cabinet meeting at one o’clock.
I met Blunt and Mr. Kelly, the Senator from Alabama,
as I was going to my office.
They detained me till the President sent for me.
I found Mr. Calhoun and Mr. Southard at the President’s.
Mr. Wirt came in afterwards.
The first subject referred by the President to the meeting
was his draft of an answer to the resolution of the
House of Representatives upon Mallary’s motion,
which simply was that there was no information
upon the subject in his possession which could,
without inconvenience to the public service,
be communicated to the House.
This was unanimously approved.
The next was upon Mr. Poinsett’s enquiries.
As to his wish for permission to state in debate that
the Executive was averse to the measure proposed by
Mr. Webster; Calhoun and Southard thought the views
of the Executive ought not to be communicated in that way.
I did not discuss the question, knowing that
Webster had consulted Calhoun and Southard
before he offered his resolution, and had been told
by them that the Executive had no objection to it.
As for the disposition of the committee to authorize
the Executive to blockade Porto Rico and Cuba,
Calhoun came out in the most decisive manner against it,
and questioned even the power of Congress to give the
Executive such authority, because, he said, it would be war.
This was the first time Calhoun had ever started a question
upon the power of Congress in this particular, and it led to
much discussion, in which all the debatable ground of that
part of the Constitution of the United States was gone over.
Since the argument upon President Washington’s
proclamation of neutrality, this has always been
difficult ground, and the different views of the question
have led to many curious and absurd results.
Calhoun’s argument led to the conclusion that Congress
could not authorize the Executive contingently to commit
any act hostile in its nature against a foreign nation.
I referred to his own order authorizing General Jackson
to enter upon the Spanish territory in the Seminole War;
to which he made no reply.
Wirt thought blockading the ports would be objectionable,
because it would affect the rights not only of Spain,
but of other nations.
I thought issuing letters of marque and reprisal
might be better.
Calhoun thought any measure would be inexpedient,
as tending to involve us in war upon a small point,
just at the time when we had taken a bold stand
upon great and general interests.
He thought it best to make no other movement at present,
but to look round us and wait for consequences.
He said there had been no late captures,
and there was no immediate danger.
Wirt said Randall had told him all the property taken
by the Porto Rico privateers and pirates would be lost
unless we should take some measure of self-vindication;
and added that our Constitution was lamentably defective
if Congress had no power to authorize such a measure.
I had no doubt of the power, nor of the expediency,
and thought that some spirited measure would
be entirely congenial to the general attitude
which we had recently assumed.
Mr. Southard was not decisive,
and the President postponed his determination.
He rather inclined against any measure himself,
from an apprehension of offending England.3
John Quincy Adams on January 12 wrote this in his Diary:
Jan. 12.—Captain O’Brien came and talked much
upon his own affairs and upon general politics.
He gave me a copy of the printed circular from thirteen
members of the House of Representatives and one
Senator from Pennsylvania, assigning their reasons
for declining to attend a partial Congressional caucus.
This is apparently maturing into a great party question.
The legislatures of New York and Virginia have declared
in favor of a caucus nomination; Tennessee,
South Carolina, Alabama, and Maryland against one.
The movement of Pennsylvania is even now not absolute
and decisive; it declares only against a partial caucus;
but it has the aspect of an effort in Pennsylvania to take the
lead of the affairs of the Union out of the hands of Virginia.
There is yet room for much development
of policy between those States.4
On January 20 Adams wrote in his Memoirs:
20th. Dr. Watkins told me that William King had
assured him that my friends had agreed that
I should be nominated in caucus as Vice-President
with a nomination of Crawford as President.
I applied an epithet to King for saying this, which
I will not commit to paper—adding that it was
impossible any friends of mine should have undertaken
thus to dispose of me without consulting me upon it.5
On 25 January 1824 candidate Adams wrote this in his Diary:
Jan. 25.— I visited Vice-President Tompkins, who arrived
in the city and took the chair of the Senate last Tuesday.
He told me that he had recovered his health with the
exception of sleepless nights, and that he was relieved
from all his embarrassments; that he had no intention
of being a candidate either for election to the
Presidency or for re-election as Vice-President.
All he wanted was justice.
He could speak with a voice of thunder to the
Legislature of New York; but he had determined to
take no part in the approaching election and wished
for nothing hereafter but quiet and retirement.
I next called upon John W. Taylor and had
with him a conversation of nearly three hours.
He and Mr. Livermore had called at my house last evening.
The Presidential canvassing proceeds with increasing heat.
The prospects in the Legislature of New York are
at present highly favorable to Mr. Crawford and his party;
and the prospect that he will obtain the whole electoral vote
of that State has suggested to the friends of the other
candidates here the necessity of concert among them
in opposing him, and the first measure upon which
this concert was sought was in the opposition
to a Congressional caucus nomination.
On the other hand, Cambreleng a warm Crawford man,
told Taylor yesterday that the caucus would be held,
but not until April; that in the meantime there will be
manifestations of public sentiment ascertaining beyond
all doubt that there will be a majority of the electoral
votes for Mr. Crawford—upon which his friends here
will secure the cooperation of Mr. Clay’s friends or of mine,
by offering him and me alternately the Vice-Presidency,
with the promise that by acceding to this arrangement now,
the service to the party would lay up a fund
of merit for promotion at a future election.
And with reference to measures, Cambreleng said
it was understood there was a greater coincidence
between the opinions of Mr. Crawford and mine
than between those of any two other candidates.
I said I believed that was true.
But I asked Taylor what he thought of Mr. Cambreleng’s
project with reference to political morality.
Taylor said that when he had mentioned it to Livermore,
they had both agreed it was a proposition which
supposed the man to whom it should be made a fool.
I told Taylor that my mind was made up.
I was satisfied there was at this time a majority
of the whole people of the United States, and a
majority of the States, utterly averse to a nomination
by Congressional caucus, thinking it adverse to the
spirit of the Constitution and tending to corruption.
I thought it so myself; and therefore would not now accept
a Congressional caucus nomination, even for the Presidency.
And of course a nomination for the Vice-Presidency
in cooperation with one for Mr. Crawford as
President could have no charms for me.
Not that I despised the Vice-Presidency or wished peevishly
to reject the second place because I could not obtain
the first; but because the people disapproved of this
mode of nomination, and I disapproved of it myself.
I added that in opposition to such nomination
I wished my friends to take any measures in concert
with others opposed to it as might be proper.
In effecting this concert I wished them to dispose
of me as they should think best for the public service.
I was entirely prepared to consider the election by
the people of another person to the Presidency as an
indication of their will I should retire to private life.
Taylor said he thought my determination perfectly
correct as to the Vice-Presidency; but that I should
reconsider that of retiring to private life; that the
mere failure of an election to the Presidency could
not be considered as indicative of the will of the people
that I should retire from the place that I now hold.
A multitude of causes and of motives contributed
to the issue of a Presidential election—
sectional feelings, party prejudices,
political management, and many others.
I might still without dishonor retain
my place under another Administration.
I said his observation was undoubtedly true
in the abstract, and as his dinner-bell was ringing,
I would take another opportunity to explain to him
my views on the subject—and in the meantime
would come to no rash decision concerning it.6
During the American Revolution the playwright Beaumarchais
had loaned money to the Americans.
On 27 January 1824 the candidate Adams wrote in his Memoirs about current politics:
27th. Mr. George Tucker called this morning to
consult me with respect to the report he is to make
as Chairman of the Committee of the House of
Representatives on the Beaumarchais claim.
He said he thought the strict justice
of the claim doubtful, but that for the pride
and honor of the country it ought to be paid.
A majority of the committee were disposed
to report favorably, but it was nearly certain
the claim would be rejected in the House.
He was therefore disposed to report that it should be
referred to the Executive for negotiation with the French
Government; and he wished to know whether any proposal
to that effect had been made on the part of France.
Mr. Gallatin told me yesterday that there had been,
verbally to him, by the Duke of Richelieu.
I concurred with Tucker, that the claim ought to be paid,
as a repayment of so much of donation from the
French Government; though as to the million itself,
I did not believe the value of it
had ever been received by us.
I attended the meeting of the Commissioners
of the Sinking Fund at the Capitol.
Vice-President Tompkins, the Attorney-General Wirt, and
myself were the only members present, Mr. Crawford being
confined to his house with an inflammation of his eyes.
Mr. Nourse, the Register of the Treasury,
attended for Mr. Jones, the Secretary of the Board.
A resolution was prepared authorizing the purchase
of seven percent stock, according to an Act of Congress
passed the 22nd of this month, and we signed it.
The annual meeting of the Board
is to be next week on Wednesday.
Our business now was immediately finished, and I went
successively into the Senate and House of Representatives.
I conversed with many of the members of both Houses.
Mr. R. King mentioned again to me that upon which
he had begun to speak at the President’s drawing-room
when we were interrupted—the rumor of a coalition
between Mr. Crawford and me and our mutual friends
to concur in a Congressional caucus nomination of him
as President and of me as Vice-President—a rumor which,
he said, was circulating both here and at New York.
I told him that such overtures had been made to me,
and I had rejected them, and I gave him my reasons:
the same as I had assigned them to J. W. Taylor on Sunday.
Mr. King said the course that I had taken was
such as he should have expected from me,
and he thought, the only one worthy of me.
He said he had had some conversation with Mr. Clay
from which he had learned that Clay was for going
to the caucus ostensibly for the purpose of voting it down,
but to take his chance of the nomination
if there should be a majority for it.
He said his opinion was that Clay wanted to get
into some public situation out of his own State,
feeling his ground there to be shaking under him,
and that he will push here for anything that he can get.
King is much dissatisfied with the indications
from the State of New York, and I think,
does not yet see them in all their bearings.
I spoke to Mr. Bayles of the resolution (Dr. Floyd’s) calling
for estimates of the expense of sending two hundred men
from the Council Bluffs to the mouth of Columbia River;
said I was at the President’s yesterday when the resolution
was brought to him, and hoped the measure would be
adopted; that I had urged the President to recommend it
in the session message; and had again pressed him
upon it yesterday, on occasion of receiving a letter
from Mr. Hogan, the Consul of Valparaiso, mentioning
that an American vessel had met a British one
carrying supplies to the British establishment at Astoria.
I had also a long conversation and some explanations
with Mr. Webster upon his Greek resolution, which
was left undisposed of yesterday by the committee
of the whole rising without taking any question upon it.
I told Webster that when his resolution should have been
finally acted upon, I should be glad to converse with him.
He expressed a disposition to have the conversation now,
and I told him the reasons why I had been averse to his
resolution before he offered it; that Southard and Calhoun
had both encouraged him to offer it, and the President
himself had told him he had no objection to its being made.
I spoke this morning to Mr. Bartlett of New Hampshire
about his quarrel in the House with Clay
with the result of which he seemed dissatisfied.
I understood, however, upon enquiry, though not from him,
that it was not intended it should go any further.7
Adams on 30 January 1824 wrote in his Memoirs:
30th. Colonel R. M. Johnson, Mr. R. King, and Mr. Fuller
had long conversations with me concerning the movements
of the parties here for the Presidential succession.
Johnson says that Calhoun proposed to him an
arrangement by which I should be supported as President,
General Jackson as Vice-President,
Clay to be Secretary of State,
and he himself Secretary of the Treasury;
not as a bargain or coalition,
but by the common understanding of our mutual friends.
I made no remark upon this, but it discloses the
forlorn hope of Calhoun, which is to secure a step of
advancement to himself, and the total exclusion of Crawford,
even from his present office at the head of the Treasury.
Johnson said that Governor Barbour, Senator
from Virginia, after a conversation with him,
in which he had insisted, and Barbour had agreed,
that upon an election in the House, should it come there,
the vote would be at least two thirds for me against
Crawford, said he had thoughts of giving in his adhesion
to me, which Johnson advised him by all means to do.8
In his Memoirs on February 3 Adams wrote:
February 3rd. Colonel R. M. Johnson here.
He is very earnestly engaged in counteracting the caucus
party, and very anxious for the appointment of Luckett.
The anti-caucus meetings have not yet resulted in
the agreement to publish a declaration against it.
W. Plumer told me that some of the New Hampshire
members were averse to signing the anti-caucus
declaration, thinking that Crawford’s name might probably
be withdrawn before the close of this session of Congress;
in which case they expected the nomination would be of me,
and they would then have no objection to going into caucus.
I told him the objection was to the thing,
and not to the person.
The sentiment of the nation was
against a nomination by members of Congress.
I thought that sentiment well founded, and should
feel myself bound to decline such a nomination,
either for the Presidency or the Vice-Presidency.9
The candidate John Quincy Adams continued to write about these
political issues in his Memoirs on 4 February 1824:
4th. S. D. Ingham called again, and I had a full and
explicit conversation with him respecting G. M. Dallas, and
generally respecting the treatment of me by Mr. Calhoun
and his friends; the professions of friendship and the acts
of insidious hostility; the requisitions upon me to dismiss
the Democratic Press and appoint the Franklin Gazette
to publish the laws in Philadelphia; the vindictive malice
of Binns, which they thereby excited against me;
the flaunting declaration in the Franklin Gazette immediately
afterwards, that they were under no obligation to me for
the appointment; the decided part taken against me by
that paper in the controversy with Jonathan Russell,
and its frequent ill-disguised attacks upon me since; the
courtship of the New England federalists for Mr. Calhoun;
the toast to the memory of Fisher Ames at the Edgefield
dinner to McDuffe; the newspapers set up in Massachusetts
to support Mr. Calhoun; the smuggled paragraphs, asserting
that my friends in New England had abandoned me for him;
and the panegyric of the Washington Republican upon the
Boston Galaxy; a paper for years advertised for sale to
the highest bidder of the Presidential candidates,
and which has at last opened a battery of scurrilous
abuse upon me and in avowed support of Mr. Calhoun.
I mentioned all these things to him in frankness,
but told him they had not the slightest effect upon my
opinion with regard to the appointment of Mr. Dallas.
He wished to apologize for Norvell, the editor
of the Franklin Gazette, who, he said, entertained
the highest respect for me, and whose appointment
had been urged not from any hostility to me.
The papers published against me in the controversy
with Russell he (Ingham) had disapproved and had
written to Norvell to refuse them; but it happened that
before receiving his letter Norvell had promised to
publish the first, and then could not reject the others.
The main foundation of the opposition of the Franklin
Gazette, and of the Republicans in Pennsylvania to me
was owing to their seeing that I was supported by Walsh.
I told him that Mr. Walsh’s support for me
had not been solicited by me.
It was voluntary and spontaneous
and had been by no means uniform.
In the Russell controversy he had been at first
against me, and upon other occasions had
not been sparing of censure upon me.
The friends of Mr. Calhoun had no doubt the right to set him
up as a candidate for the Presidency, and if they chose to
promote as the head of an Administration a man whose
elevation must of itself operate as a proscription from the
Executive of the nation of all the other men who were
distinguished before the nation, they surely might;
but the error seemed to be in supposing that this might be
done without any manifestations of enmity towards them.
My complaint was, not that attempts were made to tear
my reputation to pieces for the benefit of Mr. Calhoun, but
that they were preceded and accompanied by professions
of great respect and esteem, and with the expression of
most earnest desires for harmony and good understanding.
He said that it had not been considered that mere age
was the decisive qualification for the Presidency.
I said, certainly not.
But ours was practically more a Government of personal
consideration and influence than of written articles.
There was in the genius of our institutions a
graduated subordination among the persons
by whom the Government was administered.
Reputation was the basis of our elections, and the emblem
of its organization was a pyramid, at the point of which
was the chief, under whom men of high consideration,
though not equal to his, naturally found their places.
Among the sources of this consideration,
age and experience had their share, and unless
superseded by very transcendent merit, a decisive share.
This had never yet been otherwise
under our present Constitution.
Not a single instance had occurred of a person
older than the President of the United States
accepting office as a head of Department under him.
This was not the result of any written law,
but it arose from the natural operation of our system.
What the effect of such a departure from it as the election
of Mr. Calhoun might be, I could not undertake to say.
But this I would say, and had said to those of my friends
who had spoken to me on the subject: that if the harmony
of the country could be promoted by setting me altogether
aside, I would cheerfully acquiesce in that disposition,
and never would be the occasion or the supporter of
factious opposition to any Administration whatsoever.
Mr. Ingham professed to be satisfied with this
exposition of my views and feelings; but as I gave him
no reason to expect I could be reconciled to the
appointment of Dallas to Mexico, he was doubtless
not satisfied with the result of the meeting.
I attended in the evening the
drawing-room at the President’s.
On returning home I found J. W. Taylor at my house,
and had a long conversation with him.
He told me that Jesse B. Thomas, a Senator from Illinois,
had strongly urged upon him the expediency
of my acquiescing in the nomination as Vice-President
with Mr. Crawford for the Presidency.
He said that Mr. Crawford would certainly be elected,
and he spoke of certain members of Congress as ultimately
to vote for him who appear to be far otherwise disposed
at this time; that it was, however, very desirable that
he should carry with him the strength which he would derive
from the cooperation of my friends; that from the state of
Mr. Crawford’s health it was highly probable the duties
of the Presidency would devolve upon the Vice-President,
which had made it necessary to select with peculiar anxiety
a person qualified for the contingency which was to be
anticipated; that a compliance with the views of
Mr. Crawford’s friends on this occasion would be
rendering them a service which would recommend me
to their future favor, and would doubtless secure
my election hereafter to the Presidency.
Taylor said he had answered that admitting even the
certainty that Mr. Crawford should be elected,
that was no sufficient reason for the acquiescence
of my friends in the proposed arrangement.
If the election should be carried against them,
they will at least have followed their own sense
of what was right and fit.
They could not place me in subordination to Mr. Crawford
without inverting the natural order of things and placing
the North in a position of inferiority to the South.
Should they be so placed by the Constitutional voice
of the people, they must undoubtedly submit;
but they could not consent to be so placed by their own act.
Taylor said Thomas had asked him
to see him again after thinking on the subject.
I said he might tell him then, if he thought fit,
that he had seen me, and I had told him that
I was so satisfied of the inexpediency of a Congressional
caucus nomination at this time that I should decline
accepting it, were it even for the Presidency.
He said he thought it would be better that,
without referring to me or to my determination,
he should simply state the perseverance of my friends in
the sentiments he had already expressed as being theirs.10
In the previous eight years the states of Indiana, Mississippi, Illinois, Alabama,
Maine,
and Missouri had been admitted into the Union, increasing the number of states to 24.
On 24 February 1824 the last Congressional caucus
met with only 66 of the 240 members present.
This showed that Crawford was not controlling this legislative body.
John Quincy Adams announced that he would support a moderate tariff
to protect their manufacturing without crippling raw materials.
On 10 March 1824 Secretary of State Adams wrote in his Memoirs about a
conference
he had with the French diplomat about France and the South American governments:
10th. The Count de Menou, Chargé d’Affaires from France,
came to speak of the publication of a notice that
certificates of origin would be required in France
upon importations from the United States to
entitle them to the benefit of the Convention.
We conversed also upon general topics,
and I spoke to him of the newspaper accounts
of a large squadron fitting out at Brest.
He said he had no doubt there was exaggeration
in the accounts; that a squadron of three frigates in the
Pacific had returned to France and were to be replaced;
that the garrisons of the French islands in the West Indies
were perhaps to be relieved, and that the French
Government might be disposed to contribute its share
to the suppression of piracy in those seas.
I told him I discredited altogether the suspicions abroad
that this squadron was destined to act against any part of
South America, particularly as I knew there had been
explanations upon the subject, which had passed between
the British and French Governments; and as related to
South America, I presumed that no interposition of France
between them and Spain would take place without
consulting the United States as well as her European allies.
This appeared to startle him a little, and he said
he did not see that France was bound to consult the
United States as to the time when she should
recognize the South American Governments.
I said by no means; it was not when she should
recognize them, but whether she should interfere
between them and Spain, to which my observation applied.
He did not pursue the subject further.11
On March 12 Secretary of State Adams wrote in
his Memoirs about relations with the Cherokees:
The next subject submitted for consideration
by the President was more important.
By a compact made between the United States
and the State of Georgia in 1802, the United States
stipulated to extinguish as soon as should be practicable,
peaceably and upon reasonable terms,
the Indian titles to lands within the State of Georgia.
And since that time many treaties have been made, and
many millions of miles purchased in fulfillment of the article;
the State of Georgia continually pressing to obtain more.
At last the Cherokees have come to the determination
that they will on no consideration part with any more of their
lands, and their delegation now here have most explicitly
so declared, in answer to a letter from the Secretary of War
strongly urging upon them the necessity of a further cession.
The answer of the Cherokees was communicated
to the Georgia delegation here, and they have
addressed to the President a letter of remarks upon the
correspondence between the Secretary of War and the
Cherokees, which the President said was an insult.
It is in terms of the most acrimonious reproach against
the Government of the United States, whom it charges
almost in terms with fraud and hypocrisy, while it
broadly insinuates that the obstinacy of the Cherokees
is instigated by the Secretary of War himself.
Calhoun remarked that it was in the handwriting of Cobb,
but it was signed by the two Senators, Elliott and Ware,
and by all the members of the House from the State,
excepting Tatnall, who is not here.
The question was how it should be treated.
The conclusion was that the President should send
a message to Congress with the correspondence and
an exposition of what has been done by the Government
of the United States in fulfillment of the compact.
Calhoun thought that the message should communicate,
but take no notice of, the letter of the Georgia delegation.
I said, as the charges of the letter could not be overlooked,
it was scarcely possible to avoid a direct allusion to it,
and I thought it indispensable that it should
in substance be fully answered.
The President said it should be answered,
and in the tone of defiance best suited to it.
Southard said Georgia would find very little support
in Congress to such a paper as that.
The President said he had never received such a paper.
I said it was an issue tendered between Georgia
and the Government of the United States.
Calhoun dwelt upon its incorrectness with regard
to the facts; and I observed it was a peremptory
demand to do by force, and upon most unreasonable terms,
that which had been stipulated only to be done peaceably,
and upon reasonable terms.
It was asked what could have kindled
this raging fever for Indian lands.
Calhoun thought it was the State system of disposing
of them by lottery—a system which, he said, was immoral
and corrupt, by the conflicting parties as engines for the
advancement of one upon the ruin of the other.
I suspected this bursting forth of Georgia
upon the Government of the United States
was ominous of other events.
We were kept till past three at the President’s.12
In London on 13 March 1824 the United States Minister Richard Rush
and William Huskisson, the British president of the Board of Trade, signed the
Slave Trade Convention that made citizens of their nations who deal in slaves pirates.
William Crawford, who wanted to become President, opposing searches of ships
for the sake of “free ships for free goods.”
On March 14 Adams wrote in a letter to Robert Walsh Jr.:
The mission of the tariff is not now wanted for revenue;
our existing revenue exceeds our expenditures,
and a few more years of peace could extinguish our debt
without needing to add a dollar of new taxation.
The revival of the tariff is for protection of domestic
manufacturing, and I believe it to be necessary.
Yet it ought to be done with great caution with a
tender and sincere regard to the agricultural interests
of the South and the commercial interests of the North.13
John Quincy Adams wrote this in his Memoirs on March 15:
15th. — I called at the President’s with the dispatches
last received from H. Nelson and from R. Rush.
The President told me that last Saturday Mr. Crawford
had called at his house; that he had appeared to be
much mortified at the letter from the Georgia delegation,
which the President had shown him, and had expressed
a wish that they might be induced to withdraw it;
that the President told him they might withdraw it if they
pleased, but it must be their own act, and not at his desire.
He gave me also to read a letter from the Governor of
Georgia to the Secretary of War upon the same subject,
which, he said, though in some respects exceptionable,
was in a different spirit from the delegation letter,
and contained a refutation of their insinuations of
duplicity on the part of the General Government.
I dined at General Jackson’s with a
company of about twenty-five—heads of Departments,
members of Congress, and officers of the army and navy.
Clay and Calhoun were there.
It was the General’s birthday, and apparently
the occasion upon which he gave the dinner.
Clay had been arguing in the Supreme Court this morning
the case of the Apollon against the Government
and had taken the opportunity of being,
as he professed, very severe upon me.
At the dinner he became warm, vehement, and absurd upon
the tariff, and persisted in discussing it against two or three
attempts of Eaton to change the subject of the conversation.
He is so ardent, dogmatical, and overbearing
that it is extremely difficult to preserve
the temper of friendly society with him.
I had some conversation with Mr. Southard,
who sat next to me at table, on the Georgia delegation
letter, which he thought would not be taken back.
I thought it would, at the intercession of Mr. Crawford;
and had a suspicion that it was written
and sent with that intention.
Southard said this was to him a new view of the subject.14
On 27 March 1824 John Quincy Adams wrote in his Memoirs about
the upcoming nominations for President and Vice President:
27th. Mr. Seymour, a Senator, and Mr. Mallory,
a Representative from Vermont, came to converse
upon the prospects of Presidential election.
What were the views of Mr. Clay, of Mr. Crawford,
of General Jackson, of Mr. Calhoun,
and of their respective friends?
Since I gave so explicitly my last answers to Forsyth
and Burton, that I could assent to no coalition to support
Mr. Crawford for the Presidency, and that I could form
no part of an Administration under him; his canvassers
have turned to the courtship of Mr. Clay and his friends.
Mallary said that he had no doubt the main force of Clay
would go to Crawford; in which I entirely concurred.
I was also fully convinced that the main force
of De Witt Clinton and the stragglers of Calhoun
will go over to Jackson.
Seymour appeared anxious to ascertain for whom
it would be best to vote as Vice-President.
I said I believed the popular feeling in New England
had already received such an impulse that it was
no longer controllable, nor did I think it
worthwhile to attempt the control of it.
I was convinced it would give no dissatisfaction to
General Jackson or his friends, that he should be
voted for as Vice-President by those who should
support me for the Presidency, and if others should carry
him to the Presidency itself, we must, as in every other
event of the same election, acquiesce in the voice of
the nation, as delivered through its constitutional organs.
I told them I was very sure I had nothing to expect,
and was not willing to have anything to ask in the way of
support to me from any other candidate or his friends.
I desired to stand only upon my own ground,
and would not crave assistance from any other quarter.
I wished my friends to vote for Jackson as Vice-President,
because I thought the place suited him
and him suited to the place.
The thing was fitting in itself, and perfectly well suited
to the usual geographical distribution of the two offices.
On public principles it was unexceptionable,
and I would not look further for determining motives.15
On 29 March 1824 John Quincy Adams wrote in his Memoirs
about the situation of the Cherokees in Georgia:
On the Georgia compact and Indian land rights
the President read a new draft of a message,
different from that of the last meeting.
In this he very distinctly declared his opinion that
the Indians cannot with justice be removed from
their lands within the State of Georgia by force.
But after setting forth all that has been done by the
Government of the Union in fulfillment of the compact,
the positive refusal of the Cherokees to cede
any more of their lands upon any terms whatever,
and the impossibility of devising any other means
short of force to prevail upon them to go, there was
a new and rather elaborate argument introduced of the
absolute necessity that the Indians should remove west of
the Mississippi; and after concluding that nothing further
could be done by the Executive, there were direct
intimations that something should be done by Congress.
I objected that this gave an appearance of incongruity
to the message, for it was an issue between the national
Executive and the Georgia delegation; and after taking
completely from under them the ground upon which they
themselves stood, it gave them new ground to stand upon.
It gave them the means of peremptorily claiming
something further, and immediately from Congress.
And if that was intended, I insisted that the Executive ought
to have some practicable project matured and requiring
nothing but the sanction of Congress to carry it into effect.
The President said that no such project was prepared,
nor had he any particular measure in view.
Five or six years since, about one-third part of the
Cherokee nation were prevailed upon to surrender
their lands and remove beyond the Mississippi, and
there is now in the city a deputation from them also,
complaining that they are as much disturbed and crowded
upon by the whites as they were before their removal.
I asked if it could be supposed that the deputation from
the old Georgia Cherokees, now here, were ignorant of this,
or that they would be encouraged to abandon their old
establishments for promises of a new one such as
their tribesmen had found west of the Mississippi.
Calhoun and Southard inclined to support my remarks.
Mr. Wirt proposed the omission of certain passages
directly recommending to Congress to
decide upon some measure to be taken.
But I thought the proposal of a measure necessarily
followed from the purport of the argument,
which I thought it would be best to omit altogether.
The President said he would consider of it further.
Mr. Calhoun read the draft of his report to the President
upon the papers, which was a full statement of the facts,
showing all that has been done in performance of the
compact, but with scarcely an allusion to the
paper signed by the Georgia delegation.
The President spoke of the compact as a very unfavorable
bargain to the United States—as it certainly was.
Mr. Calhoun thinks that the great difficulty arises
from the progress of the Cherokees in civilization.
They are now within the limits of Georgia about fifteen
thousand and increasing in equal proportion with the whites;
all cultivators with a representative government,
judicial courts, Lancaster schools, and permanent property.
Ridge, Hicks, and Lowry now here
are principal chiefs and Ross.
They write their own State papers and reason
as logically as most white diplomatists.
Each of the chiefs here named possesses
from fifty to a hundred thousand dollars property.
One of the heaviest grievances of the Georgia delegation
is that in the correspondence between the War Department
and the chiefs, there is a letter from the Secretary of War
to them, addressing them by the style of “gentlemen.”
This was an inadvertency of a clerk, overlooked
by Calhoun in signing the paper, but in which
the Georgians think there was deep design.16
On March 31 Adams wrote in his Memoirs:
31st. I attended alone the
drawing-room at the President’s.
Thinner than usual.
Conversations with W. Plumer, Crowninshield,
J. W. Taylor, and Burton.
All accounts from Albany unfavorable to the Crawford
interest, but otherwise uncertain and contradictory.
Taylor’s letter from Stewart holds up Clay as predominant.
His conversations with Moore,
a Calhounite transferred to Jackson.
Calhoun’s game now is to unite Jackson’s supporters
and mine upon him for Vice-President.
Look out for breakers!
Day. I have received in the course of this month
two hundred and thirty-five visitors,
which is an average of about eight a day.
A half an hour to each visitor occupies four hours a day;
but that is short of the average.
The interruption to business thus incessantly repeated
is distressing, but unavoidable.17
The candidate Adams wrote in his Memoirs on:
April 2nd. W. Plumer this morning brought me a pamphlet,
sent me by its author, Jacob B. Moore—
Annals of the Town of Concord in New Hampshire.
Plumer spoke also of a recent conversation between him
and Mr. Van Buren, who was sounding him with
a view to bring him over to Mr. Crawford’s interest.
Van Buren acknowledged himself under personal
obligations to me, but said he had supported Crawford
as the Republican candidate; that enquiries had been
made last summer in the Albany Argus whether I was
willing to be considered as the Republican candidate,
and answered not satisfactorily in the New York American.
While Plumer was here, Mr. Conway of Arkansas
came and introduced General Rector of Missouri.
I walked with Plumer to the Capitol to hear the close
of Mr. Webster’s speech upon the tariff—which I did.
He spoke for an hour; but the principal part
of his speech was delivered yesterday.
It was universally admitted to be
an able and powerful speech.
Many of the members came and spoke to me
while I was in the House.
Tomlinson of Connecticut and Van Rensselaer
of New York (Albany) spoke of accounts received
by them from their respective States containing
manifestations of opinion against Mr. Crawford,
who is now denominated the caucus candidate.
J. W. Taylor told me that J. A. Dix had been with him
this morning from General Brown, who was
extremely anxious himself to see Taylor.
The object was to state to Taylor that it was the desire of
Mr. Calhoun to be supported for the office of Vice-President;
that there was every prospect of a certainty that there
would be a majority of the Legislature of New York for me;
that the wish of Mr. Calhoun’s friends was to fall in
with this prospect, and they wished that this arrangement
might be further recommended from this place.
Taylor said he believed the best way
would be to let the thing take its course.
I said that my friends would do
as they should think proper.
Personally and on purely public grounds I should prefer
to see the Vice-Presidency conferred upon General Jackson.
I believed the public sentiment among those really
my friends was decidedly, perhaps unalterably, the same.
The only possible reason for hesitation was Jackson’s
being a candidate for the first office, and for that reason
I thought the course of New York should be left to itself.
I had no objection to Mr. Calhoun’s
obtaining the Vice-Presidency.18
Adams on April 12 wrote in his Memoirs:
12th. John W. Taylor called on me this evening
and said Plumer had spoken to him of the expediency
of applying to General Jackson or some of his friends
to ascertain whether it would be agreeable to him
to be supported for the Vice-Presidency by my friends;
that he had casually put the question to Judge Isaacs of
Tennessee, who intimated that it would be pleasing to him,
but said he would speak with Taylor of it again.
I said that since the meeting in New York the prospect
of a powerful effort in that State to support Jackson for
the Presidency was so great that I thought it best to let
the thing take its own course, and make no application to
him or his friends with reference to the Vice-Presidency.
Taylor said his belief was that Tallmadge was
endeavoring to get up a party for Jackson, and
that the project of the Convention at Utica was
formed with that intention; though Marvin and Hayden
and Martindale, he said, were of a different opinion.
I said I had never expected anything from the project
of a Convention, and that if a popular voice should
not be really in Jackson’s favor, it would easily be
seen by calling meetings to express different opinions.
Taylor thinks that the assumption by the Albany caucus
of Young for their candidate as Governor was the result
of a bargain, and that its object was to prevent the opposite
party from setting up Young in opposition to Yates.
And he thought it probable that all the mining and
countermining might ultimately compel my friends to fall
in and support Young and Crawford, to keep out Jackson.
The result of all is that New York
has been and will be bargained away.
Taylor said that since he had spoken to me at the House
he had seen General Brown, who had told him that
Mr. Calhoun’s friends wished him to be in the next
Administration in a more active situation than that of
Vice-President; but he himself inclined to the
Vice-Presidency, probably for the sake of a certainty
of not being entirely thrown out of place.
And he asked Taylor what he thought
would be my views in this respect.
Taylor said he did not know, but had no reason to suppose
that I would remove Calhoun from his present office.
Dix afterwards hinted to Taylor that Calhoun’s friends
wished him to be Secretary of the Treasury,
a place which it was supposed might be vacant.
I told Taylor the time had certainly not yet come,
if it ever should, for me to think of these arrangements.
I had no hesitation in saying that I should have no
disposition to remove Mr. Calhoun, nor had I any reason
for concluding that in the event of my election the
Department of the Treasury would be vacant.
I suppose that the principal object of General Brown’s
soundings was to ascertain whether I would dismiss
Crawford and appoint Calhoun in his place.
On parting from me, Taylor concluded to take no further
step at present, but to wait for the progress of events.19
On 29 April 1824 Secretary of State Adams wrote in his Memoirs
the completion of a Convention to suppress the slave-trade:
29th. I received the Convention for the suppression
of the slave-trade, signed the 13th of last month at London,
with a dispatch from R. Rush giving an account of the
negotiation, and copies of the protocols, and of the
counter-project presented by the British Plenipotentiaries.
I took them over to the President’s, read to him the letter,
and left with him the protocols and the counter-project.
The Convention, as concluded, differs only in
a very few unimportant particulars from
the draft which I sent to R. Rush last June.
Mr. George Canning in his speech to Parliament
on the 16th of March represented it as a
mutual concession of the right of search.
This being republished in our newspapers,
Mr. George Hay came to the office this morning
to enquire if it could possibly be so.
I told him it was so understood and represented
by Mr. Canning; but it was a right of search only as
incidental to a right of capture for piracy—
a right which is necessarily involved in the
right of capture for piracy by the law of nations.
The President asked me to draft a message
to send to the Senate with the Convention,
and said he would send it in tomorrow.
I took also to the President’s a new application from
Mr. Silvestre Rebello to be received as Chargé d’Affaires
from the Emperor of Brazil, with which he sent me
a copy of the projected Constitution of the Empire.
I had also received a long letter of 8th and 12th March from
C. Raguet, exhibiting a precarious and doubtful condition
of things at Rio de Janeiro, particularly the prospect of a
blockade of Pernambuco with a French naval force, the
commander of which furnishes aid to the Emperor of Brazil
under the title of His Royal Highness the Prince of Brazil.
The President directed me to send round these papers
to the members of the Administration, and to call a
meeting at his house the day after tomorrow at noon.20
Adams on May 1 described in his Memoirs a conversation
he had with the Federalist John Reed of Massachusetts.
May 1st. John Reed, a member of the House
from Massachusetts, came with a letter claiming
the interposition of the Government for the
recovery of certain money seized in Mexico.
I told him I would write to the Consul
at Alvarado concerning it.
Reed said he was soon going home
and spoke of the Presidential election.
He is a federalist, but he says that two-thirds
of his constituents are Republicans.
He professed to be very friendly to me but intimated
an opinion that it would ultimately be necessary
for my friends to unite with those of Mr. Crawford.
I told him there was nothing to be expected from that,
but he said the assurances from the friends
of Mr. Crawford were very strongly otherwise.
I said that I had understood that a systematic effort
was making to unite the federal party in Massachusetts
in favor of Mr. Crawford, and that the great struggle
of the federalists at the recent State election
for Governor was connected with that purpose.
He said it was not a general feeling, but that some of the
federalists favored Mr. Crawford from an apprehension
that my prejudices against them were so strong, that in the
event of my election they would be altogether proscribed.
I asked him if he thought there was a doubt
of my election by a large majority of the electoral votes
but for an opposition from the Republican party on the
very ground of my being suspected of too much federalism.
He said there was not.
I told him I had originally been a federalist,
just such as President Washington had been.
But of the course that had been pursued by the federalists
during and preceding the late war my opinion was well
known, and had been fully manifested by my conduct.
Personally, the federalists had done me wrong,
and I expected no favor from them.
But during the whole of the present Administration
it had been at least as much supported
by the federalists as by the Republicans.
If it should be the pleasure of the people of the
United States that I should serve them as their President,
I should be the President not of a section,
nor of a faction, but of the whole Union.
If the federalists chose as a body to array
themselves against me, I should not complain,
and very probably they might prevent my election.
Possibly their opposition, however, might strengthen me
in the opposite party, and if, after a combined and
continued movement against me, I should still be elected,
they must be aware how much the difficulty would be
increased of favoring them with appointments without
disgusting those of the opposite party claiming
the merit of friendly support against them.
He was aware of all this, and said that
he should endeavor to secure the choice
in his district of an elector favorable to me.21
Adams was a candidate, and on May 8 he wrote in his Memoirs:
To suffer without feeling is not in human nature;
and when I consider that to me alone, of all the
candidates before the nation, failure of success
would be equivalent to a vote of censure by the
nation upon my past service, I cannot dissemble
to myself that I have more at stake upon the result
than any other individual in the Union.
Yet a man qualified for the elective Chief Magistracy
of ten millions of people should be a man
proof alike to prosperous and to adverse fortune.
If I am able to bear success,
I must be tempered to endure defeat.
He who is equal to the task of serving a nation
as her chief ruler must possess resources of a
power to serve her even against her own will.
This is the principle that I would impress indelibly upon my
own mind, and for the practical realization of which in its
proper result I look to wisdom and strength from above.22
On May 24 John Quincy Adams was asked about his tariff policy,
and in his Memoirs he wrote that he had said,
I told them freely that it was one of those subjects
in which great opposing interests were to be conciliated
by a spirit of mutual accommodation and concession.
I was satisfied with the Tariff bill as it has passed,
because it appeared to me to have been
elaborated precisely to that point.
I thought I had seen in it an admirable illustration
of the practical operation of our national Government.
The two parties had contested every inch of the ground
between them with great ardor and ability,
and the details of the bill had finally brought them
to questions decided by the casting vote of the
presiding officer in each House, and an adjustment
by conference between the two Houses.
With the result it was reasonable to expect
that both parties would be satisfied.
McDuffie appeared to be well satisfied with it himself,
and he said that the final vote upon it in the House
gave a majority of fifty votes in its favor.
I told him that there was another subject upon which my
opinions had been greatly misrepresented in the Southern
country with a view to excite local prejudices against me.
It was upon the slave question generally,
and the Missouri restriction particularly.
My opinion had been against the proposed
restriction in Missouri, as contravening both
the Constitution and the Louisiana Treaty.
This was the first Missouri question.
The second was upon an article introduced into the
Constitution of the State of Missouri, which I thought
contrary to the Constitution of the United States.
I then stated explicitly what my opinions had been upon both
questions, and noticed the artifice of the misrepresentation
which, from my opposition to the article in the Missouri
Constitution, inferred my having favored the restriction.
I added that the article of the Missouri Constitution
required the Legislature of that State to do precisely
what the Legislature of his own State of South Carolina
had since done; and which Judge William Johnson,
a native and citizen of the State itself, had pronounced
to be contrary to the Constitution of the United States.
McDuffie said he had no doubt it was so,
and was very glad I had given him this explanation.23
On 4 June 1824 Adams wrote in his Memoirs:
Three Quakers came as a deputation from a society
of their persuasion to express to the Government their
great anxiety for the suppression of the slave-trade.
They had been with the President,
who had requested them also to see me.
They stated their great concern that, from all
the evidence they had been able to collect,
it appeared that the trade was carried on more
extensively and with greater inhumanity than ever.
It was carried on, they said, chiefly under the French flag;
and they came to enquire if some effectual appeal
could not be made to the Government of France
to prevail upon them to take measures for putting it down.
I told them what had been done, and what I hoped
might yet be done, in negotiation with the maritime powers,
and promised them all the aid I could give them
for the accomplishment of their purpose.24
On June 19 candidate Adams wrote in his Memoirs about an investigation:
19th. Calhoun read me a letter to the Committee of
Investigation, and one to D. Webster, that he had
written stating the fact that N. Edwards had sent
through him to D. P. Cook the packet from Wheeling
containing his address to the House, but stating that
he had no other knowledge of it, and offering to give
any information to the committee that they might desire.
He said that he had read the draft of these letters
this morning to the President, who at first
thought it would be proper to send them.
But Mr. Southard and Mr. Wirt afterwards coming in,
it had been thought on reflection, that it would have the
appearance of volunteering testimony, and that Edwards
had lost himself, and would certainly sink under this affair,
so that interference now might connect unnecessarily the
Administration with the odium which would be attached to
him; that the effort of Mr. Crawford’s agents now was to
fix upon the President and other members of the
Administration a combination and concert with Edwards to
attack Crawford; while the fact was directly the reverse,
and Crawford’s career had been an uninterrupted series
of attacks upon the Administration, always disavowed
or disguised by himself; that, on this state of things,
the cause of the Administration should be kept as distinct
as possible from that of Edwards, and when the issue is
made with Crawford, it should be on independent ground.
To this Calhoun yielded, but brought the letters
to me to consult me upon them.
I said I should not oppose my opinion to those
of the President, Mr. Southard, and Mr. Wirt.
But I believed it would ultimately be impossible
to avoid the issue, and inclined to think it would
be as well to take it now as at any time.
I had observed in the newspapers statements that
Cook and Edwards had declined answering the question
through whom the packet had been transmitted,
and intimations that it had gone through the War Office.
But there was another occasion on which his (Calhoun’s)
name had been mentioned by Noble, in relating his
conversation with Edwards; and upon a call from Edwards
to tell all the conversation, he had stated that Edwards
told him he had long expected this Mexican appointment;
that the President was in his power through the
means of Colonel Lane, and that Mr. Calhoun—
Here the witness was stopped by Mr. Livingston,
and Mr. Forsyth had agreed that it was not relevant.
Now this stopping of the testimony would operate worse
on the public mind than if everything had come out.
And come out it all ultimately must.
Calhoun said he believed so too, but that it should be
by the President’s acting directly upon Crawford.
It was impossible for an Administration in this country
to get along with one of its members in
secret and perpetual hostility against it.
This had been the case with Crawford
from 1816 down to this day.
And what had been for the last nine months
the situation of the Treasury?
No Secretary but Asbury Dickins; scarcely any papers
signed by Mr. Crawford—and a facsimile engraved,
and his daughter’s hand used, even for most of these.
I asked if these were facts.
They were said to be.
Did the President know what the
real management at the Treasury was?
He believed not.
Had the President any distrust of Mr. Crawford?
He believed he had now,
from what he had said this morning.
I said the President had never intimated to me
the slightest distrust of him to the President.
In the case of L. Harris, he had sworn to the thing that was
not, but I attributed it altogether to an error of memory.
I had two years ago put to the President certain questions
in writing, which he had promised me he would
answer in writing, but had not yet done so.
As the material fact was of the day when a thing was said,
I was afraid that his own memory
would not serve him to speak precisely.
But he would not, for he could not,
sustain the assertion of Crawford.
I had done everything that man could honestly do
to keep on terms with him.
But I expected it would ultimately not be possible.
He asked if the President could not now remove him.
I said, No, he could not, because, though for years
he had been giving ample cause for it, there was yet
nothing new upon which a case could be made out.
Much more conversation to this effect.25
President Monroe summoned the Cabinet to meet again on June 21,
and again Adams described the conversation in his Memoirs.
On June 22 the Cabinet met from eight in the morning to “half past nine in the evening.”
Adams described it in four pages, and this is the concluding paragraph:
The range of discussion this day was over the
whole history of Mr. Monroe’s Administration,
and to the deadly opposition against it by
Mr. Crawford’s partisans from the Seminole War debates
down to the ratification of the Slave-Trade Convention.
The President said he thought Mr. Crawford had not
sufficiently discountenanced this warfare,
but that he had once shown him a reply from Cobb
to a letter from Crawford to him, which indicated
that Crawford had disapproved the Trio attack of 1821.
I came home this evening so much exhausted
by the labor of the day that I was unable to write.26
On 10 July 1824 Adams in his Memoirs wrote this:
10th. At the President’s with letters
from the Slave Indemnity Commissioners.
Draft of answer to them.
Mr. Crawford’s health and facsimile.
Anderson’s report; speaks strongly of Mr. Crawford’s
rapid convalescence; refers the main question to the
President’s own observation upon an interview promised
by Mr. Crawford on the 8th, but he did not come.
Many warrants were paid without any signature
by Mr. Crawford; but after payment
the facsimile was applied to them.
P. U. S. said he would call upon Anderson
for a more specific report.27
Secretary of State Adams wrote this in his Memoirs on 31 July 1824:
31st. At eleven o’clock I went with Mr. Everett to the
President’s, who half an hour afterwards received the
deputations of Indians who have recently arrived in the city.
They are of six tribes, among the most savage
of the desert, part of them all but naked.
They were Saukeys or Sturgeons, Musqukeys or Foxes,
Piankesaws or Miamies, Pah-a-geser Ioways,
the people seem in a fog, Menomone or Wild Oats,
Chippeways, and Nacatas or Siouxs, the amiable people.
They speak five different languages,
and the discourse between the President and
them was rendered by as many interpreters.
For the Sauks and Foxes there was a double interpretation—
first into French and thence into English.
The President made a very short speech of
welcome to them, which was answered with
like brevity by a principal chief of each tribe.
There were among them three squaws
and one female child five or six years old.
In the speeches of the chiefs there was
much gravity and painful earnestness.
They were mostly painted red;
but one chief had his whole face colored with yellow ochre.
Mrs. Southard and Mrs. Wirt with their daughters and old
Mrs. Calhoun were there as spectators, and many others—
C. B. King the painter among the rest.
Messrs. Calhoun, Southard, and Wirt were present
as members of the Administration, and attended,
after the Indians were dismissed, a Cabinet meeting
at which the Convention signed by Mr. Middleton on the
17th of April, and others of his dispatches, were read.
The President was well satisfied with the Convention
and expressed his full approbation of the conduct
of Mr. Middleton in the negotiation of it.
But it is to be passed upon by the Senate at their
next session, and will have to encounter the same spirit
which was at work against the Slave-Trade Convention.
The confidential dispatch respecting the affairs
of South America and of Greece was likewise read.
Few remarks upon it were made.
The President said he would read over the other papers
and confer with me concerning them next week.28
On the same day Adams also described his daily activities in his Memoirs:
Day. I rise between five and six, and when the tide
serves, swim between one and two hours in the Potomac.
Breakfast about nine, then write or meditate
or receive visitors till one or two.
Attend at my office till six, then home to dine.
Take an evening walk of half an hour
and from ten to eleven retire to bed.
There are eight or ten newspapers of extensive
circulation published in various parts of the Union
acting in close concert with each other and pouring
forth continual streams of slander upon my character
and reputation, public and private.
No falsehood is too broad and no insinuation
too base for them, and a great portion of their
calumnies are of a nature that no person could
show or even assert their falsehood but myself.
As the President election approaches, numerous
correspondents from every quarter write me letters
professing good will or enquiring of my opinions
from men most of them entirely unknown to me.
I answer very few, and perhaps
ought to answer none of them.
Particular friends write to me by way of
consultation and of anxiety; and they can
seldom be answered with entire freedom.
The result is a great waste of time and of mental occupation
upon subjects personal to myself, to the necessary neglect
of public business and detriment to the public service.
I have no reason to hope to be released from
this state of trial for many months to come.
To pass through it with a pure heart and a firm spirit
is my duty and my prayer.29
Adams on August 16 wrote in his Memoirs:
16th. Mr. McLean, the Postmaster-General,
called at my house this morning.
He returned yesterday from his tour to Saratoga.
He says that De Witt Clinton thinks the majority of the
New York Legislature will choose a ticket of thirty-six
electors who will vote for Mr. Crawford; that a number
sufficient to make the majority will be bought with money,
and that the same men might be bought with money for
any purpose, and by any purchaser—even a foreign power.
He said this distinctly to McLean himself.
Now De Witt Clinton ought well to know
the people of New York and their Legislature.
He has himself applied for his own advancement
to the Presidency so much money
as to have ruined his own fortunes.
He has therefore no scruple against the use of money
for that purpose, and had perhaps in former times bought
some of the very individuals of whom he now speaks thus.
I hope better things and believe that corruption
has not yet quite arrived at that pitch.
That the Legislature of New York will sell the suffrage
of the State I think more than probable, and must find
satisfaction in the certainty that it will not be sold to me.30
On 27 August 1824 the candidate Adams wrote this in his Memoirs:
Mr. McLean, the Postmaster-General, called at my house.
I gave him a copy of my speech on the
Louisiana Appropriation bill, 3rd November 1803.
Dr. Watkins showed me a letter from a Mr. Brawner,
one of the candidates as an elector of President
and Vice-President in Maryland, which gives a
particular account of the exertions making by the partisans,
both of Mr. Crawford and of General Jackson,
to slander me and run down my reputation.
There is a common chime to the same purpose
in all the presses devoted to Crawford,
and in several devoted to Jackson.
About fifteen newspapers in various parts of the
United States, several of them daily papers,
others printed twice or three times a week, are and for
the ensuing four of five months at least will be, filled column
upon column with everything that truth, misrepresentation
or falsehood can supply to defame and disgrace me.
In passing through this ordeal, may the Spirit which has
hitherto sustained me still be my staff and guide!31
Adams on August 29 wrote this in his Memoirs:
29th. I passed an hour of the morning with the President,
conversing upon various subjects of public concernment—
our relations with the European powers:
Russia; Great Britain; France; those with South America,
and upon the question whether appointments shall now
be made to Buenos Aires and Mexico, and an Agent
to Guatemala, or whether they shall all be postponed.
I told him the substance of my conversations
lately with Baron Tuyl, at the purport of which
he expressed much satisfaction.
He approved particularly the observations
I had made upon the Baron’s enquiry whether
it would be advisable for him to write to Mr. Gallatin
concerning the Northwest Coast Convention.
He said that he did not suppose that Mr. Gallatin would
make any improper use of such a letter, but he would
perhaps endeavor to turn it to his account; he would
communicate it to his political friends and supporters,
and then it would be under their control and not his.32
On August 30 Adams wrote in his Memoirs:
30th. Dr. Thornton had left with me yesterday an
electioneering paper which he had written and proposed
to send and have distributed as handbills to the number
of fifteen hundred in the state of New York.
It was an argument against the election of Mr. Crawford
as President, founded upon the violent papers of the
Georgia delegation about the Cherokee Indians
at the last session of Congress, and of the
Governor of Georgia, Troup, then and since.
Thornton’s argument is from the character of these papers
to the danger of choosing a citizen of Georgia for President.
I told the Doctor that I wished he would not
publish that paper, for it was within my knowledge
that Mr. Crawford had disapproved of those papers
of the Georgia delegation, and had endeavored
to prevail upon them to take them back.
I could therefore not approve of the publication
of any paper which would represent
Mr. Crawford as responsible for them.
The Doctor took away his paper but brought it back again
this morning with an additional paragraph, stating that
Mr. Crawford, as the writer had since preparing the paper
been informed, had disapproved of the Georgia delegation
remonstrances; and then proceeding with an argument
that Mr. Crawford’s disapprobation had not been sincere.
I told the Doctor that this was worse than it had been
before, and very strongly remonstrated
against his making the publication at all.
Mr. G. B. English came again to urge the necessity
of appointing him to go out immediately to Gibraltar
to negotiate with the Capitan Pasha to save the
American property at Smyrna from seizure and
confiscation by the Turks in consequence of the
subscriptions from the United States in aid of the Greeks.
I referred him to the President.
At one o’clock I attended the President’s
and met Mr. Wirt there.
The discussion was upon the propriety of
making an immediate appointment of Ministers
to Mexico and Buenos Aires, and of an Agent to Guatemala;
and concerning the appointment of a District Judge
and District Attorney in Maryland.
The President himself strongly inclined and has certainly
been urged to make the appointments to South America;
but I thought it would be best to wait until October,
and perhaps even till the meeting of Congress,
before making any of them.
I said the effort made at the last session of Congress
to reduce the missions to South America would certainly
be renewed at the next, and probably with success.
If Ministers should be now appointed, it was highly probable
the appropriations to continue them would be denied,
and then it would assume the appearance of a reduction
achieved as a victory over the Administration.
The President said he had been ardently pressed to make
the appointment to Mexico on the ground that a Minister
from the United States would ensure the failure of Yturbide’s
new imperial expedition, which would otherwise succeed.
In this I had no faith, and the President determined finally
to postpone all the appointments to those missions.33
On the first day of September the candidate Adams wrote in his Memoirs:
Day. The distribution of my time differs
not from that of last month.
The bitterness and violence of Presidential
electioneering increase as the time advances.
The uncertainty of the event continues as great as ever.
It seems as if every liar and calumniator in the country
was at work day and night to destroy my character.
It does not surprise me, because I have seen the same
species of ribaldry year after year heaped upon my father,
and for a long time upon Washington.
But it is impossible to be wholly insensible
to this process while it is in operation.
It distracts my attention from public business
and consumes precious time.
I have finally concluded to take a month of holiday
to visit my father and dismiss care.34
On 10 November 1824 John Quincy Adams wrote about a
Cabinet meeting in his Memoirs, and here is the first part:
Washington, November 10th.—Cabinet meeting.
Present W. H. Crawford, J. C. Calhoun,
Samuel L. Southard, and J. Q. Adams.
Subject of consideration, the Slave-Trade
Convention with Great Britain.
I read the dispatches, No. 11 and 12 of the separate series
from R. Rush and my drafts of a public and of a secret and
confidential dispatch to him; also a note from Mr. Addington,
the British Chargé d’Affaires, announcing his receipt of a full
power to conclude a new Convention with the single addition
of the words “of America” to that sanctioned by the Senate.
The opinion was unanimous against acceding to the proposal
for concluding a new Convention—at least for the present.
Both my drafts were unanimously approved; the President
objecting slightly to the word “unseemliness,”
and suggesting the use of impropriety in its stead.
I altered the draft accordingly, having used the term
unseemliness only with reference to its having been used
by Mr. Canning himself, though afterwards withdrawn.
Mr. Crawford told twice over the story of President
Washington’s having at an early period of his Administration
gone to the Senate with a project of a treaty to be
negotiated, and been present at their deliberations upon it.
They debated it and proposed alterations,
so that when Washington left the Senate-chamber
he said he would be damned if he ever went there again.
And ever since that time treaties have been negotiated
by the Executive before submitting them
to the consideration of the Senate.
The President said he had come into the Senate
about eighteen months after the first organization
of the present Government, and then heard that
something like this had occurred.
Crawford then repeated the story,
varying the words, so as to say that Washington
swore he would never go to the Senate again.35
In the election from October 26 to December 2 all four candidates
were in the Democratic-Republican party.
John C. Calhoun ran for Vice President with Jackson and Adams and got 182 electoral votes.
Andrew Jackson had the most popular votes with 151,309 and 99 electoral votes
and was followed by John Quincy Adams with 122,440 and 84 electoral votes;
Henry Clay had 48,606 and 37 electoral votes,
and William H. Crawford got 41,222 and 41 electoral votes.
Adams noted that because Jackson got all five of Louisiana’s electoral votes,
that helped Crawford get 41 electoral votes to 37 for Clay.
Because no candidate had a majority, according to the 12th amendment to the Constitution,
the election would be moved into the House of Representatives with each state having one vote.
In December 1824 Robert P. Letcher, a Congressman from Kentucky, supported
Henry Clay and contacted John Quincy Adams about differences they had on the Trent Treaty.
Adams on 17 December 1824 had written in his Memoirs:
Letcher wished to know what my sentiments
towards Clay were, and I told him without disguise
that I harbored no hostility against him;
that whatever of difference there had been between us
had arisen altogether from him, and not from me.
I adverted to Jonathan Russell’s attack upon me, which,
I said, I believed Clay had been privy to and countenanced.
But, having completely repelled that attack,
I felt no animosity against any person concerned in it.
Letcher said Clay’s friends thought he had been wrong
in his letter against me concerning that affair.
It was written in a moment of excitement.
He was sure Clay felt now no hostility to me.
He had spoken respectfully of me
and was a man of sincerity.
Of the fourteen electors of Kentucky, seven voted
for Calhoun as Vice-President, and this vote I thought,
and Letcher fully concurred in the opinion, was more hostile
to Clay than any vote for Jackson as President could be.
It held up Calhoun as a future competitor against Clay,
and thereby postponed all his prospects indefinitely.
The drift of all Letcher’s discourse was much the same as
Wyer had told me, that Clay would willingly support me
if he could thereby serve himself, and the substance of his
meaning was that if Clay’s friends could know that he would
have a prominent share in the Administration, that might
induce them to vote for me, even in the face of instructions.
But Letcher did not profess to have any authority from Clay
for what he said, and he made no definite propositions.
He spoke of his interview with me as altogether confidential,
and in my answers to him I spoke in mere general terms.36
On 22 December 1824 candidate John Quincy Adams wrote in his Memoirs:
22nd. Visit from Mr. James Barbour, Senator
from Virginia, with whom I had a confidential
conversation of more than two hours upon
the prospects of the Presidential election.
He spoke at first of papers relating to the piracies,
which I had sent him as Chairman of the Committee
of Foreign Relations of the Senate, and for copies
of which there is now a call by resolution of that body.
He soon, however, introduced the other topic,
and freely stated to me his own impressions,
and what he believed to be those of a majority of the
Virginia delegation in the House of Representatives.
Their first choice had been Mr. Crawford.
The electors of the State had voted for him, and a
majority of the people of the State were favorable to him.
The representation of the State in the House would vote
at first for him, and adhere to him as long as they could
hope for success; but, if they should find that impracticable,
their next preference would be for me.
He had no doubt this was the feeling of the people
of the State; that I was much more popular there
than General Jackson, or even than Mr. Clay,
though he was one of their own natives.
He said he thought it would be treason to the
Constitution to hold out and prevent an election
by the House until the 4th of March, so as to
give the actual Presidency to the Vice President.
He asked if I thought my friends in the House
would not, if they must make a choice,
prefer Mr. Crawford to General Jackson.
I said I believe they would not make an option,
but would adhere to me until they should obtain a majority
of States, or that one should be made against them.
He said something about a moral majority of votes
in New York for Mr. Crawford; but he did not press
much this argument, nor did I think
it deserved waste of time in refuting it.
He spoke of my letter jointly with Mr. Calhoun,
Mr. McLean, and Mr. Wirt, relative to the 5th of July dinner,
as having produced an impression against me very strong
in Virginia, by its appearance as if I had joined
in a combination against Mr. Crawford.
I gave him the same explanation of that event as I had
already given to A. Dickins—assuring him that I had on that
occasion not acted in hostility to Mr. Crawford, but to avoid
being made to partake in a public insult to Mr. Edwards.
I said that if it was to do over again,
I thought I should do the same.
I had been placed in a difficult situation,
and if I had erred, it had been an error of judgment,
and not of intention hostile to Mr. Crawford.
He then, passing to matters of greater importance,
enquired of my sentiments concerning the tariff and internal
improvements, which I gave him with perfect candor.
I said that the ultimate principle of my system
with reference to the great interests of the country
was conciliation and not collision.
I was satisfied with the tariff as now established,
and should if any change in it should be desired,
incline rather to reduce than to increase it.
There was in my opinion no constitutional
question involved in the discussion.
The revenue was abundant, and the protection to
manufactures adequate to their fair claims for support;
and if the tariff should be found to bear hard
upon the agricultural and commercial interests,
I should incline to an alleviation of it in their favor.
As to internal improvements, my opinions had been
published in most of the newspapers, in extracts
of letters from me, and had no doubt been seen by him.
Since the Act of Congress establishing the Cumberland Road,
there had been no constitutional question
worth disputing about involved in the discussion.
It was certainly a great power to be exercised by Congress,
and perhaps liable to great abuses.
So were all the other great powers of Congress, and the
control over it was in the organization of the Government,
the elective franchise, the State authorities,
and the good sense and firmness of the people.
Upon these subjects we had much discourse,
and he left me with the impression that
the interview had been entirely satisfactory to him.37
John Quincy Adams attended a Cabinet meeting on December 24
and wrote this account in his Memoirs:
24th. There was a Cabinet meeting, attended by
Messrs. Crawford, Calhoun, and Southard upon
Commodore Porter’s descent upon the island of Porto Rico,
and Captain Creighton’s correspondence at Naples.
I dined with Baron Tuyl, the Russian Minister,
it being the Emperor of Russia’s birthday;
and attended a ball at Mr. Calhoun’s.
Plumer mentioned to me conversations which he has had
with Webster since his return from Virginia, and with
Louis McLane, the member of the House from Delaware.
Webster’s information referred to the opinions of
Mr. Jefferson upon the principal topic of the time.
McLane’s disclose the chief motives to his conduct,
and his own apprehensions in eventual contingencies.
Tracy consulted me with reference to his being
supported as a candidate for the Senate
from New York, in the place of R. King.
Ambrose Spencer will in all probability be chosen.
The Cabinet meeting was remarkable.
Porter’s descent upon Porto Rico was a direct hostile
invasion of the island, utterly unjustifiable.
The question was, whether he should be immediately
recalled and tried, or merely be written to by the Secretary
of the Navy with a demand of immediate explanation.
The President inclined to immediate recall; Mr. Crawford,
Mr. Calhoun, and Mr. Southard, merely to ask explanations.
I concurred with the President, with a view to discussion.
And in assigning my reasons, observing that it was one of
the most high-handed acts that I had ever heard of,
Mr. Crawford with strong excitement said that General
Jackson’s proceedings in Florida had been ten times worse.
I barely replied that I did not think it a proper occasion for
discussing the proceedings of General Jackson in Florida.
It was at last concluded that Mr. Southard
should prepare a letter to Porter, upon which
the President would determine what to do.
There were several exceptionable things in the
conduct of Creighton, and a formal complaint
against him by the Neapolitan Government.
There was a strong disposition to recall him,
the propriety of which, however, I questioned.
This also was left undecided.
The dinner at Baron Tuyl’s was,
as usual on this occasion, diplomatic and formal.
Mr. Gaillard, President of the Senate, and Mr. Clay,
Speaker of the House of Representatives, were there.
At Mr. Calhoun’s, Mr. Lloyd of Massachusetts,
spoke to me of the Northwest Coast Convention with
Russia as if he intended to oppose it in the Senate.38
On 31 December 1824 John Quincy Adams wrote in his Memoirs:
31st. At one o’clock I presented to the President
Mr. Obregon, the Mexican Minister, who delivered
the letter from the President of the Mexican republic,
announcing the establishment of the Constitution,
and the election of him, Guadalupe Victoria,
as President, and Nicholas Bravo as Vice-President.
Mr. Montoya, the Secretary of the Legation,
was with the Minister.
Mr. Obregon delivered the letter without making any
address, and the President only said it was an event the
communication of which he received with great satisfaction.
The audience lasted not more than five minutes.
The President, to determine upon attending
at the dinner to be given by the members
of Congress to La Fayette tomorrow.
I advised him to go.
Mr. Hay was with him.
Wyer came to talk about Scott of Missouri
and his hostility to me.39
Notes
1. Memoirs of Comprising Portions of His Diary from 1795 to 1848
by John Quincy Adams, Volume VI ed. Charles Francis Adams, p. 227.
2. Ibid., p. 229.
3. Ibid., p. 230-231.
4. Diary of John Quincy Adams 1794-1845, ed. Allan Nevins, p. 314.
5. Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, Volume VI, p. 234-235.
6. Ibid., p. 235-238.
7. Ibid., p. 238-240.
8. Ibid., p. 241-242.
9. Ibid., p. 244.
10. Ibid., p. 244-247.
11. Ibid., p. 252-253.
12. Ibid., p. 254-256.
13. John Quincy Adams: A Man for the Whole People by Randall Woods, p. 577.
14. Ibid., p. 258-259.
15. Ibid., p. 268-269.
16. Ibid., p. 271-272.
17. Ibid., p. 273.
18. Ibid., p. 273-274.
19. Ibid., p. 289-290.
20. Ibid., p. 310-311.
21. Ibid., p. 312-313.
22. Ibid., p. 323-324.
23. Ibid., p. 353-354.
24. Ibid., p. 375.
25. Ibid., p. 386-388.
26. Ibid., p. 395.
27. Ibid., p. 399-400.
28. Ibid., p. 402-403.
29. Ibid., p. 403-404.
30. Ibid., p. 408.
31. Ibid., p. 412-413.
32. Ibid., p. 413.
33. Ibid., p. 413-415.
34. Ibid., p. 415.
35. Ibid., p. 426-427.
36. Ibid., p. 447.
36. Ibid., p. 450-452.
38. Ibid., p. 453-454.
39. Ibid., p. 456.
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