John Quincy Adams was strongly influenced by Cicero and enlightenment philosophers.
He was fluent in seven languages and had translated
Christoph Martin Wieland’s romance Oberon from German.
On 18 January 1825 Henry Clay agreed to be Secretary of State
for Adams, who wrote in this Memoirs:
18th. Dr. Thornton called this morning to give me
some information respecting the prospects of the election.
It respected the Kentucky and Ohio delegations
and concurred with what I had heard before.
Mr. S. L. Southard came to ask for the papers
he had left with me yesterday, of which
Mr. Kirkpatrick wishes to take copies.
I gave them to him.
He then asked me some questions respecting the election,
upon which I spoke to him with entire confidence.
I asked him if he wished me so to speak to him,
and he said he did.
I told him of the present state of things so far as
it is known to myself; of the present prospect that
a majority of the friends of Mr. Clay and Mr. Crawford
would finally vote for me, but that the whole of
the aspect may be changed from day to day.
I mentioned the doubtful situation both of the
New York and Virginia delegations, and how they
will be liable to be swayed by the slightest incident
which may occur between this and the day of election.
And I informed him of the exertions made and making
by De Witt Clinton, both in the State of New York
and with its delegation here, to secure the election
of General Jackson—particularly that he had
written to General Van Rensselaer and spoken
to M. Hayden to prevail on them to vote for him.
I observed that he had an agent here, acting for him
as far as he could, and through whom I believed
he had influenced the election in New Jersey.
Southard said he had no doubt he had.
He repeated that he himself had been deeply
mortified at the result of the election in New Jersey
and was sure that it did not express the voice
of the feeling of the people of that State.
He said that when he came into the Administration,
he had no particular regard for me;
that his sentiment towards me was one of indifference,
he had perhaps some prepossessions against me;
but for the last twelve months he trusted
I had no doubt of his friendly disposition to me.
I said I had not.
Of the New Jersey delegation, he thought there were
three in my favor—Matlack, Condit, and Swan, or Garrison.
I told him I had heard the vote of the State
would depend upon Dr. Holcombe.
I told him that from the relations existing between us,
I should need his friendly advice, whatever the event
of the election might be; that until very recently
I had not expected it would be necessary for me
to anticipate the event of my election as one for which
it would be proper for me even to be prepared.
Doubtful and uncertain as it now is, I must yet think of it
as a contingency upon which I may be called to act.
I should in that event rely upon his continuing
in the station which he now holds, and from the
moment of the election, and perhaps before,
should frequently want the assistance of his counsel.
He said that he should at all times be glad to give it, and
that he was glad I had made this communication to him.1
On 24 January 1825 politicians in Kentucky had decided to
support John Quincy Adams for President of the United States.
Yet most of the people in the Western states
were supporting Andrew Jackson for President.
Powerful Henry Clay of Kentucky had decided to back Adams instead of Jackson.
On January 25 Adams wrote in his Memoirs:
There is at this moment a very high state of excitement
in the House, Mr. Clay and the majority of the Ohio and
Kentucky delegations having yesterday unequivocally
avowed their determination to vote for me.
This immediately produced an approximation of the
Calhoun, Crawford, and Jackson partisans,
and will effectually knit the coalition
of the South with Pennsylvania….
Plumer had yesterday a conversation with L. McLane of
Delaware, who told him they would overthrow the Capitol
sooner than he would vote for Jackson, but who professed
an intention almost as decided not to vote for me.
The impression almost universal made yesterday was
that the election was settled in my favor; but the result
of the counter-movement will be the real crisis,
and I have little doubt that will be decisive the other way.
My situation will be difficult and trying
beyond my powers of expression.
May but my strength be proportioned to my trial!2
The House of Representatives voted for President on 9 February 1825.
The run-off election in the House of Representatives with each State having one vote
for President was between Jackson, Adams, and Crawford instead of Clay,
who hated Jackson and persuaded the House members
in Kentucky, Missouri, and Ohio to vote for Adams.
Although Jackson in the popular voting had won in Illinois, Louisiana, and Maryland,
those states in the House chose to vote for Adams which gave him
a majority with 13 votes to 7 for Jackson and 4 for Crawford.
Jackson held a grudge against Clay for the rest of his life.
Jackson won the votes of all the members in 7 states. Adams won all the members
in 10 states, and he won New York 18 to 2, Ohio 10 to 2, and Maryland 5 to 1,
giving him 13 states and the Presidency.
On 9 February candidate Adams wrote this in his Memoirs:
9th. May the blessing of God rest upon the event of this
day!—the second Wednesday in February, when the election
of a President of the United States for the term of four
years, from the 4th of March next, was consummated.
Of the votes in the electoral colleges, there were ninety-nine
for Andrew Jackson of Tennessee; eighty-four for
John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts; forty-one for
William Harris Crawford of Georgia; and thirty-seven for
Henry Clay of Kentucky: in all two hundred and sixty-one.
This result having been announced, on opening and counting
the votes in joint meeting of the two Houses, the House of
Representatives immediately proceeded to the vote by ballot
from the highest candidates, when John Quincy Adams
received the votes of thirteen, Andrew Jackson of seven,
and William H. Crawford of four States.
The election was completed very
unexpectedly by a single ballot.
Alexander H. Everett gave me the first notice, both of the
issue of the votes of the electoral colleges as announced
in the joint meeting, and of the final vote as declared….
After dinner the Russian Minister, Baron Tuyl,
called to congratulate me upon the issue of the election.
I attended with Mrs. Adams
the drawing-room at the President’s.
It was crowded to overflowing.
General Jackson was there, and we shook hands.
He was altogether placid and courteous.
I received numerous friendly salutations.
D. Webster asked me when I could receive the
committee of the House to announce my election.
I appointed tomorrow noon at my own house.
The committee consists of Webster,
Vance of Ohio, and Archer of Virginia.
I asked S. L. Southard, the Secretary of the Navy,
to call on me tomorrow morning at ten o’clock.
Mr. Daniel Brent called on me this morning and said that
Mr. John Lee, member from Maryland, had told him that
he should at the first ballot be obliged to vote for Jackson,
but if the election should not be completed this day,
he would come and see me tomorrow morning.
He was disposed to give me his vote, but wished
some explanation from me of certain passages of
my oration delivered on the 4th of July 1821,
which had been offensive to the Roman Catholics.
I said I would very readily see and converse on this subject
with Mr. Lee, regretting that anything I had ever said in
public should have hurt the religious feelings of any person.
Dr. Watkins came likewise and expressed
much confidence in the issue that took place,
but urging me, if it should be otherwise,
and I should attend the drawing-room this evening,
to carry a firm and confident countenance with me, and
remarking that a bold outside was often a herald to success.
There was fortunately no occasion for this little artifice.
I enclosed Mr. R. King’s note with a letter of three lines
to my father, asking for his blessing and prayers
on the event of this day, the most important day of my life,
and which I close as it began with supplications to the
Father of mercies that its consequences may redound
to His glory and to the welfare of my country.
After I returned from the drawing-room, a band of
musicians came and serenaded me at my house.
It was past midnight when I retired.3
On 10 February 1825 Adams received this Notification of Election:
Mr. Webster, from the committee appointed for that
purpose yesterday, reported that the committee had waited
on John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts and had notified
him that in the recent election of a President of the
United States, no person having received a majority of the
votes of all the electors appointed, and the choice having
consequently devolved upon the House of Representatives,
that House, proceeding in the manner prescribed by the
Constitution, did yesterday choose him to be President of the
United States for four years, commencing on the 4th day of
March next, and that the committee had received a written
answer, which he presented to the House.
Mr. Webster also reported that in further performance
of its duty the committee had given the
information of this election to the President.
Also on that day John Quincy Adams sent this response:
Reply of the President Elect.
GENTLEMEN: In receiving this testimonial from
the Representatives of the people and States of
this Union I am deeply sensible to the
circumstances under which it has been given.
All my predecessors in the high station to which the
favor of the House now calls me have been honored with
majorities of the electoral voices in their primary colleges.
It has been my fortune to be placed by the divisions of
sentiment prevailing among our countrymen on this
occasion in competition, friendly and honorable, with
three of my fellow-citizens, all justly enjoying in eminent
degrees the public favor, and of whose worth, talents,
and services no one entertains a higher and
more respectful sense than myself.
The names of two of them were, in the fulfillment of the
provisions of the Constitution, presented to the selection
of the House in concurrence with my own—
names closely associated with the glory of the nation,
and one of them further recommended by a larger minority,
of the primary electoral suffrages than mine.
In this state of things, could my refusal to accept the trust
thus delegated to me give an immediate opportunity
to the people to form and to express with a nearer
approach to unanimity the object of their preference,
I should not hesitate to decline the acceptance of this
eminent charge and to submit the decision of this
momentous question again to their determination.
But the Constitution itself has not so disposed of the
contingency which would arise in the event of my refusal.
I shall therefore repair to the post assigned me by the call
of my country, signified through her constitutional organs,
oppressed with the magnitude of the task before me,
but cheered with the hope of that generous support from
my fellow-citizens which, in the vicissitudes of a life devoted
to their service, has never failed to sustain me, confident in
the trust that the wisdom of the legislative councils will guide
and direct me in the path of my official duty, and relying
above all upon the superintending providence of that Being
in whose hands our breath is and whose are all our ways.
Gentlemen, I pray you to make acceptable to the House
the assurance of my profound gratitude for their confidence,
and to accept yourselves my thanks for the friendly terms
in which you have communicated to me their decision.4
Again on February 10 President Adams wrote in his Memoirs:
10th. Mr. Southard called, as I had requested at ten.
I invited him to remain at the head of the Navy Department;
to which he consented.
I told him that I should offer the Department of State
to Mr. Clay and should invite Mr. Crawford
to remain in the Department of the Treasury.
I read to him the answer which I had written
for the notification which I expected.
He suggested a very judicious objection
to one passage of it, which I altered.5
On 18 February 1825 Henry Clay agreed to be
Secretary of State for the Adams Administration.
On that day former President John Adams sent this letter to his son,
the President-elect John Quincy Adams:
I have received your letter of the 9th.
Never did I feel so much solemnity as upon this occasion.
The multitude of my thoughts and the intensity
of my feelings are too much for a mind
like mine in its ninetieth year.
May the blessings of God Almighty continue to protect you
to the end of your life, as it has heretofore protected you
in so remarkable a manner from your cradle!
I offer the same prayer for your lady and your family.6
On February 21 President-elect Adams asked Senator
James Barbour of Virginia to be Secretary of War.
Barbour accepted and assured Adams that
he would seek “conciliation and not collision.”
John Quincy Adams was also elected president of the American Academy of
Arts and Sciences and of the American Bible Society which he accepted because of
his interest in the views of Unitarians and his opposition to fundamentalist evangelicals.
In February 1824 South America’s Liberator Simón Bolívar invited
American states to send leaders to his league of neighbors,
and a translation of his appeal was published in the National Intelligencer.
In his long inaugural address on 4 March 1825 President John Quincy Adams said,
In compliance with a usage coeval with the existence
of our Federal Constitution, and sanctioned by the example
of my predecessors in the career upon which I am about
to enter, I appear, my fellow-citizens, in your presence
and in that of Heaven to bind myself by the solemnities of
religious obligation to the faithful performance of the duties
allotted to me in the station to which I have been called.
In unfolding to my countrymen the principles by which
I shall be governed in the fulfillment of those duties my
first resort will be to that Constitution which I shall swear
to the best of my ability to preserve, protect, and defend.
That revered instrument enumerates the powers and
prescribes the duties of the Executive Magistrate,
and in its first words declares the purposes to which
these and the whole action of the Government instituted
by it should be invariably and sacredly devoted—to form
a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic
tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote
the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty
to the people of this Union in their successive generations.
Since the adoption of this social compact
one of these generations has passed away.
It is the work of our forefathers.
Administered by some of the most eminent men who
contributed to its formation, through a most eventful period
in the annals of the world, and through all the vicissitudes of
peace and war incidental to the condition of associated man,
it has not disappointed the hopes and aspirations
of those illustrious benefactors of their age and nation.
It has promoted the lasting welfare of that country so dear
to us all; it has to an extent far beyond the ordinary lot of
humanity secured the freedom and happiness of this people.
We now receive it as a precious inheritance from those
to whom we are indebted for its establishment,
doubly bound by the examples which they have
left us and by the blessings which we have enjoyed
as the fruits of their labors to transmit the same
unimpaired to the succeeding generation.
In the compass of thirty-six years since this
great national covenant was instituted a body
of laws enacted under its authority and in conformity
with its provisions has unfolded its powers and
carried into practical operation its effective energies.
Subordinate departments have distributed the
executive functions in their various relations to
foreign affairs, to the revenue and expenditures,
and to the military force of the Union by land and sea.
A coordinate department of the judiciary has expounded
the Constitution and the laws, settling in harmonious
coincidence with the legislative will numerous weighty
questions of construction which the imperfection of
human language had rendered unavoidable.
The year of jubilee since the first formation of our Union
has just elapsed; that of the declaration
of our independence is at hand.
The consummation of both was effected by this Constitution.
Since that period a population of
four millions has multiplied to twelve.
A territory bounded by the Mississippi
has been extended from sea to sea.
New States have been admitted to the Union in numbers
nearly equal to those of the first Confederation.
Treaties of peace, amity, and commerce have been
concluded with the principal dominions of the earth.
The people of other nations, inhabitants of regions
acquired not by conquest, but by compact,
have been united with us in the participation
of our rights and duties, of our burdens and blessings.
The forest has fallen by the ax of our woodsmen;
the soil has been made to teem by the tillage of our
farmers; our commerce has whitened every ocean.
The dominion of man over physical nature
has been extended by the invention of our artists.
Liberty and law have marched hand in hand.
All the purposes of human association have been
accomplished as effectively as under any other government
on the globe, and at a cost little exceeding in a whole
generation the expenditure of other nations in a single year.
Such is the unexaggerated picture of our condition
under a Constitution founded upon the
republican principle of equal rights.
To admit that this picture has its shades is but to say
that it is still the condition of men upon earth.
From evil—physical, moral, and political—
it is not our claim to be exempt.
We have suffered sometimes by the visitation of Heaven
through disease; often by the wrongs and injustice of
other nations, even to the extremities of war; and, lastly,
by dissensions among ourselves—dissensions perhaps
inseparable from the enjoyment of freedom, but which
have more than once appeared to threaten the dissolution
of the Union, and with it the overthrow of all the enjoyments
of our present lot and all our earthly hopes of the future.
The causes of these dissensions have been various,
founded upon differences of speculation in the
theory of republican government; upon conflicting
views of policy in our relations with foreign nations;
upon jealousies of partial and sectional interests,
aggravated by prejudices and prepossessions
which strangers to each other are ever apt to entertain.
It is a source of gratification and of encouragement
to me to observe that the great result of this
experiment upon the theory of human rights
has at the close of that generation by which
it was formed been crowned with success equal
to the most sanguine expectations of its founders.
Union, justice, tranquility, the common defense,
the general welfare, and the blessings of liberty—
all have been promoted by the Government
under which we have lived.
Standing at this point of time, looking back to that
generation which has gone by and forward to that
which is advancing, we may at once indulge
in grateful exultation and in cheering hope.
From the experience of the past
we derive instructive lessons for the future.
Of the two great political parties which have divided the
opinions and feelings of our country, the candid and the just
will now admit that both have contributed splendid talents,
spotless integrity, ardent patriotism, and disinterested
sacrifices to the formation and administration of this
Government, and that both have required a liberal
indulgence for a portion of human infirmity and error.
The revolutionary wars of Europe, commencing precisely
at the moment when the Government of the United States
first went into operation under this Constitution,
excited a collision of sentiments and of sympathies
which kindled all the passions and imbittered the
conflict of parties till the nation was involved
in war, and the Union was shaken to its center.
This time of trial embraced a period of
five and twenty years, during which the policy of
the Union in its relations with Europe constituted
the principal basis of our political divisions and the most
arduous part of the action of our Federal Government.
With the catastrophe in which the wars of the
French Revolution terminated, and our own
subsequent peace with Great Britain,
this baneful weed of party strife was uprooted.
From that time no difference of principle,
connected either with the theory of government
or with our intercourse with foreign nations, has existed or
been called forth in force sufficient to sustain a continued
combination of parties or to give more than wholesome
animation to public sentiment or legislative debate.
Our political creed is, without a dissenting voice that
can be heard, that the will of the people is the source
and the happiness of the people the end of all legitimate
government upon earth; that the best security for the
beneficence and the best guaranty against the abuse of
power consists in the freedom, the purity, and the frequency
of popular elections; that the General Government of the
Union and the separate governments of the States are all
sovereignties of limited powers, fellow-servants of the
same masters, uncontrolled within their respective spheres,
uncontrollable by encroachments upon each other;
that the firmest security of peace is the preparation
during peace of the defenses of war; that a rigorous
economy and accountability of public expenditures
should guard against the aggravation and alleviate
when possible the burden of taxation;
that the military should be kept in strict subordination
to the civil power; that the freedom of the press
and of religious opinion should be inviolate;
that the policy of our country is peace,
and the ark of our salvation union are
articles of faith upon which we are all now agreed.
If there have been those who doubted whether a
confederated representative democracy were a government
competent to the wise and orderly management of the
common concerns of a mighty nation, those doubts have
been dispelled; if there have been projects of partial
confederacies to be erected upon the ruins of the Union,
they have been scattered to the winds; if there have been
dangerous attachments to one foreign nation and
antipathies against another, they have been extinguished.
Ten years of peace, at home and abroad, have assuaged
the animosities of political contention and blended into
harmony the most discordant elements of public opinion.
There still remains one effort of magnanimity,
one sacrifice of prejudice and passion, to be made
by the individuals throughout the nation who have
heretofore followed the standards of political party.
It is that of discarding every remnant of rancor against
each other, of embracing as countrymen and friends,
and of yielding to talents and virtue alone that confidence
which in times of contention for principle was bestowed
only upon those who bore the badge of party communion.
The collisions of party spirit which originate
in speculative opinions or in different views
of administrative policy are in their nature transitory.
Those which are founded on geographical divisions,
adverse interests of soil, climate, and modes
of domestic life are more permanent,
and therefore, perhaps, more dangerous.
It is this which gives inestimable value to the character
of our Government, at once federal and national.
It holds out to us a perpetual admonition to preserve
alike and with equal anxiety the rights of each
individual State in its own government and the
rights of the whole nation in that of the Union.
Whatsoever is of domestic concernment,
unconnected with the other members of the Union
or with foreign lands, belongs exclusively to
the administration of the State governments.
Whatsoever directly involves the rights and interests
of the federative fraternity or of foreign powers
is of the resort of this General Government.
The duties of both are obvious in the general principle,
though sometimes perplexed with difficulties in the detail.
To respect the rights of the State governments
is the inviolable duty of that of the Union;
the government of every State will feel its own obligation
to respect and preserve the rights of the whole.
The prejudices everywhere too commonly entertained
against distant strangers are worn away, and the
jealousies of jarring interests are allayed by the composition
and functions of the great national councils annually
assembled from all quarters of the Union at this place.
Here the distinguished men from every section of our
country, while meeting to deliberate upon the great interests
of those by whom they are deputed, learn to estimate
the talents and do justice to the virtues of each other.
The harmony of the nation is promoted, and the whole
Union is knit together by the sentiments of mutual respect,
the habits of social intercourse, and the ties of personal
friendship formed between the representatives of its several
parts in the performance of their service at this metropolis.
Passing from this general review of the purposes
and injunctions of the Federal Constitution and their
results as indicating the first traces of the path of duty
in the discharge of my public trust, I turn to the
Administration of my immediate predecessor as the second.
It has passed away in a period of profound peace,
how much to the satisfaction of our country and
to the honor of our country's name is known to you all.
The great features of its policy, in general concurrence
with the will of the Legislature, have been to cherish peace
while preparing for defensive war; to yield exact justice
to other nations and maintain the rights of our own;
to cherish the principles of freedom and of equal rights
wherever they were proclaimed; to discharge with all
possible promptitude the national debt; to reduce within
the narrowest limits of efficiency the military force;
to improve the organization and discipline of the Army;
to provide and sustain a school of military science;
to extend equal protection to all the great interests of
the nation; to promote the civilization of the Indian tribes,
and to proceed in the great system of internal improvements
within the limits of the constitutional power of the Union.
Under the pledge of these promises, made by that eminent
citizen at the time of his first induction to this office, in his
career of eight years the internal taxes have been repealed;
sixty millions of the public debt have been discharged;
provision has been made for the comfort and relief of
the aged and indigent among the surviving warriors of
the Revolution; the regular armed force has been reduced,
and its constitution revised and perfected; the accountability
for the expenditure of public moneys has been made more
effective; the Floridas have been peaceably acquired,
and our boundary has been extended to the Pacific Ocean;
the independence of the southern nations of this hemisphere
has been recognized, and recommended by example and
by counsel to the potentates of Europe;
progress has been made in the defense of the country
by fortifications and the increase of the Navy, toward the
effectual suppression of the African traffic in slaves;
in alluring the aboriginal hunters of our land
to the cultivation of the soil and of the mind,
in exploring the interior regions of the Union,
and in preparing by scientific researches and
surveys for the further application of our national
resources to the internal improvement of our country.
In this brief outline of the promise and performance
of my immediate predecessor the line of duty
for his successor is clearly delineated.
To pursue to their consummation those purposes
of improvement in our common condition instituted
or recommended by him will embrace
the whole sphere of my obligations.
To the topic of internal improvement, emphatically urged
by him at his inauguration, I recur with peculiar satisfaction.
It is that from which I am convinced that the unborn millions
of our posterity who are in future ages to people this
continent will derive their most fervent gratitude to the
founders of the Union; that in which the beneficent action of
its Government will be most deeply felt and acknowledged.
The magnificence and splendor of their public works are
among the imperishable glories of the ancient republics.
The roads and aqueducts of Rome have been the admiration
of all after ages, and have survived thousands of years
after all her conquests have been swallowed up
in despotism or become the spoil of barbarians.
Some diversity of opinion has prevailed with regard
to the powers of Congress for legislation
upon objects of this nature.
The most respectful deference is due to doubts originating
in pure patriotism and sustained by venerated authority.
But nearly twenty years have passed since the
construction of the first national road was commenced.
The authority for its construction was then unquestioned.
To how many thousands of our countrymen
has it proved a benefit?
To what single individual has it ever proved an injury?
Repeated, liberal, and candid discussions in the
Legislature have conciliated the sentiments and
approximated the opinions of enlightened minds
upon the question of constitutional power.
I cannot but hope that by the same process of friendly,
patient, and persevering deliberation all
constitutional objections will ultimately be removed.
The extent and limitation of the powers of the General
Government in relation to this transcendently important
interest will be settled and acknowledged to the
common satisfaction of all, and every speculative
scruple will be solved by a practical public blessing.
Fellow-citizens, you are acquainted with the peculiar
circumstances of the recent election, which have resulted in
affording me the opportunity of addressing you at this time.
You have heard the exposition of the principles
which will direct me in the fulfillment of the high
and solemn trust imposed upon me in this station.
Less possessed of your confidence in advance
than any of my predecessors, I am deeply
conscious of the prospect that I shall stand
more and oftener in need of your indulgence.
Intentions upright and pure, a heart devoted to
the welfare of our country, and the unceasing
application of all the faculties allotted to me to her
service are all the pledges that I can give for the faithful
performance of the arduous duties I am to undertake.
To the guidance of the legislative councils, to the assistance
of the executive and subordinate departments,
to the friendly cooperation of the respective State
governments, to the candid and liberal support of the people
so far as it may be deserved by honest industry and zeal,
I shall look for whatever success may attend my public
service; and knowing that “except the Lord keep the city
the watchman wakes but in vain,” with fervent supplications
for His favor, to His overruling providence I commit
with humble but fearless confidence my own fate
and the future destinies of my country.7
After that oration the Federalist Chief Justice John Marshall
administered the oath of office to President Adams.
On 5 March 1825 President Adams wrote in his Memoirs:
5th. General Brown called on me early this morning to
enquire concerning the appointment of an Adjutant General.
I told him I should nominate Colonel Roger Jones;
with which he declared himself much gratified.
The office has been in substance three years vacant in
consequence of a difference between the President and the
Senate on the construction of the law reducing the army.
A multitude of visitors of congratulation,
and to take leave, absorbed the day.
James Barbour and S. L. Southard were here
immediately after breakfast; and among the visitors
were Mr. Macon, Senator from North Carolina,
and T. W. Cobb, Senator from Georgia.
An Administration was to be formed.
Soon after noon James Lloyd and Nathaniel Macon
came as a committee from the Senate, to notify me
that they were in session, ready to receive any
communication from me; to which
I answered that I should make them
a communication at an early hour this day.
On the evening of the 3rd, I had at about nine o’clock
received a note from Mr. Monroe, informing me that
he had shortly before received a letter from Mr. Crawford
resigning the office of Secretary of the Treasury.
I now sent by Daniel Brent, Chief Clerk of the Department
of State, a message to the Senate, nominating—
Henry Clay of Kentucky to be Secretary of State.
Richard Rush of Pennsylvania, Secretary of the Treasury.
James Barbour of Virginia,
Secretary of the Department of War.
Alexander Hill Everett of Massachusetts, Envoy
Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Spain.
Christopher Hughes of Maryland,
Chargé d’Affaires to the Netherlands.
Thomas Ludwell Lee Brent of Virginia,
Chargé d’Affaires to Portugal.
John M. Forbes of Massachusetts,
Chargé d’Affaires at Buenos Aires.
William Miller of North Carolina,
Chargé d’Affaires to Guatemala.
Condy Raguet of Pennyslvania,
Chargé d’Affaires to Brazil and
Lieutenant-Colonel Roger Jones,
Adjutant-General of the Army.
I sent at the same time four
other messages with nominations:
1. Officers of the Customs, whose commissions
are about expiring renominated.
2. Registrars of the Land Offices and Receivers
of public moneys, renominated.
3. Navy Agents.
4. Governor and Legislative Council of Florida;
certain Consuls; and others.
Most of the renominations had been already made
by Mr. Monroe, but as the commissions of the
incumbents would not expire within the term of his
Administration, the Senate had declined acting upon them.
Efforts had been made by some of the Senators to obtain
different nominations, and to introduce a principle of change
of rotation in office at the expiration of these commissions;
which would make the Government a perpetual
and unintermitting scramble for office.
A more pernicious expedient could
scarcely have been devised.
The office of Marshal for the district of Indiana
was that upon which the principal struggle was made.
John Vawter, the incumbent,
had been renominated by Mr. Monroe.
There was no complaint against him, but numerous
recommendations, especially from Senators,
of Noah Noble, a brother of the Senator from Indiana,
for the appointment; Mr. Noble the Senator
ostensibly taking no part in the canvas.8
His friend John Calhoun had been elected Vice-President.
On February 21 President Adams had chosen Senator James Barbour,
the former Governor of Virginia, to replace Calhoun as Secretary of War,
and he kept on another Virginian, William Wirt as Attorney General.
The new Secretary of the Treasury Richard Rush was from Pennsylvania.
Ohio judge John McLean remained as Postmaster General,
and he hired
Major Henry Lee who wrote editorials critical of
Adams and Henry Clay for the Washington Gazette.
Lee would become speechwriter for President Andrew Jackson in 1829.
Clay’s influence had made Adams President when the
1824 election was decided in the House of Representatives.
Adams appointed Clay as Secretary of State,
and Jackson accused Adams and Clay of making a corrupt bargain.
On 8 March 1824 President Adams wrote this in his Memoirs:
8th. Mr. Southard and Mr. Wirt came together upon the
objection started by the Comptroller Anderson to Southard’s
being appointed acting Secretary of the Treasury.
The difficulty was, to his issuing as Secretary
of the Treasury warrants upon his own
requisitions as Secretary of the Navy.
The Attorney-General was of opinion that the question
had been settled by the precedent in 1813 when
Mr. William Jones, being Secretary of the Navy,
was appointed acting Secretary of the Treasury,
when Mr. Gallatin went to Russia; and continued in that
capacity nine or ten months, the latter part of which while
Congress was in session; and there are warrants at the
Treasury signed by him upon his own requisitions.
The Comptroller Anderson, seeing the
evidence of this precedent, withdrew
his objection to Mr. Southard’s acting.9
John W. Taylor of New York again replaced Clay as Speaker of the House.
The US Congress was dominated by the supporters of Jackson, Crawford,
and Calhoun, and the Democratic Republicans were wary of Adams’ revival
of the federalism and nationalism of President Washington.
Adams pleased the Federalists by appointing Rufus King as minister to Britain.
Before leaving, King presented a plan for
African colonization funded by selling western land.
The Ohio legislature had passed a more comprehensive plan in January 1824,
and in 1825 this was supported by seven more free states and Delaware;
but six southern states condemned it as interfering with slavery.
They preferred westward expansion to spread slavery there
rather than
the expense of sending them to Africa.
With buildings designed by Thomas Jefferson the
University of Virginia began offering classes in March.
In April 1825 journeymen carpenters went on strike in Boston
complaining that they could not maintain a family on their current wages,
but they were opposed by the master carpenters and the builders.
President Adams on April 27 wrote in his Memoirs:
H. Clay reported the substance of his conversations
with Obregon, the Mexican, and Salazar, the Colombian
Minister, upon the proposal of a Congress of American
Ministers to be held at Panama next October.
Mr. Clay continues earnest in the desire that a
Minister should be appointed to attend this Congress.
Mr. Barbour urges many objections against it,
and on Mr. Wirt’s return from Baltimore
I propose to have a meeting of the members of the
Administration to consult upon the expediency of it.10
President Adams on the last day of April wrote in his Memoirs
and described his daily activities in the presidential mansion:
Day. Since my removal to the Presidential
Mansion I rise about five; read two chapters
of Scott’s Bible and Commentary and the
corresponding commentary of Hewlett;
then the morning newspapers and public papers from
the several Departments; write seldom and not enough;
breakfast an hour from nine to ten; then have a
succession of visitors upon business, in search of place,
solicitors for donations, or for mere curiosity,
from eleven till between four and five o’clock.
The heads of the Departments of course
occupy much of this time.
Between four and six I take a walk of three or four miles.
Dine from about half-past five till seven, and from dark till
about eleven I generally pass the evening in my chamber,
signing land-grants or blank patents, in the interval of which,
for the last ten days, I have brought up
three months of arrears in my diary index.
About eleven I retire to bed.
My evenings are not so free from interruption
as I had hoped and expected they would be,
nor have I the prospect of methodizing the
distribution of my time to my own satisfaction.
There is much to correct and reform,
and the precept of diligence is always timely.11
President Adams wrote in his Memoirs briefly about a Cabinet meeting on 7 May 1825:
7th. Cabinet meeting at two.
Clay, Barbour, and Southard present.
Wirt absent at Baltimore.
Clay strongly averse to any change.
Several letters and remonstrances received
against Barnes’s application.
Congress of American Ministers at Panama.
Clay and Barbour decidedly in favor of it.
Southard suggests objections but acquiesces.
Salazar and Obregon to be answered that we accede
generally to the proposal, but think that the meeting
cannot be held so early as next October.
Time will be necessary for arranging and agreeing
upon the objects of negotiation and modes of proceeding.
Critical condition of the island of Cuba.
Fisheries.
A vessel to be stationed for their protection
on the coasts of Maine and New Brunswick.
A garrison also to be stationed in Maine to preserve
the timber on the contested territory from depredation.
Governor Barbour, Secretary of War, to write
concerning it to the Governor of Maine.12
On May 10 Secretary of State Henry Clay sent a note to Henry Middleton asking him
to urge Tsar Alexander to persuade Spain to make peace with the new republics in America.
This was soon followed by similar appeals sent to the ministers of Britain and France.
President Adams on May 15 and 17 wrote
in his Memoirs about relations with the Creek Indians:
May 15th, 1825.—Chilly Mackintosh,
Colonel Mackintosh, Jim Tallazan.
These four Creek Indians called on me this morning before
breakfast with a letter from Governor Troup of Georgia,
and a talk sent by him to certain other Creek chiefs.
The letter, which is in a style similar to that which
the same personage used with Mr. Monroe,
announced to me the murder of the chief
called General Mackintosh, which was confirmed by Chilly,
who narrowly escaped himself with his life.
It was on Saturday, the 30th of last month, that a party of
about four hundred surrounded and set fire to his house,
and killed him and another chief, his next-door neighbor.
Troup charges Crowell, the Agent, with having
instigated this massacre, and vows revenge with
a spirit as ferocious as ever inspired any Creek Indian.
I told Chilly that I was deeply distressed
at these melancholy tidings, and would do all
that would be in my power for him; advising him
to call upon the Secretary of War tomorrow.
I stopped myself at his house as I was going to church,
and he being gone out, left the papers,
with word that I would call again after church.
I again called at Governor Barbour’s house and found him
at home, deeply affected at the intelligence from Georgia,
thinking Governor Troup a madman,
and very apprehensive of opposition.
I desired him to confer with these Indians tomorrow
morning, and ascertain what they wished to have done;
what disposable force may be directed to the
threatened part of Georgia; and what answer
should be given to Governor Troup….
Governor Barbour had further letters from
Governor Troup of Georgia with enclosures leading
to the expectation that within three days from the time
when they were written, a hostile incursion of
Creek Indians into Georgia was thought inevitable.
Barbour had prepared an answer to Troup’s first letter,
which has now become unsuitable.
Chilly Mackintosh has made written specific charges
against the Agent Crowell and presents various claims
for protection and indemnity, referring to the eighth
article of the Treaty of Indian Springs, which contains
a promise of protection, very insidiously introduced,
and the purport of which was certainly not considered by the
Senate when they advised to the ratification of the treaty.
I directed that Crowell should be suspended
from the Agency and called to answer to the
charges of Governor Troup and of Mackintosh.
In the meantime that a special temporary Agent should
be appointed; that General Brown should be consulted,
and General Gaines ordered to repair to the neighborhood
of the Creek territory and to wait there for instructions.
No report yet from Crowell.
The instant we begin to move, the want of money is felt:
the means of the Executive are so limited,
and the aspect of war is so menacing,
that I know not how we shall avoid the necessity
of calling Congress together in the midst of summer.13
On 19 May the Russian Minister Baron Tuyl visited John Quincy Adams
who wrote in his Memoirs about their conversation regarding Cuba:
Cuba was to the United States an object
of paramount commercial importance.
The capital employed in the trade was greater than that
with all the dominions of France; the tonnage employed
in it nearly equal to that with Great Britain.
We were content that it should remain in its present
condition under the dominion of Spain,
but enjoying a free trade with us.
If the Emperor Alexander should present these
considerations to Spain, founded as they are upon
a most important interest of Spain herself,
we cannot doubt that they would prove efficacious
by preserving to Spain two islands immensely valuable
to her by restoring general peace and by accomplishing
an arrangement adapted at once to the interests
of all the European and all the American powers.
I consented that he should communicate to Pozzo di Borgo
and to Count Lieven the substance of the instructions
to Mr. Middleton, but requested both for the safety of the
conveyance and to give me an opportunity of letting
Mr. Brown at Paris know that the Russian Ambassador there
would have the information that he would send this dispatch
by Mr. R. King, who is to sail from New York the 1st of June.
He readily agreed to this and said he would
communicate to me a copy of his dispatches
to the Ambassadors on this subject.
On leaving the Baron, I found Mr. Barbour,
the Secretary of War, in my cabinet.
He had this morning received intelligence
of the decease of his father at the age of ninety.
The importance of the public dispatches also received
this morning had alone induced him to come out.
He had further letters from the Governor of Georgia with
enclosures of false and fabricated intelligence, and two
letters of 2nd and 6th of May from the Agent Crowell.
The Little Prince, an eminent Creek chief, told Crowell
that the massacre of Mackintosh was only the execution
of a law of the tribe and disclaimed all intention
of hostile designs against any white man.
Mr. Barbour had a draft of instructions to General Gaines,
to which he proposed to add a supplementary letter
in consequence of these advices from Crowell.
Major Andrews is to be sent off as a special Agent tomorrow
with a contingent power to suspend Crowell, if necessary;
for in his second letter this Agent expresses an apprehension
that he might be charged by his enemies in Georgia with
being accessory to the slaughter of Mackintosh, and
most solemnly disclaims having had any knowledge of it.
I thought it would therefore be a harsh measure in this state
of things to suspend him positively, and might have a bad
effect upon the Indians themselves and urge them to
desperation, when they might otherwise be restrained.
I thought it advisable also that Gaines’s authority to act
by hostile measures should be expressly limited to the
protection of the Georgia frontier, or to the event that
the Indians who slew Mactintosh should continue embodied,
and continuing their outrages upon the other party.
Governor Troup’s measures have been
exceedingly hasty and intemperate.14
On May 20 John Quincy Adams wrote in his Memoirs:
The powers to Gaines are contingent upon
the continuance of outrage by the Indians.
Should they have dispersed, he is to assemble them in
council and urge upon them the necessity of carrying
the Treaty of Indian Springs into execution;
and an explicit warning is given to the Governor of Georgia
to postpone the surveying of the Territory, a design
to do which, prematurely proclaimed by the Governor
of Georgia as his motive for calling a session of the
Legislature, and with the sanction of Mackintosh to
the measure, ostentatiously displayed, was in all
probability the cause of the bloody proscription of that chief.
I begin to indulge a hope that a war may yet be avoided.
Mr. Hay has been several days in the city.
He spoke with much concern of the disturbances
among the Indians and in Georgia, and strongly
expressed the opinion that the Treaty of
Indian Springs ought not to have been ratified.
It ought never to have been made; but nothing could have
arrested the progress of this iniquity after the election of
two Georgians as Commissioners for negotiating the treaty.
They concluded a treaty directly in the face of their
instructions; but when the treaty came here,
the President could not withhold it from the Senate,
and when before the Senate, no one would take
the invidious task of exposing its injustice.
The Senate sanctioned its ratification without
giving it an examination, and I had no practicable
alternative but to ratify it accordingly.15
President Adams on May 25 wrote in his Memoirs:
Mr. Brent mentioned that Mr. Salazar, the
Colombian Minister, had received information
that the Commercial Treaty concluded by
Mr. Anderson had been ratified at Bogota,
and that Salazar was in daily expectation of receiving it.
In the absence of Mr. Clay I authorized Mr. Brent
to exchange the ratifications with Mr. Salazar.
Brent said Mr. Addington had expressed a willingness
that copies should be taken of the two papers
which he had left with him the day
before yesterday to be communicated to me.
They were the note of the Spanish Minister of
Foreign Affairs, Zea Bermudez, protesting against the
recognition by Great Britain of the independence of Mexico,
Colombia, and Buenos Aires, and the reply
of the British Secretary of State Canning.
I desired Mr. Brent to have copies of them made for me.16
The British West Indies had opened trade to American ships in 1824,
but in June 1825 they prohibited trade with the United States.
In July some liberals from the Congregational Church inspired by the sermons
of William Ellery Channing founded the American Unitarian Association.
President Adams would become a Unitarian in 1826.
Chief Black Hawk led the Sauks and Foxes,
and they made a treaty with the United States in August 1825.
That year the Arikara, Cheyenne, Crow, Mandan, Ponca,
and some Sioux also made treaties.
In August 1825 Creeks sold land in Georgia to the United States for $217,600
and a perpetual annuity of $20,000, but 24 leaders got most of the money.
In 1827 Creeks had land only in Alabama.
By 1825 Cherokees had law codes and prosperous farms,
and they got more schools in 1826.
In 1827 their government in northwestern Georgia
was based on the United States Constitution.
The Cherokee Phoenix began publishing in 1828.
In October 1825 the state legislature of Tennessee unanimously
nominated their Senator Andrew Jackson for the presidency in 1828.
On October 25 the 363-mile Erie Canal with 83 locks was completed enabling
ships to go from New York harbor by the Hudson River and the canal to
Albany, Utica, Syracuse, Rochester, and Buffalo by Lake Erie.
In a generation those cities would multiply their populations
by more than ten times as trade improved their lives.
General Simon Perkins founded the town of Akron in Ohio
at the highest point of an Erie and Ohio canal.
John Shulze had been elected Governor of Pennsylvania in 1823 with 58% of the votes.
After approving canals and the state’s first railroad he was re-elected in 1827 with 97%.
On November 21 Adams wrote in his Memoirs:
Barbour, James, S. W., who took back his
papers relating to Indian concerns—particularly
the draft of his report urging the necessity of
incorporating the Indians within our own system.
He mentioned having had a conversation with
Mr. Guillard, a Senator from South Carolina, who wished
that something conciliatory to the South might be said in the
message to calm their inquietudes concerning their slaves.
He wished something to sustain the friends of the
Administration against the overwhelming influence
of the Calhoun party, which they had been unable
to resist, and by which they were oppressed.
I said I should be glad to do anything in my power to
gratify Mr. Gaillard, but the Legislature of South Carolina
itself had put it out of my power to say anything soothing
to the South on that subject—by persisting in a law which
a Judge of the Supreme Court of the United States, himself
a native and inhabitant of South Carolina, had declared to
be in direct violation of the Constitution of the United States;
which the Attorney-General of the United States had
declared to infringe the rights of foreign nations,
against which the British Government had repeatedly
remonstrated, and upon which we had promised them
that the cause of complaint should be removed—
a proviso which the obstinate adherence of the Government
of South Carolina had not even answered the letter
from the Department of State transmitting to him the
complaint of the British Government against this law.
In this state of things, for me to say anything gratifying to
the feelings of the South Carolinians on this subject would
be to abandon the ground taken by the Administration of
Mr. Monroe, and disable us from taking hereafter measures
concerning the law, which we may be compelled to take.
To be silent is not to interfere with any State rights; and not
to interfere renounces no right of ourselves or others.17
On 6 December 1825 in his first annual message to Congress President Adams
declared that “liberty is power” and that “the spirit of improvement is abroad on the earth.”
He asked for funds to support his national projects
and internal improvements especially roads and canals.
Here is his entire message which describes the intentions of his administration:
Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and
of the House of Representatives:
In taking a general survey of the concerns of our
beloved country, with reference to subjects interesting to
the common welfare, the first sentiment which impresses
itself upon the mind is of gratitude to the Omnipotent
Disposer of All Good for the continuance of the signal
blessings of His providence, and especially for that health
which to an unusual extent has prevailed within our borders,
and for that abundance which in the vicissitudes of the
seasons has been scattered with profusion over our land.
Nor ought we less to ascribe to Him the glory that we are
permitted to enjoy the bounties of His hand in peace and
tranquility—in peace with all the other nations of the earth,
in tranquility among ourselves.
There has, indeed, rarely been a period in the
history of civilized man in which the general
condition of the Christian nations has been
marked so extensively by peace and prosperity.
Europe, with a few partial and unhappy exceptions,
has enjoyed 10 years of peace, during which all her
Governments, whatever the theory of their constitutions
may have been, are successively taught to feel that
the end of their institution is the happiness of the people,
and that the exercise of power among men
can be justified only by the blessings
it confers upon those over whom it is extended.
During the same period our intercourse with all those
nations has been pacific and friendly; it so continues.
Since the close of your last session no material variation
has occurred in our relations with any one of them.
In the commercial and navigation system of Great Britain
important changes of municipal regulation have recently
been sanctioned by acts of Parliament, the effect
of which upon the interests of other nations, and
particularly upon ours, has not yet been fully developed.
In the recent renewal of the diplomatic missions on both
sides between the two Governments assurances
have been given and received of the continuance
and increase of the mutual confidence and cordiality
by which the adjustment of many points of difference
had already been effected, and which affords the
surest pledge for the ultimate satisfactory adjustment
of those which still remain open or may hereafter arise.
The policy of the United States in their
commercial intercourse with other nations
has always been of the most liberal character.
In the mutual exchange of their respective productions
they have abstained altogether from prohibitions;
they have interdicted themselves the power of laying taxes
upon exports, and whenever they have favored their own
shipping by special preferences or exclusive privileges in
their own ports it has been only with a view to countervail
similar favors and exclusions granted by the nations with
whom we have been engaged in traffic to their own
people or shipping, and to the disadvantage of ours.
Immediately after the close of the last war a proposal
was fairly made by the act of Congress of the
3rd of March 1815, to all the maritime nations
to lay aside the system of retaliating restrictions
and exclusions, and to place the shipping of both
parties to the common trade on a footing of equality
in respect to the duties of tonnage and impost.
This offer was partially and successively accepted by
Great Britain, Sweden, the Netherlands, the Hanseatic cities,
Prussia, Sardinia, the Duke of Oldenburg, and Russia.
It was also adopted, under certain modifications,
in our late commercial convention with France, and by the
act of Congress of the 8th of January 1824, it has received
a new confirmation with all the nations who had acceded
to it, and has been offered again to all those who are
or may hereafter be willing to abide in reciprocity by it.
But all these regulations, whether established
by treaty or by municipal enactments,
are still subject to one important restriction.
The removal of discriminating duties of tonnage
and of impost is limited to articles of the growth,
produce, or manufacture of the country to which
the vessel belongs or to such articles as are
most usually first shipped from her ports.
It will deserve the serious consideration of Congress
whether even this remnant of restriction may not be
safely abandoned, and whether the general tender
of equal competition made in the act of the
8th of January 1824, may not be extended to include
all articles of merchandise not prohibited, of what
country so ever they may be the produce or manufacture.
Propositions of this effect have already been made to us
by more than one European Government,
and it is probable that if once established by
legislation or compact with any distinguished
maritime state it would recommend itself by the
experience of its advantages to the general accession of all.
The convention of commerce and navigation between the
United States and France, concluded on the 24th of June
1822, was in the understanding and intent of both parties,
as appears upon its face, only a temporary arrangement
of the points of difference between them
of the most immediate and pressing urgency.
It was limited in the first instance to two years from the
1st of October 1822, but with a proviso that it should
further continue in force ‘til the conclusion of a
general and definitive treaty of commerce,
unless terminated by a notice, 6 months in advance,
of either of the parties to the other.
Its operation so far as it extended has
been mutually advantageous, and it still
continues in force by common consent.
But it left unadjusted several objects of great interest
to the citizens and subjects of both countries,
and particularly a mass of claims to considerable
amount of citizens of the United States upon the
Government of France of indemnity for property
taken or destroyed under circumstances of
the most aggravated and outrageous character.
In the long period during which continual and
earnest appeals have been made to the equity
and magnanimity of France in behalf of these claims
their justice has not been, as it could not be, denied.
It was hoped that the accession of a new
Sovereign to the throne would have afforded
a favorable opportunity for presenting them
to the consideration of his Government.
They have been presented and
urged hither to without effect.
The repeated and earnest representations of our minister at
the Court of France remain as yet even without an answer.
Were the demands of nations upon the justice of
each other susceptible of adjudication by the
sentence of an impartial tribunal, those to which
I now refer would long since have been settled
and adequate indemnity would have been obtained.
There are large amounts of similar claims
upon the Netherlands, Naples, and Denmark.
For those upon Spain prior to 1819 indemnity was,
after many years of patient forbearance, obtained;
and those upon Sweden have been lately compromised
by a private settlement, in which the
claimants themselves have acquiesced.
The Governments of Denmark and of Naples have been
recently reminded of those yet existing against them,
nor will any of them be forgotten while a hope may
be indulged of obtaining justice by the means within the
constitutional power of the Executive, and without resorting
to those means of self-redress which, as well as the time,
circumstances, and occasion which may require them,
are within the exclusive competency of the Legislature.
It is with great satisfaction that I am enabled to bear
witness to the liberal spirit with which the Republic of
Colombia has made satisfaction for well-established
claims of a similar character, and among the documents
now communicated to Congress will be distinguished
a treaty of commerce and navigation with that Republic,
the ratifications of which have been exchanged
since the last recess of the Legislature.
The negotiation of similar treaties with all of
the independent South American States has
been contemplated and may yet be accomplished.
The basis of them all, as proposed by the United States,
has been laid in two principles—the one of entire and
unqualified reciprocity, the other the mutual obligation
of the parties to place each other permanently
upon the footing of the most favored nation.
These principles are indeed indispensable to the
effectual emancipation of the American hemisphere
from the thralldom of colonizing monopolies and exclusions,
an event rapidly realizing in the progress of human affairs,
and which the resistance still opposed in certain parts of
Europe to the acknowledgment of the Southern American
Republics as independent States will, it is believed,
contribute more effectually to accomplish.
The time has been, and that not remote, when some
of those States might, in their anxious desire to obtain
a nominal recognition, have accepted of a nominal
independence, clogged with burdensome conditions, and
exclusive commercial privileges granted to the nation from
which they have separated to the disadvantage of all others.
They are all now aware that such concessions to
any European nation would be incompatible with that
independence which they have declared and maintained.
Among the measures which have been suggested
to them by the new relations with one another,
resulting from the recent changes in their condition,
is that of assembling at the Isthmus of Panama a congress,
at which each of them should be represented,
to deliberate upon objects important to the welfare of all.
The Republics of Colombia, of Mexico, and of
Central America have already deputed plenipotentiaries
to such a meeting, and they have invited the United States
to be also represented there by their ministers.
The invitation has been accepted, and ministers on
the part of the United States will be commissioned
to attend at those deliberations, and to take part in them
so far as may be compatible with that neutrality from
which it is neither our intention nor the desire of
the other American States that we should depart.
The commissioners under the seventh article of the
treaty of Ghent have so nearly completed their arduous
labors that, by the report recently received from the agent
on the part of the United States, there is reason to expect
that the commission will be closed at their next session,
appointed for May 22 of the ensuing year.
The other commission, appointed to ascertain
the indemnities due for slaves carried away from
the United States after the close of the late war,
have met with some difficulty,
which has delayed their progress in the inquiry.
A reference has been made to the British Government
on the subject, which, it may be hoped, will tend
to hasten the decision of the commissioners,
or serve as a substitute for it.
Among the powers specifically granted to Congress
by the Constitution are those of establishing uniform laws
on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States
and of providing for organizing, arming, and disciplining
the militia and for governing such part of them as may
be employed in the services of the United States.
The magnitude and complexity of the interests affected by
legislation upon these subjects may account for the fact that,
long and often as both of them have occupied the attention
and animated the debates of Congress, no systems have
yet been devised for fulfilling to the satisfaction of the
community the duties prescribed by these grants of power.
To conciliate the claim of the individual citizen to the
enjoyment of personal liberty, with the effective obligation
of private contracts, is the difficult problem
to be solved by a law of bankruptcy.
These are objects of the deepest interest to society,
affecting all that is precious in the existence of multitudes
of persons, many of them in the classes essentially
dependent and helpless, of the age requiring nurture,
and of the sex entitled to protection from the
free agency of the parent and the husband.
The organization of the militia is yet more
indispensable to the liberties of the country.
It is only by an effective militia that we can at once enjoy
the repose of peace and bid defiance to foreign aggression;
it is by the militia that we are constituted an armed nation,
standing in perpetual panoply of defense in the
presence of all the other nations of the earth.
To this end it would be necessary, if possible, so to shape its
organization as to give it a more united and active energy.
There are laws establishing a uniform militia
throughout the United States and for
arming and equipping its whole body.
But it is a body of dislocated members, without the
vigor of unity and having little of uniformity but the name.
To infuse into this most important institution the power
of which it is susceptible and to make it available
for the defense of the Union at the shortest notice
and at the smallest expense possible of time, of life,
and of treasure are among the benefits to be expected
from the persevering deliberations of Congress.
Among the unequivocal indications of our national
prosperity is the flourishing state of our finances.
The revenues of the present year from all their principal
sources will exceed the anticipations of the last.
The balance in the Treasury on the 1st of January last
was a little short of $2,000,000, exclusive of two millions
and a half, being the moiety of the loan of five millions
authorized by the act of 26th of May 1824.
The receipts into the Treasury from the first of January
to the 30th of September, exclusive of the other moiety
of the same loan, are estimated at $16,500,000,
and it is expected that those of the current quarter
will exceed $5,000,000, forming an aggregate of receipts
of nearly twenty-two millions, independent of the loan.
The expenditures of the year will not exceed
that sum more than two millions.
By those expenditures nearly eight millions of the
principal of the public debt that have been discharged.
More than a million and a half has been devoted to the debt
of gratitude to the warriors of the Revolution;
a nearly equal sum to the construction of fortifications
and the acquisition of ordnance and other permanent
preparations of national defense; half a million to the
gradual increase of the Navy; an equal sum for purchases of
territory from the Indians and payment of annuities to them;
and upward of a million for objects of internal improvement
authorized by special acts of the last Congress.
If we add to these $4,000,000 for payment of interest
upon the public debt, there remains a sum of about
seven millions, which have defrayed the whole expense
of the administration of Government in its legislative,
executive, and judiciary departments, including
the support of the military and naval establishments
and all the occasional contingencies of a
government coextensive with the Union.
The amount of duties secured on merchandise imported
since the commencement of the year is about twenty-five
millions and a half, and that which will accrue during the
current quarter is estimated at five millions and a half;
from these thirty-one millions, deducting the drawbacks,
estimated at less than seven millions, a sum exceeding
twenty-four millions will constitute the revenue of the year,
and will exceed the whole expenditures of the year.
The entire amount of the public debt remaining due
on the first of January next will be short of $81,000,000.
By an act of Congress of the 3rd of March last a loan
of $12,000,000 was authorized at 4.5 percent,
or an exchange of stock to that amount of 4.5 percent
for a stock of 6 percent, to create a fund for extinguishing
an equal amount of the public debt, bearing
an interest of 6 percent, redeemable in 1826.
An account of the measures taken to give effect to this act
will be laid before you by the Secretary of the Treasury.
As the object which it had in view has been but partially
accomplished, it will be for the consideration of Congress
whether the power with which it clothed the Executive
should not be renewed at an early day of the
present session, and under what modifications.
The act of Congress of the 3rd of March last,
directing the Secretary of the Treasury to subscribe,
in the name and for the use of the United States,
for 1,500 shares of the capital stock of the Chesapeake
and Delaware Canal Company, has been executed
by the actual subscription for the amount specified;
and such other measures have been adopted by that officer,
under the act, as the fulfillment of its intentions requires.
The latest accounts received of this important undertaking
authorize the belief that it is in successful progress.
The payments into the Treasury from the proceeds
of the sales of the public lands during the present year
were estimated at $1,000,000.
The actual receipts of the first two quarters have fallen
very little short of that sum; it is not expected that the
second half of the year will be equally productive,
but the income of the year from that source may
now be safely estimated at a million and a half.
The act of Congress of 18th May 1824, to provide for
the extinguishment of the debt due to the United States
by the purchasers of public lands, was limited in its
operation of relief to the purchaser to the 10th of April last.
Its effect at the end of the quarter during which it expired
was to reduce that debt from ten to seven millions.
By the operation of similar prior laws of relief,
from and since that of 2nd March 1821, the debt had
been reduced from upward of twenty-two millions to ten.
It is exceedingly desirable that it should be extinguished
altogether; and to facilitate that consummation
I recommend to Congress the revival for one year more
of the act of 18th May 1824, with such provisional
modification as may be necessary to guard the
public interests against fraudulent practices
in the resale of the relinquished land.
The purchasers of public lands are among the most useful
of our fellow citizens, and since the system of sales
for cash alone has been introduced
great indulgence has been justly extended to those
who had previously purchased upon credit.
The debt which had been contracted under the credit
sales had become unwieldy, and its extinction was alike
advantageous to the purchaser and to the public.
Under the system of sales, matured as it has been by
experience, and adapted to the exigencies of the times,
the lands will continue as they have become,
an abundant source of revenue; and when the pledge
of them to the public creditor shall have been redeemed
by the entire discharge of the national debt,
the swelling tide of wealth with which they replenish
the common Treasury may be made to reflow
in unfailing streams of improvement
from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean.
The condition of the various branches of the public service
resorting from the Department of War, and their
administration during the current year, will be exhibited
in the report of the Secretary of War and the
accompanying documents herewith communicated.
The organization and discipline of the Army
are effective and satisfactory.
To counteract the prevalence of desertion among the
troops it has been suggested to withhold from the men
a small portion of their monthly pay until the period
of their discharge; and some expedient appears
to be necessary to preserve and maintain among
the officers so much of the art of horsemanship
as could scarcely fail to be found wanting on the
possible sudden eruption of a war, which should
take us unprovided with a single corps of cavalry.
The Military Academy at West Point, under the restrictions
of a severe but paternal superintendence, recommends
itself more and more to the patronage of the nation,
and the numbers of meritorious officers which
it forms and introduces to the public service
furnishes the means of multiplying the undertakings
of the public improvements to which their
acquirements at that institution are peculiarly adapted.
The school of artillery practice established at
Fortress Monroe is well suited to the same purpose,
and may need the aid of further legislative
provision to the same end.
The reports of the various officers at the head of the
administrative branches of the military service, connected
with the quartering, clothing, subsistence, health, and pay of
the Army, exhibit the assiduous vigilance of those officers in
the performance of their respective duties, and the faithful
accountability which has pervaded every part of the system.
Our relations with the numerous tribes of aboriginal
natives of this country, scattered over its extensive surface
and so dependent even for their existence upon our power,
have been during the present year highly interesting.
An act of Congress of 25th of May 1824 made an
appropriation to defray the expenses of making
treaties of trade and friendship with the
Indian tribes beyond the Mississippi.
An act of 3rd of March 1825 authorized treaties
to be made with the Indians for their consent
to the making of a road from the frontier of Missouri
to that of New Mexico, and another act of the same date
provided for defraying the expenses of holding treaties
with the Sioux, Chippeways, Menomenees, Sauks, Foxes,
etc., for the purpose of establishing boundaries
and promoting peace between said tribes.
The first and last objects of these acts
have been accomplished, and the second
is yet in a process of execution.
The treaties which since the last session of Congress
have been concluded with the several tribes
will be laid before the Senate for their
consideration conformably to the Constitution.
They comprise large and valuable acquisitions of territory,
and they secure an adjustment of boundaries and give
pledges of permanent peace between several tribes which
had been long waging bloody wars against each other.
On the 12th of February last a treaty was signed at the
Indian Springs between commissioners appointed on the
part of the United States and certain chiefs and individuals of
the Creek Nation of Indians, which was received at the seat
of Government only a very few days before the close of
the last session of Congress and of the late Administration.
The advice and consent of the Senate was given to it
on the 3rd of March, too late for it to receive the ratification
of the then President of the United States;
it was ratified on the 7th of March, under the
unsuspecting impression that it had been
negotiated in good faith and in the confidence
inspired by the recommendation of the Senate.
The subsequent transactions in relation to this treaty
will form the subject of a separate communication.
The appropriations made by Congress for public works,
as well in the construction of fortifications as for
purposes of internal improvement, so far as
they have been expended, have been faithfully applied.
Their progress has been delayed by the want
of suitable officers for superintending them.
An increase of both the corps of engineers,
military and topographical, was recommended
by my predecessor at the last session of Congress.
The reasons upon which that recommendation
was founded subsist in all their force and have
acquired additional urgency since that time.
It may also be expedient to organize the topographical
engineers into a corps similar to the present
establishment of the Corps of Engineers.
The Military Academy at West Point will furnish
from the cadets there officers well qualified
for carrying this measure into effect.
The Board of Engineers for Internal Improvement,
appointed for carrying into execution the act of Congress
of 30th of April 1824, “to procure the necessary surveys,
plans, and estimates on the subject of roads and canals,”
have been actively engaged in that service
from the close of the last session of Congress.
They have completed the surveys necessary for
ascertaining the practicability of a canal from the
Chesapeake Bay to the Ohio River, and are
preparing a full report on that subject,
which, when completed, will be laid before you.
The same observation is to be made with regard
to the two other objects of national importance
upon which the Board have been occupied, namely,
the accomplishment of a national road from this city
to New Orleans, and the practicability of uniting the
waters of Lake Memphramagog with Connecticut River
and the improvement of the navigation of that river.
The surveys have been made and are nearly completed.
The report may be expected at an early period
during the present session of Congress.
The acts of Congress of the last session
relative to the surveying, marking, or laying out
roads in the Territories of Florida, Arkansas, and Michigan,
from Missouri to Mexico, and for the continuation
of the Cumberland road, are, some of them,
fully executed, and others in the process of execution.
Those for completing or commencing fortifications
have been delayed only so far as the Corps of Engineers
has been inadequate to furnish officers
for the necessary superintendence of the works.
Under the act confirming the statutes of Virginia
and Maryland incorporating the Chesapeake and
Ohio Canal Company, three commissioners on the
part of the United States have been appointed
for opening books and receiving subscriptions,
in concert with a like number of commissioners
appointed on the part of each of those States.
A meeting of the commissioners has been postponed,
to await the definitive report of the board of engineers.
The light-houses and monuments for the safety of our
commerce and mariners, the works for the security of
Plymouth Beach and for the preservation of the islands
in Boston Harbor, have received the attention required
by the laws relating to those objects respectively.
The continuation of the Cumberland road,
the most important of them all, after surmounting
no inconsiderable difficulty in fixing upon the direction
of the road, has commenced under the most promising
of auspices, with the improvements of recent invention
in the mode of construction, and with advantage of
a great reduction in the comparative cost of the work.
The operation of the laws relating to the
Revolutionary pensioners may deserve
the renewed consideration of Congress.
The act of the 18th of March 1818, while it made
provision for many meritorious and indigent citizens
who had served in the War of Independence,
opened a door to numerous abuses and impositions.
To remedy this the act of 1st May 1820, exacted proofs
of absolute indigence, which many really in want
were unable and all susceptible of that delicacy which is
allied to many virtues must be deeply reluctant to give.
The result has been that some among the
least deserving have been retained, and some
in whom the requisites both of worth and want
were combined have been stricken from the list.
As the numbers of these venerable relics of
an age gone by diminish; as the decays of body, mind,
and estate of those that survive must in the common
course of nature increase, should not a more liberal
portion of indulgence be dealt out to them?
May not the want in most instances be inferred from the
demand when the service can be proved,
and may not the last days of human infirmity
be spared the mortification of purchasing a pittance
of relief only by the exposure of its own necessities?
I submit to Congress the expediency of providing for
individual cases of this description by special enactment,
or of revising the act of the 1st of May 1820,
with a view to mitigate the rigor of its exclusions
in favor of persons to whom charity now bestowed
can scarcely discharge the debt of justice.
The portion of the naval force of the Union in actual
service has been chiefly employed on three stations—
the Mediterranean, the coasts of South America
bordering on the Pacific Ocean, and the West Indies.
An occasional cruiser has been sent to range along the
African shores most polluted by the traffic of slaves;
one armed vessel has been stationed on the coast of
our eastern boundary, to cruise along the fishing grounds
in Hudsons Bay and on the coast of Labrador,
and the first service of a new frigate has been performed
in restoring to his native soil and domestic enjoyments
the veteran hero whose youthful blood and treasure had
freely flowed in the cause of our country’s independence,
and whose whole life has been a series of services
and sacrifices to the improvement of his fellow men.
The visit of General Lafayette, alike honorable to himself
and to our country, closed, as it had commenced,
with the most affecting testimonials of devoted
attachment on his part, and of unbounded
gratitude of this people to him in return.
It will form hereafter a pleasing incident in the annals
of our Union, giving to real history the intense interest
of romance and signally marking the unpurchasable
tribute of a great nation’s social affections to the
disinterested champion of the liberties of human-kind.
The constant maintenance of a small squadron
in the Mediterranean is a necessary substitute for the
humiliating alternative of paying tribute for the security
of our commerce in that sea, and for a precarious peace,
at the mercy of every caprice of four Barbary States,
by whom it was liable to be violated.
An additional motive for keeping a respectable force
stationed there at this time is found in the maritime war
raging between the Greeks and the Turks,
and in which the neutral navigation of this Union
is always in danger of outrage and depredation.
A few instances have occurred of such depredations
upon our merchant vessels by privateers or pirates
wearing the Grecian flag, but without real authority
from the Greek or any other Government.
The heroic struggles of the Greeks themselves,
in which our warmest sympathies as free men and
Christians have been engaged,
have continued to be maintained with
vicissitudes of success adverse and favorable.
Similar motives have rendered expedient the keeping of
a like force on the coasts of Peru and Chile on the Pacific.
The irregular and convulsive character of the war upon the
shores has been extended to the conflicts upon the ocean.
An active warfare has been kept up for years
with alternate success, though generally
to the advantage of the American patriots.
But their naval forces have not always been
under the control of their own Governments.
Blockades, unjustifiable upon any acknowledged principles
of international law, have been proclaimed by officers
in command, and though disavowed by the supreme
authorities, the protection of our own commerce
against them has been made cause of complaint
and erroneous imputations against some
of the most gallant officers of our Navy.
Complaints equally groundless have been made by the
commanders of the Spanish royal forces in those seas;
but the most effective protection to our commerce has been
the flag and the firmness of our own commanding officers.
The cessation of the war by the complete triumph
of the patriot cause has removed, it is hoped,
all cause of dissension with one party
and all vestige of force of the other.
But an unsettled coast of many degrees of latitude
forming a part of our own territory and a flourishing
commerce and fishery extending to the islands
of the Pacific and to China still require that the
protecting power of the Union should be displayed
under its flag as well upon the ocean as upon the land.
The objects of the West India Squadron have been to
carry into execution the laws for the suppression of the
African slave trade; for the protection of our commerce
against vessels of piratical character, though bearing
commissions from either of the belligerent parties;
for its protection against open and unequivocal pirates.
These objects during the present year have been
accomplished more effectually than at any former period.
The African slave trade has long been excluded
from the use of our flag, and if some few citizens of our
country have continued to set the laws of the Union
as well as those of nature and humanity at defiance
by persevering in that abominable traffic, it has been only
by sheltering themselves under the banners of other nations
less earnest for the total extinction of the trade than ours.
The irregular privateers have within the last year been
in a great measure banished from those seats, and the
pirates for months past appear to have been almost entirely
swept away from the borders and the shores
of the two Spanish islands in those regions.
The active, persevering, and unremitted energy
of Captain Warrington and of the officers and men
under his command on that trying and perilous service
have been crowned with signal success,
and are entitled to the approbation of their country.
But experience has shown that not even a temporary
suspension or relaxation from assiduity can be indulged
on that station without reproducing piracy and murder
in all their horrors; nor is it probably that for years to come
our immensely valuable commerce in those seas
can navigate in security without the steady continuance
of an armed force devoted to its protection.
It were indeed a vain and dangerous illusion to believe
that in the present or probable condition of human society
a commerce so extensive and so rich as ours could exist
and be pursued in safety without the continual support
of a military marine—the only arm by which the power of
this Confederacy can be estimated or felt by foreign nations,
and the only standing military force which can
never be dangerous to our own liberties at home.
A permanent naval peace establishment, therefore,
adapted to our present condition, and adaptable
to that gigantic growth with which the nation is
advancing in its career, is among the subjects which
have already occupied the foresight of the last Congress,
and which will deserve your serious deliberations.
Our Navy, commenced at an early period of our present
political organization upon a scale commensurate
with the incipient energies, the scanty resources,
and the comparative indigence of our infancy,
was even then found adequate to cope with all the powers
of Barbary, save the first, and with one of the principle
maritime powers of Europe.
At a period of further advancement, but with little
accession of strength, it not only sustained with honor
the most unequal of conflicts, but covered itself
and our country with unfading glory.
But it is only since the close of the late war that
by the numbers and force of the ships of which
it was composed, it could deserve the name of a navy.
Yet it retains nearly the same organization
as when it consisted only of 5 frigates.
The rules and regulations by which it is governed earnestly
call for revision, and the want of a naval school of
instruction, corresponding with the Military Academy
at West Point, for the formation of scientific
and accomplished officers,
is felt with daily increasing aggravation.
The act of Congress of 26th of May 1824, authorizing
an examination and survey of the harbor of Charleston
in South Carolina, of St. Marys in Georgia, and of the
coast of Florida, and for other purposes, has been
executed so far as the appropriation would admit.
Those of the 3rd of March last, authorizing the establishment
of a navy yard and depot on the coast of Florida
in the Gulf of Mexico, and authorizing the building of
ten sloops of war, and for other purposes, are in the course
of execution, for the particulars of which and other objects
connected with this Department I refer to the report
of the Secretary of the Navy, herewith communicated.
A report from the Postmaster-General is also submitted,
exhibiting the present flourishing
condition of that Department.
For the first time for many years the receipts for the year
ending on the first of July last exceeded the expenditures
during the same period to the amount of more than $45,000.
Other facts equally creditable to the administration of this
Department are that in two years from the 1st of July 1823,
an improvement of more than $185,000 in its pecuniary
affairs has been realized; that in the same interval the
increase of the transportation of the mail has
exceeded 1,500,000 miles annually, and
that 1,040 new post-offices have been established.
It hence appears that under judicious management
the income from this establishment may be relied on
as fully adequate to defray its expenses,
and that by the discontinuance of post roads altogether
unproductive, others of more useful character may be
opened, ‘til the circulation of the mail shall keep pace
with the spread of our population, and the comforts of
friendly correspondence, the exchanges of internal traffic,
and the lights of the periodical press shall be distributed
to the remotest corners of the Union, at a charge
scarcely perceptible to any individual, and without
the cost of a dollar to the public Treasury.
Upon this first occasion of addressing the Legislature
of the Union, with which I have been honored,
in presenting to their view the execution so far as it has
been effected of the measures sanctioned by them for
promoting the internal improvement of our country,
I cannot close the communication without recommending
to their calm and persevering consideration
the general principle in a more enlarged extent.
The great object of the institution of civil government
is the improvement of the condition of those who are
parties to the social compact, and no government,
in whatever form constituted, can accomplish the
lawful ends of its institution but in proportion as it improves
the condition of those over whom it is established.
Roads and canals, by multiplying and facilitating the
communications and intercourse between distant
regions and multitudes of men, are among
the most important means of improvement.
But moral, political, intellectual improvement
are duties assigned by the Author of Our Existence
to social no less than to individual man.
For the fulfillment of those duties governments are
invested with power, and to the attainment of the end—
the progressive improvement of the condition of the
governed—the exercise of delegated powers is a duty
as sacred and indispensable as the usurpation
of powers not granted is criminal and odious.
Among the first, perhaps the very first, instrument
for the improvement of the condition of men is knowledge,
and to the acquisition of much of the knowledge adapted
to the wants, the comforts, and enjoyments of human life
public institutions and seminaries of learning are essential.
So convinced of this was the first of my predecessors
in this office, now first in the memory, as, living,
he was first in the hearts of our country-men,
that once and again in his addresses to the Congresses
with whom he cooperated in the public service he earnestly
recommended the establishment of seminaries of learning,
to prepare for all the emergencies of peace and war—
a national university and a military academy.
With respect to the latter, had he lived to the present day,
in turning his eyes to the institution at West Point he would
have enjoyed the gratification of his most earnest wishes;
but in surveying the city which has been honored with his
name he would have seen the spot of earth which he had
destined and bequeathed to the use and benefit of his
country as the site for a university still bare and barren.
In assuming her station among the civilized nations
of the earth it would seem that our country had contracted
the engagement to contribute her share of mind, of labor,
and of expense to the improvement of those
parts of knowledge which lie beyond the reach
of individual acquisition, and particularly to
geographical and astronomical science.
Looking back to the history only of the half century
since the declaration of our independence,
and observing the generous emulation with which
the Governments of France, Great Britain, and Russia
have devoted the genius, the intelligence, the treasures
of their respective nations to the common improvement
of the species in these branches of science,
is it not incumbent upon us to inquire whether
we are not bound by obligations of a high and
honorable character to contribute our portion
of energy and exertion to the common stock?
The voyages of discovery prosecuted in the course
of that time at the expense of those nations
have not only redounded to their glory,
but to the improvement of human knowledge.
We have been partakers of that improvement and owe
for it a sacred debt, not only of gratitude, but of equal
or proportional exertion in the same common cause.
Of the cost of these undertakings, if the mere
expenditures of outfit, equipment, and completion
of the expeditions were to be considered the only charges,
it would be unworthy of a great and
generous nation to take a second thought.
One hundred expeditions of circumnavigation like those
of Cook and La Prouse would not burden the exchequer
of the nation fitting them out so much as the ways
and means of defraying a single campaign in war.
But if we take into account the lives of those benefactors
of mankind of which their services in the cause of their
species were the purchase, how shall the cost of those
heroic enterprises be estimated, and what compensation
can be made to them or to their countries for them?
Is it not by bearing them in affectionate remembrance?
Is it not still more by imitating their example—
by enabling countrymen of our own to pursue the same
career and to hazard their lives in the same cause?
In inviting the attention of Congress to the subject of
internal improvements upon a view thus enlarged
it is not my desire to recommend the equipment
of an expedition for circumnavigating the globe
for purposes of scientific research and inquiry.
We have objects of useful investigation nearer home,
and to which our cares may be more beneficially applied.
The interior of our own territories has yet been very
imperfectly explored.
Our coasts along many degrees of latitude
upon the shores of the Pacific Ocean, though
much frequented by our spirited commercial navigators,
have been barely visited by our public ships.
The River of the West, first fully discovered and navigated
by a countryman of our own, still bears the name
of the ship in which he ascended its waters, and claims
the protection of our armed national flag at its mouth.
With the establishment of a military post there or at some
other point of that coast, recommended by my predecessor
and already matured in the deliberations of the last
Congress, I would suggest the expediency of connecting
the equipment of a public ship for the exploration
of the whole northwest coast of this continent.
The establishment of a uniform standard of weights
and measures was one of the specific objects contemplated
in the formation of our Constitution, and to fix that
standard was one of the powers delegated
by express terms in that instrument to Congress.
The Governments of Great Britain and France have scarcely
ceased to be occupied with inquiries and speculations on the
same subject since the existence of our Constitution,
and with them it has expanded into profound, laborious,
and expensive researches into the figure of the earth
and the comparative length of the pendulum vibrating
seconds in various latitudes from the equator to the pole.
These researches have resulted in the
composition and publication of several works
highly interesting to the cause of science.
The experiments are yet in the process of performance.
Some of them have recently been made on our
own shores within the walls of one of our own colleges,
and partly by one of our own fellow citizens.
It would be honorable to our country if the sequel
of the same experiments should be countenanced
by the patronage of our Government, as they
have hitherto been by those of France and Britain.
Connected with the establishment of a university,
or separate from it, might be undertaken the erection
of an astronomical observatory, with provision for the
support of an astronomer, to be in constant attendance
of observation upon the phenomena of the heavens,
and for the periodical publication of his observances.
It is with no feeling of pride as an American that the
remark may be made that on the comparatively small
territorial surface of Europe there are existing upward
of 130 of these light-houses of the skies, while throughout
the whole American hemisphere there is not one.
If we reflect a moment upon the discoveries which
in the last four centuries have been made in the physical
constitution of the universe by the means of these
buildings and of observers stationed in them,
shall we doubt of their usefulness to every nation?
And while scarcely a year passes over our heads without
bringing some new astronomical discovery to light,
which we must fain receive at second hand from Europe,
are we not cutting ourselves off from the means of
returning light for light while we have neither observatory
nor observer upon our half of the globe, and the earth
revolves in perpetual darkness to our unsearching eyes?
When, on the 25th of October 1791, the first President
of the United States announced to Congress the result
of the first enumeration of the inhabitants of this Union,
he informed them that the returns gave the pleasing
assurance that the population of the United States
bordered on 4,000,000 persons.
At the distance of thirty years from that time
the last enumeration, five years since completed,
presented a population bordering upon 10,000,000.
Perhaps of all the evidence of a prosperous and
happy condition of human society the rapidity of
the increase of population is the most unequivocal.
But the demonstration of our prosperity
rests not alone upon this indication.
Our commerce, our wealth, and the extent of our
territories have increased in corresponding proportions,
and the number of independent communities associated
in our Federal Union has since that time nearly doubled.
The legislative representation of the States
and people in the two Houses of Congress has
grown with the growth of their constituent bodies.
The House, which then consisted of 65 members,
now numbers upward of 200.
The Senate, which consisted of 26 members, has now 48.
But the executive and, still more, the judiciary
departments are yet in a great measure confined to
their primitive organization, and are now not adequate
to the urgent wants of a still growing community.
The naval armaments, which at an early period
forced themselves upon the necessities of the Union,
soon led to the establishment of a Department of the Navy.
But the Departments of Foreign Affairs and of the Interior,
which early after the formation of the Government had
been united in one, continue so united to this time,
to the unquestionable detriment of the public service.
The multiplication of our relations with the nations and
Governments of the Old World has kept pace with that of
our population and commerce, while within the last 10 years
a new family of nations in our own hemisphere has arisen
among the inhabitants of the earth, with whom our
intercourse, commercial and political, would of itself
furnish occupation to an active and industrious department.
The constitution of the judiciary, experimental and
imperfect as it was even in the infancy of our existing
Government, is yet more inadequate to the administration
of national justice at our present maturity.
Nine years have elapsed since a predecessor in this office,
now not the last, the citizen who, perhaps, of all others
throughout the Union contributed most to the formation
and establishment of our Constitution, in his valedictory
address to Congress, immediately preceding his
retirement from public life, urgently recommended
the revision of the judiciary and the establishment
of an additional executive department.
The exigencies of the public service and its unavoidable
deficiencies, as now in exercise, have added yearly
cumulative weight to the considerations presented
by him as persuasive to the measure, and in
recommending it to your deliberations I am happy
to have the influence of this high authority in aid of
the undoubting convictions of my own experience.
The laws relating to the administration of the
Patent Office are deserving of much consideration
and perhaps susceptible of some improvement.
The grant of power to regulate the action of Congress
upon this subject has specified both the end to be
obtained and the means by which it is to be effected,
“to promote the progress of science and useful arts by
securing for limited times to authors and inventors the
exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.”
If an honest pride might be indulged in the reflection
that on the records of that office are already found
inventions the usefulness of which has scarcely
been transcended in the annals of human ingenuity,
would not its exultation be allayed by the inquiry
whether the laws have effectively insured to the
inventors the reward destined to them by the Constitution—
even a limited term of exclusive right to their discoveries?
On the 24th of December 1799, it was resolved by
Congress that a marble monument should be erected
by the United States in the Capitol at the city of Washington;
that the family of General Washington should be requested
to permit his body to be deposited under it,
and that the monument be so designed as to commemorate
the great events of his military and political life.
In reminding Congress of this resolution and that the
monument contemplated by it remains yet without
execution, I shall indulge only the remarks that the works
at the Capitol are approaching to completion;
that the consent of the family, desired by the resolution,
was requested and obtained; that a monument has been
recently erected in this city over the remains of another
distinguished patriot of the Revolution, and that a spot
has been reserved within the walls where you are
deliberating for the benefit of this and future ages,
in which the mortal remains may be deposited of him
whose spirit hovers over you and listens with delight to
every act of the representatives of his nation
which can tend to exalt and adorn his and their country.
The Constitution under which you are
assembled is a charter of limited powers.
After full and solemn deliberation upon all or any of the
objects which, urged by an irresistible sense of my own
duty, I have recommended to your attention should
you come to the conclusion that, however desirable in
themselves, the enactment of laws for effecting them
would transcend the powers committed to you by that
venerable instrument which we are all bound to support,
let no consideration induce you to assume the exercise
of powers not granted to you by the people.
But if the power to exercise exclusive legislation
in all cases whatsoever over the District of Columbia;
if the power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts,
and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the
common defense and general welfare of the United States;
if the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations
and among the several States and with the Indian tribes,
to fix the standard of weights and measures,
to establish post offices and post roads, to declare war,
to raise and support armies, to provide and maintain a navy,
to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations
respecting the territory or other property belonging
to the United States, and to make all laws which shall
be necessary and proper for carrying these powers into
execution— if these powers and others enumerated in the
Constitution may be effectually brought into action by laws
promoting the improvement of agriculture, commerce,
and manufactures, the cultivation and encouragement of
the mechanic and of the elegant arts, the advancement
of literature, and the progress of the sciences, ornamental
and profound, to refrain from exercising them for the
benefit of the people themselves would be to hide
in the earth the talent committed to our charge—
would be treachery to the most sacred of trusts.
The spirit of improvement is abroad upon the earth.
It stimulates the hearts and sharpens the
faculties not of our fellow citizens alone,
but of the nations of Europe and of their rulers.
While dwelling with pleasing satisfaction upon
the superior excellence of our political institutions,
let us not be unmindful that liberty is power;
that the nation blessed with the largest portion of liberty
must in proportion to its numbers be the most powerful
nation upon earth, and that the tenure of power by man is,
in the moral purposes of his Creator, upon condition
that it shall be exercised to ends of beneficence,
to improve the condition of himself and his fellow men.
While foreign nations less blessed with that freedom which
is power than ourselves are advancing with gigantic strides
in the career of public improvement, were we to slumber
in indolence or fold up our arms and proclaim to the world
that we are palsied by the will of our constituents,
would it not be to cast away the bounties of Providence
and doom ourselves to perpetual inferiority?
In the course of the year now drawing to its close
we have beheld, under the auspices and at the expense
of one State of this Union, a new university unfolding its
portals to the sons of science and holding up the torch
of human improvement to eyes that seek the light.
We have seen under the persevering and enlightened
enterprise of another State the waters of our
Western lakes mingle with those of the ocean.
If undertakings like these have been accomplished in the
compass of a few years by the authority of single members
of our Confederation, can we, the representative authorities
of the whole Union, fall behind our fellow servants in the
exercise of the trust committed to us for the benefit of
our common sovereign by the accomplishment of works
important to the whole and to which neither the authority
nor the resources of any one State can be adequate?
Finally, fellow citizens, I shall await with cheering hope
and faithful cooperation the result of your deliberations,
assured that, without encroaching upon the powers reserved
to the authorities of the respective States or to the people,
you will, with a due sense of your obligations to your
country and of the high responsibilities weighing
upon yourselves, give efficacy to the means
committed to you for the common good.
And may He who searches the hearts of the children of men
prosper your exertions to secure the blessings of peace
and promote the highest welfare of our country.18
He hoped to improve agriculture, commerce, and manufactures, the cultivation
and encouragement of the mechanic and of the elegant arts,
the advancement of literature, and the progress of the sciences.
Attorney General Wirt called the speech “excessively bold” and a “spirited thing,”
but he “dreaded” its effect on his popularity.
Many newspapers criticized Adams’ policies and
warned against desecrating the United States Constitution.
Not all of the improvement projects were unpopular.
A second national road was to ease travel between Washington and New Orleans.
On December 7 Adams wrote in his memoirs:
We ask of Congress to annul the treaty or to furnish
means to compel the execution of it by the Indians.
Congress does nothing.
We consider the treaty as binding, but the Indians
refuse to comply, and [intend to] remain
on the lands after September 1826.
We have no means to compel their compliance,
and therefore can do nothing till Congress meets again.
After much discussion it was concluded that the Secretary
of War should answer the letter of the Indians, declining
to treat except on the basis of the cession of all the lands
in Georgia, and should call upon General Gaines to explain
the difference between his view of the proposals last made
by him to the Indians and their understanding of it.19
On 13 December 1825 President Adams wrote in his Memoirs about a visit
from his Secretary of War James Barbour, who had been Governor of Virginia 1812-14
and Senator from Virginia January 1815 to March 1825:
13th. Governor Barbour came first with a reply from
the delegation of Indians, lamenting the failure of their
proposals, and asking another interview with me to lay
their grievances and pour out their afflictions before me.
Governor Barbour said he had mentioned this desire of
theirs to Mr. Clay and Mr. Southard, who observed
that they saw no objection to my seeing
the Indians again according to their desire.
I said I would readily see them before
they should go away, but it would be best
to postpone the meeting for the present.
At this time they would only set forth their distress
and throw themselves upon my mercy and compassion.
If I should answer them inflexibly,
it would only increase their distress.
If I indulged any sympathy for them, it would imply
censure upon the treaty, which we must yet maintain,
and would be offensive to Georgia.
Perhaps we may yet come to some agreement.
I desired him therefore to answer the Indians that I would
certainly hear them again before they should return home,
but I wished it might be a pleasant, comfortable talk, and
advised them to take time and reflect, to see if they could
not make some other proposition to which we may agree.
Governor Barbour said he had not yet received any
answer from General Gaines, but his aide-de-camp Butler
had admitted that the last proposition made by the
General at his last meeting with the Indians
was to take the Chattahoochee for a boundary.
It is strange, for the General had no authority to make it.
But it changes the aspect of the subject.
If he has given them encouragement to expect
this boundary, we are under the stronger
obligations to consider their claims.
Governor Barbour still inclines strongly to take
the Chattahoochee, and says that Forsyth told him
he would prefer it rather than a recommendation
to Congress to annul the treaty as fraudulent;
and Meriwether admitted to him that there was
great convenience in a river for a boundary.20
President Adams in Washington on 14 December 1825 sent special messages
to the United States Senate for their consideration and advice with regard to their
ratification of the treaties between the United States and the Great and Little Osage tribes
on the 2nd of June last, the Kanzas Nation on the 3rd of June last, and the Shawnee Nation
on the 7th day November last at St. Louis in the State of Missouri by William Clark,
Superintendent of Indian Affairs, commissioner on the part of the United States and
the chiefs, headmen, and warrior of the same tribes,
duly authorized and empowered by their respective tribes or nations.
On December 15 Adams transmitted to the Senate for consideration and ratification
a general convention of peace, amity, commerce, and navigation between the
United States of America and the Federation of the Center of America signed
on the 5th instant by the Secretary of State and the minister plenipotentiary
from the Republic of Central America to the United States.
On December 26 President Adams sent this
special message to the United States Senate:
In the message to both Houses of Congress at the
commencement of the session it was mentioned that
the Governments of the Republics of Colombia, of Mexico,
and of Central America had severally invited the
Government of the United States to be represented at the
Congress of American nations to be assembled at Panama
to deliberate upon objects of peculiar concernment to this
hemisphere, and that this invitation had been accepted.
Although this measure was deemed to be within the
constitutional competency of the Executive, I have not
thought proper to take any step in it before ascertaining
that my opinion of its expediency will concur with that
of both branches of the Legislature, first, by the decision
of the Senate upon the nominations laid before them,
and secondly, by the sanction of the House to the
appropriations without which it cannot be carried into effect.
A report from the Secretary of State and copies
of the correspondence with the South American
Governments on this subject since the invitation
given by them are herewith transmitted to the Senate.
They will disclose the objects of importance
which are expected to form a subject of
discussion at this meeting in which interests
of high importance to this Union are involved.
It will be seen that the United States neither intend
nor are expected to take part in any deliberations
of a belligerent character; that the motive of their
attendance is neither to contract alliances nor
to engage in any undertaking or project
importing hostility to any other nation.
But the Southern American nations in the infancy
of their independence, often find themselves in
positions with reference to other countries with
the principles applicable to which, derivable
from the state of independence itself,
they have not been familiarized by experience.
The result of this has been that sometimes
in their intercourse with the United States
they have manifested dispositions to reserve
a right of granting special favors and privileges
to the Spanish nation as the price of their recognition.
At others they have actually established duties
and impositions operating unfavorably to the
United States to the advantage of other European powers,
and sometimes they have appeared to consider
that they might interchange among themselves mutual
concessions of exclusive favor, to which neither European
powers nor the United States should be admitted.
In most of these cases their regulations unfavorable to us
have yielded to friendly expostulation and remonstrance.
But it is believed to be of infinite moment that the principles
of a liberal commercial intercourse should be exhibited to
them, and urged with disinterested and friendly persuasion
upon them when all assembled for the avowed purpose of
consulting together upon the establishment of such principles
as may have an important bearing upon their future welfare.
The consentaneous adoption of principles of
maritime neutrality, and favorable to the navigation
of peace, and commerce in time of war, will also
form a subject of consideration to this Congress.
The doctrine that free ships make free goods, and the
restrictions of reason upon the extent of blockades may
be established by general agreement with far more ease,
and perhaps with less danger by the general engagement to
adhere to them concerted at such a meeting, than by partial
treaties or conventions with each of the nations separately.
An agreement between all the parties represented
at the meeting that each will guard by its own means
against the establishment of any future European colony
within its borders may be found advisable.
This was more than two years since announced
by my predecessor to the world as a principle resulting
from the emancipation of both the American continents.
It may be so developed to the new southern nations
that they will all feel it as an essential
appendage to their independence.
There is yet another subject upon which, without entering
into any treaty, the moral influence of the United States
may perhaps be exerted with beneficial consequences
at such a meeting—the advancement of religious liberty.
Some of the southern nations are even yet so far under
the dominion of prejudice that they have incorporated
with their political constitutions an exclusive church,
without toleration of any other than the dominant sect.
The abandonment of this last badge of religious bigotry
and oppression may be pressed more effectually
by the united exertions of those who concur in the
principles of freedom of conscience upon those who
are yet to be convinced of their justice and wisdom
than by the solitary efforts of a minister
to any one of the separate Governments.
The indirect influence which the United States may
exercise upon any projects or purposes originating in
the war in which the southern Republics are still engaged,
which might seriously affect the interest of this Union,
and the good offices by which the United States may
ultimately contribute to bring that war to a speedier
termination, though among the motives which have
convinced me of the propriety of complying with this
invitation, are so far contingent and eventual that
it would be improper to dwell upon them more at large.
In fine, a decisive inducement with me for acceding
to the measure is to show by this token of respect to
the southern Republics the interest that we take in their
welfare and our disposition to comply with their wishes.
Having been the first to recognize their independence,
and sympathized with them so far as was compatible
with our neutral duties in all their struggles and
sufferings to acquire it, we have laid the foundation
of our future intercourse with them
in the broadest principles of reciprocity
and the most cordial feelings of fraternal friendship.
To extend those principles to all our commercial relations
with them and to hand down that friendship to future ages
is congenial to the highest policy of the Union,
as it will be to that of all those nations and their posterity.
In the confidence that these settlements will meet the
approbation of the Senate, I nominate Richard C. Anderson
of Kentucky and John Sergeant of Pennsylvania to be
envoys extraordinary and ministers plenipotentiary to the
assembly of American nations at Panama, and William
B. Rochester of New York to be secretary of the mission.
John Quincy Adams21
On December 20 Secretary of State Henry Clay sent notes to Mexico
and Colombia asking them to suspend their plans for taking Cuba.
Treasury Secretary Richard Rush, son of Benjamin, wrote in his December 1825
Report on the State of the Finances, “By a flourishing state of manufactures
we shall see rising up a new class of capitalists.”22
In four years the J. Q. Adams administration would reduce the national debt by $25 million.
The United States on December 25 agreed to a commercial treaty
with the five nations of the Central American Federation.
The next day Adams informed Congress that the liberator Simón Bolívar had called for
a Congress of American Nations to meet in Panama in 1826,
and he nominated Richard Anderson and John Sergeant to attend.
President Adams on December 27 transmitted these three special messages
to the United States House of Representatives:
1. A copy of the message of President Jefferson to
both Houses of Congress on the 18th of January 1803,
recommending an exploring expedition across this continent.
It will be perceived on the perusal of this message that
it was confidential, for which reason the copy of it is now
communicated in the same manner, leaving to the
judgment of the House to determine whether any adequate
reason yet remains for withholding it from publication.
I possess no other document or information in relation
to the same subject which I consider as coming
within the scope of the resolution of the House.
2. A report from the Secretary of State with copies
of such portions of the correspondence between the
United States and Great Britain on the subject of
the convention for suppressing the slave trade
as have not heretofore been, and which can be
communicated without detriment to the public interest.
3. A report from the Secretary of War with the
correspondence between the Department of War
and Generals Pinckney and Jackson, and all the
instructions given to the said Generals Pinckney and
Jackson relating to the treaty with the Creek Indians,
afterwards made at Fort Jackson, so far as the same can
be communicated without prejudice to the public interest.23
On 30 December 1825 President Adams wrote this in his Memoirs:
30th. Mr. Lowry brought me five resolutions of the
Senate: one, advising and consenting to the ratification
of the treaty with the federation of Central America;
the others, confirming sundry nominations.
Mr. Rush was here and read me letters from the
Collector at Philadelphia, Steele, and from the District
Attorney Ingersoll upon the affairs of Edward Thomson.
There appears to be some variance between those
officers as to the mode of proceeding with him.
Steele insists upon his being criminally prosecuted
and confined in close prison.
Ingersoll is for postponing severe measures,
and for a thorough searching examination into his affairs,
upon his petition for a release from prison upon
the executions of the U. S. against him upon debt.
I incline to this course myself.
I am so little satisfied with the information which we have
as yet obtained with regard to the facts, that I proposed
to Mr. Rush to dispatch a trusty person to Philadelphia to
examine minutely into the whole state of the custom-house
there, and to take affidavits of all the officers employed
in that service concerning the manner in which the office
has been usually conducted, and particularly with regard
to the facts connected with Thomson’s malpractices.
Mr. Rush agreed to this and will apply to S. H. Smith,
whom we fixed to be charged with this commission.
Mr. D. Brent brought from the Department of State
a draft of a dispatch to Mr. Middleton at St. Petersburg
mentioning the applications we have made to the
Governments of Colombia and Mexico to prevail
upon them to postpone any expedition they may be
projecting against the islands of Cuba and Porto Rico,
to give time to the Emperor of Russia to use in conjunction
with his allies his influence with Spain to induce her to
save those islands by recognizing the independence of
the new Governments on the American continents.24
Notes
1. Memoirs of John Quincy Adams ed. Charles Francis Adams, Volume. VI, p. 470-471.
2. Ibid., p. 478-479.
3. Ibid., p. 501-502, 502-503.
4. A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, A 1789-1908,
Volume II ed. James D. Richardson, p. 292-293.
5. Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, Volume. VI, p. 505.
6. Ibid., p. 504.
7. Messages and Papers of the Presidents, A 1789-1908, Volume II p. 294-299.
8. Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, Volume. VI, Memoirs of John Quincy Adams,
Volume. VI, p. 519-521.
9. Ibid., p. 526.
10. Ibid., p. 536-537.
11. Ibid., p. 539-540.
12. Ibid., p. 542.
13. Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, Volume VII, p. 3-4, 6.
14. Ibid., p. 10-11.
15. Ibid., p. 12.
16. Ibid., p. 14.
17. Ibid., p. 56-57.
18. Messages and Papers of the Presidents, A 1789-1908, Volume II, p. 299-317.
19. Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, Volume VII, p. 73-74.
20. Ibid., p. 78-79.
21. Messages and Papers of the Presidents, A 1789-1908, Volume II p. 318-320.
22. Report on the State of the Finances by Richard Rush, Dec. 1825-Dec. 1828, p. 322.
23. Messages and Papers of the Presidents, A 1789-1908, Volume II, p. 320.
24. Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, Volume. VII, p. 95-96.
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