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Deposited by the
Linonian and Brothers Library

MEMOIRS

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS,

COMPRISING PORTIONS OF

HIS DIARY FROM 1795 TO 1848.

EDITED BY

CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS.

VOL. XI.

PHILADELPHIA:
J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.
1876.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1876, by
J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XXI. (Continued.) PAGH
The Twenty-Seventh Congress 3

CHAPTER XXII.
The Twenty-Eighth Congress . 335

MEMOIRS

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.

VOL. XI. — I

MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.

CHAPTER XXI. {Continued.)
THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS.
September 1st, 1841. — Mr. Fletcher Webster called on me
this morning, to enquire from his father whether I was satisfied
with the note to the Spanish Minister, Argaiz, which had been
communicated to me some weeks since, for my advice, so that
he might send it. I said that if it was to close the correspond
ence on the subject it required no alteration or addition. It
put the whole case on the decision of the Supreme Court; and
that was sufficient. It did not touch the merits of the question
as between the two Governments ; and that was to be avoided
if possible. But if Mr. Argaiz was to reply, and to press the
claim for reparation, it would be best to suggest to him the
inconvenience of a discussion which could lead to no result
satisfactory to him or his Government, and which must neces
sarily become criminatory.
He said Mr. Argaiz had intimated that he should consider
this note as closing the discussion.
At the House, Zadok Casey took his seat as the third mem
ber from Illinois. I prevailed finally upon the House to adopt
my fourth resolution, offered on the 23d of June, instructing
the Committee of Ways and Means to report a bill prohibiting
the further investment of public funds in State stocks.
W. O. Butler, of Kentucky, made an hour speech against
Webster on the McLeod resolution. Precisely at noon the
House adjourned, after refusing, by yeas and nays, to adjourn 3

4 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [September,
half an hour before, and concurring in an amendment of the
Senate to the Post-Office Appropriation bill. The adjourn
ment was for a Whig caucus ; instead of which I went into the
Senate-chamber and heard them debate the Fiscal Corporation
bill. I left Benton prosing anti-bankism.
3d. J. G. Floyd finished his replication speech on his Mc
Leod resolution, and was followed by Horace Everett, with a
short outline speech. Boardman moved to lay the resolution
on the table; whereupon Floyd called for the yeas and nays;
and at half-past eleven the House adjourned, after an abortive
attempt to adjourn over to Monday.
Colonel Hayne, of South Carolina, came to my seat to re
quest a conversation with me at some convenient time about a
plan which he has formed for settling by a compromise the
great slavery question, and which he wishes me to under
take. His views are pure and benevolent. I promised cheer
fully to see and hear him on the subject, without fixing the
time. In the Senate, my bill to prohibit further investments of
United States public funds in stocks of the States was no
sooner read than Woodbury and Sevier, the contractors of the
bargain consummated by the sixth section of the West Point
Appropriation Act of 1838, immediately started up, and one
of them moved to lay it on the table. It was, however, referred
to the Committee of Finance, of which Henry Clay is Chair
man, and I commended the bill to his care. He referred me
to George Evans, a member of the same committee, who, he
said, would have charge of the bill.
The Senate this day passed the Fiscal Corporation bill —
twenty-seven to twenty-two — with a certainty that it will be
vetoed by President Tyler. I was dallying in conversation
with several members in the House when the vote was taken.
I went in soon afterwards, and found them engaged upon the
Fortification bill ; but immediately after they went into Execu
tive business, and I came home.
4th. At the House, Boardman had moved yesterday to lay
the McLeod resolution on the table, and the yeas and nays
had been called. I had been urged by several members to

1841.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. r
speak on this question, and had hesitated whether I would or
not down till I entered the House this morning. In my hesi
tation, I had made no preparation to speak, and had not one
line noting the topics to be touched upon. I finally asked
Boardman if he would withdraw his motion to lay the resolu
tion on the table.
Oh; yes, if I would renew it.
I said I could not do that, if any one should wish to reply
to me.
Well, he withdrew his motion without condition.
I then rambled through a speech, without method or com
pass, till the Speaker's hammer came down, announcing that
my hour was out. Several motions were made for permission
to me to proceed ; but I declined. I scarcely know what I said ;
but Wheeler, the reporter, told me he had ample notes, and
would send them to me. He told me, too, that his " nubibus hie
tumidus, fluctibus ille minax," was from an Ode of Horace.1
When I finished, or rather when my speech was amputated,
Wise rose, and said he wished, as a Virginian, to defend
Stevenson, whom I had lashed.; and I entreated that he might
have liberty to proceed ; but he had spoken his hour on the
question before the House, and they refused to hear him now.
Boardman renewed his motion to lay the resolution on the
table, and it was carried, by yeas and nays — one hundred and
nine to seventy. Wise then asked leave to offer a resolution
calling on the President for copies of Stevenson's dastardly
letter to Commodore Hull. He was told that it had been
communicated to the Senate and was published in their docu
ments. The majority was for suspending the rules ; but not
two-thirds. Wise will hang his defence of Stevenson upon
some other question, when I shall not be allowed or not pre
pared to reply to him. The House adjourned before twelve.
1 On the 28th of the preceding month, Mr, Adams reports himself as having
asked the Speaker what had become of the McLeod resolution, and some one
had replied it was "in nubibus." To his great surprise, he found in the report of
the Intelligencer the next morning, as attributed to him, the passage inserted as it
stands in the text. This was quite enough intensely to rouse his desire to trace
the source of the quotation. It was not from Horace, as will appear hereafter.

6 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [September,
David Levy, the delegate from Florida, against whom the
Committee of Elections have reported as not a citizen of the
United States, came to my seat to crave my assistance in his
favor ; but his case, though hard, is desperate.
5th. Mr. Gould, whom Mr. Henry brought with him and
introduced to me last evening, has invented a plan of a com
monplace book, an improvement upon Locke's, and which he
wishes to introduce into common schools as a part of the edu
cation of children. Short-hand writing is a part of his system,
and he read me parts of a dissertation upon his project, for
which he wanted a recommendatory notice from me. I de
clined giving it, on the general rule that I have prescribed to
myself; but said I believed it would be very useful if a prac
ticable system of such a manual could be simplified to the intel
lect and industry of common minds — which I doubted. I had
occupied and amused a long life in the search of such a com
pendious wisdom-box, but without being able to find or make
it. I had made myself more than one of Locke's common
place books, but never used any one of them. I had learnt and
practised Byrom's short-hand writing, but no one could read it
but myself. I had kept accounts by double entry, day-book,
journal, and ledger, with cash-book, bank-book, house-book,
and letter-book. I had made extracts, copies, translations, and
quotations, more perhaps than any other man living, without
ever being able to pack up my knowledge or my labors in
any methodical order; and now doubt whether I might not
have employed my time more profitably in some one great,
well-compacted, comprehensive pursuit, adapting every hour
of labor to the attainment of one great end.
6th. There are numerous nominations pending before the
Senate, made at the commencement of or very early in the
session, and upon which the action of the Senate has been and
is yet suspended. Among them is that of Edward Everett,
upon the charge of his being an abolitionist.
This morning, at the House, John W. Jones presented reso
lutions of a Democratic meeting in the county of Amelia,
Virginia, against all the measures of the present session of
Congress; laid on the table.

1841.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS.
Taliaferro moved a resolution that William Smith, who
contests the election of Linn Banks, be allowed pay as a
member during the present session, because the Committee of
Elections have, at the request of Mr. Banks, allowed him time
till the next session to take testimony to prove his election.
Motion not received.
George W. Summers, Chairman of the select Committee on
the Contingent Expenses of the House, asked leave for the
committee to report at the next session, and stated some of the
expenses of printing and stationery as very exorbitant. The
resolution was adopted.
The report of the Committee of Elections against David
Levy, returned as delegate from the Territory of Florida, then
came up. Halsted enquired of Levy whether he desired to
be heard by counsel. Levy then asked a postponement of the
question till the next session, that he may have the means of
proving by testimony that his father was entitled to the rights
of a citizen of the United States on the transfer of the Terri
tory of Florida from Spain to the United States. He supported
his demand in a speech of more than an hour, and Halsted,
Stanly, Gamble, and Wise took part in the debate, till half-past
one — when Pope moved to adjourn, and it was carried.
The reporter sent me his notes of my speech of Saturday,
upon the McLeod resolution — so wretchedly put together that
it will take me almost as much time to write them out as if I
had no notes at all.
7th. I have been not a little perplexed in coming to a con-
clusionupon the case of David Levy, the delegate from Florida,
on his contested election. There is no competition ; the ob
jection is that he is not a citizen of the United States. I fear
he will not be able to prove that he is ; but it is perhaps equally
hard to prove that to be a citizen of the United States is a
qualification indispensable for a delegate from the Territory of
Florida. The question was taken this morning upon his applir
cation for time till the winter session ; and it was carried — one
hundred and twenty-three to forty-four — the members of the
House yet present being reduced nearly to one hundred and
seventy.

g MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [September,
Harris, of Virginia, together with W. A. Goode, presented
anti-session Democratic resolutions from Clarke County, in
that State ; laid on the table. He complained that the House
would neither hear, read, nor print them.
Owsley, of Kentucky, offered two resolutions of amendment
to the Constitution : one, to' restrict the Presidential office to
one term of service; the other, to make a majority of the
whole number of members of both Houses paramount to a
veto. Hopkins objects, and the resolutions are not received.
William Russell, a plain, sensible Ohio farmer, who sits at
my right hand, presented resolutions of a Whig Convention of
delegates in that State ; laid on the table. He told me he was
in a state of extreme agitation at hearing the sound of his own
voice in that hall.
Taliaferro offered again the resolution he had attempted to
introduce yesterday, to allow pay as a member to William
Smith, who contests the election of Linn Banks — because the
Committee of Elections, at the request of Banks, had allowed
him time till the next session to take further testimony, the
balance of the evidence being at this time against him, and in
favor of Smith. The resolution was now received; but the
committee had made no report, and they had not the power to
allow Banks time till the next session to take testimony, with
out the sanction of the House. I objected to the resolution, as
not in order; but the Speaker said it had been received by
general consent, and the objection was now too late. Banks
made a passionate speech, which nobody heard or heeded.
Fillmore moved to lay the resolution on the table; carried.
Ferris reported from the Committee of Foreign Relations a
resolution requesting the President to consider the propriety
of entering into negotiations with the British Government to
procure the release of the citizens of the United States trans
ported to Van Diemen's Land for participation in the Canadian
insurrection. This resolution was sliding down without a dis
senting voice, when I stopped the Speaker as he was putting
the question, and remonstrated against it. Holmes, of South
Carolina, as usual, replied to me. Stanly moved to adjourn ;
carried.

1 84 1.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. g
8th. My poem on the Wants of Man is published in the
National Intelligencer this morning, from the Albany Evening
Journal, from a copy taken by Christopher Morgan and sent
to Mrs. Seward, wife of the Governor of New York. I have
given copies of it in my own handwriting to John P. Kennedy,
of Baltimore, to Mrs. Dawson, wife of William C. Dawson, of
Greensborough, Georgia, and to Mrs. Hunt, wife of Hiram P.
Hunt, of Troy, New York. I have promised copies to George
W. Summers, of Kenawha C. H., Virginia, and to Garret Davis,
of Paris, Kentucky. Alexander Randall, of Annapolis, Mary
land, John Greig, of Canandaigua, New York, and William
H. Washington, of Newbern, North Carolina, have, with my
permission, taken copies of it themselves ; and I consented, at
Morgan's request, to its being published.1
Ferris's Van Diemen's Land resolution was called up by
Horace Everett, immediately after the reading of the journal,
as the unfinished business of yesterday. Everett made a short
speech, and said he had assented in the Committee of Foreign
Relations to report this resolution, under an impression that it
was offered in a conciliatory spirit, and with the hope that it
might have that tendency; but, after Ferris's speech in support
of the resolution yesterday, his opinion concerning it was en
tirely changed, and he moved to lay the resolution on the table.
Ferris immediately entreated him to withdraw the motion,
to give him an opportunity to explain ; which Everett did, on
condition that he would renew the motion to lay the resolution
on the table; which Ferris promised to do. His explanation
was a mere hollow-hearted denial of all intention to inflame
the irritation between the two countries, and an assurance that
his intention was altogether conciliatory.
Fernando Wood, of New York, urgently begged Everett to
withdraw the motion to lay on the table, and allow him to
speak. Everett declined. The question to lay on the table
was rejected by yeas and nays — eighty to eighty-one — almost
1 This poem proved by far the most popular production of Mr. Adams's pen in
this line of composition. It has obtained a place in the volume entitled " Parnassus,"
edited by Mr. R. Waldo Emerson, during the very last year, but shorn of five of
its stanzas.

I0 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [September,
every member from the State of New York, Whig or Democrat,
voting against laying on the table. Wood then made an in
cendiary speech, and John McKeon another, in the midst of
which the morning hour expired, and Fillmore moved the
orders of the day.
An amendment of the Senate to the Diplomatic Appropria
tion bill was referred to the committee of the whole on the
state of the Union ; so were their amendments to the Revenue
bill ; and these were immediately taken up, Barker Burnell in
the chair. One of the Senate's amendments was, to strike out
from the dutiable articles tea and coffee. Wise moved to add
salt. Lost in committee of the whole, but carried in the
House, by yeas and hays — ninety-four to eighty-eight. Then,
moved by Stanly, sugar — one hundred and five to seventy-five,
and cotton — one hundred and five to seventy-eight. House in
a snarl, and adjourned.
9th. Second Veto. Wise and Stanly.
H. R. U. S. Fillmore moved a call of the House; but
Hopkins, for the same purpose, moved to adjourn, and asked
the yeas and nays, to give the members time to come in. The
vote was one hundred and fifty nays, including that of Hopkins
himself. The unfinished business was the motion for recon
sideration of the votes of yesterday exempting from duty salt,
sugar, and cotton — all reconsidered by yeas and nays — salt,
ninety-five to seventy-nine ; sugar, one hundred and one to
eighty; cotton, one hundred and nineteen to sixty. Wise then
withdrew his motion to amend the Senate's amendment by
exempting salt; and Stanly withdrew his motion to exempt
sugar and cotton. The amendment of the Senate exempting
tea and coffee was concurred in — one hundred and seventy-
eight to seven, of which my vote was one. There was an
amendment of the Senate excluding all duties over twenty per
cent, ad valorem, to which Fillmore moved an amendment,
which was carried.
The House went into committee of the whole on the state
of the Union, Samson Mason in the chair, on the amendments
of the Senate to the Diplomatic Appropriation bill : there was
one striking out the item for a Charge d'Affaires at Naples ;

1 841.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. ,,
disagreed to, after a long debate, in the midst of which Robert
Tyler came in, and the Speaker took the chair. R. Tyler then
announced that the President had signed three bills, and then
a message in writing. It was the veto to the Fiscal Corporation
bill, which was immediately read. Jeremiah Morrow, of Ohio,
then rose, and moved that the message be entered on the jour
nal of the House, printed for the use of the members of the
House, and that to-morrow at twelve o'clock be appointed to
reconsider the bill ; which was adopted unanimously.
Mason then resumed the chair of the committee of the whole,
and McKeon finished a speech, which he had before begun,
in favor of agreeing with the amendment of the Senate which
struck out the appropriation for the mission to Naples. Cush-
ing, Steenrod, Wise, took part in the debate. I urged the
House to disagree to the Senate's amendment. Ingersoll fol
lowed, and Stanly made some cutting remarks upon Wise.
Fillmore followed, but had said only a few words, when Wise
crossed from his seat to that of Stanly, began by hectoring and
finished by insulting him — whereupon Stanly called him a liar.
Wise struck, or attempted to strike, him, and a fight ensued ;
a rush of members to. the spot, whether to separate the com
batants or to take sides with them it was difficult to say.
The Speaker took the chair, and roared, " Order ! order !" but
no order came. Many cried out, "The Sergeant-at-Arms !
the. Sergeant-at-Arms !" but no Sergeant-at-Arms appeared.
After about five minutes of chaos, Wise appeared in his seat,
addressed the Speaker, said he was perfectly cool, and most
humbly begged pardon of the House, and told how he had
gone over to remonstrate with Stanly, that words had en
sued, till Stanly had applied to him a word which he could not
brook, and he had struck him. Stanly said he had no pardon
to ask of the House; that he had told Wise he was a liar, and
would have chastised him severely if other members had not
interfered. Ingersoll offered a resolution to investigate the
rencontre — a committee of seven; adopted.
10th. H. R. U. S. On the reading of the journal this morn
ing, the names of the seven members of the committee to in
vestigate the rencontre between Wise and Stanly, as Charles J,

I2 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [September,
Ingersoll calls it, were announced by the Clerk — Ingersoll,
Morrow, Everett, Caruthers, Saltonstall, Holmes, and Ferris.
Everett asked to be excused, because he had expressed an
opinion on the transaction yesterday ; but the House refused
to excuse him. After the hubbub was over yesterday, I moved
the House to go into committee of the whole on the state of
the Union to take up the amendments of the Senate to the
Diplomatic Appropriation bill ; done — Pope in the chair.
I took part in the debate, to disagree with the amendment
striking out the Neapolitan mission, and to agree to the amend
ment making an extra allowance of three months' pay for this
session to the officers of both Houses ; succeeded in both.
Then the committee took up the amendments of the Senate to
the Smithson Fund bill, with which the House, at my motion,
agreed; and so the bill has gone through both Houses.
This morning there was much business done before noon.
W. C. Johnson announced, with great satisfaction, that the sud
den and transient difference between Mr. Wise and Mr. Stanly
had been entirely adjusted by the intervention of their common
friends, to their mutual satisfaction, and that the former friendly
relations between them are restored-.
At noon Botts called up the Veto message and the recon
sideration of the Fiscal Corporation bill, and he pronounced a
severe philippic of one hour upon President John Tyler, whom
he accused of treachery and perfidy to the Whig party. He
was answered in another hour speech by Thomas W. Gilmer,
who was not less personally severe upon Botts, who resented
it more in temper than in words. He referred to a bet of ten
thousand dollars upon the last Presidential election, which
Botts avowed that he had made; and Gilmer used the term
"jockey," with indistinct reference to some horse-trading of
Botts, not generally known to the House, but felt by him.
Some time after, Alexander H. H. Stuart announced that this
difficulty had been adjusted by the intervention of mutual
friends, and read a written statement to that effect.
The debate on the bill was continued by Proffit and Lane,
of Indiana, Mason, of Ohio, Isaac D. Jones, of Princess Anne,
Maryland, Richard W. Thompson, of Indiana, till half-past six,

1841.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. T->
when Gamble, of Georgia, moved the previous question ; which
was carried, and the vote on the bill, by yeas and nays, was
one hundred and three to eighty — not two-thirds. Bill lost.
The last amendments on the Revenue bill and the Smithson
Fund bill were passed, and the House adjourned.
Meeting at Mr. Webster's of the Massachusetts delegation.
Bates and Choate, Senators, Adams, Baker, Borden, Burnell,
Cushing, Hudson, Saltonstall, Winthrop ; absent, Briggs, Cal
houn, Hastings, Parmenter. More to-morrow. Home at eleven
p.m. Impransus.
nth. The meeting at Mr. Webster's last evening was. at his
request. He stated that the Secretary of the Treasury, Thomas
Ewing, the Secretary of the Navy, George E. Badger, of North
Carolina, and the Attorney-General, John J. Crittenden, of
Kentucky, had called on him this day and informed him that
they and John Bell, of Tennessee, had determined to send in
their resignations of their respective offices (the latter, of Sec
retary of War) to President Tyler at eleven o'clock to-morrow
morning. Mr. Webster then, addressing me, said that, being thus placed
in a peculiar position, and seeing no sufficient cause for resign
ing his office, he had requested this meeting to consult with
the members of the delegation and to have the benefit of their
opinions, assuring them that as to the office itself it was a
matter of the most perfect indifference to him whether he re
tained or resigned it — a declaration which it is possible he
believed when he made it. But he had prefaced it by stating
that he saw no cause sufficient to justify his resignation. It
was like Falstaff's recruit " Bullcalf." " In very truth, sir, I
had as lief be hanged, sir, as go; and yet, for mine own part,
sir, I do not care ; but rather because I am unwilling, and for
mine own part have a desire to stay with my friends ; else, sir,
I did not care for mine own part so much."
I asked him what reasons his colleagues had assigned for
their determination to resign. He said they were various. The
Secretary of the Treasury, Ewing, thought he had been dis
respectfully treated by Mr. Tyler, and, further, that Mr. Tyler
claimed some authority concerning the management of the

14 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [September,
Treasury, which Ewing thought contrary to law. Mr. Critten
den had personal relations with Mr. Clay which rendered his
position now, as a confidential member of Mr. Tyler's Adminis
tration, specially irksome, and to which he thought he could no
longer submit. Mr. Bell and Mr. Badger were sensitive to some
part of the deportment of the President to them, which they
thought manifested a want of confidence in them — at least Mr.
Badger; for Mr. Bell was not with the others when they came
to him this day, and he had not stated what his reason for re
signing was. For himself, Mr. Webster said, Mr. Tyler had
never treated him with disrespect, and he had no doubt it was
his desire that he should remain in the Department of State.
He gave a very brief narrative of the progress of the two Bank
bills, and intimated his own belief that Mr. Tyler would have
signed the second bill but for the publication of Botts's letter
to the " Richmond Coffee-House."
Enquiry was made how that most intimate confidential inter
course between the President and the correspondent of the
New York Herald was to be considered, coupled with the con
tinual ferocious and scurrilous abuse in that paper upon all the
members of the Cabinet, including Mr. Webster himself. He
said Mr. Tyler had two indiscreet sons, and he believed that
the exceptionable intercourse has been established and carried
on through them. But the joint resignation of the four heads
of Departments together was a Clay movement, to make up
an issue before the people against Mr. Tyler.
We all agreed that Mr. Webster would not be justified in
resigning at this time; but we all felt that the hour for the
requiem of the Whig party was at hand.
At the House this morning a message was received from
the Senate announcing that they had agreed to the resolution
of the House to adjourn on Monday next, striking out the
words "at eleven o'clock a.m." — with which the House imme
diately concurred. Charles J. Ingersoll presented a report from
the committee appointed to investigate the attack and assault
by Wise upon Stanly in his seat, which Ingersoll's resolution
called a "rencontre." The report commenced with a written
statement of the facts by each of the two parties, not materially

1841.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. it-
differing from each other; then the report concludes with sev
eral resolutions: 1, that the whole report and the two state
ments of facts should be spread upon the journal of the House
as a reprimand; and then other resolutions: that hereafter, if
any member shall strike another, he shall be expelled; and if
any one shall insult another, he shall be fined one hundred
dollars; and upon this report Ingersoll moved the previous
question. I asked him to withdraw it, and he refused. I then
moved to lay the report on the table, but withdrew it on a
promise from several members that the previous question
should be voted down.
I rose, and enquired to whom the reprimand to be recorded
on the journal was meant to apply. Ingersoll answered by a
sneaking, insidious, inflammatory, equivocating speech, without
naming either of the parties; finally said that every one might
apply it as he pleased.
Stanly enquired of him whether the report was intended to
apply the term "reprimand" to him, and he said he could not
tell. He said the committee were all elderly men, and had
agreed unanimously to the report; but three of them, Everett,
Saltonstall, and Caruthers, disowned it ; and Caruthers said he
had moved, or intended to move, and he did actually move,
in the House, to add to the word "reprimand" the words "to
Henry A. Wise.'' Warren moved as a substitute a resolution
to expel Wise, who, with a forlorn and crafty affectation of hu
mility, said he hoped the House would not pass any vote of
censure upon Stanly, and that for himself, he would submit to
any judgment the House would pass upon him, for there was
but one man in the House whose judgment he was unwilling
to abide by, and that was me.
He thought by this insult to provoke me to an intemperate
retort which would divert the attention of the House from
himself to me. I retorted only by disclaiming all personal
hostility to him, and by opposing any vote of censure upon
him. Alexander H. H. Stuart at last moved the recommitment
of the report, with instructions to report a resolution that, as
Wise had apologized to the House and settled with Stanly, the
House would take no further order on the subject; which was

t6 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [September,
adopted, by yeas and nays — a hundred and four to fifty-six.
Adjourned about three p.m.
i 2th. Mr. Webster told us last evening that the Postmaster-
General, Francis Granger, desired and intended to remain in
office; but he resigned this morning together with the four
other heads of Departments, leaving Daniel Webster, Secretary
of State, the sole remnant of the Harrison Administration,
alone in his glory.
As I was going to church this morning, I met Miss Cutts,
who put into my hands a note which she had received, re
questing her if she could, by any female diplomacy, obtain
from me this day, before night, a copy of my verses addressed
to the two Misses Bruce, written at the request of Mr. William
Cost Johnson, and given by me to him, with my permission
to have them published, if he pleased, in the Southern Literary
Messenger, a quarterly periodical published at Richmond, Vir
ginia. I found that the note was from John Howard Payne, a
poetical, dramatic, and political adventurer, now here an ap
plicant for an appointment as Secretary of Legation to any of
our foreign missions, a most familiar and intimate acquaintance
of President Tyler's two sons John and Robert, and a con
fidential correspondent of James Gordon Bennett's New York
Herald, a paper in which the most secret proceedings of the
President and his Cabinet have, for the last six weeks, been
divulged, with the most fulsome adulation to President Tyler,
and the most unbounded and scurrilous abuse upon every
member of the Cabinet. This paper has, at the same time, had
almost daily notices of me, sometimes minatorial, but for the
last ten days nauseously flattering. Some three weeks since,
the Herald's correspondent, having heard of my verses to the
Misses Bruce, promised Bennett a copy of them for publication
the next week, and the next week said that he could not fur
nish them yet, but he should have them. Mr. Payne's note
says that Mr. Cost Johnson had promised him a copy of the
verses, but afterwards said that he had lost it. Miss Cutts
came this afternoon for an answer to Mr. Payne's request. I
told her that I would with much pleasure comply with it, but
that I had given the verses to Mr. Johnson, with permission to

1841.] THE TWENTY- SEVENTH CONGRESS. iy
dispose of them at his pleasure, and did not feel myself at
liberty to give another copy without his permission. I have
no doubt that Payne wanted the copy to send to Bennett, so
that the Herald might get the start of the Southern Literary
Messenger in the publication.
13th. H. R. U. S. There was no quorum, but the journal
was no sooner read than John B. Weller, of Hamilton, Butler
County, Ohio, a prince of the mock Democracy, now called
Loco-focos, called up Ferris's Van Diemen's Land resolution.
I objected to its being considered without a quorum, and said
if a quorum could be obtained I should move to lay it on the
table. Graham, of North Carolina, moved a call of the House;
yeas and nays — fifty-two to thirty-three. The call was com
menced, but soon superseded, and there was no quorum the
whole day.
Several resolutions were offered, but none received, except
a motion by Horace Everett for the usual committee to be
joined by one from the Senate to wait on the President and
inform him that, if he had no further communications to make,
the two Houses were ready to adjourn. Everett, Lewis Wil
liams, of North Carolina, and Aaron Ward, of New York, were
the committee on the part of the House. A recess was then
taken by the House — first till noon, and then till five p.m. —
during which I came home and dined.
I returned to the House at five. In the mean time, several
other members had gone off in the cars. The committee on
the part of the Senate to wait on the President were soon after
appointed ; but they waited some time for the President to re
ceive them at the Capitol, and Lewis Williams would not and
did not go with them. About dusk, Thomas F. Marshall/of
Kentucky, rose, and enquired of the Speaker if it would be in
order for him to make a motion on any subject whatever. The
Speaker said it would. He moved that five thousand copies
of the Veto message be printed, and then made a speech of
nearly an hour and a half, in his own peculiar style of eloquence,
sublimated by no thin potations. Bitter invective upon John
Tyler, extravagant commendatory vituperation upon Wise,
lofty sentiment, comprehensive views, and alcohol evaporating
VOL. XI. — 2

j 3 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [September,
in elegant language, constituted this speech — at the close of
which he withdrew his motion. Everett, from the joint com
mittee, soon after came in and reported, and about eight o'clock
the Speaker adjourned the House without day.
14th. I met Mr. Henry A. Wise, who spoke to me and of
fered me his hand — civilities which I accepted and returned;
though I should not have offered them after his openly point
ing to me in the House as the only man there unfit to be
his judge, by supposed personal hostility to him, at the very
moment when I was toiling to save him from all censure, and
others were offering repeated motions for his expulsion.
I went to the Capitol, and took my seat in the House for the
next session, calling Follansbee, the Door-keeper, to witness it.
Met there H. Everett, and Stanly, who was franking documents,
and who thinks worse of Wise than I do. I took at the Clerk's
office the supplementary document of Trist's dispatches. Mr.
Henry Clay and Mr. Francis Granger paid me evening visits.
Much interesting conversation with both of them, which I have
not time to record.
15th. I took the revised manuscript of my speech on the
McLeod resolution to the office of the National Intelligencer,
for publication. It was so wretchedly travestied by the man
who took the notes that I had as much trouble with it as I
should have had to write it out in extenso. Mr. Gales promised
to publish it next Saturday, and to send me the proof-slips to
morrow evening. Met Stanly at the office, who had just called
at my house, and would call again to-morrow morning if he
should postpone his departure till the afternoon. Gales told
me that Mr. Webster was very unwell; and I called at his house,
but he was not there. I found him at the office of the Depart
ment of State. I spoke of the call from the House for the
aggregates °f the Census, adopted early in the session, at my
motion, and enquired if I could be furnished with a copy of
it before my departure. I enquired also what was the present
state of the negotiation with Great Britain concerning the case
of McLeod. He said there had been no further correspond
ence since that which was published, till this day, when he had
received from Mr. Fox a note, which he would show me if I

1841.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS.

19

would call at the office at two o'clock to-morrow, and he
would then also give me an answer respecting the aggregate
of the Census. We had much conversation upon the McLeod
case, but upon nothing else.
16th. Edward Stanly, a member of the House from North
Carolina, called to take leave. He has excellent principles, and
a lofty spirit, with a quick perception, an irritable temper, and a
sarcastic turn of mind, sparing neither friend nor foe. He is
the terror of the Lucifer party, and Wise made that desperate
attempt last week to scale him on the floor, by which he only
succeeded in flooring himself. Stanly's spirit is not to be sub
dued; but the thunderbolt of heaven has fallen upon the Whigs,
and he, with all the honest men of the party, is disheartened
and perplexed. We have no hope but in the redeeming power
of heaven to overrule for good the seemingly most calamitous
events. I called twice this day at the Department of State. The first
time the Secretary, Webster, was not at the office; so I passed
over to the Treasury Department, and saw Mr. Walter Forward,
the new Secretary. I spoke to him upon two subjects. 1. The
Smithsonian Fund, of the history of which he is ignorant, and,
from the civil, courteous, and wholly indifferent manner in
which he received my communications, I presume he will care
just as little as did his predecessors, Ewing and Woodbury. I
told him what I had done, and what I propose to do ; and he
promised to send me a statement of the present condition of
the fund, and the amount of the stocks of the several States
which have been purchased under the authority of the sixth
section of the West Point Academy Appropriation of 1838.
And, 2, I spoke of the resolution of the House, adopted at my
motion on the 23d of July last, calling on the Secretary of the
Treasury for a report upon the debts of the several States.
Mr. Forward appeared not to have heard or not to have
thought of that resolution ; but he said he would attend to it,
and that he would write to the Secretaries of the several States,
to collect the information.
I then returned to the Department of State, and found Mr.
Webster, who told me he was very unwell, and who appeared

20 MEMOIRS OF JOHN 'QUINCY ADAMS. [September,
to be in no very good humor. Neither Weaver nor any one
of the clerks employed on the Census returns was there ; and
he told me I was too late — when it was not three o'clock, and
I had been there an hour before and found him not at the
office. But he promised to send me an answer on this subject
to-morrow ; and he gave me, to take home with me and read,
Mr. Fox's note of the 5th of this month, upon the case of
McLeod. It is an instruction, deeply earnest, to Fox from his
Government, upon the opinion of the Judge of the Supreme
Court of the State of New York, reminding Mr. Webster that
he had admitted the exemption of McLeod from all individual
criminality for acts done under the authority of his Government;
and expressing the deep anxiety of the British Government for
the preservation of peace, and their reliance upon the corre
sponding disposition of the President.
17th. After a long spell of dry weather, we had a moderate
cool rain nearly all this day, and the setting in of autumn. I
revised the proof-slips of my speech delivered on the 4th
instant on the McLeod resolution, the language of which,
wholly extemporaneous, is mean and tautological, full of repe
titions, and desultory, but has the merite de l'apropos. The
speech has for the time saved Webster from the catastrophe
which has befallen his colleagues. It has given him the means
of saving himself from ruin, and his country from a most dis
astrous war. My reward from him will be professions of respect
and esteem, speeches of approbation and regard for me to
my friends, knowing that they will be reported to me, secret
and deep-laid intrigues against me, and still more venomous
against my son. Such is human nature, in the gigantic intel
lect, the envious temper, the ravenous ambition, and the rotten
heart of Daniel Webster. His treatment of me has been, is,
and will be, an improved edition of Andrew Jackson's grati
tude. But these are things, according to Plutarch, not to be
told in the biographies of great men. I took the slips to the
office of the National Intelligencer, and left them with Mr.
Gales for publication to-morrow. Gales says that Caleb Cush-
ing wrote some of the most inflammatory letters against the
late Cabinet, published in the New York Herald.

1841.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 2I
1 8th. My next call was at the Treasury Department, where
1 requested of the Secretary, Forward, a more particular state
ment of the State stocks in which- the Smithsonian Funds,
principal and interest, have been invested. At the Department
of State I returned to Mr. Webster Mr. Fox's note of the 5th
instant. He said he thought of answering it by saying that
McLeod would be tried at his own solicitation by jury on the
27th of this month, and that if he should not be acquitted
there will be an appeal to the Court of Errors of the State of
New York, and from them to the Supreme Court of the United
States. My speech on the McLeod resolution was published
in the National Intelligencer this morning. Mr. Webster asked
me to have it published in a pamphlet, and said he would order
a thousand copies of it for circulation. He said the Great
Western had arrived at New York ; that the new Parliament
had assembled in England; that the address against the Min
isters had been carried in the House of Commons by a majority
of ninety-one, and the Queen had sent for Sir Robert Peel and
authorized him to form a Ministry at his discretion ; that the
subject of McLeod's detention had been noticed in Parliament ;
and he read me in the New York Herald of yesterday an extract
from a speech of Lord Palmerston, fully confirming the state
ment made in my speech, that Mr. Webster's letter to Mr. Fox
of the 24th of April, and the instructions to the Attorney-
General, had softened down and conciliated in an eminent
degree the bitterness and exasperation provoked by the pre
vious communications from the Van Buren Administration and
Pickens's report last winter.
I asked Mr. Webster if Mr. Tyler fully concurred in the
proceedings of the Administration, upon this subject before
the decease of President Harrison.
He said he did, and reminded me that his letter to Mr. Fox
was dated some weeks after Mr. Tyler had assumed the office
of President of the United States. The Census aggregates
were not ready for me; but Mr. Webster promised and directed
that a copy of them should be made up and sent to me at
Quincy next week.
From the Department of State I passed over to the Presi-

22 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [September,
dent's house, and saw Mr. Tyler. His son Robert was with
him, and Dixon H. Lewis, of Alabama, the man-mountain, with
his wife, on a take-leave visit like mine. They soon withdrew,
and I spoke to Mr. Tyler about the Smithsonian Fund and the
debts of the States. There are now six hundred and twenty
thousand dollars invested in State stocks bearing an interest
of six per cent, a year, payable half-yearly. I told him I had
at length succeeded in two measures at the recent session of
Congress — one by introducing into the bill for distributing the
proceeds of the sales of the public lands, the fourth section,
whereby the portion coming at any time to any State shall
be first applied to the payment of any debt, principal or in
terest, from the State to the United States ; and the other by
the repeal of the sixth section of the West Point Appropria
tion Act of 7th July, 1838, which required the investment of
the accruing interest in State stocks, and substituting the
investment of them in stocks of the United States— though
this has been attended, much against my will, with authority to
the Secretary of the Treasury to reduce the interest from six
per cent, a year, which the State bonds now bear, to not less
than five. The Secretary of the Treasury has obtained one
million, or a million and a half, of the twelve-million loan
authorized at the recent session of Congress, at five and a half
per cent; but he wants already two millions more, and has no
prospect of obtaining them at a rate lower than six per cent., if
at that; and I said if there should be an investment of the next
semi-annual interest I hoped it would not be taken at a lower
rate of interest than six per cent. But I was extremely anxious
that the United States should not assume, but resume, the
whole responsibility of that fund, and look themselves to the
States for their punctuality of payment.
Mr. Tyler, in general terms, approved of these observations,
and assured me that he would co-operate cordially with me for
the faithful application of these funds to the purposes of the
testator. He said he had my letter to the late Secretary Ewing,
and had read it.
I spoke also of the call of H. R. U. S. on the Secretary
of the Treasury for a report on the State debts, and gave

1841.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS.

23

him some of my views upon that deeply interesting public
concern. He certainly did not concur with them ; neither did he con
trovert them. When I suggested to him the certainty that the
European Governments will ultimately hold the United States
responsible for these State debts, he looked grave, but made no
remark. I went lastly to the office of the National Intelligencer, and
requested Mr. Seaton to print my McLeod resolution speech in
a pamphlet, and send me one hundred copies of it to Quincy.
I told him that Mr. Webster had said he would order a thou
sand copies. Seaton lamented the manner in which the Whig
presses are assailing Webster.
20th. I called at the Department of State, and met, coming
out of the Secretary's chamber as I went in, the new Attorney-
General, Hugh S. Legare, who immediately said to me that
he had read my speech on the McLeod resolution. I said,
jokingly, I hoped it would help him in his argument. He
said most certainly it would.
I spoke to Mr. Webster of the memorial from the protectors
of the Amistad Africans to the President, praying that pro
vision may be made for transporting them to Africa in one
or more of the public ships which may be ordered upon that
coast. He requested me to see and speak to the President concern
ing it; and he promised to call and see me on his way to
Marshfield, where he proposed shortly to pay a visit.
At the President's, conversation concerning the Amistad
Africans. He has no recollection of the memorial addressed
to him on this subject. Spoke of the Colonization Society.
New York, 22d. — I called at Arthur Tappan's house, and
thence went to Lewis Tappan's office, No. 7 Exchange Build
ings. Found Mr. Jocelyn there with him. Long conversation
with them respecting the Amistad Africans. They were about
writing to the Secretary of State for an answer to their memo
rial to the President requesting that the Africans may be sent
home in a public vessel or vessels. I told them of my inter
views with the Secretary of State and the President before my

24 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [September,
departure from Washington, and of my impression that the
President will do nothing on the subject without a previous Act
of Congress. I mentioned that he had either not read, or did
not remember, their memorial to him, and that he proposed to
me to shift off upon the Colonization Society the burden of
sending the Mendians to Africa, while the Society itself is beg
ging crumbs from the Southern slave-holders to pay its debts
and ship off some of their emancipated slaves. These gentle
men are very anxious to send all the Africans, including the
young girls, home this autumn ; but in that they will certainly
be disappointed.
Quincy, 24th. — John A. Green, editor of the Quincy Patriot,
came this morning with a slip of the paper to be published to
morrow, upon which was printed about half the stanzas of my
ballad upon " The Wants of Man." He was reprinting it from
the United States Gazette, which had taken it from the Albany
Evening Journal, which first made it public from the copy sent
by Morgan to Thurlow Weed. Many errors of the press had
crept into it, and it was without the eighth stanza, written
after Morgan had sent off his copy, and first published in the
National Intelligencer. I revised Mr. Green's slip, and gave
him a copy of the additional stanza. Mr. Green sent me this
evening the slip containing the remaining stanzas, the whole
now being twenty-five. Nothing that I ever wrote was half so
popular; though it was chance-begotten, to make autographs
for poor Charles Ogle's note-paper, and though the full copy
had remained in my portfolio fourteen months, to dumb forget-
, fulness a prey, till I accidentally mentioned it, and afterwards
sent it to John P. Kennedy to read. What a lesson this might
be to me, if I knew how to improve it !
25th. My excusatory letter to invitations from colleges,
lyceums, and other literary associations which I had left un
answered, was published in the National Intelligencer on the
2 1 st instant, the day that I left Washington. On the same day
was published in the same paper the letter of George E. Badger,
late Secretary of the Navy, assigning his reasons for resigning
that office. In that journal of the next day appeared a letter
from John Bell, the late Secretary of War, with a statement of

1841.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 2t
facts for the same exculpatory purpose on his part. Two letters
from Daniel Webster, Secretary of State — one to the editors of
the Intelligencer, and the other to Hiram Ketchum, of New
York — have assigned to the public his reasons for not resign
ing his office. The whole of this controversy has assumed too
much of a personal character; but its inevitable result will be
the total overthrow of the Whig party throughout the Union.
Victrix causa Deis placuit.
October nth. This afternoon four gentlemen met here at the
same time, two of them from Milton, Mr. Rowe and Mr. Rob-
bins, the other two from Lynn, Mr. Oliver and Mr. Newhall —
both deputations from the lyceums of those places to request
me to deliver lectures at each of them. I have not firmness to
resist these personal applications, and have some difficulty in
suppressing the temptation to answer rudely — which would be-
inexcusable. One of the applications which I received last
Friday was from Watterman Thomas, Bourne Thomas, Luther
Rogers, Charles W. Macomber, Daniel Phillips, Edward P.
Little, and John Tilden, a committee from the town of Marsh-
field for the improvement of North River. Their invitation is,
that I would visit Marshfield and, with many of their towns
men, go to the spot where they wish to operate ; and they
specially desire this on account of my visit two years ago to
Scituate. They further propose to me to meet their citizens in
some house of public worship during my visit to Marshfield,
for the interchangement of friendly feelings, and that their
children may have an opportunity to look upon the man whose
name is so closely connected with the honor and prosperity of
their country. This is a matter of public business, interesting
extensively to the inhabitants of several towns in the Twelfth
Congressional District, and which of course , forbids my de
clining the invitation to visit the spot, and, being there, I
cannot decently refuse to go with them to the meeting-house.
But there is competition between Marshfield and Scituate for
the location of the canal. A speech in the meeting-house will
be indispensable ; and then what town in the district will not be
entitled to a visit, a convocation in the meeting-house, and a
speech ? I told the gentlemen of Milton and Lynn that I could

26 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [October,
make no positive engagement, but if I could make an oppor
tunity to lecture for them would do it, and give them seasonable
notice. 1 2th. Mr. Kirkland Lothrop, minister of the Brattle Street
Church, was here this afternoon. He spoke of the trial of
Alexander McLeod at Utica, in the State of New York, before
Judge Gridly, of the Supreme Court of that State, and a jury,
for the murder of a man named Durfee, and the burning of the
steamboat Caroline, on the night of the 29th and 30th of De
cember, 1837. This trial, which commenced on Monday, the
4th of this month, continued through the last week, and is
probably not yet concluded. All the newspapers have been
full of reports of the progress of the trial, which involves at
once a question of peace and war with Great Britain, and of
civil war and the existence of the Union between the General
Government and the Government of the State of New York.
This is one of the consequences naturally flowing from the
Jeffersonian doctrine of nullification and of State rights; and
that doctrine had its origin in the root of all evil — slavery.
This, in the case of McLeod and the burning of the Caroline,
is complicated with the convulsive condition of Canada, the
fermenting spirit of insurrection against the British Govern
ment in that country, the sympathies and antipathies always
existing between the bordering population of rival nations, and
the reckless spirit of adventure, avarice, and ambition, burning
in the bosoms of multitudes, especially of young men having
little or nothing to lose, and, in imagination, everything to gain,
by war and confusion. Mr. Lothrop spoke of a letter from Mr.
Roebuck to Captain Napier, and of his answer, dated in August
last in England, and republished here in the New York Herald.
They discuss the question of collision between our General
Government and that of the State of New York, whereby the
Government of the United States, though admitting the obliga
tion to release McLeod from the time when the British Gov
ernment avowed the act of burning the Caroline as their own,
have yet been disabled from effecting his release by the refusal
of the Government of New York to deliver him up, whence,
Mr. Lothrop says, Captain Napier gravely concludes that there

1841.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS.

27

must be war, whether McLeod shall be finally released or not.
A military conclusion.
15th. We have this day the account that, on the trial of
Alexander McLeod at Utica, in the State of New York, for
the murder of Durfee, in December, 1837, at the destruction
of the steamboat Caroline, the verdict of the jury pronounced
him not guilty, and he was immediately discharged. This re
lieves us from all immediate danger of hostile collision with
Great Britain, but leaves the negotiations with that country
upon the Maine boundary, the South Sea boundary, the slave-
trade, and the seizures of our vessels on the coast of Africa,
thorns to be extracted by purer and more skilful hands than
are to be found in the Administration of John Tyler.
19th. Mr. Worthington and Mr. McMullen came as a deputa
tion from the Young Men's Association at Albany, to repeat an
invitation, more than once heretofore given to me, to deliver a
lecture before them. They brought with them commendatory
letters from Governor Seward, from Tunis Van Vechten, Mayor
of Albany, and from Dr. J. M. Campbell, the clergyman hereto
fore minister of the Second Presbyterian Church at Washington.
My catarrhal cough continues, without any symptom of abate
ment, but, on the contrary, with evident aggravation. I was,
therefore, compelled again to decline this invitation, with a
promise that if the cough should leave me, and I find it practi
cable, I will yet return to Washington by the way of Albany,
and deliver the lecture there. I had much political conversa
tion with these two young men, and spoke my mind with more
freedom than prudence. The worst consequence of these im
portunities is their effect upon me as flattery. I am so tickled
with professions of veneration that I believe them all sincere.
It might be wiser to treat them all with contempt ; but it would
not be so good-natured.
November 3d. I had received two letters from Governor
Seward, of New York, of great civility — one of them inviting
me to lodge at his house in Albany. He had sent me copies
of his messages to the Legislature, particularly concerning his
controversy with the Governors of Virginia. I had sent him
a copy of my speech in H. R. U. S. upon the case of McLeod

28 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [November,
— in acknowledging the receipt of which he had intimated his
dissent from some of the opinions expressed in it. I had now
to reply to his kindness, his courtesy, and his dissent, in one
letter; and it took me half this day to write it. To reciprocate
benevolence without simulating or dissimulating opinion, to
maintain perfect sincerity without wounding sensibility, re
quires so much caution in the use of words and in the ex
pression of sentiment that it takes almost as much time to
write such a letter as to compose a dissertation. Voltaire and
Jefferson in such cases wrote flattering letters to their corre
spondents, and letters censorious of the correspondents to
others. This is the quintessence of duplicity. There is great
danger of falling into this practice. There is no surer test of
a double-dealer than to compare letters of opinion with one
another. Boston, 5th. — After breakfast, I called upon Mr. Abbott
Lawrence, and had an hour of conversation with him upon
the electioneering politics of the day. The Whig party, as they
call themselves, is splitting up into a thousand fragments. Mr.
Lawrence is struggling to sustain it, and Rufus Choate and
Robert C. Winthrop and Leverett Saltonstall are haranguing
Whig caucus meetings throughout the State, in vain, to support
it. The general expectation is that Marcus Morton will again
be elected Governor of the Commonwealth, and that Democracy
will ride rough-shod over the whole country. The ambitious
politicians are trimming their sails to the breeze. Webster has
been spending several weeks at Marshfield, fishing, shooting,
ut olim, leaving his son, Fletcher, to act the Secretary of State,
and affecting the Stoic to the still-recurring rumors that he is
to be discarded or hoisted out of his Department into some
foreign mission. He has avoided and evaded all conversation
with Mr. Lawrence upon the thorny questions 6f bank, tariff,
and negotiation with England, and Lawrence has lost all con
fidence in him. Caleb Cushing has taken a lover's-leap over
to the Tyler territory, and makes his court (fait sa cour) to
the Lady Elizabeth. This, as Burke says, is a curious show,
but unsafe to stand upon. The prospects of the country, so
far as government is concerned, are dismal; but its prosperity

1841.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 29
continues unabated and increasing. God and nature are still
bountiful ; but Providence, as if to reserve to itself its su
premacy of beneficence and to baffle and disconcert all human
exertion to promote its purpose, scattered to the winds of
heaven all the plans of improvement in the condition of the
country, by clipping the thread of Harrison's life at the very
moment when he had been raised to the summit of power, and
when all the hopes of a liberal Administration of the National
Government were concentrated upon him.
Quincy, 19th. — I received last week a splendidly bound
quarto Bible, presented to me, with an address in manuscript
fronting the title-page, signed by Cinque, Kinna, and Kale, for
the thirty-five Mendian Africans of the Amistad. Mr. Lewis
Tappan has been extremely desirous of having this done by a
public exhibition and ceremony, which I have repeatedly and
inflexibly declined, from a clear conviction of its impropriety,
and invincible repugnance to exhibiting myself as a public
raree-show ; but, as in common civility an answer was due to
the present and the address, I wrote one this day to the address,
and one, enclosing it, to Mr. Tappan.
Boston, 20th. — -I walked out before dinner, and called at
the office of Mr. Ellis Gray Loring, with whom I had about an
hour's conversation. He is under no small concern from ap
prehension upon two points at the approaching session of Con
gress : one, the rule excluding the reception of all petitions,
resolutions, and papers relating to slavery; and the other, upon
a revived project of annexing Texas to the United States — a
project of which formal notice has been given in newspapers
devoted to the interests and aspirations of President Tyler. I
look forward to both these designs with alarm and anguish —
not for the power of the South, which can effect nothing by
itself, but from experience of the treachery of the Northern
representation, both to Northern interests and principles. I
spoke also to Mr. Loring of the letter purporting to be from
Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Adams, of which he sent me a copy,
and the genuineness of which is very problematical. I asked
him if access could be obtained to Samuel Adams's papers.
His grandson, Samuel Adams Wells, had issued a prospectus

,0 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [November,
of a memoir of his life and writings, in six octavo volumes,
but could not prevail upon any book-printing establishment to
undertake it.
Mr. Loring said he would make enquiries whether among
Mr. Adams's papers any trace can be found of a letter from him
to Jefferson, to which this purports to be an answer.
I got through the reading of the Parliamentary papers re
lating to China — a ponderous folio of nearly five hundred
pages; and, glancing again over the message from President
Van Buren to H. R. U. S. of 25th February, 1840, found in it
sundry documents once, twice, and even thrice repeated. They
all confirm me in the view taken in my lecture of the issue be
tween Great Britain and China in their present war, which is so
adverse to the prevailing prejudices of the time and place that
I expect to bring down a storm upon my head worse than that
with which I am already afflicted.
22d. Dr. George Parkman called this morning, and found
me reading to myself my lecture upon the British and Chinese
War. At his request, I read it through to him. It took me
upwards of an hour and a half, and, for fear of becoming in
sufferably tedious to the auditory, I struck out as much as
abridged about a quarter of an hour of the delivery. Mr. Felt,
who is one of the lecture committee of the Historical Society,
came before dinner, and proposed to me to go to the Masonic
Temple this evening in a carriage; which I declined. It was
then raining, but I thought it would hold up before night. The
rain, instead of subsiding, increased after dinner. Mr. Francis
C. Gray, another member of the lecture committee, came, and
urged me to go with him in a carriage with which he would
come for me at ten minutes before seven; to which I con
sented. He came accordingly, and I went with him and my
son — the rain coming down in floods. The Masonic Hall was
crowded to overflowing. I delivered the lecture, curtailed as
it had been, in one hour and twenty minutes. After I finished,
Colonel T. H. Perkins, Mr. Abbott Lawrence, Dr. Francis Park-
man, and several others came and greeted me. Mr. Lawrence
said that Mrs. Lawrence was so much indisposed with her
cold that she had not been able to come out, and wished to

1841.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS.

31

borrow it for the opportunity of reading it; and, accordingly, I
put the manuscript into his hands. Mr. F. C. Gray returned
with us to my son's house, the rain still falling copiously, and
there left us. From my first great anxiety respecting this lec
ture I am now relieved: it was heard without manifestation of
disapprobation; but it runs directly contrary to the strong cur
rent of popular opinion in this country, and will be handled
without mercy by political antagonists.
Washington, December 3d. — I received this day two letters
from Dr. John G. Palfrey, editor of the North American Review,
intimating in a very delicate manner his unwillingness to pub
lish in that periodical journal my lecture upon the war between
Great Britain and China; and, in a letter to Charles, he proposes
to return the manuscript. The excitement of public opinion and
feeling by the delivery of this lecture far exceeds any expecta
tion that I had formed; although I did expect that it would be
considerable. It is a loud and peremptory admonition of pru
dence to me in the course that it will behoove me to pursue
through the impending session of Congress. Between the
obligation to discharge my duty to the country and the obvious
impossibility of accomplishing anything for the improvement
of its condition by legislation, my deliberate judgment warns
me to a systematic adherence to inaction upon all the contro
verted topics, which cannot fail to be brought into debate.
Upon the rule question I cannot be silent, but shall be left
alone, as heretofore. I await the opening of the session with
great anxiety, more from apprehension of my own imprudence
than from a belief that the fortunes of the country will be much
affected for good or evil by anything that will be done. There
is neither spotless integrity nor consummate ability at the helm
of our public ship, and she will be more than ever the sport of
winds and waves, drifting between breakers and quicksands.
May the wise and good Disposer send her home in safety !
4th. I called this morning at the War Department, and had
a long conversation with the new Secretary, John C. Spencer,
upon three several and diverse topics. 1. I delivered to him
the application of Francis Le Baron, of Plymouth, for a warrant
of cadet at the Military Academy at West Point, together with

52 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [December,
the recommendations of him addressed to Mr. Spencer himself,
and I requested that the youth's name might be entered on
the files of the Department as a candidate for admission at the
Academy. He enquired if there was a vacancy of the appoint
ment for the district, and I told him there was not — that Wood
had entered last June, and that the vacancy was not to be ex
pected before 1845. I also told him of the promise given me
by the late Secretary of War, Bell, of a warrant for
Derby, next June; of which he took note. 2. I read to him the
letter of Major Charles Larrabee to me of 6th November last,
arid the passage of his pamphlet in which, quoting a paragraph
in Andrew Jackson's message of 8th December, 1829, he says
it charges me with a crime. It was certainly a base and malig
nant attack upon my Administration, which, like others from
the same quarter, I have treated with silent contempt; but with
regard to the charge of an order from the War Department
which he said he had revoked as illegal, I had never known
what the facts were, and wished now to ascertain them from
the records of the Department. Mr. Spencer said he would
direct an examination of the records, and cause the results to
be communicated to me. 3. I said I had received a letter from
Governor Seward, of New York, enclosing a copy of a letter
from the Governor to him on the subject of the debts of the
States. We had then much discourse upon the State debts,
from which I infer that the policy of Mr. Tyler is to have
nothing to do with them, and that he is not prepared with any
system of measures in relation to them. I have now only to
wait for the message.
6th. I rode to the Capitol, and at twelve o'clock, noon, the
Speaker, John White, of Kentucky, took the chair,. and the
roll of members was called over by States. One hundred and
eighty-one answered to their names. Henry Dodge was sworn
in as delegate from the Wisconsin Territory, and Francis
Granger as a member from the district in New York which he
formerly represented, and by which he has been re-elected since
his short tour of duty as Postmaster-General. The Secretary
of the Senate, Asbury Dickins, came, and announced that the
Senate were assembled and ready to proceed to business.

1841.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 33
William Cost Johnson rose to request the Speaker not to
appoint him on the Committee of Public Lands, and, while he
was up, offered a resolution to adopt the rules of the Twenty-
Sixth Congress pro tempore. I had prepared a resolution to
adopt the rules as in force at the close of the Twenty-Sixth
Congress, except the twenty-first rule, excluding abolition pe
titions, and offered it as an amendment to Johnson's. Stanly,
in concert with Fillmore, offered, as an amendment to my
amendment, a resolution to adopt the rules of the last session
for fifteen days, and in the mean time to take up and decide
upon the committee's revision of the rules reported on the last
day of the last session ; and then Stanly called the previous
question. I objected that the previous question could not be
applied before the adoption of any rules. The Speaker decided
that it could, by Parliamentary law and former practice. I
appealed from this decision, and called the yeas and nays. His
decision was sustained — one hundred and forty-four to seven
teen, both parties joining against me to suppress all debate on
this subject. Wise had got this discussion suspended to get
himself appointed on the committee to notify the President
that the two Houses were assembled and ready to receive a
communication from him ; and he reported that the President
would make a communication at noon to-morrow. Stanly's
resolutions were rejected — eighty-four to eighty-seven; mine,
by precisely the same numbers; and Wise immediately moved
to adjourn — which was carried, a quarter-past two.
7th. Immediately after the Speaker took the chair, and the
reading of the journal of yesterday, the President's son, and
Secretary, delivered his annual message, which was read by
the Clerk, Matthew St. Clair Clarke, and took an hour and
twenty minutes in the reading. Wise moved the printing of
the usual number with the documents, and ten thousand copies
extra of the message alone. Samson Mason enquired if the
advertisement of the Congressional Globe, added to the printed
message in some of the copies distributed by the boys among
the members, was included in this motion to print. Wise took
this up as an attack upon the President, and a tart colloquy
followed between him and Mason ; but his motion for printing
VOL. XI. — 3

34 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [December,
was adopted, after being modified to the precedent of the last
session. Then W. Cost Johnson's resolution to adopt the
rules of the last Congress till the report of the committee of
the last session upon the rules shall be acted upon — a modi
fication which he took up at last at the suggestion of Millard
Fillmore — was taken up.
The Speaker said that the questions upon Stanly's proposition
and mine yesterday had not been taken under the previous
question; but Johnson now moved the previous question, and
it was carried by one hundred and eight votes, and his reso
lution was adopted, by yeas and nays — ninety-seven to ninety-
five — and the right of petition is again suppressed for the
remainder of the present Congress. An order passed for the
appointment of the standing committees, and to fix the hour
of daily meeting at twelve o'clock, and the House adjourned.
Johnson came to my seat to introduce some friend, and joked
about his victory for three or four days. But it is for the
Congress ; and bitterly does it try my temper. Winthrop and
Saltonstall have both applied to me and strenuously urged my
consent to act again as Chairman of the Committee of Manu
factures, to witness the prostration of the whole manufacturing
interest by the faction combined of Southern slave-breeders
and the Northern Democracy. I despair — at least for my
own time. The day of redemption will come, but it is not
destined for me.
8th. As the report of the Committee on the Rules was not
to be considered till to-morrow, Fillmore asked if the disposal
to be made of the President's message was to be taken up.
Clifford and the Speaker said the first thing in order was the
reception of petitions. Robert L. Caruthers, of Tennessee,
then called upon the House to decide upon a question between
him and John B. Dawson, of Louisiana, as to the right to the
seat occupied at the last session by John Sergeant, of Penn
sylvania, who, since the close of the session, has resigned.
Caruthers stated that before the close of the session he had
exchanged seats with Sergeant, and the names upon their
respective tables had been transferred. Mr. Dawson, denying
the right of a member who resigns to transfer his seat to

1 841.] THE TWENTY- SEVENTH CONGRESS. 35
another, had, during the recess, erased the name of Caruthers
from the fable, inserted his own in its place, and now claimed it
as his own. Gordon, of New York, moved that the seats should
all be numbered, and drawn for to-morrow by lot; rejected.
Charles Brown, of Philadelphia, moved a resolution that when
ever a member resigns, his seat shall be reserved for his suc
cessor ; rejected. Stanly moved a resolution that Caruthers is
entitled to the seat by the right of exchange and a prevailing
usage. Taken, by yeas and nays, and carried — one hundred
and twenty- two to fifty-one. I voted against it, because there
is no steady rule respecting the right to seats, and no usage suf
ficiently established and uniform to confer a right. I gave this
as my reason to Stanly, who came to my seat to enquire of my
motive for voting against his resolution. He thought I felt
sore upon the vote adopting the gag-rule excluding petitions.
And I do. But the mortification that I feel is not that of mere
defeat: it is the disgrace and degradation of my country,
trampling in the dust the first principles of human liberty.
This is the iron that enters into my soul. Mr. Caleb Cush-
ing came to my seat and said that he wished to have some
conversation with me upon business ; whereupon I agreed to
receive him at my house to-morrow morning at nine o'clock.
9th. Mr. Caleb Cushing came this morning, according to
appointment, and said that the Speaker, John White, had ex
pressed to him the wish that he would resign the station of
Chairman of the Committee of Foreign Relations in my favor;
that, having occupied that station at the last session, it would
have the appearance of personal hostility to him if he should
be now removed from it, and he therefore came now to ask my
advice what he should do ; that the Whigs were a party entirely
broken up; that the portion of the Whigs who attended the
caucus at the close of the last session, who issued the address
against the President, did hot exceed fifty ; but that there was
no Administration party in the House — meaning to intimate
that, as a friend of the Administration of John Tyler, he felt
bound to adhere to the station of Chairman of the Committee
of Foreign Relations.
I said to him that it was a point upon which I was hardly

,5 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [December,
competent to give him advice ; that I had no desire to be
Chairman of the Committee of Foreign Relations, and had
never, directly or indirectly, intimated such wish to the Speaker ;
that, after most reluctantly serving ten years as Chairman of
the Committee of Manufactures, I had at the last session re
quested the Speaker not to put me on that committee; he
said he would not, and asked me if I had any objection to
serving on the Committee of Foreign Relations ; I said that
should be as he pleased ; and the next day he (Cushing) was
announced as Chairman of the Committee of Foreign Relations,
and I, of the Committee of Indian Affairs — more odious than
that of Manufactures. The House had, at my request, excused
me from serving on the Indian Committee, and I had been on
no standing committee throughout the session. I should be
perfectly satisfied with the same dispensation throughout the
present session. As to his being Chairman of the Committee
of Foreign Relations, I must in candor say to him that after
the rancorous hostility of his feelings against England, not
only with reference to the Northeastern Boundary question,
but upon numerous other points, on which I believed England
more sinned against than sinning, I could not say that I had
much confidence in the course of that committee with him at
its head. He knew that my advice to Mr. Webster to retain
his place last September, when all the other heads of Depart
ment resigned, was founded exclusively on the belief that Mr.
Webster's signally conciliatory temper and disposition towards
England was indispensably necessary to save us from a most
disastrous and calamitous war upon that wretched question
about the State right of New York to hang McLeod; that
most fortunately that stimulant to instant war was removed,
but the temper of the two countries was still so embittered and
exasperated that it would yet require the most soothing spirit
and the coolest blood to preserve the peace between them ;
that in the differences between Mr. Tyler and the Harrison
Cabinet I had taken no part, and had no feeling of hostility
to the Administration; but he knew that in advising Mr.
Webster to retain his office as Secretary of State I had ex
pressly disclaimed all obligation or intention to defend Mr.

1841.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 37
Tyler's treatment of the Cabinet, or his Executive measures
during the late session. I added that my personal feelings
towards him (Cushing) had invariably been, and still continued
to be, altogether friendly ; that I had believed him to be uni
formly friendly to me (he said it was certainly so) ; and that
so strong and earnest had this feeling been, that, although
there were several points of policy of vital importance upon
which my opinions differed totally from those expressed by
him, I had not on a single occasion manifested that differ
ence in the House, nor sought any discussion with him in
private. He said he regretted that I had not, and that he had not
been aware of my differing from him, excepting in what I had
lately said of the affair of the Caroline. I repeated that I had
studiously avoided all altercation with him, from that overruling
friendliness of disposition; that he could not but have observed
that when he undertook to sanction and adopt the Tariff com
promise, and to speak not only for himself but for the whole
Commonwealth, Governor Lincoln openly and explicitly de
clared his dissent from that declaration, and that I said nothing
— though I certainly differed from him more widely even than
Governor Lincoln.
To all this Mr. Cushing made no explanatory reply, but said
he should not mention to the Speaker the substance of our
conversation, but should be quiescent, and leave the Speaker
to act as he may please. That is, he clings to the chair of
the committee, and compels the Speaker to appoint him. So
be it.
10th. My conversation yesterday with Caleb Cushing was of
a character requiring more detail on the record than the usual
space of one day would allow. At the commencement of the
last session of Congress, White, the Speaker, intended to place
me as Chairman of the Committee of Foreign Relations. He
gave me notice of that intention, and the next day appointed
Cushing, at the special request of Daniel Webster. Cushing
thought that inflammatory declamation against England upon
all possible topics was the short cut to popularity, and he
speechified accordingly. It appears that Mr. White is now

38 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [December,
again disposed to place me upon the Committee of Foreign
Relations. I suppose he came yesterday with an expecta
tion that I would authorize him to say to the Speaker that I
wished him to be placed again as Chairman of the Committee
of Foreign Relations, or to ascertain whether I had any con
cert with the Speaker on this occasion.
At the House, this morning, Stanly told me that Fillmore
wanted to get an order for the appointment of select commit
tees, to enable the Speaker to appoint Cushing Chairman of
the Committee on the Currency. Fillmore accomplished this
purpose, after much snarling debate about what the House
should do. The report of the Committee on the Rules was
made the special order for yesterday and every day till decided
upon; but now W. Cost Johnson moved to lay it on the table;
carried, by yeas and nays — ninety-six to eighty-eight. Sundry
motions were made to proceed to the choice of a Chaplain;
finally rejected, by yeas and nays — one hundred and eight to
ninety-five. So of a motion to adjourn. Cave Johnson fretted
and Clifford argufied against Fillmore's resolution for the ap
pointment of three select committees, which they insisted
was not in order. The Speaker decided that it was. Cave
appealed, and the Speaker was sustained — one hundred and
thirteen to eighty-one. Stanly moved the previous question.
Wise asked him to withdraw it, with a promise to renew it.
Stanly declined. The second, by tellers, was one hundred and
one to eighty-one. The question upon the select Committee
on Finance was carried — one hundred and thirteen to eighty-
three — and the two other committees without division. W.
Cost Johnson moved a select committee for the establishment
of a national foundry; carried. Adjourned at two.
13th. At the House, it was twenty minutes past twelve when
the Speaker took the chair. He had been till then hurried
and worried in his chamber, making out his committees.
When the House was called to order, they were announced.
He has appointed on the Committee of Foreign Relations,
Adams, Cushing, Everett, W. Cost Johnson, Granger, Gilmer,
Hunter, Rhett, Proffit, and on the select committee on the
Smithsonian bequest, Adams, Habersham, Truman Smith,

1841.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS.

39

Underwood, Benjamin Randall, Charles J. Ingersoll, Hunter,
Houston, and Bowne.
14th. At the House, the Speaker called for petitions, begin
ning with Maine. I presented between fifty and sixty, almost
all anti-slavery and chiefly abolition petitions. More than half
of them were excluded by the rule, but a part of several and
the whole of others were admissible. Some were, at my mo
tion, referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, and some to
the Committee of Foreign Affairs. I moved the reference of
a petition against the gag-rule to a select committee. Meri
wether moved to lay the motion on the table; rejected — ninety-
two to eighty-seven. Rhett moved a call of the House; one
hundred and ninety-two answered. Meriwether then made a
point of order, that he meant to debate the reference, and the
petition must be laid over one day; and it was so. Many
others were laid over in the same way.
15th. At the House, Fillmore, Chairman of the Committee
of Ways and Means, moved for leave to the committee to em
ploy a clerk ; carried, by yeas and nays — one hundred and six
to fifty-four. He introduced also the bill making a partial ap
propriation for the expense of the two Houses and the pay and
mileage of the members. Committee of the whole on the state
of the Union, John Pope in the chair. The bill passed through
that and all other stages in less than half an hour, and was sent
to the Senate. Then the presentation of petitions was resumed
at the State of New York, and went southward through all the
States. The Territories were not called. A great number of
abolition petitions and remonstrances were presented in very
diversified forms — some excluded, some referred to committees,
and many laid over for debate. I gave notice personally to all
the members of the Committee of Foreign Relations to meet
at eleven o'clock to-morrow morning in the chamber of the
committee. 16th. At eleven this morning, I attended the first meeting
for this session of the Committee of Foreign Relations, in their
chamber, adjoining that of the Committee of Manufactures.
The members present were Adams, Cushing, Everett, W. Cost
Johnson, Granger, Gilmer, Hunter, and Rhett; absent, Mr.

40 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [December,
Proffit. I proposed to keep minutes of the meetings, entering
the name of each member present at every meeting; which
was agreed to ; and to hold a regular meeting once a week, on
Tuesday mornings at ten o'clock. I read the letter from the
Secretary of State, and its three enclosures, respecting the
hunters' lodges on the Canadian frontier.
An objection was started that this subject had not been
referred by the House to the committee. The Chairman was
instructed to move the House to refer to the committee the
two messages from the President which had been referred to
the committee at the last session and not reported on by them.
Adjourned to Tuesday morning.
It was apparent that Everett and Granger were both averse
to the revival of the Act of loth March, 1838, recommended
by the President's message of 21st July last, and urged by
the letter of the instant from the Secretary of State.
At the House, the call for petitions was completed by the
delegates from the three Territories — David Levy, from Flor
ida, Henry Dodge, from Wisconsin, and A. C. Dodge, from
Iowa. The question upon the reference of the petitions laid
over was then in order; but I consented to its postponement
until the House shall have passed on the resolutions offered
by Mr. Fillmore, who moved to take them up at once,
without going into committee of the whole, and to distribute
the several parts of the message at once to the appropriate
committees. Questions of conflicting jurisdictions immediately arose.
Wise and Cushing were jealous of the Committee of Ways
and Means, and Atherton commenced a dead set against the
reference of the tariff to the Committee of Manufactures.
Foster and Meriwether, of Georgia, Smith and Wise, of Vir
ginia, followed up the attack. Irwin, of Pennsylvania, made
a show of defence. At three, John W. Jones took the floor,
and the House adjourned.
17th. At the House, the unfinished business of yesterday
came up — Fillmore's resolution to refer so much of the Presi
dent's message as relates to the tariff to the Committee of
Manufactures, with Atherton's proposed amendment to strike

1841.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS.

41

out the Committee of Manufactures and insert the Committee
of Ways and Means. Discussed by John W. Jones, of Vir
ginia, Hiram P. Hunt, of New York, Joseph M. Randolph, of
New Jersey, Joseph R. Ingersoll, of Philadelphia, and Edward
Stanly, of North Carolina, till half-past two, when William
Slade, of Vermont, took the floor, and the House adjourned.
I have strong temptation to speak on the pending question,
but distrust my own discretion. I fear I should probe this
ulcer to the quick, and inflame rather than heal the wound.
- 1 8th. This afternoon, Mr. Leavitt called on me, with Mr.
Gates, member of the House from the State of New York.
They are alarmed at numerous indications of a design to revive
the project of annexing Texas to the United States. They said
there was a long article in the New York Courier and Enquirer
recommending it by arguments addressed first to the abolition
ists and then to others; and they asked if anything could
now be done to counteract this movement. I know of nothing
but to make it as soon and as extensively known as possible.
There is apparently in this movement a concert of long stand
ing between Andrew Jackson, Samuel Houston, recently elected
for the second time President of Texas, and Santa Anna, now
reinstated as President of the Mexican Confederation; and that
the project is to be consummated by a cession of Texas from
the Mexican to the North American Confederacy. The de
velopments of this project are not yet sufficiently clear and
explicit to know how to meet and counteract it.
2 1 st. Meeting of the Committee of Foreign Relations at ten
this morning. Present, all the members except Caleb Cushing.
The first subject taken up was the reference by the House
of the parts of the President's annual message relating to the
controversy with Great Britain upon the right of search, and
to the foreign affairs generally.
Mr. Everett, who has long been a member of the committee,
observed that the practice had always been to abstain from all
interference with the action of the Executive upon matters
pending in negotiation, unless at the instance of the Executive
himself. This was precisely the course that I was desirous of
pursuing. Mr. Gilmer and the Southern members of the com-

,, MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [December,
4^ mittee acquiesced in it, and relieved me for the present from
the burden of sharp and heavy discussions.
The claims on France prior to 1800 were postponed. Rhett
said the Legislature of South Carolina had instructed the
members from that State to vote for that claim ; but he had
no faith in the doctrine of obedience to legislative instructions
—though R. M. T. Hunter might have. Hunter answered
only by a laugh. At noon, the committee adjourned till next
Tuesday. In the House, the unfinished business — the tariff, the Manu
factures, and the Ways and Means — occupied the day. Sollers,
Linn, Rayner, W. Butler, of South Carolina, and Meriwether,
worried and wearied the House till near three, when T. F.
Marshall took the floor, and they adjourned.
22d. At the House, after prayer by Mr. Tustin, several
members slipped in petitions, till Weller called for the orders
of the day. Cowen gave notice of a long rigmarole bill to
modify the recent Bankrupt law ; and Briggs gave notice of
a bill to reduce postages and abolish the franking privilege.
Neither of these was received ; but, as Marshall was rising to
address the House, Barton, of Virginia, a shallow and hot
headed person, gave notice that he would move an amendment
of the thirty-fourth rule, which is that when two members rise
to speak at the same time the Speaker shall decide between
them. Barton grossly insulted the Speaker for having given
the floor yesterday to T. F. Marshall when Barton, it seems,
had risen and claimed the floor at the same time ; and he said
his motion would be to transfer the power in such cases from
the Speaker to the House.
Garret Davis called him to order. The Speaker said every
member had already a right of appeal from the decision of the
Speaker to the House, and Marshall said he had offered to
yield the floor to Barton, who declined to take it. Taliaferro
afterwards announced that the whole matter had arisen from
mutual misunderstanding between Barton and the Speaker,
which had been explained and adjusted, and no more was
to be said about it.
Marshall made a beautiful speech of an hour and a half in

1841.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 43
favor of the manufacturing interest, and Rhett a ranting one
against it. Atherton then took the floor, and the House ad
journed. 23d. A number of other petitions and resolutions were
smuggled in before the order of the day was regularly called,
and then Atherton, of New Hampshire, made a crabbed speech —
he can make no other — of an hour and a half against the Man
ufactures, followed by Reynolds, of Illinois, a coarse, vulgar,
ignorant, cunning, knavish Democrat, who has been Governor
of that State, and is a standing favorite of the Democracy ; his
buffoonery keeps him afloat. Arnold, of Tennessee, replied to
them both, and played at cut-and-thrust with them, somewhat
in their own style. Arnold is a bold, honest, warm-hearted
and hot-headed Whig, borne down by the weight of Jackson's
name and influence in the State, too fair and candid for the
slave-breeders, and rather too vehement for the timid and time
serving abolitionists of the North. When he finished, Weller,
of Ohio, took the floor, and the House adjourned over to Mon
day ; which Cushing had seized on an unguarded moment of
the House to move, and which had been carried, by the
Speaker's hardness of hearing to the call for yeas and nays.
24th. Dr. Baldwin came this morning, and took back his
protest against the Convention of Indemnities with Mexico,
and against all the proceedings of the Joint Commission under
it now sitting in this city. The Convention itself and all the
proceedings of the Commissioners are of so very extraordinary
a character that I cannot resist a strong suspicion that it was
intended by the Van Buren Administration not to obtain in
demnification for citizens of the United States upon Mexico,
but to keep open the sore and breed a war with Mexico, as
machinery for the annexation of Texas to the United States.
There is not a step in the whole series of transactions which
has a tendency to the satisfaction, or even to the adjustment,
of the claims. The Convention itself is a mockery, the Com
mission under it an imposture. I have received two pamphlets
— one of charges against the two Mexican Commissioners,
Don Joaquin Velasquez de Leon and Don Pedro Fernandez
del Castillo, by Orazio de Attellis Santangelo, styling himself

44 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [December,
a citizen of the United States, and the other, by the same
person, containing a statement of facts presented to the Presi
dent of the United States, relating to the man's claim on the
Government of Mexico. The claim is of a Neapolitan Mar
quis, turned into a North American Democrat, of damages
for having been twice banished from Mexico for setting up
periodical journals in that city and preaching party politics.
27th. Mr. Leavitt brought me a New York Evangelist, a
newspaper of which he said he was formerly the editor. It
contained the protest made at New Orleans of Zephaniah C.
Gifford, Acting Master, and of the officers and crew, of the
American brig Creole, a slave-trader, bound from Norfolk, Vir
ginia, to New Orleans with a cargo of tobacco and one hundred
and thirty-five slaves. On Sunday, the 7th of November, at
nine p.m., the cargo mutinied, and, after a fight in which one
slave-trader and one mutineer were killed and several others
on both sides were wounded, the mutineers prevailed, and com
pelled the white crew to navigate the vessel into Nassau, New
Providence, where nineteen of the self-emancipated cargo were
arrested and imprisoned upon charges of mutiny and murder,
and the rest were received and landed as free, except five, who
refused their freedom and returned to the brig and were landed
at New Orleans. This is a remarkable event, and will be fol
lowed by momentous consequences.
28th. Meeting of the Committee of Foreign Affairs. I was
there at three minutes past ten by the Muse's clock in the
House. I found Cushing already there. Everett and Granger
came in within five minutes after. We waited then a full hour,
when Proffit came in, and we took up sundry private claims.
Those of Mrs. Meade and Alexander Hammet were referred
to Mr. Everett and Mr. Rhett, who came in about half-past
eleven. A claim of Captain Ridgely was much discussed and
vehemently opposed, especially by Rhett, and the decision
postponed. Rhett gave notice that he should, at the next meeting of
the committee, move to take up so much of the President's
message as relates to the British claim to the right of search
of American vessels on the coast of Africa.

1841.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS.

45

At the last meeting of the committee, Rhett being the only
member absent, the committee had, without dissenting voice,
agreed to take no action upon the President's message unless
upon special call from the House on the Executive. Rhett was
now very impatient. I requested him to reduce his motion to
writing ; which he did. I think the majority of the committee
will be against his motion ; but never was an occasion where I
had more need of accurate perception, thorough knowledge,
cool and dispassionate judgment, inflexible firmness, intrepid
perseverance, imperturbable serenity, and courtesy of deport
ment than now. That I have eternal right on my side, is
certain. Let me never for an instant forget that " He that is
slow to anger is better than the mighty ; and he that ruleth his
spirit, than he that taketh a city." My cause is the peace of
my country and the rights of human nature.
In the House, Hudson finished his excellent speech in favor
of a protective tariff. He was followed by Payne, of Alabama,
Edmund Burke and Ira A. Eastman, both of New Hampshire
— all anti-protective. Burke read his speech in so low a tone of
voice that he was heard by scarcely any one ; but it was retalia
tory upon Arnold, and drew a ludicrous parallel between the
States of New Hampshire and Tennessee, especially East Ten
nessee, from which Arnold comes. Eastman is a sprightly
speaker, and belabored Arnold with equal venom and more
power and effect. He did not finish. The House adjourned
about three.
30th. I had finished before breakfast my record of yesterday,
and hop*ed to have time for doing something — that is, writing
something — before the time of meeting in the House;, but the
remnant of hours slipped away in hearing Mr. Smith read in
the National Intelligencer the report of yesterday's debate in
the Senate on Walter Forward, Secretary of the Treasury's,
Board of Exchequer. Buchanan and Calhoun gave it no
quarter. Preston, in a tone of subdued nullification, hoped
something would be done. Tallmadge and Rives are for modi
fying it. Benton declared war against it upon its first reading,
and Mangum, of North Carolina, this day gave it the " coup
de grace."

46 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [December,
Never since the Government has existed was President so
totally deserted. It is the same in the House. Yesterday,
Millard Fillmore, Chairman of the Committee of Ways and
Means, announced that he had that morning received notice
that there was a deficit in the Treasury of two hundred and
sixty thousand dollars, for which immediate provision must be
made or the Treasury must suspend payments. He moved
therefore to take up a bill, which he had introduced some days
since, extending the loan. No. Eastman insisted upon the
floor, and the House could not take up Fillmore's bill. He
repeated the effort this day, with no better success. By sitting
to-morrow, the House might have made the necessary pro
vision ; but a motion was made to adjourn over to Monday,
and carried, by yeas and nays — eighty-six to eighty-two ; both
parties thus uniting to display this utter indifference not only
to the credit of the Treasury and the Administration, but to
the honor and justice of the country.
Mr. Meriwether had finished his Southern Whig, moderate,
candid, anti-tariff and anti-manufacturing speech, and had
been admirably answered by Robert C. Winthrop, whose
promise as an orator and debater in the House is of the high
est order. W. Cost Johnson took the floor, and the House
adjourned at three.
31st. I called at the Department of State, and had a three
hours' conversation with the Secretary upon Foreign Affairs.
I received at the Department a session pamphlet-copy of the
Acts of Congress at each of the last three sessions. Upon the
state of the Canadian frontier he gave me some information,
and expressed a strong desire for the revival of the Act of
10th March, 1838. The calls of the House for documents
respecting our relations with Hayti and for the aggregates of
the Census have not yet been, but will be, answered. There
is no regular communication of the Department with China.
The Consul, Snow, is in this country. A man named Delano
sometimes writes from Macao. No late information from
thence. None from Mexico. They know not even how Santa
Anna comes to be at the head of the Government there — nor
what to do with the Commission of Indemnity, now sitting

1 84 1.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 47
here under the Convention of nth April, 1839. I enquired
if Andrew Stevenson had ever informed the Department of his
letters to Commodore Hull in March last, advising him to
run away and make the best of his way home, to escape from
the clutches of the British lion. He did in June last com
municate copies of those letters, written in March. But the
President thought it best not to communicate to Congress
that portion of Mr. Stevenson's diplomatic achievements. Mr.
Webster himself thought that the other part of the negotiations
might have been permitted to slumber in the same oblivion.
He considered Stevenson as having surrendered the question
at issue on the right of search, by assuming untenable ground
against it. This was my own opinion. He remarked on the
extraordinary circumstances of the correspondence between
Stevenson and Lord Palmerston, when they were in substance
both out of office and under no responsibility — the term of
Stevenson's mission having actually expired, and the Ministry
of which Palmerston was a member having been dismissed,
while the correspondence was in progress. Mr. Webster says
that the Secretary of the Navy, Upshur, is a very considerable
man, and utterly disapproves Stevenson's pretensions about
the right of search. After full and free conversation, I found
every particle of opinion avowed by Mr. Webster on this con
troversy about the right of search perfectly concurring with
my own. I told him that my own disposition with regard to
all questions in negotiation with Great Britain was essentially
pacific, and especially averse to everything irritating in form
or offensive in language, and against everything of war tend
ency, excepting the Boundary question, and upon that we
should be inflexible. To this he made no reply. I meant to
give him fair warning, and then added that my most earnest
desire as Chairman of the Committee of Foreign Affairs was
to move in perfect harmony with the Executive Administration
and to give to its measures my cordial support. He received
this overture with cold-hearted thanks. But the great diffi
culties of Mr. Webster are not with the Foreign Affairs, nor
with-anything in that Department. Money, public and private,
is the insuperable obstacle to his successful progress, and will

48 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [January,
finally, at no distant day, turn him out upon the world, and
prove the ruin of this Administration, as it did of the last.
January 1st, 1842. — This was the thirtieth New Year's day
that, in the course of my life, I have passed at the city of
Washington, and the twenty-fifth in succession, and, of the
physical atmosphere, was, without exception, the finest of those
days. One of the consequences of which was, that the Presi
dent's house was thronged with visitors beyond all former
example — so thronged, as we heard from many of those that
were there, that the crowd in the house was so great that, to
avert the danger of suffocation, the porter at the outer door
was obliged to lock out hundreds who were rushing to it for
admission, and that among the excluded were both the Gen
erals Scott and Gaines. I say visitors to the house ; for it is
the house, and not the President, who is visited. From the
first establishment of the Government of the United States to
this day, there never has been a time when the personal sym
pathies of the people of all parties were so utterly indifferent
as they are this day to John Tyler.
Our own visitors this day were not less than five hundred,
more than double the number we have ever had before — great
numbers of members of Congress, with their wives and chil
dren ; but scarcely one of them other than of the Whig party.
Generals Scott and Gaines were here at the same time — the latter
with his wife ; and he said to me that he came to see the only
President of the United States that he ever saw. I said that
was too much, and a compliment that I could not accept. He
said there had been other Presidents of the United States —
two or three — but he had never seen either of them ; the rest
had all been Presidents not of the United States, but of a party.
Gaines is sore at the appointment of Scott as the Major-
General. Mrs. Parker, wife of the Chinese doctor, was here, and told
me that her husband concurred perfectly with me in all the
opinions of my lecture on the Chinese War. When the stream
of visitors ceased, I went and visited Mrs. Madison.
2d. At the Second Presbyterian Church, Mr. Clark preached

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 4g
from Job xxx. 23 : " For I know that thou wilt bring me to
death, and to the house appointed for all living." A discourse
upon death — always appropriate, specially suited to the com
mencement of the year, and at every return of the day more
impressive to all who, like me, have long passed through the
turnpike gate of threescore and ten, and am already coming
to the half-way between that and fourscore. It is one of the
imperfections of my nature that I do not realize as I ought the
certain approach of death by a diligent and faithful improve
ment of the still diminishing sands of the glass. Mr. Clark's
address to the aged part of his auditory was earnest and
solemn ; but how often have I said to myself all, and more
than all, that he said to me ! The spirit is willing, but the
flesh is weak — oh, how weak ! how impotent !
3d. At the House, William Cost Johnson came out with a
hard-studied, Southern Whig, Jesuitical, slave-breeder speech
of an hour and a half for the reference of the tariff question to
the Committee of Ways and Means — the completest specimen
of his trickish propensities that I had ever heard. Almost all
his talent consists of trickery.
This time his cunning device was discomfited. As soon as
he finished, John C. Clark moved the previous question, after a
short preamble, and after withdrawing it for a few minutes to
allow Lewis Williams to give in brief his reasons for voting
for it. The question of seconding the call was, after a call of
the House, carried by tellers — eighty-eight to eighty-eight;
decided by the casting vote of the Speaker. On the question,
" Shall the main question be now put ?" the vote, by yeas and
nays, was one hundred and one to ninety-seven. Cave Johnson
moved to adjourn, but on call for the yeas and nays withdrew
the motion. Fernando Wood,, of New York, moved to ad
journ, and, after eight or ten, all nays, were called, was per
mitted by general consent to withdraw his motion. A crafty
modification of Fillmore's motion of reference to the Com
mittee of Manufactures, moved by Samson Mason, was accepted
by Fillmore. Rhett withdrew his proposed amendment. The
yeas and nays on Atherton's amendment, to strike out the
Manufactures and insert the Ways and Means, were ninety-five
VOL. XI. — 4

t0 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [January,
to one hundred and four — the Loco-foco Democracy of the
North and West voting with the slave-breeding South, but
the whole vote of Pennsylvania, without exception, being for
the Manufactures.
The report from the Secretary of the Treasury in answer to
Cushing's call relating to the Coast Survey was then communi
cated by the Speaker to the House. I moved the printing of
the same number of extra copies for Mr. Hassler as were given
him on a former occasion ; but Cushing and Cave Johnson
cavilled off the question till to-morrow. Motions to adjourn.
I entreated the House to pass the residue of Fillmore's
resolutions, distributing the President's message among the
committees — which they did, and one additional, moved by
Cooper, of the Indian Affairs. It was three o'clock ; but Clio
had stopped at two.
4th. Meeting of the Committee of Foreign Affairs. Present
Adams, Cushing, Gilmer, Hunter, Everett, Proffit, W. C. John
son, and Granger; absent, Rhett, who had given notice that he
would call up for consideration so much of the President's
message as relates to the claim of the British Government to
the right of searching American vessels on the coast of Africa.
He has probably been better advised since the last meeting of
the committee.
Cushing was instructed to report to the House two bills
reciprocating the suspension of discriminating tonnage duties
on certain Spanish vessels and on vessels from Cayenne.
I presented for consideration the message of 19th July, 1841,
and the letter and documents from the Secretary of State urging
the re-enactment of the law of 10th March, 1838, to secure the
peace of the Canada frontier. I mentioned the interview I had
had with the Secretary of State on the subject, and the earnest
wish expressed by him, and felt, as he assured me, by the Presi
dent, for the revival of the Act ; but there was a repugnance
apparently unanimous in the committee against it. After full
discussion, it was postponed.
In the House, the question of reference to a select committee
of the petitions and remonstrances against the gag-rule came
up, but, by the shameless prevarications of the Speaker and of

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 5 j
about twenty members of the Northern Democracy, it was laid
on the table, which on the 14th of December had been refused
by yeas and nays — eighty-seven to ninety-two. The baseness*
of these proceedings is too severe a trial of my temper. Oh
for restraining grace, for inflexible firmness, for untiring perse
verance, for suavity of manner, and for self-control!
The first vote now was declared — one hundred and fifteen to
eighty-four — for laying on the table. I insisted on the taking
the question upon each separate petition. The second vote to
lay on the table was one hundred and three to eighty-seven.
Roosevelt did not vote. Stanly moved that, according to the
rule, he should be compelled to vote, and put him to shame.
The Speaker said the rule required him to vote ; but Stanly
said he would not press the matter, and he did not vote. But
Stanly called the yeas and nays again on the next petition, and
Roosevelt then voted in the affirmative; the vote then was one
hundred and seven to eighty-three. The question was then
taken separately, but without yeas and nays, upon five or six
other petitions — when Arnold started up and moved a recon
sideration of the vote yesterday to refer the tariff part of the
message to the Committee on Manufactures, and began a speech
against Burke, of New Hampshire. He was soon called to
order, and a most disorderly debate on order ensued, cut short
only by a motion of Preston, of Virginia, to adjourn; which
was carried. Walking home, I met Mr. Rives, the Senator
from Virginia, and Chairman of the Senate's Committee of
Foreign Affairs, who walked home with me.
5th. Morning visit from Mr. Ruggles, one of the Canal Com
missioners of the State of New York. He comes here now in
connection with a plan concerning which I received some time
since a letter from Governor Seward, by which the General
Government may relieve the States from the burden of their
debts incurred by undertakings of internal improvement, by
purchasing a perpetual right of free passage over all the rail
roads in the United States for the mails and for military pur
poses. Long and free conversation with Mr. Ruggles, disclosing
my apprehensions that this measure cannot be carried through
as of any efficiency to relieve the States, and that no measure

5 2 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [January,
devised by the present Administration will restore the level of
exchanges, the stability of the currency, or the sufficiency of
the revenue for the expenditures. I said that increased taxa
tion by impost, the assumption of the State debts, and a national
bank on the old platform were the three measures indispensable
for the payment of the public debt, the restoration of public
credit, and the punctual payment of the expenses of the Gov
ernment. Neither of these measures will be adopted by the
General Government, and the present President is following
the path of his two immediate predecessors — downward to
universal bankruptcy.
At the House, after the reading of the journal, I moved that
it should be amended by striking out the instructions which I
had proposed on the 14th of December to give the select com
mittee which I then moved to raise, but which instructions the
Speaker had then decided to be not in order, and I had with
drawn them. This motion raised a debate of an hour and a
half, in which I proved beyond all question the falsification of
the journal and the prevarications of the Speaker; but Meri
wether finally moved to lay my motion to amend the journal
on the table, and carried it, by yeas and nays — ninety-nine to
seventy-eight. Then came up Bowne's appeal from the Speaker's decision
allowing Arnold to speak in violation of the rules, in reply to
Burke and Eastman. After much debate, the yeas and nays
being called, I rose at the call of my name, and was assigning
my reasons for not sustaining the decision of the Speaker, when
he called me to order, the appeal not being debatable, though
he had in the hurry of yesterday decided otherwise. I voted
against his decision, which was reversed — sixty-seven to eighty-
nine. Arnold said to me, " Et tu, Brute,'' and, after some strus-
gling, withdrew his motion for reconsideration, and the House
a'djourned. 6th. Mr. Espy, the storm-breeder, who had notified me at
Boston that he would be here at the beginning of the year,
punctual to his time, appeared yesterday at the House, and re
quested me to fix a time for an interview. I appointed nine
o'clock this morning. He left with me a paper exposing his

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 53
three wishes of appropriations by Congress for his benefit —
about as rational as those of Hans Carvel and his wife. The
man is methodically monomaniac, and the dimensions of his
organ of self-esteem have been swollen to the size of a goitre
by a report from a committee of the National Institute of
France, endorsing all his crack-brained discoveries in meteor
ology. I told him, with all possible civility, that it would be of
no use to memorialize the House of Representatives in behalf
of his three wishes. He said he had thoughts of addressing
the Senate, and asked, if they should pass a bill in his favor,
whether I would support it in the House. I said if the Senate
should pass such a bill I would do all that I could for him in
the House.
There was an attempt in the House this morning to introduce
petitions, but the Speaker declared the thirty days expired.
A motion was made to suspend the rules by Dean, of Ohio, for
him to present a petition, modified, at the request of Goggin, for
the reception of petitions generally. The motion just failed —
one hundred to fifty-two.
The committees were called for reports. Saltonstall, from
the Committee of Manufactures, reported a resolution to au
thorize that committee to take testimony respecting the tariff
and its operations upon the interests of the country. This
started at once the tariff question, with all its inflammatory
matter. It was debated an hour and a half, till Fillmore called
for the orders of the day — that is, the bill to authorize the issu
ing of Treasury notes — which started again in substance the
same debate. Wise moved an amendment to repeal the distrib
uting sections of the last session's Land bill. McKeon had given
notice yesterday that he should move the same thing, and now
claimed his thunder; but Wise would not yield it. He made a
second furious anti-protection speech. Fillmore implored Wise
to withdraw his amendment; but he refused. The debate soon
became entangled, and Weller moved the committee to rise;
which was carried — eighty-three to sixty-four.
The report from the State Department to the call for the
Census aggregates was received, and referred to the Apportion
ment Committee to determine whether it shall be printed.

e4 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [January,
7th. At the House, after the surreptitious creeping in of
several petitions and resolutions, by connivance of the Speaker
with particular members, till some one calls for the orders of
the day, Payne, of Alabama, presented a petition, to the re
ception of which I objected. He moved the suspension of the
rules. I said if he would move it for the general call of the
States for petitions I would vote for it. Others urged him to
the same, and he modified his motion accordingly, which was
carried— one hundred and ten to forty-two. Giddings enquired
if the unsettled question raised by W. Cost Johnson upon an
abolition petition laid over on the 14th of last month would
not now first come up.
The Speaker said, no; all the rules were now suspended,
and he must begin the call at the Territory of Iowa, and pro
ceed northward.
When it came to the turn of Ohio, Giddings presented a
succession of petitions, upon which Wise, and W. Cost John
son, and Campbell, of South Carolina, raised the question of
reception, and then moved to lay the question of reception on
the table ; and when they could not make the question of re
ception, they moved to lay the petition on the table ; and in
every case the motion to lay on the table was carried, the
Northern Democracy dropping in one by one into the ranks
of the slave-breeders. Bowne, and Gordon, of New York,
were thus whipped in this day, as Roosevelt had been by
Stanly two days ago.
Upon one of the questions started by Campbell, a question
upon the reception of a petition which the Speaker had decided
to be receivable, and then a motion to lay on the table his own
question of reception, I refused to vote, and, after Bowne and
Gordon had been disciplined, Wise called on the Speaker to
apply the same screw to me. The Speaker did not hear him.
Mathiot repeated the demand. Stanly moved to postpone that
question to the first Monday in December, for they had tried
me upon that question before, and they would get nothing by
trying it again. So the call for petitions proceeded till they
came to Kentucky, when, on a petition for the repeal of the
Bankrupt law, debate lowered, and the House adjourned.

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS.

55

8th. At the House, the suspension of the rules for the pur
pose of receiving petitions for the whole day was occupied in
prescribing the Bankrupt law's repeal. Garret Davis had yes
terday presented a petition from Kentucky for its repeal, and
Cravens, of Indiana, had moved its reference to the Committee
on the Judiciary, with instructions to report a repealing bill.
This was somewhat startling, and brought up a snarl, in the
midst of which the House adjourned.
This day various expedients were tried to get rid of the in
structions — but in vain. The yeas and nays were taken times
without number, besides a call of the House, which consumed
an hour. All would not avail. The reference with the in
structions was carried — one hundred and twelve to eighty-eight
— immediately after which, Thomas F. Marshall presented a
petition from Louisville, which he said was nine feet long, and
moved its reference to the Judiciary Committee, with instruc
tions to report the repealing Act forthwith. This word was
peculiarly obnoxious to the Whigs, because it was used in the
instructions to the Committee of Elections in the last Congress
to report on the New Jersey case. In courtesy to this Whig
scruple, Marshall dropped his word forthwith, first for Monday,
and then for Tuesday next — which was carried.
The whole of this process was accomplished by the coalition
of Clay, Tyler, and mock-Democracy votes, and is the first
symptom of a new party combination against Northern inter
ests. Its first object is the prostration, ruin, and dismissal of
Webster. As soon as the vote was completed, Gentry, of Ten
nessee, moved a reconsideration, to prevent its being made by
any one else, and the repeal of the Bankrupt Act was clenched.
Campbell, of South Carolina, then observed that it was the 8th
of January, and moved an adjournment — which was carried.
1 Oth. This was, by the rules, the second bi-weekly day for
the presentation of resolutions ; but the rules have been four
days suspended for the reception of petitions. This was the
unfinished business of this morning; but Mr. Fillmore, Chair
man of the Committee of Ways and Means, with grievous
lamentations over the bankruptcy and beggary of the Treasury,
moved again to suspend the rules to go into committee of the

5 6 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [January,
whole upon the state of the Union, to take up the bill to author
ize the issue of Treasury notes ; and this motion was carried, by
yeas and nays — one hundred and forty-five to forty-four.
Committee of the whole on the state of the Union, Hopkins
in the chair. Wise withdrew the amendment that he had
offered, of a second section, repealing the distribution of the
proceeds of the sales of the public lands. But it was then
moved by Weller, of Ohio. The Chairman decided that it was
not in order ; and Weller appealed. After a debate of an hour
or more, the question was taken, by tellers, and the Chairman's
decision was sustained. Cooper, of Pennsylvania, then opened
a battery against the bill itself, the issue of Treasury notes.
He poured down a shower of sarcasms upon Tyler's courtship
of the damsel Loco-focoism, which brought up Wise in pas
sionate flat contradiction, and Proffit in a foolish rhodomontade
of Tyler's appeal to the people. Poor Proffit was crucified
by Thomas F. Marshall, who last week took the temperance
pledge, and this day, perfectly sober, made the most splendid
and powerful speech of the session. Underwood then took
the floor, the committee rose, and the House adjourned. I
notified the members of the committee on the Smithsonian
bequest to meet Wednesday morning.
nth. Committee of Foreign Relations. Present, Adams,
Cushing, Everett, Granger — these four punctual to the time;
Rhett at half-past ten ; Gilmer at eleven. Absent, Hunter, W.
Cost Johnson, and Proffit. Rhett produced his resolution of
enquiry to ascertain what instructions have been given to the
new Minister in England upon the question relative to the
search by British cruisers of American merchant-vessels on
the coast of Africa. After some discussion upon taking the
vote, Gilmer and Cushing voted for the resolution, Everett
and Granger against it. Rhett said that, having offered the
resolution, he declined voting upon it. If he had voted for it
and I had voted against it, he would still have failed. I voted
for it, willing to indulge him, although perceiving the insidious
object of the enquiry, and trusting quite as much as they de
served his professions of not wishing to interfere with the
negotiations of the Executive. I hold it just and politic to

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 57
leave the initiative of debate in the House on this subject to
the slave-holders.
There was some conversation upon the report prepared by
Mr. Everett on the claim of Margaret Meade, which he had
lent me and I had read. I did not concur in its conclusions,
and noticed parts of the report from which I dissented. Mr.
Everett defended them. No decision.
At the House, after a claim by Thomas F. Marshall of
preference for the order to the Committee on the Judiciary
to report this day a bill to repeal the Bankrupt Act, and some
confused discussion, the Speaker decided against it — that the
first order of the day was to receive petitions. Marshall ap
pealed, and called the previous question. The decision of the
Speaker was sustained, by yeas and nays — one hundred and
seventeen to eighty-four. Then Fillmore moved a suspension
of the rules, to take up the Treasury Note bill ; carried — one
hundred and fifty-one to fifty-three ; and then — one hundred
and six to one hundred and three — to take up the bill. Under
wood made his speech, and offered his amendment.. Gamble
and Fessenden made speeches in favor of the bill, and Dean, of
Ohio, a furious one against it, and against the Whig party, so
ludicrous that he went on for at least an hour amid continual
shouts of laughter. John G. Floyd followed on the same side;
but, after several abortive motions to adjourn, and to call, the
House adjourned about four, by yeas and nays — sixty-two to
fifty-four. 1 2th. I was obliged to go to attend at eleven the first meet
ing of the select committee on the Smithsonian bequest, in the
chamber of the Committee of Foreign Relations. Present,
Adams, Habersham, Truman Smith, Underwood, Benjamin
Randall, and Charles J. Ingersoll; absent, Hunter, Houston, and
Bowne, the last of whom I had not been able personally to
notify, he having been yesterday and the day before detained
from the House by indisposition. I read the commission of the
members, the reference to the committee of the part of the Presi
dent's message relating to the Smithsonian Fund, and that part of
the message itself. After much desultory conversation, the com
mittee agreed to meet next Wednesday morning at ten o'clock.

58. MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [January,
At the House, Fillmore moved a suspension of the rules to
offer a resolution to take the Treasury Note bill out of com
mittee at two to-morrow afternoon. Much disorderly debate;
yeas and nays — one hundred and nineteen to sixty-five ; not
two-thirds. Fillmore moved to go into committee of the
whole on the state of the Union ; yeas and nays — one hundred
and five to ninety-two. Hopkins in the chair. John G. Floyd,
a County Court lawyer from Utica, New York, finished the
speech he had begun yesterday against the bill, or rather against
the Whig party ; he said he would take not more than twenty
minutes, and took forty — all sheer growling against the Whigs.
He was followed by Arnold, of Tennessee, nearly three hours
without check, control, or interruption — a general retaliation
upon the modern Democracy for all their ribaldry against
the Whigs; but his declamation was intermingled with much
lofty sentiment and solid argument. After he finished, the
House fell again into confusion. Fillmore moved again to sus
pend the rules for his resolution, and failed again for want of
two-thirds. The committee refused to rise, and then rose.
Joseph R. Ingersoll took the floor, and, after sundry frivolous
and dilatory movements, the House adjourned, about a quarter-
before five.
13th. I called this morning at the Department of State with
a letter communicating to him (the Secretary) the resolution of
the committee directing their Chairman to ascertain whether
• any new correspondence or instructions have occurred since
the President's annual message relating to the search by British
cruisers of American vessels on the coast of Africa.
He read the letter, and said nothing.
I enquired whether the report on the call of the House last
winter for documents concerning our relations with the republic
of Hayti was to be expected soon.
Pie said it was in a course of preparation.
I told him I should probably move a call for Stevenson's
letter to Commodore Hull, and also on the Navy Department
for the proceedings of the Court of Enquiry and Court-martial
for the recent trial of Captain Bolton.
He said nothing.

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. rg
I observed that the state of our affairs generally seemed un
pleasant, and that there was every prospect of the repeal of
the Bankrupt law.
He made no reply.
I said, difficulties seemed to multiply upon us.
" Yes," said he, " difficulties on all sides." He was evidently
absorbed in deep agitation of mind.
Mr. Forward, the Secretary of the Treasury, came in just at
this moment, with Mr. Daniel Raymond, and I left them.
At the House, committee of the whole on the state of the
Union on the Treasury Note bill, Hopkins in the chair. The
two brothers Ingersoll made long speeches on the two sides of
the question — which was further most tediously debated till
near seven in the evening. The bill was then at last reported,
with two or three amendments, to the House, and Fillmore
- immediately moved the previous question; but, without taking
it, the House adjourned, and I walked home. The last speakers
against the bill were Thompson, of Mississippi, and Gordon,
of Delhi, New York. Thompson boggled a defence of the
State of Mississippi for repudiating, or, in other words, refusing
to pay the part of her debt which, he said, she had never con
tracted. 14th. I called this morning at the Department of the Treas
ury, and requested of the Secretary a statement of the present
condition of the Smithsonian Fund, and copies of the State
bonds in which it has been invested, for the information of the
committee to which the subject has been referred by the House.
I enquired also when the report upon the debts of the States,
called for by resolution of the House, might be expected.
He said he had written to the Governors of the several States,
and had received answers from some and not from others. The
answers from the heaviest States were received; and he directed
the Chief Clerk, McClintock Young, to write again to the States
whence there are as yet no answers.
At the House, the previous question had been moved last
night by Fillmore upon the Treasury Note bill. It was now
seconded, and taken. The amendments moved by Arnold,
Everett, and Underwood were rejected. That moved by T.

60 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [January,
W. Gilmer was carried, by yeas and nays — one hundred and
five to one hundred and two. The bill was then passed without
yeas and nays to the third reading ; whereupon Romulus M.
Saunders enquired of the Speaker whether the previous ques
tion of the passage to the third reading was not spent.
The Speaker said it was ; upon which Underwood moved
to recommit the bill, with instructions to report a suspension
of the Land Distribution bill, and the application of the pro
ceeds of the sales of the public lands to the redemption of the
Treasury note bills. Fillmore moved the previous question —
which cut off Saunders's motion ; and it was carried. The bill
was then passed, by yeas and nays — one hundred and twenty-
nine to eighty-six — with the party vote on both sides splintered
as I have seen an oak of the forest by a thunderbolt.
Giddings, Chairman of the Committee of Claims, now en
treated the House to take up private business according to the
rules; but the House adhered to the suspension of the rules,
and the call of the States for the reception of petitions, arrested
at Kentucky. Pendleton, of Ohio, requested permission out of
his turn to present two remonstrances from Cincinnati against
the repeal of the Bankrupt law. I claimed the same privilege,
as did several other members — without success. Giddings's
motion to postpone the reception of petitions and take up private
business was rejected, by yeas and nays — eighty-nine to one
hundred and seventeen.
On the call for petitions, John B. Thompson presented sun
dry resolutions of the Legislature of Kentucky, quite belliger
ent against Mexico, concerning a recent expedition from Texas
to Santa Fe, which has fallen into the hands of the Mexicans
and been somewhat roughly treated. In this expedition a son
of Leslie Coombs, of Kentucky, a mere youth of seventeen,
was an adventurer; and the resolutions of the Legislature of
Kentucky declare that protection is due to all and every the
humblest citizen of the Republic, whether at home or abroad.
There are four resolutions, with a preamble — all of the same
stamp. Thompson moved their reference to the Committee of
Foreign Relations, and that they be printed ; which was ordered.
Then Thomas F. Marshall offered the same set of resolutions,

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 6 1
and moved their reference to the Committee of Foreign Rela
tions, with instructions to collect and report to the House
information respecting the Texan expedition to Santa Fe. Fer
nando Wood, of New York, moved to add the same instruc
tions to the committee respecting the American prisoners in
Van Diemen's Land. Everett suggested that the information
should be obtained not by instructions to the committee, but
by a call upon the Executive. Marshall modified his resolution
accordingly, and Wood his amendment, and they were adopted,
Linn, of Schenectady, New York, having declared his intention
to debate the question about the Van Diemen's Land prisoners,
but finally withdrawing his objection.
The Speaker presented a petition from Richmond County,
Kentucky. Briggs moved its reference to the Judiciary Com
mittee, with instructions to report a bill to amend the Bankrupt
Act of the last session by including money corporations within
its provisions.
Long debate, and puzzle whether these instructions would
interfere with those already given to the committee to report
a bill of repeal. Cave Johnson moves to lay the petition, refer
ence, and instructions all on the table ; and, after some time
spent in wriggling round the question, as usual in such
cases, it was taken, by yeas and nays, and, by a vote of one
hundred to one hundred and one, decided not to be laid upon
the table.
The question came back upon Briggs's motion of reference,
with instructions, which Briggs modified at the request of Clif
ford, of Maine, who, after thus taking him in, voted against his
resolution. Gentry moved an adjournment at half-past three ;
which was carried, by yeas and nays — one hundred and one to
eighty-eight. 15th. At half-past ten this morning I attended a small meet
ing which I had proposed to Seth M. Gates, of Le Roy, New
York, and to Joshua Giddings, of Jefferson, Ashtabula County,
Ohio, to hold, with a view to some concert of action arrjong
the friends to the right of petition. The meeting was in the
room of the Committee of Commerce, and the members who
attended, besides Giddings and Gates, were David Bronson, of

62 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [January,
Anson, Maine, William B. Calhoun, of Springfield, Massachu
setts, William Slade, of Middlebury, Addison County, Ver
mont, Daniel D. Barnard, of Albany, New York, Francis
Granger, of Canandaigua, Ontario County, New York, Joseph
Lawrence, of Washington, Pennsylvania, Thomas C. Chittenden,
of Adams, Jefferson County, New York, Archibald L. Linn, of
Schenectady, New York, and Sherlock J. Andrews, of Cleve
land, Ohio — twelve. Besides these, Gates and Giddings had
invited Winthrop, Burnell, Brockway, Fillmore, Ridgeway, and
Cooper, who promised to attend and did not. This indicates
the lukewarmness of the most determined friends to the right
of petition in the House, the palsy upon the nerves of freedom
throughout the free portion of the Union, and the hopelessness
of any effort of mine to restore to the people the right of peti
tion, now smothered in both Houses of Congress.
With the members present a mere desultory conversation
was held, commenced by me, stating my reasons for proposing
the meeting, and my purpose of convoking hereafter a meeting
of all the members opposed to the suppression of the right of
petition, with a view to concerted action for the restoration of
the right. The members present were generally well disposed;
but the time was consumed in general conversation, without
specific proposition. We all agreed to meet again next Satur
day morning at the same time and place.
In the House, the whole day was consumed in a struggle,
finally successful, to force in from the Committee on the Judi
ciary a bill to repeal the Bankrupt Act of the last session.
This was effected by the reunion of all the slave-holding inter
ests with the Democracy of the free States — the same combi
nation with the Compromise of 1833. The bill was read, and
the Democracy were ferocious for driving it through ; but the
Kentuckians relented for one moment. Garret Davis moved
the adjournment, and it was carried, by yeas and nays —
to
The new coalition is thus consummated. Clay, Calhoun,
Tyler, and Van Buren, upon their Maelzel chess-board, have
checkmated the North and the free, leaving the division of the
spoils between the matadores to be settled hereafter. The

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 63
joke is that Clay and Tyler protest as gravely and indignantly
against this movement as if they were sincere.
17th. Mr. Radcliff came this morning and communicated to
me the steps that he has taken here in pursuance of his com
mission as Confidential Agent of the new State of the Isthmus.
He presented his commission to Mr. Webster, Secretary of
State, and left it with him, and on the 31st of last month he
addressed to him a memorial claiming the recognition by the
Government of the United States of the Isthmus as an inde
pendent State, and setting forth the grounds and circumstances
of this claim, together with a note of the special objects desired
for adjustment of intercourse between the Isthmus and this
country. Mr. Radcliff left with me copies of these papers for
my perusal, and had a long conversation with me upon the
course that it may be proper for him to pursue in execution
of his commission. His memoir is well written, and sets in a
clear light the actual position of the Isthmus and the force of
its claims to recognition. He said that the President and Mr.
Webster both admitted the high importance of the subject, but
Mr. Webster said perhaps before the formal recognition it
might be thought necessary to send a confidential Agent to the
Isthmus to make report of its present condition, as had been
done in the case of Texas. Mr. Radcliff will soon call again.
Mr. Rhind came with Mr. Hawley, an old friend of his, and
told me he had a claim upon this Government, which would
come before the Committee of Foreign Affairs. Rhind was
Andrew Jackson's Plenipotentiary to negotiate a treaty with
the Sublime Porte. What his claim is he did not explain.
At the House, the whole day was again consumed in driving
through the bill to repeal the Bankrupt law of the last ses'sion ;
which was finally accomplished, by yeas and nays — one hun
dred and twenty-six to ninety-four. The process was harsh,
precipitous, and unrelenting — led on wholly by the Kentucky
Clay men. Granger alone succeeded, amidst the continual mo
tions for the previous question, to crowd in a short speech
against the bill. Roosevelt made an attempt to present peti
tions for and against the repeal, but was frustrated by the rude
and arbitrary violence of the Speaker. I demanded that

64 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [January,
Roosevelt's point of order should be reduced to writing. He
refused. I therefore refused to vote on the question. Meri
wether moved I should be compelled to vote, but was not
seconded ; and I thanked him. Adjourned about five.
18th. Meeting of the Committee of Foreign Relations at ten.
Present, Adams, Everett, Granger, Gilmer, Hunter, Cushing, and
Proffit; absent, W. Cost Johnson and Rhett, who came in after
the committee had adjourned. The answer of the Secretary
of State to Rhett's resolution of enquiry was read relating to
the visitation and search question. The answer is that no addi
tional correspondence has been received, and no instructions
yet given to Mr. Edward Everett, but that there will be soon.
When Rhett came in, I read the answer to him ; and he said it
was satisfactory. No other business of moment was considered.
At the House, the day was occupied in calling the States for
petitions. The progress made was northward from Kentucky
to New York. The delay was chiefly caused by the presenta
tion of petitions, abolition, anti-slavery, and for and against the
repeal of the Bankrupt law. After much desultory discussion,
these last were all referred to the Committee on the Judiciary.
The abolition petitions which came within the gag-rule were
all quietly excluded; and every anti-slavery petition which
could not be disposed of thus, when presented, Wise, Hopkins,
and Campbell, of South Carolina, interchangeably moved the
question of reception, and then moved to lay that question of re
ception on the table. The yeas and nays were taken several
times, and the vote to lay on the table always prevailed.
At last Granger presented a petition praying Congress to
secure by law to the free citizens of the United States the
benefits of the Post-Office. The question of reception and the
motion to lay on the table followed, and Granger called for the
yeas and nays. This question brought the practice of ex
cluding petitions one step beyond all former precedent, and
'Mallory, of Virginia, moved to adjourn, though it was but just
after three o'clock. The adjournment was carried by tellers.
Joseph R. Ingersoll succeeded in getting sundry petitions against
the repeal of the Bankrupt Act referred to the Committee on
the Judiciary, with instructions to enquire into the expediency

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 65
of reporting a Bankrupt bill free from the defects and supplying
the deficiencies of the one just repealed. Sundry other resolu
tions were offered, but objected against, and not received. Mr.
Augustus Young, a member of the House from Vermont, and
Mr. Whitcomb, now a clerk in the Treasury Department, spent
the evening with me in general conversation upon political
subjects. Mr. Young feels deeply the degradation of the free
and especially the eastern portion of the Union, by subserviency
to the insolent domination of the Southern slave-traders and
slave-breeders; but he sees and I see no prospect of breaking
the yoke in my lifetime.
19th. Meeting of the select committee on the Smithsonian
bequest, in the chamber of the Committee of Foreign Relations.
Present, Adams, Habersham, Underwood, Randall, C. J. Inger
soll, Houston, and Bowne; absent, Truman Smith, and Hunter.
I had found in the chamber of the Committee of Manufactures
the book containing the minutes of the proceedings of the for
mer committees on this subject, the last entry upon which was
of 15th January, 1840. My report of that committee, with an
amended bill to incorporate the trustees of the fund, was made
on the 5th of March, 1840, since which nothing has been done
by Congress concerning it. The bill No. 1 of the House bills
remained on the calendar through the whole remainder of the
Twenty-Sixth Congress's first and second sessions, and was
never reached in the ordinary business of the House. There
was no committee appointed at the second session, none at
the late special session, first of the Twenty-Seventh Congress,
and in the mean time the funds invested in bonds of the State
of Arkansas have depreciated at least fifty per cent. I now
stated to the committee that I had called upon the Secretary of
the Treasury for a statement of the present condition of the
fund, which he had promised but had not yet furnished me. I
recapitulated again the proceedings of the former committees,
and gave copies of my last report to those members of the
committee who desired them.
" Habersham presented a letter from James F. Espy, proposing
that a portion of the fund should be appropriated for simulta
neous meteorological observations all over the Union, with him
VOL. xi. — 5

66 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [January,
for central national meteorologist, stationed at Washington with
a comfortable salary.
20th. At the House, the presentation of petitions under the
suspended rules was resumed, the Speaker having previously
presented sundry Executive communications. Botts enquired
of Cushing, Chairman of the Currency Committee, whether a
report from them was to be expected soon. Cushing answered
that he was ready to report whenever the committee should
instruct him; that they had met twice a week, and this week
three times. Botts said he was glad to hear it, for he had been
told that the committee would not report at all. At the ad
journment yesterday, Wise had raised the question of reception,
and then the motion to lay that question on the table, upon a
petition presented yesterday by Granger, from Hopewell, On
tario County, New York, praying for protection in their con
stitutional right to the use of the Post-Office, and adequate
security for their persons in all the States of the Union. Wise
said that his motive for making the motion was that he consid
ered the prayer of the petition to be for the circulation of incen
diary pamphlets and the protection of incendiary persons. The
motion to lay on the table was carried, by yeas and nays — one
hundred and one to seventy-four; and the same fate befell
many other anti-slavery petitions, including resolutions of the
Legislature of the State of Vermont, presented by Slade. The
call for petitions was continued from New York to Massachu
setts. Campbell, of South Carolina, objected to the reception
of a remonstrance, because it was not a petition; and he ob
jected to the reception, and moved to lay the objection on the
table, of a petition for the recognition of the republic of Hayti.
At this stage a motion was made, and carried, to adjourn.
2 1 st. Mr. Rhind came this morning and left with me a
statement of his claim as Commissioner of President Jackson
at Constantinople for negotiating the treaty with the Sublime
Porte, together with six appended documents as vouchers — all
addressed to me as Chairman of the Committee of Foreign
Relations. Mr". Rhind undertook also to give me a verbal
exposition of his claim and history of his negotiations; but,
although not inexpert in the art of intermingling flattery in his

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 67
discourse, he had so little that of exciting interest in his narra
tive or his argument that I fear their narcotic influence laid
me asleep. He said, and repeated many times, that my plan
for the Turkish negotiation was admirable, but failed by the
overweening vanity of my agent, Commodore Crane, Offley,
the Consul at Smyrna, and Edward Wyer, every one of whom
blabbed the secret of his appointment and thereby blasted the
chance of success.
At the House, the day was again consumed by the presenta
tion of petitions. Campbell's motion to lay on the table his
own objection to the reception of the petition from Springfield
for the recognition of the republic of Hayti was rejected, by
yeas and nays — eighty-six to ninety-four. Many petitions with
the same prayer had for several sessions been received and re
ferred to the Committee of Foreign Relations. Calhoun and
the other members from Massachusetts presented all their peti
tions before I began. Many of them were from anti-slavery
petitioners, all of which were excluded by the rule or by being
laid on the table.
When my turn came, I presented first the petition of Martha
Piatt, daughter of Captain Huddy, which was referred to the
Committee of Revolutionary Pensions; then two petitions from
George Catlin, at London, for the admission of a work 0/ his
upon the Indians; referred to the Committee on the Library;
then a memorial from the Directors of the Columbian Institu
tion for the Promotion of Science, with the draft of a bill by
Judge Cranch, containing the Constitution of the Society; re
ferred to the Committee on the District of Columbia.
I presented a petition from sundry citizens of Massachusetts,
praying that the benefits of the naturalization laws may be ex
tended to persons of color.
Wise made objection to its reception, and moved to lay his
own objection on the table; carried, by yeas and nays — one
hundred and sixteen to sixty-eight. A petition to Congress to
secure to each of the States a republican government was in
like manner laid on the table.
A resolution of a Pennsylvania anti-slavery society against a
war with England to hold native Americans in slavery. Wise

68 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [January,
objected to this as not presentable ; because it was not a petition;
but the Speaker overruled that. He then attempted to prevent
me from reading it, but did not succeed in that ; but it was laid
on the table.
I finally presented the petition from Georgia for my own
"removal from the office of Chairman of the Committee of
Foreign Relations, and demanded to be heard in my own de
fence ; which produced a fractious debate, cut off, after four
o'clock, by the adjournment of the House. Marshall, of Ken
tucky, had moved that I should have leave to be heard in my
own defence. Wise moved to lay the motion on the table;
rejected— eighty- two to eighty-four; whole subject laid on the
table — ninety-four to ninety-two.
22d. Meeting of the friends of the right of petition, in the
room of the Committee of Commerce ; very small, only nine
members attending — Barnard, A. Lawrence, Foster, Gates,
Giddings, Henry Linn, Maynard, Saltonstall. Others had been
notified, and promised to attend, but did not. Chittenden mis
took the room, went to that of the Committee of Post-Offices
and Post-Roads, and, finding nobody there, came to me after
wards to enquire why the meeting had failed.
I had drawn up a sketch of six resolutions to present to the
meeting for consideration — the first three declaring the rule
to be unconstitutional, specially oppressive on the free States,
and especially outrageous to the . rights of States, and the
other three proposing remedial measures — the last proposing
to form an association of members to restore to the people the
suppressed constitutional right of petition; to hold weekly
meetings. My draft of resolutions was read; no exception was taken
to either of them. But the meeting was so small that it was
thought best to try for another more numerous meeting next
Saturday. At the House, Everett, from the Committee on the Appor
tionment, reported a bill and sundry documents. The ratio
of representation is reported at sixty-three thousand to each
member. A debate of two hours was started. W. Cost Johnson
moved the recommitment of the bill to a committee of one

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 69
member from each State; but the motion prevailed to refer it
to the committee of the whole on the state of the Union and
make it the special order of the day for the first Tuesday of
February, and every succeeding day till the passage of the
bill. My petition from Georgia next came up. Thomas F Mar
shall's motion that I should be permitted to address the House
in my own defence. Campbell, of South Carolina, voted for it,
and then moved a reconsideration, and commenced a debate
about receiving and rejecting abolition petitions. But the
moment I opened my lips to answer him, the Speaker stopped
me for irrelevancy. The House refused to reconsider, and I
addressed the House; but I was not allowed to speak five min
utes without interruptions, and speeches of double that length,
from W. Cost Johnson, Wise, Rayner, and others, till I had got
half through an extract from Wise's Accomac letter — when they
succeeded in arresting me by a vote that I should not proceed,
and the House adjourned.
23d. I attended public worship alone at the Capitol, and
heard Mr. Maffitt, as he announced, upon the necessity of di
vine revelation. His text, as he had last Sunday given notice
that it would be, was from Job xi. 7: "Canst thou by search
ing find out God? canst thou find out the Almighty unto per
fection?" 8: "It is as high as heaven; what canst thou do?
deeper than hell; what canst thou know?" 9: "The measure
thereof is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea."
The hall was crowded to suffocation. I got a seat in one of
the reporters' boxes, only by the kindness of Christopher Mor
gan, who had it and insisted upon my taking it. Mr. Maffitt's
eloquence reminds me, more than of anything else, of the froth
of spruce beer, exceedingly pleasant to the taste, but the mere
froth of small beer — mere gas, without substance and without
permanent effect. His articulation is slow, distinct, theatrical;
his voice, clear, strong, melodious ; his learning, the offscour-
ing of magazines, reviews, newspapers, and the romances of
Sir Walter Scott ; his logic, below zero ; his flights of fancy,
sky-rocketish, just high enough to be lost in the clouds ; and
his puffs upon the Bible — which he handles as Signor Blitz

70 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [January,
handles his cup and balls — sickening to those who believe it
all the acting of a part. His power is all imaginative, and not
pathetic. His delivery furnishes an excellent study for a young
lawyer, legislator, or stump-orator, and a theme for philosoph
ical reflection, and enquiry what is the elementary adamant of
attraction which always gathers overflowing multitudes to hear
a public speaker.
24th. At the House, the curious decision of the House on
Saturday, sustaining the Speaker in pronouncing me out of
order, upon a point made by Rayner, which the Speaker him
self said was not the point decided by him, came up. I claimed
the right to proceed; but the House, by yeas and nays, decided
that I should not. This arbitrary decision was no sooner an
nounced than Wise started up, and swaggeringly said, "And
now is my turn;" and he demanded to be heard in defence of
himself against charges which he pretended I had made against
him. The rabid Democrats of the North were all for allowing
him; but his motion was finally laid on the table, by yeas and
nays — one hundred and one to seventy-eight; and most of
those who voted for silencing me voted also against silencing
him. I then renewed the motion to refer the petition to the com
mittee, with instructions to choose a Chairman if they think
proper. Debate arising thereon, it was laid over, and I pre
sented sundry other petitions.
One from Benjamin Emerson and forty-five others, of Haver
hill, Massachusetts, praying Congress to take measures for
peaceably dissolving the Union, with an assignment of three
reasons. I moved its reference to a select committee, with in
structions to report an answer assigning the reasons why the
prayer of the petition ought not to be granted. Then came
another explosion, and, after a snarling debate, a resolution
offered by Thomas W. Gilmer, that I deserved the censure of
the House for presenting a petition praying for the dissolu
tion of the Union.1 Hot debate arose upon this, in the midst
of which the House adjourned. Evening in meditation.
1 Mr. Gilmer's resolution was in these words :
" Resolved, That in presenting to the consideration of the House a petition for the

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 71
25th. Met the Committee of Foreign Affairs. I attended
at ten. Gilmer came in shortly after — then Everett, Cushing,
Gnfnger, and Proffit. Gilmer objected to proceeding to busi
ness till eleven o'clock, waiting for a full meeting; but Hunter,
W. Cost Johnson, and Rhett did not come. Gilmer and
Proffit were very uneasy, and more than once went out and
consulted together. Gilmer proposed to adjourn, supposing
the committee had nothing to do. But there were numerous
references to the committee, since their last meeting, of private
claims, which were distributed among the members for reports.
Mr. Everett said he should prefer to wait till next week to
present his report upon the claim of Margaret Meade.
After the adjournment of the committee, Mr. Cushing said
to me that it was the intention of the Southern members of the
committee to displace me and elect him Chairman of the com
mittee, and he proposed to excuse himself from taking any part
in the movement.
I said I did not see any reason why he should withdraw from
acting on the subject.
He said I had expressed the opinion that he was too much
prejudiced against England.
I said I did not see why that should require him to decline
the performance of his duty.
dissolution of the Union, the member from Massachusetts has justly incurred the
censure of this House."
The original petition, with all the various endorsements made by the Clerk of the
House until the 7th of February, when the struggle ended, was found lying between
the leaves of the diary.
In order fully to present the case to the reader, it is inserted here.
" To the Congress of the United States.
" The undersigned, citizens of Haverhill, in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts,
pray that you will immediately adopt measures peaceably to dissolve the Union of
these States.
" First, because no union can be agreeable or permanent which does not present
prospect of reciprocal benefits.
" Second, because a vast proportion of the resources of one section of the Union
is annually drained to sustain the views and course of another section, without any
adequate return.
"Third, because, judging from history of past nations, that Union, if persisted
in, in the present course of things, will certainly overwhelm the whole nation in
utter destruction." Signed by forty six names.

72

MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [January,

At the House, Fillmore obtained, by a vote of yeas and nays,
a postponement of the privileged question (Gilmer's resolution
of censure upon me) till one o'clock, in which he introduced
the General Appropriation bills and sundry resolutions, and
urged the House to take up the Treasury Note bill, returned
from the Senate with an amendment striking out Gilmer's
additional section ; but they refused. A motion was made to
lay the bill on the table ; lost, by yeas and nays — ninety-two
to one hundred and eleven.
At one, Gilmer's resolution of censure upon me was taken
up. Thomas F. Marshall offered a much more violent one,
with a flaming preamble charging me in substance with sub
ornation of perjury and high treason, and resolutions that the
House might well expel me, but would only pass upon me the
sentence of their highest indignation, and turn me over, for the
rest, to my own conscience and the contempt of the world.1
The Speaker received this resolution, and when Marshall
finished his speech in support of it he called upon me for my
answer to it, and said the question would be on the adoption
of the resolution.
1 This resolution was doubtless the result of consultation among many members
representing the slave States, who thought they had at last caught Mr. Adams in a
position which Vvould ever after discredit him before the whole country. Con
sidering the importance of the event in Mr. Adams's life, it seems not out of
place to connect it, in these pages, with the record of the greatest struggle in his
career. It begins with the following preamble :
" Whereas, The Federal Constitution is a permanent form of government, and of
perpetual obligation until altered or modified in the mode pointed out by that in
strument, and the members of the House of Representatives, deriving their political
character and powers from the same, are sworn to support it, and the dissolution of
the Union necessarily implies the destruction of that instrument, the overthrow of
the American Republic, and the extinction of our national existence : a proposition,
therefore, to the representatives of the people to dissolve the organic law framed
by their constituents, and to support which they are commanded by those con
stituents to be sworn, before they can enter upon the execution of the political
power created by it and intrusted to them, is a high breach of privilege, a con
tempt offered to this House, a direct proposition to the Legislature and each
member of it to commit perjury, and involves necessarily in its execution and
its consequences the destruction of our country, and the crime of high treason :
" Resolved, therefore, That the Hon. J. Q. Adams, a member from Massachusetts,
in presenting for the consideration of the House of Representatives of the United

1842.] THE TWENTY- SEVENTH CONGRESS.

73

I said I thought it impossible the House should entertain
the resolution, and, after a few remarks, postponing my defence
till it should be ascertained that I stand accused, I finished,
and was followed by Henry A. Wise, who, in a speech of per
sonal invective upon me, took nearly two hours, and then, at
the motion of his colleague, Hopkins, the House adjourned.
26th. Attended this morning the committee on the Smith
sonian bequest. Present, Adams, Underwood, Houston, Ran
dall, and Truman Smith. The documents requested from the
Secretary of the Treasury had not been received. The com
mittee sat about half an hour, and then adjourned; after which
Mr. Habersham came in. Absent, Charles J. Ingersoll, Hunter,
and Bowne. I am convinced that nothing will be done of any
use by this committee.
In the House, Fillmore made an attempt to take up the
Treasury Note bill, returned from the Senate with an amend
ment striking out Gilmer's additional section ; but Wise ob
jected the question of privilege. I addressed the Speaker,
referring to the letter from Wise, from which I was reading.
Wise resumed his philippic against me, and kept it up about
three hours before he finished.
I then said that I had determined not to interrupt him till
he had disgorged his whole cargo of filthy invective, but I
thought it impossible that the House should entertain the
resolution which charged me with subornation of perjury, and
States a petition praying the dissolution of the Union, has offered the deepest in
dignity to the House, of which he is a member, an insult to the people of the United
States, of which that House is the legislative organ ; and will, if this outrage he
permitted to pass unrebuked and unpunished, have disgraced his country, through
their Representative, in the eyes of the whole world.
" Resolved, further. That the aforesaid John Quincy Adams, for the insult, the
first of the kind ever offered to the Government, and for the wound which he has
permitted to be aimed, through his instrumentality, at the Constitution and exist
ence of his country, the peace, the security and liberty of the people of these
United States, might well be held to merit expulsion from the National Councils;
and the House deem it an act of grace and mercy when they only inflict upon
him their severest censure for conduct so utterly unworthy of his past relation to
the State, and his present position. This they hereby do for the maintenance of
their own purity and dignity. For the rest, they turn him over to his own con
science and the indignation of all true American citizens."

74 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [January,
consequential high treason — crimes for which I could only be
tried by a regular Circuit Court, by an impartial jury; and I
claimed the benefit of the sixth article amendatory to the
Constitution of the United States.
The Speaker required me to reduce my point of order to
writing; which I did, and congratulated the Speaker upon his
discovery of the expediency of having points of order reduced
to writing — a favor which he had repeatedly denied to me.
He said it was a power exclusively possessed by the Speaker,
but that my demand was a question not for him to decide, but
for the House.
I then addressed the House, and. denied their power to try
me for the crimes with which I was charged, and that they
had no right to assume the guilt without allowing me the
privilege of a trial. And as to the resolution itself, I denied
the right of at. least one hundred members of the House to sit
in judgment upon me, their personal and pecuniary interest in
the question carrying such a bias against me as would make
them challengeable as jurors in a Court of law.
Marshall replied by a County Court subterfuge of argument,
that the charges of subornation of perjury and consequential
high treason were not against me, but against the petitioners;
and he argued that I might be punished for the contempt of
the House, although for the same crime I might be tried by
the judicial tribunals of the country.
Fillmore finally moved to lay the whole subject on the table
— which was rejected, by a vote of ninety to one hundred, and
the House adjourned.
Evening visits from Mr. John S. Skinner with David B. Ogden
and Victory Birdseye, a member from New York (Pompey,
Onondaga County), who was the counsel for the State of New
York, after John C. Spencer, in the Morgan cases, who had
spoken to me in the House, and now came to mine to offer
me any service of assistance that he can give me upon my
trial. My dear wife, in her kind and affectionate assiduity and in
her anxious and faithful solicitude for me, overplied the ener
gies of her nature, so that she suffered this day a fainting-fit;

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 75
but it was transient, and she soon recovered, and was up again
when I returned this evening from the House. Miss Pierce
this morning brought me a letter from her sister, Mrs. Telfair,
complaining of me for occupying the time of the House instead
of urging them to the consideration and satisfaction of her
claims, and begging a gift of five dollars. This is the way of
the world. ^~
27th. Mr. Weld came, with a kind offer of assistance in the
search of documents, books, or papers. Mr. Weld spoke of
the temper of the people here, highly excited by these motions
of censure upon me and the inflammatory harangues of Wise
and Marshall against me; but he said he thought the tide was
turning in my favor.
At the House, yesterday, when I denied the right of the
House to try me for the crimes with which I was charged in
Marshall's preamble and resolution, the Speaker had required
me to reduce my objection to writing, and suggested himself that
it might be in the form of a question whether the House would
consider Marshall's resolution ; to which I had assented.
This morning, Botts, who wanted to make a speech, asked
me to withdraw my objection to the consideration — which I
declined, being determined that I will not be responsible for
the consumption of one hour of the time of the House upon
my personal concerns. The question, therefore, put in this form,
" Will the House nozv consider the resolution ?" involving the
question both of time and power, was of the Speaker's own
suggestion. The proceeding was denounced as a trick, how
ever, by Rayner, who gave notice that he would to-morrow
move for amendment of the journal. But on the question
whether the House would now consider Marshall's resolution
the vote was one hundred and eighteen to seventy-five.
Underwood then took the floor in a speech of an hour and
a half against the resolution ; he was followed by Botts, and
he by Arnold, of Tennessee, and he by Saltonstall. The effect
of these speeches against the resolution was so powerful that
Richard W. Thompson, of Belford, Lawrence County, Indiana,
immediately moved to lay the whole subject on the table.
That motion would unquestionably have prevailed if taken

76 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [January,
then. But Marshall, of Kentucky, and Gilmer, both implored
Thompson to withdraw his motion — which he declined; and
then followed an alternation of motions to adjourn, and calls
of the House, with yeas and nays successively taken, till the
majority were wearied out, and the House adjourned.
28th. Mr. Weld was again here, and undertook to mark the
passages in Marshall's Life of Washington recounting the
charge against him of being under English influence.
At the House, immediately after the reading of the journal,
Fillmore enquired of the Speaker, what was the business be
fore the House, and was answered that it was the question of
privilege on my trial. Lewis Williams moved a call of the
House; which was carried, and pursued until two hundred and
one members answered to their names, after which the call was
superseded. The question was upon the motion of Richard W.
Thompson, of Indiana, to lay Marshall's resolution of censure
upon me on the table.
Marshall now, with intense importunity, urged Thompson to
withdraw hfs motion, to give him the opportunity to explain
and to justify himself; Thompson, after much struggling,
yielded, upon condition that Marshall, after delivering his few
words, would renew the motion to lay the whole subject on
the table. Marshall then commenced a violent, declamatory,
and most eloquent philippic of nearly two hours against me.
He labored with agonizing energy to answer the speeches of
Underwood and of Botts delivered yesterday, and was par
ticularly resentful against Underwood.
I interrupted him occasionally, to rectify gross misrepresenta
tions of facts, and sometimes to provoke him into absurdity;
as, for example, at one part of his speech, that the Northern
abolitionists knew nothing about the condition of the slaves,
he assumed a courteous tone, and invited me to visit the
Western country. " To be lynched," said I. " Very likely,"
said he ; and proceeded. When he closed, he renewed, ac
cording to his pledge to Thompson, the motion to lay the
whole subject on the table, but said he earnestly hoped it
would not prevail, and voted against it.
When the roll was called upon the question to lay on the

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. jj
table, Botts rose, and asked if I wished to reply to Marshall.
I said I would not be responsible for the consumption of one
hour of time upon concerns merely personal to me ; that Mar
shall had occupied two hours in a personal invective upon me,
based upon principles totally unfounded and unjust.
Here I was stopped by calls to order, and not allowed to
answer the question. The motion to lay on the table was re
jected, by yeas and nays — ninety-six to one hundred and ten;
and I arose to make my defence. Gilmer interrupted me to
enquire whether he could not have an opportunity to make a
speech in support of his resolutions of censure.
The Speaker said he would, unless the whole subject should
be laid on the table or the previous question taken.
Gilmer then apologized to me for interrupting me, and I
entered upon my defence. I was soon interrupted by Wise to
defend himself for his share in the Cilley duel ; and challenged
him to name any colleague of mine who ever told him that I
had defended at a public meeting his innocence in that affair.
He said there were two or three of them; they were now
present ; he would not name them, but leave them to answer
for themselves ; and a dead silence followed.
I caused to be read at the Clerk's table extracts from the
report of the majority of the committee on the Cilley duel
case, and from the minority report of Elmore in the same
case. It was now past four o'clock, and, at the request of
Botts and many others, I yielded the floor to him for a motion
to adjourn ; which he made, and it was carried. I came home
to a sick family, and to musings for the further defence of
myself against this persecution.
29th. Mr. Choate, one of the Senators from Massachusetts,
came this morning and offered me any assistance that it might
be in his power to render me in my present strait ; for which I
thanked him, and may perhaps avail myself of his offer, my
means of defence requiring searches of books and documents,
multiplying upon me as I proceed.
At the House, Fillmore moved, with my consent, that the
question of privilege should be suspended to take up the
amendments of the Senate to the Treasury Note bill. I said I

78 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [January,
consented, because I would not be answerable for one moment
of time consumed on matters merely personal to me. Joseph
R. Ingersoll offered resolutions to suspend my trial — I, to afford
me time to obtain information necessary for my defence ; 2, to
instruct the Committee on the Judiciary to consult and report
upon precedents applicable to the case. The resolutions were
objected to by Mallory and others. But Fillmore's motion to
take up the Treasury Note bill finally prevailed, against the
earnest remonstrances of Sprigg, of Kentucky, who, when it
was taken up, made a two hours' speech against it. Stanly
then moved the previous question. Roosevelt then made a
question of privilege, that the amendment of the Senate made
it a bill for raising revenue, which it was not when it went
from the House, and that the Senate could not convert an
ordinary bill into a revenue bill, because all bills to raise
revenue must originate in the House. The Speaker overruled
this objection. Roosevelt appealed from the decision — which
was sustained by the House — one hundred and twelve to
seventy-three ; and immediately afterwards Atherton repeated
it as a point of order. The Speaker again overruled it.
Atherton again appealed, and again the Speaker's decision was
sustained — one hundred and seventeen to seventy-six. Hop
kins moved to lay the bill on the table ; rejected, by yeas and
nays — ninety-six to one hundred and one. The final question
of concurring with the Senate in striking out Gilmer's section
was carried by a tie — one hundred to one hundred — and the
casting vote of the Speaker. I was deeply fearful that a recon
sideration would be moved ; but it was not, and the bill was
passed. Fillmore moved immediately to adjourn, but Nathaniel G.
Pendleton, of Cincinnati, Ohio, started up with a resolution as
a substitute for Marshall's resolution of censure upon me.
Pendleton's resolution was a frothy declaration of abhorrence
of a petition for the dissolution of the Union ; that the petition
was presented by me, and that it be not received. Proffit and
Mallory, two of the most inveterate of my persecutors, ob
jected to receiving Pendleton's motion. Nothing but the
vengeful malignity of Marshall's resolution will satisfy them;

1842.I THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 79
and yet Proffit, to throw me off my guard, said to me that
there would be a majority of fifty against Marshall's resolution
in the House.
30th. I attended public worship this morning at the Second
Presbyterian Church, where Mr. Moore preached from Philip-
pians i. 6 : " Being confident of this very thing ; that he which
hath begun a good work in you will perform it, until the day
of Jesus Christ." My mind, I am sorry to say, is so totally
absorbed by the trial which the liberties of my country are
enduring in my person, that it could not rest on the words of
the preacher with attention sufficient to consign any part of his
discourse to my memory.
In the evening I was visited by Minot Thayer, and by my
colleagues of the House, Briggs, Burnell, Calhoun, and Hud
son, and had much conversation with them on the peculiarity of
my position under a double threat of punishment by the arbi
trary and despotic action of the House. They all assured me of
their sympathy, and offered me every assistance in their power.
31st. The pressure upon my mind in the preparation for my
defence is so great that for several successive nights I have
had little sleep. Last night brought me some respite and
relief, and I slept this morning almost until sunrise.
Mr. Leavitt and Mr. Weld called on me this morning and
offered me any further assistance in their power in collecting
books or papers which I may want for my defence, in making
extracts from them for me.
At the House, very little business was done. The Treasury
Note bill was signed by the Speaker. Cross, of Arkansas,
asked leave to offer a resolution of call upon the President for
a copy of the report of the Commissioner appointed for sur
veying the boundary line between this Government and the
republic of Texas.
I saw that my only means of obtaining the documents for
which I proposed to call upon the President and the State and
Navy Departments would be to put the condition of my con
sent to the reception of Cross's resolution, to the consideration
by the House of my resolutions, offered several days since, at
the same time.

80 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [February,
Gilmer objected to the consideration of my resolution, and,
while Cross was endeavoring to prevail on him to withdraw
his objection, the Speaker presented to the House several
Executive documents on his table. Cross then renewed his
attempt to offer his resolution. I repeated my conditional
consent. Gilmer persisted in his objection to the considera
tion of my resolutions, and I in my conditional objection to
the reception of that of Cross. It was not received. Gilmer's
pretence was that the consideration of my resolutions would
occasion delay. I claimed the floor to enter upon my defence.
Stanly asked leave to offer a resolution that the Committee on
Public Expenditures should have leave to employ a clerk.
John Van Buren objected.
At this stage, Asbury Dic'kins, Secretary of the Senate, came
in, and announced the death of Nathan Fellows Dixon, one of
the Senators from Rhode Island; whereupon Tillinghast de
livered a very handsome funeral eulogy upon him, concluding
with the usual resolutions of deep sensibility, of wearing
crape, of attendance at his funeral, and of immediate adjourn
ment. While the House was in session, I gave notice person
ally to every member of the Committee of Foreign Affairs to
attend the meeting of the committee to-morrow morning.
f — Day. My occupations during the month have been confined
I entirely to the business of the House, and for the last ten days
to the defence of myself against an extensive combination and
conspiracy, in and out of Congress, to crush the liberties of
the free people of this Union by disgracing me with a brand of
censure and displacing me from the chair of the Committee
of Foreign Affairs for my perseverance in presenting abolition
Npetitions. I am in the midst of that fiery ordeal, and day and
night are absorbed in the struggle to avert my ruin. God send
me a good deliverance!
February ist. Meeting at ten this morning of the Committee
of Foreign Affairs. I presented a paper stating that Thomas
W. Gilmer, a member of the House from Virginia, and a
member of the committee, having announced in the House his
intention to move, without instructions from the House, to
elect a Chairman, the present Chairman now enquired whether

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 8 1
he was ready to make that motion ; and moved that this en
quiry, together with Mr. Gilmer's answer thereto, should be
entered on the minutes of the proceedings of the committee.
After some shuffling conversation, Gilmer wrote an answer
that he was ready to vote against me. I objected that this was
no answer to the enquiry, since he could not vote against me
without a motion made, and no other person had manifested a
purpose to make the motion ; whereupon, after more dodging,
he finally added that he was ready to make the motion.
I requested that the minutes of the committee might hence
forth be kept by another member ; and Cushing undertook it.
Everett moved to lay the whole subject on the table. Everett,
Cushing, Granger, and Rhett voted aye ; Gilmer, Hunter, Cost
Johnson, Proffit, and I voted no ; and upon my motion to
enter my enquiry and motion and Gilmer's answer upon the
minutes, the ayes were Hunter, Proffit, Rhett, and myself,
and the noes, Everett, Granger, Johnson, and Cushing. I
then called upon Gilmer to make his motion ; but the time of
the meeting of the House had arrived, and Everett moved the
committee to adjourn to the usual time this day week ; which
was carried.
The House met at twelve o'clock, but transacted no business.
A few minutes after, notice was given that the Senate were
ready for the ceremony ; and the Speaker and Clerk of the
House, preceded by the Sergeant-at-Arms, and followed by the
members two-and-two, marched into the Senate-chamber, where
seats were provided for as many as could be accommodated.
I walked with Mr. Russell, a new member from Pennsylvania,
and stood in the middle aisle while the religious solemnities
were performed. W. W. Irwin, of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, who
had occupied a Senator's chair, left it for me; but I declined
taking it, and afterwards W. S. Archer, a Senator from Virginia,
came and took it. Mr. Tustin, the Chaplain of the Senate, made
a prayer, and Mr. Maffitt, the Chaplain of the House, delivered a
rambling, short discourse. The procession was then formed, and
walked to the depot of railway-cars about starting for Baltimore.
I then returned to the House, and thence home, and at five
went and dined at Mr. Seaton's with Lord Morpeth, Mr. South-
VOL. XI. — 6

82 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [February,
ard, Mr. Webster, and Mr. Preston, of South Carolina — a very
pleasant party.
2d. Meeting of the committee on the Smithsonian bequest.
Present, Adams, Smith, Habersham, Randall, Underwood; ab
sent, C. J. Ingersoll, Hunter, Houston, and Bowne. A letter
from Franklin Knight to R. W. Habersham was read, with a
project for applying the Smithsonian Fund to the establishment
and support of a farm-school — D. H. Lewis's plan.
H. R. Everett, of Vermont, gave notice that he would call
up the Apportionment bill next Tuesday, and made a report on
the case of Blair and Rives. Gamble, of Georgia, asked leave to
present resolutions of the Legislature of that State concerning
the establishment of certain post-roads. I said, as I had said
last week to Cross, of Arkansas, that I would readily consent
to the House's taking up for consideration their resolutions,
provided they would at the same time take up and pass upon
those I had offered, calling upon the President and two of the
Executive Departments for information essential to my defence.
The Speaker considered this as an objection to the reception
of Gamble's motion, and called up my trial as the order of the
day. I then demanded the action of the House upon my reso
lution of call. Gilmer writhed and wriggled, and moved to lay
the whole subject on the table;1 which I resisted, and was re
jected, by yeas and nays — eighty-nine to one hundred and
eleven. Pickens, Holmes, Smith, of Virginia, and Gilmer op
posed the call ; but it was carried — ninety-seven to ninety-six
— as was the second — ninety-five to eighty-four ; the third, at
the motion of Gentry, was laid on the table — one hundred and'
eleven to sixty-four. I entered upon my defence. Summers
moved an amendment to Marshall's amendment of Gilmer's
resolution of censure. Summers's amendment was, to refer the
whole subject to a select committee. He moved the previous
question, but withdrew it at the earnest importunity of Gilmer,
who was teeming with a speech against me. He spoke accord-
1 There is a slight inaccuracy here. Mr. Gilmer moved to lay the first reso
lution on the table, whereupon Mr. J. D. Jones moved that the whole subject
matter, including Mr. Gilmer's motion, lie on the table. The yeas and nays
taken were on the latter motion.

1842.]. THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS 83
ingly about an hour, and then, upon a motion of Mallory, the
House adjourned.
I dined with Kennedy and Winthrop. Lord Morpeth, Gen
eral Scott, Mr. Southard, D. D. Barnard, and Mr. Meredith, of
Baltimore, were of the party. Very pleasant.
3d. Mr. Radcliff called on me this morning, and read to me
the answer he had received from the Secretary of State to his
application as the Agent and in behalf of the Republic of the
Isthmus. It is procrastinative, and argues soundly the neces
sity of delay before recognizing as an independent State a part
of an extensive country with which we are in friendly relations.
Mr. Radcliff seemed earnestly inclined to press for the interpo
sition of our Government to mediate for the final separation of
the State of the Isthmus from New Grenada; but I dissuaded
him from that, and advised him to wait patiently for the result of
the informal mission to the Isthmus contemplated by Mr. Tyler.
At the House, my resolution calling for A. Stevenson's cor
respondence with Commodore Hull, inadvertently overlooked
yesterday, was taken up, and, at my motion, adopted without
a division. Gilmer consumed nearly two hours in his long-meditated
and bitterly rancorous speech against me. When he closed,
Cushing started up; but the Speaker said I was entitled to the
floor in my own defence. I spoke accordingly about an hour
and a half, and brought to light the conspiracy among the
Southern members of the Committee of Foreign Affairs to dis
place me as Chairman and to elect Cushing in my stead. I
produced the anonymous letter from Jackson, North Carolina,
20th January, 1842, threatening me with assassination, and the
engraved portrait of me with the mark of a rifle-ball on the
forehead, with the motto, to stop the music of John Quincy
Adams, sixth President of the United States,
" Who, in the space of one revolving moon,
Is statesman, poet, babbler, and buffoon."
These were Gilmer's own words, excepting the word fiddler,
which his echo changed to babbler. I produced also and read
the minutes of the proceedings in the Committee of Foreign

84 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [February,
Affairs. I reviewed my relations with the Virginian Presidents
of the United States heretofore — Washington, Jefferson, Madi
son, Monroe — and contrasted them with this base conspiracy
of three Virginians, banded here, together with numerous ac
complices in and out of the House, for my destruction. Near
four o'clock I closed for the day, with an apt quotation from
Moore's "Loves of the Angels," and came home very much
exhausted. 4th. I occupied the whole of this day in continuing my de
fence before the House. I began by renewing the charge upon
Gilmer of having tampered with my colleague, Cushing, by the
offer to choose him Chairman of the Committee of Foreign
Affairs in my place. He denied it positively, and called upon
Cushing as positively to deny it — which, with no small bluster
ing, he did. I then called upon Cushing to say who it was
that had made the overture to him — which, after some shuffling,
he declined to do, upon the pretence of not revealing private
conversation; but R. B. Rhett was forced to come out and ac
knowledge that he was the man who, on the same day when
Gilmer gave notice in the House that he should move in com
mittee to choose another Chairman, went to Cushing and told
him that they would elect him Chairman in my place. Cush
ing repelled the advance, and said he would not serve, and en
treated Proffit to dissuade them from the attempt — which he did
for two days, without success.
After bringing out all this, I returned to the Haverhill peti
tion and to the external conspiracy against me; to the Gilmer
and Marshall resolutions of censure, and the intervening South
ern caucus. I brought out Triplett to acknowledge that he
' called the caucus; Marshall, that his resolution had been sub
mitted to them, and that there were forty members and more
at the caucus. I paid my tribute of thanks to Lott Warren,
of Georgia, for his manly declaration of yesterday, that he
would give no countenance whatever to these proceedings; and
I returned with warm acknowledgments the kindness of the
members from Kentucky, Maryland, and Virginia who have
refused to join in this conspiracy against me; and I charged
the newspapers of this city and District with injustice to me,

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 85
the Globe being daily filled with abuse and invective upon me
while I am here on my trial, and the reporters of the Intelli
gencer suppressing the most essential parts of my defence. I
specially refuted the pretence that the Union could be dissolved
only by force, and cited the example of the peaceable dissolu
tion of the Confederation Union by the present Constitution of
the United States. Adjourned after three.
5th. No report of my yesterday's speech in the National In
telligencer, but a blustering notification that, as I have chosen
to complain of their reporters, they will report no more without
my own authority. This is a mere subterfuge to suppress the
publication of my defence and the exposure which I made of
the conspiracy in and out of the House against me. I read
the paragraph in this morning's Intelligencer merely stating
that I had continued my defence, and the sturdy notification
that they would report nothing further unless furnished by
myself; and I commented freely upon them as proof demon
strative of the servile submission of the press in this District to
the slave tyranny of the South; and I requested a postpone
ment of further proceedings on my trial till next Thursday
week, for time to receive answers to my calls on the Executive
Departments and to prepare for my defence, so that it may be
reported without delay.
Marshall made a bitter and spiteful speech against the post
ponement, and Arnold moved the previous question upon the
resolutions. I saw that would cut me off from all further de
fence, and preferred going on at once. Arnold, at my request,
withdrew his motion for the previous question. I withdrew
mine for postponement, and proceeded. I was not well pre
pared, having expected that there would be no opposition to
my motion for postponement; but I found no lack of matter for
discourse, till the motion, between three and four, for adjourn
ment, which was carried. My last missile upon Marshall was
an exquisite blast upon slavery by himself in his pamphlet
letters to the Commonwealth newspaper. He writhed under
it in agony. Before I had read the extract half through, Rom
ulus M. Saunders started up on a point of order on the old pre
tence — that I had no right to discuss the subject of slavery.

86 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [February,
The Speaker ruled the point against him. He appealed, and
demanded the yeas and nays, which were refused, and the
decision of the Speaker sustained — ninety-seven to twenty-five.
I saw my cause was gained, and Marshall was sprawling in his
own compost. I came home scarcely able to crawl up to my
chamber, but with the sound of "Io triumphe" ringing in my
ear. Marshall sent to me and demanded the return of his
pamphlet. 6th. After dinner, at St. John's Church, Mr. Hawley read
prayers for the Sunday before Lent, and preached from Mat
thew xiii. 47: "Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a
net, that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind."
My attention, morning and afternoon, involuntarily wandered
from the preachers and their discourses to the critical nature of
my own position; confident of my deliverance from this par
ticular assault upon me, so senseless that its malignity merges,
by its stupidity, not into innocence, but into harmlessness, but
always distrustful of my own control over my own spirit. One
hundred members of the House represent slaves; four-fifths of
whom would crucify me if their votes could erect the cross;
forty members, representatives of the free, in the league of
slavery and mock Democracy, would break me on the wheel,
if their votes or wishes could turn it round; and four-fifths of
the other hundred and twenty are either so cold or so lukewarm
that they are ready to desert me at the very first scintillation
of indiscretion on my part. The only formidable danger with
which I am beset is that of my own temper.
Mr. Barnard came with a manuscript report, by the reporters
of the National Intelligencer, of my speech of yesterday, for
my revisal. They sent it to Mr. Barnard, supposing that, after
their sally against me, I might possibly not incline to receive
it directly from themselves. Mr. Barnard told me that intima
tions had been very distinctly given to Gales and Seaton that
their treatment of me could not be tolerated at the North, and
that this was the occasion of their sending their reporters' notes
to me through him. I was up till past midnight, revising the
notes of the Friday's debate.
7th. Mr. Weld was here this morning, with a cheering re-

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 87
port of the impression of my defence of Thursday, Friday,
and Saturday, upon the current of popular opinion out' of the
House. A Mr. Dorsey, a stranger, brought me a document
which he supposed might be useful to me in my defence ; and
Robert Reeves, the Scotch ex-custodian of the Treasury Build
ing, came and took back his manuscript dialogue between a
Calvinist and an Arminian, which he had lent me to read, and
in which he is sure that he has definitively settled the knotty
problem of predestination and free will.
I prepared a minute of the outlines of the continuance and
conclusion of my defence, which would have occupied at least a
week. But I saw on Saturday that the House was tired of the
whole subject, and that to close it now would afford relief to
all parties. I went to the House, therefore, prepared to proceed,
but willing to stop short and dismiss the subject from the con
sideration of the House forever. I was belated, and the House
had been about ten minutes in session when I entered and
took my seat. Other business was under consideration, but the
question of privilege, or my trial, was soon called up. I then
observed that, having perceived on Saturday some impatience
on the part of the House to get rid of this subject, and perse
vering in the determination not to be responsible for one hour
of time unnecessarily consumed on this subject, if the House
was ready to lay it on the table forever, I would acquiesce in
that decision without requiring further time for my defence ;
of which I should need much if required to proceed.
Botts then moved to lay the whole subject on the table for
ever; carried, by yeas and nays — one hundred and six to
ninety-three. Meriwether, of Georgia, asked to be excused
from voting, because he hotly lusted for a vote of the severest
censure upon me, but despaired of obtaining it. The House
refused to excuse him, and he voted to lay on the table the
whole subject. They then took in hand the Haverhill petition,
and refused to receive it — one hundred and sixty-six to forty,
Briggs, Baker, Cushing, and Hudson voting with the majority.
I then proceeded with my budget, of which I presented
nearly two hundred, till the House adjourned. Most of them
were' excluded by the rule, or laid on the table by objections

88 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [February,
to their reception. And thus ended the second prosecution of
me by the despotic process of contempt. D. D. Barnard offered
sundry resolutions denouncing the prosecution in its true char
acter; but they were not in order, nor received by the House.
8th. Occupied night and day in revising the manuscript
report of the Friday's part of my defence. I had yesterday
morning returned to Mr. Gales the first part of Friday, revised,
which was published in the Intelligencer of this morning. The
remainder of the day, reported by Niles, is so poorly done that
I am obliged to write it almost entirely over.
Meeting of the Committee of Foreign Affairs. Present,
Adams, Cushing, Everett, Granger. No quorum; no Southern
member. Of course no business done ; though Mr. Everett
was ready with his report on the claim of Mrs. Meade. Com
mittee adjourned to Tuesday next.
In the House, the call for petitions had rested yesterday at
the State of Maine. Fessenden had presented a memorial from
Portland, complaining of the injurious operation of the Conven
tion with Great Britain upon the navigation, shipping, and com
mercial interest of Maine. He had moved its reference to the
Committee of Foreign Affairs, and that it should be printed;
an attempt was made to refuse the printing, and the decision
had been cut off by the adjournment. The printing and the
reference were now ordered, and Fessenden gave notice that he
would at an early day move to rescind the rule that excluded
the reception of anti-slavery petitions ; and this day closed the
call for petitions, which had commenced on the 7th of January.
Cushing moved a reconsideration of the vote yesterday, re
fusing to, receive the Haverhill petition, and claimed to be heard
on his motion ; but the Speaker refused to hear him. Cushing
then claimed that the question upon receiving a petition was
debatable; but the Speaker decided it was not. Cushing ap
pealed from the decision, and called for the yeas and nays ; but
they were refused, and the decision of the Speaker was sus
tained. Cushing quite wrathy.
9th. Called twice at fhe National Intelligencer office, going
to, and returning from, the Capitol. About the last third part
of my Friday's speech was reported by a young man named

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 89
Niles, whose first manuscript I could not decipher, and I was
obliged to write over again most of the second.
I attended the meeting of the committee on the Smithsonian
bequest. Present, Adams, Underwood, Habersham, Smith;
absent, C. J. Ingersoll, Randall, Houston, Bowne, and Hunter.
No quorum, and nothing could be done. My time, night and
day, has been, and yet is, so absorbed for my own defence that
I can attend to nothing else. Mr. Smith said that he should
not be here at the next weekly meeting, being obliged to go
home to Connecticut on business.
In the House, immediately after the reading of the journal,
Gilmer sent to the Speaker two papers ; one signed by himself,
R. M. T. Hunter, R. Barnwell Rhett, and George H. Proffit,
asking to be excused from further service on the Committee of
Foreign Affairs, because from recent occurrences it was doubt
ful whether the House would remove the Chairman, and they
were unwilling to serve with one in whom they had no con
fidence. The other paper was a letter from W. Cost Johnson
to Gilmer, apologizing for not attending the meeting of the
committee yesterday, but assuring him that if he had attended
he would have voted for another Chairman. These papers
were received without objection. The four fugitive members
were excused from further service by a shout of acclamation.
Cost Johnson then asked to be excused, and was excused in
like manner.
After some interloping business, the Speaker proposed to
call the committees for reports — which was acquiesced in
by the House. When he called the Committee of Foreign
Affairs, I rose, and moved that the vacancies in the committee
occasioned by the resignations should be filled. The Speaker
said he should fill them on the suggestion.
The resolution to authorize the Committee of Manufactures
to take testimony was further debated, and laid aside. The
Pension Appropriation bill, and that for the relief of American
seamen abroad, were passed. Just at the moment of adjourn
ment, a volunteer speaker commenced" a harangue from the
circular gallery, denouncing the wrath to come, but was soon
escorted,, by the Door-keeper, out of the House.

9°

MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [February,

loth. Call at the office of the National Intelligencer with the
revisal of the reporter's notes of the close of last Friday, and
with my oration at Newburyport and the Jubilee of the Con
stitution, from which I read extracts. But the letter from
William Jay, and Marshall's pamphlet, from which I read the
extract on Saturday, I cannot now obtain. Mr. Leavitt sent
them to Boston, with his own report of my Saturday's speech,
for the Boston Courier.
I attended the meeting of the Committee on the Longitude,
of which Joseph R. Ingersoll was the first Chairman, but was
afterwards excused from service on the committee at his own
request. Boardman, of New Haven, then became the Chair
man, and I was appointed in the place of Ingersoll. The com
mittee consists of five — Boardman, Keim, Sumter, and Aycrigg,
and myself instead of Ingersoll. Boardman and Keim were
the only members at the committee-room this morning, and
Boardman was very urgent upon me to assume the office of
Chairman — which I positively declined. We had some desul
tory conversation upon the memorial from the Philosophical
Society of Philadelphia, and agreed to meet again to-morrow
morning. In the House, on the reading of the journal, the appoint
ment by the Speaker was announced of Edward D. White, of
Louisiana, Augustine L. Shepperd, of North Carolina, Isaac
E. Holmes, of South Carolina, Reuben Chapman, of Alabama,
and Mark A. Cooper, of Georgia, five Southern slave-holders,
as members of the Committee of Foreign Affairs, in the place
of five who yesterday resigned. The resolution authorizing
the Committee of Manufactures to take testimony was laid on
the table, after a call of the House, by yeas and nays — one
hundred and eight to seventy-nine. After a long debate,
the Committee on Public Expenditures were authorized to
employ a clerk. Committee of the whole on the. state of the
Union, Briggs in the chair, upon the Civil and Diplomatic
Appropriation bill. Another long and multifarious debate,
first on an amendment offered by C. Cushing, to add three
thousand dollars to the item of appropriation for the pay of
clerks in the office of the Clerk of the House, two of whom

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. gT
the committee proposed to curtail, because they were not
authorized by law ; and the discussion soon widened into a
general retrenchment debate, demagogical and hypocritical,
in the midst of which the House adjourned.
14th. At the House, immediately after the reading of the
journal, the Speaker presented letters from Mark A. Cooper,
Isaac E. Holmes, and Reuben Chapman, asking to be excused
from serving on the Committee of Foreign Affairs. I imper
fectly heard them read, and took no notice of them. They
were excused by a silent vote ; and I moved that their places
should be supplied — which the Speaker said should be done.
The remainder of the day was occupied by the call of the
States for petitions, beginning with the Territory of Iowa, and
proceeding south and east, to Maine : they were all called
through. I presented all that I had left, except the three for
the dissolution of the Union, which I gave notice that I intended
to present hereafter.
15th. In the National Intelligencer of this morning I found
the letters from Mark A. Cooper, Isaac E. Holmes, and Reuben
Chapman, asking to be excused from serving on the Com
mittee of Foreign Affairs ; and the two former were so insult
ing personally to me that they are unquestionably breaches
of privilege, and I confidently believe that the Speaker would
have refused to receive or present them had they referred to
any other man in the House ; certainly not without giving
notice to the inculpated member, and to the House, of the
accusatory character of the letters. I was very strongly in
clined to make it a point of privilege in the House to vin
dicate my own character. I had given notice to Holmes and
Chapman on Saturday of the meeting of the committee this
morning : neither of them had hinted his intention to ask
to be excused.
At the meeting this morning, the six members in function
were all present ; but, as there were three vacancies, it was
agreed to postpone till the next meeting the regular business
of the committee. I read the letters of Mark A. Cooper and
Holmes, and said I considered them gross breaches of privilege
and had serious thoughts of denouncing them to the House.

g2 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [February,
But Everett and Granger said it would be giving them an
importance which the writers earnestly desired ; while without
such notice they would be, as they were, universally despised.
Shepperd and Edward T. White thought the letters insidiously
aimed .more against them than against me, by the principle
assumed that no Southern man could in honor consent to
serve with me. I determined, therefore, to sacrifice again my
personal feelings for the sake of peace, and to take no notice
of the letters. Everett gave notice that he would to-morrow
move a suspension of the rules to take up the Apportionment
bill. Gentry moved that the committee of the whole on the
state of the Union should be instructed to strike out of the
General Appropriation bill every item not authorized by an
existing law; which, after much debate, was carried — one
hundred and forty-four to twenty-two. That is my thunder;
but it will be of no avail.
16th. Committee on the Smithsonian bequest. Adams,
Habersham, Underwood, Randall — no quorum. No report
yet from the Secretary of the Treasury on the present con
dition of the funds. In the House, immediately after the
reading of the journal, Aaron Ward, of Westchester, New
York, moved a reconsideration of the vote yesterday by which
the bill relating to the District banks was passed. He gave no
reason for his motion, and the bill was no longer in possession
of the House, having been taken by the Clerk to the Senate.
Wardisaid if the House should reconsider, a message might be
sent to the Senate to demand the return of the bill — to which
the Speaker assented ; but D. D. Barnard appealed from his
decision, and claimed to debate it. Lewis Williams had moved
to lay Ward's motion for reconsideration upon the table, and
¦Ward insisted that he had moved the previous question upon
his own motion for reconsideration. The Speaker said he had
not heard Ward's motion for the previous question, but would
entertain it, upon his averment that he had made it. Barnard
maintained that a motion not heard by the Speaker could not
be before the House ; but the Speaker adhered to his determi
nation to consider Ward's motion as before the House, because,
though not heard by him, Ward averred that he had made it.

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 53
This previous question stifled all debate upon Barnard's appeal
from the decision of the Speaker to entertain Ward's motion
for reconsideration, because, if it should prevail, a message
might be sent to the Senate to return the bill. Barnard with
drew his appeal, and Lewis Williams's motion to lay Ward's
motion for reconsideration on the table was carried, by yeas
and nays — ninety-eight to eighty-three. Everett made another,
abortive attempt to prevail upon the House to fix a time for
the consideration of the Apportionment bill. Then came a re
trenchment debate on Summers's curtailment of two clerks, for
the morning hour; and the General Appropriation bill in com
mittee of the whole on the state of the Union, George N.
Briggs in the chair. McKeon moved to strike out the enact
ing clause. The Chairman decided that this was not in order.
McKeon appealed ; but the Chairman's decision was sustained.
The committee rose, and the House adjourned. The three
vacancies in the Committee of Foreign Affairs are not yet filled.
17th. Mr. Angier rode with me this morning to the Capitol.
I introduced him into the library of Congress, and to the Libra
rian, Meehan ; and I went with him to the room where the
Supreme Court of the United States were in session. This
room I re-entered, with a silent thrill of delight, for the first
time since I was there at this time last year under such a
heavy pressure of responsibility and with so glorious a result !
I dare not trust myself with the exultation of my own heart
on this occasion, so fearful am I of incurring the guilt of pre
sumptuous vanity, for the feeling of deep humility.
In the House, after an effort of Cooper to run through a
resolution from the Committee on Indian Affairs concerning
the authority of the Secretary of War to employ certain clerks,
and further debate on the first of Summers's retrenchment
resolutions, in which Bowne, of New York, and Milton Brown,
of Tennessee, consumed the time till the expiration of the
morning hour, when Fillmore called for the orders of the day,
Caleb Cushing, Chairman of the Committee on the Currency
and the Board of Exchequer, rose, and said he had been
directed by that committee to ask to be discharged from the
further consideration of a certain petition referred to them, and

g4 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [February,
to report in part upon so much of the President's message as
relates to a Board of Exchequer, with a bill. A question, not a
little debated, arose, whether the report and bill should be read,
and who should read them. Stanly asked what was meant by
a report in part, and whether the committee proposed to report
further. Cushing answered that the committee meant it as
a report in part, and insisted upon his right to read it — in
which he was finally gratified. The report was in a pompous,
vainglorious, obsequious style; but of the character of the bill
I could not judge upon a single reading. I heard enough of
it, however, to satisfy me that I can never vote for it. Garret
Davis then presented a counter-report for himself, part of which
was read at his demand, and the reading of the rest of which
was dispensed with by his consent. John P. Kennedy, another
member of the committee, gave notice that he would present
a minority report. The bill and reports were then referred to
the committee of the whole on the state of the Uni°n. and
twenty-five hundred copies extra of the bill and three reports
were ordered to be printed. J. P. Kennedy moved to include
in this order the Exchequer Board report of the Secretary of
the Treasury ; but that was rejected. These proceedings con
sumed the day, and soon after three the House adjourned.
Scarcely a day passes that I am not called from my seat by
Northern or Western members to introduce to me strangers,
their friends or constituents, of whose names or persons I can
retain no memory; but I was this day amused, as well as sur
prised, when Lewis Steenrod came to my seat and introduced
one of his constituents from Wheeling.
1 8th. At the House, at last, after four days for meditation
by the Speaker, the journal of this morning announced James
A. Meriwether, of Georgia, Robert L. Caruthers, of Lebanon,
Tennessee, and Alexander H. H. Stuart, of Staunton, Virginia,
as members of the Committee of Foreign Affairs in the place
of Mark A. Cooper, Holmes, and Chapman, excused from
serving. Summers's retrenchment resolutions were called up;
but Milton Brown, whose speech was left unfinished yesterday,
being unwell this morning, assented to a proposition from Fill
more to take up the General Appropriation bill. John C. Clark

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 95
had, by leave, reported from the Committee on Naval Affairs a
bill to establish additional ranks in the navy of the United
States, and for other purposes. It proposes the ranks of admi
rals, vice-admirals, and rear-admirals, with corresponding com
pensations. The bill was twice read, and Lott Warren moved
to lay it on the table. But the yeas and nays were called,
the report giving the reasons for the bill was read, Warren
withdrew his motion to lay it on the table, and it was referred
to the committee of the whole on the state of the Union.
This new-born passion of the South for the increase of
the navy, this profusion of appropriations recommended and
urged by the Secretary of that Department, is one of the most
curious phenomena in our national history. From Jefferson's
dry-docks and gunboats, to admirals, three-deckers, and war-
steamers equal to half the navy of Great Britain, is more than
a stride — there is a flying-fish's leap.
A number of private bills were taken up and passed, after
which the House went into committee of the whole on the
state of the Union upon the Appropriation bill, Briggs in the
chair. The retrenchment fever ran high. Fillmore, accord
ing to order, had struck out all items of appropriation not
authorized by law. McKeon, without rhyme or reason, moved
to strike out fifty thousand dollars for contingent expenses of
the two Houses ; and Graham, of North Carolina, moved to
insert an interdict to the furnishing stationery ever hereafter to
the members. There was no quorum to vote. The committee
rose, and reported the fact. A call of the House produced one
hundred and sixty-three answers to their names. Briggs took
the chair again. Charles Brown pronounced an invective, and
Wise a panegyric, upon the House — both demagogues. The
committee rose, and the House adjourned.
19th. In the House, Mr. Summers's retrenchment resolutions
came up, and Milton Brown, of Tennessee, concluded his
speech, exposing many flagrant abuses in the misapplication of
the contingent expenses of all the Departments to introduce
multitudes of supernumerary clerks and other expenditures
without authority of law. He was followed by Mr. Mathiot,
one of the members from Ohio, hitherto a mute in the House,

y6 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [February,
now a declaimer for retrenchment. Mr. Saltonstall took the
floor; but the morning hour was expiring, and- Mr. Giddings
called for the orders of the day.
Evening visits from Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Randall. Mrs.
Randall is a daughter of the late William Wirt, and last spring
wrote me a letter requesting me, in the name of the family, to
write for publication a biography of her father— which request
has been several times repeated, and was earnestly urged upon
me by her this evening. I have the best possible disposition to
undertake the task, but find it impossible, for want of time. Mrs.
Randall asked me to look over his papers — which I promised.
20th. Morning visit from Mr. Charles Naylor, the prede
cessor of Charles J. Ingersoll, one of the Representatives in
Congress from the city of Philadelphia. In the Twenty-Sixth
Congress the election was furiously contested between them,
and both of them were returned— Naylor first, and the seat
was finally adjudged to him. There was so much not only of
irregularity, but of foul corruption, in that election on both
sides that it would be difficult to say which was the worst. At
the election for the present Congress, Naylor declined, and In
gersoll was chosen by a majority of fifteen hundred votes. He
is .one of the ablest and most unprincipled men in the House.
Mr. Naylor told me he had been two or three days in the city,
and was now about to return home, but would not go without
calling to see me. He left me to conjecture what the object
of his visit to the city at this time was. I conjectured, from a
somewhat dejected appearance, that it was an unsuccessful can
vass for the office vacated by the death of Judge Hopkinson.
2 1 st. At the House, this was the first day of the session
upon which the rule for the reception of resolutions was carried
into execution. Allen, of Maine, offered one, calling on the
President to communicate to the House the present state of
the negotiation of the Northeastern boundary, and all the cor
respondence relating thereto not heretofore communicated.
Tillinghast, of Rhode Island, and Washington, of North Caro
lina, offered resolutions instructing the Committee on the Judi
ciary to consider the expediency of passing Acts supplementary
and amendatory to the Bankrupt law. Stanly offered a reso-

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS.

97

lution to alter the one hundred and thirty-second rule so that
a majority of the House may at any time fix in advance on
a day for discharging the committee of the whole from the
further consideration of any bill.
This is one of three amended rules adopted at the last session
of Congress, the proposal of which for permanency has within
a few days been agreed upon in a recent Whig caucus. The
tendency of them all is to abridge debate, and I opposed them
all at the late session. I voted for this one now, believing it
indispensable to save the waste of time, and the profligate fac
tious opposition of the slave Democracy in the House to defeat
all salutary legislation. The adoption of the resolution was by
those same means defeated this day. Wise, Turney, Clifton,
Proffit, John G. Floyd, and Medill baffled a constant majority
of two or three by successive motions to lay on the table, for a
call of the House, and to adjourn, and by taking the yeas and
nays upon every question, four or five of which were alternately
taken, till the flagging spirits of the Whigs were wearied and
worried out, and they adjourned near four. I gave notice to
all the members of the reorganized Committee of Foreign
Affairs of the meeting to-morrow morning, and they all prom
ised to attend.
22d. Meeting of the Committee of Foreign Affairs. Present,
Adams, Cushing, Everett, Granger, Shepperd, Edward D.
White, Caruthers, Meriwether, and Alexander H. H. Stuart —
the whole reorganized committee. There was a bill from the
Senate authorizing the Secretary of the Treasury to pay several
commissions instituted by treaties with Spain, France, and the
Two Sicilies, the sums awarded to whom have, in whole or in
part, been retained in the Treasury for debts due by the claim
ants to the United States. There were no papers with which
to ascertain the reasons for this bill, which looked to me like a
dip into the public Treasury to pay to the agents and attorneys
of claimants all the money reserved to pay the debts of the
claimants to the Treasury. Cushing said the agents and attor
neys had a lien upon the awards — which I said was at common
law called champerty. The further consideration of the bill
was postponed.
vol. xi.— 7

g8 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [February,
Mr. Everett read his report upon the claim of Mrs. Margaret
Meade, in its favor, which was also discussed and postponed.
In the House, Kennedy's minority currency report was pre
sented, and Saltonstall immediately moved to adjourn, on ac
count of its being Washington's birthday. It was carried by
an unanimous shout. Same in the Senate. I called at the
Treasury Department to enquire about the documents relating
to the Smithsonian Fund promised me some weeks since. They
were not yet ready; but the Chief Clerk promised again that
they should be sent to me in two or three days. The Secre
tary, Mr. Forward, said he had wished to have some conversa
tion with me, and was intending to call at my house; and he
asked me to give him my free and candid opinion upon the
state of our public affairs, and particularly of the Treasury and
the revenue.
I gave him very freely my opinions, and told him there were
two things which discouraged me more than all the rest: one,
that the Democratic members of the House from Pennsyl
vania all sacrificed the interest of their State to their political
alliance with the South ; and the other, that President Tyler's
bosom friends in the House defeated every attempt to raise a
revenue sufficient to meet the expenditures of the year. He
shook his head and made no answer. I asked him if besides
the twelve millions loan, and the five millions Treasury notes
already issued, there would not be a further deficit to be pro
vided for before the close of the present year. He said he
feared there would.
I told him that there was but one remedy — taxation, excise
as well as impost, and the only alternative, bankruptcy.
23d. Committee on the Smithsonian bequest. Present,
Adams, Underwood, Habersham — no quorum. Mr. Habersham
told me he had received a letter from the gentleman who wrote
the pretended petition, signed by twenty-eight fictitious names,
from Habersham County, praying for my removal from the
office of Chairman of the Committee of Foreign Affairs, who
tells him that he meant it only in sport, but, as it had brought
the members of the Georgia delegation into question, he felt it
to be his duty to avow that he was the author of the paper,

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. gg
and that it was all a fiction. In the code of slavery morality,
forgery is one of the ways and means for the defence of the
peculiar institutions.
As I was going up the stairs to enter the House, I met one
of the pages of the House, who told me that Mr. Lewis Wil
liams, of North Carolina, was lying at the point of death at his
lodgings, Mrs. Peyton's. He died about one o'clock p.m., while
the House was in session; but his death was not announced.
The resolution from the retrenchment committee came up,
upon which Mr. Saltonstall made a very sensible half an hour
adverse speech. Briggs succeeded him, not quite so long, on
the other side, and for the retrenchment of the two clerks.
He was followed by Pickens, in a frothy, bombastical style,
terminating in nothing. Charles Brown took him in the same
line, and they rattled along like empty tin tea-kettles over
heaps of stones. The General Appropriation bill soon came
up, with another retrenchment debate, in which McKeon and
Proffit took part.
24th. When the House met, immediately after the reading of
the journal, Kenneth Rayner, of North Carolina, announced the
death of Lewis Williams, the father of the House, upon whom
he pronounced a handsome eulogy, concluding with a motion
for the usual obituary resolutions of condolence with the family,
and to attend the funeral to-morrow. I seconded the motion,
and in a speech of about five minutes expressed the sorrow
that I felt at this sudden and melancholy bereavement. Lewis
Williams was one of the best men in the House, or in the
world. I was followed by William Cost Johnson, who paid a
feeling tribute to the memory of his friend. The resolutions
were then unanimously adopted, and the House adjourned.
Rayner, immediately afterwards, came to my seat, offered me
his hand, thanked me cordially for the remarks I had made,
and made a frank and unqualified apology for the harsh lan
guage he used towards me on my late trial. I told him it was
all forgotten. Washington, Shepperd, Stanly, and even Romu
lus M. Saunders, followed. Thomas J. Campbell, of Tennessee,
came and asked for a copy of my remarks, for a twin brother
of Lewis Williams, now Judge in Campbell's district ; which I

IOO MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [February,
promised him. The Speaker appointed me one of the com
mittee of arrangements for the funeral, and the committee
met, immediately1 after the adjournment of the House, in the
Speaker's chamber. Some arrangements were made, and the
committee agreed to meet there again to-morrow morning at -
eleven. 26th. At the House, the question was finally put on the first
resolution reported by Summers from his retrenchment com
mittee. Its object was to curtail the number of subaltern clerks
in the office of the Clerk of the House, from twelve to ten.
Gordon and Bowne, of the House New York Democracy,
have been two or three days opposing this resolution, fearing
that the discarded clerks will be of the Democracy. Gordon
had moved an amendment authorizing the employment of the
two additional clerks ; but, being pressed as to the amount of
their salaries, fifteen hundred dollars each, he modified his own
amendment so as to reduce the salaries to twelve hundred dol
lars each. I voted against, and it was rejected ; but I voted
also against the resolution — which was carried, by yeas and
nays — one hundred and forty-seven to sixteen.
The report from the Secretary of the Navy was received,
communicating copies of the proceedings of the Court of En
quiry and of the Court-martial upon Captain Bolton, in answer
to the resolution offered by me when on my trial. They were
at my motion ordered to lie on the table, and to be printed.
A message from the President was received, declining to
communicate the documents showing the present state of the
negotiation with Great Britain relating to the Northeastern
Boundary, called for by resolution of the House of the 21st.
There was a bill from the Committee of Claims for the relief
of John Barnes on its passage, on which a debate was started.
Roosevelt, to get rid of it, moved its recommitment to the
Committee of Claims, with instructions to take the opinion
of the Attorney-General " on a point of law involved in it. I
reminded the House of the answer of W. Wirt to a former
House, which had required an opinion of the Attorney-General ;
and Roosevelt withdrew his motion. D. D. Barnard told me
he had received a petition from his district, signed by a small

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. t0t
number of very respectable persons, praying for a dissolution
of the Union. He said he did not know what to do with it.
I urged him earnestly to present it. I dined with him. Gen
eral Scott, W. S. Archer, Mr. Kerr, of Maryland, Habersham,
of Georgia, and Saltonstall, were there.
28th. Henry A. Wise publishes in the National Intelligencer
of this morning a long letter to William A. Graves, and a state
ment of circumstances attending the duel between Graves and
Cilley, with the view to cast off the whole odium of it from
himself upon Henry Clay. He succeeds so far as to show that
Clay must share with him the odium, and he assumes for his
pretext my declaration in the House, that I believed him more
guilty of the blood of Cilley than the man who drew the
trigger. My opinion was founded on the fact which occurred
on the field, when, after two shots had been exchanged without
effect, there was a parley between Wise and Jones, the seconds.
Then it depended upon Wise alone to command the peace be
tween them. He had but to say, " Gentlemen, this misunder
standing arose from words spoken by Mr. Cilley in debate, and
in particular debate with me, in opposing a motion made by me.
The parties have met like men of honor, and twice exposed their
lives upon a punctilio. This matter must proceed no further.
If Mr. Cilley hesitates to resort to the privilege of free debate, I
am bound to take it to save the shedding of his blood or that
of my friend." This was his duty as Graves's friend, and as a
man; instead of which he broke off the truce with an insult,
saying that if the next shot did not take effect he should propose
to shorten the distance. He now admits that he did say so,
but pleads that it was by order of Graves. He should have
refused to obey such an order, fit only for a savage or a fiend.
In the House*, Robert McLellan moves a call on the Secre
tary for a report of extra allowance to General Scott in 1838
for removing the Cherokees. W. B. Campbell moves to enlarge
and dilute the call ; rejected. Then motion to reconsider — which
I opposed ; laid on the table. General resolution finally adopted.
Call for petitions, beginning from Iowa, moving south, and then
east. Giddings, of Ohio, presented numerous petitions, among
which one for a division between slavery and freedom. House

I02 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [March,
refuse to receive it ; explosion. John P. Kennedy's mad reso
lution,; not received. Pendleton's ; objected to. He moves a
suspension of the rules ; bustle. Winthrop moves to adjourn ;
carried. March 2d. Committee on the Smithsonian bequest. Pres
ent, Adams, Underwood, Randall — no quorum. Conversation
upon the manner of canvassing votes at elections in Kentucky
— treating, barbecues, small loans of one or two dollars, to be
forgotten, tavern bills paid half and half by the candidates.
In the House, on the motion of Fillmore, a resolution was
adopted that from and after next Wednesday the daily hour
of adjournment shall be eleven o'clock a.m., till further order.
But Taliaferro gave notice that he should move a reconsidera
tion of this vote to-morrow, and if that should fail he should
move that the standing committees should be discharged from
the further consideration of the subjects referred to them.
A message was received from the President in answer to my
call for the correspondence respecting the laws of South Caro
lina for the imprisonment of colored seamen. He says he is
not aware of any decision by Judge William Johnson that the
act of South Carolina was unconstitutional.
A memorial from Thomas Allen about the printing of the
Census compendium was received, and, after much debate, re
ferred to the Committee of Claims. A memorial from Blair
and Rives on the same subject had already been referred to the
same committee. A report from the Secretary of State, also
relating to this knavery, was this day at first referred to the
committee of the whole on the state of the Union, but after
wards, on my motion, transferred to the Committee of Claims.
There was a long and ludicrous retrenchment debate, always
made so by specifications of petty parsimonies soaring to the
glory of reform. The committee propose to abolish the office
of Draughtsman to the House. J. G. Floyd moved to add, and
that of Postmaster; then -came all the appendages of the Post-
Office, and an interminable discussion, renewed in committee of
the whole upon the state of the Union, Briggs in the chair, on
the General Appropriation bill. Briggs decided that an amend
ment proposed by the Chairman of the Ways and Means was

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 10^
not in order; but the committee of the whole reversed his
decision, and amendment crawled upon amendment till the
House adjourned.
3d. Mr. Giddings came to enquire the precise extent to
which I hold the subject of slavery in the States subject to
the jurisdiction of the National Government; and I explained
it to him. In the case of a servile war, involving the free States
of the Union, the question of emancipation would necessarily
be the issue of the conflict. All war must end in peace, and
peace must be concluded by treaty. Of such a treaty, partial
or universal emancipation would probably form an essential,
and the power of the President and Senate of the United States
over it would be coextensive with the war. ^--""
Mr. Radcliff came, and informed me that since his last in
terview with me he had received advices that the State of the
Isthmus had reunited itself with the republic of New Grenada,
whereby his agency for the independent State of the Isthmus
had ceased.
At the House, the day was consumed in the everlasting
retrenchment debate. Wise produced his project for a Gov
ernment printing-press — his real object being to save the
Tyler job of the Madisonian.
4th. In the National Intelligencer of this morning is pub
lished the letter of Henry Clay to the General Assembly of
Kentucky, dated the 16th of last month, and resigning his
seat in the Senate of the United States, to take effect from the
31st of this month. This movement is preparatory to another,
by which the Whigs in Congress are to announce him as their
candidate for the next Presidential election. There is in the
same paper a summary of the decision of the Supreme Court
of the United States last week, in the case of Prigg against
the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, declaring null and void
an Act of the Legislature of Pennsylvania and all State laws
interfering with the recovery of fugitive slaves.
In the House, the resolutions of the retrenchment com
mittee on the expenditures of the House were immediately
taken up. The sixth resolution was to charge the Postmaster
with contracting for horses and mail-carts ; adopted. The

I04 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [March,
seventh charged the Door-keeper with the supply of fuel, oil,
and candles, and forbidding the use of them by the restaura
teurs attached to the House; adopted. The eighth charged
the Clerk with the purchase and supply of stationery, and to
keep accounts and a record of its cost.
Winthrop moved an amendment directing the Clerk to give
a preference to articles of American manufacture.
Mark A. Cooper moved an amendment — provided they are
equally cheap. The man-mountain called the yeas and nays
on this amendment of slavery against free labor; and it was
carried — ninety-eight to eighty-seven. The ninth resolution
limited the supply of stationery to each member of the House
to the cost of twenty-five dollars to the long, and twenty to the
short session, upon which arose a storm of debate — amend
ment was heaped upon amendment, till the members scarcely
knew what they were about. Holmes, of Charleston, South
Carolina, moved that no stationery should in future be served
to the members at the public expense ; twice taken, by yeas
and nays; first carried — ninety-eight to ninety-one; then lost
— ninety-one to ninety-five. The resolution was at last adopted
— one hundred and sixty-one to twenty-two ; and Underwood
moved a reconsideration. After which, and a resolution pro
posed by D. D. Barnard for the removal of the tables and desks
of the members, which was not received, the House went into
committee of the whole, Zadok Casey in the chair, upon private
bills, a great number of which were passed upon and reported
to the House. Adjourned at half-past three.
6th. On my recent trial, Thomas W. Gilmer read a part of a
letter written by me in December, 1808, to Joseph Anderson,
then a Senator of the United States from the State of Ten
nessee. Gilmer said that he had received a copy of this letter
from a total stranger to him, he believed lately a Senator from
the same State of Tennessee, not only with permission, but
with a request that he would use it ; and, accordingly, he sent
it to the Clerk's table, and an extract from it was read. This
farce appearing to make no impression upon the House, the
next morning Wise produced and held up the letter itself, and
had the same extract read again, with as little effect as before.

1842.] THE TWENTY- SEVENTH CONGRESS. I0j
This evening I received a letter from J. Anderson, in Ten
nessee, stating that he is the executor of his father's will, but
has not yet obtained possession of his papers ; that the pro
duction of my letter by Mr. Gilmer was utterly disapproved
by him, and that he had learnt the fact with grief, mortifica
tion, and deep indignation. So that this piece of treachery
recoils upon the traitor, and is of no avail to Wise or Gilmer.
8th. Pickens came to my seat in the House yesterday morn
ing and told me that he had received a letter from his particular
friend General Alexander Anderson, a Senator from Tennessee,
denying the statement made by T. W. Gilmer that he had re
ceived from him my letter to Joseph Anderson which Gilmer
read in the House — declaring that he utterly disapproved of
the disclosure of that letter, and requesting Pickens to pub
lish his explicit denial of the fact that he had furnished my
letter in the National Intelligencer and the Globe — which
Pickens said he would immediately do. Accordingly, the letter
from Alexander Anderson to Pickens, and one from Pickens
to the editors of both papers, requesting them to publish it,
appeared in both papers of this day.
John P. Kennedy asked me yesterday to head a list for a
dinner to be given to Mr. Clay immediately after his resigna
tion. I declined, as being superannuated for all public dinners.
He said the Clay flag was then to be raised, and fire away at
Tyler. I said I should ask for an exposition of their principles.
Stansbury, the reporter, brought me yesterday a hen's egg
from the farm of a Mr. Hodges, in Upper Marlborough, Mary
land, with " WAR, 1842," legibly inscribed on its shell. He'
asked me to show it as a curiosity to the Committee of Foreign
Affairs — which I did at their meeting this morning, at which
all the members, excepting Mr. Meriwether, of Georgia, were
present. This gallinaceous prophecy is an old device. I re
member it from 1775.
9th. Weekly meeting of the committee on the Smithsonian
bequest. Pre'sent, Adams and Truman Smith. Habersham
was in an adjoining committee-room. No quorum.
In the House, Roosevelt called in vain for the consideration
of the message received yesterday from the President upon

T06 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [March;
the cravings of an empty Treasury. Halsted, by privilege
preference, presented a report from the Committee of Elec
tions, without announcing its purport or to whom it related;
laid on the table, and ordered to be printed. Barnard at
tempted to introduce his resolution for reorganizing the hall
and discarding the desks, but failed. The General Appro
priation bill was resumed in committee of the whole on the
Union, Briggs in the chair. McKeon offered a resolution to
repeal the Land Distribution bill ; but it was not received.
The day was consumed in debating on the patronage of the
public printing, and the contingencies of the Department of
State. Caruthers, Gilmer, Fillmore, Wise, Fillmore again,
Samson Mason, W. Smith, of Virginia, Cushing, and Gentry
shared in this discussion, in which there was sharp-shooting
between Gilmer and Wise on one side, and Fillmore on the
other. Gilmer and Wise are the back-stairs viceroys over
President Tyler; and they are the busiest marplots in the
House to destroy the credit of the Administration and of the
country. Fillmore complained, and was answered by Gilmer
by frothy braggings of independence, and by Wise with over
bearing insolence and insult, till the committee rose, and the
House adjourned.
ioth. At the House, no notice of the two messages of yes
terday. The Appropriation bill was immediately taken up in
committee of the whole on the state of the Union, Briggs in
the chair, upon amendments proposed in relation to the public
printing and contingencies. In 1837 I had obtained the inser
tion, among the rules of the House, of one that no expenditure
should be provided for in a General Appropriation bill not
authorized by law. But the very next year an exception was
added to the rule, for contingencies, and for the continuance
of works authorized by law ; and from that hour the rule has
been a dead letter, and I had given up as desperate all attempt
to enforce it. Some days since, Gentry, of Tennessee, moved
to strike out of this bill all items of appropriation not other
wise authorized by existing law, thus falling back on my prin
ciple. This motion, after much debate, was carried by a large
majority; but it has entangled the House in a snarl from

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. lQy
which they will find it difficult to extricate themselves. In
the item of contingent expenditure in the Department of State
for printing the laws in pamphlets and newspapers, Fillmore,
by direction of the Committee of Ways and Means, proposed
a proviso requiring the job printing to be done by contract
with the lowest bidder, and Garret Davis moved an amend
ment that the laws should be published in the newspapers
having the largest circulation. This was a cut and thrust at
the Madisonian, a Tyler newspaper with about three hundred
subscribers and kept alive only by the patronage of printing
for the public offices. This was the stimulant of Wise's furious
onset upon Fillmore yesterday, met and repelled this day by
Gentry, amid numberless interruptions by Wise, and by the
Chairman, Briggs, himself truckling to the overbearing temper
of Wise. Gentry, Caruthers, Charles Brown, Gilmer, Everett,
and Cushing took part in this debate — followed by one started
by Giddings, a touch upon slavery, which set all the South in
a flame, till the committee rose, and the House adjourned.
Mr. Nathaniel Tallmadge, one of the Senators from New
York, came into the House with Charles Dickens, and called
me out from my seat and introduced him to me. I dined with
Robert C. Winthrop and John P. Kennedy. They went ex
pressly to Dickens's lodgings at Fuller's to prevail on him to
come and dine with them ; but he was at dinner, and they did
not see him. William S. Archer, Millard Fillmore, Pearce, of
Maryland, Mrs. S. P. Gardner, Mr. and Mrs. F. C. Lowell, were
of the party. Mrs. Winthrop did not appear till after dinner.
nth. The Intelligencer of this morning contains the letter
of Joshua R. Giddings to the Legislature of Ohio in answer
to their infamous, factious resolutions of censure upon me for
presenting the Haverhill petition.
In the House, Wise offered a resolution for a select com
mittee of five to consider and report upon the expediency and
propriety of separating the patronage of the Government from
the private and political press, and on the best mode of effect
ing that purpose; adopted, without opposition. So was a
resolution offered by Joseph R. Ingersoll, instructing the Judi
ciary Committee to enquire into the expediency of reporting a

I08 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [March,
bill for selecting juries in States where obstacles are interposed
by the local laws.
Committee of the whole on the state of the Union, Briggs in
the chair. General Appropriation bill. Stanly moved to strike
out the item of appropriation for the salary of the First Auditor
of the Treasury and his clerks. Jesse Miller, of Pennsylvania,
is the Auditor; and in the report of Wise's committee of inves
tigation into the Swartwout defalcation, Miller was charged
with culpable negligence and incompetency in not discovering
Swartwout's embezzlements. Stanly modified his motion, to
strike out only the Auditor's own salary, and sent to the Clerk
a speech of Proffit's, made two years ago, vehemently de
nouncing the Van Buren Administration for retaining Miller
in office.
A ludicrous debate now followed between Proffit, Charles
Brown, Wise, and John C. Clark, succeeded by John G. Floyd.
Underwood, Gordon, Arnold, and Holmes, of South Carolina,
in which Proffit boasted that his speech had elected half the
Whigs in the House, and Charles Brown said Ogle's speech
had elected the other half. Linn, of New York, finally took
the floor; the committee rose, and the House adjourned.
14th. Visits from Mr. Granger and Mr. Philip Hone, and
afterwards three delegates from the merchants of New York,
Aspinwall, Newbold, and Fitch, to represent the disreputable
and discredited state of the Government and country, and to
urge the action of Congress to redeem the credit of the nation.
They said that the notes and engagements of the country have
been protested at New York, and are at a discount of one and
a half per cent.
At the House, D. D. Barnard, from the Committee on the
Judiciary, reported a bill to provide for the selection and return
of jurors for the Courts of the United States, where they have
not been able to conform the designation and empanelling in
substance to the local laws and usage. This bill, of deeper
import in its bearing upon the laws of the States than the
House was aware of, was driven through without discussion by
the suspension of the rules, and by three several previous
questions.

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. IOg
Cave Johnson presented petitions for the repeal of the Bank
rupt law, and moved their reference to the Judiciary Committee
with instructions to report forthwith a bill to suspend the opera
tion of the Act till the 3d of March next. Chittenden moved
to lay the motion on the table ; lost — eighty to ninety-six.
Previous question called ; lost — eighty-one to eighty-seven ; no
second, and the motion lies over for debate.
Morgan presented a petition praying, as an alternative, the
rescinding of the twenty-first rule, or the dissolution of the
Union ; not received.
Barnard presented a petition for the dissolution of the Union,
and moves its reference to a select committee, with instructions
to report adversely to its prayer. Question upon reception.
Briggs proposes to debate ; it lies over.
Dinner at Boulanger's to Charles Dickens ; to which I was
invited by Aaron Ward. G. M. Keim presided. M. St. Clair
Clarke, Vice-President. J. E. Holmes ; Sutton, a reporter ;
Roosevelt ; French ; Robert Tyler. Toasts ; speeches ; songs.
It was near midnight when I came home.
15th. Committee of Foreign Affairs. Present, Adams, Cush
ing, Everett, Granger, Shepperd, E. T. White, Caruthers, and
A. H. H. Stuart; absent, Meriwether only — indisposed. Mr.
Shepperd was authorized to report .to the House the Senate
bill for paying out from the Treasury commissions to the
agents and attorneys of claimants under the French, Spanish,
and Neapolitan Treaties, with a limitary amendment; and
Everett was authorized to report the bill in favor of the claim
of Margaret Meade.
Mr. Everett's plan for reducing the number of diplomatic
missions abroad was taken up and read. Cushing started an
objection to the consideration of the subject, denying the right
of the committee to consider anything not referred to them by
the House. I then moved that the Chairman be instructed to
move in the House the reference to the committee again of
the resolution of 29th August last, proposing a reduction of
the diplomatic missions abroad; upon which the committee
made no report at the extra session. Cushing's objection was
overruled ; supported only by his own vote.

IIO MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [March,
The instruction was given, and I made the motion in the
House immediately after the reading of the journal. Cushing
objected. I moved a suspension of the rules to enable me to
make the motion. Cushing cavilled and quibbled upon the
points of order ; which the Speaker decided against him. He
called the motion for reference a report, and argued that no
committee could report upon anything not referred to them by
the House. Yorke moved the previous question. The yeas
and nays were called, and were one hundred and seventy-three
to six for the reference. I notified the members of the com
mittee to meet next Thursday morning at ten.
17th. Meeting of the Committee of Foreign Affairs. Present,
Adams, Cushing, Everett, Granger, E. D. White, Caruthers,
Shepperd, and A. H. H. Stuart; absent, Meriwether. Everett
moved that the Chairman be requested to confer with the Sec
retary of State on the subject of the resolution of the House
adopted on Tuesday, looking to the diminution of the number
of the diplomatic missions abroad. Cushing demanded that
Everett's motion should be reduced to writing — which was
done; and then Cushing moved a substitute, that the Chair
man address a communication in writing to the Secretary of
State on the subject. After some discussion, Cushing's substi
tute was rejected and Everett's motion adopted.
Cushing then offered a written resolution, that in future the
proceedings of the committee should be conducted, as far as
practicable, by the rules of the House. This produced another
debate, consuming all the remnant of time till the meeting of
the House — Granger voting at last with Cushing, and all the
other members present against his resolution.
When the committee adjourned, I asked Cushing what mo
tive he had for this course of proceeding with me, and found
him sore upon trifles lighter than air for pretexts, but really
because I am Chairman of the committee, and because I ex
posed the tampering of the slave-trade majority of the com
mittee with him, which he himself had made known to me.
He has got himself into trouble, and makes desperate plunges
to get out of it.
In the House, Pickens wanted some notice in the journal of

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. UI
yesterday of the manner in which the committee of the whole
on the state of the Union laid aside the General Appropriation
bill and took up the Loan bill; but the Speaker said the journal
never took notice of anything that took place in committee of
the whole.
18th. I called on the Secretary of State, and left with him
a copy of the resolution of the House of 29th August, 1841,
looking to a reduction of the number of the diplomatic mis
sions abroad, and the tabular statement of specific deductions
proposed by Horace Everett. Mr. Webster manifested a very
warm disposition for economy and retrenchment in the abstract,
but an equally warm aversion to any specific reduction. After
sufficient conversation with him to ascertain his propensities,
I told him I should, in the course of the day, address a letter
to him referring to the resolution of the House, and requesting
in behalf of the Committee of Foreign Affairs his view upon
the subject as early as he could conveniently make it, that it
might be in time for consideration on the passage of the Gen
eral Appropriation bill. I spoke to him also about a claim of
allowance of a charge in an account of David Porter, Minister
Resident at Constantinople, which he himself had referred to
the Committee of Foreign Affairs, but of which he evidently
knew nothing; and I mentioned to him information I had re
ceived of an angry correspondence between the British Consul
and ours, upon a charge against a captain of an American
vessel of having sold at the Havanna three colored seamen
whom he had shipped at the Cape de Verd Islands as freemen.
Mr. Webster conveyed to me ambiguously the idea that
this was entirely new information to him, and that he knew
nothing about it. I saw clearly that he did know what he did
not choose to tell me. He said he had received yesterday dis
patches from our Consul at the Havanna, James S. Calhoun,
but had not yet read them. He took up a letter upon his
table, and read in silence some part of it, and then laid it down,
and said nothing. He sent me back this evening the resolution
of the House and H. Everett's tabular statements, and I sent
him the letter requesting his views for the consideration of the
committee.

tt2 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [March,
At the House, Triplett moved a call upon the Secretary of
the Navy to state what saving of cost there would be made by
abolishing the Board of Navy Commissioners. Thompson, of
Mississippi, made an indignation sally against Morgan, of New
York, for presenting last Monday a petition to Congress to
assume the debt of the State of Mississippi and to eject that
State from the Union. Morgan slipped it in without exciting
the notice of the slave-holding members, and Thompson and
Gwiri, the representatives from the State, only discovered it by
the newspapers.
Fillmore moves to go into committee of the whole on the
state of the Union upon the Loan bill. Giddings takes the
yeas and nays in behalf of private business — eighty-three for the
committee to eighty-two, Ward in the chair. Gordon replies
to Marshall and Stanly; Milton Brown to Gordon. Andrew
Kennedy and Proffit, with a flourish of trumpets and a general
scolding bout against the Whigs. No quorum. Committee
rise, and John G. Floyd moves to adjourn; lost — sixty to
ninety-one. Committee again; Proffit till past four. Adjourn.
19th. The meeting of the committee on the Smithsonian
bequest was fixed for ten this morning, but it was eleven when
I reached the chamber of the committee, and found there Un
derwood, Habersham, Truman Smith, Benjamin Randall, and
Charles J. Ingersoll; absent, Bowne, Houston, and Hunter.
Of my tardiness I failed not to be reminded. We took up the
old bill and debated it from the third to the sixth section inclu
sive. Every provision of every section was contested, and the
only sound principle settled was that the principal sum of the
bequest should be preserved unimpaired as a perpetual fund,
from which no appropriation shall be made.
Habersham, of Georgia, opposed the parts of the bill pro
viding for the establishment of an astronomical observatory.
His argument was the danger and difficulty of carrying it
through Congress; and he said that only yesterday one of the
members from the South urged, in conversation with him, that
Congress had no constitutional power to accept the bequest,
and that the money ought to be sent back to England.
I saw the finger of John C. Calhoun and of nullification, and

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. nj
said that the objection against the power of Congress to accept
the bequest would not be removed by striking out the observa
tory; that Mr. Calhoun and his coadjutors had urged it from
the beginning, and it had been time after time settled against
them ; that any application of the fund to the purposes of the
testator would be resisted by them, and if anything was to be
done it must be carried against their stubborn opposition.
Adjourned to Monday morning at ten.
2 1st. Meeting of the committee on the Smithsonian bequest,
at ten A.M. I was punctual to the minute, but waited more
than half an hour for a quorum. Present, Adams, Underwood,
Truman Smith, Habersham, R. Randall, and C. J. Ingersoll;
absent, Bowne, Houston,. and Hunter. We discussed the re
mainder of the old bill, from the sixth section through. Every
one had amendments to propose, and the bill was thoroughly
riddled. Many amendments were adopted, and I was directed
to prepare an amended bill for the consideration of the com
mittee at the adjournment, Wednesday morning.
The question upon Stanly's resolution, giving the House
power by a majority to take at discretion any bill out of the
committee of the whole, after several attempts to evade it, was
finally carried — one hundred and five to ninety-nine.
In the call for resolutions, Andrews, of Kentucky, moved
an enquiry of the President and heads of Departments for the
names of all the members of Congress, who have applied for
offices by themselves or their friends, of the Twenty-Fifth or
Twenty-Sixth Congresses, and specifying the office applied for
in each case.
Giddings, of Ohio, offered a series of resolutions relating to
slavery and the Creole case. Ward moved the previous ques
tion. Everett moved to lay them on the table; lost, by yeas
and nays — fifty-three to one hundred and twenty-five. Everett
moved a call of the House; refused. After much turbulence
and confusion, Giddings withdrew the resolutions.
Botts then moved a suspension of the rules to offer a pre
amble and resolution of censure upon Giddings; yeas, one
hundred and twenty-eight; nays, sixty-eight; not two-thirds.
Weller, of Ohio, then offered the same resolution, it being still
vol. xi. — 8

U4 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [March,
the turn of the States, and he moved the previous question.
The question whether Giddings should be heard in his de
fence was unsettled at the adjournment.
22d. I attended the meeting of the Committee of Foreign
Affairs. All the members present, except Mr. Meriwether. I
reported the substance of the verbal conference with Mr. Web
ster which I had last Friday, and read a copy of the letter which
I wrote and sent to him that evening, and to which I have not
yet received an answer. I told them that he did not think it
expedient to diminish any of the missions at the present time,
though he thought there might hereafter be an improvement
of the system by uniting several missions in one person.
In the House, the resolution of censure upon Giddings, with
a preamble first moved yesterday by Botts, then moved by
Weller, moving at the same time the previous question, was
taken up, and, after two full hours of twistings, decisions by the
Speaker reversed by the House, motions that he should have
permission to be heard in his defence, by reconsideration, by
suspension of the rules, by general consent, the resolution of
censure was actually passed, by yeas and nays — one hundred
and twenty-five to sixty-nine ; and then the preamble was
adopted — one hundred and nineteen to sixty-six.
I can find no language to express my feelings at the con
summation of this act. Immediately after the second vote,
Giddings rose from his seat, came over, to mine, shook cordially
my hand, and took leave. I had a voice only to say, " I hope
we shall soon have you back again." He made no reply, but
passed to the seats of other members, his friends, and took
leave of them as he had done of me. I saw him shake hands
with Arnold, who voted against him. He then left the House,
and this evening the city.
23d. I reached the committee-room at ten o'clock. Present,
Adams, Randall, Habersham, T. Smith, Underwood, and, just
as the committee were adjourning, Ingersoll. The remainder
of the old bill was thoroughly debated, and additional amend
ments were proposed. I was finally directed to prepare a bill
and then call a meeting of the committee.
In the House, upwards of two hours were consumed in

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. njj
debating sundry amendments proposed to the journal of the
proceedings of yesterday ; among the rest, my appeal from the
decision of the Speaker, that the previous question cut off
from Mr. Giddings his right of self-defence, was not noticed
on the journal, though it was correctly reported in the National
Intelligencer of this morning. I moved an amendment of the
journal, stating the fact of the Speaker's denying my appeal.
I called the yeas and nays, which were forty-two to one hun
dred and ten; but the facts are now stated on the journal of
this day. The other motions to amend the journal were laid
on the table. Wise withdrew his proposed amendment stating
the fact that he had refused to vote on the resolution of cen
sure. Everett offered a resolution that five thousand copies
of the proceedings of the House in relation to the resolutions
offered by Giddings, should be printed for the use of the
House. Laid on the table. Everett asked to be allowed to
explain his censure of Giddings ; not allowed. ~-
The Speaker presented a letter from Joshua R. Giddings, re
signing his seat in the House. I moved that the Speaker notify
the Executive of the State of Ohio of the vacancy occasioned
by this resignation ; which he said should be done. .-
Committee of the whole on the state of the Union, Ward in
the chair, on the Loan bill. Wise moved to repeal the Land
Distribution bill. Fillmore makes it a point of order. Ward
pronounces it in order. Committee rises for lack of a quorum,
and the House adjourns.
24th. At the House, some heaving of the billows after the
storm remained. I moved a suspension of the rules to enable
me to offer a resolution to add a new rule, that no accused
member should, by the operation of the previous question or
of any other rule, be deprived of the right of being heard in
his defence. The vote to suspend the rules was ninety-nine
to seventy-seven.
In committee of the whole on the state of the Union, the
Loan bill was debated, but not reported to the House ; dull
balderdash of Colquitt and Mark A. Cooper, and sharp-shoot
ing between Wise and Fillmore. Thomas F. Marshall took
the floor, committee rose, and the House adjourned.

n6 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [March,
25th. Mr. Everett presented to me yesterday a paper signed
by several members, requesting a meeting of the Whig mem
bers from the non-slave-holding States at ten this morning, in
the chamber of the Committee of Foreign Affairs. I declined
signing the call, acknowledging no party communion with the
Whigs of the slave representation ; but I said I would attend
the meeting. I went, accordingly, to the chamber of the com
mittee precisely at ten this morning, and found there Mr.
Everett, who informed me that the meeting was postponed for
a few days, at the special request of the Whig delegation from
Ohio. And thus ends this project of a meeting. I remained in the
chamber till the meeting of the House, intending to finish the
draft of the bill for the consideration of the committee on the
Smithsonian bequest ; but several members successively came
in to attend the proposed meeting, and Winthrop first, and
afterwards Granger, stopped and held some conversation with
me. Granger believes there is dissension among the members
of the Administration; and there is a rumor to that effect in
circulation. I made little progress in the draft of the bill, but found the
House in session. Calvary Morris, of Ohio, had offered reso
lutions censuring the proceedings of the House in their censure
of Giddings, but could not obtain even the yeas and nays upon
his motion to suspend the rules. Hopkins offered a resolution
to suspend the engraving of a map of the boundary line be
tween the United States and Texas, to have the work done by
the engraver for the Senate; and carried that resolution. Botts
also obtained a suspension of the rules, and carried the resolu
tion of enquiry which he has been several days pressing.
Fillmore offered a resolution to cease debate on the Loan
bill in committee, and to take it into the House next Wednes
day at two o'clock ; carried — one hundred and fourteen to
seventy-six. Private business superseded for committee of the whole upon
the state of the Union, Ward in the chair. Marshall made a
long, premeditated speech in defence of the Committee of
Ways and Means, of which he is a member, against the charges

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 117
of Wise. While he was speaking, a message came in from the
President, recommending the repeal of the Land bill and a
revision of the tariff. When Marshall finished, Wise took
the floor, and for an hour and a half poured out a flood of
abuse upon Fillmore, reserving Marshall for to-morrow. The
committee rose about half-past four, and the House adjourned.
Mr. Sprague and Mr. Robbins were in the House.
26th. Mr. Sprague and Mr. Robbins called on me this morn
ing, and said they were desirous of having some conversation
concerning the duties on cordage to be fixed on the revisal of
the tariff. But the conversation immediately became general
concerning the present aspect of affairs in Congress and in the
country, which is deplorable. I told them that slavery, the
support, the perpetuation, and the propagation of slavery,
was at the root of the whole system of policy of the present
Administration ; that an essential part of this system was hos
tility to the manufactures and to the free labor of the North ;
that this spirit, in alliance with the mock Democracy of the
free States, exercises now absolute control over the majority
of both Houses of Congress, and, if unable to carry all its pur
poses into execution now, will at least defeat every measure
which could contribute to promote the manufacturing interest
or the domestic industry of free labor. Of Mr. Sprague's
opinions I had been partially apprised, and from his disclosure
of them at this interview I perceive that his visit to Washing
ton at this time has other objects in view besides the duty upon
cordage. Mr. Uzzielli is an Italian philosophical traveller from Leg
horn, who last summer brought me a letter of introduction from
Mr. De Tocqueville, at Paris, and who now brought me one
from Alexander H. Everett, dated the 5th of this month, at
New Orleans. Since the summer, Mr. Uzzielli has travelled
over a great part of the United States, and he proposes to
complete his tour so as to return to Europe next July. He
appears sensible and candid; and I had a free confidential
conversation with him on our present financial and political
condition. It was one of the days devoted by the rules of the House

U8 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [March,
to private business, but they went into committee of the whole
on the state of the Union, Ward in the chair, on the Loan bill.
Wise resumed the floor, and delivered four hours and a half of
unmeasured, bitter, rancorous invective upon Fillmore, Mar
shall, and the whole body of the manifesto Whigs. He was
suffered to go on without call to order, and with scarce a word
of interruption, till just upon five, when he sat down, and at
least thirty members started up. The Speaker gave the floor
to Gentry, the committee rose, and the House adjourned.
29th. I attended, at ten this morning, the meeting of the
Committee of Foreign Affairs. All the members present except
Mr. Meriwether; but two or three were belated an hour or
more, and Cushing came in as the committee were about to
adjourn. The resolution of enquiry into the expediency of reducing
the number of diplomatic misssions abroad was considered.
No answer had been received from the Secretary of State to
my letter of enquiry, and some sensibility was manifested at
the delay.
Mr. Everett said that with the verbal information from me
of the aversion of the Secretary of State to any reduction, he
should not press the further consideration of his tabular state
ment, nor mark any one particular mission for suppression;
but he moved that the Chairman be directed to prepare a re
port to the House — which was adopted.
In the House there was adopted, at my motion, a resolution
for the sending of all petitions to the Clerk's table to be dis
posed of by the Speaker, and all admissible under the rule to
be referred to the appropriate committees. Committee of the
whole on the State of the Union, Ward in the chair, upon the
Loan bill. Colquitt, Shields, William Smith, Cushing, in reply
to the speakers of yesterday, and McKeon. At eight o'clock
Atherton took the floor ; the committee rose, and the House
adjourned. 30th. At the House, committee of the whole on the state of
the Union, Ward in the chair, on the Loan bill. Atherton
occupied the floor, from twelve to two, with snarling sophis
tication, repeated by rote from Woodbury. The Chairman's

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. j Ig
hammer then knocked him down. Two hours were consumed
in the rejection of silly, captious amendments, and the bill was
reported to the House. After a short exposition from Fill
more, W. Cost Johnson moved the previous question, and the
House adjourned.
31st. At the House, the reports of sundry committees were
received, among which one from L. Saltonstall, Chairman of
the Committee of Manufactures, with a tariff bill, which was
read twice, referred to the committee of the whole on the
state of the Union, and ordered to be printed, with the report,
counter-report, and documents, and five thousand extra copies.
Habersham and A. V. Brown make the minority report. Then
Clifford's call of the House came up, and one hundred and
ninety-six members answered. Previous question on the en
grossment of the Land bill. The principal amendment reported
by the committee, authorizing the Secretary of the Treasury to
sell the stock of the loan under par, was lost, by yeas and nays
— ninety-seven to ninety-nine. The other amendments were
carried by majorities of eight or more. Before the vote on the
engrossment of the bill was taken, two of the Whigs, who
had voted against the vital amendment, were rallied back to
their party, and then there was a whimsical perplexity how
they should reverse their own decision. They were compelled
first to pass the engrossment, then to reconsider that, then
to reconsider the vote rejecting the amendment, and then to
adopt the amendment by ninety-nine to ninety-seven, two votes
changing the majority. The bill finally passed — one hundred
and five to eighty-seven.
Sundry Executive communications were received. Arnold
moved a reconsideration of the vote passing the bill, to pre
vent its being successfully made on the other side, and it was
rejected. Adjourned at four.
Henry Clay delivered a formal valedictory speech, and re
signed his seat in the Senate.
April 2d. The committee of the whole had risen yesterday
upon a motion to report a multitude of bills, but leaving them
in committee for want of a quorum to report them. This
morning the House went into committee of the whole for the

I20 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [April,
sole purpose of reporting them. They were reported, and the
day was consumed in carrying them through the stages of
engrossment and enactment, save one, which was rejected, by
yeas and nays — sixty to sixty-five. This was dull pastime,
and I made the experiment of doing something else while
the routine of private legislation was dragging through. I
accordingly continued the draft of a bill for the Smithsonian
bequest committee, with a hope to finish it on Monday, and
I ascertained that I might, with suitable industry, perform the
work of two hours' writing in my seat, upon business other
than that before the House, every day upon which I take no
part in the debate, and yet give all necessary attention to the
current business.
A day or two after the censure upon Giddings, there were
in the National Intelligencer some editorial remarks dis
approving the proceedings of the House in that case. Some
days after, an article appeared written by Botts, signed "A
Member," justifying the action of the House and complaining
of the editorial comments. In the Intelligencer of this morn
ing there is an article in reply to that of Botts, and signed
" Another Member," so well written that I was desirous of
ascertaining its author. Gates and Slade alternately charged
it upon each other ; but Gates afterwards found that it was
Hiland Hall.
Another disclosure appears in the Anti-Slavery Standard of
31st March, that Saltonstall was the member of Congress who
chilled the ardor of the Massachusetts Legislature for my de
fence by a seasonable hint that it might cloud the prospects of
the Massachusetts claim, upon which Preston, of South Caro
lina, is the reporter to the Senate.
3d. I attended the morning public worship at the Capitol, in
the expectation of hearing Mr. Maffitt's fourth sermon upon the
divinity and humanity of Jesus Christ — instead of which, Dr.
Eliphalet Nott, President of the Methodist Union College of
Schenectady, New York, preached from Matthew xvi. 26 : " For
what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and
lose his own soul ? or what shall a man give in exchange for
his soul ?" It is impossible for two men to preach the same

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 12i
gospel with means and manners more different than those of
Mr. Maffitt and of Dr. Nott. The discourse this day was argu
mentative, accumulative, figurative, progressive, full of compli
cation and of pathos, apparently extemporaneous, but deeply
studied, strictly methodical, and repeated by heart, without
notes — a definition of the soul ; a contrasted view of the finite
and the infinite, of time and eternity; remarks upon the pro
gressive nature of the soul, from infancy to decrepitude and
death ; or perhaps that this progress continues after death
through endless ages — not likely; something about cherubim
and seraphim, Michael, Uriel, Gabriel, and Raphael — myste
rious personages. The Doctor opened an account current
between the soul and the whole world, and struck a balance
infinite in amount in favor of the soul, proving the exchange
between them worse than that between Virginia bank bills and
standard gold.
Mr. Maffitt announced that he should preach his sermon on
the humanity of Christ next Sunday.
As we were returning home, we met a carriage laden with
two travelling trunks, part of the baggage of Lord Ashburton,
once Alexander Baring, who arrived last evening in the War-
spite from England, whence he now comes, as Envoy Extraor
dinary and Minister Plenipotentiary, upon a special mission. "
4th. Attended, at ten this morning, the meeting of the Com
mittee of Foreign Affairs. Present, Adams, Everett, Stuart,
Shepperd, Caruthers, and, just as the committee were about to
adjourn, Cushing. They had but one hour, for from this day
forward the daily hour of the meeting of the House is eleven.
The answer of the Secretary of State to my letter of enquiry
was discussed. I moved that the Chairman be directed to re
port the answer itself, with the simple addition that they deem
it inexpedient to propose any diminution of the appropriations
for the diplomatic service of the present year.
The committee were, however, not satisfied with this. They
appeared disposed to scrutinize further, and to call for specific
reasons for the continuance of each separate mission.
It was finally agreed that the Chairman should confer verb
ally again with the Secretary of State, and ask some explanation

[22 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [April,
of apparent assumptions in his answer which were considered
of questionable accuracy.
Cushing observed that the increase of expenditures in the
diplomatic department had been much less than in all the
others, and that the suppressions of diplomatic missions were
not promotive of much economy, as they usually gave rise to
a claim for diplomatic compensation to Consuls. The com
mittee adjourned to meet again to-morrow morning.
At the House, it was the day for the reception of resolutions,
but Joseph R. Ingersoll, a member of the Committee of Ways
and Means, in behalf of Fillmore, the Chairman, who is deaf,
moved to go into committee of the whole on the state of
the Union; which was carried, Thompson, of Indiana, in the
chair. Cushing moved to take up his Exchequer bill; but the
committee preferred to resume the Civil and Diplomatic Ap
propriation bill. Jacob Thompson, of Mississippi, resumed the
debate on Owsley's motion to strike out the item of fifteen hun
dred dollars for a secretary to the President to sign patents.
The amendment was rejected. Boardman, Chairman of the
Committee of Public Buildings, moved sundry amendments,
some of which were adopted and others rejected.
Willis Green moved to strike out the items for the branch
mints at Charlotte, North Carolina, Dahlonega, Georgia, and
New Orleans, Louisiana. Green withdrew his motion, but it
v was renewed by Garret Davis, and started a fiery debate, in
which Green, W., Morgan, Caldwell, and Graham, of North
Carolina, Moore, of Louisiana, Black and Habersham, of
Georgia, battled for the mints, Everett, slily, for and against
them, till T. W. Gilmer took the floor. No quorum. Com
mittee rose, and the House adjourned.
I finished my draft of the bill for the Smithsonian bequest
committee, and added five new sections for their consideration.
Lord Ashburton arrived this day.
5th. Meeting of the Committee of Foreign Affairs. Present,
Adams, Cushing, Everett, Granger, Stuart, Shepperd, and Car
uthers; absent, Meriwether and E. D. White. The resolution
of enquiry whether Cornelius P. Van Ness has received, as
heretofore Minister Plenipotentiary to Spain, more money than

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. l2-i,
he was lawfully entitled to from the Treasury, was taken up,
and largely discussed. His recent letter to me as Chairman of
the committee was at last read, but no question upon it was
taken, and the committee adjourned over to Thursday morning.
In the House, I notified all the members of the committee
on the Smithsonian bequest, excepting Mr. Bowne, who is
absent, to attend a meeting to-morrow morning; and I gave
to Mr. Underwood to read the five additional sections, which
complete my plan for the establishment of the institution and
the provision of a fund for the erection and perpetual support
of an astronomical observatory upon a scale equal to that of
any one upon earth. He doubted the expediency of including
them in the present bill, for fear of alarming the House, but
cordially approved of my whole plan.
On entering the House, I found Edward J. Black, of Georgia,
driving furiously, according to his usual custom, for leave to
introduce a resolution for the appointment of a special com
mittee to enquire into the expediency of authorizing the Gov
ernor of Georgia to call out the militia of the State, to be paid
at once, ad libitum, from the Treasury of the United States, to
protect the people of Georgia bordering on Florida from the
Indians and from the troops of the United States. Black kept
the House a full half-hour in a stew, pushing for a suspension
of the rules to enable him to offer this resolution, Joseph R.
Ingersoll all the time urging a motion to go into committee of
the whole on the state of the Union, which at last prevailed,
without quieting Black.
Richard W. Thompson, of Indiana, was Chairman, and the
Civil and Diplomatic Appropriation bill was resumed. Gilmer
made a short, dull speech for abolishing the branch mints, to
which Habersham replied. The motion to strike out the item
was rejected. Medill, of Ohio, moved to strike out the item
for the salary of Doty, Governor of the Territory of Wisconsin,
and produced hand-bills containing resolutions of Whig meet
ings and journals of legislative councils charging Doty with
numerous malversations. I opposed this motion, and brought
up C. J. Ingersoll for the sole purpose of bating me. I dis
dained to reply to him. Everett did, taking care also to dissent

I24 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [April,
from me. But the motion of Medill obtained not more than
thirty votes. The committee rose soon after three, for lack of
a quorum, and the House adjourned against my earnest pro
testation. 6th. Committee on the Smithsonian bequest. Present,
Adams, Underwood, Truman Smith, Benjamin Randall, and C.
J. Ingersoll; absent, Habersham, Houston, Bowne, and Hunter.
I was authorized to present to the House the draft of the
bill which I had prepared, together with the five additional sec
tions, with one other, to dispose of the surplus income from
the principal fund, beyond the thirty thousand dollars a year
for ten years from the 1st of September, 1838, appropriated by
the bill, and with the bill a report.
In the House, I found Black, of Georgia, driving again for a
suspension of the rules to enable him to offer a resolution for a
select committee to enquire into the expediency of making an
appropriation for the Governor of Georgia to call out and em
ploy the militia of the State for the protection of the border
people of Georgia against the Florida Indians and the United
States troops. Black's proposal was so revolting that it was
clear he could not obtain a suspension of the rules; whereupon
his colleague Lott Warren, a Whig, a popular and liberal but
shrewd man, moved, and carried, by yeas and nays, a suspen
sion of the rules to offer a resolution substantially the same,
but divided into two parts — setting in front a call of enquiry
upon the Secretary of War, and lurking behind it a reference
to the Military Committee of the proposal to appropriate money
for the Governor of Georgia to call out the militia.
I voted for the suspension of the rules; but when the resolu
tion was received, I exposed Warren's ingenuity, and moved
to strike out the second half of his resolution, which was like
the two bulbs of a goose's gizzard. My motion was carried,
by yeas and nays — one hundred and eighteen to fifty-one — and
the call of enquiry upon the Secretary of War passed without
opposition. Committee of the whole on the State of the Union, Richard
W. Thompson, of Indiana, in the chair. At Wise's motion, a
Senate bill appropriating two hundred and fifty thousand dol-

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 125
lars for the building and equipment of an iron war steamer was
first taken up, and, without opposition or proposal of amend
ment, laid aside to be reported to the House ; and then the
General Appropriation bill was resumed, and some progress
in it made. Cross, of Arkansas, moved a proviso that five hun
dred dollars should be withheld from the salary of every Judge
of the Supreme Court for every failure to attend at any term
of a Circuit Court within his District. This started a debate
of nearly two hours, in which Cross and Thompson, of Missis
sippi, vehemently denounced Judge McKinley for total neglect
to attend for several years past the Circuit Courts in the States
of Mississippi and of Arkansas. The Judge was earnestly
defended by Gwin, the other member from Mississippi; and
Roosevelt, Pope, Samson Mason, Barnard, and I took part in
the debate. Cross finally withdrew his motion. Not long after,
Thompson moved an addition of two hundred dollars to the
salary of the Marshal in Mississippi ; and on taking the ques
tion, there was found no quorum voting. It was just two
o'clock. The committee rose, and reported the fact to the
House. Landaff W. Andrews, of Kentucky, an honest, preju
diced, hot-headed man, who always moves by impulses, and
whose wild stare always denotes excitement, moved a call of
the House, and declared that he would carry it through ; and
he did carry it through. Two hours and a half were con
sumed in the operation. One hundred and two members were
reported absent, after the first and second call of the names,
the closing of the doors, and the call for excuses; twenty-eight
were brought in ostensibly in the custody of the Sergeant-
at-Arms, called to account for their absence, and admitted to
their seats on payment of the Marshal's fees ; most pf the ex
cuses were that they had gone home to dinner ; twenty-four
were excused without payment of fees, almost all pleading
indisposition. Mr. Barnard moved and urged a suspension of all further
proceedings before the call of the members to account; and
he made some just observations upon the harshness of the
whole proceeding — which I admitted, and said, if he would
move to relinquish all compulsive measures upon calls of the

I26 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [April,
House, I might vote with him ; but, as this was the first in
stance in ten years since I had a seat in the House of a compul
sive call at noonday, and as it had been made necessary by
several successive days, when committees of the whole have
been broken up and the House obliged to adjourn for want of
a quorum, I hoped the process would be carried through. The
names of the delinquent members would be published in the
newspapers to-morrow, and I hoped it would secure a quorum
for the future, at least through the middle of the day, for the
transaction of business.
Andrews finally moved a resolution that all absentees who
had not answered should be fined the amount of the Sergeant-
at-Arms' fees, subject to the release of their fine on appearing
hereafter and giving satisfactory reasons for their absence. It
was about five when the House adjourned.
7th. Mr. Sprague called on me this morning and left with
me a copy of a memorial to Congress from manufacturers of
cordage in Massachusetts, concerning the duties on hemp and
cordage, with a statement of the price of Russian hemp and
cordage, and of Manilla hemp. He gave me his views upon
the proposed duties on these two articles in the Tariff bill re
cently reported by Mr. Saltonstall, Chairman of the Committee
of Manufactures.
He also spoke of the omission of the joint committee in
the Massachusetts Legislature to report upon the resolution
instructing them to enquire into the outrage upon me in my
recent trial here ; he was a member of that committee, and said
that their reason for not reporting was that after the whole sub
ject had been laid on the table here they thought no expression
of opinion there was necessary for my personal support, and
that a strong resolution might produce excitement and aliena
tion at the South, which it would be prudent to avoid; but that
the approbation of my conduct was universal, and it was in
contemplation to nominate me for the office of Governor of
the Commonwealth for the next year.
I said that having nine years ago consented, sorely against
my own inclination, to have my name presented as a candidate
for the office of Governor of Massachusetts, and a majority of

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 127
the people having decided against me, I had no reason to ex
pect they would be more favorable to me now, and should not
suffer their suffrages to be asked for me again.
Sprague told me that Saltonstall said to him that he did not
recollect having written to Massachusetts that if the Massa
chusetts Legislature should pass a resolution countenancing
me, the Massachusetts claim here would suffer for it, Mr.
Preston having charge of it in the committee of the Senate,
and that care should be taken not to offend him.
Sprague kept me at home till it was half-past ten before I
reached the Committee of Foreign Affairs. I found Everett,
Shepperd, Stuart, and Caruthers, waiting for me to make a
quorum. Absent, Granger, Cushing, White, and Meriwether.
I was directed to report the Senate bill for the relief of the
legal representatives of Aaron Vail, without amendment.
In the House, I got the War Steamer bill reported from the
committee of the whole on the state of the Union to the
House. General Appropriation bill. C. J. Ingersoll moves to
strike out one hundred thousand dollars from the item of ex
penditures for the Judicial Courts, and carries it. Committee
rose, and the House adjourned, at four.
8th. I went to the Department of State, where I was first
told that the Senators from Massachusetts and Maine were in
conference with the Secretary. I went into the chamber of
the Chief Clerk, Fletcher Webster, and was soon after admitted
to the Secretary himself. I told him that the Committee of
Foreign Affairs wished something more explicit and specific
with regard to the expediency of discontinuing or reducing
the rank of sundry particular missions abroad than was con
tained in his last letter to me. I said there was also some
question in the committee upon the principle assumed in his
letter, that it was to be presumed that all estimates of appro
priations proposed by the heads of Departments were, upon
deliberations of the Executive, deemed necessary ; that it was
supposed the practice had been to make up the estimates of
each year from the appropriations of the preceding year, with
out special investigation of the items which might be curtailed;
and I referred him to the case of the missions to Sweden and

1 28 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [April,
Holland, reduced in 1818 by the paring down of the appropri
ations presented by the estimates of the Department. And I
found among the books of the Department my letter to Jona
than Russell of 22d May, 1818, announcing the extinction of
his mission, and his answer of 26th September, 181 8.
Mr. Webster finally told me that between this time and next
Monday morning he would write me another letter on the
subject. This conference detained me so that it was within a
quarter of twelve o'clock when I reached the House. I found
Milton Brown, of Tennessee, addressing the House on a privi
leged question concerning himself. In the debate on Sum
mers's retrenchment resolutions, Milton Brown had made a
severe speech on the abuse practised by some of the members
of Congress in appropriating to themselves excessive quantities
of stationery — whereupon Charles Brown, the Philadelphia
demagogue, told a story of an enormous mass of stationery
having been left one day during the extra session at his
lodgings, which he had not ordered, and knew not whence it
came ; but the next day the Post-Office messenger came and
took it, and said it had been left there by mistake, but was for
Mr. Milton Brown, of Tennessee. This sneaking and spiteful
innuendo Milton Brown had passed over without notice at the
time ; and it had not been noticed in the next day's reported
debates, either in the Intelligencer or in the Globe. But
Charles had afterwards published his speech, with all its dirty
imputations, in the Globe, which Milton Brown had not seen,
nor heard of, until he received, a few days since, a letter from
one of his friends and constituents, informing him that this
story was circulating all over his district, and was raising such
an outcry against him that it was indispensable that he should
encounter and repel the charge. He therefore produced a
certificate from McCormick, the Postmaster, that the stationery
furnished him at the extra session had been unusually small;
and from the messenger who had left by mistake at Charles
Brown's lodgings the parcel which had swollen so enormously
in his narrative, that it consisted only of half a ream of letter-
paper, without wafers, sealing-wax, or any other articles. Milton
Brown, after thus disculpating himself from the charge, emitted

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. j 29
some sparks of indignation upon the slander; which Charles
Brown very ungraciously retracted.
The question upon the passage of the Iron War Steamer
bill had been taken by yeas and nays, and carried by one
hundred and twenty-nine to thirty-one, before I came into the
House. The General Appropriation bill then followed, and
Mark A. Cooper moved to strike out the item of one hundred
thousand dollars for the survey of the coast. This raised
something of a debate ; but the survey was now vigorously
maintained, and even Cushing had discovered its utility and
importance. There was a blow-up between Kennedy, of Indiana, and
Holmes, of South Carolina, about a service of plate given by
the Corporation of the city of New York to Lieutenant Gedney,
of the United States Navy, and another, between Proffit and
Fessenden, of Maine, about the item of appropriation for the
survey of the Northeastern Boundary. Past four, the com
mittee rose, and the House adjourned.
9th. Mr. John A. Brown, who called upon me last evening,
told me that he was, and had been from the beginning, Presi
dent of the suffrage party in Rhode Island. The political
right of suffrage, by the charter of Charles the Second, which
they have hitherto retained as a State Constitution, is confined
almost entirely to freeholders. Last autumn, by an irregular
popular movement, a Convention of delegates from self-con
stituted meetings formed and published a State Constitution
upon the principle of universal suffrage. The Legislature
then authorized by law another Convention to prepare a Con
stitution enlarging the right of suffrage, but not making it
universal. It was recently submitted to the people in town-
meetings, and rejected; and now Brown says the elections
under the suffrage party's Constitution are to be held next
Monday week, after which they will assume the government
of the State. The existing Legislature, however, have enacted
a law prohibiting all further progress of this movement, on
severe penalties, and the Governor has issued a proclamation
against it. He has sent three Commissioners to claim the mili
tary interference of the national Government against internal
vol. xi. — 9

J30 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [April,
commotion, and Brown told me he had come to counteract
them, and was going to see the President.
General Scott, whom I met last evening at Dr. Thomas's,
and who is a regularly nominated and acquiescent candidate
for election as President of the United States, justly thinks that
the times are distempered.
This morning I attended the meeting of the Committee of
Foreign Affairs. Present, Adams, Stuart, White, Granger,
Caruthers, and Everett; absent, Cushing, Shepperd, and
Meriwether. I reported the substance of my conference yes
terday with the Secretary of State, and his promise to write
to me again. The committee agreed, therefore, to meet again
on Monday morning. Certain resolutions of the Legislature
bearing a hostile aspect towards Mexico were barely taken up
and postponed.
In the House, committee of the whole on the state of the
Union; Thompson, of Indiana, in the chair, on the Civil and
Diplomatic Appropriation bill. The Committee of Ways and
Means proposed for the Custom-House at Boston fifty thou
sand dollars. The Secretary's estimate had proposed one
hundred and fifty thousand. Winthrop had moved to add
the one hundred thousand last evening; and now there was a
sharp debate, closed by the rejection of that motion — then, of
another motion to raise the item to seventy-five thousand —
then, of a motion to strike out the item of fifty thousand pro
posed by the committee. Black, of Georgia, moved as an
amendment thirty thousand dollars for a Custom-House at
Savannah ; and I moved, as an amendment to his amend
ment, the same sum for a Custom-House at Plymouth ; both
rejected. Committee rose, and House adjourned, at four.
ioth. In the House, after a short interval of preliminary
matter, the House went into committee of the whole on the
state of the Union, Thompson, of Indiana, in the chair. Mr.
Proffit resumed his speech upon the light-house establishment
of the United States, by a general attack upon the whole sys
tem. He compared it with the corresponding establishments
of Great Britain and France, and charged it with being far
more expensive. He censured Pleasanton, the Fifth Auditor,

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 131
as being altogether incompetent for the superintendence of so
vast and complicated an establishment, and found fault es
pecially with Mr. Winslow Lewis, who for many years appears
to have been the contractor-general for building and supplying
all the light-houses. Proffit complained that there was an
undue proportion of light-houses on the Northern, where there
are multitudes of harbors, and a very small number on the
Southern coast, where there are scarcely any harbors at all.
He displayed a number of maps, on which the places of light
houses were marked with red spots, and he affirmed that at
some of the light-houses the consumption of oil was enor
mous, owing to the fact that the keepers of the lights sold the
oil to the supply of the neighborhood five miles round. After
rattling away for two hours in this style, Proffit said he should
hereafter make a similar review of the whole Custom-House
system, and prove it equally rotten and corrupt, and then with
drew his motion to strike out the appropriation ; but it was
immediately renewed by Sprigg, of Kentucky, a man as
eccentric, prejudiced, and hot-headed as Proffit, with not a
tithe of his talents : his principal eloquence consists of pound
ing his table with his fist. Fillmore was very anxious to get
the bill through the committee and the House, and T. W.
Williams, J. P. Kennedy, Winthrop, and Cushing defended
the light-house establishment, Pleasanton, the Fifth Auditor,
and Winslow Lewis.
Wise charged Proffit with putting out the eyes of the ocean,,
and said that some of the greatest scoundrels on the earth were
wreckers, some of whom were his constituents.
1 2th. I declined invitations to the birthnight and take-leave
Clay ball this evening, and from the Russian Minister, Bodisco,
and his lady, to dinner to-morrow. But Mr. Bodisco came to
my seat yesterday and urged me so earnestly to come to his
dinner, which he said was a compliment to Lord Ashburton,
that I promised him I would come if I should find myself
sufficiently relieved from the rack of my cough to be able.
Mr. Simmons, one of the Senators from Rhode Island, came
to my seat and said it was reported that Dutee J. Pearce was in
this city and had called on me, and enquired if it was true.

!32 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [April,
I told him that I had not seen Mr. Pearce, and did not know
whether he was or had been in the city or not.
Meeting of the Committee of Foreign Affairs at ten. All
the members present except Mr. Meriwether, who is gone to
Georgia. The second letter from Mr. Webster to me was read,
with a statement respecting the missions to Venezuela, New
Grenada, Chili, and Peru. There were voluminous documents
respecting our relations with Sardinia, Naples, and Turkey.
Mr. Everett moved that a proviso should be proposed, to be
added to the diplomatic appropriations, that if any of the Min
isters abroad should be recalled in the course of the year, the
remnant of his salary for the year might be applied to the
quarter for return.
In the House, Shields, of Alabama, made a pass to crowd in
a series of resolutions looking to the defence of the South, and,
by dint of pushing and perseverance, carried two or three of
them. When the select committees were called, I asked leave
to report from the committee on the Smithsonian bequest a
bill; but the bill itself was at my house. C. J. Ingersoll had
presented to the House and referred to the committee a claim
of Richard Rush for extra services in recovering the money,
and the Speaker said he had additional documents to present
relating to that claim. I moved that the committee should be
discharged from the further consideration of the claim, and that
it be referred to the Committee of Claims; which, with faint
opposition from C. J. Ingersoll, was carried. In committee of
the whole on the Union, the diplomatic appropriations came
up. The committee rose, and the House adjourned.
13th. Committee of the whole on the state of the Union,
Thompson, of Indiana, in the chair, upon the Civil and Diplo
matic Appropriation bill, the appropriations for missions abroad
being under consideration. I sent to the Clerk's table my first
letter as Chairman of the Committee of Foreign Affairs to the
Secretary of State, and his answer, which were read, and I
stated the purport of his subsequent second letter and other
communications to the committee.
Archibald L. Linn, of New York, moved to reduce the claim
for a Minister to Mexico from provision for a Minister Plenipo-

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS.

133

tentiary to that of a Charge d'Affaires. His objections were to
the person of the Minister recently appointed, Waddy Thomp
son, Jr., and to the mission itself, on the suspicion that its object
was the annexation of Texas to the United States. Linn had
the minutes for a long and elaborate speech, but gave only a
short synopsis of it. But the game was started. Pickens,
Reynolds, Fillmore, Cushing, Jones, of Maryland, Slade, and
Wise followed. William Butler, of South Carolina, took the
floor. The committee rose, and the House adjourned.
I dined at the Russian Minister Bodisco's, with Lord Ash-
burton, Messrs. Barrow, Benton, Bruce, John C. Calhoun, Clay,
Crittenden, Evans, Fox, Hudson, Hulseman, King, of Alabama,
Legare, Lisboa, Martini, Mildmay, Preston, Rives, Scott, Sea
ton, Serruys, Spedding, Upshur, Webster, Fletcher Webster,
White (Speaker), Wickliffe, Wright, and perhaps one or two
others. It was a dinner to Lord Ashburton.
14th. Meeting of the Committee of Foreign Affairs at half-
past nine this morning. All the members present except Mr.
Meriwether. Mr. Stuart, however, being otherwise engaged,
merely came in for a moment and retired.
Mr. Cushing read a long report upon the petition of Jabez
Mowry and others, inhabitants of Lubec, in the State of
Maine, complaining of the condition of our trade with the
British American colonies. Appended to the report were
sundry resolutions, and Mr. Cushing presented the alternative
of a bill. After some discussion, the committee authorized
Cushing to present the report to the House, with one set of his
resolutions. He asked me if I was willing to move the print
ing of an extra number of copies of the report — which I readily
promised to do; and he enquired if I would consent to his an
nexing in the appendix to the report my article in the third
number of the American Quarterly Review on the subject. I
said I should have no objection to that.
In the House, Fillmore had yesterday moved the printing
of five thousand more extra copies of the two reports from
the Committee of Manufactures, as many having been already
printed and distributed. Lott Warren had objected; which laid
over the motion for one day. This morning Fillmore renewed

!34 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [April,
it, and moved the previous question. Warren renewed his
objection, but the Speaker said that after the previous question
it was too late; and the motion was carried. Fillmore moved
a resolution to take the General Appropriation bill out of com
mittee of the whole on Saturday at noon.
I objected, saying that after Wise's speech of yesterday I
held it indispensable to occupy the flobr a considerable time,
and I was unwilling to abridge the time of others who might
wish to reply to me. Landaff W. Andrews, a Nimrod wildfire
from Kentucky, moved as an amendment to Fillmore's motion
that'the bill should be taken out of committee this day at four
o'clock; but the motion of Andrews was rejected, and that of
Fillmore carried, by yeas and nays — one hundred to seventy-
three. I voted against it.
The Loan bill, returned from the Senate with an amendment,
was then taken up by suspension of the rules — one hundred
and eleven to thirty-eight. Clifford moved a sneaking amend
ment to the Senate's amendment, and called the yeas and nays.
Fillmore moved the previous question; which was carried.
Clifford's amendment was rejected — eighty to one hundred and
one — and the amendment of the Senate was adopted without
a division. Cushing presented his report on the Colonial trade, with a
resolution requesting the President to negotiate. I moved the
printing often thousand extra copies; but objection was made,
and the case lies over for a week.
Committee of the whole on the Union — General Appropria
tion bill. Charles J. Ingersoll, in a speech of an hour and a
half, started new game. I answered him partly, till, at four, the
committee rose, and the House adjourned.
15th. Charles J. Ingersoll's speech yesterday in committee
of the whole on the state of the Union upon a motion to strike
out and reduce the appropriation for Ministers to Vienna and
Berlin, by razeeing them down to the rank of Charge d' Affaires,
was a Congreve rocket thrown into the House to kindle a
blazing war spirit and push a stumbling-block in the way of
the negotiation with Great Britain. Profligate as were his lead
ing principles, and glaring with absurdity as were his leading

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 135
arguments, and perverted and distorted as were his leading
facts, such was the impression of his speech upon the House
that, when he sat down, every eye in the House was fastened
upon me, as if in a voice of thunder to call upon me to meet
him. I was almost prostrated by the loudness and suddenness
of the silent call. I paused for a moment, to give every other
member the chance for the floor. No one rose. I did, under
a sense of depression from which I could not wholly recover.
My discourse was rambling and desultory. The result of my
speech was apparently satisfactory to my friends, but by no
means to myself.
Morgan invited me to dine with him at his lodgings, at
Hyatt's — which I accordingly did. It was a parting dinner to
Mr. Clay. His friends Crittenden and Saltonstall were there,
and the fellow-boarders — Rencher and his wife, Halsted and
his wife, Mrs. Morgan, Taliaferro, and two or three others.
The agitation and exertion of a long extemporaneous speech,
followed by a convivial dinner, aggravated my catarrhal cough,
and I had a disturbed, restless, and uncomfortable night; yet I
was to resume my speech, not half finished, this morning; and,
although Ingersoll's speech of yesterday and mine were reported
in the National Intelligencer of this morning, and Wise's of the
day before, I had yet not time to read them before the House
was in committee of the whole on the state of the Union, with
the General Appropriation bill under consideration, and I had
the floor to continue and conclude. I had found yesterday in
the Congress library the volume of Niles's Register containing
the correspondence between General Jackson and Governor
Rabun, of Georgia, and in the Independent newspaper of this
morning there is a letter from a correspondent at Paris, relating
the proceedings in the French Chamber of Deputies on the
address to the King when the amendment passed for preventing
the ratification by France of the Quintuple Slave-Trade Treaty.
Both these documents I used in the speech of three hours with
which I concluded my reply to Ingersoll and Wise.
The instant I finished, Landaff" W. Andrews, ready to burst
with rage, moved to reconsider the resolution to take the bill
out of committee at noon to-morrow; but Campbell, of South

736 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [April,
Carolina, spoke about an hour and a half against me. Botts
then took the floor, the committee rose, and the House ad
journed. My speech of this day stung the slaveocracy to
madness. 16th. These two persons1 are from New York — contractors,
the former for iron work, the latter for painting, in the new
Custom-House at that city. They say that their work has
been performed, their contracts on their part executed, but that
the item for the Custom-House at New York, without which
they cannot be paid, has been stricken out from the General
Appropriation bill, and that they have debts heavily pressing
upon them, which they cannot pay unless they are themselves
paid, and entreating my influence to get the item restored into
the bill. It would be a desperate chance to attempt to restore
it into this bill, and will be a desperate chance for me to attempt
it at all; but I said I would do what I could.
At half-past nine I attended the committee-room of the
Foreign Affairs ; but it was ten before a quorum of the commit
tee appeared. The members present at last were Adams, Car
uthers, Everett, Stuart, Granger, and White; absent, Cushing,
Shepperd, and Meriwether. The papers relating to the claim
of Cornelius P. Van Ness were taken up, and the two letters of
8th and 31st March, 1 841, published in the National Intelli
gencer, were read; Mr. Van Ness's second answer to them in
part, but, before the reading of it was finished, the House bell
rang, and the committee adjourned to next Tuesday morning.
In the House, Underwood carried a resolution for reprinting
an old pamphlet of James Rumsey, published in 1787. It is to
prove that Rumsey was long before Fulton the inventor of
steam navigation.
Committee of the whole on the state of the Union, Thomp
son, of Indiana, in the chair. Civil and Diplomatic Appro
priation bill. Landaff W. Andrews persisted in his motion to
reconsider the vote for taking the bill out of committee. But
a majority of the House were determined not to reconsider.
Botts occupied the time in attempting to reply to me in a very
disingenuous manner, violent and feeble. About three minutes
1 In the margin are the names John G. Tibbits, John Hodgkin.

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. i^y
before twelve he moved the committee to rise ; which was car
ried, and the question upon Andrews's motion to reconsider
was lost, by yeas and nays — eighty-eight to ninety-five. I
voted for the reconsideration, as I had voted against the limi
tation of the time, when Andrews had moved and voted not to
wait till this day, but to take the bill out of committee at four
o'clock on Thursday, the very day on which Fillmore's motion
to limit the time was made. The motion to reconsider being
lost, a multitude of questions on proposed amendments were
taken. The bill was reported to the House. Yeas and nays
were taken on sundry amendments under the previous question.
Between three and four the committee rose, and the House
adjourned. 17th. I had called yesterday at the National Intelligencer
office, and asked Mr. Gales to send me the slips of my speech
of yesterday to be published to-morrow, for my revisal. He
sent them this evening — seven columns of small print, reported
by Stansbury. I employed two hours in revising them, and
found very few and slight corrections to make. This speech
was made under deep and solemn conviction of duty. Its
issues are with the Father of spirits. I must abide by its
consequences. May they be auspicious to the peace of my
country and to human freedom !
20th. Detained, so as to be half an hour belated at the
House. I found them taking questions on the amendments
adopted in committee of the whole to the Appropriation bill.
Clifford, of Maine, raised a point of order, which the Speaker
overruled. Clifford appealed. Fillmore moved to lay the ap
peal on the table, which was carried, by yeas and nays —
eighty-six to seventy-five ; after which, the vote on the amend
ment to strike out all the contingencies was carried — one
hundred and five to sixty-eight. The vote in committee of
the whole upon Charles J. Ingersoll's motion to reduce the
item for the expenditure of all the Judicial Courts from four
hundred and seventy-five thousand to three hundred and
seventy-five thousand dollars was confirmed, by yeas and
nays — one hundred to seventy-four. A proviso limiting the
emoluments of the District Attorney and Clerk of the District

T og MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [April,
and Circuit Courts of the Northern District of New York was
also carried — one hundred and eighteen to fifty-one ; and an
other, that no part of the appropriation should be applied to
pay the expense of printing records for the Judges of the
Supreme Court, except in cases to which the United States are
parties. Sundry other amendments were proposed and some
rejected, and some were adopted, and finally the bill was passed
to be engrossed, and passed without a division.
Joseph R. Ingersoll, from the Committee of Ways and
Means, then reported a general bill for all the stricken-out
contingencies ; twice read, and committed. The Apportion
ment bill was taken up and postponed.
2 ist. At the House, immediately after the reading of the
journal, Horace Everett moved a resolution to cease debate
on the Apportionment bill, and take it out of committee into
the House next Monday at twelve o'clock. This was out
rageous. It would have nearly stifled all debate upon the
bill. Landaff W. Andrews, a man quite as summary and
much more fiery than Everett, moved to lay his resolution
on the table ; which was carried by yeas and nays — ninety-
two to seventy-four.
John P. Kennedy presented a strong tariff petition from
Baltimore, signed by nine thousand and ninety-four names,
praying for protection, countervailing, and tonnage duties,
brought by a committee of twenty-eight gentlemen from Balti
more, and fifty-six yards long. He moved its reference partly
to the committee of the whole on the state of the Union, who
have the Tariff bill before them, and partly to the Committee
of Commerce. He moved that it should be printed ; but a
petty debate arose between Kennedy and John T. Mason as to
the politics of the signers, and Everett moved that the names of
the signers should be printed. Then Turney moved to lay the
motion to print on the table ; carried — seventy to sixty-five.
Medill offered some war-spite resolutions of a meeting in his
district, but Morgan objected to their reception.
Medill moved a suspension of the rules, but carried only
sixty-one votes for it.
John G. Floyd presented resolutions of the Legislature of

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. rjg
New York for the repeal of the Land Distribution bill ; laid on
the table, and ordered to be printed.
Proffit moved a long resolution of enquiry concerning iron
work on the New York Custom-House, but, on Briggs moving
an amendment, withdrew his resolution.
Committee of the whole on the state of the Union, Allen, of
Maine, in the chair. The first question was on striking out
sixty-eight thousand and inserting fifty-eight thousand ; which
was rejected. Then, by general consent, the question was taken
on striking out sixty-eight thousand ; carried — only about
thirty members voting for it. Then fifty-nine different num
bers, from one hundred and forty-one thousand down to thirty
thousand, were moved, by eighty-two different members, begin
ning with one hundred and forty-one thousand moved by Un
derwood, of Kentucky, fortified by two speeches. All these
numbers were successively voted down by large majorities, till
they came to sixty thousand five hundred. I voted against
sixty thousand five hundred ; which was carried, by tellers —
eighty-two to sixty — one hundred members absent or not
voting. I shall acquiesce in any number from fifty to sixty
thousand. I voted against sixty thousand five hundred as
too large. The committee immediately after this vote rose,
and the House adjourned.
I dined at Mr. Webster's. Lord Ashburton, with his Secre
taries, Mildmay, Bruce, and Spedding, were there. C. Cushing,
G. Evans, F. Granger, N. P. Tallmadge, Reuel Williams, Mr.
and Mrs. Webster, and Mr. and Mrs. Fletcher Webster, formed
the company. Mrs. Webster was very amiable.
24th. The visit of the members of the House of Representa
tives to the two armed steamers Missouri and Mississippi, yes
terday, was by special invitation of the Secretary of the Navy.
They were brought here for that particular purpose. They
cost each of them over half a million of dollars, carry only
ten Paixhan guns each, and are fit only for the defence of
harbors. There was an attempt made in the House on Friday
to get a vote that the House should go in a body, with the
Speaker at their head; but it failed, for want of gratuitous
vehicles. There were about a hundred members went on board

!40 MEMOIRS OF JOHN1 QUINCY ADAMS. [April,
yesterday. The President came, with all his Cabinet Ministers,
and was received with a salute from the Paixhan guns, Hail
Columbia from the Marine bands, and the manning of the
yards with a scanty exhibition of men. Few of the members
of Congress noticed at all the presence of the President. This
sudden Virginian overflow of zeal for the patronage of the
navy comes reeking hot from the furnace of slavery. 'Tis
a wholesome stream from a polluted fountain.
25th. After many months of unjustifiable delay, made up a
packet of the manuscript of Samuel Elliot, of Brattleborough,
Vermont, upon the Constitution, laws, politics, and morals,
delivered to me last summer with a request that I would read
it and give my opinion of it in writing — a request which I
ought instantly to have denied, but which, from the reluctance
of my nature to say no, I did receive without promising a
written opinion ; which I soon found I ought not to give. Mr.
Elliot has written to me twice, requesting me to return his
manuscript — to him a jewel of inestimable value. I ought
long since to have returned it. I put it, with an apologetic
letter to Mr. Elliot, this morning, in the post-office of the
House. This was the regular day of call to the States for petitions.
Pendleton, of Ohio, made a faint show of a wish to present
his resolutions from Cincinnati disapproving the censure of
Giddings ; but the House would not hear him. Everett pro
posed to take up and pass the private bills reported from the
committee of the whole to the House last Friday. No. Cowen,
Chairman of the Committee of Claims, obtained leave for that
committee to sit during the sitting of the House for one week.
Stanly called up a bill reported from the Committee of Com
merce, to prohibit the transportation of passengers or letters
from port to port of the United States by foreign ships or
vessels. This is a new question, started by the recent practice
of the British West India mail steamers ranging along our
coast and stopping at all our ports from Savannah to Boston.
This already brings them in collision with our Post-Office laws
and stage-running and railroad companies, and produced this
bill. It was on the point of being driven through without

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 141
debate, till Proffit started a doubt, which soon kindled into a
warm discussion. Cushing blew a flourish of trumpets about
the Colonial trade. Gordon, of New York, butted his Anglo
phobia upon the House at the same time that Mark A. Cooper
and Rhett, in hatred of internal industry, blazed out for free
trade and the rights of the citizen. The bill was finally laid
over till Thursday, and will be hotly contested.
Underwood made an attempt to get up the District Bank
bill, suspended by a small amendment between the two Houses
— but in vain.
Committee of the whole on the state of the Union, Elisha
H. Allen in the chair, on the Apportionment bill. Under
wood moved to strike out sixty thousand five hundred as the
common divisor, and insert fifty-eight thousand five hundred ;
Atherton, fifty-three thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine;
Briggs, fifty thousand three hundred and ninety-one; Ather
ton again, fifty-three thousand eight hundred and seventy-
five; Mark A. Cooper, fifty-six thousand two hundred. The
committee rose without coming to a vote, and the House
adjourned. 26th. Mr. White, editor of the Southern Literary Messenger,
called on me this morning, and took the article of Lieutenant
Maury upon the right of search, which he had lent me last
Saturday and requested me to read and give my opinion of it.
He now asked my opinion, and I told him I disagreed with
it altogether; that Lieutenant Maury's law was quarter-deck
law — do no right and take no wrong; that he assumed erro
neous law, and principles utterly untenable, and, above all, that
the temper of his article was rancorous and vituperative — a
fault of all the diplomatic papers and dissertations on our
side in this recent controversy. I desired him to ask Lieu
tenant Maury what he had to say to the fifty-fourth, ninety-
eighth, and ninety-ninth sections of our Collection law of 1799,
and to the seventh section of the Act of 1807, for prohibiting
the slave-trade.
At the House, Weller, of Ohio, asked leave to offer resolu
tions of a meeting in Ashtabula County censuring the conduct
of Giddings. Stanly objected. Weller moved a suspension of

I42 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [April,
the rules — for which there were only thirty-seven votes. The
resolutions were not received. The effect of the gag-rule
against the reception of abolition petitions has so familiarized
the House to the refusal to receive petitions generally that it
operates upon all petitions and resolutions on all subjects, and
it is now sufficient for any one member to object to the recep
tion of any petition to insure its exclusion.
Wood, of New York, was equally unsuccessful in the effort
to introduce a resolution of enquiry concerning expenditures at
the navy-yard, Brooklyn.
Committee of the whole on the state of the Union, Elisha
H. Allen in the chair, on the Apportionment bill. Mark A.
Cooper finished his tedious speech in favor of his standard
number, changed to fifty-six thousand two hundred and seventy-
six. White, of Indiana, Gordon, Everett, Bidlack, Fillmore,
Caruthers, R. W. Davis, Pope, Bowne, Charles Brown, W. Cost
Johnson, and Cross expatiated in commonplaces upon de
mocracy, a large and a small house, the majesty of the people,
and the principle of representative government, till at last the
question was taken upon Briggs's amendment, fifty thousand
one hundred, and seventy-nine, to Atherton's amendment, fifty-
three thousand eight hundred and seventy-five, striking out the
number sixty thousand five hundred adopted last Thursday.
Briggs's amendment was first carried by tellers, and then, as
Atherton's amendment, amended — ninety to fifty-nine. Hal
sted then, by direction of the Committee of Elections, moved
an additional section for districting the Union so that every
member should represent only one district; upon which there
sprang up a heated debate, in the midst of which the com
mittee rose, and the House adjourned.
The resolution for districting was first introduced by John
Campbell, of South Carolina, who before the debate is over
will see deeper into the millstone than he did. He offered the
resolution for the protection of slavery. Slavery will defeat its
passage. 27th. Horace Everett gave notice that he would move to
morrow to take the bill out of committee at twelve o'clock
next Friday.

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 143
Committee of the whole on the state of the Union, Allen, of
Maine, in the chair, on the Apportionment bill. The question
was upon the amendment offered by Halsted, Chairman of the
Committee of Elections, and modified according to the resolu
tion first presented by J. Campbell, of South Carolina, requiring
that the States should be districted to return only one Repre
sentative for each district. The debate waxed warm, and as
sumed at once a bitter and rancorous party aspect. Stanly,
Goggin, Colquitt, Arnold, Garret Davis, Summers, John G.
Floyd, Houston, and Kennedy, of Indiana, fought the battle
between State sovereignty and Democracy, and between slavery
and freedom, involved in this question. There are now three
free States — New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and New Jersey —
returning thirteen members, and two slave States — Alabama
and Georgia — returning fourteen, who elect by general ticket;
Mississippi and Missouri elect each two, also by general ticket.
The motion came from South Carolina — State rights and nulli
fication; but Campbell was not one individual of his party.
Colquitt stoutly denied the constitutional right of Congress
to enact the districting of the States, and contended that the
Constitution, by prescribing that the members of the House of
Representatives should be chosen by the people, absolutely
required that every member should be chosen by the whole
people. Summers made an excellent speech, and produced a passage
from the Madison Papers, fixing the meaning of the word
"manner" in the Constitution beyond all possibility of cavil;
but Floyd hunted up all the propositions of amendments in the
State Conventions which adopted the Constitution, as argu
ment against the exercise of the power. Almost all the Dem
ocrats who opposed the amendment declare their preference
for the district system, but object to it as increasing the control
of Congress over the State Legislatures. Houston was keen
upon Campbell. Kennedy is coarse and vulgar and unreason
able, but not ineloquent. He did not finish. The committee
rose, and the House adjourned at four.
28th. At the House, Stanly, Chairman of the Committee on
Public Expenditures, made a report, to which was annexed

!44 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [April,
that of George Poindexter, one of four Commissioners appointed
by President Tyler, May, 1841, to investigate the transactions
of the New York Custom-House. A long-expected budget of
dreaded and dreadful disclosures. Stanly moved that it should
be laid on the table and printed; which was ordered without
opposition, unawares to the House. But, before the close of
the sitting, Roosevelt moved a reconsideration of the vote to
print — which the Speaker decided was not in order, the votes
having been taken without opposition. Roosevelt appealed;
but the Speaker would not allow the appeal.
My motion to print ten thousand copies of Cushing's report
on the Colonial trade was contested. Hopkins moved to reduce
the number to five thousand, and called the yeas and nays.
His motion was rejected — sixty-nine to ninety-one. Everett
moved, according to his notice, to take the Apportionment bill
out of committee to-morrow at two o'clock. I objected, and
he modified to next Tuesday. But his motion was laid on the
table — seventy-seven to sixty-five.
Committee of the whole on the state of the Union, Allen in
the chair, on the Apportionment bill. Kennedy, of Indiana,
finished his speech against the districting section, followed by
Payne, of Alabama, Barnard, J. G. Floyd, and Clifford, of
Maine, pro and con. W. Cost Johnson took the floor, the
committee rose, and the House adjourned.
29th. Morning visit from Mr. Snelling, of Boston, who
brought with him and gave me two pamphlets — the fifth annual
report of the Massachusetts Board of Education and of their
secretary, Horace Mann, and a speech of Abbott Lawrence at
the convention of shoe and leather dealers in Boston on the 2d
of March last. I had much conversation with Mr. Snelling on
both these subjects, and also upon teaching of vocal music at
the schools. He reminded me that three or four years ago he
and Lowell Mason had visited me at Quincy to invite me to
deliver an address upon the opening of the Odeon by the new
musical association, and he read to me from Mr. Mann's report
a letter of enquiry upon the comparative merits of common
workmen with the rudiments of common-school education and
other persons of the same class without education. The letter

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 145
was long, and I am ashamed to confess that, just as he was
finishing the reading of it, I dropped asleep.
At the House, as soon as the journal of yesterday was
read, Briggs asked leave to offer a resolution calling upon
the President for the reports of the Commissioners, or any
of them, for the investigation of the New York Custom-
House. Everett objected. Briggs moved a suspension of
the rules — which was carried ; and his resolution was finally
adopted. Roosevelt then renewed his motion for reconsideration of
the order to print Poindexter's report, and his appeal from the
decision of the Speaker that the motion was not admissible.
After much altercation, Everett moved to lay the appeal on the
table ; but, before this question, the Speaker reversed his own
decision, and received the motion for reconsideration. This
brought on a tart and bitter debate, in which Wise arraigned
the committee for presenting the report, and Poindexter for
communicating it to the committee. At the same time he
glorified Poindexter for making the report, which he said
would prove to be the most powerful anti-tariff document that
ever was presented to this House, and that the whole South,
and especially South Carolina, ought to erect an imperishable
monument to his memory ; but he could tell New England
gentlemen that some of the most distinguished men and
highest families in Boston and Lowell would be implicated
in charges of bribery and corruption, and it would ultimately
involve every member from Massachusetts on this floor. Not
a member from Massachusetts raised his voice to repel this
imputation ; but Stanly retorted with wormwood and gall upon
Wise. The motion for reconsideration was rejected— seventy-
eight to eighty-four.
30th. Mr. Fletcher called on me again this morning, and I
returned to him his brother's letter. I had some further con
versation with him upon his project of transferring a colony of
Yankee farmers into Virginia — which I gave him to understand
I thought very hazardous, if not impracticable. He has, no-
doubt, another plan, not yet disclosed ; that is, to solicit my
influence to obtain some place for him under the Government —

T46 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [April,
a project more hopeless than that of turning a Yankee farmer
into a Virginian.
I received last evening a letter, of the 27th, from Dr. E. H.
Robbins, of Boston, with a Tariff memorial from himself and
about thirty other woollen manufacturers, with a request to me
to present it and have it referred to the Committee of Manufac
tures and printed. This incident afforded me an opportunity
to meet, this morning, Wise's base and malignant attack yester
day upon the manufacturers of Boston and Lowell, and upon
every member of the Massachusetts delegation -in the House.
So, immediately after the reading of the journal, I addressed
the Speaker, and asked the general consent of the House to
present the memorial of Edward H. Robbins and about thirty
other manufacturers of Boston, Lowell, and other places; and
I said I should move its reference to the committee of the
whole on the state of the Union, to whom was referred the
Tariff bill reported by the Committee of Manufactures, and
that it be printed with the names of the signers. Hopkins
and Charles Brown objected, but withdrew their objection
when I moved to suspend the rules and referred to. the attack
by Wise, yesterday, upon every member of the Massachusetts
delegation. I then proceeded to comment upon Wise's speech;
which soon brought him up, to explain, to disclaim, and to
change his tone. It brought up Cushing, too, and several
others, till a rabid thirst appeared for an inflammatory general
debate, which the Speaker decided must lie over till the next
petition day, under the rule. Underwood appealed. Lott War
ren moved to lay the appeal on the table; which was carried.
Message from the President, with the three reports of Poin
dexter, Kelly, and Stewart, oh the investigation of the New
York Custom-House. Wise moves to print them all, and
makes another speech of an hour, apologetical and explana
tory for himself, and vindicatory for the President. Adjourn
at six o'clock.
I called at the office of the National Intelligencer, and left
with the foreman the memorial of E. H. Robbins and the woollen
manufacturers, to be published Monday morning. Received
afterwards a second letter from E. H. Robbins, of the 28th, de-

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 747
siring to substitute another memorial for that which I have
presented. May 1st. In consequence of the letter received last evening
from Dr. E. H. Robbins, I went this morning to the office of
the National Intelligencer, to take back the memorial which I
had left there last evening for publication. I found at the office
only one laborer, and, after looking around for the paper with
out success, he took me to the house of Mr. Donohue, with
whom I had left the memorial. I roused Donohue from his
bed, and said I had called at the office to request the return
of the memorial which he had promised to publish to-morrow
morning. He said he would send it to me. He did so after
wards, and with it sent the manuscript report, by Wheeler and
Niles, of my remarks in the House yesterday.
2d. Committee of the whole on the state of the Union, E. H.
Allen in the chair. J. Campbell's amendment for single dis
tricting the States. W. Cost Johnson made a yea-nay speech,
for the single district system, and against it, in this bill — the
instinctive expedient of unsteady minds. He was followed by
just such another from John Pope, whose habitual practice is
to reason in strength and vote in weakness. Both these men
think the amendment will fail, and they vote to be on the
strongest side. Pendleton, of Ohio, but a native of Georgia,
followed with the most sensible speech he has made in the
House, for the single district. Everett the same. Clifford
sophisticated against it. Halsted, Chairman of the Committee
of Elections, replied, as well as he could, to the objectors.
Ferris, of New York, began a long speech, but the committee
rose, and the House passed a resolution to take the bill out of
committee at two p.m. to-morrow.
Lord Ashburton came, and took the seat next to mine till
the House adjourned.
3d. In the House, committee of the whole on the state of
the Union, E. H. Allen in the chair, on the Apportionment
bill. Ferris concluded his speech against Campbell's district
ing section ; followed by a growling of Atherton on the same
side, till within ten minutes of two. Samson H. Butler, of
South Carolina, began a speech for districting, which, on being

I48 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [May,
arrested at two, he said he would expand in a newspaper. The
districting section was carried in committee, by tellers — ninety-
five to ninety-two ; and in the House, by yeas and nays — one
hundred and one to ninety-nine. The apportionment number
fixed at fifty thousand one hundred and seventy-four. The
House to consist of three hundred and twenty-seven mem
bers. Everett's amendment rejected without ceremony. He
could not make it palatable to the House. Bill passed for
engrossment — ayes one hundred and thirteen, nays eighty-
seven — and passed without division. Adjourned at half-past
four. 4th. At the House, after the usual quantum of interloping
business, the order of the day was Wise's motion to print the
President's message received last Saturday, with all the docu
ments, relating to the investigation of all the concerns of the
Custom-House at New York. Underwood, who has been
tumid with gestation of a speech for years, on Executive
usurpations, now overladen with the additional burden of his
vote for reconsideration last Friday, was now delivered; and
he began by denying the lawful authority of the President to
institute any commission to investigate the conduct or pro
ceedings of any public officer without statute law. He cen
sured Mr. Tyler also for assuming the title of President of the
United States — censured the Committee on Public Expendi
tures for producing Poindexter's report — censured the House
for hot haste in many of their acts — censured every one but
himself, but glorified himself, all in the simplicity of his heart,
and in perfect honesty.
Proffit attempted to answer him, not by argument, but by
charging inconsistency on the Whigs for questioning now the
right of the President to institute an investigating commission,
which they loudly applauded at the time when it was instituted.
Then came Stanly, galled and goaded by the brutal attack
of Wise on the Committee on Public Expenditures. He re
torted upon him with such unmingled wormwood that Wise
started up in his place and called him a coward ; which Stanly
repelled with scorn and defiance.
Cushing then drew and brandished the sword of his eloquence

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. Xaq
against Stanly and Underwood, but soon stopped, and the
House adjourned.
5th. Morning visit from Mr. Lay, who has been recently
appointed Charge d'Affaires to Sweden, but complains much
of ill treatment from Mr. Webster, who, he says, wrote to him
inviting him to Washington and making him a tender of any
vacant office at home — that is, under the United States Govern
ment in this country — that he might desire. He answered that
he wanted no office at home, and would accept none, but he
was willing to accept a mission abroad. He was offered the
choice between Naples and Brussels as Charge d'Affaires.
He accepted Naples, and the first information he received was
the appointment of another person to that place. After sundry
other prevarications and shiftings of blame between Webster
and the President, he was at last given this appointment to
Stockholm, which he had never desired, and which he did not
obtain until after an interview with Mr. Webster, who re
proached him with lukewarmness in the cause of Mr. John
Tyler, till Lay took his hat and left his office.
Next came Mr. Joshua Leavitt, with the gratifying intelli
gence that Joshua R. Giddings was here, re-elected by a major
ity of upwards of three thousand of his old constituents of the
Sixteenth Congressional District of Ohio.
Mr. Walter R. Johnson brought me a letter of introduction
from George W. Toland, and he came in at the same time with
Mr. Charles Fletcher, but I was obliged to go to the House,
and requested them to call some other time.
In the entry to the Representative hall I met Mr. Giddings,
and cordially congratulated him on his return and upon the
honorable manner in which he has been sustained by his con
stituents. At the meeting of the House, he was introduced by
his colleague, Sherlock J. Andrews, sworn by the Speaker, and
took a seat.
The rest of the day was lost. The Civil and Diplomatic
Appropriation bill was received back from the Senate with a
multitude of amendments, which, at Fillmore's motion, were
ordered to be printed. Habersham, a member of the Commit
tee of Manufactures, presented a long-winded minority counter-

tjq MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [May,
report to that made some weeks since by Mr. Saltonstall with his
bill. An effort was made to introduce a resolution rescinding
the order to adjourn over from this day till next Monday, but
failed. Three successive motions to adjourn were rejected by
yeas and nays — large majorities. A call of the House was re
fused. I moved the order of the day, the unfinished business
of yesterday, but Everett moved to adjourn. The yeas and
nays were evaded, and the motion carried.
7th. Mr. George Brown, of Beverly, one of the persons in
troduced to me last Wednesday by Mr. Saltonstall, called again
this day, and, after some suitable apology for asking of me a
particular favor, requested me to write for him a paraphrase in
verse of the first and second verses of the sixty-first chapter of
Isaiah. I told him it was a very hazardous thing to attempt a
paraphrase in English verse from the book of Isaiah. Pope
was the only man, I believed, who ever had done it with suc
cess. Nevertheless, in the hope to gratify him, I would try my
hand at this version, and let him know the result in a few days.
He also very urgently invited me to deliver the introductory
lecture before the Lyceum at their next winter's course, and
said there were about seven hundred members of their Lyceum.
I told him if I should deliver any lectures next autumn, other
than to the Quincy Lyceum and before the Massachusetts
Historical Society at Boston, I would hold myself engaged for
the Lyceum at Beverly.
Mr. Morehead, heretofore Governor, and now one of the
Senators, of Kentucky, visited us with his wife, as did Mr. and
Mrs. Pope, with Mrs. Wickliffe, wife of the Postmaster-General.
I called at Lord Ashburton's house to return his visit and
those of the gentlemen attached to his mission — Bruce, Mild-
may, and Spedding; but they were gone to the race-grounds,
the week having been devoted to the spring races. With
my wife, I attended an evening party at Mrs. Madison's. The
Senators Preston and Rives, with their families, Mr. and Mrs.
Fletcher Webster, Archer, the Tayloes, Cuttses, Henry Van
Rensselaer and his wife, Lord Ashburton and his family, Mrs.
Stewart, the British officers Crofton and Crespigny, and sundry
others, were there. I took a hand at one rubber of whist with

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. ti^
Mr. Preston, Mrs. Fletcher Webster, and Mrs. Henry Van Rens
selaer, a beautiful daughter of John Alsop King, and grand
daughter of Rufus King. I then gave up my seat at the table.
Lord Ashburton afterwards told me that he had received my
card, and would be very glad to have a short conversation
with me. I told him I would call at his house again ; but he
enquired at what time he could probably find me at home. I
said, almost every evening.
Henry A. Wise assaulted and caned Edward Stanly this day
on the race-course.
8th. Paraphrase of Isaiah lxi. 1,2:
'Tis God himself within me that I feel.
He prompts my lips his purpose to reveal.
I come — the Lord's anointed — here to speak
And preach his word — glad tidings to the meek — ;
To heal the broken-hearted captive's pain,
Forever to dissolve oppression's chain,
From prison to release the wretched thrall,
While from his limbs the galling fetters fall.
Hark! hapless mourner! lend thy anguished ear!
Hark! I proclaim the Lord's accepted year,
The day of vengeance of our God unroll,
And herald comfort to the mourner's soul.
This paraphrase was made at the request of George Brown,
Esq., of Beverly. See Luke, ch. iv., v. 17, 21.
9th. At the House, after the usual half-hour of surreptitious
business, introduced in evasion of all order, the unfinished busi
ness of last Thursday was. resumed, and Cushing had the floor
in reply to Underwood. He made a most anxious and elab
orate and ostentatious defence of the right of the President to
institute this investigating commission, so sudorifically labored
that he brought me very seriously to doubt its legality. Un
derwood had indiscreetly or ignorantly alluded more than once
to my appointment of Ministers to the Congress of Panama.
Cushing took advantage of this, and called directly upon me
for my purposes and views on that occasion; which I freely
gave. I cited the appointments of Gouverneur Morris and of
Paul Jones by President Washington, the controversy between
Mr. Madison and the Senate in 18 14, and the appointment by

,c2 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [May,
Mr. Monroe of Commissioners to South America in 1818. I
abridged this part of Cushing's speech. After a good deal of
chaffering, an order was passed to print the other reports and
the testimony, and the debate was postponed to take up the
amendments of the Senate to the Appropriation bill. Ad
journed after four.
10th. As I was going from home this morning to attend the
Committee of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Dutee J. Pearce, of Newport,
Rhode Island, called upon me. He is one of the leading mem
bers of a party in that State who have undertaken to achieve a
revolutiqn in its government by the formation of a Constitution
upon the principle of universal suffrage, instead of the freehold
qualification hitherto maintained under the charter of Charles
the Second, which that State has adhered to instead of substi
tuting for it, as all the others of the old States have done, a
Constitution enacted by the people themselves. This freehold
qualification of voters has been many years rankling and fester
ing in the heart of the State, and frequent attempts have been
made in the Legislature, constituted as it was, to obtain a call
of a Convention to form a Constitution discarding it. All these
attempts having failed, a popular movement was concerted and
organized last summer, and unlicensed meetings of disqualified
persons in every town of the State chose delegates to a Con
vention which met at Providence last November and formed a
Constitution, afterwards voted for by upwards of thirteen thou
sand inhabitants of the State, in popular meetings in December.
After this the regular Legislature called a Convention which
formed and proposed a Constitution, which the qualified voters
afterwards rejected. The suffrage party then proceeded to or
ganize their Government, elected their Government, Legislative
and Executive; and they have held a session of their Legisla
ture, and have assumed by acts of legislation the government
of the State upon themselves. Pearce acted in this assembly as
one of the Representatives from Newport. In the mean time,
the regular Governor and Legislature have been elected, held
a meeting and proclaimed all the proceedings of the suffrage
party unlawful, and applied to the President of the United
States for the military interference of the Government of the

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. je^
Union — which has been granted. Pearce, with several others
of the suffrage party, has been arrested, and held to bail under
a charge of treason against the State. I could not wait to con
verse with him, but asked him to call upon me again. He said
he would, unless he sjiould leave the city this day.
I Ith. Mr. Giddings had yesterday requested an interview
with me at my house this morning; to which I had agreed, and
he came. He said that the Army Appropriation bill would
shortly come up for the consideration of the House. There
was an item of appropriation in it of one hundred thousand
dollars for the prosecution of the war in Florida, which he
thought should be struck out. Mr. Slade, with whom he had
conversed upon the subject, was of the same opinion, and they
had thought it best to consult with me concerning the expedi
ency of making the motion. I said I concurred entirely in the
opinion that the item ought to be struck out, but I was not
sure that it would be advisable at the present time to make
the motion. It would undoubtedly breed a tempest. The
whole system of policy of the country, foreign and domestic,
war and peace, slavery and the slave-trade, would be opened for
debate on this motion, and the public feeling on this topic was
so lukewarm and so perverted, even in the free States, that I
could not ward off the doubt of the expediency of agitating it
at all, by starting the game ourselves.
13th. At the House, this was a day for the consideration of
debatable private bills ; but, after the adoption of a resolution
offered by Thompson for a committee of investigation concern
ing the furnishing of the new Custom-House at New York,
Fillmore sent to the Clerk's table a letter to him from the Sec
retary of the Navy, stating that a draft on the Department for
an inconsiderable sum had, for want of funds at the Depart
ment, been necessarily protested, and on that letter Mr. Fill
more founded his motion to go into committee of the whole on
the state of the Union to take up the Navy Appropriation bill;
which was carried, Clifford, of Maine, in the chair.
The first item, for the pay of the officers and men, was
upwards of three millions. Meriwether, of Georgia, moved to
reduce it nearly a million, to the sum appropriated last year.

T54 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [May,
Fornance, of Pennsylvania, made a feeble attempt at a re
trenchment speech, but was so little heeded that he soon got
out of humor, sat down, and refused to proceed. A long and
rambling debate ensued upon the promotions and new ap
pointments of officers within the last year, a disproportionate
number of whom are from Virginia, Maryland, and the District
of Columbia. Wise, the Chairman of the Naval Committee, was
argufying before a magistrate against the right of the Judge to
bind him over to keep the peace out of his district. He came
in at last, and frightened Meriwether out of his economy by
the terror of Bermuda, the Gulf of Mexico, and abolitionism.
14th. At the House, Henry Dodge, the delegate from the
Wisconsin Territory, offered a resolution of enquiry of the
Secretary of the Treasury, imputing gross official malversation
to James D. Doty, the present Governor of the Territory, and
with a long and vilifying preamble, which, upon objection
being made to its reception, was received by suspension of the
rules. Howard, of Michigan, moved to strike out one of the
accusatory whereases ; which was carried. The previous ques
tion was then sprung. I objected both to the remainder of the
preamble and to parts of the resolution, avowing my readi
ness to vote for any motion of enquiry as to facts ; but I was
stopped from all argument. I moved to lay the whole matter
on the table ; lost, by yeas and nays — twenty-six to one hun
dred and twenty-eight ; and the resolution and the preamble
were driven through like a locomotive on a railroad.
Triplett moved a resolution of enquiry concerning certain
recent promotions of Lieutenants in the navy, but could not
obtain a suspension of the rules for its consideration.
The General Appropriation bill, returned from the Senate,
receding from some of their amendments, and insisting upon
others, was then taken up. The House receded from one
or two of theirs, and insisted upon all the rest. A committee
of conference was appointed — Fillmore, myself, and Cave
Johnson. 16th. This morning at nine o'clock I attended, at the chamber
of the Senate's Committee of Finance, the committee of con
ference on the disagreeing votes of the two Plouses upon the

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 155
Civil and Diplomatic Appropriation bill. The managers on
the part of the Senate were George Evans, of Maine, Silas
Wright, of New York, and Berrien, of Georgia. Those of
the House were Millard Fillmore, myself, and Cave Johnson.
Fillmore and myself were in favor of all the points insisted on
by the Senate, but Cave Johnson was perfectly intractable
upon every point. Sundry concessions were concerted be
tween the two Chairmen to pacify Cave; but it was all in
vain; he would agree to nothing; and Fillmore and I were
finally obliged to accede to a compromise offered by the
managers of the Senate, and the House had been nearly a
hour in session when we made our report. I found Levy, the
Jew delegate from Florida, making a redjhot_s£eech against
the President's message declaring his intention to put an end
to the Florida War. The question was upon printing the
message and referring it to the Committee on the Territories,
which, after some sparring of Cushing and Mark A. Cooper,
was carried. -¦
Fillmore then presented the report of the joint committee
of conference ; upon which the Speaker at first decided that
the. question must be taken upon the whole report at once.
This is the Parliamentary law ; but Atherton insisted on taking
a separate question upon every point of difference, and pro
duced a precedent, to which the Speaker yielded. Separate
questions were taken on each point. Cave Johnson made a
bitter speech against the adoption of several parts of the report.
It proposed a compromise of seventy-five thousand dollars for
the Custom-House at Boston. It was taken, by yeas and nays,
and carried — ninety-nine to seventy-seven. The report for the
New York Custom-House was conditional; carried also by
yeas and nays — ninety-three to seventy-three. The Senate
adopted the report of the committee of conference by one
vote, and notice of it was received by message to the House.
The Naval Appropriation bill was then taken up, and, in the
midst of a foolish speech of Reynolds, of Illinois, the committee
rose, and the House adjourned.
17th. In the House, William Cost Johnson moved a suspen
sion of the rules for a joint resolution to close the session on

T56 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [May,
the 15th of June; lost — sixty-six to ninety-four. Navy Appro
priation bill in committee of the whole, Clifford in the chair.
Reynolds, Mallory, Cushing, Triplett, debated. Sprigg was
laboring with a speech, but wanted a whole morning for de
livery, and would not begin. Cushing pushed through a couple
of small bills from the Committee of Foreign Affairs. Wise
got up his bill to appoint a Board to prepare a new system of
rules and laws for the regulation and government of the navy.
I took part in this debate. The bill laid aside. Adjourned
after four. I dined at Lord Ashburton's. My wife was in
vited, but declined. Mrs. Madison, Mr. and Mrs. Preston, Mr.
and Mrs. Rives, Mr. and Mrs. Evans, Bayard, Bodisco, Cal
houn, Choate, Legare, and General Tallmadge, were there.
Long conversation with Lord Ashburton.
1 8th. In the House, Underwood, Chairman of the Committee
on the District of Columbia, did at last obtain from the House
an order setting apart the 1st and 2d days of June for the con
sideration of the District business. Committee of the whole
on the state of the Union, Clifford in the chair, on the Navy
Appropriation bill. Sprigg, of Kentucky, made a long speech
in support of Meriwether's motion to retrench nearly one mil
lion of dollars upon the item of pay for the officers and seamen
of the navy. Mason, of Ohio, followed, in a speech full of
honest principle, sound reasoning, and curious and instructive
details. Gwin, of Mississippi, made one, worthy of a repu-
diator of honest debts. Everett, Gamble, Pendleton, Fillmore,
followed, the debate still waxing in interest, till McKay took
the floor, the committee rose, and the House adjourned.
19th. At ten o'clock I went to the President's house; but
the Secretary of War was with him, and in the entry and
rooms below and in the chambers above there were eight or
ten solitary strollers to and fro, waiting for admission — all,
except one member of Congress, wolves of the antechamber,
prowling for offices. I waited about half an hour, and then
gave the dispatch from Dr. Flugel, the Consul at Leipsic, to
a servant, requesting him to deliver it to the President, and left
the house.
I went to the Navy Department, and held an hour's confer-

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. j$y
ence with the Secretary, Alfred P. Upshur, upon the proposed
revisal of the rules and regulations of the navy, and the reor
ganization of the Department. As to the composition of the
Board, I found that his expectation was to prepare the revisal
of the rules and regulations himself, and to submit them to the
Board as a Council. He was earnest to retain the officers of
the several degrees, from the Post-Captain down to the Lieu
tenant, in the Board ; but he thought it very proper to include
an eminent lawyer, and also an officer of the Marine Corps ;
but, if he is to prepare a revised code himself, it is doubtful
whether any Board of Officers be necessary at all.
The House had been nearly an hour in session when I
reached it. McKay was in the midst of a very searching speech
against the high appropriations of the Navy bill. Fillmore
had already carried in the House a resolution to take out the
bill from the committee next Monday. Meriwether's amend
ment, reducing the appropriation nearly one million of dollars
for the pay of officers and seamen, was carried, by a vote of
seventy-two to fifty-three. Triplett then moved an amend
ment providing that no part of the appropriation should be
applied to pay officers suspended by sentence of a Court-
martial, or officers who have been more than five years out of
service. This gave rise to a warm debate, which continued
till past four, and in which I took part in opposition to the
amendment, and to an amendment to it, proposed by Lott
Warren. When I closed, Arnold took the floor, the committee
rose, and the House adjourned.
20th. The President went in grand military parade this
morning to Baltimore, to review the encampment on the
borders of that city ; but rain is a mortal foe to the glories of
military triumph in the piping times of peace. Mr. Tyler
returned to the White House this evening, as he had gone
forth from it this morning, escorted by the Commander-in-
Chief of the Army, without so much as an oration gathered
from the tented field. He did not even visit the encampment.
In the House, Pendleton, of Cincinnati, Ohio, offered a reso
lution calling on the Secretary of the Navy for documents
relating to the construction of the engine for a steamer con-

tijS MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [May,
templated to be employed on the lakes. Cushing objected.
Pendleton moved a suspension of the rules ; carried, by yeas
and nays, after a call of the House, commenced and super
seded — one hundred and six to forty-seven. Pendleton then
made a speech, and moved the previous question, which, and
the resolution itself, were carried without a division.
The Speaker presented a letter from Samuel Lawrence and
William W. Stone, complaining that in the report of Poin
dexter there are charges imputing dishonest and dishonorable
conduct to them, and declaring their readiness, if the House
think fit, to submit to any scrutiny for the vindication of their
conduct and reputation. And he presented a letter from
Poindexter himself, asking for the appointment of a select
committee to examine the statements in his report, and the
evidence upon which he relies to support them.
Mr. Saltonstall moved that the letter from Lawrence and Stone
should be laid on the table, and printed; which was ordered.1
Garret Davis moved to refer Poindexter's letter to the com
mittee. Bowne moved to lay the motion to refer, and print
and refer, on the table ; carried, by yeas and nays — one hundred
and four to fifty-nine.
Committee of the whole on the state of the Union, on the
Navy Appropriation bill, Clifford in the chair. Triplett under
took to support the amendment by a speech, but it was vofed
down, as well as Warren's amendment to it. A ludicrous
altercation followed, between Charles Brown and Mallory,
about the comparative demerits and merits of the navy-yards
at Norfolk and Philadelphia, and of the Naval Asylum on the
Schuylkill. McLellan, of Kinderhook, then moved another
restrictive amendment — countenanced by Everett. McKay
made a powerful speech against any increase of the appro
priations. Cushing commenced an answer — the committee
rose, and the House adjourned.
2 1 st. The chill northeastern continues — but this day with
out rain. I wrote lines in the album of Anna Payne, Mrs.
Madison's niece ; and in the Boston Mercantile Journal, edited
1 This does not agree with the journal, which attributes the motion to Mr. Fill
more for reference to the committee on public expenditure, and printing.

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 159
by a man characteristically called Sleeper, Mr. G. Brown
has published, with a puff, my paraphrase of the first and
second verses of the sixty-first chapter of Isaiah, written at
his request. Not a day passes but I receive letters from the
North, and sometimes the West, asking for an autograph and
a scrap of poetry or of prose, and from the South, almost daily,
letters of insult, profane obscenity, and filth. These are in
dices to the various estimation in which I am held in the free
and servile sections of this Union — indices to the moral sen
sibilities of free and of slavery-tainted communities. Threats
of lynching and assassination are the natural offspring of slave-
breeders and slave-traders; profanity and obscenity are their
natural associates. Such dross the fire must purge. But the
perpetual calls for autographs and album scraps are scarcely
less annoying in another way. They set in motion the rhyming
maggot in my brain, and breed swarms of May-flies as prolific
as the dead herrings that line the banks of the Potomac. I
labored with an abortion upon Faith this morning, and with
another anti-belligerent speech on this Navy Appropriation bill.
At the House, after a struggle by Cowen, Chairman of the
Committee of Claims, pleading for the devotion of this day to
private business, the House, at Fillmore's motion, decided, by
yeas and nays, eighty-four to sixty-nine, to go into committee
of the whole on the state of the Union on that bill.
Cushing had the floor from yesterday, and made an elaborate
speech of two hours in defence of the Administration, and of
the Secretary of the Navy and his report. His argument, as
usual, was captious and sophistical, attempting to show that
the Secretary's plan did not urge a present increase of the
navy, but that McKay and Meriwether were contending for a
decrease of the existing navy. Cushing affects to be the leader
of the Administration members, and is much flattered when
recognized by the Whigs and Democrats as a Cabinet Minister
of the White House in petto — as was done by McKay and
Meriwether in replying to him this day ; which they did with
great earnestness.
Parmenter made a sly, Jesuitical, Mrs. Candor attack upon
the Commissioners of the Navy, and especially upon Commo-

T6o MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [May,
dores Hull and Morris; which I briefly noticed. The com
mittee rose, and the House adjourned soon after three. The
news of the bloodless termination of the Rhode Island war was
this day received. The ignominious flight of the spurious Gov
ernor, Thomas W. Dorr, has postponed the heaviest calamity
that ever befell this nation ; but I scarcely dare yet to rejoice.
J. P. Kennedy and others told me also that the quarrel between
Wise and Stanly was adjusted; no fight.
22d. I went to the Capitol, and heard Mr. Maffitt deliver his
sermon from Luke xv. 7 : " I say unto you, that likewise joy
shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than
over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance.''
He omitted these last underscored words. He said it was not
his custom to preach from given texts, but he had received an
anonymous letter in- very respectful terms, requesting him to
preach from this beautiful text, and he took pleasure in com
plying with the request. I still believe that it was intended
for, and felt to be, a stab, Joab-like, under the fifth rib ; whether
merited or not, certainly given in no Christian spirit. The
sermon itself indicated the performance of an unwelcome task.
The house was full, but not crowded. Mr. Maffitt's oratory is
superficial, flashy, and shallow, but very attractive. There is
a difficulty in the sentiment of this text, which seems to coun
tenance the idea that in heaven itself reformed wickedness is
more estimable than steadfast and unsullied virtue. Mr. Maffitt
could not grapple with this difficulty, nor did he once allude to
the incomparable parable of the Prodigal Son, introduced by
this text, and illustrative of its meaning. We had evening visits
from Richard Cutts, Jr., and his sister, with Anna Payne, Mrs.
Madison's niece, quite delighted with my lines written in her
album, but anxiously earnest to know whether any other per
son had ever read them before I sent them to her; while Miss
Cutts was not pleased that they were so much prettier than
those I had written for her. Mr. Richard Rush likewise took
tea with us. He has been here several days — he says only
for the settlement of some private concerns of his own. Long
conversation with him on the Colonial trade questions.
24th. The House went into committee, Underwood in the

1842.] 7HE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 161
chair, upon the Army Appropriation bill. On the first item of
appropriation, being for the pay of the army, Cave Johnson
moved a reduction of three hundred and five thousand seven
hundred dollars, or about one-fifth of the amount. Meriwether
moved a proviso to suspend the operation of the Act of 1838,
increasing the army, which the Chairman decided not to be in
order; whereupon Cave Johnson withdrew his amendment to
reduce the amount of pay, and moved an amendment providing
that no part of the appropriation should be applied to pay offi
cers hereafter appointed, or soldiers enlisted, till the army shall
muster not more than five thousand men. Fillmore objected
to the amendment as not in order. The Chairman decided
that it was. Morgan took an appeal too late, and I moved
an amendment to that of Cave Johnson by substituting the
standard of the Act of 1821, six instead of five thousand men;
which Cave Johnson accepted. And now the debate for the
reduction of the army commenced. W. O. Butler, Ward, Fill
more, and W. Cost Johnson warmly resisted the reduction, C.
H. Williams, Reynolds, and W. R. Campbell supporting the
amendment. Sharp altercation between Black, of Georgia,
and Granger, upon a heavy charge by Black against the army,
who were vigorously defended by Granger; upon which Black
denied that he had made any charge. Thompson, of In
diana, and Elisha H. Allen stiffly objected to the reduction, and
McKay opened his formidable battery for it. The committee
rose. I moved to fix the 31st of this month to consider the
French Claim bill, but failed.
25th. In the House, it had yesterday been agreed that the
committees should be called for reports this morning ; which was
done. Among the reports made by Cowen, Chairman of the
Committee of Claims, was a joint resolution from the Senate for
a rule to take from claimants the right of reproducing claims
which have been once rejected, unless with certificate from a
member of Congress that he believes the claim to be just. I
objected to this addition to the joint rules, and protested against
it as restrictive upon the right of petition, which I considered
as peculiarly requiring the observance and respect of the House
with regard to claims against the Government, for the satisfac-
VOL. XI. — II

x62 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [May,
tion of which there was no resort to the judicial tribunals.
Cave Johnson moved to make the resolution the special order
of the day for next Friday week, but could not carry a vote of
two-thirds, and it lies over. Numerous other reports of com
mittees were made, and, among the rest, Meriwether, from the
Committee on the Public Expenditures, made a detailed and
thorough retrenchment report, with four bills, cutting deep into
the army, the navy, the pay of the officers of the Federal Gov
ernment, and the expenses in the collection of duties on imports.
I renewed the motion, by direction of the Committee of For
eign Affairs, to fix a day, the 31st of this month, to consider
the French Claim bill. Cushing called the yeas and nays,
which were eighty-three to eighty-six. Motion lost.
Committee of the whole on the state of the Union, McKay
in the chair, upon the Army bill. McKay resumed his argu
ment, and offered an amendment as a substitute for that of Cave
Johnson; which Johnson accepted. McKay proposed to re
duce the number of men in the artillery and infantry regiments
to the standard of the Act of 2d March, 1821 — forty-two men
to each company — and to disband the second regiment of dra
goons, or to melt it up into a regiment of riflemen. Fillmore
objected to McKay's amendment as not in order. The Chair
man decided that it was. Cushing appealed, and that question
was debated, till the committee rose, and the House adjourned.
26th. I had received a polite invitation from Mrs. Jones, wife
of Commodore Thomas Ap Catesby Jones, now absent, com
mander of the squadron in the Pacific Ocean, to an evening
party at Sharon, her residence in Fairfax County, Virginia, about
nine miles from this city, and a note from Mr. Henry Dana Ward,
of New York City, but a native of Massachusetts, urging me
in very flattering terms to attend, it being the occasion of his
marriage with Miss Charlotte Galbraith, of Dublin, Ireland.
Mr. W. W. Irwin, member of the House from Pittsburg, Penn
sylvania, had informed me yesterday that he was also going to
lis party, and I agreed to take a hack jointly with him.
In the House, David Levy, the alien Jew delegate from Flor
ida, movedTa"cail for correspondence 6TTh^commanding~officer
of the army in Florida with the War DepartmenTsTnce the 1st

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 163
of January last, and a resolution that there should be no cessa
tion of hostilities till the Seminoles shall be effectively subdued.
He told of a whole family butchered since the 1 st of this month.
Part of his first resolution was adopted.
The call of reports from committees was concluded from
yesterday, and multitudes of them were made. One, from re
trenchment Gilmer, about pay, mileage, and franking; one,
from John C. Clark, from Committee of Commerce, on the light
house establishment, with a bill. Hiland Hall, Chairman of
the select committee on the memorial of William Wright, re
ported a resolution authorizing the committee to go to Boston,
to send for persons and papers, and to take testimony. Objec
tions bristled up from the Democracy — quite eager for the in
vestigation, but averse to the committee's going to Boston.
Romulus M. Saunders moved to strike out that power; carried,
by yeas and nays — eighty to ninety-six. The fraud being thus
effectually screened, the committee were authorized to send for
persons and papers, and to take testimony. Van Buren, a
Demo, member of the committee, conscious of the humbug,
moved to lay the whole subject on the table ; but I called for
the yeas and nays, and he withdrew his motion.
Committee of the whole on the state of the Union, Under
wood in the chair, on the Army Appropriation bill. Cushing
made a speech of three hours against the reduction, and re
trenchment Gilmer discoursed an hour in reply to him. Civil
war in the corporal's guard. The committee rose, and the
House adjourned, short of four o'clock.
Mr. Irwin and Mr. Cushing came in the hack at five, and
took me up. We rode through Georgetown and over the
canal- and river-bridges to Sharon, where we were received by
Mrs. Commodore Jones and the Adjutant-General, Roger Jones,
his brother. The marriage ceremony was performed by Dr.
Thomas Balch, of Georgetown. The members of Congress
present were Brockway, Saunders, Summers, and Taliaferro.
Mrs. Morgan, Mrs. Rencher, and sundry other ladies were
there. Heavy rain, a pitch-dark night, and Virginia roads con
strained me to pass the night there. Slept in a room with
Rencher, two beds on the floor.

T64 MEMOIRS QF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [May,
27th. I rose soon after five, and found Mr. Irwin risen before
me. He sent for our driver, who had put up his horses and
carriage at a neighboring tavern. The rain had subsided, but
the sky was yet beclouded. Commodore Jones's seat is a par
adise in the wild, under his cultivation. The house was sur
rounded by trees, which were alive with the music of mocking
birds and robins ; which reminded me of the nightingales of
Little Boston House, at Ealing. Two Mr. Stuarts, father and
son, with Mr. Taliaferro, amused us with conversation till our
carriage came. The rest of our company who had remained
over-night had not yet risen, and, just at six, Mr. Irwin and I
started for home, leaving Cushing, who was one of the grooms
men, undisturbed in bed. Mr. Irwin stopped at his lodgings
in the Seven Buildings, and the clock at the Treasury building
struck eight as I passed by it on my way home.
After breakfast, Mr. Leavitt called upon me with the Madi-
sonian newspaper of last Monday, which I had yesterday ex
pressed to him the wish to see. It contains more than one
ferociously belligerent article, which, as the Madisonian is
avowedly the Tyler organ, has excited much notice and some
apprehension of the Tyler policy.
28th. While the House was in session yesterday, a subpoena
from the United States Circuit Court, now sitting in this city,
was brought to me at my seat to appear before them to testify
in the case of Dr. Robert Mayo against Blair and Rives, pub
lishers of the Globe, for a libel. I went immediately to the
City Hall, and found the Court in session. I was sworn, and
testified, answering all the questions that were asked of me by
the counsel of the parties. They related to the manner in
which Dr. Mayo had communicated to me his letter to Presi
dent Jackson of December, 1830, and the original draft of
Jackson's letter to Fulton, Secretary of the Territory of Arkan
sas, concerning Houston's conspiracy to dismember Mexico
and annex Texas to the United States. The examination was
short, and I returned to the House before its adjournment.
29th. To the Representative hall, where Mr. Maffitt preached
from Philippians iii. 20: "For our conversation is in heaven;
from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. x6j
Christ:" 21 : "Who shall change our vile body, that it may
be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the
working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto
himself." The subject was the resurrection — too capacious for
the grasp and too weighty for the poise of Mr. Maffitt. The
resurrection of the body is the profoundest mystery of the
Christian religion and the most difficult article of the Christian
faith. The perishable or corruptible property of matter seems
to be so inseparable from it that imperishable or immortal
matter is an incredible confusion of words. St. Paul pronounces
the man who enquires with what body the dead shall rise, a
fool ; but he says, too, that the body that shall rise is not the
same body that shall have died. He says that there is a spir
itual body and a natural body. The body that dies is vile ; the
body that shall rise is glorious. " Behold," says the Apostle,
" I show you a mystery."
And a mystery it remains, and will remain, till it shall please
Almighty wisdom to reveal more of His eternal counsels to man.
Mr. Maffitt enlarged much upon the usual argument for the
resurrection, from analogy — the blade of grass, the blossom,
and the leaf, and, above all, the transformations of the insect
tribes. He described with more minuteness than precision the
metamorphosis of a grub into a butterfly, which, he said, he
had accidentally witnessed, for the first time, last spring. He
gave also several of the passages from the Old Testament which
seem to countenance the doctrine of the resurrection and of the
immortality of the soul, particularly the passage from Job, " I
know that my Redeemer liveth ;" but not the remarkable pas
sage in the book of Ecclesiastes, " Or ever the silver cord be
loosened." 31st. In the House, Gwin, of Mississippi, offered a resolu
tion that on Monday next, and for the rest of the session, the
hour of meeting of the House shall be ten a.m. ; adopted. At
Rayner's motion, ten thousand copies of Kennedy's Colonial
Commerce report were ordered to be printed. I presented the
petition of William Willis, which was referred to the Committee
of Revolutionary Claims.
Committee of the whole on the state of the Union, Under-

t66 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [June,
wood in the chair, upon the Army Appropriation bill. Mc
Keon resumed his speech — demagogical, rhetorical, classical,
and sophistical, for about two hours. Fessenden, of Maine,
made a very handsome speech against any reduction of the
army, referring to my remarks against the increase of the army,
and declaring his dissent from them. It was a spirited and
powerful speech. Then came a pitched battle between Black
and Warren, of Georgia, remarkable for the contrast of temper
between fagot fire and steady flame. Ward made a steam-
engine explosion in honor of the army and against any re
duction, till half-past four, when Halsted took the floor, the
committee rose, and the House adjourned.
June 1st. Mr. Joseph Warren Newcomb, grandson of General
Warren who fell at Bunker's Hill, called on me this morning to
solicit my assistance to effect the passage of a bill in his favor re
ported by Mr. Parmenter from the Committee of Revolutionary
Claims, No. 435. General Warren left four children, two sons
and two daughters, who, by resolutions of Congress, were edu
cated at the public expense. The claim is for seven years' half-
pay, pledged by a resolution of 24th August, 1780, to the
widows and children of officers dying in the service. New-
comb is the son of Mary the youngest daughter, and is the
only living descendant from General Warren.
This was the first of the two days specially reserved by a
resolution of the House for the consideration of bills relating
to the District of Columbia ; and Underwood, Chairman of the
District, brought them forward, and the spirit of chicanery
was instantly at work against them. It began by defeating the
passage of the bill for the relief of the District banks, crippled
several others, and forced a premature adjournment, by failure
of a quorum on taking the question upon an amendment
moved by Cave Johnson, introducing universal white suffrage
for the election of Mayor and Councilmen ; the vote was fifty-
eight to fifty-seven. Call of the House refused. Adjourned.
2d. Dr. Parker came to take leave of me, being on the point of
his departure for return to China. I told him that after the con
versations he held with me last summer, an enquiry was made
of me whether, if an embassy should be instituted, and the

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. ify
mission should be offered to me, I would accept the appoint
ment. I answered that if the question should be put to me
from a quarter authorized to make the offer, I might consider it.
I heard no more of that project, and all idea of carrying it into
execution was abandoned. My own opinion was, that such a
mission was inexpedient ; but it was, and is, my opinion that
an intelligent and discreet and spirited informal commissioner
ought to have been and to be there, with full power to take
advantage of any incident which might occur to open a com
munication with the Chinese Government, to sustain and pro
mote the interests, political and commercial, of our country.
Dr. Parker said he entirely concurred in that opinion, and
said he would add that he had seen the President, who assured
him that he had his eye fixed upon China, and would avail
himself of any favorable opportunity to commence a negotia
tion with the Celestial Empire.
At the House, the day was consumed on District business —
the Alexandria Charter bill, laid on the table by motion of W.
Cost Johnson, upon a motion of mine at the third reading to
recommit the bill, with instructions to strike out the word
"white." Sympathies of the Democracy of the Five Points
with the Rhode Island suffragans, defeated.
3d. At the House, Garret Davis moved two resolutions of
enquiry, whether the commission for the investigation of the
affairs of the New York Custom-House still exists, and what
it has cost, and from what fund the expense of it has been paid.
Cushing and Proffit objected. Davis moved to suspend the
rules. Cushing made a point of order, that a motion to sus
pend the rules could be made for only one resolution at a time.
The Speaker overruled him, and Davis, to accommodate him,
reduced his two resolutions into one. Proffit called for the
yeas and nays ; but they were refused, the rules were sus
pended, and the resolution was adopted.
W. B. Campbell made a second abortive attempt to suspend
the rules for a joint resolution to adjourn on the 1 ith of July.
There was a majority for the resolution, but not two-thirds —
eighty-nine to eighty-four.
Committee of the whole on the state of the Union, Under-

t68 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [June,
wood in the chair, upon the Army bill. Halsted and Cross
made strong and sensible speeches against any reduction of
the army ; and Giddings, an unanswerable one for it ; but he
brought in the Creole case, and then began the interruptions,
the calls to order, and the worryings, till he was crowded down.
4th. At the House, a Louisiana Land bill was, by the im
portunity of Dawson, taken from committee of the whole, and
made the special order of the day for this day week.
A letter from the Secretary of War was yesterday presented
by the Speaker, and read in the House, declining to communi
cate certain documents disclosing scandalous frauds of public
men, in transactions with the Cherokee Indians, called for by
a resolution of the House, of 18th May, moved by James
Cooper, Chairman of the Committee of Indian Affairs. Cooper
yesterday moved the reference of the Secretary's letter to that
committee, and made some severe remarks upon the refusal of
the documents.
The House had adjourned, without taking the question upon
the reference, to which Cave Johnson had moved the addition
of instructions to enquire and report upon the expediency of
further action of the House upon the subject. When it was
called up this morning, Cushing, having been absent when
Cooper made his remarks yesterday, requested him to repeat
them ; which he did. Cushing then took up the cudgels for
the Executive power, and stoutly defended the right of the
Executive to refuse documents demanded by the House,
charging usurpation upon the House for demanding them.
He referred emphatically to Jefferson's Works, iv. 464, as to a
precedent decisive of the question. I answered him, and took
issue upon his principles. I referred to the message of Presi
dent Washington in 1796, and the two resolutions of the
House thereon. Spencer's letter was referred to the Indian
Committee, but without Cave Johnson's instructions.
Committee of the whole on the state of the Union, Under
wood in the chair, in spite of Cowen's remonstrance. Army
Appropriation bill. Long speech of Pope for the reduction of
the army. David Levy, delegate from Florida, loquacious
against it. Sputter of Cushing against Giddings for some of

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 169
his animadversions upon Cushing's belligerent propensities.
Cushing's escapes are always upon by-ways. Levy did not
finish. 5th. This morning I attended public worship at the hall of
the House of Representatives, where Mr. Tustin was on duty ;
but the services were performed by the Rev. Mr. Talmage, said
to be President of a college in Georgia. His sermon was from
I John ii. 15 : " Love not the world; neither the things that
are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the
Father is not in him." It was a discourse quite appropriate to
the place in which it was delivered, and to the supposed audi
tory, consisting, as it should, chiefly of members of Congress.
This is the principle upon which the appointment of Chaplains
is justifiable and proper; and I consider it as one of my public
duties, as a representative of the people, to give my attendance
every Sunday morning when divine service is performed in
the hall. The preacher of this day contrasted the love of the
world with the love of God — a copious but hackneyed subject,
on which nothing new can be said, but upon which the same
that has been repeated a thousand times may properly be re
peated again. There is a long and pungent satire of Juvenal
upon the vanity and disappointments of human wishes ; and
the first line of the Satires of Persius — "O! curas hominum !
0! quantum est in rebus inane !" — comprises the whole system
of desponding philosophy — the philosophy of an earlier age,
professed by the Grecian Heraclitus. Jesus and his religion
first modified and moralized it, by presenting it in contrast
with the love of God. Mr. Talmage's delivery was indifferent,
accompanied with a disagreeable drawl, and yet considerably
spirited. He gave out Watts's one hundredth psalm, by the
name of the twenty-fifth hymn. The House was thin.
6th. From this day forward for the remnant of the session,
the daily meeting of the House is to be at ten o'clock a.m.
At half-past nine I was about stepping into my carriage to go
to the House, when two morning visitors came in, one of them
from Florida, wishing to have some conversation with me con
cerning the state of affairs in that Territory. I could not wait,
and appointed to-morrow evening for him to call upon me

iyQ MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [June,
again. I was, however, so delayed that I found the House in
session, and David Levy concluding his declamation against
the reduction of the army. Cowen had given notice of his
intention to move a revival of the hour rule. When David had
expatiated about an hour, Fillmore attempted to take the floor,
but Everett and I had both taken it. Fillmore yielded it to me,
and I to Everett, who spoke about a quarter of an hour, pro
fessing a very earnest desire for the reduction of the army, but
declaring that he should vote against the amendments pro
posed to this bill, because it was not the place nor the form in
which the reduction was to be effected. He said, too, that
this reduction was recommended by the Committee on the
Public Expenditures, which had no jurisdiction in the case,
the Military Committee being that which should have reported
upon it.
I spoke about an hour and a half for the amendment, and
the reduction of the army, admitting that this was not the
bill nor the form in which the good work ought to have been
accomplished, but saying that I must sacrifice form to sub
stance, and take in any form the good which I could not effect
in my own way.
Stanly replied to me with great power till one o'clock, when
the debate was to cease. Roosevelt offered a compromise
amendment, to fix the army at its present numbers without
further increase or reduction ; lost, by tellers — sixty-nine to
one hundred and two. Cave Johnson's amendment, modified
by mine, was carried in two divisions — I, to reduce the artillery
and infantry regiments to the standard of 1821 — one hundred
and two to sixty-four ; and 2, to withhold pay after the 30th
of September next from the second regiment of dragoons —
ninety-one to sixty-two. Other amendments followed ; the bill
was reported to the House, and postponed, to be printed for
engrossment to-morrow.
8th. In the House, after passing over several subjects first in
order upon the Speaker's table, Cushing moved to refer to the
committee of the whole on the state of the Union the resolu
tion reported by him from the Committee of Foreign Affairs,
requesting the President to institute negotiations with Great

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 171
Britain concerning our commercial relations with her American
Colonies. Pickens and Fessenden discussed the question without abso
lutely opposing the motion. I said a few words in support of
the reference, and Lowell claimed the floor just at the expira
tion of the morning hour, and the House passed to the motion
of Cushing to print five thousand extra copies of the New York
Custom-House reports. On this motion Cushing made another
elaborate speech.
Underwood moved a long amendment, denying the right of
the President to institute an investigating commission without
authority by law ; and beginning with a declaration that the
House does not approve or sanction the institution of this
commission. This was carried, under the strangulation by the
previous question of all debate, by yeas and nays — eighty-
six to eighty-three. I then moved to lay the whole subject
on the table, which had just before been refused, but was now
carried by yeas and nays — ninety-six to seventy-six.
9th. There was a misstatement in the journal, that the mo
tion yesterday to lay the whole subject of Cushing's motion to
print extra copies of the New York Custom-House investiga
tion reports on the table was made by McKeon. It was made
by me, because a majority of three votes had already adopted
one-half of a proviso encroaching upon the constitutional
powers of the President, for which McKeon had voted ; and
his motion was only to lay on the table the remnant of the
proviso ; and he merely asked whether that motion was in
order. My motion was to lay on the table the whole subject;
and I made it to prevent the consummation of a flagrant out
rage upon the Constitution.
The Speaker, after some hesitation, entertained my motion,
and it was carried by a majority of twenty votes. I now moved
to amend the journal, to make it conformable to the fact ; which
the Speaker said should be done.
Fillmore moved a bill from the Committee of Ways and
Means, for extending the present impost duties to the 1st of
August, with a proviso securing the distribution to the States
of the proceeds of the public lands on the approaching 1st of

!72 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [June,
July, the proviso being additional to the bill reported by him
last Tuesday. Cushing's motion to refer to the committee of
the whole on the state of the Union the resolution from the
Committee of Foreign Affairs requesting the President to
enter into negotiation with the Government of Great Britain
concerning our commercial intercourse with their American
Colonies, was taken up, after an hour's speech from Lowell.
The motion was carried, without a division to refer the reso
lution. Committee of the whole on the state of the Union, McKen-
nan in the chair. Fillmore's Tariff bill was taken up. Salton
stall moved to strike out the whole bill, and insert the bill
reported by him from the Committee of Manufactures. After
some discussion upon points of order, Fillmore, in a speech
of two hours, opened his whole bill to debate ; after which,
Habersham moved an amendment to Saltonstall's bill, and
it was ordered to be printed.
ioth. There was a large wedding-party last evening at the
house of Mr. Samuel L. Gouverneur, to witness the nuptials
of his daughter with Dr. Heiskell, and a much more numerous
company after the ceremony was over. President Tyler, the
Secretaries of War and the Navy, Spencer and Upshur, with
their families, Mrs. Madison, Lord Ashburton, with his Secre
taries, Mr. Bodisco, sundry members of both Houses of Con
gress, General Scott, and several officers of the army and navy,
were present at the solemnity, performed by Mr. Hawley, rector
of St. John's, according to the rites of the Protestant Episcopal
Church. We came home soon after ten ; but the dissipation
of the evening infected this morning with idleness.
In the House, Pendleton and Everett attempted to introduce
resolutions for abridging debate in committees of the whole;
but without success. Fillmore called up out of time his second
Tariff Extension bill, with the proviso substantially repealing
the suspension of the payment of the proceeds of the public
lands to the States, which is to be made for the first six months
on the first day of the next month, but will be defeated unless
the condition annexed to it, that the payment shall be sus
pended so long as an impost duty of more than twenty per

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 173
cent, shall be levied upon any one article of merchandise, (should
be withdrawn.) In continuing the existing tariff till the 1st of
August, the object of the bill is to discard the restriction
without reducing any of the duties to twenty per cent. ; and it
roused all the anti-protective frenzy of the South against it.
Underwood made a fair and candid speech, avowing his
ardent desire to secure the payment of the proceeds of the
public lands to the States. He said this bill would produce
some curious developments as to the opinions of the members
of the House upon the tariff in embryo. And the developments
immediately came. Pickens, and Wise, and Cushing, and
Proffit, and Foster, of Georgia, came out like furies against
the land distribution, and Gilmer took the floor. Fillmore
made an abortive attempt to take the bill out of committee.
They rose twice, and at half-past four the House adjourned.
nth. The meeting last evening at Mr. Markoe's was for the
purpose of conferring upon the project of connecting the organ
ization of the National Institute for the Promotion of Science,
with that for the Establishment of Science. Mr. Poinsett is
President of the former, and presided at the meeting.- Mr.
Preston has introduced into the Senate a bill for combining
together these two institutions, and now stated to the meeting
his views on the subject, embracing an appropriation of twenty
thousand dollars, and the occupation by law of a large portion
of the Patent-Office building for the preservation and arrange
ment of the objects of curiosity collected by the exploring
expedition under Lieutenant Wilkes, now daily expected home;
and he called on me to say how far my purposes may be con
current with these suggestions.
I said I had the warmest disposition to favor them, and
thought there was but one difficulty in the way, which might
perhaps be surmounted. I had believed that the whole burden
and the whole honor of the Smithsonian Institution should be
exclusively confined to itself, and not entangled or commingled
with any national establishment requiring appropriations of
public money. I exposed the principles upon which all my
movements relating to the Smithsonian bequest, have been
founded, as well as the bills which at four successive Congresses

T 74 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [June,
I have reported — first for obtaining the money, and then for
disposing of the fund.
At the motion of Mr. Walker, of Mississippi, the President,
Poinsett, was authorized to appoint a committee of five mem
bers of the Institute, to confer with Mr. Preston and me upon
the means of connecting the Smithsonian Institution with the
National Institute.
At the House, Mr. Cushing offered a resolution calling on
the President of the United States for copies of the report of
the joint commission upon the claims against Mexico, and of
documents showing the condition of the claims upon which
the Commissioners did not report ; which was adopted.
This day had been assigned, by some legerdemain of the
Louisiana members, for the consideration of a bill for the con
firmation of certain land claims in the State of Louisiana ; and
it consumed the day. Cave Johnson, the rabid Democrat,
manfully resisted it, and, in a speech- of nearly three hours,
demonstrated that a great portion of the claims were rotten
with fraud and corruption ; but Edward D. White and Moore
sustained them with ardent speeches ; and Dawson, the Demo
crat, silently defended the Loco-foco brood, and the bill was
driven through with indecent precipitation, in spite of Cave's
unanswerable exposure of the fraud. The yeas and nays on
the passage of the bill were eighty-four to seventy-three.
1 2th. The party at the President's house last evening con
sisted of about a hundred persons, invited by Mrs. Robert
Tyler. Mrs. Madison, with her niece, Anna Payne, my family
and myself, and all the remnants of President Monroe's family
— the bride, Mrs. Heiskell, being the only surviving grandchild
of Mr. Monroe. There was dancing in the now gorgeously
furnished East Room, and an elegant supper. The courtesies
of the President and of Mrs. R. Tyler to their guests were all
that the most accomplished European court could have dis
played. The President led the bride in to the supper-table, and
requested me to escort Mrs. Robert Tyler. Lord Ashburton
followed with Mrs. Madison, and Mr. Webster, the Secretary
of State, with my wife. After supper J had a long conversa
tion with Lord Ashburton, and went into the room where Mr.

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. jy^
Healy is copying the full-length portrait of President Wash
ington, and where the portrait of Mr. Guizot, painted by him,
is deposited. He has also the President's daughter Alice,
painted by him. It was within five minutes of midnight when
we came home.
13th. At the House, Stanly presented a second self- vindica
tory letter of Poindexter, upon which the House took no order,
not even to lay it on the table.
I offered the resolution calling on the President for copies
of the Quintuple Treaty for the suppression of the African
slave-trade, of Cass's protest against it, and the correspondence
with him and with France concerning it. The resolution was
adopted without opposition.
Pendleton moved an addition to the one hundred and twenty-
third rule, in substance extending the call for the previous
question to debates in committee of the whole. The motion
was laid on the table ; but Botts afterwards moved a recon
sideration of that vote, which lies over till to-morrow.
Medill offered a resolution of instruction to the Judiciary
Committee to report immediately a bill to refund to Andrew
Jackson the fine of one thousand dollars imposed on him by
Judge Hall in 181 5, with interest from that time to this. A
resolution of the Ohio Legislature, calling upon Congress to do
this, has been upwards of three months referred to the Com
mittee on the Judiciary. C. J. Ingersoll wanted to claim the
floor, to take to himself the blame of not having reported the
bill ; but the previous question silenced him, and, after a refusal
of the House to lay the resolution on the table, it was laid over
till to-morrow.
Cowen, of Ohio, moved the re-adoption of the one-hour rule,
which, after a call of the House, and a desperate struggle
against it, was carried, by yeas and nays — one hundred and
twenty to eighty-four.
The amendments of the Senate to the Apportionment bill
were then taken up, at the motion of Horace Everett, who,
after a short speech, moved to concur in all the Senate's
amendments, and the previous question. My .indignation
kindled, I entreated him to withdraw the call for the previous

176 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [June,
question ; but he refused. He could not obtain a second. I
moved to disagree with the Senate's first amendment — the
ratio — and to concur with the second — the representation of
fractions. The debate consumed the day. The House main
tained their own ratio, by yeas and nays — one hundred and
twelve to ninety-five — and adjourned.
Evening meeting of the National Institute for the Promo
tion of Science. Mr. Poinsett presided. Mr. Preston made a
splendid speech, and President Tyler was there.
14th. In the House, John Young, of Western New York, a
changeable Whig, moved, on further reflection, to reconsider
the vote of yesterday, non-concurring with the amendment of
the Senate, changing the ratio of the apportionment from fifty
thousand one hundred and seventy-nine to seventy thousand
six hundred ; and, after a long wrangling debate, the question
of reconsideration was taken by yeas and nays, and lost — one
hundred and six to one hundred and eight; after which I
moved to concur with the second amendment of the Senate,
providing for the representation of fractions by allowing one
additional member for every State whose fraction will amount
to more than half the standard number.
Thompson, of Mississippi, moved to strike out one-half and
insert thirty thousand, maintaining that the fraction of less
than thirty thousand would conflict with the letter of the
Constitution. I argued that the main reason assigned by President Wash
ington rested avowedly on a construction of the words in the
Constitution which I thought not correct; and I showed that,
by allowing the representation for the fractions, with our
standard there would be eleven additional members, repre
senting five hundred and fifty-eight thousand constituents,
the aggregate of all the fractions, and, far from bringing any
member within the limit of thirty thousand souls, would give
to each member more than the standard of fifty thousand one
hundred and seventy-nine. But W. Cost Johnson made a warm
and vehement speech against the amendment. The veto of
President Washington was read ; and after the rejection of Jacob
Thompson's amendment, without a division, the fractional

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. iyy
amendment itself was rejected, by yeas and nays — fifty-five to
one hundred and eighty-three. The specific changes of num
bers, connected with the alteration of the standard number,
were all rejected by one motion to disagree to all of them, and
then a resolution offered by Fillmore was carried, to take the
temporary Tariff" bill out of the committee at two o'clock p.m.
to-morrow ; and committee of the whole on the state of the
Union, McKennan in the chair, immediately followed. Gilmer,
W. Cost Johnson, and Gordon debated the question of sus
pending the distribution of the proceeds of the public lands.
Pope took the floor at half-past four, the committee rose, and
the House adjourned.
15th. Lieutenant Wilkes, in his conversation with me last
evening, complained bitterly of the reception which he had
met from the President of the United States and the Secretary
of the Navy. He said that his name had been omitted from
the list of nominations for promotion in the navy, recently
submitted by the President to the Senate ; while the name of
an officer whom he had been obliged to send home under
arrest had been included in it. That officer, while under
arrest, had been permitted to make charges utterly frivolous
and futile against him ; and, contrary to the first principles of
justice, and what he believed the universal usage, those charges
had been entertained. All the other officers and men returned
from the expedition, after three years of hardships, toils, and
dangers, had naturally expected to be welcomed home with
some cheering smile and some kind word from the Government
of their country. They had found, instead of this, a cold and in
sulting silence. Had this ungenerous treatment been confined
to himself, he would have borne it with patience ; but, extended
as it was to all the gallant and meritorious men, and to the
accomplished officers and artists and men of science, whose
labors had achieved results of which they might well be proud,
it had overpowered him ; and all the anxieties and cares and
sufferings of the whole three years were as nothing to the
anguish he had endured within the last five days. I said little
in answer to him, but must wait to hear the statements of the
other side.
VOL. XI. — 12

178 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [June,
At the House, after two or three resolutions offered and
adopted, or laid over, and two or three bills reported, the Pro
visional Tariff" bill, extending the collection of duties till the
ist of August, and repealing the suspension of the distribution
of the proceeds of the sales of the public lands, was taken up
in committee of the whole on the state of the Union, McKen
nan, an excellent Chairman, in the chair. The proviso was
the only stumbling-block between the parties, and that was
sharply debated by W. Cost Johnson, Pope, John W. Jones,
White, of Indiana, J. P. Kennedy, Arnold, and Habersham,
till two o'clock — fixed for taking the question. Numerous
captious amendments were then successively proposed, and
rejected. The question upon striking out the proviso was
lost, by yeas and nays — one hundred and seven to one hun
dred and thirteen. The bill was then ordered to be engrossed,
and passed, by yeas and nays — one hundred and sixteen to
one hundred and three.
Everett then called up the Apportionment bill, returned
from the Senate, insisting upon the amendments disagreed to
by the House. He moved to recede, and Wise moved the
previous question. The House refused to recede, by yeas and
nays — one hundred and eighty-four to one hundred and ten.
W. Cost Johnson moved to adhere; but the House refused
that — eighty to one hundred and twenty-seven. Adjourned.
¦"*¦ 16th. At the House, Ridgway, one of the members from the
State of Ohio, presented a petition that the House would re
scind the resolution of censure upon Joshua R. Giddings; but
the House did nothing with it. Stanly moved the appointment
"\)f a select committee to investigate the expenditures on account
of Virginia military bounty land warrants — from which sprang
a debate, and Hiland Hall opened a hideous sink of corrup
tion, till he was arrested by the expiration of the morning
hour. Then came a snarling party struggle about the printing
of extra copies of certain tabular tariff statements. Appor
tionment bill. Garret Davis moved to reconsider the vote of
yesterday, refusing to recede from the disagreement to the
Senate's amendments. Thompson, of Indiana, moved the pre
vious question. The reconsideration was carried, by yeas and

1842.] 7 HE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. jyg
nays — one hundred and one to ninety-seven; so a vote of one
hundred and ten was reconsidered by a vote of one hundred
and one. Everett then moved to recede, and Thompson, of
Indiana, moved again the previous question; but a motion to
adjourn, moved at once by Botts and Bowne, in the vain hope
of turning the tide again to-morrow, was carried. An out-
of-door negotiation with Southern slave-holders and Northern
Five-Points Democrats has accomplished this revolution in the
voting of the House, all linked together by a common hatred,
envy, jealousy, and fear of one man. It is an exact counter
part of the restoration of the gag-rule, effected in the same
manner and by the same tactics.
17th. Charles J. Ingersoll, from the Judiciary Committee,
reported a bill for the relief of General Andrew Jackson. He
presented also a report of the minority of the committee, three
in number, and moved that it be printed. Barnard, Chairman
of the committee, feebly objected to the printing; but it was
carried. The Apportionment bill was then taken up. The
previous question had been called last evening on the motion
to recede from the disagreement to the Senate's amendments;
and now, by four successive votes, the previous question bearing
upon them all, the House receded from their disagreement, by
yeas and nays — one hundred and nine to one hundred and
four. Gwin moved the previous question on Everett's motion
to concur, which cut off all amendment. Boyd moved to lay
the bill on the table; lost — ninety to one hundred and eighteen.
The vote to concur with the Senate's ratio was one hundred
and thirteen to one hundred and three ; and that allowing frac
tional representation, one hundred and eleven to one hundred
and two. The alteration of numbers specifically assigned to
each State was agreed to without a division ; and the bill, with
all the Senate's amendments, was passed. Thompson moved
a reconsideration of the vote concurring with the fractional
representation, which was also rejected without yeas and nays.
Committee of the whole on the state of the Union, McKennan
in the chair, on the Tariff bill. Saltonstall made his hour
speech. Habersham took the floor, the committee rose, and
the House adjourned.

j8o MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [June,
1 8th. At the House, Edward D. White, by an explosion of
indignant eloquence, and a suspension of the rules, introduced,
and drove through by a headlong impulse, a bill taking away
the power of holding to bail on mesne process a debtor, unless
upon affidavit of the debt by the creditor. He declaimed about
liberty and the natural inalienable rights of man, as if there
was not a slave in his State or in this District. If I had said
one word about slavery I should have had the whole pack of
Southern doulocracy and Northern servility upon me, produced
merely a brawl, and been branded as a firebrand in my own
land of the Pilgrims. I retired, in utter disgust, without the
bar, and suffered this paroxysm of frenzy for the rights of man,
to liberate one Louisiana constituent of Edward D. White from
imprisonment for want of bail, leaving six thousand slaves to
drag their lengthened chain for life, and as inheritance for their
children forever.
Committee of the whole on the state of the Union, McKen-
nan in the chair. Tariff bill. Habersham made an hour speech,
minority; and A. V. Brown, an anti-tariff speech. Committee
rose. I gave notice that I would move next Saturday to go
into committee of the whole on the state of the Union, to take
up the French Claim bill. Adjourned just after three.
19th. I went to the Capitol, and heard the Rev. Mr. Edgar,
of Nashville, Tennessee, upon Matthew xi. 6: "And blessed
is he whosoever shall not be offended in me.'' Mr. Edgar can
hardly yet be called an elderly man. He is a handsome speaker,
with a strong, clear voice, a good delivery, plain piety, sound
sense, and rational religion. He did not allude to the circum
stances under which the words were spoken, nor attempt to
explain thereason why John the Baptist, who at his first meeting
with Jesus had so energetically proclaimed him " The Lamb of
God, who taketh away the sins of the world," should afterwards
have sent from prison to enquire of Jesus, " Art thou he that
should come, or do we look for another ?" Sterne's thirty-sixth
sermon is upon this same text; and I thought he had accounted
for this message from the Baptist, as an indirect appeal to Jesus
to release him from prison by a miracle — the liberation of pris
oners being, from the prophecy of Isaiah lxi. 1, 2, the special

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 181
object of the mission of the Messiah ; but on referring to Sterne's
sermon I find that although it does allude to the message from
John, it does not account for it, nor mark the peculiar point
of Christ's answer with reference to John's own situation as
prompted to the message. Mr. Edgar confined himself to
enumerating the causes of taking offence with the Christian
religion, and with exhortation to the duty of forbearing to take
such offence. His argument might have been greatly fortified
by illustrations of comparison and contrast between the causes
of offence in the Christian, now operating upon the hearts and
minds of men, and that against which the answer of Jesus
admonished John to be upon his guard. I cannot pursue this
disquisition. 20th. In the House, immediately after the reading of the
journal, I offered a resolution calling upon the Secretary of the
Treasury to report to the House as soon as may be practi
cable, after the ist of July now impending, the. amount paid or
credited to the several States of the Union from the proceeds
of the sales of the public lands ; the amount retained in pay
ment of interest or principal of debts due from the States to
the United States ; and the amount due from the indebted
States to the United States. My resolution was received and
adopted without opposition and without remark.
T. B. King presented a petition from certain inhabitants of
Alexandria, praying to be re-ceded to the State of Virginia, so
that they may enjoy the right of suffrage in the election of
members of Congress. I opposed it, as being a petition for
the dissolution of the Union, and moved its reference to a
committee of one member from each State, with instructions
to report against it. King himself moved its reference to a
committee of one member from each State ; but a motion to
lay it on the table was carried by a large majority, with refusal
of the yeas and nays.
A message from the President was received, but not commu
nicated by the Speaker to the House. It was in answer to the
call, made at my motion, for copies of the Quintuple Treaty,
of Cass's protest, and all the correspondence concerning it. He
says that no copy has been officially communicated to this

j82 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [June,
Government, and that he therefore cannot send an authentic
copy ; and he declines sending the other papers, believing it
incompatible with the public interest.
Committee of the whole on the state of the Union, McKennan
in the chair, on the Tariff bill. Hiram P. Hunt made an hour
speech for a protective tariff"; John Van Buren, anti-tariff; Brock-
way and Thompson, of Indiana, both protective; Cowen, of Ohio,
took the floor, the committee rose, and the House adjourned.
Richard D. Davis, of Poughkeepsie, New York, came and
professed some unexpected opinions to me. Nimium ne crede
colpri. 21st. Committee of Foreign Affairs. Present, Adams, Cush
ing, Everett, Granger, Caruthers, Meriwether, Stuart; absent,
Shepperd and White.
I mentioned the message yesterday received from the Presi
dent, but not presented to the House, and said I thought it
contained a controvertible principle. I said, if the committee
should think proper to notice it, I would, when it should be
presented by the Speaker, move its reference to the committee ;
but if not, I would move it should be laid on the table and
printed. I was instructed to move its reference to the com
mittee. As soon as the journal was read in the House, I re
minded the Speaker of the message; and he presented it.
When read, I moved its reference to the Committee of Foreign
Affairs, and printed ; which was adopted without opposition.
Gilmer then growled for an hour against Hiland Hall for
detecting and exposing a multitude of gross frauds perpetrated
in the claims relating to the Virginia military land warrants ;
after which, in committee of the whole on the state of the
Union, McKennan in the chair, Cowen, of Ohio, made an
earnest hour speech for a protective tariff; Andrew Kennedy,
a craving, croaking, and brawling, vulgar, hour, anti-tariff, and,
above all, anti-Whig speech; and Steenrod, a deep-toned,
tragedy-queen declamation, on the same side. Fornance, a
drivelling changeable from Pennsylvania, drawled out, with a
nasal twang, an hour of ambidexter neutrality. These men
had succeeded in driving the members from their seats, till
there was no quorum. No member rose to speak. The ques-

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. ^
tion upon Habersham's amendment was actually taken by
tellers, and lost — thirty-seven to eighty^five. Pickens said he
wished to speak, but was not ready ; so the bill was laid aside,
and the Indian Appropriation bill was taken up and worried
through the committee and reported to the House. McKay
there made some show of resistance, and said he could expose
an enormous fraud in the largest item of appropriation in the
bill; but the House was impatient, and, without listening to
McKay, passed the bill to the third reading, and, if it had been
engrossed, would have passed it then. But I entreated them to
hear McKay, and they ordered the third reading for to-morrow.
22d. My visitors yesterday were two Quakers from Maine,
going as missionaries from New England and New York con
ferences, to hold communion with the Indian tribes west of the
Mississippi, and applied to me for advice — which I gave them
according to my ability ; Ex-Captain Clark, to whom I re
turned his papers, requesting him to excuse me from giving
him my opinion upon his case — because I regretted that I could
not give an opinion which would please him.
Mr. Mitchel is a Professor of Mathematics of Cincinnati,
where he delivered last winter a course of lectures, he says,
to three thousand persons, and he kindled such a passion for
astronomy in that city that they have formed an astronomical
society, with stock, in shares of twenty-five dollars each, and
have raised a fund of thirty thousand dollars to erect and
furnish an observatory, for which purpose he is 'now going
to England. Mr. Pendleton introduced this gentleman to
me on the floor of the House, and he came last evening to my
house, with a young man named Baker, also from Cincinnati,
a sculptor, bound to Florence, in imitation of Greenough, and
Powers, and Clevenger.
I gave Mr. Mitchel a copy of my report to the House, of
March, 1840, on the Smithsonian bequest, and he all but
begged of me letters to my friends in Europe. There is an
obtrusiveness of braggart vanity in the man, which he passes
off for scientific enthusiasm, and which is very annoying.1
1 Scant praise for Mitchel ; but Mr. Adams knew him better afterwards — though
he did not live to appreciate his patriotic services in the war.

I 84 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [June,
Franklin Whitney, from New Bedford, is an inventor, who
fancies he has been wronged by the Commissioner of Patents,
and has prepared a memorial to Congress for redress. Mr.
Burnell is to present it to the House; and Mr. Whitney re
quests my influence in his behalf.
Dr. and Mrs. Baldwin were occasional visitors ; but the
Doctor has a claim against Mexico, and a memorial to Con
gress concerning it, which invokes sympathy, to which my
feeling responds more freely than my reason.
In the House, this day, Casey made a thrust to drive through
a land pre-emption plunder bill, partly but not wholly suc
cessful. Goggin scolded his hour at Hiland Hall for exposing
the frauds of Virginia military land warrants; and W. 0.
Goode took the floor to follow him. In committee of the
whole on the state of the Union, McKennan in the chair,
Pickens spouted for his hour anti-tariff statistics against the
Tariff bill ; Snyder, of Pennsylvania, ditto — and, by way of
originality, exhibited a pair of coarse worsted socks of home
manufacture. The members one by one stole away from their
seats. The debate languished. Smith, of Virginia, " Extra
Billy,"1 took the floor, but was not ready. Cushing blazed out
like a fagot for patriotism, against the equality of mankind, and
Wise corrected him — both blundering and buzzing like beetles
against the ceiling till they capsized and dropped on the floor.
23d. After the forensic disputation between Cushing and
Wise, yesterday, about the natural equality of mankind, and
patriotism, J. P. Kennedy took the floor, and the committee
rose. Fillmore gave notice that he should move to-morrow to
take up the Senate's amendments to the Navy Appropriation
bill, and the House after four adjourned.
Mr. Horsley Palmer had visited at my house, and left a
letter of introduction from C. A. Davis, of New York.
Mr. Mitchel, of Cincinnati, sent to my seat for me, and asked
me for a letter of introduction to the Astronomer Royal ; and I
complied with his request.
- A nickname given to him for certain extra charges which he was in the habit
of making whilst engaged as a contractor for carrying the mails over roads in the
State of Virginia.

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 185
This morning I called at the office of the Commissioner of
Pensions, and left with him a document in support of a widow's
pension claim ; then at the Navy Department, and after wait
ing a full half-hour for David Levy, the delegate from Florida,
to close his interview with the Secretary, I succeeded him in
the office. I made some enquiries about the amendments of
the Senate to the Navy Appropriation bill, which neither he
nor I could understand. Upon another half-hour's conversa
tion with him I found it would be necessary for me to pursue
my own course upon the bill, without regard to his opinions.
I came to the House, and found Barker Burnell inveighing
against the reduction of the appropriations ; after which, Charles
J. Ingersoll delivered his hour talk for and against the appro
priation, and the navy. Meriwether, who followed him, said
he had argued both sides of the question so well that he had
left him in doubt on which side he would vote. Meriwether
himself pressed his retrenchment reductions with great vigor
and vehemence. He attacked the Secretary with great severity
for the errors in his estimates ; he commented also with in
dignation upon the speeches of Buchanan and Bayard, in the
Senate, censuring the conduct of the House of Representa
tives. Sprigg came next, with a wild rhapsody for reducing the
expenditures, and against the navy.
I spoke about half an hour against agreeing to the Senate's
amendment reducing the item of appropriation for pay, and
also against their amendment sanctioning the appointment of
navy officers till the close of the present session, and providing
that hereafter midshipmen shall be appointed from the several
States, Territories, and Districts according to federal numbers
in the service ; and I adduced proofs from public documents,
positive proofs, of extreme disproportions in the appointments
of naval officers, in favor of the States of Virginia, Maryland,
and the District of Columbia, and against Massachusetts.
24th. In the House, the resolution of enquiry by a select com
mittee about the appropriations for the allowance of Virginia
military land warrants came up. W. O. Goode followed the
Virginia pack against Hall. James Cooper moved the previous

t86 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [June,
question, but withdrew it at the request of Hall, to give him
the opportunity to reply to the Virginia vituperations. Fill
more moved to go into committee of the whole on the state
of the Union; but Cowen claimed the day for private business,
and the House sustained him. There were fifty-two private
bills engrossed for a third reading, which were read by their
titles, and passed. A bill for the relief of Hugh Stewart was
rejected, by yeas and nays — seventy to seventy-eight. I voted
against it, because, on hearing the report read, I saw no suffi
cient proof in it of the justice of the claim. Samuel S. Bowne,
of Cooperstown, Otsego, New York, voted against it, and im
mediately after moved a reconsideration of the vote — a practice
very common in the House, but which I deem neither fair nor
honest. Committee of the whole on the state of the Union, John C.
Clark, of Bainbridge, Chenango, New York, in the chair. Two
or three cases were taken up and passed to be reported, without
examination or enquiry. A bill purporting to be for the relief
of James C. Watson, of the State of Georgia, filthy with the
stench of slave-trade abominations, was passing with the same
silent connivance of the servile North. Giddings had spoken
to me of the abomination of this bill ; but Giddings was not
in his seat, nor was Slade in his. In three minutes the bill
would have been reported to the House without amendment,
and passed through by the screw of the previous question. I
rose, and moved to strike out the enacting clause of the bill ;
and Mark A. Cooper blazed out for the slave-trade. Caruthers
had reported the bill with a report, and said he could satisfy
me in a very few words with the justice of the claim. The
Chairman said, if the bill was to be debated it must lie over,
and directed the Clerk to take up the next. Cooper sputtered
and blustered and rioted, till he declared he would object to
every bill called up, until my objection to the bill for the relief
of Watson — the result of which was that Cooper disgraced
himself in the face of the world ; but I have no time or space
here to tell how.
25th. Dr. Mayo called on me yesterday morning, just as I
was going out to the Capitol, and asked me if I could let

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. \%y
him have the letter which he wrote me early in 1838, when
he furnished me copies of his letter to President Jackson,
of 2d December, 1830, and of that of 10th December, 1830,
from Jackson to W. Fulton, then Secretary of the Territory
of Arkansas.
I told him that if I had received from him such a letter, of
which my recollection was indistinct, it must be on my files of
letters of the year 1838, which were at Quincy; that of course
I could not furnish the letter now, but on my return to Quincy
I expected I could find it, in which case it should be at his
service. The verdict of the jury in the Doctor's suit for a
libel against Blair and Rives, editors of the Globe, was against
him. He says that his counsel, Mr. Coxe, will move the Court
for a new trial, on the ground that the verdict was against law
and evidence, and has no doubt that he will succeed. He inti
mated that the affidavit of James D. Westcott, in 1830, Secre
tary in the Territory of Florida, and himself an enormous
speculator in Texas adventure, had operated much against him
before the jury; and he left a copy of it with me. Mr. West
cott says he was perfectly well acquainted with Houston's pro
jects in 1829 for the emancipation of Texas, and largely shared
in them ; but that he never received from President Jackson
such a letter as that to Fulton.
This morning I called at the Treasury Department, to en
quire for the report on the call for a return of State debts. I
met McClintock Young in the entry on the lower floor, who
told me that the report had been sent to the House. I went
immediately to the Capitol, for a day of business so diversified,
multiplied, and important that I can make no record of it.
My call on the Secretary of the Navy for returns of native
seamen by States had been left last evening under the previous
question, and a forced adjournment for want of a quorum ; but
there were five or six other fragments of unfinished business
to be taken up in turn, and I had last week given notice that
I should move this day to go into committee of the whole on
the state of the Union, to take up the French Claim bill. I
got the floor by moving an amendment of the journal, which
was clear, and made without opposition ; and, while up, refer-

r88 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [June,
ring to my notice given, I moved to go into committee of the
whole on the state of the Union, to take up that bill ; but I
had numerous competitors for the floor. Mark A. Cooper
and Black consumed an hour and a half to bully and brow
beat the House to rescind the record of Cooper's disgrace
on the journal. Hiland Hall took the morning hour to flay
T. W. Gilmer, on the Virginia military land warrants. The
struggle for the floor was continued through a great part of
the day. Several bills at their third reading were passed with
out opposition. Two reports from the Secretary of the Treas
ury were presented by the Speaker — one of them the answer
to the call of the House last summer for a return of the State
debts, which at my motion was ordered to be laid on the table
and printed. By dint of importunities, I obtained the adoption
of my resolution offered yesterday, calling on the Secretary
of the Navy for returns of native and naturalized seamen by
States; to which Cave Johnson succeeded in adding an amend
ment concerning the cost of ships.
Fillmore moved a suspension of the rules to take up the
amendments of the Senate to the temporary tariff; he failed by
a vote of one hundred and twenty-seven to sixty-six — not quite
two-thirds. The bill was nevertheless soon after taken up;
the previous question called, and carried, on the amendments
of the Senate, containing the suspension of the distribution of
the proceeds of the public lands to the States from the 1st of
July to the ist of August. This surrender of all the proceeds
of the public lands was perpetrated by a Whig vote of one
hundred and four to ninety-six. Bowne's motion to reconsider
the vote rejecting the bill for the relief of Hugh Stewart was
carried — ninety-five to forty-three ; and the bill was passed —
eighty-seven to sixty-nine.
I voted for the reconsideration, and for the bill, upon expla
nation made to me this morning by Mr. Nye. I moved so
often to go into committee of the whole on the state of the
Union that I finally succeeded, by tellers — sixty-two to sixty.
Kennedy had the floor on his report and bill from the Com
mittee of Commerce, but yielded it to me, and I moved to
take up the French Claim bill ; carried, by tellers — seventy-

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. x8g
two to seventy. Dixon H. Lewis instantly moved the com
mittee to rise ; lost, by tellers — sixty-six to seventy-nine. At
last the Clerk read the bill through, and I then made an expo
sition of claims, and had read, by the Clerk, B. Howard's report
as Chairman of the Committee of Foreign Affairs in March,
1838. I moved the committee to rise, and report the bill ; but
Arnold made a heated speech against the bill, Tillinghast a
short one in its favor, and Hunter moved the committee to rise,
for the chance of another day to pour out his volley against it,
and the committee rose.
John Tyler, Jr., delivered to the Speaker a message from
the President of the United States, announcing to the House
that he had approved and signed the Apportionment bill, and
had sent with the bill, to the Department of State, his reasons
for signing it. I moved that the message be referred to a select
committee, with power to send for persons and papers. I gave
my reasons for this motion, which were answered with great
violence by Wise. Adjourned after five o'clock.
27th. Met the members of the Massachusetts delegation in
both Houses of Congress, in the committee-room of the Com
mittee on Post Offices and Post Roads of the House. I nomi
nated Isaac C. Bates as Chairman, and he was chosen. Choate
was also present; and Baker, Borden, Briggs, Hudson, and
Parmenter, whom I had taken up in the Pennsylvania Avenue.
Burneil was also there ; but neither Appleton, Calhoun, Cush
ing, nor Saltonstall was there. A motion was made, and it
was voted, that I should announce Mr. Hastings's decease to
the House.
While we were there, Mr. Yorke, of the New Jersey delega
tion in the House, came in and delivered to me a note from
Mr. Maxwell, informing me of the death of Samuel L. South
ard, late President of the Senate — he died yesterday morning,
at Fredericksburg, Virginia — and requesting me to announce
the event to the House, or to follow the member from the
State who shall announce it. After some consultation, it was
agreed that the death of Mr. Hastings should be announced in
the House, and that of Mr. Southard in the Senate, this day,
but that the latter should not be communicated to the House

tq0 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [June,
till to-morrow, when the funeral is to take place. Accord
ingly, as soon as the journal had been read, I rose, and an
nounced the death of William Soden Hastings, a member of
the House, from the Ninth Congressional District of Massa
chusetts ; and, after a short address to the House upon his
character, I moved the usual resolutions of the deep sensibility
of the House at the decease of Mr. Hastings, and that the
members will wear crape thirty days — which were unanimously
adopted ; also, that the Speaker inform the Governor of Massa
chusetts of the vacancy in the delegation from that State, and
then that the House do adjourn.
28th. In the House, immediately after the reading of the
journal, the Secretary of the Senate, Asbury Dickins, came
in with two messages — one communicating a resolution hon
orary to the memory of William S. Hastings, adopted on
receiving from the House the message announcing his decease;
and the other communicating {to the House the decease of
Samuel L. Southard, late a Senator from the State of New
Jersey, and inviting the House to attend his funeral this day
from the Senate-chamber at eleven o'clock. John P. B. Max
well then rose, and delivered a funeral eulogy upon Mr. South
ard, closing with a direct appeal to me, and moving the hon
orary resolutions — one of which was that the House would
attend the funeral. I seconded the motion, and responded
to the appeal of Mr. Maxwell by pronouncing a brief pane
gyric upon Mr. Southard, which he had well deserved at my
hands. The House adjourned, and I followed with Mr. Granger,
immediately after the Speaker and Clerk, in the procession to
the Senate-chamber, where the impressive funeraj solemnities
were performed by Mr. Tustin, the Chaplain of the Senate.
Mr. Maffitt, the Chaplain to the House, was not present. Mr.
Tustin made a long prayer, read the fifteenth chapter of the
First Epistle to the Corinthians, and preached a discourse of
nearly an hour upon John xiv. 1 : " Let not your heart be
troubled." The corpse was not brought into the Senate-
chamber. In the procession of carriages to the grave-yard, I
went with the Speaker, and Clerk, and Mr. Appleton. We

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. igl
returned to the Capitol, and left the Speaker and Clerk there.
I left Mr. Appleton at his lodgings, and came home. The
President and his Cabinet were at the Senate-chamber, but did
not go to the grave. My address to the House this day was
less pleasing than that of yesterday.
29th. I called up my resolution for the appointment of a
select committee upon the masked veto message. I had some
difficulty in getting it up, and, foreseeing that my right to speak
to it a second time would be denied, I offered a modification
of it, that the committee should consist of five members.
Landaff W. Andrews, who had the floor, yielded it to me.
Objection was made to my speaking a second time ; but the
Speaker said that the resolution having been modified since I
spoke, it was no longer to the same question. So indispen
sable is small management in this great assembly. But for
this little artifice, I should surely have been silenced. I spoke
a full hour, and brought out all my objections to the masked
veto. When I finished, Landaff" W. Andrews moved the pre
vious question; seconded — seventy-five to seventy- two. Proffit
moved the yeas and nays on the question, Shall the main
question be now put? yeas and nays, one hundred and seven
to ninety-seven. Boyd moved to lay the whole subject on the
table; yeas and nays, ninety-one to one hundred and seven.
I proposed then to modify the resolution by striking out the
power to send for persons and papers; but this was objected
to. I therefore required, and McKay moved to divide the
question. The reference was carried without division, and
the power to send for persons and papers was rejected.
The Indian, Appropriation bill was then taken up. McKay
made a feeble demonstration of enormous abuses, and Gwin
moved a new section ; but the previous question swept off all
else, and the bill was passed.
John Tyler, Jr., brought in a message from the President,
returning the Little Tariff bill, with his objections to its pas
sage, which produced a burst of indignation from Granger and
Fillmore, of exultation from Holmes, of Jesuitism and double-
dealing from Cushing, replied to with spirit and vivacity by

Ig2 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [June,
Saltonstall. Briggs took the floor, and at five the House
adjourned. 30th. At the House, this morning, Fillmore offered a reso
lution of enquiry of the Secretary of the Treasury, whether he
has changed his opinion since he reported to the House that
it might well be doubted whether without further legislation by
Congress any impost duties can be collected after this day;
and, if so, what has caused, the change? Adopted without
opposition. John McKeon came to my seat with a resolution which he
was about to offer, directing the Committee of Naval Affairs
to enquire into the expediency of testifying in some manner
the high sense entertained by this House of the merits and
services of the officers and men employed in the late exploring
expedition. I advised him to insert the name of Lieutenant
Charles Wilkes, the commander ; which he did. But Mallory,
of Norfolk, objected to the resolution as untimely. He was
for waiting to know what had been the results of the expe
dition. "Ay!" said McKeon, "Wilkes is not a Virginian.''
McKeon's resolution was not received.
John B. Weller, the rankest Five-Points Democrat in the
House, volunteered to be the new Tyler financier, and first
asked the unanimous consent of the House, and then moved a
suspension of the rules, and called for the yeas and nays, to
enable him to introduce a bill, to be carried through both
Houses of Congress and signed by the President this day, to
continue all the tariff laws, as they existed on the ist of this
month, until further legislation by Congress. Bowne moved
a call of the House. Cushing called the yeas and nays on this
motion, and they were taken — eighty-nine to eighty-three. The
House was called ; two hundred and two members answered to
their names. Weller modified his bill, limiting it to the 3d
of next March, instead of till further legislation by Congress,
and adding to " existing laws " the words " in actual opera
tion." James Cooper moved to lay Weller's motion to sus
pend the rules, on the table, but, at Everett's request, withdrew
his motion. The vote by yeas and nays to suspend the rules
was ninety-six to one hundred and six — not even a majority.

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. jg^
Roosevelt immediately moved again to suspend the rules to
enable him to introduce a bill authorizing the Secretary of
the Treasury to prescribe regulations for the appraisement of
imported goods, ad libitum, under the direction of the Presi
dent. Yeas and nays on Roosevelt's motion to suspend the
rules, ninety-one to one hundred and thirteen. Then the de
bate on the Little Tariff veto was resumed. Briggs, A. H. H.
Stuart, Tillinghast, Proffit, Lane, of Indiana, and Weller, kept
it up till five o'clock. Caruthers took the floor, committee
rose, and House adjourned. We had a numerous party of
evening visitors, as per margin.1
July ist. Committee of Foreign Affairs. Present, Adams,
Stuart, White, Granger, Everett, Shepperd, Caruthers ; absent,
Cushing and Meriwether. Two messages were referred to the
committee: 1, on the 21st of June, declining to communicate
copies of the Quintuple Treaty, Cass's protest, and the cor
respondence relating thereto ; 2, 24th of June, with the pro
posal to establish a line of steam packets between Havre and
New York, at the joint expense of the Governments of the
United States and of France. The first only was taken up and
discussed. I stated my reason for offering the resolution-call, and my
opinion that the answer of the message was not satisfactory.
Difference of opinion with regard to the relative rights of the
House, and of the Executive, appeared. After some discus
sion, Mr. Everett drew up and offered a resolution, against
which, he said, it was not improbable that he should himself
vote. The committee had not time to consider it, nor to take
up the message relating to a line of steam packets between
New York and Havre.
In the House, Fillmore, from the Committee of Ways and
Means, reported the Army Appropriation bill, with the Senate's
amendments, and amendments thereto. Referred to the com
mittee of the whole on the state of the Union, and ordered to
be printed.
Pendleton reported a bill for payment of the Florida militia.
Casey, of Illinois, moved a joint resolution to adjourn on
1 The names of ten persons are given in the margin, ladies and gentlemen.
VOL. XI. — 13

i94

MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [July,

Monday, the 18th of this month. Objection made. Casey
moves to suspend the rules. Call of the House; refused.
Suspension refused, by yeas and nays — seventy-five to eighty.
The veto message to the Little Tariff bill was now taken up,
the question being whether the bill shall pass notwithstanding
the objections of the President. Everybody knows that it will
not pass even the House. All debate upon it, therefore, with
reference to the action of the House-, is waste of time; but
the reasons of the President, and the President himself, are
canvassed with great bitterness. Caruthers had the floor this
morning — a man of placid temper, courteous manners, and
mild deportment, a steady, Southern, slave-holding Whig. He
exposed the futility of the President's reasons for objecting to
the bill, and got into the muddy stream of Tennesseean poli
tics, which called up Gentry, Turney, Christopher W. Williams,
and W. B. Campbell. Rhett, Summers, Barnard, and Joseph L.
White followed, each for an hour. William Smith, of Virginia,
the competitor and successor of the late ill-starred Linn Banks,
took the floor, the committee rose, and the House adjourned.
The heat insupportable.
I was occupied amidst the din and bustle of the day in pre
paring a report for the select committee on the message, about
the President's exposition of reasons for approving and signing
the Apportionment bill. The committee are Adams, Pope,
McKennan, Hunter, and Proffit.
2d. Met at nine this morning the select committee on the
President's message informing the House of Representatives
that he had caused to be deposited in the office of the Secre
tary of State an exposition of his reasons for giving his sanc
tion to the Apportionment Act. Present, Adams, McKennan,
Hunter, and Proffit. Mr. Pope did not attend. I presented
a resolution which I proposed the Chairman of the committee
should be directed to offer to the House, calling upon the Sec
retary of State to bring or transmit to the House the exposition
of the reasons for his approving and signing the Apportionment
Act, deposited in the office of the Secretary of State, accom
panying the bill. There was little debate on the subject in
committee. Proffit said he would prefer asking for a copy,

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 795
voted against the resolution, and asked if I should have any
objection to a counter minority report.
I said, certainly not. I reserved my own unfinished report till
the purport of Mr. Tyler's reasons shall have been ascertained.
In the House, immediately after the reading of the journal,
and two or three other intrusions, I presented the resolution
as directed by the committee, which was opposed first by Prof
fit, who doubted the power of this House to send to a public
Department for an original paper or document, and then by
Cushing, who maintained that the House had no right to send
for an original paper to a public Department, in its judicial
capacity. Charles J. Ingersoll enquired what was the object
of the committee in proposing to send for the paper.
I answered, that the House might know what the paper was,
and what it contained.
He said he should then vote for the resolution, and, with
some other remarks,, did so. I called for the yeas and nays
on Cushing's amendment,1' which was carried — ninety-four to
eighty; a close party vote of eighty Democrats, six of the
guard, and eight Whig deserters. The resolution was then
adopted without a division! Joseph L. White had in his speech
yesterday charged Calvary Morris, one of the deserters from
the Whig ranks to the guard, with frequent absence at the calls
of yeas and nays during the session. Morris asked this day
to make explanation — that he had been disabled by painful and
dangerous cramps in his stomach ; whereupon White said that
if he had known that, he would not have made the charge ;
and he withdrew it.
The temporary Tariff Veto bill then came up. William
Smith rattled his hour in honor of the compromise and the
veto, and baited Granger into a catechism of question and
answer, which Granger would have done better to treat with
scornful silence. Payne, of Alabama, Watterson, Howard,
Arnold, Wise, and Underwood, followed, each an hour, till
near six o'clock, when Tillinghast moved to adjourn over to
1 Mr. Cushing concluded his speech by moving an amendment in harmony with
his argument, substituting a call for an authenticated copy of the President's reasons
in lieu of the original paper.

jg6 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [July,
Tuesday. The yeas and nays were called ; I voted no ; two or
three others did the same. Tillinghast withdrew his motion,
and the House adjourned. After dinner, I walked in the Presi
dent's grounds, to hear the music of the Marine Corps Band.
Met there Mr. Storer, the clergyman from Portland, returning
from a visit to the State of Mississippi. Great perplexity for
divine counsel.
3d. I attended public worship this morning in the hall of the
House of Representatives. Mr. Tustin made the prayer and
sang the hymn. A stranger young theologian preached from
what he called the Letter of St. Paul to the Hebrews, x. 9 :
"Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God." Our
preacher gave us a small dose of the usual galimatias about
the atonement, and an abridged narrative of the crucifixion.
There were certainly not one hundred auditors present. After
the hall was cleared out, Mr. Leavitt and Mr. Gentry severally
came to my seat to converse with me. Mr. Leavitt soon with
drew, and Gentry most earnestly entreated me to make a speech
on the monthly tariff veto, and*he urged me specially to make
it to-morrow. I have had so many applications to the same
effect that I can no longer resist, and must commit my cause
to heaven, with a supplication that nothing may pass my lips
injurious to the cause itself, or unworthy of me.
When I came home, I found Mr. Abbott Lawrence at my
house. I enquired of him the state of the negotiation. He said,
not so promising as he could wish. They had received a projet
from Lord Ashburton respecting the Northeastern boundary;
they had sent him, through the Secretary, in return, their projet.
But the Commissioners from Maine were tenacious upon trifles
— Lord Ashburton was tenacious upon trifles — much more so
than he had appeared to be when he first came. He had re
cently received instructions from home, and had intimated that
they tied him up far beyond those he had brought with him;
and even that if they had prescribed them to him before he
left home, he would not have accepted the mission. Clouds
are thickening round us. Mr. Lawrence said he would see me
again shortly. And he, too, urged me warmly to make a
speech on the Tariff" bill veto.

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. \gy
4th. Independence Day — sixty-six.
Mr. Mercer, a son of the Revolutionary officer killed at
Princeton 1777, called on me this morning. He resides some
where in Virginia, and told me that he had been introduced to
my father, when Vice-President of the United States, at Phila
delphia, in 1796. He had much conversation, and declared his
approbation of my course in Congress. His visit detained me,
so that on reaching the House I found Robert M. T. Hunter
fretting out his hour speech in support of the Little Tariff veto
and in personal justification of the President. When he finished,
James Cooper, of Pennsylvania, took the floor. William Cost
Johnson urged him to yield for a motion to adjourn. Cooper
declined, and spoke an hour against the President and the veto.
Romulus M. Saunders followed in a violent invective against
the Whigs, which includes the whole compass of his concep
tions. There is not a more cankered or venomous reptile in
the country.
Thomas F. Marshall, of Kentucky, came next, with a splen
did hour speech against the veto, enlarging into more general
considerations, embracing the State debts and the distribution
of the proceeds of the public lands.
I had risen to take the floor several times without success,
and felt very awkward, and reluctant to take it while the im
pression of Marshall's speech was bearing so heavily upon the
House. I took it, nevertheless, and began by a compliment to
Marshall, which disarmed him of his resentment, so that im
mediately after I finished he came and offered me his hand.
Of the hasty minutes which I had noted last evening, I fol
lowed the course about one-quarter part through, and was
cut off from my argument just as I began to examine the veto
message. The previous question was immediately afterwards
moved, and, after much struggling, was carried. Cushing,
whom I had somewhat annoyed by exposing his unconsti
tutional doctrines, was excessively anxious to reply. W. C.
Johnson and Sprigg asked to be excused from voting, for the
purpose of making short speeches, and then withdrew their
motions. Sprigg reared and kicked up his hind heels like a
rampant colt. The vote upon the bill was one hundred and

Tg8 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [July,
fourteen to ninety-seven — not two-thirds — and of course was
lost. The report of the Secretary of State, with a copy of the
President's reasons for signing the Apportionment bill, was
presented by the Speaker to the House. I moved that it
should be printed and referred to the select committee. But
John Campbell was gravid with a speech, and an adjournment
was moved and carried.
5th. Committee of Foreign Affairs at nine this morning.
Adams, Everett, Meriwether, Cusfiing, Stuart, Granger, and
Caruthers present ; absent, Shepperd and White. The resolu
tion offered last Friday by Everett was a call, without qualifi
cation, upon the President for copies of Cass's protest against
the ratification by France of the Quintuple Treaty. But Everett
himself, in offering it, doubted whether he- would vote for it,
and cannot settle in his own mind whether the intercourse
between the House and the President, with regard to calls for
papers, is matter of courtesy or of right.
Cushing pretended that the House had no more right to call
upon the President than the President had to call upon the
House. I gave my opinions of the right of the House to make a
peremptory call, without reserve; but the other members of
the committee seemed afraid to speak their minds on the sub
ject, which was postponed for further consideration, as was the
other proposed project for a line of steam-packets between
Havre and New York, at the joint expense of the Govern
ments of the United States and of France.
At the House, after two or three reports of committees, and
as many petitions, one of which was presented by Mr. Botts
for a protective tariff from two thousand inhabitants of Rich
mond, Virginia, at which he declared his delight, the morning
hour was given to Mr. Thomas W. Gilmer, for his personal
explanation, under the merciless scourge of Hiland Hall. He
spoke with lordly but blushing contempt of the paltry pittance
of one per cent, commission upon whatever might be recov
ered upon the Virginia military land warrant claims, but his
tone towards Hall was changed from overbearing insolence
to humble courtesy.

1 842. J THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS.

I99

The resolution for the appointment of a select investigating
committee of the Virginia military bounty land warrants was
then adopted with the proposed amendments, and Fillmore
moved to go into committee of the whole on the state of the
'Union, upon the general Tariff bill. I pleaded for a decision on
my motion to print and refer to the select committee the report
from the Secretary of State, with the copy of the exposition of
the President's reasons for signing the Apportionment bill ; but
John Campbell insisted on making a speech, and the House
would not wait to hear him. They went into committee, McKen
nan in the chair. John P. Kennedy, Nathan Appleton, Romulus
M. Saunders, Bidlack, McKeon, and Joseph R. Ingersoll, suc
cessively debated the bill till five. Triplett took the floor, and
the House adjourned. Fillmore gave notice that he would to
morrow move two resolutions to limit the time of debate on this
bill. Ingersoll's speech was beautiful, classical, eloquent ; Ken
nedy's, ingenious and cogent; Appleton's, concise and curious.
6th. At the House, I came in just in time to demand the •
decision of the House upon my motion to print and refer to
the select committee the report from the Secretary of State,
with the President's exposition of his reasons for signing the
Apportionment bill. Cushing started up, and said Mr. Camp- .
bell had declared his intention to speak on this question.
Cushing's object was to stave off" the question. I said if
Campbell wished to speak he should be here. Cushing said
he would then take the floor himself; which he did, though
Campbell in the mean time came in. The question to print was
first taken, and carried; and then Cushing spoke near an hour
upon the legislative power of the President. He was followed
by Campbell for nearly another hour. Botts then moved the
previous question, in which I acquiesced, and the reference was
carried without opposition.
Fillmore offered his resolution to take the Tariff" bill out of
committee next Monday; which was amended to Tuesday, and
carried, by yeas and nays — ninety-eight to ninety-three; but
he could not obtain a suspension of the rules to offer the reso
lution to cease general debate on the Tariff bill, and take up
the details, on Friday next.

200 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [July,
Committee of the whole on the state of the Union, McKen
nan in the chair, on the Tariff" bill. Triplett, Washington,
Barnard, and Mark A. Cooper spoke each for his hour. John
T. Mason took the floor, the committee rose for lack of a
quorum, and the House adjourned after five.
7th. To the House, and found John Thompson Mason in
superlatively dull discourse against the Tariff bill. Charles J.
Ingersoll had been bustling with a resolution to prohibit any
motion to adjourn before six o'clock p.m., every day till next
Tuesday. It was ultimately laid over one day under the rule.
William Cost Johnson followed, and employed his hour in
unfolding his plan for assuming the debts of the States, or a
large portion of them. He promised to bring out his plan
more fully hereafter. Then Roger L. Gamble, of Georgia,
replied to the furious assault of his colleague Mark A. Cooper.
There was some sparring between them. Cooper denied that
he had formed any coalition with the Tyler party. Gamble
alluded to a toast given by Charles J. Ingersoll at a dinner
given by the President to his partisans last Monday — "Veto,
and ditto" — and to two other political cross-fire toasts, given at
a Tyler and a Democratic party at Philadelphia, last Monday.
Payne, of Alabama, pronounced an hour of invective against
protection. Everett came next, with a strong protection speech,
and in defence of himself for having signed the Whig mani
festo at the close of the last session of Congress. He alluded
also to the compromise of 1833, but very feebly, and with his
ordinary timorous reserve. W. W. Irwin, one of the corporal's
guard, made a Pittsburg iron-tariff speech of an hour, till four
o'clock. Black, of Georgia, then got the floor, and moved the
committee to rise ; but the Chairman urged him to keep hold
of time by the forelock, and make his speech, which he did
now, all in petulant invective against the Georgia Whigs, and
especially Gamble. Milton Brown, of Tennessee, finally closed
the debate for the day, by a half-tariff hour speech. Gwin,
of Mississippi, moved the committee to rise. Sundry bills from
the Senate were then read and referred, among which was the
appropriation for the remainder of the Massachusetts claim.
Adjourned at a quarter-past six.

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 20)
8th. Committee of Foreign Affairs. Present, Adams, Meri
wether, Stuart, Cushing, Caruthers, Everett, Granger, White ;
absent, Shepperd. Message declining to send copies of the
Quintuple Treaty and other documents. After some discus
sion, Everett withdrew his resolution of call, and I moved to
postpone the further consideration of the subject indefinitely ;
agreed. Message with Bacourt's letter, proposing a joint estab
lishment, by the Governments of the United States and of
France, of a line of weekly steamers between Havre and New
York. The impression against this measure seemed to be
unanimous. Reason was piled upon reason against it, till
Cushing moved that the Chairman be directed to prepare
a report against the proposal. I said I must request that
another member should be charged with that report, for I was
for accepting the proposal. What a startling! What were
my reasons ? I gave them. Everett now was for giving a
courteous answer, and calling on the Secretary of State for an
estimate of the expense of such an establishment. Left for
further consideration.
' In the House, Fillmore had the Treasury Circular transferred
from the Committee of Ways and Means to the Committee on
the Judiciary. Stanly reported from the Committee of Military
Affairs the Senate bill for reorganizing the army ; referred to
the committee of the whole on the state of the Union. Com
mittee resumed the Tariff bill, McKennan in the chair. A.
H. H. Stuart, Brewster, Calvary Morris, R. D. Davis, Stanly,
Saunders, Weller, Mathiot, Gordon, Daniel, speaking when I
left the House. Hudson and Burke discoursed till about nine
o'clock, when the House adjourned.
9th. I met the select committee of five on the report of the
Secretary -of State with the President's exposition of reasons
for signing the Apportionment bill. Present, Adams, McKen
nan, Pope, and Hunter; Proffit, absent. I read to the commit
tee what I had prepared of a report ; which took me half an
hour; but it was unfinished, and we had no time to discuss it.
We adjourned to next Thursday morning at nine.
In the House, William Cost Johnson asked leave to intro
duce, with a very long labyrinth of preamble, his plan for the

2Q2 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [July,
assumption of the State debts. Objection made. He moves
to suspend the rules, and calls for the yeas and nays. Ayes,
seven, one of which was mine; noes, one hundred and thirty-
two. They don't imagine that it will ever become a serious
question. Cave Johnson offered a long, grubbing resolution
about the plundering appropriations for Cherokee Indians;
which was adopted, and will come to nothing. Fillmore then
moved to go into committee of the whole on the state of the
Union; done — McKennan in the chair. Tariff bill. Summers
and William Smith, both Virginians, made counterpart hour
speeches, for and against the tariff. John T. Stuart, and
Reynolds, both1 of Illinois, did the same. Underwood, of
Kentucky, came next, and then Wallace, of Indiana, a tariff
speech of great power. While he was speaking, at the earnest
and repeated entreaties of Lieutenant Wilkes, I went over to
his house and inspected a great number of the drawings col
lected during the exploring expedition — portraits of men,
women, and children, of the ocean, and Feejee Islands. Fishes,
birds, plants, shells, and navigating charts are in great pro
fusion, more than I had time to examine. I returned to the*
House, and found Patrick G. Goode discoursing on the tariff,
after Beeson, who had succeeded Wallace. John Hastings, of
Ohio, read an hour speech. Randall, of Maine, followed. It
was past six p.m. I left the House, and came home. Almon
H. Read closed the day's debate.
ioth. I attended at the hall of the House of Representatives,
where the services were performed by Mr. Maffitt, after an ab
sence of five weeks. It was announced in the Globe last
evening that he was to preach on " the moral aspects of the
nineteenth century." His text was Revelation xix. 6: "And
I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the
voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunder-
ings, saying, Alleluia : for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth."
The discourse was a rhapsodical declamation upon the moral
improvements of the age — Sunday-schools, Bible, tract, mis
sionary, and temperance societies ; but no abolition — not even
colonization. Not one word on the subject of slavery or
emancipation. " Oh, no ! we never mention her." Mr. Maffitt

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 203
gave notice that he should preach in the hall next Sunday and
the Sunday after, when he would deliver a discourse on the
mysterious fate of the Rev. George Cookman, heretofore a
Chaplain of the House, who, in March, 1 841, embarked at
New York for Liverpool in the steamer President, which, with
all on board, perished at sea. Before dinner, Mr. John C.
Spencer, Secretary of War, called on me with a message from
Daniel Webster, Secretary of State, who he said was on his
bed, with rheumatism in his back. Mr. Webster sent for my
perusal a translation of a note to him from Joaquin Velasquez
de Leon, styling himself Charge d'Affaires of the Mexican
Republic, dated at New York, and enclosing to him two notes
of 10th and 31st May last, from Jose Maria de Bocanegra, the
Mexican Secretary of State, bitterly complaining of the tolera
tion by the Government of the United States of the hostile
interference of their citizens in the civil war between Mexico
and Texas. Mr. Spencer says Velasquez styles himself Charge
d'Affaires, but has never presented himself as such, or with
any credentials, at the Department of State. Mr. Webster
wished for my advice, and thought it most expedient that
there should be a call from the House for the documents.
He would answer the two notes from Bocanegra to-morrow.
I had a long conversation with Mr. Spencer, in which his
opinion of the present prospects of the negotiation with Lord
Ashburton were more favorable than I believe the facts will
warrant. I passed the evening in writing, and musing over
my own condition and that of my country, at the close of my
seventy-fifth year.
nth. Dr. Mayo came to enquire if I had found his letter to
me when he communicated to me his letter to President Jack
son of December, 1830, and Jackson's to Fulton, then Secretary
of Arkansas. I had not. The Doctor expects to obtain a new
trial of his libel suit against Blair and Rives. He told me
that David Fulton, father of the Senator, had deposited what
purported to be the original letter from Jackson to Fulton, of
December, 1830; but he suspected it to be a fabrication, ex
post facto, and that Jackson never sent the letter to Fulton.
This is absurd, and only shows the Doctor's suspicious nature.

2Q4 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [July,
I found the House in session. McKennan asked leave to
present resolutions of a meeting at West Alexander, Wash
ington County, Pennsylvania, against Tyler and the Little Tariff
veto ; but objection was made, suspension of the rules refused,
and the resolutions not received. John W. Jones presented
sundry anti-tariff resolutions, and attempted to speak ; but they
were laid on the table.
Committee of the whole on the state of the Union, McKen
nan in the chair. Tariff or Revenue bill. Holmes, of South
Carolina, Dixon H. Lewis, John Minor Botts, Charles J. In
gersoll, Robert M. T. Hunter, Ezra Dean, and Elisha H. Allen,
hammered out each a one-hour speech, for and against pro
tection. At six o'clock p.m. I left Allen speaking, and came home.
The House continued in session till half-past twelve at night,
with less than forty members present — one drowsy orator suc
ceeding to another, hour by hour, without intermission, and no
body listening to any one of them. We had a small evening
party at home. I am snatching every possible moment, at home
or in the House, for the draft of a report on the exposition of
the President's reasons for signing the Apportionment bill.
1 2th. In the House, I offered a resolution in two clauses,
calling on the President for the diplomatic correspondence
with Mexico and with Texas. It was no sooner read than
Pickens started up, and said he had no objection to the first
branch of my resolution, but he had to the second; where
upon Fillmore insisted that if debate was to arise it must lie
over. I then entreated that the question might be taken on
the first branch of my resolution — the call for correspondence
with Mexico. Landaff W. Andrews now came in, savage as
a famished wolf, called for the reading of my resolution, and
objected to the reception ; and the Speaker sustained him in
his objection. I called for a suspension of the rules, and de
manded the yeas and nays ; which were ordered. Thereupon
Andrews withdrew his objection. The question was taken on
the first branch of my resolution, which was adopted with
scarcely a negative voice. Pickens still objected to the second
branch of my resolution. I extorted from the Speaker a

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 205
promise that it should be taken up at my call to-morrow
morning, and then submitted to its lying over.
Fillmore then moved a resolution postponing the Territorial
business, assigned for to-morrow and the two succeeding days,
till the first three days of next week, and postponing the final
question on the Tariff bill till Friday next at twelve o'clock,
allowing from this day at noon till then for amendments of
detail, each mover of an amendment to have fifteen minutes,
and any one member ten minutes to oppose it. This resolu
tion he finally carried through by two successive suspensions
of the rules. Jacob Thompson then made a foolish hour
speech, and George B. Cary, of Southampton, Virginia, a rem
nant of twenty minutes till noon, when down came the Chair
man's hammer. And then commenced the amendments of
detail. All the chicanery of the House now came into play.
The committee rose after four o'clock. Underwood sprung
upon the House by surprise a resolution postponing the re
trenchment of the hostler, John Lee,1 till the close of the
present session. It passed by acclamation, in spite of the pet
tish remonstrances of Cave Johnson. He raved remonstrance
till the House, on the motion of Briggs, cut him short by-
adjourning. 13th. After a call at the office of the National Intelligencer
to ask for their paper of 2d December last, which I did not
obtain, I barely reached the hall of the House while Mr.
Maffitt was saying grace over the coming deliberations of
the day. The instant French, the Sub-Clerk, had closed the
reading of yesterday's journal, I started up, with the shrill cry,
" Mr. Speaker !" But Cave Johnson, who had stationed him
self in the lane right opposite the chair, caught his eye and
got the floor. He moved a reconsideration of the vote of
mercy to the stable-keeper, John Lee, snatched from the
good nature of the House last evening by Underwood. Cave
launched out into lamentations and indignations, with a direct
¦ " Resolved, That so much of the resolution heretofore adopted by the House,
as relates to the public stables and the supply of horses and mail carts, shall go into
operation from and after the close of the present session of Congress, so far as it
operates on John Lee."

206 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [July,
thrust at Briggs, who was last evening in the Speaker's chair,
for putting the question to spare John Lee for this session,
without heeding his (Cave's) fiery remonstrances. CaveVmo-
tion for reconsideration was first met with the objection that
he, having voted in the minority and against the resolution,
could not move a reconsideration; but he persisted in scolding
till Bowne, a brother radical, who had voted, as he said, for the
resolution, took pity on Cave and moved the reconsideration.
And now Cave flourished away upon retrenchment and reform,
the uselessness of the services of the stable-keeper, John Lee,
and the fortune he was heaping up by hiring out to other
people his six horses. Cave demanded the yeas and nays upon
the reconsideration, and it was carried — seventy-eight to seventy;
then upon the resolution itself; which was again carried —
seventy-eight to seventy-five; and so this mountain of patriotic
parsimony was delivered of its mouse. An hour and a half had
been consumed in this trifling, and my second shriek of " Mr.
Speaker !" brought him to. I called up the second branch of
my resolution offered yesterday — the call for the correspond
ence with Texas. Pickens feebly objected ; said he would
¦not press his objection, but did press it, and called piteously
on any member of the Committee of Foreign Affairs to help
him. Cushing started up, and moved to go into committee of
the whole on the state of the Union. I said, " If my colleague
wishes to suppress information, 'tis time to call at least for the
yeas and nays." There were barely enough rose to obtain them,
I said it was for the sole purpose of taking the question upon
my resolution. Cushing called me to order, and said, " No
debate;'' and he carried his motion — ninety-eight to seventy-
four — half the House not knowing what was the alternative.
McKennan took the chair. I was boiling with indignation,
but suppressed my feelings and submitted in silence. They.
skirmished upon the Tariff" bill till four o'clock, when the com
mittee rose. I instantly called up my resolution again, and
moved the previous question. Pickens was gone; Cushing
was silent. Thompson, of Mississippi, moved to adjourn ; re
fused. Caruthers questioned whether the resolution was in
order. The Speaker said it was. Snyder called for the yeas

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 20y
and nays; refused; and my resolution was adopted with an
almost universal shout. The House immediately afterwards
adjourned. 14th. Meeting at nine o'clock of the select committee on
the President's message of 25th June, announcing to the
House that he had caused to be deposited in the office of the
Secretary of State, accompanying the Apportionment Act, an
exposition of his reasons for giving his sanction to it. Present,
Adams, McKennan, Pope; absent, Hunter and Proffit. I read
the remainder of my report, about half of which I had read at
the last meeting. It concludes with a resolution protesting
against this act of the President, and against its ever being ad
duced as a precedent hereafter. McKennan concurred entirely
with the report. Pope agreed to its being presented to. the
House, but not to the report itself. He had voted against the
districting section in the bill, and had voted to lay on the table
the motion to refer the message to a select committee. Wise
had, as usual, browbeaten the Speaker by the base insinuation
that he would appoint a committee of the bitterest enemies of
the President, and they would report violent measures, the re
sult of which would be to raise the President to the very pin
nacle of popularity, and to prostrate the Whig party forever.
The Speaker, as usual, cowered under Wise's scourge, and
appointed three out of five members of the committee Tyler-
ites. Proffit, at the last meeting, asked me if I should have
any objection to a counter-report; to which I had answered,
none in the world.
The House went, immediately after the reading of the jour
nal, into committee of the whole on the state of the Union,
McKennan in the chair, on the details of the Tariff" bill. The
day was consumed in numberless motions of amendment, a
very large portion of them mere chicanery to waste time and
throw obstacles in the way of the passage of the bill. About
four o'clock this tiresome foolery was superseded by the rising
of the committee. Beeson then offered an amendment to strike
out the twenty-fifth section — the land distribution — and insert
three sections as a substitute — to levy stamp duties on notes
and bank bills. Objection was made. Beeson moved a

2o8 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [July,
suspension of the rules ; the objection was withdrawn, and
Beeson's amendment was laid on the table, and ordered to be
printed. Arnold gave notice that he would next Monday ask leave to
introduce a bill to reduce the pay and mileage of the members
of Congress.
The Speaker presented a message from the President, with
the correspondence with Mexico, in answer to the first branch
of my resolution adopted by the House last Monday. It was
read, ordered to be printed, and referred to the Committee of
Foreign Affairs. The Speaker presented also certain resolu
tions of the Whig, Clay, anti-Tyler committee at New York.
Objection was made to their being received, and the House fell
into- confusion ; in which a motion to adjourn was carried.
15th. In the House, I attempted to get the floor, to present
my report on the Apportionment bill message, but failed.
Cushing, on account of pressure of the Tariff bill, on which
the debate was to cease at twelve o'clock, moved to go imme
diately into committee of the whole on the state of the Union.
Moore, of Louisiana, at the same time asked leave to offer two
new sections to the Tariff bill, and to have them printed — al
leging that they were intended to suppress abominable frauds
in the collection of duties on sugar, and allowance of draw
backs on exported molasses ; but no debate was allowed.
Moore moved to suspend the rules ; but it was refused. Part
of Moore's object was to provide that upon cotton imported
from Texas and exported, only one per cent, of the duty should
be retained of that drawback, and that drawback should be
allowed on all foreign goods exported by land to Texas and
Mexico. I could not obtain the question upon the reception
of my report. The House went into committee of the whole
on the state of the Union, and debated further the details of
the Tariff bill till half-past six o'clock, when, at Botts's motion,
the committee rose, and reported the bill. Bronson, of Maine,
immediately moved the previous question; whereupon the
House immediately adjourned. ^
Mr. Aaron Leggett, one of the large claimants on Mexico,
came to me this morning with a memorial to Congress stating

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 209
the facts of his claim, and invoking the interposition of Con
gress to obtain payment of it. He said he wished to have
some conversation with me concerning it. I appointed eight
o'clock this evening to see him at my house; and just as we
rose from dinner, he came. He remained with me upwards of
an hour, arguing with me on the duty of Congress either to
compel Mexico to pay him, or to assume and pay the debt for
this nation.
I told him that I should be willing to give all proper consid
eration to his memorial, and to agree to any practical measure,
consistent with justice, for his relief. But he complained almost
as much, and with as much justice, of this Government as of
Mexico. The Convention for the settlement of the claims was
so wretchedly contrived, that its real object must have been to
multiply and aggravate the causes of war between the two
countries. 16th. Meeting again of the Committee of Foreign Affairs.
Present, Adams, Cushing, Everett, Granger, Caruthers, Stuart;
absent, Meriwether, Shepperd, and White. Cushing concluded
the reading of his report, which was discussed and slightly
amended. It was accepted, and Mr. Cushing was authorized
to present it to the House. It substantially sustains Mr. Van
Ness's charges upon all the items disallowed by the Fifth Au
ditor, Pleasanton, and the Secretary of State, Forsyth. They
amount to upwards of twenty-five thousand dollars. In a mis
sion of seven years, Van Ness has raked and scraped at every
possible table for crumbs of contingency, and actually increased
his salary from nine to more than twelve thousand dollars a
year. Yet he is able to adduce precedent for every charge,
and, like a tavern-keeper who upon any objection made to his
bill trumps up new charges, he now claims of right salary
from the day of his appointment, though notified at the time
of his appointment that it would begin from the time of his
departure from home on his mission. Cushing favors all the
charges, because he keeps a steady eye upon a mission abroad
himself. Everett favors them all, because Van Ness is a Ver-
monter, with whom he sees it is for his interest to be well.
Granger favors most of them, from the liberality of his spirit,
vol. xi. — 14

2jo MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [July,
but he screws out two or three of the most rapacious items ;
and the Southern economists would gladly apply the retrench
ing sickle, but wish to cast the responsibility of the operation
upon me. Cushing's report studiously evades the expression
of an opinion against any one of the charges, but refers back to
the Executive and the Judicial Courts those that are glaringly
illegal and iniquitous. The result will be the admission of
them all.
In the House, I presented the report from the select com
mittee on the Apportionment bill message, and moved that it
be laid on the table, and printed, and that the resolution at
the close of the report should be read. Cushing enquired
whether I proposed to consider the resolution now. I said, no,
not until the report should be printed. Bowne objected to its
being received. I moved a suspension of the rules. Barnard
moved that the committees should be called for reports; where
upon Bowne withdrew his objection to the reception of mine.
It was laid on the table, and ordered to be printed.
The previous question had been moved last evening, on the
engrossment of the Tariff bill ; there was now a second to the
motion ; but the question, Shall the main question be now put,
was taken by yeas and nays, and decided in the negative —
ninety-seven to one hundred and two. Christopher H. Wil
liams moved a reconsideration, which was carried — one hun
dred and ten to one hundred and four. The day was then
consumed in taking yeas and nays on swarms of amendments,
till near six o'clock. Then the bill passed to engrossment —
one hundred and sixteen to one hundred and eleven — and
passed — one hundred and sixteen to one hundred and twelve.
Reconsideration moved, and refused.
17th. After the Tariff bill had passed, last evening, John
Campbell, of South Carolina, moved an amendment to its title,
to read, " A bill for the protection of manufactures and for
other purposes." Mark A. Cooper moved as an amendment
to this amendment, " A bill to raise revenue for the support
of the Government, and for the protection of manufactures."
Cooper's amendment was immediately rejected, but Campbell
insisted upon having the question upon his taken by yeas

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 2II
and nays, and it was also rejected, by a large majority. Many
of the Whigs inclined to adopt his amendment, and, as it would
have been very acceptable to the North, as an avowed assertion
by Congress of the protective principle, I could not well ac
count for Campbell's pertinacity in urging it, till Gamble told
me that President Tyler had in the most energetic manner
(said) that if the word protection was used in the title to the
bill1 After this flurry was over, a poor
Pennsylvania mute, hue usque, came down from his seat in the
outer circumference, took his stand upon the area fronting the
Speaker's chair, and gave notice that at the next session of
Congress he would introduce a bill for levying a tax upon paper
money made in the similitude of metallic coin.
1 8th. Mr. Leggett brought this morning the manuscript re
port of the American Commissioners under the Convention with
Mexico upon his claim, which he requested me to present with
his memorial and to move that it be printed. Leggett's original
claim was one in which he had no right to claim the interposi
tion of the Government of the United States. But this mode
of intermeddling with the claims of our citizens upon foreign
Governments has become quite familiar to us, and we have
not yet very closely examined how far it will warrant foreign
nations in reciprocating the practice with us. Leggett's claim
and many others upon Mexico were taken up by Jackson's
Administration, to make an offset to the enormous outrages of
Jackson himself, and his Administration, against Mexico ; and
when, in 1837, Jackson's project of kindling a war with Mexico
was baffled and defeated, he left his successor, Van Buren, to
trump up a Convention which he well knew would terminate
in no adjustment or satisfaction of the claims, but leaving them
aggravated causes of war. And now these claims are saddled
upon us, so that we cannot cast them off
At the meeting of the House, I attempted to offer Leggett's
memorial, with the report of the American Commissioners,
but could not get a hearing, even to ask for the printing of
these papers. Arnold attempted to introduce the bill of which
he had given notice, to reduce twenty-five per cent, the pay and
1 Sentence left incomplete.

212 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [July,
mileage of the members of Congress and the salaries of all
the Executive officers ; but he was not permitted to introduce
it, and he opposed the introduction of anything else. Barnard
struggled to report two bills from the Judiciary Committee, but
could not succeed. This and the two succeeding days had
been assigned for the consideration of bills relating to the
Territories. Pope, Chairman of the Committee on the Territories, moved
to go into committee of the whole on the State of the Union.
The Speaker called John W. Jones to the chair; he declined
taking it, and the Speaker called Thomas W. Gilmer in his
place. Stokely, from the Committee of Military Affairs, called
up a bill from the Senate for the armed occupation of Florida;
amended by the Military Committee. Everett and W. Cost
Johnson started an opposition to the bill, which consumed the
day in debate. I took myself a part in this debate, without
success. Sundry amendments were moved, some of them
carried, others rejected. The committee rose twice, for want
of a quorum, and there was one call of the House. The
amendment reported by the Military Committee, amended by
the committee of the whole, was reported to the House; the
engrossment of the bill was carried by yeas and nays — eighty
to fifty — and the passage of the bill — eighty-two to fifty.
Pickens moved a reconsideration, and I moved to adjourn;
which was carried, shortly before six.
19th. Mr. Leggett was again here this morning, enquiring
about his memorial, with the report of the American Commis
sioners upon his claim. I told him I had attempted in vain
yesterday morning to present them to the House ; that I would
repeat the attempt this morning, but, as objection from a single
member is potent to prevent its reception, it would probably
not be possible to obtain its admission. Leggett was hot for
war, till I told him the first " coup de canon" would spunge
his claim. Now he is for an armed negotiation to purchase a
slice of California, and especially the harbor of San Francisco,
and paying for it with the claims.
Meeting of the Committee of Foreign Affairs. Present,
Adams, Stuart, Cushing, Caruthers, White ; absent, Everett,

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 2ll
Granger, Meriwether, and Shepperd. Cushing brought up a
claim of Somerville Pinkney, Administrator of Charles Wil
liams, upon the French Indemnity Claim Convention. Cushing
said it was not a valid claim, and it was referred to Cushing for
a report against it.
A petition for a large appropriation to support an expedition
to occupy and settle the Territory of Oregon. Agreed to pass
it over. The message, with the application of the French Minister,
Bacourt, by order of his Government, for a joint establishment
of a line of mail steamers between Havre and New York, was
taken up, and I was directed to prepare a resolution, to be pre
sented to the House, calling on the President to cause estimates,
and a report to Congress at the commencement of the next
session to be made, of the expense of forming and maintaining
such an establishment.
In the House, I made another very urgent attempt to present
Mr. Leggett's memorial and the report on his claim, but could
not obtain a hearing. Casey asked leave to offer a joint reso
lution for adjourning Congress on Monday, the 1st of August,
at two p.m. Fillmore objected. Casey moved a suspension of
the rules, but this was not in order — the special order devoting
these three days to the business of the Territories overriding
all other orders. Casey then moved to postpone the special
order of the day — a call of the House, and the yeas and nays.
The call of the House produced one hundred and fifty-seven
names in answer. Upon the yeas and nays, there were eighty-
one to eighty-four, and the House refused the permission to
introduce the resolution.
20th. I found the House in session, and John Edwards, of
Missouri, was speaking against a bill to fix the boundary be
tween the Territory of Iowa and the State of Missouri. He
spoke through his hour, and, when arrested by the Chairman's
hammer, struggled some time for another hour, by moving an
amendment, thereby changing the question. Wise once suc
ceeded at the special summer session last year in this trick, and
spoke two hours at one time. But the Chairman now decided
that the amendment involved the same question upon which

2I4 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [July,
the member had spoken, and that he therefore could not con
tinue his speech. He closed, therefore, by presenting an amend
ment substitute for the bill, against which Augustus C. Dodge,
the delegate from Iowa, made his hour speech. A succession
of Territorial bills followed, till a bill came for establishing a
new collection district in Florida, which after debate, a motion
being made to reject it, the numskull Chairman, Gilmer, put
the question whether the bill should be reported, and pro
nounced it carried in the negative. Accordingly, he did not
report the bill with the rest.
I made a question of order of it, and the Speaker and Gilmer
brazened it out that the committee were not bound to report
the bill. I advised the Speaker to look into Hatsell. Gilmer
said there was nothing about it in Hatsell.
2 1 st. In the House, an hour was devoted to the presentation
of reports from committees. Arnold attempted again to intro
duce his bill for reducing the pay and mileage of members of
Congress and the salaries of Executive officers. I succeeded
at last in introducing Mr. Leggett's memorial, with the report
of the American Commissioners on his case. Cave Johnson at
first objected to the printing, but afterwards, at the request of
Houston, of Alabama, withdrew his objection, and the order
for printing was adopted. Pickens, of South Carolina, had
moved on Tuesday to reconsider the vote passing the bill for
the armed occupation of Florida. He then suffered yesterday
to pass over without calling it up, and this morning he said he
would withdraw it. Briggs questioned his right to withdraw.
The Speaker decided he had, although the time had passed
within which any other member could make the motion.
Briggs appealed from the decision, but it was sustained by the
House — ninety-two to seventy-nine — upon a motion of C. J.
Ingersoll to lay the appeal on the table.
The resolution of the Judiciary Committee declaring it inex
pedient to extend the Bankrupt Act to corporations then came
up, and Roosevelt concluded a speech he had begun before, on
an amendment reversing the opinion of the Judiciary Commit
tee. Barnard moved to lay the whole subject on the table;
lost — seventy-three to one hundred and three. The previous

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 215
question was then called, and, while pending, Arnold renewed
the motion to lay all upon the table, and it was carried.
Sundry other reports were made, till the House went into
committee of the whole on the state of the Union upon the
Navy Appropriation bill, returned from the Senate with amend
ments. Mr. Burnell and myself were both denied the floor, for
having made hour speeches when the bill was up in committee.
Cave Johnson now made an hour speech against concurring
with the first amendment of the Senate, increasing the appro
priation for pay. Wise made a brutal attack upon me for
having exposed the enormous disproportion of Virginian navy
officers. Caruthers took the floor at half-past five, the com
mittee rose, and the House adjourned.
22d. In the House, Botts presented a petition from Wetumpka,
in the State of Alabama, praying Congress to pass a resolution
requesting the acting President to resign, and, if he refuses, to
impeach him. Laid on the table.
Mark A. Cooper offered a resolution to enquire of the Secre
tary of the Treasury, who is dangerously ill with a fever, why
the Bank Return report has not been made, and when it may
be expected. Not received.
The report from the Judiciary, that it is not expedient to
extend the Bankrupt law so as to embrace corporations, was in
order for debate ; but Cave Johnson moved to go into commit
tee of the whole on the state of the Union — which was finally
done, Romulus M. Saunders in the chair, and the amendments
of the Senate to the Navy Appropriation bill (came up). Caru
thers made an hour speech against concurring with the Senate's
first amendment, which was to increase the item of pay about
half a million, which the House had curtailed from the esti
mates of the Secretary.
Cushing made two or three captious issues with Caruthers
while he was speaking, but always to his own discomfiture.
There was but a half-hour left for debate, which was occu
pied by Thomas Butler King, who, as heretofore, was for the
Senate's amendment and the largest expenditures.
At the hour of noon down came the Chairman's hammer,
and the voting began. The first of the Senate's amendments,

2I6 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [July,
the increased item, was non-concurred by tellers — sixty-six
to eighty-nine; the second, after sundry abortive attempts to
amend it (among which one by me to make the officers from
each State in the navy proportionate to the number of seamen
from the same State), was also non-concurred ; ayes, by tellers,
only forty. Of the other amendments, some were adopted and
others rejected, till the bill was reported to the House. W. W.
Irwin moved instantly the previous question. I asked him to
withdraw his motion, to give me an opportunity to offer some
remarks on a personal attack made on me yesterday. He re
fused to withdraw, but only thirty-nine votes seconded him. I
took the floor, and answered Wise according to his folly.
Burnell then spoke his hour upon his own plan. Wise then
replied to me in his own way, closing with a threat of murder
ing me in my seat. Charles Brown scored him for his inso
lence to him. It was near six when the House adjourned.
23d. Mr. McLochlan, who was here last evening, is one of
the commissioners from the province of New Brunswick in at
tendance upon the negotiation just now concluded, between
the Secretary of State and Lord Ashburton. Mr. McLochlan
is an inhabitant of Fredericton, and seemed either not aware
that the negotiation was concluded, or desirous of appearing so,
for he said he was told he must stay here till September, and
jokingly alluded to a recent rumor that the St. John's River
would be the boundary, which would bring him and Frederic-
ton into the State of Maine.
Mr. Acosta is Charge d'Affaires from the republic of New
Grenada, and one of the most intelligent, well-informed, and
social men that I have seen from the South American republics.
I attended at nine this morning, in the Senate's committee-
room of Military Affairs, a meeting of the delegations from
Massachusetts and Maine in both Houses. There were fifteen
present, but Mr. Choate was absent, and all the Democratic
members from Maine. The bill appropriating money for pay
ment of the adjusted balance of the Massachusetts claim has
passed the Senate, but labors in the Military Committee of the
House. Mr. Bates called this meeting, and a committee of
three members from Massachusetts in the House, Briggs, Hud-

1842.] THE TWENTY- SEVENTH CONGRESS. 2iy
son, and Parmenter, was chosen to attend the meeting of the
Military Committee of the House and explain to their satisfac
tion the merits of the claim. I was asked to act as Chairman
of this committee, but requested to be excused, having been
absent from this country throughout the last war with Great
Britain, when all these claims originated, and having paid no
special attention to them in the long series of years during
which they have been in process of adjustment.
In the House, Arnold fidgeted about the introduction of his
bill to reduce the pay of members of Congress and the salaries
of Executive officers, but could not obtain a suspension of the
rules to introduce it. Cowen pleaded earnestly, but in vain,
for the devotion of the day to private bills. The question was
taken upon the report of the Judiciary Committee, that it is not
expedient to pass a corporation Bankrupt law. The resolution
was negatived, by yeas and nays — fifty-four to one hundred
and thirteen — and yet the House was so entangled with forms
and rules of order that the banks slipped through their fingers
and escaped. Barnard, from the Judiciary Committee, pre
sented a report and a bill, and, after a sharp altercation with
Saunders, a member of the same committee, the question of
printing the report was carried, by yeas and nays. Committee
of the whole on the state of the Union, Summers in the chair,
on the amendment of the Senate to the Army Appropriation
bill. Explosion. Committee rose, and the House adjourned,
soon after two.
24th. The explosion noticed yesterday sounded its first crack
by Gwin, of Mississippi, who announced that he had voted
for all the reductions of the army, when the bill was before the
House, but that he might perhaps change his vote now, as there
were rumors of a treaty agreed upon between the Secretary of
State and Lord Ashburton, by which a large portion of the
territory of the State of Maine was to be ceded to Great Britain;
and he had rather a thousand times have a war.
Black, of Georgia, swallowed back all the bile he had dis
gorged upon the army, and said he had found upon enquiry
that the second regiment of dragoons was the finest regiment
in the army, and its Colonel (Twiggs, a Georgian) one of the

2i8 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [July,
most gallant officers that live. He too is now for increasing
instead of reducing the army. Gilmer said he should still
vote for reducing the army, though if the treaty should be
such as Gwin had represented it, he should be as much as
Gwin himself against it. This burning patriotism for Maine
is kindled at the stake prepared for Madison and Washington.
The Creole slave-traders, and the repudiating debtors of Mis
sissippi, are the guardians of the sanctity of the Territory of
Maine. This debate is a premonitory symptom of 'acrid matter
to come. Landaff" W. Andrews, with his March-hare look,
moved the committee to rise, to stifle debate. The vote to rise
was thirty-eight to "forty-four, a majority against rising, but
compelled to rise and report no quorum ; whereupon, just after
two, the House adjourned. There was another long snarl upon
a message from the President, with a counter-report to that of
Poindexter, on the New York Custom House, by Stewart, an
other of the Commissioners. There was a heavy tug against
the order to print this report, but it was finally carried, by
yeas and nays — eighty-five to sixty-six.
The preceding page is rather a continuation of yesterday's
diary, than properly belonging to this day. I went alone this
morning to the hall of the House of Representatives, and
heard Mr. Maffitt preach from Matthew xx. 6 — last clause of
the verse : " Why stand ye here all the day idle ?" Congress
have got into so bad repute for neglect of business that there
appeared to be a sarcasm couched under the surface of the
text. I suppose it was suggested by the prevailing prejudice
against Congress; but there was no allusion to it, direct or in
direct, in the sermon. That was specially, and very earnestly,
addressed to the members of Congress ; and they were in bold
and unmeasured terms charged with standing here all the day
idle. I could not fail to observe the address with which he
preserved through the whole discourse the tone of severe re
proach and stern rebuke, and yet steered clear of every sore
spot of his auditory. His charge of idleness was not of negli
gence to the affairs of this world, but, on the contrary, of \ex-
cessive devotion to it. He said the members of Congress had
no heart. They were all head — all intellect — absorbed and

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 2IQ
imbedded in worldly concerns ; but religion must come from
the heart ; and they had no heart. Then he rang the changes
for upwards of an hour upon the various ways of standing all
the day idle; talked very boastfully about himself, gloried in
the blessing he had received from an old woman, who told
him that he had reclaimed a vicious son of hers from wicked
ness to virtue. He gave notice that he should preach the
funeral sermon of Mr. Cookman, next Sunday.
After dinner there was a transient thunder-shower, which
passed off in time for me to attend at St. John's Church. Mr.
Hawley read the evening prayer for the ninth Sunday after
Trinity, and preached from Psalm cxlix. 2.'. " Let Israel rejoice
in him that made him : let the children of Zion be joyful in
their king." Auditory very small. On my return homeward, I
stopped at Lord Ashburton's, and spent an hour with him. I
understood from him that all the sharp points of his negotia
tion are adjusted and settled, though the treaty is not yet drawn
up and executed in form. The Oregon Territory and Columbia
River question remains open. I conjecture the same of the
"Creole" case, for upon that he said he had been able to yield
little or nothing, and that he supposed Mr. Calhoun would
not like it; but he could not help it. This remark opened the
dungeon. 25th. Upon the reading of the journal of the House this
morning, Arnold observed that no notice was taken in it of the
motion he had made on Saturday to suspend the rules for the
introduction of his bill, which had been objected to by R. M.
Saunders, for the reduction of the pay and mileage of the mem
bers of Congress. The Speaker said the usage was not to enter
on the journal unsuccessful motions to suspend the rules, un
less the yeas and nays are taken. Arnold said he had asked
the yeas and nays, but the House had refused them. The
Speaker said the motion would be entered, but not the name
of the objector, which is never done.
Fillmore called up the resolution he had offered on Saturday,
to take the questions on the amendments of the Senate to the
Army Appropriation bill, in committee of the whole on the
state of the Union, this day, at one o'clock, and moved the

220 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [July,
previous question ; which was carried, by yeas and nays, called
for by Pickens — ninety-three to fifty-seven. He then moved to
go into committee of the whole on the state of the Union ; car
ried, Summers in the chair. The first amendment of the Senate
struck out the proviso in the bill as it went from the House,
reducing the army to the standard of the Act of 1821, and
withholding pay from the second regiment of dragoons after
the 30th of next September, and substituted another and much
scantier reduction. The question was on concurring with the
amendment of the Senate, recommended by the Chairman of
the Committees of Ways and Means, Fillmore, and of Military
Affairs. Cave Johnson rather feebly objected to concurring in
the amendments, and called the House to stand by its own
principle of reduction.
Ward, of New York, urged an immediate decision, and said
he had received many letters complaining of the delay to pass
the Army Appropriation bill. James Graham, of North Caro
lina, made a short speech against concurring with the Senate,
and Caruthers did the same. I assumed the same ground, and
made a speech of about three-quarters of an hour, urging to
the extent of my power that the House would not concur with
the amendment of the Senate. Horace Everett followed me,
and said when the bill, had been first before the House he had
voted against the reduction of the army, because during the
pendency of an important negotiation he did not think it proper
to change the military position of the country; but since what
he had heard from Gilmer on Saturday, he believed the Presi
dent was about to veto the treaty on the point of conclu
sion, and he should .now vote against concurring with the
Senate. An explanation was then made by Gilmer, disclaiming any
particular intercourse with the President, but avowing the hope
that the treaty would not be ratified. The vote in the commit
tee, to concur, was forty-nine to one hundred ; all the other
amendments of the Senate, except two, were non-concurred.
In the House, the vote on the main amendment, by yeas and
nays, was fifty-five to one hundred and seventeen. Arnold
then moved again, and obtained, a suspension of the rules, and

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 22I
introduced his bill. A curious scene ensued, till the adjourn
ment. 26th. Anniversary of my marriage — 1 797, forty-fifth. Meet
ing of the Committee of Foreign Affairs. Present, Adams,
Cushing, Stuart, Granger, White, Caruthers, Everett; absent,
Meriwether and Shepperd. I presented a report and resolution
relating to the President's message, Document No. 151 — the
proposal to establish by joint agency of the Governments of
France and the United States a weekly line of steamers between
Havre and New York. I was authorized to present them to
the House.
In the House, Arnold called up his bill to reduce the com
pensation of members of Congress and the salaries of public
officers. The question left last evening was upon the rejection
of the bill. First came a call of the House, which produced,
first, one hundred and forty-three, and, secondly, one hundred
and sixty-eight, names, in answer ; then eleven excuses ; and
then further proceedings dispensed with. Arnold moved to
refer the bill to a committee. Everett opposed this, and moved
the previous question. L. W. Andrews moved to lay the bill
on the table ; which was refused, and the previous question re
jected — sixty-seven to seventy-one. Arnold renewed his mo
tion to refer the bill to a select committee, and that he should
not be a member of the committee. Richard W. Thompson,
of Indiana, moved a string of amendments, as instructions to
the committee, which he supported with a very eloquent hour
speech. Botts, Dixon H. Lewis, Fillmore, Shields, Gwin, fol
lowed; and Gwin made a coarse and groundless attack on Fill
more, Chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means, for
delay to bring forward his Tariff bill at an earlier period of the
session. Bowne made a modest and moderate speech, a rarity
for him, against the bill. Gilmer, after an explanation with
Everett, moved to take up his Retrenchment bill instead of
Arnold's. Debate continued. Previous question, on engross
ment, carried — eighty-nine to seventy-one. Bill engrossed —
ninety-two to seventy-eight. Adjourned.
27th. In the House, the morning hour was allotted to the
reception of reports from committees, among which I presented

222 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [July,
the report of the Committee of Foreign Affairs on the message,
Document No. 151 — the proposal from the French Government
to establish a weekly line of steamers between Havre and New
York, concluding with a resolution requesting the President to
cause to be prepared by the Secretaries of State and the Navy,
and reported to the House at the commencement of the next
session of Congress, a plan of such a line of steamers at the
joint expense and co-operation of the Governments of the
United States and France, with estimates of the expense which
would be necessary for carrying the plan into execution. There
was some difficulty in obtaining the reception of the report,
and afterwards to the consideration of the resolution ; but the
objections were finally withdrawn, and the resolution adopted.
Cushing and Stuart made also the reports with which they
were charged from the Committee of Foreign Affairs.
Arnold next called up his bill to curtail the pay and mileage
of members of Congress. W. B. Campbell had moved to re
consider the vote of engrossment, and now made a rambling
hour speech in favor of the bill, and then withdrew his motion
to reconsider. After some confusion, Shields renewed the
motion to reconsider, and to commit the bill with instructions,
forming his budget of retrenchment. Proffit moved the pre
vious question, and, while that was pending, Shields claimed
the question on his motion to reconsider. Fillmore objected
to this as not in order. The Speaker decided it was in order,
from which Fillmore appealed, and, after long discussion, his
decision was sustained by the House — one hundred and forty-
three to thirty-four. A motion to lay the reconsideration on
the table; rejected; reconsideration finally carried — eighty-six
to eighty-two. Then more discussion, and half a dozen sets of
instructions moved by different members, each utterly averse
to the motions of all the others. At last the motion to refer
the bill to a select committee of nine members. It was half-
past three o'clock. I entreated them to take up a number of
bills from the Senate, which had come in this morning, and
Fillmore proposed to take up the Navy Appropriation bill, re
turned with disagreements and a request for a conference ; but
Botts moved to adjourn, and it was carried.

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 223
28th. Found Mr. Tustin closing his morning benediction
upon the House. Zadok Casey, of Illinois, moved a suspen
sion of the rules to let in a resolution to close the session on
Monday, the 15th of August, and called for the yeas and nays.
The members on all sides are getting impatient to go home —
as Bowne said, to their firesides. The vote for suspension was
eighty-one to sixty-nine, a majority, but not two-thirds. The
Navy Appropriation bill returned from the Senate, insisting on
two of their amendments disagreed to by the House, was called
up by Fillmore, the Senate requesting a conference on the
disagreeing votes. Fillmore moved to insist on the House's
former votes, and to agree to the conference. Cave Johnson
moved to adhere to the House's votes and refuse the confer
ence. A captious question arose which of the questions, to
insist or to adhere, should be first put. I warmly adjured Cave
Johnson to withdraw his motion to adhere, and, in courtesy to
the Senate, to agree to the conference ; but he declined. The
vote to insist and agree to the conference was, however, carried.
Joseph R. Ingersoll then moved to go into committee of the
whole on the state of the Union upon the General Contingency
Appropriation bill ; carried, Atherton in the chair. The com
mittee immediately fell again foul of the retrenchment monsoon.
Cave Johnson cavilled at every new clerkship to be legalized
for any one of the Departments, till I advised him to beware of
using the retrenchment knife too freely, as he and his friends
would themselves have the appointments to make in the next
Congress. He .resisted also the appropriation of salaries for
the Consul at London and for a Dragoman at Constantinople.
I explained the reason for the allowance to the Consul, and
testified to the merit of the Consul, Aspinwall. Cave John
son's motion to strike out this item was voted down with
out a division. The bill was worried through the committee
with sundry amendments, and reported to the House about
five o'clock, when the House adjourned.
29th. In the House, sundry reports of committees were re
ceived, and among them one by James Cooper, Chairman of
the Committee on Indian Affairs, on the answer from the Sec
retary of War, refusing the papers called for by a resolution of

224 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [July,
the House, and disclosing gross and fraudulent abuses in trans
actions with the Cherokee Indians. The report and resolutions
assert in forcible terms the right of the House to demand the
papers; and the final resolution contains a call upon the Presi
dent for them. Upon the reading of the report the House
began to heave convulsively with the agonies of the Tylerizing
corporal's guard, and their sympathizing Democracy — mani
fested chiefly by Proffit and by Gwin, of Mississippi. Their
objects were — I, to refuse reception both to the report and
the resolutions ; 2, to prevent their being printed ; and, 3, to
smother all debate upon them. So they objected to the recep
tion, but were overruled by the Speaker. They resisted the
printing, upon the pretence that they wanted to debate the reso
lutions, by which they hoped it would be laid over to another
day, and then never come up again. To meet and overreach
these tactics, Cooper was obliged to make two motions, and
demand the previous question upon both at once — 1, to print,
and, 2, to adopt the resolutions. Proffit sputtered and snapped
like parched corn ; denied the right of Cooper to offer two
motions at once and call the previous question upon both.
The Speaker decided that he had. Proffit moved to lay the
whole subject on the table ; yeas and nays, fifty-eight to one
hundred and one ; previous question carried — seventy-two to
fifty-nine; yeas and nays on the printing, ninety-two to sixty-
seven. Proffit then instantly moved the orders of the day.
Cooper then offered to withdraw the previous question upon
the motion to adopt the resolutions ; but this he had no right
to do. But the hour had expired, and Cowen, Chairman of
the Committee of Claims, insisted upon the orders of the day
— private business. After some struggle, this was carried, by
yeas and nays — one hundred to fifty-eight.
30th. In the House, the select committee, to which had been
referred Arnold's bill for reducing the pay and mileage of
members of Congress and the salaries of Executive officers,
reported back his bill, with slight modifications, with a minority
report, and a substitute bill, confined in its operation to the
members of Congress. And now there was a good deal of
trouble about what to do with the bill, some being intensely

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 225
desirous, as they have been from the hour of its introduction,
per saltum, without rhyme or reason, and others panting for
a chance of chattering upon a retrenchment scheme of their
own, and each one inflexibly opposed to every other than his
own. Upwards of fifty members have taken part in this debate,
and not one has discussed it with one spark of the reason and
justice appropriate to the subject. The bills and counter-report
were finally ordered to be printed, and referred to the com
mittee of the whole House on the state of the Union. Sundry
private bills were debated, and two or three fair pension claims
were defeated by the cankered niggardliness of Mallory, of
Norfolk. The committee on conference upon the disagreeing
votes between the two Houses on the Navy Appropriation bill
— Wise, McKay, and William B. Campbell — reported a com
promise by which the Senate yielded almost the whole that was
in contest, and especially all that I had resisted. Wise had
refused to agree to it in joint committee, but made the report,
and moved its acceptance by the House. Cave Johnson recal
citrated, but without effect. Both Houses accepted the report,
and the bill is passed.
Joseph R. Ingersoll had brought up the Contingent Appro
priation bill at the third reading. Gentry began a long, pre
pared set speech against the bill, but soon moved to adjourn.
Ingersoll called the yeas and nays; but Arnold was in the chair,
and declared the House adjourned.
August ist. Maher is the gardener of the Capitol and the
public grounds, extending to those round the President's
house, where Ousely is only the kitchen gardener. Maher
came to nie this morning, complaining that Mr. Stanly had
been deceived by misrepresentations and thus induced to
charge him with abusive expenditures on the public grounds.
Stanly had attacked him, he said, two years ago, but Governor
Lincoln, then Chairman of the Committee on the Public Build
ings, had defended him. Mr. Stanly now renewed the attack,
and he had lost his friend Governor Lincoln. He explained
to me some of the facts alluded to one day last week by Stanly,
who yields too much to his indignation at the plunder of the
public — the incurable vice of all the departments of Govern-
vol. xi. — 15

225 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [August,
ments — and for some petty, perhaps inconsiderate overcharges,
said there was no part of the public expenses more corruptly
managed than those of the public gardener. I believe this is
unjust; but I despair of convincing Stanly.
Mr. Babbitt came to me this morning, urging me to call up
the French Spoliation bill ; and h'e brought me a second list of
members marked, showing a majority of the House in favor
of taking up and of passing the bill.
At the House, Bowne, of New York, made a ridiculous
attempt to turn Arnold's over-hasty adjournment of the House
into a grave misdemeanor, to be entered formally upon the
journal. It was a mere inadvertence, of no importance what
ever, inasmuch as the House was in a state of dissolution, not
fifty members within the bar. Bowne raised a squall, but it
soon passed away, and his motion to amend the journal was
laid on the table, by yeas and nays — ninety- seven to fifty- ,
seven. 2d. In the House, Nathaniel G. Pendleton, of Ohio, asked
leave to present a report from a select committee on an iron
steamer constructed on one of the Northern lakes. Proffit
objected to its reception, charging the Whigs with bringing
indictment after indictment against the President, poisoning the
public mind, but without ever calling any of them up. I imme
diately moved to take up my report and resolution upon the
message announcing the deposit at the Department of State
of the President's reasons for signing the Apportionment bill.
R. M. Saunders objected. I moved a suspension of the rules.
Proffit, Cushing, and W. W. Irwin voted for it, but the whole
Democracy voted against it; the yeas and nays were ninety-
three to sixty-six — not two-thirds. So James Cooper's repoVt
and resolutions upon the Secretary of War's refusal to send
papers called for by a resolution of the House were taken up
for the morning hour. Gwin, of Mississippi, and Cushing,
made speeches against the reported resolutions. Gwin is a
repudiator. Cushing has no moral principle, and would have
been a Prodicus or a Gorgias, at Athens, in the days of
Socrates. His speech this morning was interrupted by the
expiration of the morning hour.

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 22y
3d. At the House, after half an hour of miscellaneous busi
ness of routine, they went into committee of the whole on the
state of the Union, Fessenden in the chair, and took up the
bill for reorganizing the army. Cave Johnson had moved as
an amendment a substitute for the whole bill. Samson Mason
had moved, as an amendment to Cave Johnson's amendment,
that the second regiment of dragoons shall on the ist day of
October next be disbanded. This was the ordeal question of
reduction of the army. When first presented to the House, it
had been lost by a majority of two ; then, upon reconsidera
tion, carried by a majority of one. It was now carried in com
mittee, by tellers — sixty-eight to fifty-five ; whereupon Proffit
moved that the committee rise, and report the bill, with a
recommendation that it be indefinitely postponed. Stanly said
he must be joking. Proffit replied that he never was more
serious in his life, for the army was to be sacrificed and de
stroyed, and he had foreseen its fate from the day that I had
declared my purpose to reduce it. Proffit abandoned his mo
tion, little imagining what a dose of wormwood he was admin
istering to Captain Tyler and his Democratic allies by imputing
the reduction of the army, to me. Cave Johnson's substitute
for the whole bill was then taken up. I moved the reduction
of the rank and file in all the regiments from fifty to forty-two,
and, instead of disbanding the eighth regiment of infantry and
authorizing the President to form a regiment of mounted rifle
men, to continue the regiment of infantry and have no mounted
riflemen. At three o'clock the voting began upon the amend
ments. The bill was made to conform entirely to my views so
far as related to the reduction of the army, and was reported
to the House. Cave Johnson moved to lay it on the table ; re
jected—sixty-five to one hundred and sixteen. Stanly moved
the previous question, which was ordered, and the House then
adjourned. Cushing made a very animated speech against the
reduction of the army. Meriwether and Gilmer have disap
peared. Wise, when his name was called, said he did not know
how to vote.
4th. At the House, Mr. Appleton gave me to read a letter
to him from the ci-devant Judge Charles Jackson, in awful

228 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [August,
trepidation at the prospect of the Whigs persevering in the
refusal to pass a Tariff bill without the section securing to
the States the proceeds of the sales of the public lands. The
Judge's property is chiefly in the Lowell factories, and he cares
not a pepper-corn for the interest of the whole people in the
public lands. I returned the letter to Mr. Appleton, and told
him that I dissented from every line of Judge Jackson's letter.
Appleton, somewhat excited, said that the Judge's opinion
was the unanimous opinion of all our friends at home.
I said I was sorry for it, but could not help it. But I see the
Whigs will finally flinch for the sake of a tariff", and will sur
render forever the public lands. I had yesterday a conversa
tion with Speaker White, in his chamber, on this subject,
in consequence of a letter which he had delivered to me from
H. Clay, who earnestly urges me to take the lead in the ap
proaching crisis. And Richard W. Thompson came to me
this day and urged me to attend a meeting of a committee of
twenty-one members, one from each Whig State, to consider
what is to be done when the veto of the Tariff" will come. My
opinion is that Congress ought immediately to adjourn; but,
as I know they will not, I see no necessity for making myself
at once a useless and a voluntary victim. I declined attending
the meeting. The resolutions upon the answer of the Secre
tary of War, declining to send papers called for by the House,
were debated by Cushing, Everett, and James Cooper, till the
expiration of the morning hour. Then the final action of the
House on the bill for reorganizing the army came on. The
vote for disbanding the second regiment of dragoons, by yeas
and nays, was one hundred to seventy ; on the passage of the
bill, one hundred and twenty-two to fifty-eight.
5th. Meeting of the Committee of Foreign Affairs. Present,
Adams, Cushing, Caruthers, Everett, Stuart, White; absent,
Meriwether, Granger, and Shepperd. Mr. Cushing's bill for re
quiring annual reports from the Secretary of State, of changes
in the commercial regulations of foreign countries, introduced
by him into the House yesterday and referred to the committee,
was discussed and amended, and he was authorized to report it
to the House. He was not ready with a report on the petitions

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 22g
of Dr. Baldwin and Aaron Leggett; in addition ,to which I
proposed to take into consideration the claim of the ex-
Marquis Attelis de Santangelo. The whole subject of our
political relations with Mexico, with Texas, and with Great
Britain was brought into discussion, and particularly the debts
of the States and Territories, and the liabilities in which they
may involve the nation.
We continued the debate until the House had been half an
hour in session. I found James Cooper speaking on the reso
lution reported by him from the Committee of Indian Affairs,
of the right of the House to call for papers, and the answer of
the Secretary of War, declining to send the papers called for.
He finished his hour, and Mr. Everett followed, offering an
amendment as a substitute for the three resolutions ; merely
that the reasons of the Secretary of War for declining to send
the papers are not satisfactory. He made a very short speech
in support of his motion. When he closed, the question was
about to be taken. Just before, I had been called out of my
seat by Judge Swymmer, from St. John's, New Brunswick, who
reminded me that he had visited me when I was in that city
in September, 1840. I introduced him on the floor of the
House, and was talking with him, when Cooper came and
urged me to say a few words upon the question which was
about to be taken. I returned to my seat, and spoke twenty-
seven minutes, till the expiration of the morning hour.
6th. At the House, after a full half-hour of obtrusions, as
usual, of business out of order and out of time, the Speaker
announced James Cooper's resolutions, from the Committee
of Indian Affairs, with Everett's proposed amendment, as the
business of the morning, and that I had the floor. I enquired
what time I had left to complete my hour; he said, thirty-three
minutes. I am confident it was at least ten minutes more ; but
I lost my time by not marking it myself. I said I was very
desirous of abridging the time in which I should be compelled
to trespass on the indulgence of the House, and there was a
contingency which might happen before Monday morning and
which would render a very large portion of what otherwise I
must say altogether unnecessary. I meant the signing by the

230 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [August,
President of the Tariff* bill. I said I would therefore move the
postponement till Monday morning of Cooper's resolutions,
and to go into committee of the whole on the state of the
Union, to take up the French Spoliation Claim bill. The
Speaker said it was not in order to go into committee of the
whole on the state of the Union to take up any particular bill.
I then moved to go into committee of the whole on the state
of the Union generally; but not more than fifty members rose
in the affirmative. So I was obliged to proceed in a defence
of Congress against a violent charge by Cushing, that they
must fulfil their destiny, which is to prostrate the Government
of the United States, to be resuscitated and restored by our
successors. I had not proceeded three minutes before Bowne raised a
point of order that no answer can be made in the House to
what has been said in committee of the whole. The Speaker
said that was the rule, but that Cushing had been very liberally
indulged in the remarks upon which I was animadverting; and
Cushing himself reminded Bowne that I could put it as a sup
posed case, and it was of no use to attempt to arrest me, and
he was ready to meet whatever I have to say. I proceeded,
but had barely reached the threshold of my subject when the
fragment of my hour expired, and Proffit was upon the floor
while I was in the midst of a sentence. He replied to me, till
the expiration of the morning hour, and has another half-hour
in reserve for Monday.
8th. Resolution day. Ohio called. Samson Mason offered
a joint resolution to adjourn the two Houses on Monday, the
22d of this month, at two o'clock p.m.; which passed by accla
mation. A resolution passed by yeas and nays — eighty-nine
to seventy-four — to furnish the new members with books,
which have been furnished to the old members.
Committee of the whole on the state of the Union, on the
Contested Election bill, Fessenden in the chair. I had taken
some part in the discussion upon the first and second sections
of the bill, but the debate immediately ran into party bitterness,
and I resolved to withdraw myself from it altogether. A mul
titude of amendments were proposed and rejected; others, pro-

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 23 1
posed by Halsted, Chairman of the Committee of Elections,
were adopted, among which was one forbidding the Clerk of
the House to enter on the list of persons presenting themselves
as members of Congress any one elected otherwise than as a
Representative of a single district. Fessenden left the chair to
speak to an amendment, and Briggs took his place. When the
bill was reported to the House, John Campbell moved its re
commitment, with instructions to report two small amendments;
but Halsted moved and insisted upon the previous question;
"which was carried. The single district section was carried, by
yeas and nays — ninety-nine to seventy-nine; and the bill —
one hundred to eighty-one.
The report of the committee of conference on the Army Or
ganization bill was then taken up, and, after some debate, it
was found that it must be referred to the committee of the
whole on the state of the Union; which was done, with an order
to print the bill with the report of the committee of conference,
and the Army Appropriation bill, with the report of the com
mittee of conference upon that. Sundry Territorial bills fol
lowed, and then a resolution, offered by Sherlock J. Andrews,
to rescind the vote of censure upon Giddings. The other
Andrews objected, and the House adjourned.
9th. W. Cost Johnson presented a second memorial from
Pennsylvania, praying for an appropriation of two hundred
millions of acres of the public lands to be distributed among
the States to enable them to pay their debts. He moved to
refer the memorial to a select committee, and asked the yeas
and nays. Morgan moved its reference to the Committee of
Ways and Means. Charles Brown bristled up with scorn and
indignation at the idea that Pennsylvania should receive any
aid from the General Government, and chuckled in bragging
that there was no member from Pennsylvania who would pre
sent and advocate such a memorial. Toland asked him if he
meant to say that he would not present such a memorial if it
should be sent to him. Brown dodged the question by en
quiring if Toland would present and advocate such a memorial.
Toland said he would present but not support it, the time not
being yet come.

232 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [August,
Cooper's resolutions on the Secretary of War's report, de
clining to communicate papers called for by the House, em
ployed the morning hour. Proffit finished his hour of scolding
at me, and Cushing fired his broadside also at me. Fillmore
then moved the previous question, and said there was a mes
sage from the President. The morning hour was expired.
The message was a veto of the Tariff bill sent to the President
last Saturday. Fillmore moved that the message should be
entered on the journal and printed, and the consideration be
postponed till to-morrow, and moved the previous question;*
all which was carried.
loth. I had been solicited and urged from various quarters
of the House to take the lead of the measures to be adopted
by the House on the reception of -the veto message; and yes
terday, while the House was in committee of the whole, the
Speaker came to my seat and asked me to call in at his cham
ber for a few minutes after the adjournment of the House;
which I did. He then again urged me to address the House
on the reconsideration of the Tariff bill. I said I would make
a speech on the message, and conclude with a motion to refer
the message to a select committee. I prepared last evening
and this morning minutes for an hour speech, which I could
have expanded at pleasure into a speech of two, three, or even
six or seven hours. It is the first experiment of this kind
that I have made since the establishment of the hour rule,
and, although now but partially successful, I am convinced
it might by a younger man be improved into a powerful and
most effective practice.
At the House, I consumed the hour till the meeting in col
lecting the documents and my thoughts for the speech. After
the preliminary intrusive matter, the morning hour was well
occupied with an excellent speech on Cooper's resolution, from
the Chairman of the Committee of Indian Affairs, against the
Secretary of War's suppression of evidence. He then moved
the previous question, as he had promised Fillmore to do.
Weller, the same man who moved the previous question to
cut off Giddings from his right of self-defence, remonstrated
against the previous question. After a party speech, Caru-

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 233
thers voted against his own motion; but it was carried. The
question was ordered, but not taken, the hour having expired.
The Speaker then announced the veto message. I took the
floor, and compressed within one hour brief and cursory re
marks on all the topics which I had minuted for discussion.
It was not skilfully done, nor with any of the bursts of eloquence,
which I have not the power to command. Its effect was far
more- visible upon my adversaries than upon my friends. I
closed with a motion to refer the message to a select committee
of thirteen members, with instructions to report thereon.
Foster, of Georgia, started a question of order, denying the
power of the House to refer to a committee what the Constitu
tion required them to reconsider. And now commenced a
scene of bullying and chicanery by Wise, Cushing, Proffit, and
W. Cost Johnson, which lasted three hours, and, after laying
on the table three appeals from the Speaker's decision, my
motion to refer was carried, by yeas and nays — one hundred
and eight to eighty-four — and the bill was laid on the table by
ninety-seven to seventy-three.
1 ith. At the House, the journal was amended on my motion.
It had stated that my motion yesterday was to refer to the
select committee the objections of the President to the Tariff"
bill. My motion was to refer the message. The committee
announced were Adams, Jeremiah Morrow, Francis Granger,
Truman Smith, John Minor Botts, James K. Pearce, Kenneth
Rayner, James Cooper, Thomas J. Campbell, Thomas W. Gil
mer, W. W. Irwin, James J. Roosevelt, and Charles J. Ingersoll.
A Senate bill for altering the Judicial Circuits was then taken
up, and, after some debate, was passed, by yeas and nays — one
hundred and fifteen to sixty-eight. I voted against it, because
it will prevent a more general and entire revisal and new or
ganization of all the Circuits.
Proffit moved to take up the vetoed Tariff" bill — ayes eighty-
two, noes one hundred and four. I moved the reference of the
President's message on the Tariff, and called the yeas and nays;
they were ninety-five to eighty-nine — a majority, but not two-
thirds. Committee of the whole on the state of the Union, George

234 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [August,
W. Hopkins in the chair, on the Fortification Appropriation
bill, which was warmly debated for about three hours, when
Graham, of North Carolina, moved to report the bill, with a
recommendation that it be rejected. Cushing took the oppor
tunity to make a cut-and-thrust speech at me, to which I made
a very short reply. Bowne made a furious speech against the
Whigs, which Fillmore blew up by an instantaneous answer.
I personally notified all the members of the select committee
on the veto message to meet at nine to-morrow morning in
the chamber of the Committee of Foreign Affairs. W. W.
Irwin, with a strut of the mock-heroic, asked to be excused
from serving on the select veto committee, because the ap
pointment of a committee was unconstitutional, the Consti
tution requiring that the House should reconsider the bill.
A full hour was spent upon this balderdash, till Irwin was
excused. 1 2th. Meeting of the select committee on the veto message
on the Tariff law. Present, Adams, Morrow, Granger, Truman
Smith, Botts, Pearce, Rayner, James Cooper, Gilmer, C. J.
Ingersoll, and Roosevelt — eleven members ; absent, Thomas J.
Campbell, from indisposition ; he had told me yesterday that
,he should probably not be able to come. I proposed to the
committee to authorize me to prepare a report, and to indulge
me till next Monday morning to have it ready to be submitted
to the committee. There was a desultory conversation till the
time of the meeting of the House, upon the views and topics
proper to be presented in the report.
Ingersoll, Gilmer, and Roosevelt, voters against the reference
to the committee, were readily for allowing me till Monday to
prepare the report, but said they would need a similar indul
gence of reasonable time afterwards, to prepare a minority
report ; which was agreed to. They manifested some curiosity
to know to what conclusion my report would come ; but I said
I had not sufficiently meditated that. Negatively, I would as
sure them, I should not close with articles of impeachment.
Roosevelt enquired if the report could not conclude with
a recommendation to pass another Tariff bill. I said it cer
tainly could, but if that was the purpose of the committee I

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS.

235

should request them to charge some other member with the
preparation of the report.
In the House, W. Cost Johnson gave notice of his intention
to ask leave to-morrow to introduce a sort of salmagundi bill,
for revenue, for disposal of the public lands, and for consti
tuting a funded stock of two hundred millions of dollars to pay
the debts of the States. W. Cost Johnson sees that the Whigs
have abandoned him, and he is preparing himself to pass over,
with his uniform and baggage, to the corporal's guard. Tom
Marshall, Sprigg, and John Pope are moving in the same
direction. 13th. Arnold bustled and blustered about his bill No. 548,
to reduce the pay and mileage of members of Congress ; but
the principal incident of the day was the adoption of the
three resolutions reported by James Cooper from the Com
mittee of Indian Affairs, amended by Caruthers, on the report
of the Secretary of War declining to send papers called for by
resolution of the House. The amendment moved by Caruthers
to the first resolution was adopted ; then Mr. Everett's substi
tute for the three resolutions was rejected — sixty-four to one
hundred and four.
Then the first resolution, merely declaratory of the right of
the House to call on the President or heads of Departments,
was carried — one hundred and forty to eight, Cushing, Irwin,
and Proffit being three of the eight. Wise asked to be excused
from voting because he could not vote against it as a general
declaration, and could not vote for it without an implication
of censure where he did not think it was deserved; and he was
excused. The second resolution, that the call was for papers relating
to business before the House, and should have been com
municated, was carried — ninety-four to sixty-four. For this
Everett voted, but on the first and third resolutions did not
vote. The third was a request to the President to cause the papers
to. be communicated to the House. Carried — eighty-three to
sixty. Numerous dodges on both sides.
It is hardly conceivable how many members start back at

236 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [August
any approach to gall the kibe of the Executive Chief. There
was a flare-up between Arnold and Fessenden, upon mutual
charges of each against the other of being about to join the
guard ; retracted.
14th. I attended public worship this morning at the hall of
the House of Representatives, where Mr. Maffitt preached from
Luke x. 42 : " But one thing is needful : and Mary hath chosen
that good part, which shall not be taken away from her." The
one thing needful is religion. The House, as is usual when
Mr. Maffitt preaches, was well filled. After closing his dis
course, he sung, by himself, a short Methodist hymn. He gave
notice that he should preach a charity sermon on this afternoon
at Georgetown, observing that it had been by mistake announced
for last Sunday ; that he should preach again in that hall, prob
ably for the last time.
Mr. Maffitt's manner of preaching is exceedingly attractive,
and yet very much censured. It is eminently theatrical ; and
although the theatre ought to be the best school of public
speaking, there is a universal prejudice against the application
of the very best manner of speaking on the stage, to the pulpit.
The impression always is that the preacher is acting a part. I
believe this to be a prejudice, but am not free from it myself.
Mr. Maffitt's manner of preaching approaches the perfection
of theatrical declamation. He preaches the love of God, obe
dience to His will, the love of our neighbors, benevolence,
toleration, charity, all the Christian virtues and graces; he
preaches the atonement in the blood of Jesus, the divinity of
Christ, the trinity in unity of the Godhead, and the fall and
redemption of man. He always commands intense interest
and eloquent silence. He adverts too frequently, and with too
much complacency, to himself. Upon the whole, I always
hear him — often with pleasure, sometimes, I hope, with profit,
never to the detriment of moral principle or of religious faith.
15th. I closed this morning the report on the Tariff Veto bill,
justin time to meet the select committee at nine o'clock. Every
member was present — J. Q. Adams, Jeremiah Morrow, Francis
Granger, Truman Smith, John M. Botts, James H. Pearce,
Kenneth Rayner, James Cooper, Thomas Jefferson Campbell,

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS.

237

Thomas W. Gilmer, James J. Roosevelt, Charles Jared Ingersoll,
and Henry S. Lane. I read the report, and, with two or three
slight amendments, I was authorized by nine members of the
committee to present it to the House.
Mr. Gilmer said he wished to present a counter-report, which
he had partly written, but wished a short time to finish. It was
agreed that he should present his report at the same time when
I should present mine. I proposed to conclude with a resolu
tion to amend the Constitution of the United States so as to
make a majority of the whole number of members of each
house (instead of two-thirds, necessary to annul the veto). Sev
eral members came to me and urged me to present the report
this day; but Gilmer came and said he was very unwell, and
obliged to go home and undergo an operation, and asked me
not to present my report till to-morrow morning — which I
promised. I went to Underwood for a set of proposed amendments
which he offered some months ago, among which this curb to
the veto was one. He sent for his budget to his lodgings at
Georgetown, and, when it came, I took from it the curtail of the
veto, and drew up from it an article of amendment in a few
words. Botts had proposed in committee another resolution — that
the House have no confidence in Tyler or his Administration ;
but I objected to it, as offering a second and unnecessary issue;
and he withdrew it.
16th. This was the morning for the meeting of the Commit
tee of Foreign Affairs. Only four members attended — Adams,
Caruthers, White, Granger ; no quorum ; Botts and Rayner, of
the select committee on the veto message, attended, supposing,
by mistake, that a meeting of that committee this morning had
been appointed at the adjournment yesterday. Botts said that
he and other members of the majority of the committee wished
to sign their names to my report, and he asked me to give him
my original draft of the report, signed by me — which I did;
and he, James Cooper, Kenneth Rayner, Thomas J. Campbell,
Truman Smith, Francis Granger, Henry S. Lane, Jeremiah
Morrow, and James S. Pearce, signed the report and my origi-

238 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [August,
nal draft, which Botts said he would keep as the second Decla
ration of Independence.
At the meeting of the House, after some intrusive business,
occupying about half an hour, I read in my seat the report
signed by ten members of the committee, concluding with a
resolution proposing an amendment to the Constitution. The
reading took me just three-quarters of an hour.
Gilmer had announced his report, and Charles J. Ingersoll
now announced that he had a minority report, signed by him
self and Roosevelt. Not a word of this was said in com
mittee ; but I made no objection to its reception. Gilmer read
his report, which took an hour, and Ingersoll read his in forty
minutes. A great part of Gilmer's was a dissertation to prove
the unconstitutionality of the appointment of the committee,
and of the proceedings of the committee, on the subject. In-
gersoll's was a lampoon upon me in revenge for my blast upon
his Five-Points speech. After the reading, I moved that the
three reports, together with the bill and veto message, be
printed, and made the special order of the day for to-morrow
at twelve o'clock.
Wise then immediately moved to take up the vetoed bill,
which the House, by yeas and nays — ninety-nine to one hun
dred and four — refused.
Stanly then presented the report of the second committee
of conference on the Army Organization bill, which was ac
cepted by the House in four several questions, contrary to the
usage and rule, that the report of a committee of conference
cannot be amended.
W. Cost Johnson offered his bill, with a title half a yard
long, and asked the yeas and nays on its being referred to a
select committee and printed ; they were eight to one hundred
and twenty-two. I was one of the minority.
17th. At the meeting of the House, this morning, McKennan
moved the suspension of the rules, to introduce a resolution
that it is expedient to pass another Revenue bill, the same with
the one just vetoed, with the exception of the twenty-seventh
section, containing the distribution of the proceeds of the sales
of the public lands, and exempting tea and coffee from all duty.

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 239
After much agitation, the questiqn was taken, by yeas and nays
— one hundred and nine to eighty-four — not two-thirds ; but the
numerical majority was in favor of the measure, and it was
clear by the result that it will be carried.
Next, Charles Brown moved a suspension of the rules, to
offer a resolution to go into committee of the whole on the
state of the Union to take up House bill No. 547, to supply
a temporary defect or failure in the laws relating to the collec
tion of duties on imports. The yeas and nays on the question
of suspending the rules were one hundred and twenty-three
to eighty. Fillmore moved a reconsideration of the vote re
fusing to reconsider; and this was carried, by a majority less
than two-thirds — one hundred and thirty to seventy-two ; and
then the motion to suspend the rules was again lost, by an in
creased majority — one hundred and twenty-two to seventy-two.
Noon had come, and I called for the special orders of the
day. W. Cost Johnson claimed, as a privileged right, the motion
to take up the vetoed Tariff bill, and the Speaker recognized
his right. I moved to lay his motion on the table; but the
House refused. They took up the bill. Cost Johnson made
his speech, and urged his creation of two hundred millions of
United States four per cent, stocks, to pay the debts of the
States, and to be redeemed by the proceeds of the sales of the
public lands. When he finished, Arnold moved the previous
question on the passage of the bill ; and it was taken, as pre
scribed by the Constitution — ninety-two to eighty-seven — the
same majority by which it originally passed in the House.
My report and resolution then came up; the report was.
adopted, by yeas and nays — one hundred to eighty; the resolu
tion lost, by ninety-nine to ninety.
Marshall moved a reconsideration of the last vote, made an
hour speech against it, and withdrew his motion. Wise moved
a reconsideration, spoke half an hour of invective against me,
and then, at Cushing's motion, the House adjourned.
It was at the request of Botts that I modified my motion to
include the adoption of the report. I told Botts the majority
of the House would not vote to adopt the report. He said they
would ; and they did.

240 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [August,
1 8th. It was half-past ten when I reached the House, and I
found Wise on the floor, finishing his hour invective not only
upon me, but the majority of the select committee and the
House. He was followed by Kenneth Rayner, a spirit as fiery
as his own, who began by making Wise disclaim all personal
application in his bullying defiances, and lashed him with scor
pions for an hour. Garret Davis, Arnold, Colquitt, continued
the debate till Granger moyed the previous question; upon
which I said that the House would see what claim of justice I
had for reply to personal assaults from various quarters, but I
would, rather than occupy the time of the House, forbear to
assert the claim, and acquiesce in the previous question. It
was carried, and the reconsideration rejected — twelve to one
hundred and forty.
Fillmore then moved that the committees be called for re
ports. I asked that the report on the quasi veto Apportionment
bill message should be taken up. Cushing objected. Fillmore,
from the Committee of Ways and Means, reported a resolution
instructing that committee to report speedily another Revenue
bill, the same as the one just vetoed, excepting the twenty-
seventh section, and making tea and coffee duty free. This is
the same project presented yesterday by Mr. McKennan. Botts
moved to lay it on "the table ; lost — seventy-five to one hun
dred and three.
Fillmore moved a call of the House. Carried. Two hundred
members answered.
Holmes objected that the Committee of Ways and Means
were not authorized to offer this resolution ; but the Speaker
overruled the objection.
Hays asked a division of the question, first including only
the title of the bill ; but the Speaker pronounced the whole
resolution indivisible. Hays appealed, but, on the motion of
McKennan, the appeal was laid on the table. The vote was at
last taken, and the motion was lost — eighty- five to one hundred
and thirteen. Many of the members on both sides withheld
their votes at the call of their names ; but Wise called for com
pulsory process upon them, and they were all compelled to
vote — Gilmer and Fillmore being of the number; both of

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 2^i
whom, and Wise, voted " no." W. W. Irwin immediately started
up, and moved a suspension of the rules, to introduce another
Tariff bill; but Botts moved to adjourn; carried — one hundred
and ten to seventy-nine.
I went and dined with John P. Kennedy, at his lodgings.
Appleton, Granger, Saltonstall, and Hudson there. Whig cau
cusing. 19th. I was roused twice in the night by severe cramp in the
legs, and feel that my body and mind are rapidly falling into
decay. The position that I have taken is arduous enough to
crush any man in the vigor of youth ; but at seventy-five, with
failing senses and blunted instruments, surrounded by remorse
less enemies and false and scary and treacherous friends, how
can it end but in my ruin ? But I must meet the shock.
In the House, the day was consumed in a struggle of divided
parties for a tariff, and surrender of the lands. John Campbell
began with a project of a twenty per cent, tariff", with tea and
coffee, and an excise on gold and silver. Scouted.
Then Everett moved a suspension of the rules, with a des
perate plunge for the aid of the Democracy ; lost — eighty-one
to one hundred and five. Charles J. Ingersoll finally worried
the House into committee of the whole on the state of the
Union, Joseph R. Ingersoll in the chair, and the committee took
up Barnard's bill from the Judiciary Committee, to supply a
defect in the revenue laws. C. J. Ingersoll moved his bill as
an entire substitute. W. Cost Johnson moved his bill as an
entire substitute. Barnard moved an amendment, to save penal
ties. I made a short hour speech against the amendment, and
against the bill, contending that no Tariff" bill ought to pass at
this time. Proffit and Cushing replied to me, wormwood and
gall. Granger chastised Cushing, and skirmished with Wise.
Thompson, of Indiana, lashed Cushing. McKennan blew hot
and cold, and T. F. Marshall took formal leave of the Whig
party, from which he said he had been yesterday expelled.
22d. The House had been half an hour in session when I
reached the hall. Arnold, was rowing against wind and tide
to introduce a resolution to take his Retrenchment bill, No.
548, out of committee of the whole on the state of the Union,
vol. xi. — 16

242 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [August,
this day or to-morrow, but the vote was seventy-four to ninety-
five against suspending the rules. But this day the surrender
of the public lands to dilapidation and waste was consummated.
Irretrievably gone. Cowen, of Ohio, first offered a resolution
to take Barnard's bill, to supply a temporary defect or failure
of the revenue, out of committee this day at twelve o'clock;
carried; and then, at Cowen's motion also, the House went
into committee of the whole on the state of the Union, Joseph
R. Ingersoll in the chair.
The first step was to dispose of the Patch bill; but Roosevelt,
Fillmore, Holmes, Everett, and Gordon kept up a running fire of
debate till noon, when the guillotine fell on Gordon's eloquence.
Barnard implored a few minutes to defend and explain his own
bill, but was inexorably refused. Barnard offered a succession
of amendments, which were adopted without discussion. The
question was taken upon substituting Charles J. Ingersoll's bill,
and lost. The same fate befell W. Cost Johnson's substitute;
but McKennan's substitute, the vetoed bill, with the land dis
tribution section struck out, and making tea and coffee duty
free, was carried, after numerous proposals of amendments, all
rejected. McKennan's amendment was at last adopted by tellers
— ninety-nine to sixty-seven. The new bill was reported to the
House, the previous question called, and carried. Rhett moved
to lay the bill on the table, but withdrew the motion. On the
question of the engrossment of the bill, the Speaker announced
the yeas and nays — one hundred to one hundred and one — and
the bill rejected. Thompson, of Indiana, moved a reconsidera
tion and the previous question. But it was discovered that in
counting one affirmative vote had been omitted. The Speaker
announced a tie — one hundred and one to one hundred and one
— and gave his 'casting vote against the bill. But the motion
to reconsider was carried — one hundred and six to ninety-eight.
Then, on the second, question to engross, the vote was one
hundred and three to one hundred and two; announced carried.
,Long debate whether the Speaker could vote to make a tie.
He did vote, but Landaff W. Andrews and Stanly, who had
withheld their votes, voted "ay," and the vote stood one hun
dred and five to one hundred and two, and the deed was done.

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 243
The long agony was over, and the lands are lost forever. The
title was changed, and a motion made to style the bill "An Act
for revenue and the protection of manufactures," but lost. The
corporal's guard divided equally upon the bill — Cushing, Irwin,
and, with extreme reluctance, Proffit, voting for, and Gilmer,
Mallory, and Wise against it.
24th. I called this morning at the Department of State, and
delivered to Mr. Webster a letter from Dr. Fliigel, the Consul
of the United States at Leipsic. I congratulated him on the
successful issue of his negotiation with Lord Ashburton, and
he said he was glad to have got it off his shoulders.
I spoke to him of the resolution of the House calling for
copies of Lewis Cass's protest against the ratification by France
of the Quintuple Treaty, of the treaty itself, and of all the corre
spondence relating to it. The President had declined commu
nicating those papers then, alleging that no official copy of the
Quintuple Treaty had been received, and that the other papers
requested could not consistently with the public interest be
communicated then; but he hoped they might be soon. This
message had been referred by the House to the Committee of
Foreign Affairs, which, with my consent, had acquiesced in the
postponement of the communication of the papers; that, on my
mentioning the subject again a few days since in committee,
Mr. Cushing had enquired if I should be willing to see the
Secretary of State on the subject; to which I had readily agreed.
He said there might be inconvenience in the publication
before the treaty shall come back from England ratified, and
then the whole correspondence would be published, and in the
mean time, if I desired it, they should be communicated to me
in confidence. He said they had a copy of the Quintuple Treaty,
though not communicated to them officially. He spoke with
great severity of the conduct both of Cass and of Stevenson
upon this subject, and said they thought to make great political
headway upon a popular gale.
26th. I have neither time nor space for commenting upon,
or even for stating, many of the interesting transactions of
every day. The fate of my resolution offered yesterday, to
stop hereafter the pay of absentee members of the House of

244 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [August,
Representatives, would furnish matter for four pages of this
diary; but it must pass.
I called at the National Intelligencer office with a special
request to Mr. Gales that the proceedings of both Houses upon
the resolution might be correctly reported. The report in the
Intelligencer of this morning of the proceedings of the House
is grossly incorrect, and there is no report at all of the proceed
ings in the Senate.
In the House, the approaching close of the session was
manifested by the transaction of much helter-skelter business.
Gwin, of Mississippi, continued to tease the House with the
most perverse perseverance to pass the bill to give a gratuity of
about four thousand dollars, under color of refunding to Gen
eral Jackson a fine levied upon him by Judge Hall at New
Orleans in 1815. This is a crumb of political swindling, got
up by Davezac, a profligate French Creole of New Orleans,
now commorant in the city of New York and disgracing it as
one of its representatives in the State Legislature.
Gwin has been harassing the House day after day to get up
this bill, reported by three out of nine members of the Judi
ciary Committee, with a characteristic Five-Points report by
Charles J. Ingersoll. Gwin failed to get up the bill this day,
but it will be carried in the next Congress, if not in the next
session. Two notable bills were driven through the House this day:
one to repeal the proviso to the sixth section of the Act of
4th September, 1841, suspending the distribution of the pro
ceeds of the land sales among the States. The bill finally
passed, by yeas and nays — one hundred and four to eighty-six.
The bill for remedial justice was also crowded, by a rallying of
the Whigs, first through the committee of the whole on the
state of the Union, Joseph R. Ingersoll in the chair, and finally
through the House, by yeas and nays — ninety-two to eighty-
four. 29th. The Tariff bill came back from the Senate with nu
merous amendments, adopted, after an obstinately contested
debate, last Saturday evening — twenty- four to twenty-three.
The progress of the tariff" controversy exhibits a signal exem-

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 245
plification of what I have long and often remarked as a law of
political gravitation, as uniform in its operation as that other
gravitation which governs the system of the universe. It is
that of all great systems of policy maintained by antagonist
parties and subject to deliberative decision, the opposite prac
tical measures are modified into mutual approximation, till they
come to a balance turned by a single vote. So has it pre-emi
nently been in this revenue bill. In the House of Representa
tives it was twice pronounced rejected, and finally carried by
a majority of two votes in two hundred and eight. In the
Senate it has been finally carried by a majority of one vote.
When it came back, before the question of concurring with the
Senate's amendments was taken, Clifford moved to lay the bill
on the table. But so little disposed to this was the same House
where a majority of two had been so recently extorted by a
convulsion, that upon the motion now to lay the bill and amend
ments on the table the yeas and nays were but sixty-five to one
hundred and twenty. The amendments of the Senate were all
adopted in a lump, without a division of the House, and a re
consideration, moved by McKennan, to be rejected, was rejected
in the same manner.
30th. The bill for reorganizing the Navy Department was at
last carried through, after undergoing a total metamorphosis.
It abolishes the Board of Navy Commissioners, and substitutes
five bureaus, three of them with captains in the navy at their
head. T. B. King made an hour speech in support of the bill.
Wise moved a budget of amendments, some of which passed
without opposition, and others were rejected.
I moved an additional section, repealing the laws and parts
of laws which authorize the President or head of Department
to transfer appropriations from one branch of expenditure to
another, so far as relates to the Navy Department. My amend
ment was adopted, and then, out of regard for King, I suffered
the bill to pass.
While King was speaking, there came a message containing
a bundle of protests by the President against the act of the
House adopting my report of the select committee of thirteen
on his last veto message. When it was read, I said a few words,

246 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [August,
declining, from motives of personal delicacy, to propose any
measures to the House. Botts moved four resolutions, three
of which were in the same words with those adopted by the
Senate in April, 1834, on receiving a similar protest from Presi
dent Jackson, for which resolutions John Tyler and Daniel
Webster both voted. Botts read large extracts from an elo
quent speech of Webster on that occasion, moved a fourth
resolution, that the Clerk of the House be directed to return
Tyler's protest to its author. The first three resolutions were
adopted — eighty-seven to forty-six; eighty-seven to forty-nine;
and eighty-six to fifty-three. I declined voting upon the fourth,
which was lost — sixty-two to sixty-nine.
31st. The closing day of a session of Congress is always a
day of reckless confusion, and to me of distress and mortifica
tion. It was pre-eminently so this day. Mr. Tustin made an
appropriate parting prayer. As soon as the journal was read,
Wise moved to amend it by inserting the President's message
of protest in extenso. Wise thought to get it on to the journal
by this trick ; but the House, having declared yesterday by
resolution that it should not be entered on the journal, were
not thus to be baffled of their purpose. There was a precedent
precisely in point in the New Jersey election case at the first
session of the Twenty-Sixth Congress, upon the notification of
which by the Speaker to Mr. Wise he asked and obtained
leave to withdraw his motion. From that time till half-past
two o'clock the time was spent in calls of the House to obtain
a quorum, in passing, rejecting, or laying on the table bills
and resolutions with or without a quorum, in taking yeas and
nays, counting by tellers, and driving through or defeating, as
the humor happened to work. An appropriation of six thou
sand dollars by joint resolution was forced through by the
Speaker, against my earnest and repeated remonstrances.
Cushing, William Cost Johnson, Arnold, and Pope each gave
notice that he should start his favorite hobby at an early day
of the next session ; and T. F. Marshall gave notice that he
should oppose Cushing's exchequer; and McKennan gave
notice that he should oppose Arnold's bill No. 548. The usual
messages at the close of the session were interchanged, and at

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 247
half-past two p.m. the Speaker adjourned the House to the first
Monday in December next.
September ist. I called at the Treasury Department. The
Secretary, Mr. Walter Forward, has been several weeks absent
at the Bedford Springs, convalescent from a bilious fever. I
read from the National Intelligencer and the Globe the reports
of the passage through the House of the joint resolution from
the Senate appropriating six thousand dollars for the expense
of liberating citizens of the United States from Mexican cap
tivity, taken as Texan prisoners of war in the expedition against
Santa Fe last summer, and desired him particularly to mark
my earnest and repeated remonstrances against it as unconsti
tutional. I said I knew not whether the President had signed
the resolution "or not, but I objected to the drawing of any
money from the Treasury under its authority. I requested Mr.
McClintock Young, the Chief Clerk, to inform the President
of my objection, and to say that I wished to give no unneces
sary trouble to the Department, or notoriety to the transaction,
and would be satisfied with an assurance that no money should
be drawn from the Treasury upon this resolution before the
next session ; but I should otherwise address and publish a
letter to the Secretary of the Treasury on the subject.
2d. My mind is in the condition of a ship at sea in a hurri
cane, suspended by an instantaneous calm. The brain heaves,
the head swims, the body totters, and I live in a perpetual
waltz. The presentiment of a sudden termination to my life
is rather cheering to me than painful, and a man conscious of
no sin upon his soul which repentant tears may wash out can
dispense with the deprecation of the Episcopal litany against
sudden death. The apprehension, however, of such a close to
my life ought to and does admonish me to set my house in
order, to be prepared as much as a prudent forecast can provide
for whatever event may by the will of God befall me. I see my
duty, but I procrastinate. I had determined to devote the in
terval between the session of Congress just closed and the next,
in all probability the last I shall ever attend, in settling all my
private concerns, so that I may be ready for the summons at a
minute's notice to appear before my Maker; but I have not felt

248 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [September,
myself at liberty to decline engagements to attend two public
meetings in my own district and to address them; and last
evening I received a letter from Dutee J. Pearce, of Newport,
Rhode Island, indicted for treason against the State, soliciting
my aid in his defence. I could not hesitate an instant to un
dertake it, though it comes upon me like a thunder-clap. No
one can imagine what I suffered when I engaged to defend
before the Supreme Court of the United States the lives and
liberty of thirty-six Africans of the Amistad, nor with what
gratitude to Heaven I heard the decision of the Court pro
nouncing them free, and with what delight I dwelt upon the con
fident hope that it was the last occasion upon which I should
ever be called to stake my personal, moral, intellectual, and
political character upon issues involving the lives, fortunes, and
characters of others, as well as my own. I have now on hand
a controversial warfare with John Tyler, President of the United
States; bitter personal hatred of five of the most depraved, most
talented, and most influential men of this country, four of them
open and undisguised — C. J. Ingersoll, Wise, T. F Marshall,
and W. Cost Johnson — the fifth under a mask — nameless; and
now this trial for treason, which will be at least as much a trial
of me as of Pearce himself. The mercy of God is the only
anchor of my soul for deliverance from this ordeal.
3d. The heat and the depression of my spirits continue un
abated, perhaps in the relation of cause and effect. I called at
the Department of State, and saw the Chief Clerk, Fletcher
Webster. His father, the Secretary of State, is gone to spend
a month at Marshfield. I enquired if there was among the
Acts of the session of Congress just expired deposited at the
Department a joint resolution appropriating six thousand dol
lars of money. He said there was, sent a clerk for it, and put
it into my hands. It was signed, "Approved, John Tyler." I
desired Mr. Webster to say to the President that I protested
against the drawing of any money from the Treasury under
authority of that resolution, which I considered unconstitutional,
null and void. I had remonstrated against it in vain at every
stage of its passage through the House. Introduced from the
Senate within the last half-hour of the session, without a word

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 249
of reason or of explanation, driven through by repeated previous
questions, and for an expenditure itself very exceptionable, I
had notified Mr. Young, Chief Clerk of the Treasury, that I
proposed to move at the next session of Congress to rescind
that resolution; that if I could be assured no money would be
drawn from the Treasury under its authority I would take no
further notice of it, but I would otherwise address to the Secre
tary of the Treasury, and publish, a letter stating my objections
against it. I read to Mr. Fletcher Webster the paragraphs of
the Constitution which I understand to interdict the appropria
tion of money by resolution, and requested him to state them
to the President, and to communicate to me his decision upon
the subject before next Tuesday, when I expected to leave the
city. He said he would. This profligate and outrageous vio
lation of the Constitution imposes upon me duties of bitter
anguish and hopeless prospect.
5th. I received this day an impertinent letter from Fletcher
Webster, bloated with self-sufficiency as an Executive officer,
maintaining that an appropriation by resolution is quite as
proper and valid as if made by law, and that he has already
made the requisition at the Department of the Treasury for the
six thousand dollars appropriated by the resolution. He says
in his letter that there are numerous precedents of this course.
I answered him this evening, and called for a specification of
his numerous precedents.
I went also to the Capitol, and examined the journal of the
Senate, and traced up the fraud to the South Carolina Senator
W. C. Preston, connived at by George Evans, Chairman of
their Committee of Finance — as arrant a piece of sheer knavery
as ever was perpetrated at Eastcheap or found its reward at
Tyburn. And Preston and Evans-are two of the ablest men
and most efficient Whigs in Congress.
6th. I received this day from Fletcher Webster a reply to my
answer, as impertinent, as ignorant, and as insolent as the former.
Into what hands have the Presidency, the Departments of State
and of the Treasury, fallen ! Daniel Webster, his father, Secretary
of State, has gone to Marshfield to shoot snipes and fish for trout,
and to patch up some shameful rents in his private finances.

250 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [September,
7th. At precisely six o'clock took seats in the railroad cars
for Baltimore. The weather warm, but pleasant. Among our
fellow-travellers, not more than thirty, was Robert Tyler, the
President's son, who coldly spoke to the ladies with me, but,
upon enquiry of some one whether he had spoken to me, an
swered no, because I had abused his father. Captain Tyler's
two sons are to him what nephews have usually been to the
Pope, and among his minor vices is nepotism. He has quar
tered both of them upon the public for salaries, and made old
Cooper, the broken down stage-player, father of his son Robert's
wife, a military storekeeper. The son John was so distended
with his dignity as secretary that he had engraved on his visit
ing cards, "John Tyler, Jr., Private and Confidential Secretary
of his Excellency John Tyler, President of the United States."
Robert is as confidential as John, and both of them divulged
all his Cabinet secrets to a man named Parmelee and John
Howard Payne, hired reporters for Bennett's Herald newspaper
at New York, who, by their intimacy with these upstart princes,
crept into the familiarity of domestic inmates at the President's
house. Quincy, 12th. — Mr. Minot Thayer was here this afternoon,
with a nephew of his, a youth of about fourteen, named Brown.
I agreed to come to his house next Saturday at twelve o'clock,
noon, there to meet the procession with which I am to go to
Mr. Perkins's church for the reception. He says Mr. Nathaniel
Morton Davis will address me and offer a series of resolutions.
I have no time for preparation of an address, as I had intended
and actually commenced, and must rely almost entirely on ex
temporaneous inspiration. Mr. Thayer expressed great alarm
that the Whigs will lose the re-election of John Davis as Gov
ernor of the State for the next year, and seemed inclined to
urge me to serve if nominated, and said if I would I should
receive two-thirds of the votes throughout the Commonwealth.
I know better ; but I shall not make the trial.
14th. I employ what leisure I have in laying out a take-leave
speech for next Saturday ; but the variety of topics upon which
I must touch is so great, and every one of them must be so
largely treated, that as I think and breathe upon them they

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 25 1
swell like soap-bubbles blown by boys through pipe-stems, till
they burst and resolve themselves into a mist.
15th. I awoke again by two in the morning with my old
catarrhal cough and fever upon me, as warning of what I must
undertake to go through next Saturday. This reception was
projected by two successive meetings of delegates from towns
in the district as long ago as last June. Mr. Loring, of Hing-
ham, as Chairman of a committee of arrangements, wrote to
me on the 25th of July informing me of the design and re
questing me to name a day for the performance. I answered
him, and named next Saturday at three p.m., and since that it
has been advertised in the newspapers of the district, and in
several of the daily papers of Boston. All this parade and
ceremony is to be made for me, and I only think how ridic
ulously it inflates my vanity. The meeting is expected to be
very large, but I am prepared for a disappointment in that.
The weather is as unfavorable as possible, and I have no reason
to expect it will be better. I know how hard it is to fill country
churches, and I do not desire a crowded auditory. But I am
to be addressed face to face, and to make an extemporaneous
answer. I am to receive resolutions, and know not exactly
what they will be, and must make some comment upon them.
I am expected to make a long speech, and have every reason
to fear it will disappoint expectations much too highly raised.
The danger of giving offence is imminent. The power of com
pressing and arranging what I have to say is very severely
tested. The themes are all too copious, and I feel my deficiency
in the art of abridging.
17th. Mr. Seth Sprague, Junr., of Duxbury, a member of the
Senate of the State, from the county of Plymouth, and a mem
ber of the committee of arrangements for the meeting of this
day, called on me this morning and gave me to read the reso
lutions which he proposed to offer, and which were honorary
to me quite as much as I could desire. I agreed with him to
meet the committee between twelve and one at Minot Thayer's
house. I rode accordingly, and about twenty minutes to one
found at Mr. Thayer's a small number of his family, and a col
lation; but we had taken one before we left home. Soon after

252 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [September,
one the committee came and met me at Mr. Thayer's, the
convention having marched in procession from the Universalist
Church to that of Mr. Perkins, which is of the Congregation-
alist orthodox denomination. At the head of the committee
was Mr. Nathaniel Morton Davis, of Plymouth, a member of
the Governor's Council. We proceeded to the meeting-house,
where Mr. Perkins, in his pulpit, began the ceremony with a
fervid prayer. Immediately in front of the pulpit was erected
a stage, on which were several clergymen and magistrates, and
where the committee took seats, and I was myself stationed.
The house was crowded in all its parts almost to suffocation.
It appeared to me one solid mass of humanity, and that there
was not room for one individual more to creep into. The men
covered the floor, and the women the galleries all round, except
a part of the front gallery, reserved for a choir of singers.
After the prayer, Mr. Davis read an address to the assembled
company, announcing to them the object of the meeting, and
to me, in terms which put me to the blush, so that I was utterly
unable to reply to them. They were intended in kindness; but
in fulsome praise I can take no pleasure, and it always covers
me with humiliation. I shuffled off as soon as possible all refer
ence to my former services in my Administration, and addressed
the meeting as my constituents, whom I had served for the last
twelve years, and from a great portion, if not all, of whom I
am now finally to part. I spoke about three hours, from two
to five o'clock, without interruption, and without a moment's
flagging of attention. I read several of the pages that I had
written, intermingled with so much extemporaneous enlarge
ment and illustration that the discourse was at once compact
and diversified. The introductory and concluding passages
which I had written enabled me to begin and finish acceptably.
Mr. Sprague's resolutions were then read, and adopted with
out opposition ; and then an ode was sung, written by the Rev.
John Pierpont, to the tune of God Save the King, — very flat
tering, but with a monitorial closing stanza scarcely intelligible.1
1 " But time shall touch the page
That tells how Quincy's sage
Has dared to live,

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 253
The meeting was then dismissed with a benediction by Mr.
Perkins. We got home by eight o'clock.1
24th. When I last called upon my colleague George N.
Briggs at Washington, where he was detained after the close
of the late session by a bilious fever, he gave me a warm in
vitation to the cattle show and fair in his county of Berkshire,
which was to be held the first week in October. Though I had
little expectation of being able to go, I did not refuse; and yes
terday I received a letter from him, very earnestly urging and
pressing the invitation. I have an aversion, almost amounting
to abhorrence, to attendance at all public meetings for speech-
making, and avoid them as I would a pestilence. Yet the
fashion of holding them spreads and multiplies all over this
country, to such a degree that I have neither leisure nor quiet,
and am kept in continual agitation to escape from them. Having
engaged to deliver a lecture at Boston on the evening of the
6th of October, I cannot attend at Pittsfield on the 5th. I wrote
accordingly to Mr. Briggs.
26th. Mr. Dutee J. Pearce came this morning, not to break
fast, but immediately after, accompanied by Burrington An
thony, heretofore Marshal of the United States in the judicial
district of Rhode Island, and one of the principal actors in
the recent troubles and revolutionary movements of that State.
He left Mr. Pearce with me, and we had a conversation of
two hours upon his present condition. He left with me a
copy of the indictment found against him for treason, in which
there are four counts, the overt act charged in them all being
the same — namely, assuming to exercise the legislative func
tions of the office of member of the House of Representatives
of the State, not being duly elected thereto, according to the
laws of the State, but under a pretended Constitution of
government. Save as he touches wine,
Or Shakspeare's glowing line,
Or Raphael's form divine,
New life to give."
1 The proceedings at this meeting were published in a pamphlet of sixty-three
pages, bearing the following title : " Address of John Quincy Adams to his Constit
uents of the Twelfth Congressional District, at Braintree, September 17th, 1842."

254 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [September,
The second count charges that he, with other false traitors
to the jurors unknown, did assemble, and vote, and assent to
sundry laws and acts of pretended legislation.
The third count charges assembling with others, not being
duly elected, to exercise the legislative authority; and the fourth
has the same charge, with the addition of the pretended Con
stitution. The date of the offence charged in the first and fourth
counts is the 3d, and in the second and third counts the 4th,
of May, 1842. In the event of a trial, which is quite uncertain,
but, if held at all, it will be in the last week of next month, Mr.
Pearce wished me to act as his closing counsel ; and I promised
so to undertake. Several questions were started between us,
concerning the law of treason, arising from the case; but we
had not time to go largely into them. There was one as to the
legality of holding the trial at Newport, but this, he said, would
be decided next week.
29th. Soon after twelve o'clock, there came to my house a
procession of about five hundred persons, with a band of music,
and the Rev. John Pierce, of Brookline, D.D., at their head. I
met them at my gate, and he said he had been this morning
elected President of the Norfolk County Temperance Society,
and that they had come to escort me to the pavilion where they
were to dine. Justin Spear, George Newcomb, the Rev. William
M. Cornell, ex-minister of the Orthodox Congregational Church,
and the Rev. John Gregory, minister of the Universalist Church,
were in the procession. We marched, sonorous metal blowing
martial sounds, to the pavilion adjoining the town-hall, in Cod-
dington Street, to which the town-hall itself has been since
last winter removed. Under the pavilion a cold dinner or col
lation was prepared on a trident table of several hundred covers,
every plate of which was occupied, with a profusion of pitchers
full of cold water to drink. Mr. John Pierpont said grace be
fore meat, and Mr. Colver returned thanks. No toasts after
dinner, but much discussion whether there should be or not.
The dinner lasted about an hour ; and the procession then went
to the Universalist meeting-house, which the pilgrims of the
procession filled to the brim. The discourses were all delivered
in the pulpit ; they were interspersed with the singing of tern-

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 255
perance hymns. Mr. Pierce presided ; Mr. Pierpont made the
introductory prayer. Mr. Pierce then gave a sentiment in honor
of the town of Quincy, first intended as a toast for the dinner,
and, somewhat awkwardly, introduced me to the auditory. I
then read my address, which occupied just one hour in the de
livery. It was listened to with deep and undivided attention,
and faintly applauded at the close, but did not suit the Society
before which I spoke, nor their doctrines of total abstinence
from the use of wine — which I neither approve nor practise.1
Extemporaneous addresses followed, from Edmund Quincy, Mr.
Pierpont, Mr. Colver, who made the concluding prayer, and by
two other persons — all urging the principle of total abstinence,
and pronouncing ludicrous invectives upon wine, fermentation,
distillation, alcohol arsenic ; also upon rumsellers, traders in
ardent spirits, and spruce beer. Quincy was solemn and tragi
cal ; Pierpont, facetious and farcical ; the others, rude and radical,
Notice was given of another meeting, with addresses, at seven
o'clock this evening, at the Orthodox meeting-house. Our
meeting was dismissed with a blessing by Dr. Pierce, after the
adoption of several resolutions. As I walked home, I was over
taken by Edmund Quincy, going home to Dedham, in his wagon
chaise. October ist. After dinner, Dr. Brewer, one of the editors of
the Boston Atlas, called, being on his return from Boston to
Hingham, where he is passing the summer. He came to urge
me to furnish him, as soon as possible, with a copy of my ad
dress at Weymouth on the 17th of last month. A number of
the principal Whigs of Boston, during Mr. Webster's visit to
his farm at Marshfield, gave him an invitation to a public dinner,
which he declined, and proposed as a substitute a meeting at
Faneuil Hall, where he might exchange greetings with all his
fellow-citizens who might be so disposed. This meeting was^
accordingly held yesterday. The Mayor of the city presided-,
and addressed him in a highly complimentary style, which he
answered by a speech, which was received by a crowded hall
1 This address was also published in pamphlet form, making twenty-four pages,
under this title : " Address to the Norfolk County Temperance Society, at their
Meeting at Quincy, 29 September, 1842."

256 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [October,
with every external show of enthusiastic applause, but which
was bitter as wormwood to nearly the whole of the Whig party,
and sweeter than honey to the radical Democracy; boastful,
cunning, Jesuitical, fawning, and insolent; ambiguous in its
givings out, avowing his determination not to let them know
whether he intends to resign his office or not, arguing all sorts
of reasons for his retaining it, but intimating that he may per
haps release his grasp upon it; dealing open blows at the late
Whig Convention for their resolution of total severance from
John Tyler, and sly stabs at Clay and me, without naming
either of us. The whole purport of his speech was to pro
pitiate the Democracy, and to split up the Whigs and out
of the two fragments to make a Tyler party.
I promised Dr. Brewer to write out my speech as soon as
possible, and that I thought I could have it ready in the course
of a week. Caleb Cushing, too, has had a magnificent reception
at Newburyport, and the signs of the Tyler party are much
stronger than I could have imagined. Brewer told me that he
had several letters from Caleb Cushing against me — particularly,
written last winter, arguing that the Southern slave-dealers
were right, and I was wrong, in all the proceedings upon the
right of petition.
5th. This afternoon Mr. Jotham Lincoln and Mr. Lewis, of
Hingham, called here on their return from Dedham, where
they had been to attend a convention of Whig delegates from
the towns of the newly constituted Eighth Congressional Dis
trict of the Commonwealth ; it consists of all the towns —
twenty-two — in the county of Norfolk, with the towns of Hing
ham, Abington, North Bridgewater, and Hull, in Plymouth
County, and Brighton, Natick, Newton, Sherburne, and Hol-
liston, in Middlesex — thirty-one towns, eleven of which are
in the late Twelfth Congressional District. Fourteen towns
in Norfolk, five in Middlesex, and one in Plymouth are added
to make the district. Thirteen of the towns in Plymouth County
which I have represented are taken away and allotted to another
district. Mr. Lincoln said that the delegation from the towns
was numerous, and that the nomination of me was unanimous,
no other person being named. It was made viva voce. Sundry •

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 2^y
resolutions were adopted, and a committee appointed to inform
me of my nomination ; of which Minot Thayer is Chairman.
The other members of the committee are Samuel H. Walley,
of Roxbury, who presided at the Convention, and Mr. Brigham,
of this town. Mr. Thayer was afterwards here. Mr. Thayer
proposed that the committee should come to inform me of my
nomination next Monday afternoon.
This nomination by the Whigs furnishes by no means con
clusive evidence of what turn the election may take. The
Democracy have the majority in the county of Norfolk. Their
Convention for the nomination of a candidate is to be held next
Tuesday. Besides which, there is a strong abolition party, in
the district, and a considerable portion, if not the whole, of that
party will not vote for me, but for a candidate of their own.
They have defeated an election in the Ninth District, and con
sisting chiefly of the same towns ; and they may, if they please,
defeat the election of the Eighth District to the next Congress.
Nothing is more uncertain.
Boston, 6th. — I went to Mr. Abbott Lawrence's. He had
sent me yesterday an invitation to take tea with him, but he
had received a call of business to Lowell, and had not returned ;
but Mrs. Lawrence and her daughter Anna were there, and
she entertained me with flattering conversation till he returned.
While we were at tea, Mr. George Bancroft came in. He
walked with me and Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence to the Odeon.
We met Mr. Field on the way, and Mr. George T. Bigelow met
us at the side-door. I avoid on these occasions every possible
appearance of parade or ostentation. The house, a very large
one, was crowded to the brim, and the whole auditory rose as
we went in. Mr. Lawrence, who is the President of the Ly
ceum, introduced me with a few complimentary phrases, which
were received with applause ; and precisely at half-past seven
I began the delivery of my lecture, which I finished a quarter-
before nine. It was the lecture which I wrote two years ago
upon Filmer, Hobbes, Algernon Sidney, and Democracy, but
which I had never before delivered. It was so dull that I
scarcely hoped that it would be listened to with patience;
and yet the attention of the audience never flagged for a
vol. xi. — 17

258 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [October,
moment.1 Dr. Brewer came and enquired about my Weymouth
speech, which I promised as soon as possible. Mr. Lawrence
told me there was a committee at his house who wanted
me to come to Boston and make a political speech; but, he
said, I could see them on Saturday. From the Odeon I got
immediately into my carriage, and returned, as I had gone,
alone to Quincy.
Quincy, 9th. — Mr. Lunt preached this forenoon from Psalm
li. 6 : " Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts." It was
a funeral discourse on the decease of Dr. William Ellery Chan-
ning, and a noble tribute of honor to his- memory. He spoke
in general terms of his early writings, and of the general char
acter of his mind, and of his compositions. He was one of
the most eminent writers upon religion, morals, and politics
that this country has produced, writing always in the genuine
spirit of Christianity, with the tenderness of a father to his
children, and always looking to the improvement and purifica
tion of the human character, especially in the humbler and
indigent classes of the community. His recent labors have
been chiefly confined to promoting the cause of universal lib
erty, and the extinction of slavery and the slave-trade through
out the earth. Mr. Lunt did him ample justice on this point.
He gave a short extract from the last address, delivered at
Lenox, on the first day of last August, and spoke of it in terms
of enthusiastic applause. This was very creditable to Mr.
Lunt, inasmuch as Dr. Channing's course has on this subject
been too bold and anti-servile for the timid and the time
serving friends of freedom. Dr. Channing never flinched or
quailed before the enemy. But he was deserted by many of
his followers, and lost so many of his parishioners, that he had
yielded to his colleague, E. S. Gannett, the whole care of his
pastoral office, giving up all claim to salary, and reserving only
the privilege of occasionally preaching to them at his conve-
1 This address was afterwards printed in pamphlet form at Providence, under
the following title: "The Social Compact exemplified in the Constitution of the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts, with Remarks on the Theories of Divine Right
of Hobbes and Filmer, and the Counter Theories of Sidney, Locke, Montesquieu,
and Rousseau concerning the Nature and Origin of Government."

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 259
nience. The loss of Dr. Channing to the anti-slavery cause is
irreparable. 10th. After dinner, Mr. Benjamin F. Copeland, Minot
Thayer, and William Oliver, of Dorchester, came as a commit
tee from the Whig Convention of the new Eighth Congressional
District of Massachusetts, held at Dedham on the 5th instant,
to inform me of my being unanimously nominated to represent
that district in the Twenty-Eighth Congress, and to communi
cate to me certain resolutions adopted by that Convention, ex
pressing their approbation of my conduct in Congress hitherto.
Mr. Walley was the Chairman of the committee, but was de
tained by private business, and could not come. Mr. Brig-
ham, with Mr. Thayer and Mr. Oliver, were also a committee
from the Convention of the county of Norfolk, to request me
to meet with them on some day of this month, at Dedham. I
accepted the nomination, with thanks for the honorable manner
in which it was made, and for the resolutions with which it was
accompanied ; and I promised an answer as soon as I shall be
able to ascertain whether my other engagements will permit me
to meet and address the Whigs of Norfolk County at Dedham.
I ith. I wrote to Mr. George T. Bigelow a short letter, with
drawing my promise to address the Boston Whig Association
on the 27th of this month. I found this absolutely necessary
to justify a refusal to attend at any public political meeting be
fore my return to Washington. I accordingly wrote an answer,
declining an invitation to a public dinner at Sandwich, and on
turning over my letters recently received, to endorse and file
them, I found one which I had totally forgotten, from Clarkson
Crolius, Junr., and E. D. West, Aldermen, and William Dodge,
an Assistant Alderman, of New York, committee of invitations
for the Common Council of that city, inviting me to a festival
to be held on the 14th of this month, in celebration of the intro
duction of the Croton water into the city. There was on the
note a twice-repeated request for an answer, which I had over
looked till now. I answered the letter, declining the invita
tion, and sent it to Gillett, to be taken by him to-morrow
morning to Boston and put into the post-office, so that it may
reach New York on Thursday, the day before the feast.

26o MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [October,
My unceasing drudgery in writing out the supplement to my
Weymouth speech continues unabated, and has come to blister
my fingers.
Towards evening, Mr. Grinnell, of New Bedford, and Mr.
Tuck, of Nantucket, came — the former with a pressing invi
tation to attend a public meeting of Whigs in Bristol County
next week, on Wednesday, and address them, at or near Taun
ton ; and with another invitation to me to visit my friends at
New Bedford — both of which I declined.
The multitude of applications to me to deliver addresses and
lectures, with which I cannot comply, has brought me to the
conclusion of returning in the first week of next month to
Washington, to see if I can obtain a few days of leisure and
repose there. Charles, at my request, saw Mr. Choate at Bos
ton this morning. He does not consider himself as having
made any engagement to come out and deliver an address to
the Whigs of Quincy. Nor does he expect that I should at
tend and introduce him. With regard to his opinions, he was
quite reserved.
1 2th. Mr. Thomas Adams, Junr., and Mr. Horton came this
morning for my answer to their invitation to me to attend a
meeting of the Whigs of Quincy and introduce to them Mr.
Choate, who has promised to make them a speech. I told
them that I had come to the conclusion that I could not with
propriety attend : first, because I had invariably, since I had
held the office of President of the United States, forborne at
tending and taking part in any electioneering public meeting;
and secondly, because I knew not what the sentiments of Mr.
Choate were, and perhaps he might express opinions with
which I might not concur, and then I should be held respon
sible for his opinions, or under the necessity of contesting them,
which would tend rather to dissension than to harmony among
the Whigs.
They acquiesced in my determination, but enquired anedously
if it was true that I had declared it as my opinion that Thomas
W. Dorr was now the lawful Governor of Rhode Island. I
told them certainly not. It is a lie published in the Boston
Morning Post, originating in my having undertaken to defend

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 26l
Dutee J. Pearce as his counsel on his trial for treason. I told
them that my son had, at my request, seen Mr. Choate, who
had told him that he had not expected that I should be pres
ent at the meeting here at which he proposed to address the
Whigs. 13th. My diary becomes almost exclusively a record of in
vitations to attend and address public meetings or to lecture
lyceums. This morning, Mr. Charles T. Smyth, a commis
sion merchant at Albany, came with Mr. Earle, of Boston, with
an invitation from the Albany Young Men's Association to
visit that place and deliver a lecture or address before them.
Mr. Smyth brought with him letters of recommendation from
Mr. Daniel D. Barnard, and from the Rev. John Campbell, here
tofore minister of the Second Presbyterian Church, but now
settled at Albany, both urging me to come. With them was a
letter from Mr. Hooper C. Van Vorst, Corresponding Secretary
of the Association, said to number upwards of one thousand
young men. He reminds me of the conditional engagement
I had made last year, and which was disappointed by my in
disposition ; but I was obliged to decline also for the present
year. This afternoon, Mr. William Blake, a merchant of Boston,
formerly of Springfield, came out with Mrs. .Blake and deliv
ered to me a letter of invitation signed by Charles Stevens and
four others, a committee of the Springfield Lyceum, request
ing me to deliver a lecture to them on the 19th instant, or any
other day that may suit my convenience. And to this is added
a request, signed by thirty-four names of citizens of Springfield,
to Mr. Blake to apply to me personally to urge my compliance
with the invitation from the committee of the Lyceum. I am
tired of repeating the same answer to all these solicitations, but
I have none other to give. I answered this day a letter from
William Hill, who came from Cambridge with two invitations
of John Owen — one for the Lyceum, and one for the Temper
ance Society ; and I have yet to answer a letter from John
Marsh, Corresponding Secretary of the American Temperance
Union, New York, requesting me to repeat my temperance
lecture; then one from A. S. Train, President of the Lyceum

262 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [October,
at Haverhill, asking for a lecture there; one from Charles
R. Train, of Framingham, requiring a political address to a
meeting of Whigs there, at some convenient time ; one from
Charles A. Andrew, enquiring if I can deliver a lecture before
the Salem Lyceum on the 26th instant, or any other day; and
one from President Quincy, notifying the committee of the
October exhibition that it will be next Tuesday.
15th. Mr. Lunt called again this morning, and told me that
he had seen last evening Mr. Lewis Bass, Chairman of the
Lyceum Lecturing Committee, who had agreed to postpone
the delivery of my lecture till next Wednesday week, and the
notice in the Quincy Patriot of this morning was dated ac
cordingly. I agreed, therefore, to go with Mr. Lunt next
Wednesday to the ordination of Mr. Huntington, at Boston.
I labored like a- slave all day upon my task of writing out, with
enlargement, my speech on the reception daj»at Braintree. But
towards evening, Mr. George Tyler Bigelow, Mr. Fearing, and
two other members of the Boston Whig Association came out
to urge me once more to deliver to them a political address be
fore the close of this month. Webster's speech at Faneuil Hall
has dislocated all the joints of the Whig party, and they are in
great fear that it will deliver over the State to Marcus Morton
and the mongrel Democracy. Cushing has been stumping
at Newburyport, Haverhill, and Lowell, for the same purpose.
These gentlemen believe that my counteracting influence would
save the State ; but they are entirely mistaken. I had a letter
yesterday from Joseph Sprague, of Salem, to the same effect.
But electioneering speeches now would pass for stumping to
carry my own election. I have always abstained from it, and
must still abstain. I told them that, without wishing to interfere
in any of the State elections, I was entirely satisfied with the
nomination of John Davis, both for re-election as Governor
and for the office of Vice-President, and that as to national
politics, my speech at Braintree would be published in the
Atlas next week, and would give the Whigs all the assistance
which I believed it in my power to afford. I mentioned to
them my engagement to defend Dutee J. Pearce upon his trial
for treason, and contradicted the paragraph in the Morning

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 263
Post asserting that I had given it as my opinion that Thomas
W. Dorr was now the lawful Governor of Rhode Island.
17th. Mr. Brigham called this afternoon for my definitive
answer to the invitation to address the Whigs of the county
of Norfolk, in the course of this month, at- Dedham. I told Mr.
Brigham that I must definitively decline ; and I believe I con
vinced Mr. Brigham that it would be better for the Whig party,
as well'as for myself, that I should abstain from attendance at
any of these public meetings at this time. Towards sunset,
finding myself falling asleep over my paper while writing, I
was walking up the hill, when Mr. Joseph Grinnell, of New
Bedford, overtook me in a chaise, and delivered to me a letter,
signed by seventeen very respectable citizens of that town,
earnestly entreating me to attend the great Whig meeting at
Taunton next Wednesday ; and I had received a very kind
and warm invitation from Mr. John Marston, of that town, to
his house. I repeated to Mr. Grinnell all the reasons which I
had given to Mr. Brigham and to the committee from Boston
for declining to attend these public meetings, and added that
I was now under an engagement for Wednesday, which would
render my attendance at Taunton impossible. He wished me
to answer the letter from the seventeen gentlemen of New
Bedford, so that my answer could be read at the meeting ; but
that would be difficult, and, I believe, inexpedient.
The first part of my Braintree reception speech was published
in the Boston Atlas of this morning, and they sent me six copies
of the paper containing it.
1 8th. I went to Cambridge this morning, and attended the
meeting of the Committee of Overseers, to examine the state
of the University, and the autumnal exhibition. We went with
Mr. Quincy first to the new dining-hall, around which all the
portraits are ranged, new varnished and freshened ; but the best
of them all, the full length of my father, painted by Copley in
1783, has been damaged by a hole punched through the canvas
on the shoulder.
At the meeting, I was chosen chairman for the day. Presi
dent Quincy read reports from the several professors of the
Divinity and Law Schools, and of all the professors, tutors, and

264 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [October,
teachers of the undergraduates ; all of which were very satis
factory. The President's own report came last, and spoke of
the general state of the University as favorable, with two ex
ceptions ; one a brutal explosion by gunpowder in one of the
buildings, last July, the perpetrator of which has not been dis
covered ; the other is a disorderly and outrageous mutiny in
the Senior class, begun by one member of the class breaking
the windows of another named Burchard, and then a succession
of personal violence and cruelties, implicating at last the whole
class, to drive away Burchard from the college. The last move
ment is a statement in a Boston newspaper, by authority of the
whole class, against the Faculty. The statement was referred
to a committee of three members, to report thereon to the Board
of Overseers at their next meeting. The committee chosen
were Dr. Codman, Dr. Lamson, and Mr. Saltonstall. The other
papers were delivered to Josiah Quincy, Junr., Chairman of the
Examining Committee at their last spring meeting. At eleven
o'clock we passed into the exhibition-room, where, with the
usual music of the Pierian Sodality, and the usual expectations
of the President, fifteen orations, dissertations, disquisitions,
versions, and dialogues were delivered in three hours, and one
was omitted. The languages were English, Latin, and Greek.
The committee, with two or three gentlemen invited as guests,
dined in the chamber adjoining that where the meeting was
held. Conversation about the Bible, Shakspeare, and temper
ance. 22d. Morning visit from William and Samuel Lawrence, the
latter of whom presented to me a copy of a resolution adopted
at a meeting of the Whigs of Lowell, last Saturday evening, in
the highest degree complimentary to me, with a very earnest
invitation to me that I would deliver an address to the Whigs
of that city previous to the approaching election ; a second
resolution, that Samuel Lawrence, Esq., be a committee to
present to me that invitation; and a third, that a copy of it
be forwarded to me.
I answered as I have fortunately done to all the applications
for political addresses to be delivered with reference to the
elections, expressing my gratitude for the honor done me by

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 265
the invitation, but that I had declined, and must decline, all in
vitations to deliver addresses to political meetings. But, I said,
I had received an invitation to deliver a lecture before the Ly
ceum at Lowell, which I had not answered. I would engage
to go some day the week after next, and deliver that lecture —
which Mr. Samuel Lawrence said would answer just as well as
an address ; for what the people of Lowell wanted was to see
and hear me. And so it is with all these importunate invitations.
It is the same curiosity under the spur of which they flock and
pay to see the ourang-outang, the mermaid, the anaconda, or
the rhinoceros.
24th. Just before dinner, five very respectable-looking men
of color, three negroes and two light mulattoes, came as a. dele
gation from a meeting of the people .of color in Boston, at
which, they told me, upwards of five hundred persons were
present, to solicit me to act as counsel in behalf of George Lati
mer, claimed as a slave by James B. Gray, of Norfolk, Virginia.
They delivered to me a letter from S. E. Sewall and Amos
Binney Merrill, lawyers of Boston, engaged as counsel for Lat
imer, recommending them to me and the object of their mission.
I answered them, expressing my grateful sensibility to the col
ored people of Boston for this mark of their confidence in me,
and said I would cheerfully comply with their invitation if I
Were still in the practice of the law, but that for more than
thirty years I had been withdrawn from it by other occupations,
and, except in one instance about two years ago, when I ar
gued before the Supreme Court of the United States the cause
of the captive Africans of the Amistad, I had never resumed
the practice. I had now one contingent engagement to defend
Mr. Dutee J. Pearce upon an indictment against him for treason,
but I hoped he would not be tried at all. This, too, was a very
extraordinary occasion, and upon no other should I feel myself
justified in attempting to address a Court and jury. But they
might say to Mr. Sewall and Mr. Merrill that if any point of
law should occur upon which they might think that my opin
ion would be of any service to their client, I would cheerfully
give it at their request. They asked me to write a word of
answer to Messrs. Sewall and Merrill; which I promised to do.

266 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [November,
29th. My first visitor this morning was Mr. Southwick, a young
man about twenty-five, who came from Mendon to see me, and
the house in which my father and I were born, and the house
in which I live, and its furniture and pictures, and everything
about it. He sat with me upwards of an hour, almost the
whole time silent, asking about once in five minutes some ques
tion about my father or myself, answering very briefly what
questions I asked of him, seeming afraid to say what brought
him here, and yet sitting like a fixture to the house, while I
was in torture, wishing him to go away, without daring to hint '
to him that my time was my treasure. At last he enquired if
I had any spare copies of any of my published writings to
sell. .
I said no, but I had some that I would give him; and I did
give him a eulogy on James Monroe, a Jubilee of the Constitu
tion, a Texas speech of 1838, a speech on the Navy Pension
Fund, on the case of McLeod, and a tariff report.
He very earnestly urged me to allow him to pay for them —
which I declined.
He was scarcely gone, when Dr. Brewer, one of the editors
of the Atlas, came in with Thurlow Weed, editor of the Even
ing Journal, at Albany, come, deputed by the Whig Association
there, to entreat me to go there and address the Whigs upon
public affairs. He said it was their only chance to save the
State. I well know that my going there and addressing the Whigs
would not have the weight of a straw to save the State ; and it
was equally clear that the State cannot be saved. I satisfied
Mr. Weed, who brought me a recommendatory letter from
Governor William H. Seward, that I could not go to preach
politics at Albany, and that if I should it would be of no avail.
November 7th. I finally made out to take the fourteenth
quarto volume of my diary to Mr. Gill, the bookbinder, to be
bound. But I have not been able to assort about fifty volumes
of loose pamphlets which encumber my rooms. I added to
the volume sundry fragments, for I have found it impossible
to keep my diary unbroken. Since ist June, 1839, there is no •
chasm; a page a day, and rarely two pages, have been my

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 2&y
continual task; but the keeping of a diary that I would recom
mend would be quarto volumes of one size, five hundred pages
each, every page divided by two red lines into three equal
parts, the entries to be made in abridged style and form of
memoranda, never to exceed or fall short of one-third of a page;
each volume to contain the record of four years. In sixty
years this would make fifteen volumes of five hundred pages
each — quite enough for the autobiography of one man. I have
already more volumes, and multitudes of fragments — trash in
expressible, which I pray to God may never be exposed, but
which I leave to my son, to be used according to his good
judgment for a memoir of my life ; and if, by the mercy of God,
the manuscript should be preserved, to be left, with those of
my father, to one of my grandsons, who may be worthy of
possessing and passing them down to future generations.
12th. I received, as usual, a number of letters requesting me
to deliver lectures in sundry places, and among them one from
Joseph L. Tillinghast, of Providence, Rhode Island, requesting
a copy of my lecture upon Democracy, for publication. This
has occasioned no small embarrassment in my mind, for the
topic is as sharp with quills as the fretful porcupine, and the
same opinions which have been very favorably received here.
may be very obnoxious there. I need a guiding spirit as much
as I ever did at any period of my life. My present position is
one of great popularity with a falling party, and in falling with
them the prospect for me is of a sudden and overwhelming
reverse, in which case persecution may come not only upon
myself, which I can bear with fortitude, but upon those to whom
my good name is not only dear but necessary for their comfort.
I have deliberately assumed an aggressive position against the
President and his whole Executive Administration, against the
Supreme Court of the United States, and against the Com
mander-in-chief of the army. I am at issue with all the organ
ized powers of the Union, with the twelve hundred millions of
dollars of associated wealth, and with all the rabid Democracy
of the land. I do not mistake my position nor disguise to
myself its perils. But my cause is the cause of my country
and of human liberty. It is the cause of Christian improvement,

268 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [November,
the fulfilment of the prophecies that the day shall come when
slavery and war shall be banished from the face of the earth.
14th. Dr. Duggan called on me with a paper signed by him
and Noah Curtis, requesting Governor Davis to appoint John
Adams Green, publisher of the Quincy Patriot, a Justice of
the Peace. Green has been divorced from a first wife, and
some months since was married in my house to Elizabeth Kirk.
He is of the Democratic party, and so are a majority of the
voters in the town of Quincy, and Green is as impartial to the
opposite, or Whig party, as he dares to be. I signed the paper,
which Duggan came again in the afternoon and took away.
Dr. Duggan is the member from Quincy in the State Legis
lature. He was a member in 1839 and 1840. Henry Wood
supplanted him in 1841, and he again supplanted Wood for the
present year. He found, however, that his party had resolved
to drop him for the next year, and last evening he sent a letter
to the Democratic caucus requesting not to be considered a
candidate. When I was upon my trial last winter, the Doctor
offered in the Legislature a strong and warm resolution in my
favor. It was referred to a joint committee, of which Seth
Sprague, Junr., was Chairman on the part of the Senate. The
committee never reported ; Difggan says, truly, by dissuasion
of Sprague. Saltonstall had written to somebody that Preston,
of South Carolina, was Chairman in Congress of the Senate on
the Massachusetts claim, and if the resolution in my favor
should be adopted by the Legislature the claim would suffer for
it. Such is political friendship — Webster was under the rose.
I gave Dr. Duggan six of my published pamphlets.
15th. The Atlas and Courier, Boston newspapers, did not
come by this morning's mail, and until the afternoon we were
left in doubt of the result of my own election, and of all the
rest. The papers came in the afternoon. The Atlas only
contained the returns from all the towns in the Eighth Con
gressional District, excepting Roxbury and Brighton. In the
twenty-nine towns the returns are of five thousand two hundred
and seventy-two for me, four thousand nine hundred and eight
for Ezra Wilkinson, of Dedham, and sixty scattering, leaving
me a majority of three hundred and four votes, which the re-

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 269
turns from Brighton and Roxbury will increase to about four
hundred. In Boston, Robert C. Winthrop is elected for the
remaining session of this Congress, and for the next. The
Whig ticket for Senators of the county of Suffolk, and the
Boston ticket of thirty-five members of the House of Repre
sentatives, with the name of my son, Charles Francis Adams,
at its head, is elected. All the other elections are excessively
disjointed — the Whigs overwhelmed, and the Democracy alto
gether in the ascendant. I went to the bank and took out cur
rent money for my wife's journey to Washington ; and to the
town-hall, where I voted for Lysander Richards as Represent
ative for the town in the State Legislature ; but the Rev. John
Gregory was chosen, the minister of the Universalist Church,
a stranger in the town — a Democrat. It is remarkable that
four of the most envenomed towns against me in the district
are Braintree, Randolph, Quincy, and Weymouth — three of
which are formed of my native town of Braintree, and the
fourth the native town of my mother. Mr. Beale and Mr.
Minot Thayer came to take leave of us before our departure
for Washington. Thayer is mortified, and ashamed of the
Braintrees ; but the people are a wayward master.
16th. This was a day of comparative tranquillity, but of
intense occupation without progress — trivial, but not trifling,
occupation. " ' I've lost a day !' the prince who nobly said,
Had been an emperor without his crown,"
saith the English poet, Young ; and I deem it the duty of every
Christian man, when he betakes himself to his nightly pillow,
in self-examination to say, What good have I done this day?
Ay! and what evil have I done that may be repaired or re
pented of? Nor should he rise from that pillow the next
morning till after the enquiry, What good can I do, and to
whom, this day ? I have made this my rule for many years,
with superadded prayer to the Lord of all, the Giver of every
good gift, for light, for discernment, for guidance, for self-
control, for a grateful heart to feel and acknowledge all His
blessings, for humble resignation to His will, and submission

270 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [November,
to His chastisements. I believe myself sincere; but the heart
is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. I do not
believe the total depravity of man, but I am deeply conscious
of the frailty of my own nature. Jesus Christ went about
doing good — I would do the same. The spirit is willing, but
the flesh is weak. And now, what has been the occupation of
this day ? Writing the journal of yesterday ; a letter to Joseph
L. Tillinghast, of Providence, in answer to one from him in
viting me to deliver a lecture before the Lyceum at that place;
a letter to J. B. Mann, of Natick, in answer to an invitation
from him to deliver a lecture before the Lyceum of that town.
In the general wreck of the Whig party in this Commonwealth
and throughout the Union, my son and myself are left among
the ruins, still to contend against the misrule of a triumphant,
fraudulent, and reckless Democracy. A severe trial awaits us
both ; and I trust it will be the last of my political struggles
upon earth. Never throughout my life have I stood more in
need of the merciful and controlling hand of Omnipotent good
ness to direct my path. The prospect before me is all but
hopeless. I have no encouragement to expect the accomplish
ment of good ; all that it can be possible to effect may be the
prevention of some evil. Heaven will at last vindicate its own
justice by producing good out of evil — but not in my time.
—^ 1 8th. Finished a letter to the editors of the Boston Atlas,
containing a correction of the statement, made in my reception
address, that the Commander-in-Chief of the army, General
Scott, is a slave-holder. His sensitiveness to the imputation is
a signal demonstration of the pungency of the general state
ment. He is a native of Virginia, and a very favorable speci
men of the tribe. I inferred of course that he was a slave
holder, without reflecting that in his military capacity his life
has been almost entirely spent in the free States, where he could
not hold slaves. His letter has given me an opportunity at
once to acknowledge the error of my statement respecting him
and to show that it is perfectly immaterial to the argument for
which I adduced it, and also to touch again upon a Northern
nerve in a torpid state, to see if it cannot be quickened into
sensation. I wrote also a notification to all lyceums, literary

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 2yx
and political associations from which I have received invitations
to deliver before them orations, lectures, or addresses, to apolo
gize, with a grateful sense of their favors, for my inability not
only to comply with their invitations, but even to answer the
letters in which they were conveyed.
22d. Happening to look into one of the book-cases in
Charles's study, my hand, guided by some instinct for which
I cannot account, chanced to alight on a volume of Tracts
belonging to him — on opening which, the first thing that met
my eye was the opinion of the late Judge of the Supreme
Court of the United States, William Johnson, of South Caro
lina, pronouncing the negro Act of that State, for imprisoning
colored seamen arriving in the State, unconstitutional. At the
last session of Congress I had moved a resolution of the House
of Representatives, calling on the President for copies of a cor
respondence on this subject at the Department of State, and
particularly of this opinion of Judge Johnson. The President
answered this resolution by Document 119, received 2d March
last, furnishing the correspondence, and adding, in so many
words, "I am not informed of the existence of any official opin
ion of the late Judge Johnson on the unconstitutionality of the
Act or Acts of the State of South Carolina upon the subject
referred to in the resolution." I had been two years eagerly
searching for this opinion, when it was now so unexpectedly
cast in my way. I took it to the Emancipator office and
showed it to Mr. Leavitt, who promised to publish it in the
paper, together with the Document 1 19. But I wished to have
them also both published in a paper of wider circulation, and
took the volume to the Atlas office and proposed to Mr. Hay-
den the publication of them in that paper; observing, at the
same time, that I did not wish to press the request upon him
if it would be adverse to the political course of the paper. He
said he would without hesitation publish them.
Washington, December 5th. — Third session of the Twenty-
Seventh Congress commences. I was absorbed in reading the
letters and papers received by the mail this morning, till I was
belated in reaching the hall of the House of Representatives.
The House had been in session ten minutes when I took my

272 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [December,
seat, and they were occupied in calling the roll of members by
States when I entered. One hundred and seventy-four members
answered to their names. Caleb Cushing moved the message
to the Senate and the appointment of a joint committee to wait
on the President and inform him that the two Houses are
assembled and ready to receive any communication from him.
Tillinghast moved the appointment of a joint library committee.
The usual orders were passed for the supply of newspapers,
equal to three for each member.
Horace Everett gave notice that he would to-morrow, or as
soon as may be, move to introduce a bill to repeal the Bank
rupt Act.
I gave notice that I would to-morrow move a resolution to
rescind the twenty-first rule, which excludes abolition petitions
from reception.
Henry A. Wise objected to the reception of my motion; but,
as it was only notice of my intention to offer a resolution, he
could not exclude it. W. Cost Johnson also manifested a dis
position to object to the reception of the resolution; and Turney,
of Tennessee, told me I began early with my hot shot.
The order for the appointment of Chaplains was passed.
The Clerk came back from the Senate-chamber with notice
that they had not formed a quorum, and at half-past twelve
the House adjourned till twelve to-morrow. Some eighty
members, all but one or two of them Whigs, came and shook
hands with me at my seat, and the mutual greeting appeared
all round friendly and good-humored.
6th. At the House. No quorum of the Senate yet. I now
offered my resolution that the twenty-first rule, excluding abo
lition petitions from reception, should be rescinded. Wise ob
jected again to the reception of the resolution. The Speaker
decided that it was in order ; Wise protested against the de
cision, but did not venture to appeal. Weller, of Ohio, moved
to lay the resolution on the table ; lost, by yeas and nays —
eighty-four to ninety-three.
Horace Everett moved the previous question. There was a
second; but the House refused to take the main question now,
that is, this day, by yeas and nays — eighty-four to ninety-three.

\ \ X

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 273
The old game is playing over again by the Northern Demo
cratic alliance with Southern slavery.
John Thompson Mason, of Maryland, announced the sudden
decease of his colleague James W. Williams, and pronounced
a frigid panegyric upon his character. Pie died last week in
his carriage, within three miles of his own house, on his way
to Washington to attend the session of Congress. Mason of
fered the usual resolutions of sympathizing sensibility, to wear
crape thirty days, and to adjourn — all which were adopted, of
course. I had a visit by card from the new Mexican Minister, General
Almonte. 7th. At the meeting of the House this morning, W. Cost John
son moved that five thousand copies of a document of the last
session, called for upon a resolution offered by me, containing
a statement of the debts of the several States, should be printed ;
but his motion was laid on the table.
I called up my resolution for rescinding the twenty-first rule.
The Speaker decided that, although the House had yesterday
decided that they would not then put the main question to re
scind, it was still under the operation of the previous question,
which must now be put again. I did not appeal from the de
cision, but observed that I had always understood that the re
fusal to put the main question now, exhausted the previous
question, and left the main question debatable. Other mem
bers were more refractory than I was. Everett remonstrated.
W. Cost Johnson moved to lay the resolution on the table;
lost, by yeas and nays — ninety to ninety-one. Then the pre
vious question was again put, and lost — ninety-one to ninety-
three. Underwood still contested the decision of the Speaker,
who said the subject must lie over till to-morrow; and then the
majority will lay the resolution on the table.
Bidlack asked to be excused from voting on that question,
and then defined his position. He said he had always voted
with the South on this delicate question, and believed he should
still, as long as the South held together; but he saw that this
day some of the members from Virginia and Kentucky were
voting the other way.
vol. xi.— 18

274 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [December,
The Senate at last formed a quorum this day. The joint
committee were dispatched with notice to the President, and
Cushing, Chairman of the House Committee, reported that he
would send a message forthwith ; and it accordingly came in
soon after. Cushing moved the printing of ten thousand copies
extra; which was carried. The message begins with a double
dose of pious gratitude for the continuous health, plenty, and
prosperity all over the country; then crows at the conclusion of
the treaty with Great Britain, and urges the necessity of further
negotiation upon many other points yet unsettled; crows over
an adjustment, present and prospective, of the difficulties with
Mexico ; pleads like a sturdy beggar for the adoption by Con
gress of the Exchequer plan which he prepared for them and
sent them last year; and concludes with a recommendation to
Congress to pay back to General Jackson, with interest, the fine
imposed upon him by Judge Hall, at New Orleans, in 1815 —
which occasioned some laughter, as a sop for Cerberus.
Botts asked me seriously if I was ready to help him in his
impeachment of Captain Tyler; and Toland showed me a reso
lution he proposes to offer for an investigation of the causes of
the removal of Jonathan Roberts as Collector at Philadelphia.
8th. Morning visit from T. W. Williams, a member of the
House from Connecticut, and Joseph F. Randolph, from New
Jersey, with Mr. Richards, one of the missionaries to the Sand
wich Islands ; and a native of those islands, a Secretary of the
King — a strong, stout-built man, nearly black as an Ethiopian,
but with a European face, and wool for hair. They came from
the Sandwich Islands in July last, landed at , in Mexico,
traversed the continent to Vera Cruz, and came thence in our
war-steamer " Missouri." Haa-lee-lee-6 has a commission as
Ambassador from the King of the Sandwich Islands to this
country, to Great Britain, and to France, and is to assume
the character first here or in Europe, at his discretion. Mr.
Richards expressed a very earnest desire for conversation with
me on this subject, for my advice to the Ambassador, and for
letters of recommendation from me to persons of distinction
and influence in Europe.
I said I would very cheerfully converse with him, and give

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 275
him any advice and assistance in my power, but I had no
acquaintance of distinction or influence in Europe.
Mr. Richards said they had visited Mr. Webster and made
known to him the object of their mission, which was to obtain
an acknowledgment of their independence and of their neu
trality; and Mr. Webster had advised them not to make any
present movement here, but to commence their diplomatic
operations in England. I did not see the wisdom of leaving
to Great Britain the option of assuming the islands under her
protection, like the Ionian Islands; but I see the motive for
Webster's advice, which is that they are black. I promised
to see them again on Saturday morning.
At the House, sundry other members took their seats, and
Burch told me there were two hundred and nine members of
the House in the city. My resolution to rescind the twenty-
first rule came up again. Mr. Underwood contested the de
cision of the Speaker, that the previous question remained in
force after the House have refused to take the question now;
but the Speaker cited two precedents, one in 1828 and one at
the last session, which he thought sustained him; which Everett
and Underwood did not admit. Underwood appealed from the
decision, but the appeal was laid on the table. John W. Jones
moved to lay my resolution on the table; lost — ninety-three to
ninety-five; and the House for the third time voted that the
main question should not be put now— ninety-five to one hun
dred. W. Cost Johnson moved a resolution to rescind the one-hour
rule, but his motion was laid on the table: — one hundred and
sixteen to seventy. The House adjourned over to Monday.
9th. This was a day of leisure, and I had intended to employ
it in visiting several of the public Departments; but I left my
papers here last September in such a state of utter confusion
that one of my indispensable duties since my return has been
to find and file them in due order alphabetically month by
month from February, when, by the pressure of my trial upon
my time, the disorder began, till September, when I left the
city. This task will absorb all my leisure till the close of the
present year at least. My practice is to file all the letters that

276 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [December,
I receive, and each month makes a file as large as can be con
veniently kept together; but so worthless is the great mass of
my passive correspondence that if the letters having the slight
est claim to preservation were sifted from the chaff, one yearly
file would more than suffice for the twelve calendar months.
Besides these, I have miscellaneous files of newspapers contain
ing articles of special interest, to which I wish occasionally to
refer; and all together they form a mass of archives for which
I have not chests and boxes and bureaus and drawers sufficient
in numbers and capacity to contain them. A separate building
for a library of book-cases and receptacles for the safe-keeping
of manuscripts has become almost a necessary of life to me; but
I have not the means of erecting it. Will it be the good for
tune of my son? If it should ever be in his power, I enjoin it
upon him as a duty.1
I was this morning so long engaged in filing and endorsing
letters that dinner-time had come when I had barely finished
the record of yesterday. As morning visitors, Messrs. Goggin,
Powell, Summers, and Stuart, of Virginia, came together, and
afterwards Mr. Sherlock J. Andrews, of Ohio, with Maxwell
and Yorke, of New Jersey. Dr. Thomas was also here, to visit
my wife and Mrs. John Adams, both of whom are still confined
to their chambers and nearly the whole time to their beds.
After dinner I took a walk of half an hour, till dusk, for fresh
air, and in the evening answered the letter from Messrs. Dun-
nell and Rodman, of the Franklin Lyceum at Providence,
requesting a copy of my lecture on the social compact, for pub
lication. I send the copy as delivered at Boston, considering
the objections to the quotation from " Milton's Paradise Lost"
as fancies of over-fastidious delicacy. I received also this
evening the Hampshire Gazette of 6th December, printed at
Northampton, and with it a pamphlet edition of my reception
address to my constituents at Braintree on the 17th of Sep
tember last.
The four members of the House who were overset in the
stage coming from Zanesville — Caruthers, Gentry, Wallace,
and Lane — arrived here this day, not wholly recovered from
1 This duty has been fulfilled, but not until twenty-eight years after this date.

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 2yy
their wounds. Smith, the Senator from Indiana, still remains
behind. 10th. I took to the General Post Office a petition of Isaac
Ellis and fifty-three others for a post-office at South Dedham,
with a recommendation of John E. Boyden as the Postmaster.
Mr. Wickliffe was at the President's ; but the Second Assistant
Postmaster-General, Bryant, supposed the petition would be
granted. I left with him the recommendatory letter of William
Ellis. On my way I met Tillinghast, who was going to my
house with a pamphlet copy of the new Constitution of Rhode
Island, which I had asked of him, and which he gave me. At
the Globe office, I bespoke an entire set of the Congressional
Globe, in ten quarto volumes. At the War Office, the Secre
tary, Spencer, was at the President's ; I left with General Parker,
the Chief Clerk, applications for cadet warrants for Isaac L.
Hedge, Jr., of Plymouth, and James Milner Robinson, of Quincy.
I met at the office General Scott and Dr. Knott. At the Navy
Department, I saw the Secretary, Upshur, and left with him an
application for a midshipman warrant for John C. Bell, of Rox
bury. Mr. Upshur said that if Congress should persist in their
retrenchments of the navy, of the last session, there could not
be a new appointment of a midshipman within thirty years.
Mr. Upshur's coldness and crustiness of manner indicated that
he keenly felt the strictures that I have made upon the absurd
extravagance of his report to the President at the commence
ment of the last session of Congress, with an estimate exceed
ing eight millions of dollars for the current year, gravely
urging that we must raise a navy at least equal to half that
of Great Britain, and then stating that her present naval force
was more than eight times more numerous than ours. This,
with a bankrupt Treasury, and an imbecile impotence of raising
revenue, even for the current expenses of the year, stamped
the character of the Administration for economy, in characters
indelible ; it was equally demonstrative of its insincerity or of
its reckless stupidity. I have commented upon it with ample
freedom. Mr. Upshur was peevish in his complaints of the insignificance
of the force which we could keep, with the present paltry ap-

2^8 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [December,
propriations, in the Mediterranean, on the coast of Africa, in
the East Indian seas, and on the Pacific Ocean.
I said that when the Treasury should be replenished we might
be more liberal of appropriations.
He said, that was the affair of Congress. Mr. George Brown,
of Beverly, was here — still place-hunting, and now quite willing
for the re-election of John Tyler as President, because he would
keep Daniel Webster as Secretary of State. Mr. Brown differs
in opinion with me upon the annexation of Texas, and is quite
enchanted with the prospect of Mr. Waddy Thompson's obtain
ing from Mexico the cession of California to the United States —
news announced in the National Intelligencer of this morning,
and countenanced by a paragraph in the President's message.
1 2th. At the House, my resolution to rescind the twenty-first
rule was laid on the table, by yeas and nays — one hundred and
six to one hundred and two. Absent, thirty-one ; dead, two;
Speaker, one : of the thirty-four, nineteen would have voted
aye, fifteen no. The vote of the whole House would have
been one hundred and twenty-five to one hundred and seventeen,
or possibly one hundred and twenty-two to one hundred and
twenty. The standing committees had been announced — all
the same as at the last session, except the cases of members
now absent. On the Committee of Foreign Affairs the only
change from the close of the last session is of Holmes, in the
place of Edward D. White, who is not here. Holmes was one
of those who, being of the batch appointed by the Speaker
after the majority of members resigned serving on the com
mittee because they could not turn me out as Chairman, re
quested also to be excused, and was excused, from serving, on
the same grounds. I am curious to see whether he will now
ask to be excused from serving with me again.
Fillmore, Chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means,
now moved general resolutions to refer the several topics of the
President's message to the appropriate standing-committees;
hence a desultory debate. Pickens moved the reference of the
whole message to the committee of the whole on the state of
the Union ; and Cushing proposed to refer the President's Ex
chequer to the committee of the whole on the state of the Union,

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 2yg
to take it out 'of the hands- of the Committee of Ways and
Means, supposed to be hostile to the President. Cushing's
proposed amendment failed, by a small majority ; and Fill
more's resolutions were all adopted, with an additional one,
proposing enquiries about appropriations for internal improve
ments in the West and on the Lakes. There was some inflam
mable chaffering about this, and about the recommendation by
the President of a bill to refund the fine imposed upon General
Jackson, for the exercise of martial law by General Jackson at
New Orleans, twenty-seven years ago. Adjourned, at three
o'clock. 13th. On overhauling my chaotic files of letters and papers
received during the last session, for assortment and endorse
ment, I found some that I had wasted hours searching for in
vain; others that I had not even read — among which, one from
William Allen, of Northampton, on the religious opinions of
my father, in refutation of a cankered article in an English
review of my father's letters published by my son. The read
ing of this paper took up more than an hour. Its length was
the reason of my filing it unread when it was received. The
article in the English review is mere venom, which is not
worthy of notice from me.
At the House, Fillmore obtained leave for the Committee of
Ways and Means to employ a clerk. John M. Botts raised a
question of privilege upon a letter from John C. Spencer, Sec
retary of War, published in the Albany Argus of 25th October,
immediately before the recent elections in the State of New
York, in defence of John Tyler, and containing base charges
against the leaders of the Whig party at the time of the vetoes
on the two Bank bills. The amount of the charge is, that
between the first and second bank veto the leaders of the Whig
party proposed to the President to postpone the bank question
to the next session, if he would promise in the mean time not
to dismiss any of the members of his then Cabinet; and
that Tyler rejected the proposal with scorn. Botts considered
this as a charge of corruption against the leaders of the Whig
party; and so it was intended by Spencer; but Wise, and Cush
ing, and Irwin succeeded in slipping through it, by parrying

28o MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [December,
it as a privileged question, which could be carried by a majority,
and then voting for a suspension of the rules, to let it in by a
vote of two-thirds, which they knew could not be carried.
After a long skirmishing between Botts and Wise, and doubling
of corners by the Speaker, the House, by yeas and nays,
eighty-five to one hundred and six, refused to receive the reso
lution as a question of privilege; after which Everett obtained
a suspension of the rules to introduce his bill to repeal the
Bankrupt Act. Many were clamorous to pass it at once, but
it was finally made the special order of the day for next Tues
day. Underwood then moved a suspension of the rules, to
introduce Botts's investigating enquiry; vote for which was
seventy-eight to one hundred and nine — a majority, but not
two-thirds. Some testimony was received, and a squall arose
upon a motion of Morgan to refer it to the Committee of Elec
tions ; in the midst of which, the House adjourned.
16th. The assortment and filing and endorsement of my
papers in monthly files of my letters received from last March
till September, yet absorb all my leisure time, and the unas
sorted papers are yet in so many heaps that I do but just begin
to see my way clear out of the tangle. In the mean time, every
day brings new trashy materials for large files of the present ses
sion. I am, however, the first time for six years, relieved from
the burden of unreceivable petitions. The Speaker decided that
the mode of receiving petitions adopted upon a resolution of
fered by me at the last session is yet in force ; by this, and the
practice of the Speaker under it, every member not only intro
duces any and every petition that he pleases, but has it referred
to any committee that he thinks appropriate. I had ten pe
titions which I should have presented, if the States had been
called ; but, after the Speaker's present decision, I made out the
list, directed the committee to which each of them should be
referred, and gave the list, after it was entered on the journal
of the House, to Mr. Gales, to be published in the National
Intelligencer, and it was published in the paper of this day.
The Speaker's decision was, I believe, unauthorized, and the
chance is that it will terminate in an explosion.
19th. Robert C. Winthrop consulted me about what he

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 28l
should do with a memorial which he has received, signed by
a large number of the most respectable and distinguished citi
zens of Boston, remonstrating against the unconstitutional and
oppressive laws of some of the Southern States against free
colored citizens of Massachusetts. He proposed, according to
the rule of the last session, which the Speaker has declared
to be in force, to enter the memorial at the Clerk's table, and
have it referred to the Judiciary Committee for a report — and
thereupon to raise a debate if possible.
I approved this course.
He said he had a copy of the memorial addressed to the
Senate, with instructions to ask George Evans, of Maine, to
present it, and not either of the Massachusetts Senators — a
similar memorial having at the last session been intrusted to
Mr. Choate and totally neglected.
2 1 st. The Bankrupt Act Repeal bill was now taken up.
Cushing, who bristles upon everything, prevailed upon Pickens
to withdraw his motion for the previous question, for him
(Cushing) to propose an amendment; on failure of which he
pledged himself to renew the motion for the previous question.
Pickens accordingly withdrew his motion. Cushing then moved
his amendment; to which Barnard, moved again, added his
own. Cushing would not assent to this, and so renewed Pick
ens's motion for the previous question,- and the whole debate
was again opened. Then Underwood, Hopkins, Briggs, Cave
Johnson, Wise, Charles Ingersoll, and Charles Brown followed
each other alternately, for instantaneous repeal, and for reference
to the Judiciary Committee, with various instructions ; till
Arnold closed with an hour speech against the repeal altogether,
and he launched out into a vehement and unmeasured invective
upon the Administration, especially upon the President and
upon Daniel Webster, whose enquiry in his Faneuil Hall speech,
" What will you do with me ?" he most unmercifully scourged.
When he was cropped by the expiration of his hour, Salton
stall took the floor, and moved to adjourn ; which was carried.
Saltonstall said to me, " I suppose they will expect I shall de
fend Webster; but I will not ; I thought it would be as well to
leave that to Cushing."

282 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [December,
23d. I read a pamphlet entitled " Martial Law," by a Ken-
tuckian, in four numbers of re-publication from a Kentucky
newspaper. Its author is said to be a man named Nicholas, of
the old Virginian family of that name, and is, or has been, a
Judge in the State of Kentucky. In the form of a dissertation
upon martial law, it is a violent invective against General Jack
son for declaring martial law at New Orleans, which he contends
was treason against the United States ; then against me for
having asserted in the House of Representatives that by the
same martial law which Jackson declared at New Orleans he
might have emancipated all the slaves in Louisiana. The Sen
ators Buchanan and Berrien come in for a share of his abuse.
The Legislature of Rhode Island, and the minority of the
Judiciary Committee of the House, in their report on the bill
for refunding Jackson's fine, have also their share. But the
motive at the bottom of it all is the panic terror at my exposure
of the danger to Southern slavery of eventual emancipation by
martial law.
I went into the Senate, and gave Mr. Bates a list of seven of
the bills which had passed the House, requesting the attention
of the Massachusetts Senators to them while before the Senate;
which he promised to do. I had some conversation with Mr.
Buchanan about the Kentucky pamphlet, which seemed to have
startled him.
27th. At the House, after the usual half hour of interloping
petitions and resolutions, and notices of bills, Wise presented a
resolution of the Legislature of Virginia instructing their Sen
ators and requesting their Representatives to hurry through
the passage of the bill to refund to General Jackson the fine
imposed on him by Judge Hall at New Orleans in 1815. Wise
struggled hard in presenting this resolution to tack upon it a
blazing speech ; but it was choked off by objections from various
quarters. Everett's Bankrupt Law repeal came up, and Saltonstall de
livered a grave, eloquent hour speech against the repeal. Daw
son, of Louisiana, followed him in a short speech on the same
side — appropriate, decent, in humanized language; specially
remarkable from the quarter whence it issued. But next came

1842.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 283
from Cushing one of the most extraordinary speeches ever de
livered in that hall — in obscure, ambiguous language, conveying
ideas veiled and shaded, as if purposely intended to be dis
avowed if they should happen to be too well understood ; but
holding up the Presidential power, and especially the veto, at
auction between the two great parties which divide the country.
As he closed, Thompson, of Indiana, took the floor, the
committee rose, and the House adjourned.
29th. Pickens presented resolutions of the Legislature of
South Carolina calling on Congress to refund the fines imposed
on Thomas Cooper and on Andrew Jackson. Everett presented
a memorial of fifty-seven members of the Legislature of New
Hampshire praying Congress to lay out the State in Congres
sional districts. He moved that it be referred to the Com
mittee of Elections, and printed. Atherton made a speech
against it, and Campbell, of South Carolina, moved to lay it
on the table ; but Everett's motion prevailed.
When the bill to repeal the Bankrupt Act was taken up,
Wise, with a flourish of trumpets, made his hour speech, full
of his usual portion of pompous bluster and sneaking mystifi
cation. He then asked for another hour, and actually moved a
suspension of the hour rule to obtain it; and, what with weasel
malignity and dastardly whiggery, there was a vote by yeas
and nays of one hundred to eighty to grant him the privilege.
As he could not obtain two-thirds, he failed in his insolent pre
tension. Fessenden, of Maine, closed the debate for the day with an
hour speech — sensible, spirited, modest, moderate, all but suf
ficiently caustic upon the abandoned profligacy of Cushing's
speech. Thomas F. Marshall took the floor, and the House
adjourned. William Cost Johnson had come to my seat, and, giving me
a printed copy of his address to his constituents on the debts
of the States, asked me to read it, and then say if I would be
willing to serve on his select committee of nine. At present
all my efforts are required to keep myself as much as possible
aloof from all the debates in the House.
31st. The Ambassador from the Sandwich Islands called this

284 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [January,
morning and took leave of me. Mr. Richards read the official
answer of the Secretary of State, Daniel Webster, to their com
munication asking for the recognition of their Government as
a sovereign, independent State, and proposing to negotiate a
commercial treaty. The answer, in language not very explicit,
evades a direct acknowledgment, and declines the negotiation
of a treaty, but argues the right of the Sandwich Islands to be
recognized as an independent State, and against the right of
any European power to colonize or take possession of them.
Mr. Richards said that Mr. Webster had been more explicit
with them in verbal conference, and had told them that the
whole subject of their transactions with him would be imme
diately communicated to Congress. Accordingly, a message
from the President was received, and presented by the Speaker
to the House, recommending an appropriation for maintaining
a Consul at the Sandwich Islands, and another for a formal
mission to China, which, at the motion of Mr. Cushing, was
ordered to be printed and referred to the Committee of Foreign
Affairs. The message, evidently Webster's composition, con
tains an elaborate and able argument for the recognition of the
Sandwich Islands Government and for the mission to China.
January 2d, 1843. — Morning absorbed in reading the news
papers of the last night's mail and the Globe of Saturday even
ing upon my table. It contains the speeches of John C. Cal
houn in the Senate of the United States last August, in favor
of advising and consenting to the ratification of the Webster
and Ashburton Treaty. Calhoun is the high-priest of Moloch —
the embodied spirit of slavery. He has resigned his seat in the
Senate of the United States, to take effect from the close of the
present Congress, the 3d of March next, and immediately upon
the acceptance of his resignation by the Legislature of South
Carolina they unanimously nominated him as a candidate for
election as President of the United States for four years from
the 4th of March, 1845. His speech is remarkable for one of
those glaring, unblushing, dare-devil inconsistencies which, as
far as I know, are peculiar to the doctrinal school of slavery.
He begins by a broad, explicit, and unqualified declaration

1 843.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 285
that he has always believed the claim of Maine upon the North
eastern boundary question just, and then proceeds with an
elaborate argument to prove that on that same identical bound
ary question the title of Great Britain is clear to more than
she has ever claimed. On the subject of slavery and the slave-
trade the negotiation itself was a Scapinade, a struggle between
the Plenipotentiaries to outwit each other and to circumvent
both countries by a slippery compromise between freedom and
slavery. Calhoun crows about his success in imposing his
own bastard law of nations upon the Senate by his preposter
ous resolutions, and chuckles at Webster's appealing to those
resolutions now, after dodging from the duty of refuting and
confounding them then. Calhoun concludes, upon the whole,
to put up with the ticklish truce patched up between the treaty
and the correspondence; and this was what, in fact, reconciled
him to the ratification. There is a temperance in his manner
obviously aiming to conciliate the Northern political sopranos,
who abhor slavery and help to forge fetters for the slave.
My wife is still confined to her bed, and was more unwell
this day than yesterday. There were, however, none the less
of female visitors, who were well received by Mrs. John Adams.
Our late Minister to France, Lewis Cass, was among them, and
told me that shortly before he left France he had a conversation
with my old friend the King concerning me, which he wished
to tell me, and he was beginning to do so, when other visitors
came up and interrupted him. He said he would call again
some evening and tell me. They say the crowd at the Presi
dent's this day was unexampled. I did not go out.
3d. Mr. Kurtz and Mr. Barcroft, of Georgetown, called on
me this morning and stated that they were members of the So
ciety of Friends, and Mr. Kurtz had a letter from Philadelphia
recommending Mrs. Lucretia Mott, who is desirous of obtain
ing the use of the hall of the House of Representatives for a
religious exercise; and, without coming directly to the point,
Mr. Kurtz gave me to understand that it was desired that I
should make the motion in the House that she might have the
use of the hall.
I desired Mr. Kurtz to say to Mrs. Mott that I remembered

286 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [January,
with much pleasure the hospitality which I had once, some
years since, enjoyed at her. house, and the social intercourse
with which I had at other times been favored by her husband
and other friends ; that I should be happy to see her at my
house, and, if she desired it, would make the motion in the
House that she should have the use of the hall. But I ob
served to Mr. Kurtz that Mrs. Mott was known as a distin
guished abolitionist of slavery; that there was little difference
between her opinions upon the subject of slavery and mine;
but he knew how obnoxious I was here, both in and out of
Congress, for that very thing ; and he would consider whether
the application for the use of the hall would not be more likely
to succeed if made by another member. I added that Speaker
White told me last Saturday that application had been made
to him for the use of the hall by Mrs. Mott, and that he had
granted it. Mr. Kurtz thought as I did, that if there should
be a necessity for asking the leave of the House for the use of
the hall, it would be more likely to succeed if moved by some
other member than by me, and said he would deliver faithfully
my message to Mrs. Mott.
4th. At the House, Bowne's resolution to instruct the Com
mittee on the Judiciary to report a prescribed bill to refund
General Jackson's fine, with interest, to-morrow, was debated
through the morning hour; a motion to lay it on the table
having been lost by yeas and nays — ninety-one to one hun
dred and seven. There is already a bill on the calendar, re
ported by the Judiciary Committee at the last session, and re
ferred to the committee of the whole on the state of the Union;
but Bowne wants to signalize himself by the combustion of his
zeal for the old hero. This has got to be a mere party foot
ball, and Bowne is attempting to carry the measure by storm,
and it is quite probable he will succeed.
The Speaker, against all principle, deciding that Bowne's
motion to instruct the Judiciary Committee to report another
bill, while there is already one reported by the same committee,
now in committee of the whole upon the state of the Union,
was in order, has prostrated all rule upon the subject; and a
succession of previous questions, stifling all discussion of the

I843-] rI1E TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 2gy
principles involved in the bill, is probably the only way by
which it can be carried. The expiration of the hour, however,
put off the decision again for this day, and Bowne took the
floor again for the immediate repeal of the Bankrupt law. He
was followed by Meriwether, he by Pickens, and he by Proffit,
with intermediate interruptions, and defiances of Cushing, till
half-past three o'clock, when Gordon took the floor, and the
House adjourned.
Cushing's national venom was ransacked and held up to
scorn by Meriwether and Pickens, notwithstanding his vehe
ment disclaimers and challenges for specifications.
Proffit did all he could to help him out of his troubles, and
piteously implored the House to allow Cushing an hour to
explain the real meaning of his speech ; but it was too barefaced
and flagrant, and if he had an hour for explanation he would
need a week to explain the explanation itself.
5th. At the House this morning, John Campbell, of South
Carolina, upon leave introduced a bill to suspend the operation
of the second section of the Apportionment bill (the second,
which prescribes the elections by single districts) in all elections
for the Twenty-Eighth Congress. Campbell is the man who
introduced that section into the bill itself. He now flinches
from his own purpose. His bill was read twice ; he wanted to
pass it at once, but Barnard moved its reference to the Com
mittee of Elections, and Briggs, that it should be printed —
which was carried.
Halsted introduced, on leave and after notice, the bill to
regulate the taking of testimony in cases of contested elections,
and for other purposes, which passed both Houses at the last
session and was pocketed by the President. It was referred
to the committee of the whole on the state of the Union.
Everett entreated the House to take up and act upon his
Bankrupt Repeal bill. But Gwin insisted upon taking up
Bowne's resolution to instruct the Judiciary Committee to re
port this day the bill first introduced into the Senate on the
10th of last March, by Dr. Linn, of Missouri. Barnard had
moved an amendment to instruct the committee to report the
facts and principles of the case, and Arnold had moved to refer

288 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [January,
the resolution to the committee of the whole on the state of
the Union. Gwin's speech was a rancorous and malignant party
invective upon the Whigs, for a sneaking desire to give the bill
the go-by, and spurring them to take it into consideration.
Cushing made a bombastic speech about the glories of the
victory of New Orleans ; and, in order to pass the bill in antici
pation of the anniversary, which will be on Sunday, he moved
that all debate should cease on the bill in committee of the
whole to-morrow at two o'clock, and the questions be taken on
the bill and amendments.
The Speaker decided the motion to be not in order, the
bill in committee of the whole not having been debated at all.
I then rose, and addressed the Speaker. Cushing, who had
moved the previous question, claimed to hold the floor against
me for another motion ; but the Speaker told him he could not
have the floor on two motions at once. I spoke about half an
hour, till the expiration of the morning hour.
6th. It was the day before yesterday that Mr. Parker called
on me and announced himself as the agent of the bond-holders
of the debts of the several States -of this Union, and he came
here to solicit the interposition of the Government to enforce
the punctuality of the States in the payment of their debts, in
terest and principal. And he asked my opinion as to the right
of the bond-holders to demand this interposition, and as to the
duty of the Federal Government to extend it.
I told him that I had no doubt on either point; that the
bond-holders have the right to demand, and the duty of the
Federal Government is to grant their interposition to compel
the States to pay their honest debts ; but that the President of
the United States held a different opinion, and that he had
nothing to do with the debts of the States, and that a vast
majority of both Houses of Congress held in this respect the
same opinion as the President; that, of course, nothing will
or can be done at present here on the subject, and I therefore
shall attempt nothing, having repeatedly expressed my opinion
as to the result.
7th. I sit up so late at night, reading the newspapers and
letters which come by the mail from nine to ten in the evening,

I843-] THE l^WENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 289
that I seldom reach my bed before midnight — which necessarily
delays for two hours at least that of my rising. " Sex horas
somno," says Lord Coke, quoting from I know not whom; and
that has been for more than forty years my rule of life; and the
six hours are from ten at night to four in the morning. But
the rule of life must be modified by external causes, and by
social relations with others. If I sit up till midnight, I cannot
rise before six, and that irregularity leads to the laxity of the
rule itself, to indulging in morning laziness, encroaching upon
the best hours of the day.
Lieutenant Wilkes was here this morning, extremely solicit
ous about his promotion. A law of the last session of Con
gress limits the number of officers of each rank in the navy
that may be appointed, and that number is full. On the list of
lieutenants there are only four senior to Mr. Wilkes, and the
appointment of him as a commander would require the ap
pointment of those also to the same rank. Mr. Barnard has
been preparing a resolution to repeal the restriction upon the
number of officers, so as to allow the appointment of five more
commanders than are now commissioned ; and he and Mr.
Wilkes are urgent with me to offer the resolution, which I
have consented to do, though I told Mr. Barnard that I could
seldom consent to offer a resolution prepared by any other than
myself. At the House, after the interloping intrusions, one of
which was Arnold's attempt to get up his Retrenchment bill
No. 568, Bowne's resolution to instruct the Judiciary Commit
tee to report, last Thursday, Linn's bill to refund, with interest
from March, 1815, General Jackson's fine, with my amendment
yesterday proposed, came up, and Charles J. Ingersoll was de
livered of his long-treasured philippic upon mean glorification
of himself and of Jackson. He spoke till the close of his hour,
and then, by a suspension of the rules, a half-hour more, to
vent the whole volume of his spleen upon me. When he
closed, half a dozen members started up for the floor, which
the Speaker gave to William O. Butler, of Kentucky, who was
one of Jackson's aides at New Orleans. But the House passed
to the consideration of private business till the adjournment.
9th. Before going to the House this morning, I called on the
vol. xi. — 19

2gQ MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [January,
Secretary of State at his office, to confer with him upon the
message of the President relating to the Sandwich Islands and
to China, referred by the House to the Committee of Foreign
Affairs, and by them to me. Mr. Webster referred me to the
correspondence between the Commissioners from the Sandwich
Islands, Richards and Haa-lee-lee-o, and himself, for the views of
the Administration favorable to the recognition of the Govern
ment of those Islands ; with which I concurred. I concurred
also with the recommendations of the message respecting the
expediency of instituting a diplomatic mission to China, but
enquired what was the amount of the appropriation desired for
both objects.
Mr. Webster thought a salaried Consul, like those maintained
at the Barbary States, would require about three thousand
dollars ; and, after some conversation on the probable details
of expenditure, he thought an appropriation of four thousand
dollars would be adequate for the mission to China. He said
he would send me an estimate in the course of the day, together
with a dispatch from Edward Everett containing some indica
tions of the present views of the British Government concern
ing their intercourse with China. He accordingly sent me the
papers in the course of the day to the House.
This conference delayed me, so that the House had been
a quarter of an hour in session when I reached my seat. I
found new game was started. Cushing was vaporing against
the Committee of Ways and Means, from which Fillmore, the
Chairman, had reported a unanimous resolution that the Ex
chequer plan reported by the Secretary of the Treasury (For
ward) at the last session, and recommended by the President,
ought not to be adopted (Webster's). Cushing insisted that
the committee should have reported a positive measure. The
minority of the committee, consisting of Atherton and Pickens,
did report an amendment instructing the committee to report
a positive bill — in substance the Sub-Treasury. Here was a
perfect snarl, which brought out, after Cushing, Everett, Ar
nold, Pickens, Wise, W. Cost Johnson, Botts, Fillmore, Granger,
Joseph R. Ingersoll, Turney, John Campbell, Thomas F. Mar
shall, and at last Proffit, who only took the floor.

1843.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 2Ql
Irwin moved to adjourn, and refused to withdraw it merely
to take the question on printing the reports. Fillmore called
the yeas and nays on the adjournment, and Irwin, finding the
vote going against him, withdrew his motion till the question
to print was taken and carried. Botts had given notice that he
would to-morrow move his charges for the impeachment of
President Tyler.
nth. I spent four hours of last evening in a running perusal
of the trial of James H. Peck, Judge of the United States Dis
trict Court in Missouri, for punishing by imprisonment and
suspension from practice a lawyer named Luke Edward Law
less, for a contempt, by publishing in a newspaper a critical
review of an opinion delivered by the Judge, and also published
in a newspaper. I found in it a uniform series of opinions as
to the power of Judicial Courts to punish for contempt, directly
in the face of the position assumed by Charles J. Ingersoll,
that Judicial Courts have no lawful power to punish for con
tempt. The committees were called, and the Jackson fine was taken
up. William O. Butler, of Kentucky, one of Jackson's aides
in the New Orleans campaign, and perhaps the most distin
guished member from Kentucky now in the House, discoursed
nearly an hour and a half in glorification of Jackson, and in
malignant slander upon me. When the morning hour closed,
the Speaker's hammer fell ; but Mr. Butler wanted more time,
and the Speaker said that by general consent he might have it.
No objection was made, and he went on till he had emitted all
his venom upon me.
When I spoke the other day, I was allowed only two half-
hours upon two totally distinct questions ; and when I claimed
a full hour upon the amendment proposed by myself, it was
denied. Winthrop insisted on my right, but it was of no avail.
But Ingersoll and Butler have been allowed each an extra half-
hour for the pleasure of reviling me.
1 2th. General Cass came in last evening after dinner at Mr.
Webster's, and told me what he had spoken of at my house on
the 2d of this month. General Cass said that shortly before
he left France, the King, Louis Philippe, asked him what in

2g2 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [January,
nature had got into Mr. Adams, with whom he recollected to
have formed a very pleasing acquaintance in England, and
whom he had ever since considered as a friend. Mr. Cass said
he was surprised, and asked the King to what he alluded.
" Why," says Louis Philippe, " he denies my title." The gen
eral said he knew not what to say in reply.
I told him that in a lecture delivered before a literary society,
speaking of the dangerous and convulsed condition of Europe,
and referring to France, I said that its King held' his crown
neither by the monarchical title of hereditary succession, nor
by the republican title of popular election ; but I spoke it as of
an historical fact, without evil intention to him, and without
imagining that it would have been remembered by any one the
next day.
" Well," said Mr. Cass, "but it was true!'
This morning Dr. Mayo called here with a couple of pam
phlets, one of which was the " War in Texas," and of which he
asked me if I knew the author, and I told him it was the late
Benjamin Lundy. The other was a publication of the recent
correspondence between this and the Mexican Government —
published by the Mexican Minister here.
13th. Mr. Leavitt was here this morning, and read to me an
article which he has prepared to publish in the Emancipator,
explanatory of the charge by him in a former number of that
paper against members of not having supported me upon my
trial. Six of the members of the delegation, Briggs, Hudson,
Burnell, Winthrop, Baker, and Saltonstall, with a concurring
signature of Calhoun, have written me a letter requesting me
to furnish a statement relative to their votes on the motions to
lay the resolutions on the -table, to repel the imputation in the
Emancipator that they did not support me.
At the House, Weller presented resolutions of the Legisla
ture of Ohio demanding the repeal of the Bankrupt law. Wise
presented a memorial from the city and county of Baltimore
praying Congress to pass the Exchequer bill recommended by
the President, and he moved to go into committee of the whole
on the state of the Union, with a view to take up that bill; lost,
by yeas and nays, fifty-three to one hundred and twenty-eight;

1843O THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS.

293

and that vote was an index to the present condition of Wise's
influence in the House.
Everett moved to suspend the rules to take up his Bankrupt
Repeal law. Yeas and nays, one hundred and nineteen to sev
enty; lost for want of two-thirds.
The joint resolution from the Senate proposing a new rule
to abridge the right of petition. Parmenter opposed it, to my
surprise, for he had yesterday voted against laying it on the
table. Giddings, equally to my surprise, supported it. He is
Chairman of the Committee of Claims, much annoyed by their
multitude, and does npt see the lurking stab to the right of pe
tition. I made a short speech against it, on several grounds,
and, to my astonishment, Holmes, of South Carolina, declared
he had been convinced by me, and strenuously opposed it.
Botts moved one amendment, and Stanly another, the last clearly
not in order, but the Speaker decided that it was. Both the
amendments were carried, but the resolution itself, as amended,
was rejected, by yeas and nays — ninety-five to one hundred
and three.
14th. A black man, named Moses Bell, came this morning,
and sent me a paper narrative of gross personal abuse by whip
ping and cobbing, with which he has been treated by a white
man claiming him as a slave. In March, 1841, Bell sued the
white man, named Rhodes, in the Circuit Court, for his free
dom. . The trial was procrastinated about eighteen months, till
last August. On the 20th of August he was adjudged, on the
special verdict of a white jury, to be free. From this sentence
Rhodes appealed to the United States Supreme Court, now in
session. Mr. Hoban and Mr. Wallach have been Bell's law
yers in the Circuit Court, and he said he had been advised to
apply to me to assist him in the Supreme Court. I promised
to do for him what I could.
At the House, the day being devoted to the consideration of
private business, numerous interloping resolutions were palmed
upon the House and the committees — a most disorderly and
mischievous practice, which has grown out of the twenty-first
rule. Hiram Hunt made a silly hour speech upon Bowne's
fine-refunding resolution and my amendment.

294 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [January,
The bill for the relief of the heirs of Philip Renault was, at
the request of Mr. Moore, of Louisiana, postponed till next
_Friday, as was also desired by me.
A bill for the relief of the inhabitants of West Florida was
opposed in a spirited speech by Mr. Giddings, and supported
with so much overbearing insolence by Black, of Georgia, re
inforced by the squeaking of the Jew delegate from Florida,
Levy, that I was provoked to speak, and moved to adjourn;
which was carried, though Levy had moved the previous
question. 15th. I attended public worship in the hall of the House of
Representatives, where Mr. Tustin, the Chaplain of the Senate,
preached from Daniel v. 27 : " Tekel. ; thou art weighed in the
balances, and art found wanting." This is a formidable text
for a preacher to manage, and especially for a Chaplain to a
House of Congress. It is in itself the key to a discourse of
keen and searching reproof to the auditory. It is the solemn
duty of a Christian clergyman to administer reproof to his
hearers, and it is the duty of the hearers to listen to reproof
without taking offence. This is the great practical obstacle to
the faithful and useful discharge of the preacher's duty. If he
probes the sinner to the soul, he kindles hatred against him
self and loses his hold upon the conscience. If he forbears, he
neglects his holiest duty, and betrays the cause of his Master.
When Louis the Fourteenth told Massillon that he had often
admired the splendid eloquence of other preachers, but that he
always made him discontented with himself, he testified to the
admirable address, as well as the rare virtue, of the Bishop of
Clermont. Read his "Petit Careme," preached before Louis
the Fifteenth in his childhood, and during the regency of the
profligate Duke of Orleans, and you will see the consummate
art with which the pulpit orator had reproved without offend
ing, and made the vainglorious, royal sinner ashamed of him
self without incurring his displeasure. Mr. Tustin told us all
that we had been weighed in the balances and found wanting.
But this is reproach, and not reproof, like the wild-goose satire
of Jaques — flying unclaimed of any man.
1 6th. At the House, it was the day for offering resolutions,

I843-] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 295
k
and no sooner did the Speaker name the State of Maine than
Clifford started with a resolution to instruct the Committee
on the Judiciary to report forthwith the following bill: " Be it
enacted, etc., that the Bankrupt Act, etc., be and the same is
hereby repealed." There was a bill already in committee of
the whole on the state of the Union reported by the same Ju
diciary Committee. Nothing can be more explicit than the
rule of the House that forbids this duplication of bills on the
same subject. Objection was made by Barnard to the recep
tion of Clifford's resolution, and the rule was cited; but the
Speaker decided that Clifford was in order, and he moved the
previous question. This petty by-play to overreach one another
by a war of posts on points of order, which would disgrace a
Court of pie-powder, is the ordinary practice of all the leading
members of the House. A motion was made to lay Clifford's
resolution on the table ; lost, by yeas and nays, eighty-one to
one hundred and ten. The motion for the previous question
was seconded by tellers — ninety to seventy-nine — and carried,
by yeas and nays — one hundred and sixteen to eighty-eight.
The resolution itself was carried — one hundred and twenty-
eight to seventy-eight.
Then Barnard referred to the rule of the House that commit
tees cannot sit while the House is in session without a special
order of leave. Wise moved a resolution that the committee
have leave to sit during the session of the House, to bring in
the bill. Barnard objected that this motion was not in order;
and the Speaker so decided. Wise appealed, and his appeal
was laid on the table — one hundred and four to ninety-one.
The Speaker called Maine again for resolutions, and Lowell
offered again the resolution which had slumped in the hand of
Wise. Motion to lay it on the table lost, by yeas and nays —
eighty-seven to one hundred and five. Main question ordered
— one hundred and sixteen to eighty-eight. Resolution carried
— one hundred and twenty-eight to seventy-eight. Barnard
went out, and soon returned. No quorum of the committee
had been formed, and no bill was reported.
Fessenden, for Toland, moved a resolution of enquiry of the
Secretary of the Treasury concerning the removal of Jonathan

296 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [January,
Roberts as Collector of the Customs at Philadelphia ; yeas and
nays, one hundred and three to seventy-six — not two-thirds.
Resolution lost.
Tillinghast offered a proviso to the Bankrupt Repeal bill,
which was finally carried.
17th. Meeting of the Committee of Foreign Affairs. I was
tardy fifteen minutes. Present, Adams, Cushing, Everett,
Granger, Stuart, Meriwether, Shepperd, Caruthers, and Holmes
— the whole committee. I read the letter from Mr. Webster to
me, proposing the appropriation, and the part of the dispatch
from Edward Everett of 29th November, 1842, relating to
China. I mentioned that I had begun, but not finished, a re
port, and would read to them what I had written, or ask them
for time till the next meeting to finish it.
They took up Cushing's bill of appropriations for carrying
into execution the Ashburton Treaty. He wished, and had
expressed the wish to me in a conversation at my seat last Sat
urday after the adjournment of the House, to present an argu
mentative report in defence of the treaty, and particularly of the
article stipulating for the squadron of eighty guns to be kept on
the coast of Africa. There was some objection in committee
to his making the report, because it must be debatable in com
mittee, and must occasion delay. Meriwether's motion to add
a section with a specific appropriation for the African squadron
was rejected, but Everett renewed it in another form. Further
consideration postponed to the next meeting, fixed for Thurs
day morning, the 19th, at eleven.
At the House, I have no room for details, but nearly the
whole day was consumed, like yesterday, in trapping with yeas.
and nays for the repeal of the Bankrupt Act. The first and
second bills were so jumbled together that inextricable con
fusion was the result. T. F. Marshall, instead of making a
speech, moved the previous question upon Everett's bill, with
Cushing's amendment; which were at last carried by yeas and
nays — one hundred and forty to seventy-one.
19th. I finished this morning the report from the Committee
of Foreign Affairs, to accompany two bills in compliance with
the message of the President of the United States, relating to

I843-] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 2gy
the Sandwich Islands and China. Then attended the meeting
of the committee. Present, Adams, Cushing, Everett, Gran
ger, Stuart, Meriwether, Caruthers, Holmes; absent, Shepperd.
Cushing's bill to carry into execution the Ashburton Treaty
was amended by an additional section, requiring that the cost
of the stipulated squadron on the coast of Africa should be
' paid from the annual naval appropriations. By a report from
the Secretary of the Navy, in answer to a resolution of the
Senate, his estimate of the cost of the African squadron is four
hundred and forty thousand dollars for the vessels, forty thou
sand dollars for repairs, wear and tear, and two hundred and
forty thousand dollars a year for maintaining it — half a million
of first cost; and three hundred thousand dollars a year for the
five years stipulated will fall short of the real cost.
Mr. Cushing repeated his wish to prepare a report in justifi
cation of the treaty, with the bill. There was some reluctance
in the committee, from apprehension of delay and perhaps final
dissent of a majority of the committee; but I urged the fair
claim of the treaty to be defended by a report, and Mr. Cushing
was authorized to prepare one.
I read my report on the Sandwich Island and China message,
and was authorized to present it to the House with an amend
ment suggested by Mr. Everett. The bills are not yet prepared.
The committee adjourned to next Tuesday.
In the House, after the usual quantity of miscellaneous
trifles, Cushing, in the process of the call of the committees,
reported the bill of appropriations for carrying into execution
the Ashburton Treaty, and bustled about with explanations
speech-like to attract notice. The bill was referred to the
committee of the whole on the state of the Union.
The Jackson fine resolution, offered by Bowne, with Barnard's
amendment and mine, the immediate question in debate, came
up next. Hiram P. Hunt finished his speech, and, dealing this
day only with C. J. Ingersoll's preposterous pretension that the
Courts of law have no power to punish summarily for con
tempt, completely demolished it. The morning hour expired,
and Botts took the floor for the next debatable day. And now
came Proffit's motion to reconsider the repeal of the Bankrupt

298 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [January,
law — made to give Cushing an hour for reply. He took the
hour, and made his case worse by his use of it. He assailed
furiously Fessenden, and Thompson, of Indiana, who had se
verely handled him. Fessenden replied gently, but keenly.
Thompson agonized to get the floor, but failed. Garret Davis
and Thomas F. Marshall followed, each an hour, till near five
o'clock. 20th. At the House, on the call for reports from committees,
Robert C. Winthrop, from the Committee of Commerce, pre
sented a report on the memorial of Benjamin Rich and others,
of Boston, remonstrating against the practice of imprisoning
colored mariners in South Carolina and other Southern States;
which report, he said, was agreed to by seven out of the nine
members of the committee; that of the two others, Mr. Rayner,
of North Carolina, had prepared a minority report, and the
Chairman of the committee, John P. Kennedy, dissenting from
both reports, would probably present his views separately.
Winthrop's report closed with several resolutions; which were
read. He moved that both reports be printed and laid on the
table for consideration hereafter; and, to avoid debate, called
for the previous question.
The slave representation were instantly in a flame. Ray-
ner's report closed with a resolution that the committee be
discharged from the further consideration of the subject. Ken
nedy moved that five thousand copies of both reports be printed.
Jacob Thompson objected, and Kennedy withdrew his motion ;
but Rayner himself renewed it. By the rule of the House, the
motion must lie over one day. Black, of Georgia, objected to
the printing of the majority report at all, and moved to lay the
motion to print on the table; lost, by yeas and nays — seventy-
two to one hundred and fourteen. Fillmore moved to cease
debate and take the question on the Army Appropriation bill
to-morrow at two o'clock; lost. Private bills till the adjourn
ment. 2 ist. At the House, on the call for reports from committees,
several of them were upon subjects of deep interest, but of
which little notice was taken, owing to the transcendent influ
ence of the slave representation. Cave Johnson, with the aid

I843-] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 2gg
of Gilmer and of Granger, drove through a bill prohibiting any
extra allowance to any public officer for any service whatever.
I spoke against it, and so did Joseph R. Ingersoll and Holmes;
but it was carried by yeas and nays — one hundred and fifty-
one to fifteen. Arnold moved a reconsideration, and struggled
hard to get in his bill 548 by way of amendment, but failed.
Rayner's motion to print five thousand extra copies of the two
reports from the Committee of Commerce on the imprisonment
of Southern colored seamen in South Carolina was called up
by me, and adopted without opposition. Rayner himself was
not in the House.
The bill for the relief of the inhabitants of West Florida came
up. I spoke about half an hour against it, and concluded by
moving to lay it on the table. Levy, the delegate, asked me to
withdraw the motion, to give him the opportunity of reply. I
withdrew the motion, and the House adjourned.
23d. At the House, Fillmore, Chairman of the Committee of
Ways and Means, read an editorial article in the New York
Union, the Tyler paper there, and a letter from New York in
the Madisonian of this morning, charging the Committee of
Ways and Means with having reported against the Tyler-Web
ster Exchequer, contrary to the opinion and disposition of the
moderate Whigs and Democrats, which was sufficient to have
passed the Exchequer, but for a caucus held the night before,
at which a letter from Henry Clay was read, forbidding the
passage of any bill for settling the currency and restoring the
credit of the country. Fillmore declared the whole statement
an absolute falsehood; and he called upon evftry member of the
House, and particularly upon every member of the guard, if
he knew of any such caucus, to declare it in his place.
Wise took the call to himself, and ferociously demanded if
Fillmore meant to insinuate that he knew anything of the
articles in the Union and Madisonian. Fillmore disclaimed,
and Wise said he did know of a caucus last summer which did
send a deputy to Mr. Tyler to accommodate the President with
a fiscal corporation instead of a bank.
24th. I attended the meeting of the Committee of Foreign
Affairs. Present, Adams, Granger, Stuart, Caruthers, Shep-

300 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [January,
perd, Meriwether ; and absent, Cushing, Everett, and Holmes.
I presented two bills of appropriations — for the compensation
of a Consul or Commissioner to the Hawaiian or Sandwich
Islands, three thousand dollars, and the other of forty thousand
dollars to enable the President of the United States to estab
lish the future commercial relations of the United States with
China on terms of equal reciprocity. I was authorized by the
unanimous vote of the members present to report to the House
the two bills as I had prepared them — which I did on the call
of the committees for reports. The bills were read twice, re
ferred to the committee of the whole House on the state of the
Union, and, with the report, ordered to be printed.
In committee, Granger made a verbal report on the claim of
Commodore Ridgely that two members thought it should not
only be rejected, but that a report should be made to the House
exposing the conduct of the Commodore to severe censure for
daring to present such a claim. I prevailed on the majority,
however, to consent to a simple report that Commodore Ridgely
have leave to withdraw his petition.
In the House, William Russell, of Ohio, offered a resolution
that the hour of meeting of the House after next Monday
should be eleven o'clock, till further orders. Barnard objected.
Russell moved a suspension of the rules ; but the Speaker de
clared that not in order. Russell shook his finger at Barnard,
and said, " I'll mark you." Botts made his hour speech against
the bill to refund the Jackson fine. Moore, of Louisiana, took
the floor on that question for to-morrow. Cushing made his
hour speech against the Committee of Ways and Means, and
the Whigs, for rejecting the Tyler- Webster Exchequer.
25th. John Davies, a colored man, came this morning with
a letter from himself to me, asking my advice in behalf of his
wife's son, named Joseph Clark, sold some years since by Mrs.
Hellen to some one, who sold him to the Senator Berrien, who
sold him to a Colonel Curry, an agent or sub-agent employed in
the removal of the Cherokee Indians. Curry took him to the
State of Arkansas, employed him as an interpreter, and prom
ised him his freedom. Curry afterwards died, and by his will
declared Clark free after three years' service to his brother.

I843-] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 30 j
The rascal brother sold him for nine hundred dollars, and he is
now in irredeemable slavery for life. The mother of this poor
man, "Jenny," lived some time with us, and at her instance her
husband, Davies, came to ask my advice what can be done for
him. But he has neither means to sue for his freedom nor
evidence to prove the will. He is now living with a Dr. Davis
Flint, Cherokee Nation, and acting as interpreter. Can I not
possibly do something for this man?
I called a second time at the Treasury Department, and en
quired of Mr. McClintock Young, the Chief Clerk, the amount
paid to certain inhabitants of East Florida under the Act of 1834,
and the amount claimed by the' inhabitants of West Florida,
and for which the bill now before the House is intended to
provide. Mr. Young said there would not be time to the end of this
session of Congress to report upon such an enquiry, but he
showed me the papers of one claim on Amelia Island upon
which between five and six thousand dollars have been allowed
and paid — a mere transient glance at which opened to me a
dungeon of fraud and swindling claims.
At the House, Fillmore, Chairman of the Committee of Ways
and Means, succeeded in screwing at once into consideration
the resolution against the Tyler- Webster-Forward Exchequer
bill. Three one-hour speeches were successively delivered by
D. D. Barnard, R. C. Winthrop, and T. F. Marshall, all of the
highest order of eloquence, though with irreconcilable dissent
of opinions. Pendleton took the floor at the adjournment.
The House was nearly deserted during great part of Barnard's
and Winthrop's speeches by members slinking away to hear
the new Senator from South Carolina, McDuffie.
26th. At the House, this morning, the Speaker announced
the select committee on the resolution moved on the by
W. Cost Johnson, to consider the memorials calling on Con
gress to make some provision for relief to the States from the
embarrassment of their debts. The committee are William
Cost Johnson, of Maryland, Meredith P. Gentry, of Tennessee,
J. Q. Adams, of Massachusetts, Calvary Morris, of Ohio, Zadok
Casey, of Illinois, James Cooper, of Pennsylvania, Thomas F.

302 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [January,
Marshall, of Kentucky, Jacob M. Howard, of Michigan, and
James H. Cravens, of Indiana. Johnson came to my seat and
told me that he had given in my name to the Speaker on the
motion of John P. Kennedy, Chairman of the Committee of
Commerce. Tuesday, the 7th of February, was specially assigned for the
consideration of a joint resolution concerning reciprocity trea
ties. Kennedy reported, also, a bill to establish a warehousing
system, with a report, of which he moved that an extra number
of five thousand copies should be printed. Cave Johnson ob
jected, but, at the earnest entreaty of Kennedy, withdrew his
objection. Payne, of Alabama, has the floor on the Jackson
fine resolution, but he has two days successively allowed it to
be overridden.
Fillmore moved to take up immediately the negative resolu
tion of the Committee of Ways and Means on the Presidential
Exchequer bill, the paternity of which was assumed by Daniel
Webster in his too celebrated Faneuil Hall speech.
Nathaniel G. Pendleton, of Cincinnati, Ohio, a member of
the Committee of Ways and Means, made an hour speech
against the Executive Exchequer, followed by Wise in an hour
speech of reply to Marshall's paper kite of yesterday. Mar
shall was not in the House, a grievous lamentation to Wise,
excessively sore under Marshall's flagellation, and, with his
usual vindictive malignity, eager to score Marshall in return.
Marshall was, I suppose, purposely absent, and Wise's hot shot
fell short of their object. # He was cut short in a ludicrous at
titude, with his arms expanded, in the very delivery of a mag
nificent trope, as he thought, by Charles G. Atherton, minority
Chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means, who spun
out his hour in a dull, laudatory exposition of the Sub-Treasury.
Proffit, of the guard, then pounced upon the Sub-Treasury and
the Democracy, scolding like a poissarde, and repeating one
hundred and one times that under the Sub-Treasury law not
one dollar had ever been paid in specie. Adjourned at half-
past three.
27th. I found the House in session, and Fillmore, Chairman
of the Committee of Ways and Means, in final replication,

I843-] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 303
chiefly to the charges of Cushing upon the resolution of the
committee that the President's Exchequer ought not to be
adopted. Giddings moved the previous question. Cushing
withdrewhis motion to strike out the word " not!' Thompson,
of Mississippi, moved to lay the whole subject on the table.
Lost — sixty-six to one hundred and forty-one. Atherton's
amendment was rejected — one hundred and five to one hundred
and fifteen. The resolution of the majority pf the committee
not to adopt the Webster Exchequer carried — one hundred
and ninety-one to eighteen. (Remark: eleven skulking votes.)
Burnell moved a reconsideration, made a speech, and withdrew
his motion. Charles J. Ingersoll renewed the motion for re
consideration, made an ambidexter speech, full of sense and
nonsense — of wisdom and of knavery. Wise was one of the
skulkers, and then bustled up, bragged that what he abhorred
above all things was dodging, and ordered the reporters to
state that he would have voted for Atherton's amendment, and
against Fillmore's resolution. Adjourned.
28th. At the House, a confused mass of intrusive business
was admitted or rejected, according to the humor of the House,
and the Speaker — Gilmer — offered a resolution calling on the
President for any information about a negotiation for the cession
of California by Mexico to Great Britain. Adopted without
opposition. Giddings and Cowen, alternate Chairmen of the Committee
of Claims, insisted upon the observance of the rule devoting
the day to private business. Cushing moved to go into com
mittee of the whole on the state of the Union to take up his
Exchequer bill. He said he had been reproached for not calling
it up; moved to suspend the rules, and called for the yeas and
nays ; then withdrew the call for the yeas and nays, but said he
would renew the motion to go into committee and take up that
bill every day till he should succeed.
William W. Payne, of Gainesville, Sumter County, Alabama,
was big with his hour speech on the Jackson fine resolution,
and demanded the opportunity to be delivered of it, in which
the Speaker indulged him. His speech was a brawling decla
mation upon necessity; invective upon Judge Hall, upon me,

304 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [January,
upon Louaillier, and the Legislature of Louisiana at the time
of the declaration of martial law. He read from Martin's His
tory of the War, and from Eaton's Life of Jackson, and puffed
and spouted himself out of breath. As his hour closed, Daw
son, of Louisiana, took the floor for the next fighting day.
Charles J. Ingersoll gave notice that he would on Monday
ask leave to introduce a bill to amend the act organizing the
Treasury Department.
30th. At the House, this, was the day to call the States for
resolutions, and I had prepared two — calling on the President
for information respecting the exploit of Commodore Thomas
Ap Catesby Jones at Monterey, in California; but Wise and
Cushing immediately moved to go into committee of the whole
on the state of the Union to take up their Exchequer bill. The
Plouse, taking no heed to my remonstrance, went floundering
into committee, Hopkins in the chair. Wise moved to post
pone the Army Appropriation bill and take up his beloved
Exchequer. But Fillmore insisted upon taking up the Army
Appropriation bill, and the committee refused to postpone it, by
a vote of seventy-one to eighty-two. Reynolds, of Illinois,
moved an amendment of twenty thousand dollars for a military
survey from the Council Bluffs to the mouth of the Columbia
River. After some discussion, in which Cushing avowed his
ravenous appetite for the occupation of the Oregon, Reynolds's
motion was rejected, and Fillmore, seeing that debate would
waste time, moved that the committee should rise, for the
sole purpose of voting that debate should cease, and the bill
be reported to the House this day at three o'clock, which he
afterwards consented to extend to half-past three. All this
was done as Fillmore proposed.
In the interval, while the House was resumed, I offered my
two resolutions, but Gilmer objected to one and Mallory to
the other, and they were not received. There was a snarling
debate on the appropriations for West Point Academy — many
proposed amendments rejected, and some trifles adopted. The
bill was at last reported to the House, and driven by the screws
of the previous question to vote that the question should be
taken on its passage now; but then a motion to adjourn was

I843-] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 305
carried, in spite of Landaff W. Andrews's stare and yeas and
nays. There had been two reports from the Committee of
Ways and Means against the memorials for W. Cost Johnson's
two hundred millions of land stock to pay the State debts.
Cushing crammed the reading of the majority report down the
throat of the House, at the cost of many a curse.
31st. Meeting of the Committee of Foreign Affairs. Present,
Adams, Cushing, Granger, Stuart, Holmes, Caruthers, Meri
wether; absent, Everett and Shepperd. I read the note of the
Secretary of State to me suggesting the wish that the restric
tions on the application of the sum of forty thousand dollars
proposed to be appropriated for the mission to China should
be struck out from the bill, and, after some discussion, I ob
tained authority — five to two — to move in the House to strike
out the restrictions. I then requested to be instructed to move
in the House in the name of the committee the two resolutions
moved by me in the House yesterday, but objected to by Gil
mer and Mallory, and not received, calling on the President for
information, correspondence, and all the instructions to Com
modore Thomas Ap Catesby Jones relating to his invasion of
the Californias and capture of Monterey on the 19th of last
October. Question was made whether the usual exception of what the
President might deem it incompatible with the public interest
to communicate should not be inserted.
I said I had left it out purposely. The act of Commodore
Jones being avowedly war, and that being exclusively within
the constitutional power of Congress to declare, I thought the
usual exception would be improper.
Granger said that on a former occasion he had insisted on
the insertion of the usual exception; but, as this was a case of
actual war, he thought the exception should not be inserted.
Cushing questioned what he calls the jurisdiction of the com
mittee — the subject not having been referred to them by the
House. But my motion was carried — five to two, Holmes and
Cushing voting no. Cushing asked and obtained leave to move
in the House to take the French Claims bill out of the com
mittee of the whole on the state of the Union next Tuesday.
vol. xi. — 20

306 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [February,
At the House, on the call of the committees for reports,
James A. Pearce, from the Committee on the Judiciary, pre
sented a report on the General Jackson fine case, which occa
sioned no small agitation. Pearce moved the printing of five
thousand extra copies, and also of C. J. Ingersoll's minority
report of last summer ; but objection was made, and the order
to print was only for the usual number. The morning hour
expired, and Territorial business was the special order of the
day. A bill to authorize the Western States to sell their lands
reserved for schools was driven through, against the warm re
monstrances of Howard, of Michigan; and, after a heart-rending
oration of the younger Dodge, delegate from Iowa, a bill to
pay Iowa militia for battling against Missouri usurpation, re
jected last summer, was now reconsidered and passed.
February 1st. At the House, this morning, the hour allotted
to the call for reports from committees was delayed nearly
one hour by senseless or malicious resolutions, among which
Thompson, of Mississippi, the repudiator, moved a reconsider
ation of the vote of yesterday passing the Army Appropriation
bill. His pretended purpose was to make large retrenchments;
and he expatiated largely upon the emptiness of the Treasury,
the deficiency of the revenue, and the absolute necessity of
great reductions of expenditures.
Granger answered him in a speech of cutting sarcasm, and
the motion was laid on the table by a seemingly unanimous
vote. But Thompson will go home and make capital on the
stump by his motion.
The call on committees for reports followed, and, when the
Foreign Affairs were called, Cushing reported the resolution
to take the French Claims bill out of committee of the whole
on the Union next Tuesday — which started a most cankerous
debate of half an hour, bristled with points of order, and at last
a motion by Cave Johnson to lay the whole subject on the
table; lost, by yeas and nays — ninety-three to a hundred and
three. Then the previous question seconded, and a vote not
to take the main question now.
I then offered, from the Committee of Foreign Affairs, my
two resolutions of call upon the President for information, cor-

1843.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. ^Qy
respondence, and instruction relating to Ap Catesby Jones's
exploits in California.
Wise objected, and said he had a letter from Captain Jones
himself which would explain the whole affair to the satisfaction
of the House. Granger had moved the previous question, and
offered to allow the reading of Captain Jones's letter, but de
clined withdrawing his motion, without which Wise would not
have Jones's letter read. The previous question was seconded
— ninety-three to seventy. Wise asked if he could move to
postpone the subject. The Speaker said no, but he could move
to lay it on the table. Wise asked if the morning hour was
expired. The Speaker said yes. Wise called for the orders of
the day. The Territorial bills were then taken up and debated
in committee of the whole, Joseph R. Ingersoll in the chair,
till the time for adjournment. Two confidential messages were
received from the President, and referred without reading to
the Committee on Indian Affairs.
2d. I have no respite from the anxieties of attendance upon
the business of the House. On Monday last, one of the days
specially assigned by the rules of the House for the reception
of resolutions, I had proposed two calling on the President for
information, correspondence, and instructions relating to the
invasion of California by Commodore Thomas Ap Catesby
Jones, last October. Two abortions of attempt had already
been made to call partially for this information, one by Gwin,.
of Mississippi, a blunderer, too stupid to see the issues of his
own movements, and another by Botts, who was immediately
arrested by a hint from Wise. The duty of the House to call
for this information was, in my belief, so transcendent that I
could no longer forbear to initiate the call myself. But on
Monday Wise contrived to get a vote of the House superseding
the reception of resolutions by going into committee of the
whole on the state of the Union, though he failed to get up the
Exchequer bill, for which he had made the motion. I never
theless presented my resolutions, but a single objection sufficed
to exclude them from reception, and Gilmer and Mallory ob
jected. My resolutions were returned to me from the Clerk's
table. I reproduced them the next morning in the Committee

308 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [February,
of Foreign Affairs, and obtained an instruction from them to
report them from the committee. But Cushing's motion to fix
a time for taking the French Claims out of committee occupied
the whole morning hour of Tuesday. It was not till yesterday
that I could report the two resolutions, and then Wise, by chi
canery, still kept off the decision, till there had been announced
a second to the previous question. This morning a desperate
attempt was again made to supersede the morning hour by
going at once into committee of the whole on the Territorial
business. But I insisted on the question upon my resolutions.
Cushing asked to be excused from voting, because the usual
exception was omitted, and was excused. Wise asked to be
excused, and, after a trifling speech, withdrew his motion, and
voted. The resolutions were adopted, by yeas and nays — one
hundred and eighteen to sixty-nine — of which last at least ten
dough-faced Democrats changed their votes from aye to no
after the roll had been called through.
Then came the votes on Cushing's motion to take the French
claims out of committee. Motion to lay the whole subject on
the table; lost — ninety-four to one hundred and four. Mo
tion to take the main question now; lost — ninety-four to one
hundred. After this the Territorial bills consumed the re
mainder of the day. I got involved suddenly and unexpectedly
in the discussion of one of them, to provide payment for an
illegal meeting of the Legislature of Wisconsin, which dragged
on till the committee rose twice for want of a quorum, and two
motions to adjourn had been rejected by yeas and nays, and at
last the House adjourned without taking them.
3d. At the House, among the reports from committees was
one by Samson Mason, from the Committee of Ways and
Means, to refund the balance due to the State of Massachu
setts for disbursements during the last war with Great Britain.
A Harbor bill by John P. Kennedy, Chairman of the Com
mittee of Commerce, and a bill by Mr. Underwood, Chairman
of the Committee on the District of Columbia, to amend the
charter of the city of Alexandria. Hitherto the Mayor has
been elected by the Common Council, elected themselves by
the householders. The bill provides that the same voters who

1 843.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 309
elect the Council shall also elect the Mayor. Cave Johnson
began some stir about an amendment to impart universal suf
frage; but Underwood reminded him of my motion upon the
bill of the last session to strike out the word " white" from his
universal suffrage, and he was quiet as a mouse, and let the bill
pass in silence.
Pearce called up his motion to print five thousand extra
copies of the report of the Judiciary Committee on General
Jackson's fine, but could not get a vote upon it. Cushing in
sisted upon a decision upon his motion to take the French Claims
bill out of the committee of the whole on the state of the Union.
Atherton moved to lay Cushing's motion on the table, and it
was carried, by yeas and nays — ninety-seven to ninety-three.
Private and Territorial business followed. Levy, who had
the floor by assignment, upon the bill for the relief of the in
habitants of Florida, made a show as if he was very anxious to
make his speech upon it, but suffered it to pass over for other
bills to be taken up. I went down to the room of the Supreme
Court, where John J. Crittenden was arguing a Kentucky land
cause. I was recalled by a message from Mr. Giddings, upon
another demonstration of Levy, that he wished to speak upon
his West Florida bill ; but before I got back to my seat his
impulse had subsided, and other business had succeeded. \
4th. As I took my seat in the House, Mr. Otis, one of the
reporters, came and asked me to go into the Speaker's room
to see a blind man named Benjamin B. Bowen, who wished
to deliver a lecture upon the education of the blind. I went
accordingly, and found the Speaker in his chamber, with Mr.
McKennan, of Pennsylvania, Mr. Briggs, of Massachusetts, and
the blind man, who was introduced to me. After a short con
versation with him, Mr. McKennan said that Mr. Bowen would
deliver a lecture on the education of the blind, to-morrow even
ing, at the Unitarian Church, and wished to obtain the use of
the Representative hall to deliver another lecture on the same
subject, next Monday, and asked me to make the motion to that
effect in the House — to which I reluctantly agreed. I did accord
ingly make the motion, and it was adopted without opposition.
Mr. Summers, of Virginia, came with a more awkward pro-

310 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [February,
posal. He is charged by Samuel T. Washington to present
to Congress the sword used by General George Washington
in the Revolutionary War; and he intends to make a senti
mental patriotic speech on presenting it; and he requested
me to offer the joint resolution accepting the sword and pro
posing the disposal of it. His own opinion was to direct that
it shall be deposited in the hall of the National Institute for the
Promotion of Science. I entreated him to excuse me from this
service, but he pressed me till I gave way and consented to
undertake it.
The House went into committee of the whole on the state
of the Union, Elisha H. Allen in the chair, and took up the
Navy Appropriation bill. Meriwether, of Georgia, moved a
proviso reducing the pay of all the navy officers twenty per
cent. Fillmore objected that this amendment was not in order.
Fillmore appealed from the decision, but the committee —
seventy to sixty-three — sustained the Chairman. Then came up
a stiff debate upon Meriwether's proviso, which at three o'clock
the committee rose without deciding, and the House adjourned.
6th. I called on Mr. Summers, to arrange the manner in
which he proposes to present to the House the sword and cane
of Washington to-morrow. He promised to call on me this
evening, at my house, and to read me the speech that he in
tends to make. Morgan, of New York, asked me to give him
the manuscript of what I should say. I told him I knew not
what I should say.
Among the reports of committees was one by Cowen,
from the Committee of Claims, with a bill for the relief of
Amos Kendall, who is within prison limits upon a judgment
against him as Postmaster-General. Cowen wished that a day
should be fixed for the consideration of the bill, or to take it
up immediately; but it was referred to the committee of the
whole on the state of the Union, and ordered to be printed.
J. P. Kennedy offered a resolution to reward by promotion
all the officers of the late exploring expedition ; which was re
ferred to the committee of the whole on the state of the Union.
The Navy Appropriation bill was taken up in committee of the
whole on the state of the Union, Allen, of Maine, in the chair.

1843.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 311
A long debate ensued on Meriwether's motion to reduce the
pay of all the navy officers twenty per cent. Wise, Fessenden,
Gordon, Mark A. Cooper, and Arnold, of Tennessee, made
long speeches, and Arnold extorted an order of fixing a day
to consider his bill No. 548. Mark A. Cooper's speech con
tained sense enough to atone for many fooleries he is in the
constant habit of inflicting upon the House. Mr. Summers
came this evening, and read to me the speech he intends to
make on presenting the sword and cane, to-morrow ; and I
agreed with him on the substance of the joint resolution which
I am to present for the disposal of the relics.
7th. Under some depression of spirits, and a diffidence of
which I cannot divest myself, I wrote last night and this morn
ing a few sentences laudatory of the two worthies who were
to dignify the ceremonies of this day, and at ten this morning
attended the meeting of the Committee of Foreign Affairs.
Present, Adams, Everett, Granger, Shepperd, Caruthers, Stuart,
Meriwether. We had memorials from Fredericksburg and
from Alexandria, praying for the establishment of a line of
packets to Chagres, in connection with a mail conveyance over
the Isthmus to Panama. They were, after some discussion,
referred to Mr. Shepperd.
There was a letter to the Secretary of the Treasury from
some officer of the Colonization Society, claiming an appro
priation of five thousand dollars for the support of slaves who
may be taken by ou'r squadrons on the coast of Africa. Mr.
Forward had sent the letter to the Chairman of the Committee
of Ways and Means — Fillmore — at whose motion it had been
referred by the House to the Committee of Foreign Affairs.
Mr. Everett drew up a section which I was instructed by the
committee to move in the House as an amendment to the Navy
Appropriation bill, now in committee of the whole on the state
of the Union. His first motion was that it should be introduced
into the bill for carrying into execution the Ashburton Treaty ;
but on discussion it was concluded that although the treaty
stipulates that we shall keep for five years a squadron of eighty
guns on the coast of Africa for the purpose of capturing Amer
ican slavers, yet it has no reference to the disposal of the cap-

312 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [February,
tured slaves. By a report from the Secretary of the Treasury,
on a resolution of the Senate, it was estimated that the cost of
keeping the squadron will be for the first year half a million,
and for the four others three hundred thousand dollars a year.
At the House, during the morning hour, Fillmore moved a
resolution to take the Naval Appropriation bill out of committee
of the whole on the state of the Union at two o'clock to-mor
row, and carried it by moving the previous question, which
Cave Johnson in vain moved to lay on the table, and lost —
sixty-eight to ninety-five ; and Arnold obtained, by a suspension
of the rules, an order to make his bill No. 548 the special
order of the day for next Tuesday, by yeas and nays — one
hundred and thirty-one to fifty-three.
At twelve o'clock Mr. Summers rose, and presented from
Samuel T, Washington the sword of General Washington, and
the cane bequeathed to him by Benjamin Franklin, with a beau
tiful and affecting speech. I moved a joint resolution accepting
the present, disposing of the present, and giving the thanks of
Congress to the donor. The resolution passed unanimously,
and the House adjourned.
8th. Immediately after the adoption of the joint resolution
offered by me yesterday, Mr. Taliaferro moved that Mr. Sum
mers's address to the House, and mine, should be entered on
the journal; which was unanimously adopted. This morning
Briggs moved that the letter from Samuel P. Washington, ten
dering the present, and a letter of George C. Washington,
identifying the articles, be entered upon the journal with the
proceedings of the House, and Mr. Taliaferro moved that
twenty thousand copies of the full journal of the House re
lating to the subject be printed, to be distributed by the
members of the House among their constituents ; both which
motions were unanimously adopted.
James A. Pearce, the reporter from the Judiciary Committee
against the refunding of General Jackson's fine, had moved the
printing of five thousand extra copies, both of his report and
of the supplementary report of the minority by Charles J. In
gersoll, Romulus M. Saunders, and James J. Roosevelt. Ob
jection had been made to the motion, and it had thus been

I843-] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 3x3
shuffled off by the Jackson jackals with the hope of suppressing
its circulation among the people, as they have done with Win-
throp's report on the oppression of colored seamen in Southern
ports ; but Pearce fastened his motion upon the House this day,
and carried it. Thompson, of Indiana, moved to reconsider
the vote of yesterday which laid on the table Cushing's motion
to fix a day for considering the French Claims bill. The
Speaker decided that Thompson's motion was not in order.
Thompson appealed, but the decision of the Speaker was sus
tained. Joseph R. Ingersoll moved to print ten thousand copies of
the two reports from the Committee of Ways and Means against
W. Cost Johnson's project for assuming and paying the State
debts. Watterson objected. At the expiration of the morning
hour, Holmes took the floor on the Navy Appropriation bill,
followed by Joseph L. White, of Indiana, and Charles Brown,
with interludes by Fillmore, Wise, and Meriwether, till, at two
o'clock, the voting on the amendments began. Meriwether's
razor was rejected. My amendment from the Committee of
Foreign Affairs was adopted without opposition. The bill was
reported to the House about three, and carried through by the
previous question, and a losing game motion by Fillmore, for
reconsideration. 9th. Mr. Leavitt called on me, and spoke of the underhand
movements to carry, by springing a mine, the annexation of
Texas to this Union. He suggested that some of the members
thought of uniting in an address to the people of the free
States against it. Mr. Giddings had intimated to me yesterday
a similar purpose, in which I told him I would very readily
concur, but that I had no confidence in the firmness of any one
member from the free States to put his name to any such
address. I was belated this morning by twenty minutes in reaching
the House, and found them in a snarl of debate on a question
about the reception of a report of one member (Aycrigg) of
the Select Committee on the Coast Survey — in the course of
which debate W. Cost Johnson protested against a practice of
recent origin, of receiving partial and minority reports, and

314 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [February,
complained of the double report of the Committee of Ways
and Means against his project of creating two hundred millions
of stocks, hypothecated on the public lands, to pay the debts
of the States.
Joseph R. Ingersoll and Pickens, the authors of the two re
ports, and Fillmore, Chairman of the Committee of Ways and
Means, kindled into a flame in support of the unanimity of their
report. This debate was all episodical, and I suggested to W.
C. Johnson that he was making, up an issue upon a mere im
material incident, and not upon the vital point.
Aycrigg's report was received, and ordered to be printed.
Mr. Crawford, the new member from Georgia, asked an ex
planation of some disparaging allusion to him made yesterday
by Charles Brown, who immediately frittered it away by ex
planation. Ten thousand extra copies of the annual report of
the Commissioner of Patents were ordered to be printed. A
bill came from the Senate for the occupation of the Oregon
Territory. Pendleton moved to refer it to the Committee on
Military Affairs; Reynolds, to the committee of the whole on
the state of the Union ; and Everett, to the Committee of For
eign Affairs. The two former, motions 'were rejected, and
Everett's adopted ; upon which, Andrew Kennedy, of Indiana,
said, aloud, " There is the end of that."
ioth. My business crowds upon me beyond endurance, and
almost every day, from an impulse that I cannot resist; I plunge
into new controversies, with which I ought not to meddle. I
was again belated, though by not more than five minutes, in
reaching the House, and found Dawson, of Louisiana, strug
gling for the floor, on the Jackson fine resolution. Several
members had moved resolutions of reconsideration on votes
yesterday taken. Among them was one referring to the com
mittee of the whole on the state of the Union a bill surrepti
tiously smuggled into the House by Reynolds, of Illinois, being
the same bill which Dr. Linn, of Missouri, has been worming
through the Senate for the benefit of Tom Benton. The Senate
bill had, after a double tug, been referred to the Committee of
Foreign Affairs. Everett now moved to reconsider the refer
ence of Reynolds's bill to the committee of the whole on the

I843-] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 315
state of the Union, and that it be referred to the Committee of
Foreign Affairs ; which was carried without a division.
Fillmore, from the Committee of Ways and Means, reported
a bill to authorize the Secretary of the Treasury to reissue
Treasury notes as they shall be paid in. Joseph R. Ingersoll
brought up, quite malapropos, his motion to print his and
Pickens's reports from the Committee of Ways and Means
against W. Cost Johnson's project of issuing two hundred mil
lions of stock at three per cent., hypothecated upon the pro
ceeds of the public lands. Both reports are ridiculously shallow,
, and very uncourteous to Johnson and to his committee.
Dawson was in the agonies of parturition upon the fine, so
I thought I would start new game, and opposed the printing
of any extra copies of the two reports. This was perfectly
desperate as to success, taking the x upon both the great
parties of the country. They will vote down my objection by
a nearly unanimous conclusion; but I proved them wrong, and,
taking Governor McNutt's letter and the State of Mississippi
to task for repudiation, struck flint and steel together, which
will make another week morning-hour's debate. Gwin and
Thompson, the two members from Mississippi, were frantic, but
Gwin had only five minutes to empty his bile-bag on me for
this day, and has the floor for another emission to-morrow.
Ingersoll was touched and angry ; but I disclaimed all personal
imputation. The House passed for the remainder of the day
to the District business. I invited the Massachusetts members
to meet at my house at seven to-morrow evening.
nth. Special meeting of the Committee of Foreign Affairs,
called by me for the consideration of the two bills for the oc
cupation of the Oregon Territory. Present, Adams, Cushing,
Granger, Stuart, Shepperd, Caruthers, Holmes, Meriwether;
absent, Everett, who afterwards told me that he had been all
night sick, and could not come. Before the committee was
full, I took up the memorial of Hope & Co., claiming the re
sponsibility of the Government of the United States for a debt
contracted by the Territory of Florida ; which was again re-
1 The word in the copy looks like stud. It may have been meant either for stand
or start.

3!6 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [February,
ferred to Mr. Cushing, as it had been at the last session, when
he made no report.
The Senate bill for the occupation of the Territory of Oregon
was then read, and Holmes instantly moved to report against
it. There was no discussion of its merits or of its details, but
I was desirous of leaving some record of the vote. I polled
the committee. Granger, Stuart, Shepperd, Caruthers, and
Holmes voted against both bills ; Meriwether, for the Senate
bill ; Cushing, for it, with an amendment which he said he
would offer.
I moved to be instructed, in the event of the House's refusing
to accept the report against the bill, to move an amendment
that there should be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude,
except upon conviction for crime, throughout the Territory ;
and I asked that the yeas and nays on this proposition should
be taken, and recorded on the minutes.
It was finally agreed that the Chairman should move in the
House that the Senate bill should be printed, and that the ques
tion upon reporting the bills be postponed till next Tuesday.
In the House, Gwin, of Mississippi, disgorged his swindler
spleen upon me for exposing his knavery and that of his
Governor, McNutt. He gave also a blast to Granger, who
repaid him in his own coin. W. Cost Johnson then took the
floor for the next morning hour. The extra printing of the re
ports of the Committee of Ways and Means wedged out the
Jackson fine for the present. Levy's bill of plunder for the
inhabitants of East Florida had been made the special order
for this day. I had moved to lay it on the table, but withdrew
the motion to let him reply to my argument — which he did with
a warm hour speech. I rejoined a few words, and renewed the
motion to lay the bill on the table ; lost, by yeas and nays —
seventy-three to seventy-seven. Sherlock J. Andrews moved
the previous question, which cut off Giddings's amendment.
The bill was rejected — thirty-six to one hundred and thirteen.
Weller moved a reconsideration to let Levy make another
hour speech — which he did. I was provoked to the boiling
point, but made no reply. Fillmore moved to lay the motion
for reconsideration on the table ; which was carried by accla-

I843-] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 3 j pr
mation. This evening the members of the Massachusetts dele
gation in both Houses held a consultation with me about the
Latimer petition, in which we came to no conclusion, but are
to wait for the petition to arrive.
13th. First meeting of the select committee on the memo
rials praying for the creation of two hundred millions of stocks,
hypothecated on the proceeds of the sales of the public lands,
called by William Cost Johnson, Chairman, was held at ten this
morning, in the committee-room of the Committee of the Dis
trict of Columbia. The members present, besides Johnson, were
Calvary Morris, of Ohio, James H. Cravens, of Indiana, Zadok
Casey, of Illinois, and at last, just as we were going up to the
House, Thomas F. Marshall, of Kentucky, who came into the
committee-room puffing out a lighted cigar.
Mr. Johnson read the memorial referred to the committee,
and there were several others. Mr. Johnson moved that the
committee should choose a Chairman ; but I decidedly objected
to that, and he acquiesced. Our conversation was of a general
character, and I said that, from the all but universal prejudice
against the plan, there could be no possible expectation of its
being even listened to at this session of Congress ; that I dared
not even hope that we could defeat Joseph R. Ingersoll's motion
to print and circulate ten thousand copies of these two reports
from the Committee of Ways and Means, crushing in the bud
the very conception of the plan ; that I believed all that could
now be done would be for the Chairman to prepare an elaborate
report showing the impossibility of the Federal Government's
escaping from responsibility for the debts of the States — ana
lyzing those debts, demonstrating that the great mass of them
have been contracted for useful and national purposes, that the
ultimate result of them when completed would vindicate them
even as measures of sound economy, and refuting with sound
argument both the reports from the Committee of Ways and
Means ; that I believed such a report could now be made, and
left as a germ for future enlargement and improvement ; and
this was all that could be done to any useful purpose now. We
agreed to meet again next Thursday morning.
In the House, the day was a convulsion. Moore, of Loui-

318 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [February,
siana, made a gasp to go into committee of the whole on the
bill to refund the fine of General Jackson, but it failed. Gid
dings made a noble hour speech against our base patronage of
the slave-trade, on a bill to pay out from the Treasury money
received from the British Government for the "Comet" and
" Encomium." Cushing, the sycophant, answered him, and
Dawson, the drunken bully, insulted him. The House tamely
passed it over. A beggarly message was received from the
President, upon which Wise bullied the Chairman of the Com
mittee of Ways and Means a full hour, without disturbing his
serenity. All this I witnessed with boiling indignation, but in
silence. I foresaw a day shortly to come for an explosion
from which I cannot flinch.
14th. Meeting of the Committee of Foreign Affairs. Present,
Adams, Cushing, Everett, Granger, Shepperd, Stuart, Caruthers,
Meriwether, and Holmes — the whole committee. As soon as
the committee was formed (by a quorum), while waiting for the
other members, Mr. Cushing's report on the Ashburton Treaty
was taken up, and he read a large portion of it. The reading
was suspended as soon as the committee was full, and I read
the minutes of the proceedings of the committee last Saturday
on the two bills for the occupation of the Oregon Territory.
Mr. Everett agreed with the majority to report against both the
bills. But they unanimously rejected my motion to instruct
me to move the amendment excluding slavery from the new
Territory forever; as it was from the Northwestern Territory.
Granger said I could move it as an individual member, and he
would vote with me for it. Everett said he voted against my
motion on the same ground taken by Mr. Granger. The rest,
including Cushing, all voted directly, and without assigning any
reason, against my motion.
After some discussion, I was instructed to move the reference
of the two bills to the committee of the whole on the state of
the Union — where, they said, no more would be heard of them
at this session.
In the House, after a long jumble of petitions presented out
of order, and privileged motions for personal explanations, Gwin,
of Mississippi, got the floor on a pretence of personal explana-

1843.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. ^ IQ
tion, but it was for the purpose of replying to the charges of
Granger against the fraudulent repudiation of her debts by the
Legislature of the State of Mississippi. Granger rejoined upon
him, and proved by unquestionable documents the responsibility
of the State upon her bonds, and the dishonesty of her refusal
to pay them. At last Arnold succeeded in worrying the House
into an order that they would take his bill No. 548 out of com
mittee this day at three o'clock; and then twice into committee
of the whole, first Briggs and then Underwood in the chair, and
a Babel of amendments were offered, with inextricable confusion,
till three o'clock. Then the debate, no part of which had been
upon the provisions of the bill, ceased, and questions were
taken upon amendments, till past four o'clock, when the com
mittee rose, and the House adjourned.
15th. Adjourned meeting of the Committee of Foreign Af
fairs. Present, Adams, Cushing, Meriwether, Caruthers, Stuart,
Shepperd ; absent, Everett, Granger, and Holmes. Cushing
resumed and concluded the reading of his report on the Ashbur
ton Treaty. The part of the report relating to the boundary
questions was all unexceptionable, but all the remainder, and
particularly the part relating to the article of compromise
with regard to the suppression of the African slave-trade, was
so full of bad temper and absurd reasoning that I objected
to it altogether, and said if it was to be presented to the
House at all I should move many amendments to it, and to
strike out nearly the whole of it. Mr. Meriwether also ob
jected to it, and said he had written out his views on the ex
ecution of the treaty, also in the form of a report. We had no
time for further discussion, and adjourned to Friday morning,
ten o'clock.
Before going to the House, I had a quarter of an hour's
conversation with Cushing, and told him there was a war now
in parturition between Freedom and Slavery throughout the
globe ; that it would be a war for the abolition of slavery, at the
head of which would be Great Britain; that in this war I could
take no part — I was going off the stage; but he was coming on
to it; and I conjured him, as he cherished his own and his
country's honor, not to commit himself, in this great controversy,

320 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [February,
to Jhe side of slavery ; and to return to the cause of liberty,
from which he had not yet irrevocably strayed.
He heard me without taking offence, but apparently without
conviction. I found the House in session, taking the questions upon the
amendments to Arnold's retrenchment bill No. 548. In com
mittee of the whole on the state of the Union, Underwood in
the chair, twenty-six members in succession proposed amend
ments, some of them three or four, almost all of which were
rejected. That which bore on the compensation and attend
ance of the members of Congress was offered by T. M. T
McKennan, and was adopted. Botts moved to report against
the bill; only thirty-eight, by tellers, voted for that. As soon
as the bill was reported, Cushing moved to lay it and all the
amendments on the table ; lost, by yeas and nays — forty-two to
one hundred and sixty-seven. The bill was forced through
this day by suspension of the rules, moved by Briggs. Yeas
and nays, one hundred and sixty-six to forty-eight — Baker,
Briggs, Calhoun, Hudson, and Parmenter voting aye; Adams,
Saltonstall, and Winthrop, nay. Burnell and Cushing did not
vote. Moore, of Louisiana, moved a reconsideration pro forma;
lost without a count. The bill was irrevocably passed, and
the House adjourned.
16th. A man by the name of Bird came this morning and
enquired concerning a petition for a pension which he said I
had presented for him five or six years ago. I had no recol
lection of it, but asked him to call again, being obliged to go
immediately to attend the select committee on the memorials
praying for the issuing of two hundred millions of stocks hy
pothecated upon the proceeds of the sales of the public lands.
At the meeting were present W. C. Johnson, Meredith P. Gen
try, James H. Cravens, Calvary Morris, Jacob M. Howard, of
Michigan, and myself; absent, Marshall, Casey, and the ninth
member. There was further conversation upon the general
topic; but it is evident nothing specific can be done at the
present session of Congress. I expressed the opinion that the
Chairman should prepare an argumentative report, urging the
transcendent necessity of the interposition of Congress for the

I843-] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 321
relief of the people of the States overburdened with debt,
closing with a resolution declaratory of that principle; a second
resolution, declaring that there is not time at the present
session to mature a specific measure; and a third, discharging
the committee from the further consideration of the subject.
Mr. Johnson appearing desirous of presenting his own bill,
which may do as well to lay on the table as anything else, we
agreed to meet again at ten Saturday morning.
At the House, after an abortive attempt of a Pennsylvanian
dunce, named Almon H. Read, to get a silly motion of his, made
and rejected yesterday, upon the journal, the committees were
called for reports. When the Committee of Foreign Affairs
was called, I reported the bill from the Senate for the occupa
tion of the Oregon Territory, and for other purposes, and the
same bill reported by Reynolds, of Illinois, in the House, with
out amendments, and with the opinion of the committee that
neither of them ought to pass. They were then, at my motion,
referred, without opposition, to the committee of the whole on
the state of the Union.
Mr. John P. Kennedy's joint resolution, declaring the expe
diency of repealing the reciprocity treaties with the minor navi
gating powers, was at last taken up, and he made an able and
elaborate speech in favor of that measure. Cushing discoursed
upon it about half an hour, and Brewster, a New York borderer
on Canada, spoke earnestly in support of the reciprocity system.
Fillmore moved the committee to rise, and say no more about
this matter at the present session. The committee rose, and
the House adjourned.
17th. Met the Committee of Foreign Affairs at ten this
morning. Present, Adams, Cushing, Stuart, Caruthers, Meri
wether; absent, Everett, Granger, Shepperd, and Holmes. I
returned to Meriwether his manuscript report on the execution
of the Ashburton Treaty, which he had lent me, and which I
had carefully read. He now read it to the committee. It is
bitter and rancorous against Great Britain beyond all example,
and excessively violent against the eighth article of the treaty.
It is a pure effusion of wormwood and of gall. I declared my
dissent to its opinions from the first to the last line, and my
vol. xi. — 21

322 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [February,
dissent, quite as explicit, to all the report of Cushing, except
what related to the boundary. I proposed to abandon the idea
of making a detailed report, and to confine it to a short state
ment of facts, merely glancing at the stipulations which we
have engaged to fulfil, and requiring the action of Congress
for their fulfilment. As there was a bare majority of the com
mittee present, we adjourned to Tuesday morning for a final
decision on this subject.
At the House, after a prelude for Fillmore to report the
Civil and Diplomatic Appropriation bill for the new fiscal year
from ist July, 1843, to ist July, 1844, and a struggle by D. D.
Barnard to go into committee of the whole on the state of the
Union on the Exchequer bill, W. Cost Johnson obtained the
floor for the morning hour against Joseph R. Ingersoll's motion
to print ten thousand extra copies of the two reports from the
Committee of Ways and Means against the issuing of two
hundred millions of stock hypothecated on the proceeds of the
sales of the public lands. When he finished, Jacob Thompson,
of Mississippi, took the floor to reply. Johnson's argument
was against the reasoning of J. R. Ingersoll's report, and he
took little or no notice of the minority report of Atherton and
Pickens. This evening, my colleagues, Baker, Briggs, Calhoun, Sal
tonstall, were again at my house, and we agreed on the manner
of presenting the great Massachusetts Latimer petition next
Monday morning. Cushing and Parmenter did not come;
Hudson and Burnell sick; Borden gone home.
18th. Meeting of the two hundred million stock select com
mittee. Present, W. Cost Johnson, Calvary Morris, of Ohio,
Thomas F. Marshall, of Kentucky, James Cooper, of Pennsyl
vania, Meredith P. Gentry, of Tennessee, and J. Q. Adams, and
Jacob M. Howard, of Michigan ; absent, Cravens, of Indiana,
and Casey, of Illinois. The conversation was still general, and,
excepting Johnson and Gentry, all the members are scary upon
the question of the assumption of State debts. Marshall, the
most popular speaker in, the committee, dreams of nothing but
his own very doubtful re-election, and is afraid of encountering
the odium of State debt assumption, and dares not look in the

I843-] THE TWEN7 Y-SE VENTII CONGRESS. 323
face the issue of foreign war waged in defence of repudiation.
The memorials all urge the creation of two hundred millions of
three per cent, stocks, to be distributed among the States — a
measure impracticable now, and which never will be practicable,
but no other will now be proposed. The committee cannot now
be brought to agree upon even any general principle of relief.
The Chairman said that he would on Monday morning present
a specific measure for the consideration of the committee.
I found the House twenty minutes in session, and in full
squabble about the removal of Jonathan Roberts and Calvin
Blythe, successively, as Collectors of the Customs at Philadel
phia. Toland had moved a call on the Secretary of the Treas
ury for the causes of the removal of Jonathan Roberts ; Charles
Brown, by way of counter-check, had moved for the causes of
the removal of Blythe. The Secretary of the Treasury answers
that there was no charge against either of them ; and here was
Charles Brown growling at Toland, and Wise howling at Fill
more, to bully down the enquiry. Wise howled himself so
hoarse that he lost the power of articulation ; and as for Toland's'
small and feeble voice, not a word of it could be heard. The
expiration of the morning hour came to suspend for a moment
the din of Pandemonium.
Barnard made a struggle to get into committee of the whole
on the state of the Union upon his own substitute for Cushing's
Exchequer, but he failed. The bill for the relief of the heirs
of Philip Renault was rejected by yeas and nays — seventy-one
to ninety-seven. Underwood cried aloud to take up the Dis
trict and Territorial bills. I prevailed upon him by mere dint of
entreaty to let the bill for the relief of the heirs of Robert Ful
ton be taken up. A motion to lay it on the tauble was rejected
— fifty-six to one hundred and two. The previous question was
called, sustained, and carried. The bill was passed — eighty-
nine to fifty-nine. John C. Clark moved the reconsideration to
foreclose it, and the bill was sent to the Senate.
20th. Met the select committee on William Cost Johnson's
two hundred millions of stock bill. .Johnson, Gentry, James
Cooper, Howard, and myself present; Morris, Marshall, Cravens,
and Casey absent. Casey has never attended since the first

324 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [February,
meeting. Marshall will do nothing to prepare or mature the
plan ; give him his theme, and he makes a flashy, gaudy speech,
but he has neither steadfastness nor perseverance for anything.
Johnson was not yet prepared with his specific proposal, but
was forming sanguine hopes and calculations of the over
whelming popularity which will gather round his plan here
after, and very soon — of which I have no hope whatever. The
committee still came to no conclusion.
At the House, the great Latimer petition, signed by fifty-one
thousand eight hundred and sixty-three citizens of Massachu
setts, was in a frame on my table. It was the regular day for
the call of the States for petitions. The moment the journal
was read, I addressed the Speaker to call for the order of the
day; but Gwin, of Mississippi, had caught the Speaker's eye,
and moved to go into committee of the whole on the state of
the Union to take up the bill to refund General Jackson's fine.
At the same time, Amos Gustine, a usually silent member from
Pennsylvania, asked and obtained leave to present resolutions
from the Legislature of Pennsylvania, urging the renewal of the
Act of 1838 allowing five years of pension to the widows of
Revolutionary soldiers ; and he and Mathiot, of Ohio, made an
appeal so pathetic to the good feelings of the House that they
actually discharged the committee of the whole House on the
state of the Union from a bill for that purpose referred to them,
and actually passed the bill through all its stages by anx unre
sisted impulse. I then urged the motion to call for petitions,
and called the yeas and nays on Gwin's motion to go into com
mittee of the whole on the state of the Union, which was
carried — one hundred and fourteen to seventy-one. Of the
majority, fifty-fcrur were members from the free States. Of the
seventy-one, only five were from the slave States. When in
committee of the whole, a struggle ensued what bill should
be taken up. Gwin's motion to take up the Jackson fine bill
was rejected — sixty-seven to ninety-one. A bill for collecting
moneys into the Treasury was first agreed to, then the bill for
reissuing Treasury notes was taken up, upon which Barnard
hung his Currency bill, and Cushing his Exchequer bill, as
amendments. Barnard and Cushing made hour speeches. Cush-

[843-] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 325
ing's amendment was twice voted on by tellers ; first, twenty-
eight to eighty — no quorum ; then thirty-eight to ninety-eight ;
then Barnard's amendment was rejected — thirty- rour to one
hundred and five. The bill was reported to the House, and
passed by yeas and nays — one hundred and eleven to fifty-one.
Adjourned — eighty-eight to seventy-six.
21st. Meeting of the Committee of Foreign Affairs. Present,
all the members — Adams, Cushing, Everett, Granger, Shep
perd, Stuart, Caruthers, Meriwether, Holmes. Cushing came
in just as the committee was about to adjourn. Mr. Cushing
agreed to withdraw his report on the execution of the Ash
burton Treaty, and there was a decided vote against allowing
that of Mr. Meriwether to be reported to the House at all. I was
charged to move again in the House to take the French Claims
bill out of committee of the whole on the state of the Union.
In the House, I made another effort to obtain leave to present
my petitions, without success ; not even so far as to obtain the
yeas and nays against it. Thompson, of Mississippi, made an
hour speech, formally upon Joseph R. Ingersoll's motion to
print extra copies of the reports from the Committee of Ways
and Means on the State debts and land loan, but really a
swindler speech in honor of the State of Mississippi for bilk
ing her creditors.
Mr. Pope then got the floor for the next morning hour, and
gave notice that he should offer his Bank, Tariff", Currency,
Credit, and Land bill.
Fillmore finally got the House into committee of the whole
on the state of the Union, Robert C. Winthrop in the chair.
I claimed Fillmore's promise to allow the China bill to be taken
up. I moved the amendment desired by Mr. Webster, striking
out the restriction upon the President in the application of the
money, and this started a debate of three hours, and a rivalry
of blackguard supremacy in reviling Daniel Webster, between
John C. Clark and Samuel Gordon. Meriwether, Everett,
Bronson, and McKeon opposed the bill, all feebly, and it was
driven through, by fixing the time for taking it out of com
mittee, and by the previous question, and motion to reconsider ;
both of which I myself moved.

326 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [February,
22d. Washington's birthday. Militia company parades. After
the reading of the journal, I moved to suspend the rules to
enable me to present thirty-three petitions upon a variety of
subjects, among which was the great Massachusetts Latimer
petition. The House was thin, and Stanly suggested that I
should wait till after the call of committees for reports, to
take the question on my motion; to which I consented on con
dition, which the Speaker pledged to me, that I should resume
the floor after the call of committees was completed. When the
Committee of Foreign Affairs was called, I offered the reso
lution to cease debate on the French Claims bill, and take
it out of committee of the whole on the state of the Union,
to-morrow at two o'clock p.m. Romulus M. Saunders moved
to lay my motion on the table, which was carried, by yeas and
nays — eighty-nine to eighty. Afterwards my motion to suspend
the rules was rejected — eighty to one hundred and six. Charles
J. Ingersoll offered a resolution of call on the President for any
correspondence with the British Government, on a difference of
construction by President Tyler and Sir Robert Peel with re
gard to the relinquishment by the British Government, in the
late Ashburton Treaty, of the right of visitation. Ingersoll
sent to the Clerk's table a newspaper containing an extract of
a speech of Peel, made at the recent meeting of Parliament,
taking this issue with Captain Tyler. The speech was not read,
but Ingersoll's call was adopted.
Then followed a committee of the whole on the state of the
Union, Thomas W. Gilmer in the chair. The Navy Pension
bill, Harbor and Lighthouse bill, and Fortification bill came up
successively. The Senate had sent back amendments to the
Fortification bill; disagreed to by the House; upon which a
committee of conference was appointed. The committee rose
without closing the debate on the Harbor bill, and the House
adjourned after four o'clock. My Latimer petition so entirely
covered my table that it left me no space for writing at it, and
Brockway lent me his table for the day. I made out a list of
thirty-three petitions, with the objects prayed for by them, and
the committees to which they should be referred, which I de
livered to Mr. Burch in the Clerk's office, demanding that they

I843-] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 327
should be entered on the journal of the House, and that my list
be returned to me for publication in the National Intelligencer.
The Latimer petition is among them, and there are two others
for the dissolution of the Union.
23d. At the House, Briggs moved a suspension of the rules
to instruct the Committee on the Judiciary to report a bill re
pealing the Florida Territorial law of 5th May, 1842, against
free colored persons ; lost, by yeas and nays — sixty-six to one
hundred and four. There was some personal explanation about
nothing between Thompson, of Mississippi, and Rayner, of
North Carolina.
Among the reports of committees was one from the Ways
and Means, on the finances, revenues, and expenditures of the
year, not sparing of severe animadversion upon the President.
Cushing was prodigiously fussy about a letter from Edward
Everett charging Sir Robert Peel with a great error of fact in
his late speech. Cushing wanted to have Everett's letter read
at the Clerk's table, but did not succeed, though Briggs moved
a suspension of the rules to help him. Sundry bills were dis
cussed in committee of the whole on the state of the Union, T.
W. Gilmer in the chair, and the Harbor bill was finally laid on
the table, by yeas and nays — one hundred and seven to eighty-
seven. 25th. Meeting of the Committee of Foreign Affairs, which
I had called yesterday for this morning. Present, Adams,
Cushing, Everett, Granger, Caruthers, Meriwether, and Holmes;
absent, Shepperd, indisposed, and Stuart, whom I had not
been able yesterday to notify. He was absent from the House.
Cushing had shown me yesterday a confidential letter with
enclosures, to be communicated to me, urging, as a wish of
the President, an appropriation for a special and extraordi
nary mission to Great Britain. There were militant resolutions
of the Legislatures of Illinois and of Missouri, relating to the
Territory of Oregon, upon which I took occasion to move an
instruction to me to propose this amendment to the Appropri
ation bill. Holmes was very warmly for it, with Cushing and
myself. But Everett and Granger, peremptorily, Meriwether,
bitterly, and Caruthers, with his bland and courteous smile, all

328 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [February,
opposed it. The final decision was postponed till next Tuesday
at nine.
I offered two resolutions against the annexation of Texas,
upon which Holmes said he should at once pronounce his
veto. At the House, about two hours were consumed in a move
ment of Joseph L. Williams to drive through a joint resolution
authorizing the Secretary of the Treasury to pay one hundred
thousand dollars to certain claimants under a Cherokee treaty;
and he succeeded. John Campbell had found that the vote of
yesterday on the bill to suspend the single-district section of
the Apportionment bill had been not ninety and ninety-one, as
reported by the Clerk, but ninety-one and ninety-one; and that
there had been a mistake in counting Landaff W. Andrews's
vote in the negative, he not having voted at all — which he con
firmed ; but Campbell did not succeed in reversing the decision
against his bill.
v Committee of the whole on the state of the Union, Fessenden
in the chair, on the Civil and Diplomatic Appropriation bill,
which was mangled till the quorum was wasted away, and then
rose without concluding.
27th. I had prepared resolutions to be offered to the House,
with a view to call the attention of the people of the free States
to the disproportion of slave-holding Judges on the bench of
the Supreme Court of the United States; and an acrostic for
the album of Miss Mary Jewett Morris. It is one of the griev
ous miseries of my life to be perpetually beset with albums and
for autographs with a few lines of poetry, with which having
complied in a few instances heretofore, it has brought down
upon me such a shower, or rather such a waterspout, of appli
cations that my ship sinks under them.
At the House, the first hours were consumed in chicanery
by Hopkins pettifogging about the error of the Clerk in the
count upon John Campbell's palinodial bill to suspend, that is,
to repeal, his own single-district section of the Apportionment
bill. The Clerk had reported the count ninety to ninety-one.
It proved to have been ninety-one to ninety-one — a tie, by which
the bill was still lost. Campbell had already wasted time in a

1843.] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 329
vain struggle to get the decision reversed. Hopkins this morn
ing raked up the rule that in case of a tie the Speaker shall
vote; upon which the Speaker said he had no sort of objection.
The Chair votes in the negative.
Briggs moved to print three thousand copies extra of a post-
office report. Cave Johnson objected, and snarled for half an
hour, but Briggs finally carried it. Toland moved for leave to
the select committee on the removal of Jonathan Roberts to sit
during the session of the House. W. W. Irwin, a subaltern of
the corporal's guard, objected, and then parleyed and jockeyed
him out of the vote. Fillmore moved to go into committee of
the whole on the state of the Union to take up the Civil and
Diplomatic Appropriation bill. I called for the regular order
of the day— the call for resolutions. The House decided to
go into committee.
I asked leave to present my resolutions respecting the slave-
holding and free State Judges on the bench of the Supreme
Court. Multitudes of objections were heard. I asked a sus
pension of the rules, and the yeas and nays. The Speaker said
the House had voted to go into committee, and my resolutions
were returned to me. I gave them to Stansbury to be published
in the National Intelligencer.
The day was consumed in debate on the Civil and Diplomatic
Appropriation bill, Fessenden in the chair. The bill was at
last reported to the House, with many amendments, one of
which, introduced at my motion, was an appropriation of three
thousand dollars for a Commissioner to the Sandwich Islands.
Adjourned about five o'clock. There was a message received
from the President in answer to the call moved by C. J. Inger
soll last week, for the correspondence with the British Govern
ment relating to the right of visitation — the issue between
Captain Tyler and Sir Robert Peel.
28th. Meeting of the Committee of Foreign Affairs at nine
this morning. Present, Adams, Cushing, Everett, Granger,
Stuart, Shepperd, Caruthers, Meriwether, Holmes — the whole
committee. I presented again the motion that the Chairman
be instructed to move an amendment to the Civil and Diplo
matic Appropriation bill, still under consideration of the House

330 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [March,
— an appropriation for a special Minister to Great Britain. Cush
ing, Holmes, and myself voted aye; Everett, Granger, Shepperd,
Stuart, Caruthers, and Meriwether voted nay. I then again
presented two resolutions to be reported to the House, on the
reference of the resolutions from the Legislature of Alabama in
favor of the annexation of Texas to this Union, and of sundry
petitions against that measure — my first resolution denying
the constitutional power of Congress or of any Department or
Departments of the Government of the United States to annex
any foreign State or people to this Union, and the second that
any attempt by Act of Congress or by treaty to annex the
republic of Texas to this Union would be a violation of the
Constitution, null and void, and to which the free States of
the Union, and their people, ought not to submit.
Meriwether moved as a substitute for my two resolutions an
instruction to the Chairman to ask to be discharged from the
further consideration of the subject. Stuart, Shepperd, Car
uthers, Meriwether, Holmes, and Cushing voted for the substi
tute; Everett and Granger against it, declaring their willingness
to vote for the first of my two resolutions. The vote was par
tisan sectional, except Cushing's, which was Northern servile,
or dough-face. I asked, from the Committee of Foreign Affairs,
the House to discharge them from the further consideration of
the Texan annexation Alabama resolutions and the counter-
petitions, and I offered my own two resolutions; which were
read. Wise objected, and they were not received. The bill
for executing the Ashburton Treaty was called up by Cushing.
Carried through the committee of the whole, George W. Sum
mers in the chair. Reported to the House, and passed, by
yeas and nays — one hundred and thirty-seven to forty. Ad
journed at a quarter-past five.
March ist. Meeting of the select committee on W. Cost
Johnson's plan for creating two hundred millions of dollars of
three per cent, stocks, hypothecated on the proceeds of the
sales of the public lands, to be distributed among the States to
relieve them in the payment of their debts. Present, Johnson,
Gentry, Cravens, Howard, Cooper, and Adams. We were to
meet at nine, but it was half an hour later before we formed a

I843-] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 33!
quorum, and, as the House met at ten, we had no time for dis
cussion, nor even for reading the Chairman's report, which was
itself not finished. We agreed to take some opportunity
while the House were in session to slip out of the hall and
meet again in the committee-room — which we did. Mr. John
son's report was not yet finished, but he read what he had
written, and it was agreed that he should finish it and present
it to the House to-morrow. It is to conclude with two reso
lutions: 1, that it is expedient that the Government of the
Union should come to the aid of the States to assist them in
the payment of their debts by the application of their common
property in the public lands; and, 2, that a committee be ap
pointed to prepare a bill for that purpose. But, foreseeing that
the first resolution, if a question be taken upon it in the House,
will certainly be rejected, I offered three resolutions as a sub
stitute for it in the event of its rejection: 1, that repudiation
by a State of a debt contracted with foreigners is a violation of
the Constitution of the United States in the article which pro
hibits every State from passing any law impairing the obligation
of contracts; 2, that if any State shall, by such repudiation,
involve herself in war, Congress has no power to involve the
nation in that war; 3, that if any State should involve herself
in such a war, she would cease to be a State of this Union, and
would have no claim to the aid of the other States of the Union
for her defence.
No objection was made to my introducing these resolutions
as a substitute; but they startled every member of the com
mittee present, and evidently disconcerted Johnson. He had
blinked the question of repudiation and war, without the pre
liminary settlement of which his project is mere moonshine.
2d. Meeting of the Committee of Foreign Affairs. Present,
Adams, Everett, Granger, Stuart, Meriwether. We had the
documents relating to the occupation of Monterey by Captain
Thomas Ap Catesby Jones before us. They had been sent for
to the printer's, and not one c-f them had been printed, although
the Hayti message had been referred to the committee on the
31st of December, and the papers had been at the printer's ever
since. I offered a resolution upon each of these sets of papers,

332 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [March,
to be reported to the House — that a Consul ought to be forth
with appointed to the republic of Hayti to prosecute the
claims of our citizens, and a strong declaratory resolution
against the invasion of the territory of a foreign State at peace
with the United States by any military or naval officer; but,
there being a bare quorum of the meeting, the questions were
postponed, in the expectation of a fuller meeting to-morrow.
Mr. Everett also proposed two resolutions, respecting the
right of visitation at sea, for consideration to-morrow.
At the House, Reynolds, of Illinois, presented several imper
tinent resolutions of the Legislature of that State. Illinois is
one of the bilking States, and Reynolds is one of her accredited
cheats; and these States, just as they grow bold in sponging
their debts, become profuse of their advice to Congress. Ed
ward D. White, of Louisiana, in his peculiar and somewhat
ludicrous style, complained of having been personally insulted
by reflections upon the imputed disaffection of the people of
Louisiana at the time of the English invasion in 1815. Those
imputations, he said, were utterly false, and he wanted to prove
it. (W. O. Butler had charged them in his speech.) White
asked that the House should immediately after the morning
hour go into committee of the whole on the state of the Union
to take up the Senate bill No. 12, to refund General Jackson's
fine. This was a spurt, and came to nothing.
Winthrop called up the resolutions appended to his report
from the Committee of Commerce, on the oppression of col
ored seamen in Southern ports. Cave Johnson moved to lay
the subject on the table ; yeas and nays, eighty-six to fifty-
nine. A desperate struggle was made to recharter for ten years
the District banks. Defeated by Cave Johnson, Atherton, and
Weller. W. Cost Johnson presented his report and resolutions
on the two hundred millions of stocks project, which were
ordered to be printed. A desperate effort was made, favored
by Johnson himself, to exclude from reception my resolutions
offered as a substitute for the first of his. They failed to ex
clude them from reception ; but by yeas and nays — seventy-
two to one hundred and eight — they refused to print them.
I defeated a bill of W. O. Butler, from the Committee of Mil-

I843-] THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. 333
itary Affairs, to restore the second regiment of dragoons, and
much artillery. The code for the navy, reduction of postage,
and the Navy Appropriation bill absorbed the time of the House
till seven in the evening, when sundry motions to adjourn, and
a call of the House, were rejected, and the adjournment at last
carried by yeas and nays — eighty-nine to seventy-seven.
3d. Meeting of the Committee of Foreign Affairs. Present,
Adams, Cushing, Everett, Granger, Shepperd, Caruthers,
Meriwether; absent, Stuart and Holmes. Cushing was asked
if he was ready to report upon the case of the Florida Terri
torial bonds, and answered that he was not. Precisely so he
did at the close of the last session.
Upon my resolution that a Consul to the republic of Hayti
ought to be appointed, the vote to lay it on the table was
unanimous, except my own — Everett and Granger, as well as
Cushing, voting in submission to the South ; but my reso
lution against the invasion of foreign territories by any naval
or military officer in time of peace was voted for by every
member present except Caleb Cushing, who voted against it.
Mr. Everett offered his two resolutions concerning the right of
visitation at sea ; but they were laid on the table by the vote
of all the members present except Everett and me.
I asked Cushing if he was acting as an Executive officer or
as a member of the House. He smiled, and answered in good
humor that he did not know. The committee adjourned with
out day.
In the House, the chaos of a closing Congress was more
than usually magnificent. The sixteenth joint rule of the two
Houses, enjoining that no new bill shall be sent from one House
to the other on the last three days of a session, and the seven
teenth, that no bill shall be sent to the President for his sig
nature on the last day of a session, were suspended, first for
particular bills, and then without limitation. Committees of
conference on the Civil and Diplomatic, and the Navy Appro
priation bills, and some others, were appointed, and adjusted
sundry differences of details. Christopher H. Williams, by
dint of importunity, got the House into committee of the whole
on the state of the Union, upon a bill to divide the country into

334 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [March.
two military divisions, for the benefit of General Gaines ; but
the bill failed. Atherton was in the chair. The House took a
recess from four to six o'clock, and when the time for resuming
the session came, Atherton and his gang attempted to transact
business with less than half a quorum, while Gwin was leaping,
like a dog at a sop suspended over his head, to get up Senate
bill No. 12, to refund the fine of General Jackson. He suc
ceeded at. last in getting a vote by yeas and nays, but the House
refused — seventy-seven to eighty-three — to take it up.
Weller moved the vote of thanks to the Speaker.
Charles Brown, in a huffy speech, declared he would not
vote for it. Pickens, Charles J. Ingersoll, Wise, and Cushing
voted for it from professed magnanimity — Wise, after asking to
be excused. T. F. Marshall asked to make a speech after mid
night. Not allowed. Adjourned, without day, at half-past one
a.m., leaving the Senate in session upon Executive business.
They sat till half-past two, and thrice rejected Wise and Cushing.

CHAPTER XXII.

THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS.

March 4th, 1843. — The scene has changed, but I yet find
time neither for repose nor for profitable occupation. A suc
cession of visitors absorbed the day. First came George Brown,
who informed me that he had received the appointment of
Commissioner to the Sandwich Islands. He told me that Ed
ward Everett was appointed Minister Plenipotentiary to China ;
that Henry A. Wise was nominated three times to the Senate
as Minister to France, and three times rejected; that Caleb
Cushing had been three times nominated Secretary of the
Treasury, with the same result ; after which John C. Spencer
was nominated for Secretary of the Treasury, and confirmed
by the majority of one vote. W. W. Irwin, nominated Charge
d'Affaires to Denmark, was confirmed without much opposition.
The vacancy in England, by Edward Everett's appointment to
China, is the substitute for the special mission which slumped
through in the Committee of Foreign Affairs. It is the back
door by which Webster skilfully secures to himself a safe re
treat from the Tyler Cabinet. If Everett declines the China
mission, Webster can take it himself.
10th. In the unceasing mill-clapper talk of Mr. Hassler last
evening, he asked me to introduce him to the new Secretary of
the Treasury, John C. Spencer — which I agreed to do, and ap
pointed this day at one o'clock to go with him to the Depart
ment for that purpose. He came, and we went accordingly.
I introduced him, and almost immediately left them together;
but not without perceiving the seeds of a conflict already ger
minating between two proud spirits, which bodes no good to
the progress of the Coast Survey. The recent Act places Hassler
under the control of a board of officers, and the whole operation 335

336 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [March,
under the superintendence of the Secretary of the Treasury.
Hassler, already restive under the yoke fitting to his neck, said
that the work, being scientific, must be conducted on scientific
principles. The Potentate answered in a subdued tone of voice,
but with the trenchant stubbornness of authority, the laws must
be obeyed. The pride of science clashed with the pride of
place, and I left them together.
I had observed the same temper in Spencer yesterday in talk
ing with him about the present condition and prospects of the
Smithsonian Fund. I supplicated him to take an interest in
the restoration, preservation, and application of the fund to the
purposes of the testator. He promised to make a full report to
Congress on the subject, to recommend the issue of six per
cent, stock of the United States to the full amount of the dilap
idated funds and the investment of it in trustees — the Chief
Justice of the United States, and other officers of the Gov
ernment. But he thought the disposal of the funds should be
left entirely to the trustees; and he pronounced the prejudice
against my plan of an astronomical observatory insurmount
able, because I had once called observatories light-houses in
the skies. My words were light-houses of the skies. But
Mr. Spencer sees no difference between the two phrases. Mr.
Spencer turned up his eyes at the swindling speculation of the
Senator from Arkansas, and shrugged up his shoulders at the
prospect of ever recovering the money from that State.
I spent much of this day in transiently reading the report of
the trial in the Supreme Court of the United States of the
case of Edward Prigg against the Commonwealth of Pennsyl
vania, otherwise called the Fugitive Slave case — seven judges,
every one of them dissenting from the reasoning of all the
rest, and every one of them coming to the same conclusion
— the transcendent omnipotence of slavery in these United
States, riveted by a clause in the Constitution that persons held
to labor escaping from one State to another, shall be delivered
up on the claim of the person to whom the labor is due.
1 3th. I went to the Department of State, and saw Mr. Webster.
I returned to him a confidential dispatch which he had lent me
in January last from Edward Everett, dated in November, 1842,

1843] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 337
immediately after the reception in England of the news of peace
with China. And I said I had been much gratified with the
appointment of Edward Everett as the Minister to China, deem
ing the mission of transcendent importance, and deeming him
by his character and attainments peculiarly well suited for it.
Mr. Webster seemed to be much delighted, and my remarks
appeared to be quite unexpected. He immediately said he
would be greatly obliged to me if I would write as much to
Edward Everett himself; which I said I would do with pleasure.
He asked me to send the letter to him to-morrow, when the
dispatches would be made up to go by the Great Western
next Thursday, though her arrival at New York is not yet
known. 14th. I wrote last evening a letter to Edward Everett to per
suade him to accept the mission to China, and sent the letter
this day to the Department of State.
I read the message of the President to the Senate of 24th
February last in answer to two of their resolutions, calling for
the correspondence relating to the Quintuple Treaty on the
13th June, 1842. The House of Representatives, at my motion,
adopted a similar resolution, including a copy of the treaty.
On the 20th of that same month John Tyler answered the reso
lutions, refusing the correspondence at that time, declaring a
hope and expectation that he will find it convenient to com
municate it at an early day, and containing these words : " In
answer to this request, I have to say that the treaty mentioned
therein has not been officially communicated to the Govern
ment of the United States, and no authentic copy of it, therefore,
can be furnished." In this present message to the Senate the
first document is a letter from Daniel Webster to Cass, dated
5th April, 1842, in which he says "the President has been
closely attentive to recent occurrences in Europe, connected
with the treaty of the five powers, of which we received a copy
soon after its signature in December."
Is there an escroc in a penitentiary who could match that for
prevarication ? The correspondence between'Webster and Cass
is tart; and, curious enough, Guizot's letter in answer to Cass's
absurd protest is a chef-d'oeuvre.
VOL. XI. — 22

338 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [March,
15th. The two reports from the Committee of Commerce on
the treatment of colored mariners in our Southern ports are at
last delivered, and I addressed and dispatched about forty of
them to friends in the late Twelfth and present Eighth Con
gressional District of Massachusetts.
The correspondence about the Quintuple Treaty and the right
of search has at once amused and provoked me not a little. Its
illustration of character is admirable. Cass's protest of 13th
February, 1842, against the ratification by France of the treaty
signed and sealed by her own Ambassador, is a compound of
Yankee cunning, of Italian perfidy, and of French legerete,
cemented by shameless profligacy, unparalleled in American
diplomacy. Tyler's approval of it is at once dishonest, mean,
insincere, and hollow-hearted. Cass's correspondence with
Webster is insolent, inconsistent, sophistical, and prevari-
eating; and Guizot's answer of 26th May to his protest of
13th February is not only a complete refutation of its absurd
assumptions, but a most contemptuous exposure of its glaring
falsehood. It is a silent, but not the less severe, rebuke upon
President Tyler's approval of this preposterous counterfeit of
a State paper. It is wretchedly printed in the official docu
ment, and still worse translated.
16th. My first visit was to the office of the Secretary of the
Senate. Dickins was not there, but Hickey was. I asked to
see the manuscript documents of the message to the Senate
concerning the Quintuple Treaty, especially the copy of Gui
zot's letter to Cass of 26th May, 1842. I found that some of
the errors in the printed copy were not in the manuscript ; but
other evident errors were. But the greatest and most disrepu
table errors were in the translation. I pointed them all out to
Hickey, who said they must have the documents printed over
again ; but even that will not cover the shame of the false
translation. I travelled through the driving snow to the office
of the National Intelligencer, where I saw Mr. Gales and ad
vised him to print in his paper the letter from Guizot to Cass
correctly from the original. I asked him also for the Intelli
gencer of the 1 ith, containing Cushing's speech on the execu
tion of the Ashburton Treaty, to which is annexed a copy of

1843.] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 335
the Quintuple Treaty — which he gave me. I made my way
home through the snow, which continued to fall the whole day
through, more than has fallen at one time for many years.
17th. I read the strange speech of John C. Clark on the bill
appropriating forty .thousand dollars for establishing a diplo
matic intercourse with China, which is an invective of worm
wood and gall against the Secretary of State. He has published
it in a pamphlet, and it had long been studiously devised. The
charges against him are stale and hackneyed. His treachery to
the Whig party in refusing to resign with the other members of
the Harrison Cabinet in August, 1841; his adhesion to Tyler,
and jobbing with him for re-election, with a condition that Tyler
should support him for the succession; but, above all, the Fan-
euil Hall speech, were the irremissible sins for which Mr. Clark
administers this castigation. I thought it in bad taste when
delivered. It reads to me now inexpressibly flat, stale, and un
profitable. Clark is a New York politician of the Clinton and
Livingston school — in comparison with that of John Jay, rats
bane to ambrosia.
1 8th. It is difficult to contemplate the infirmities of our
physical nature philosophically. Everything about sickness is
odious to the sufferer and annoying to those around him.
There is a consolation in the kindness of nursing friends; but
the primary grief and self-reproach to me is the loss of time. I
am idle. As the hours pass in succession I know I might be
working. I brood over projected labors, and never commence
working. As morning dawns, I have a long day before me,
and think I shall use it to some good purpose. It slips away
I know not how. Approaching midnight summons me to re
pose, and I have lost a day.
"'I've lost a day,' the prince who nobly said,
Had been an emperor without his crown."
The globe of earth has not space for the surface of empires
over which I should be worthy to rule if I could proclaim the
record of my lost days.
Mr. David Lee Child came in, and spent the evening with
me till past eleven. He brought with him, and showed me, an

340 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [March,
extract of a letter in Spanish from a Mexican Commissioner,
La Guayra, on his way to attend a meeting of Envoys from
the South American Governments and Mexico, to be held at
Lima, in Peru, and of which I had never before heard. The
letter is addressed to General Almonte, the Mexican Minister
here, who gave the extract to Child to use it as he might think
proper. Almonte had caused to be printed here, at the com
mencement of the last session of Congress, two pamphlets, one
containing the spicy correspondence between the United States
and Mexico from 12th May to 10th September, 1842, and the
other, entitled "Texas," consisting of extracts from my address
at Braintree of 17th September, 1842, with translations of the
same into French and Spanish. The letter from La Guayra
acknowledges the receipt of this last pamphlet, speaks of the
address in terms of high commendation, and says he will trans
mit it to the principal cities of the several South American re
publics, for circulation there. Child further told me that in
the month of January last, Webster actually proposed to Al
monte a cession to the United States by Mexico of a portion
of territory on the Pacific Ocean, including the port of San
Francisco, so as to allow the British Government to stretch
their territory down to the mouth of the Columbia River.
This is a ray of light, serving to explain Webster's desire that
Edward Everett should go to China and he himself to England.
Child says Almonte told him that Mexico had no disposition
to part with any portion of her territory. Webster's political
profligacy is gigantic.
19th. I have this day been debarred by my disease from the
privilege of attendance upon public worship, and felt it with
deep mortification. The time has been, chiefly in foreign coun
tries, when I have too long intermitted the duty of that attend
ance. Of this I charge myself especially when in Holland, in
Berlin, in St. Petersburg, and last in France. I have lost by it
rich opportunities of obtaining instruction, not only religious,
but worldly, moral, political, intellectual. For this I blame
myself; but the importance of regular attendance upon the
duties of the Christian Sabbath in social communion has im
pressed itself more deeply on my mind in proportion as I have

I843-] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 341
advanced in years. I had neglected to become a member of
the church till after the decease of my father — another omission
if
which I now regret. I have at all times been a sincere believer
in the existence of a Supreme Creator of the world, of an im
mortal principle within myself, responsible to that Creator for
my conduct upon earth, and of the divine mission of the cruci
fied Saviour, proclaiming immortal life and preaching peace on
earth, good will to men, the natural equality of all mankind,
and the law, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Of
all these articles of faith, all resting upon the first, the existence
of an Omnipotent Spirit, I entertain involuntary and agonizing
doubts, which I can neither silence nor expel, and against which
I need for my own comfort to be fortified and sustained by
stated and frequent opportunities of receiving religious admo
nition and instruction. I feel myself to be a frequent sinner
before God, and I need to be often admonished of it, and
exhorted to virtue. This is administered in all the forms of
Christian worship, and I am sure of receiving it with whatever
denomination of Christian worshippers I associate to obtain it.
Of late years I have deemed it my duty to attend the weekly
morning performances of the Chaplains of Congress in the hall
of the House of Representatives, and I hold pews at St. John's
Episcopal Church and at the Second Presbyterian Church, at
which I attend alternately when Congress are not in session,
and in the afternoon when they are. This forms a regular
portion of my habits of life, and I cannot feel the privation
of it without painful sensibility.
2 ist The controversy between Lewis Cass and Daniel Web
ster about the Ashburton Treaty, the rights of visitation and of
search, and the Quintuple Treaty, still, with the comet, the zo
diacal light, and the Millerite prediction of the second advent
of Christ and the end of the world within five weeks from this
day, continue to absorb much of the public and of my attention.
The Intelligencer of this day announces another letter from
Cass to Webster, who in his last letter declares the corre
spondence closed. This strange correspondence, the debates
in the French Legislative Chambers and in both Houses of
the British Parliament and in both Houses of Congress, but

342 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [March,
especially in the Senate ; this slave-trade and right of search,
complicated with the Quintuple Treaty, with Texas, Mexico,
California, Oregon, and the next Presidential election, breed
teeming fancies in my brain, till I grope to find my way out of
the thicket.
I looked up this afternoon J. C. Calhoun's three resolutions
of the United States Senate of 4th March, 15 th April, 1840, the
preposterous claims of indemnity for the liberated slaves of the
Enterprise, voted unanimously by twenty-two slave-breeders
and eleven craven Democrats, with fifteen more craven spirits
absent, skulking from the question upon which they dared not
vote either yea or nay. I looked also into Ward andVattel, to
ascertain the right of visitation and search upon the ocean.
The right of visitation is by the law of nature an intercourse of
mutual benefit, like that of strangers meeting in a wilderness.
The right of search is for pirates in peace and for enemies in
war. But I must look into the " Mare clausum" and the " Mare
liberum," the right of property in the ocean and upon the shores,
its extent and its limitations, and especially remember that the
present disputes about the right of search are all new questions,
all originating in the measures devised by the British Govern
ment for the suppression of the slave-trade. Night coming on
arrested me in my consultations of Ward and Vattel, and in my
search to trace the fortune of this claim of indemnity for the
slaves of the Enterprise, from its belligerent claim by Calhoun,
in March, 1840, to its tacit surrender, merged in the negotia
tions of the Ashburton Treaty, and the more critical case of the
Creole. 22d. I re-examined the correspondence of Stevenson and
Lord Palmerston on the cases of the Comet, Enterprise, and
Encomium, leaving much more for persevering enquiry, and
the whole enquiry shaped and methodized for a result. The
same as to the project for refunding Andrew Jackson's fine —
an outrage upon law, justice, humanity, and all the principles of
freedom, defeated in the last Congress, and to be perpetrated in
the next. I reviewed also the two volumes of documents re
lating to Texas and Mexico, with reference to the late invasion
of California, to the defeated bill for the occupation of the Ter-

1843.] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 343
ritory of Oregon, and to the future negotiations with England;
upon all which I have much to learn, to do, and to suffer, to
discharge the remainder of my duties upon earth.
23d. Another letter from Lewis Cass to Daniel Webster
about the Ashburton Treaty, the right of visitation and search,
and the offended dignity of the aforesaid Lewis Cass at the
lordly tone assumed by the Secretary of State in the previous
part of this correspondence.
I am thinking if there is anything parallel to this correspond
ence in our diplomatic history. Silas Deane came home from
France and made a " rumpus" (that word is not in Webster's
Dictionary — what a pity!) for several years, blew up a flame
which kept this Union long in a "phease" (another Websterless
word), and has left a large claim of his heirs and legal repre
sentatives against the United States, of which not a dollar is
due, but which on some lucky day they will recover.
Mr. James Monroe was recalled by President Washington
through Timothy Pickering, wireworked by Alexander Hamil
ton. Mr. Monroe published a volume of his correspondence
against the Administration of Washington, by whom he had
been appointed and recalled; which book largely contributed
to the fall of Washington's Administration as continued by his
successor. It helped to bring in the Jefferson Administration,
which laid the foundation for the dissolution of the Union.
24th. I intended to have called this morning at the Depart
ment of State, but I wasted so much time in looking up the
traces of Jackson's negotiations with Mexico for Texas and
San Francisco, that the hour for visiting the public offices upon
business passed away, and I must wait another day. Anthony
Butler's mission to Mexico was chiefly to obtain the cession of
Texas. His letter to Jackson, dated Mexico, 15th April, 1830,
contains the first promise of success. His next letter, of 25th
May, 1 83 1, is apologetic and less encouraging. The next dis
patch, of 16th July, 1832, to the then Secretary of State, Liv
ingston, encloses minutes of two conversations of Butler with
the Mexican Secretary of State, Alaman ; after which a written
proposition, dated 15th July, 1832, was delivered to Alaman,
but has never been made public. From that time Butler was

344 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [March,
mystifying Jackson, as he boasted he was doing with Alaman,
promising nothing, but leaving him not without hope. The
letter of 26th February, 1835, is the crowning mystification;
about two months after which, Butler came to Washington,
where, on the 17th of June, he made his proposals. They also
are among the missing papers. There are two subsequent in
structions from John Forsyth, Secretary of State, to Butler, of
2d July and 6th August, 1835 — in the first of which he is told
that from his own accounts no confidence is entertained of the
success of his negotiation, but that, as he is sanguine of suc
ceeding in a very short time, he may go and try his luck again,
but that he must dispatch his whole business with expedition,
and have the result ready to be laid before Congress by the ist
of December then next, and that it is expected he will himself
immediately after return home.
He goes accordingly back to Mexico, writes two dallying
dispatches to notify that he cannot finish business in quite so
short a time as he had expected, and on the 15th of January,
1836, receives a notice dated 16th December, 1835, apprising
him that he has been superseded by the appointment of another
person. It was in a dispatch of 6th August, 1835, that For
syth instructed him to propose the Rio Bravo to the thirty^
seventh parallel of latitude, and along that parallel to the Pacific,
the main object being to secure within our limits the whole bay
of San Francisco. Butler tells him he has mistaken the geog
raphy, and that the place he means is called Puerto Antonio
Nuevo, within which is a small town called San Francisco; and
this is the San Francisco for which Captain Tyler's mouth
waters.
/ 25th. At last, after eight whole days of confinement to the
house, I made out to reach the Department of State, and had
a three hours' conversation with the Secretary, Daniel Webster.
There was in the National Intelligencer of this morning an
editorial article of four and a half columns, written by Webster
himself, on the Convention of March, 1824, between the United
States and Great Britain for the suppression of the African slave-
trade. It refers to the recent debates in both Houses of the
British Parliament and both Chambers of the French Legis-

1 843.] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 345
lature upon the right of search, and especially to a speech
of Lord Brougham on the 7th of last month in the British
House of Peers, contesting statements just before made by
Monsieur Dupin in the French Chamber of Deputies concern
ing this identical Convention. The main object of the article
is to show that the Senate of 1824 did, in the most unequivocal
manner, concede this right of search. It gives the yeas and
nays in the Senate on the question of advice and consent, with the
names of A. Jackson and Thomas H. Benton in the affirmative.
I asked to see the manuscript copy transmitted by General
Cass to the Department, of Mr. Guizot's letter of 25th May,
1842, to him, in answer to his protest of 13th February; and
he made up a packet of it, with a dispatch to Edward Everett,
prepared, but not yet forwarded, to be read to Lord Aberdeen,-
and a copy of it to be furnished him if he desires it, being the
quip modest to the letter from Lord Aberdeen, which Mr.
Fox, by his order, read to Webster in his office about a month
ago. This dispatch to Everett is in Webster's best style, and makes
a direct issue with Lord Aberdeen and Sir Robert Peel on the
point that there is, by the law of nations, no clear, explicit, and
avowed distinction between the right of visitation and the right
of search; also, there is a long letter of instructions, dated
15th March, 1843, to Commodore Matthew C. Perry, going out
as commander of the eighty-gun squadron to be kept on
the coast of Africa. To these he added the eleventh volume
of Wheaton's Reports, containing the adjudged case of the
Mariana Flora in 1826.
I spoke of General Cass's recent outbreaks against him, but
he did not appear inclined to discourse upon that subject. It
was clear he remembered the call of the House of the 13th
of June last year for copies of the Quintuple Treaty, with
Cass's correspondence, and the President's refusal of them on
the 28th. It is curious that Cass''s dispatch, with Guizot's
answer to the protest, was received on the 22d of June.
I spoke of the Senate bill for the occupation of the Oregon
Territory; of Ap Catesby Jones's exploit at Monterey ; of the
movements in and about Texas ; and I suddenly asked him if

346 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [March,
Waddy .Thompson had been instructed to negotiate for the
acquisition of California.
He faltered, and said he did not know whether he could
answer that question consistently with his official duty.
I told him his declining to answer was answer enough for
me; and we had warm and almost, not quite, angry words. I
kept my temper, but pressed him more closely, upon his de
clining to answer my question, than was comfortable to him,
He had begun by professing profound confidence in me, and in
communicating his own instruction to Edward Everett, and
Upshur's to Commodore Matthew C. Perry, had said he would
open to me Administration secrets. Why he should now stop
short and roll himself up in mystery upon the plea of official
duty, he did not explain. I saw he was deceiving me, and the
danger of trusting him, and that it behooved me above all
things to be upon my guard.
I said I would not press him to divulge any Administration
secret that he was inclined to withhold; that he had volun
teered the confidence of Administration secrets, and I could
not see why it should be tendered on one point of the system
of foreign affairs and denied on another. I considered all the
questions about the right of search, the bill for the occupation
of the Oregon Territory, Captain Jones's movement on Califor
nia, and all the movements for the annexation of Texas, were
parts of one great system, looking to a war for conquest and
plunder from Mexico, and a war with England and alliance
with France. And I referred to Wise's speech of 14th April
last, avowing this project of a war with Mexico for conquest
and plunder, together with a war with Great Britain. I said
Wise had blabbed the whole project last April, and it could not
pass without notice that that same Henry A. Wise had in the
last hours of the late session of Congress been three times
nominated to the Senate as Minister to France. It was also
not less remarkable that Wise had been the confidential corre
spondent of Commodore Jones, and had stated on the floor of
the House that he had received from Jones himself a letter in
justification of his occupation of Monterey.
Webster said I was wrong in all this; that Jones's movement

I843-] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 347
on California was a freak of his own brain, without any author
ity or instruction whatever ; that Wise's speech (of which he
had no knowledge) was a vain and senseless bravado ; that with
regard to the annexation of Texas his decided opinion against
the measure had long been public ; he had not changed it, and
it never could be effected by him or with his consent.
I replied with warmth, till at last he told me that he had
talked over the Oregon question with Lord Ashburton; that
England wanted to come down on the coast of the Pacific to
the mouth of the Columbia River; and that the question had
been put to him whether if a cession from Mexico, south of our
present boundary, forty-two, to include the port of San Fran
cisco, could be obtained, England would make any objection
to it, and Lord Ashburton thought she would not.
I thanked Mr. .Webster for thus much of communication,
and said I would now press the enquiry no further. I propose
to visit the Department again next Monday. But what an
abime of duplicity !
26th. My time was much absorbed in recording the double
diary of yesterday, much of my conversation with D. Webster"
being omitted.
27th. I called at the Department of State, and returned to
Mr. Webster his letter of instructions to Edward Everett, the
instructions of Secretary Upshur to Commodore Matthew C.
Perry, and the office copy of Mr. Guizot's letter to General
Cass in answer to his protest. A very short further conver
sation with him. He wishes another negotiation with Great
Britain. But they keep Mr. Fox here, only to make him pen
sionable. He has a private letter from Everett, and one from
Lord Ashburton. They will take the line of the Columbia
River, and let us stretch south at the expense of Mexico. Mr.
Fox came in, and I went into Mr. Hunter's chamber, where he
brought several of the archives of the Department, and among
the rest the correspondence of Anthony Butler. His letter to
Forsyth of 17th June, 1835, must be read again.
28th. It was near two o'clock p.m. before I reached the De
partment, and immediately went into Hunter's chamber. I
made an abstract of the letter from William A. Slocum, a purser

348 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [March,
in the navy (since deceased), to the Secretary of State, Forsyth;
dated Alexandria, ist August, 1835. This was the letter which
kindled the passion of Andrew Jackson for the thirty-seventh
line of latitude from the river Arkansas to the South Sea, to
include the river and bay of San Francisco, and was the founda
tion of Forsyth's instruction to Butler of 6th August, 1835,
authorizing him to offer five hundred thousand dollars more
than he had received authority for before. There is another
long letter from Slocum, relating to the commerce of the sev
eral South American States. Both prove him to have been an
observing man. I had not time to begin the abstract of But
ler's letter to Forsyth of 17th June, 1835, the substance of which
is a proposal to purchase the cession of Texas by bribing a
priest named Ignacio Hernandez with five hundred thousand
dollars, and he encloses a note signed Hernandez, assuring him
that with five hundred thousand (he says not what) he will cer
tainly obtain his object. There is an endorsement on this letter,
signed A. J., forbidding bribery or corruption.
29th. The day was fair and the temperature mild, but my
" vis inertise" so insuperable that it was near one when I got to
Mr. Hunter's chamber at the Department of State. I took up
again the volume of Anthony Butler's dispatches to the De
partment of State and to President Jackson during his mission
to Mexico, and began the abstract of his letter to Forsyth of
17th June, 1835; but I made little progress, my attention
being diverted from that letter to other parts of the correspond
ence and to the reading of numerous other letters. I found
that I could not understand the subject thoroughly but by a
vigorous chronological examination of all the documents.
The appetite for Texas was from the first a Western passion,
stimulated by no one more greedily than by Henry Clay. He
had denounced the Florida Treaty for fixing the boundary at
the Sabine, and held and preached the doctrine that we should
have insisted upon our shadow of a claim to the Rio del Norte.
President Monroe actually preferred the line of the Sabine,
thinking that the extension of the boundary would weaken us
for defence ; and Jackson expressly approved the line of the
Sabine. The first act of the Mexican Government, after de-

1843] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS.

349

claring their independence, was to claim the boundary as set
tled by the Florida Treaty ; and we had consented to it But
with the commencement of my Administration I appointed Poin
sett Minister to Mexico, and Mr. Clay instructed him to propose
the purchase of Texas. This they declined; but two years after
the proposition was renewed. They then rejected it resentfully.
But Jackson was so sharp-set for Texas that from the first year
of his Administration he set his double engines to work, of ne
gotiating to buy Texas with one hand, and instigating the people
of that province to revolt against Mexico with the other. Hous
ton was his agent for the rebellion, and Anthony Butler, a Mis
sissippi land-jobber in Texas, for the purchase. Butler kept
him five years on the tenter-hooks of expectation, negotiating,
wheedling, promising, and finally boasting that he had secured
the bargain by bribing a priest with half a million of dollars.
Jackson at last found him out, and dismissed him rather ab
ruptly. But he carried off some of the most important docu
ments of the negotiation.
30th. At the Capitol I obtained two copies of the message of
the President of 18th February last, relating to the seizure by
Captain Thomas Ap Catesby Jones of the Mexican town of
Monterey, in California, and several other documents concerning
Mexico and Texas, of which I had made a list. In the resolu
tion of the House calling for the Monterey document I had
called for all the instructions to Commodore Jones and all his
communications to the Navy Department, purposely omitting
the usual exception of such as the President might deem it
improper to communicate. I had moved the resolutions by
direction of the Committee of Foreign Affairs; though it is not
so stated on the journal of the House. Cushing voted against
the resolutions in committee, and was, at his request, excused
from voting on them in the House, because they did not con
tain the exception. The message, adverting to the omission of
the exception, assumes a discretionary power in the Executive
to withhold any documents called for by resolution of the
House, but says that in this case all are given, because he sees
no necessity for withholding any. I believe that at the next
session of Congress it will be my duty to move some action of

350 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [April,
Congress on this document; though I have no hope of succeed
ing in that or in anything else. Never in my life was there
such an array of discouragement before. Never despair!
Returning from the Capitol, I stopped at the National Intel
ligencer office, and obtained from W. W. Seaton the four papers
containing the correspondence relating to Cass's protest against
the ratification of the Quintuple Treaty, and the subsequent
controversy between Cass and Webster about the Ashburton
Treaty. 31st. Mr. Child was here this morning, and I gave him a
copy of the reprinted Executive Documents Nos. 40 and 42 of
the first session of the Twenty- Fifth Congress, 1837, contain
ing the most important papers of our relations with Mexico
and Texas. I desired him to ascertain from General Almonte
whether the paper delivered by Anthony Butler to Lucas Ala
man on the 15th of July, 1832, and another paper, afterwards
delivered by Butler to Santa Anna, and never answered by him,
are not among the archives of the Mexican Government, and,
if they are, to obtain copies of them. I requested him also to
endeavor to procure the St. Louis newspapers containing Ben
ton's essays, under the signatures of "Americanus" and "La
Salle," in 1829; which he promised to do. Thence I went to
the Department of State, and passed into Hunter's chamber,
and made a short further abstract from Anthony Butler's letter
to John Forsyth of 17th June, 1835. Hunter had the first
number of a Texan newspaper, February last, containing a list
of the members of the Executive Government ; also a list of
the Masonic Government, a Royal Arch Chapter, of which
Anthony Butler is the Grand High-Priest.
Without finishing my abstract, I came home at four o'clock,
in the rain.
April ist. I went to Mr. Hunter's chamber at the Depart
ment of State, and finished the extracts from Anthony Butler's
letter to the Secretary of State, Forsyth, of 17th June, 1835.
Neither this letter nor that of W. A. Slocum of ist August,
1835, was ever communicated to Congress; but in them origi
nated the project of enlarging the encroachment upon Mexico,
from the mere acquisition of Texas, to embrace all New Mexico

I843-] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 351
to the thirty-seventh parallel of latitude, and thence across the
continent to the South Sea. Butler's letter connects with it a
project for a commercial line of communication between the
Arkansas River and the Colorado of California, uniting the
Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The Texan expedition of last
year to Santa Fe must have been a sucker from the same root
Ap Catesby Jones's occupation of Monterey, Dr. Linn's bill for
the organization of the Oregon Territory, and, above all, the
tampering of Webster with the Mexican Minister here, Al
monte, by a proposition that Mexico should cede to the United
States the port of San Francisco and the parallel thirty-six of
north latitude across the continent, to buy the consent of Great
Britain, with a cession to her from forty-nine to the Columbia
River, present altogether a spectacle and prospect truly appall
ing. The root of the danger is in the convulsive impotence of
Mexico to maintain her own integrity, geographical, political,
or moral, and the inflexible perseverance of rapacity of our
South and West, under the spur of slavery, to plunder and dis
member her. Butler's bribe of half a million dollars to the con
fessor of Santa Anna's sister was too gross even for Jackson's
stomach to allow him to give it his official sanction ; but even
while ostensibly disapproving of it he sent him back to Mexico,
with liberty to try it in his own way, and it failed. Mr. Ham
ilton, of South Carolina, tried it upon Santa Anna himself, and
failed. Mr. Hunter brought me the volume of secret instructions
to agents of foreign intercourse, and there I found a dispatch
of 14th January, 1843, to the present Consul at the Havanna,
Campbell, full of the most combustible matter, putrid
with slavery and the slave-trade. It announces the receipt of in
formation from the Havanna, and a highly respectable source,
charging the English abolitionists and Government with a de
liberate project to occupy and ruin the island of Cuba. And
the Consul is instructed to collect and transmit all possible in
formation on the subject. Matter for more enquiry and deep
meditation. The instructions promise that we will not permit
Great Britain to occupy the island of Cuba.
3d. Morning call from Mr. Heman Lincoln. He is connected
with the Baptist missions, and has been on an excursion to

352 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [April,
Virginia. He was inquisitive upon the prospects of the ap
proaching Presidential election. He asked my opinion of the
chances, and agreed with me that the prospects were in favor
of Martin Van Buren. He thought the prospects of Henry
Clay irretrievably gone ; as I have no doubt they are. Those
of Tyler, Calhoun, Cass, are equally desperate. Buchanan is
the shadow of a shade, and General Scott is a daguerreotype
likeness of a candidate — all sunshine, through a camera obscura.
Mr. Lincoln's partiality was for Theodore Frelinghuysen or
Judge John McLean. I had never heard the name of Fre
linghuysen as a candidate before, and McLean is but a second
edition of John Tyler — vitally Democratic, double-dealing, and
hypocritical. They will all go into the Democratic Conven
tion, and all melt into the Corinthian brass of Kinderhook.
Mr. Lincoln urged me warmly to publish my lecture upon
Faith. I told him I had promised a copy of it for publication,
but I supposed they had forgotten it, to the trustees of the
Warren Street Chapel, Boston, where it had been first delivered.
I gave Mr. Lincoln copies of my Jubilee of the Constitution, of
my speech of 14th and 15 th April, 1842, on War with Mexico
and England, and of my lecture on the social compact.
I went to the Department of State, and saw Fletcher Web
ster, the Chief Clerk. The Secretary, his father, left the city
last night for a visit of ten days to Boston. I gave the son a
letter from Plymouth for reference to the Secretary of the Navy,
and went into Hunter's chamber, where I spent three hours in
examining the instructions to Poinsett and Anthony Butler,
and their correspondence relating to the boundary with Mexico
and to Texas. The enquiry deepens as I proceed, and I shall,
as usual, be obliged to break it short off, for want of time to
find its soundings. The chronology of the negotiations for the
acquisition of Texas and California would of itself be a labor of
weeks, and yet without it I cannot master the subject for any
useful result. Upon enquiry of Mr. Hunter for the essays of
"Americanus" and "La Salle," he brought me a thin volume
of Missouri and other Western newspapers of the year 1829,
forming a complete collection of those documents, none of
which I had ever before seen. . The first instruction under the

I843-] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 355
Jackson Administration on this subject was from Van Buren
to Poinsett, 25th August, 1829, precisely at the time when
Benton was publishing "Americanus" and "La Salle" at St.
Louis. I have reading for at least a month, opened to me by
the cursory perusals of this day.
4th. At home, I took up the message and documents re
lating to the seizure of Monterey by Captain Thomas Ap
Catesby Jones. There is no warrant for it in any of his written
instructions from the Navy Department. But I remark with
no small concern — 1, the special charge of exploring the coast
within the Gulf of California, and as high as the port of San
Francisco, one of the reasons of which is the weakness of the
local authorities, and their irresponsibility to the distant Gov
ernment of Mexico ; 2, the tone of intercourse, both military
and diplomatic, bearing upon Mexico.
It would never have entered into the head of Jones to com
mit such an outrage upon a nation whom he believed able to
resent it. Waddy Thompson's diplomacy is in perfect keeping
with this temper. Even his apologies are insolent, insulting,
and contemptuous; and there is far too much of the same spirit
in the notes of our Secretary of State. The spirit of encroach
ment upon Mexico is stimulated and nourished by this settled
and too well founded conviction of her helpless weakness, in
conflict with the gigantic energy of our national avarice and
ambition. When I contemplate the prospect before us, my
heart sinks within me for the cause of human freedom and for
our own. At the Department of State, too, I found matter for
gloomy anticipations in the instructions of 13th January last
to the Consul at the Havanna, Robert B. Campbell, which dis
closes great alarm at the Havanna, and thence instigated here,
at the supposed design of the British Governrhent to take pos
session of the island of Cuba — and a real design at the Havanna,
to urge us to be beforehand with Britain by taking it ourselves.
The Secretary of State tells the Consul, in a very trenchant
tone, that we shall not permit Great Britain to take possession
of Cuba. The real fact I suppose to be that the British Gov
ernment are turning the screws upon the importation of slaves
into the island, and that they can no longer in defiance of all
VOL. xi. — 23

354 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [April,
law and all treaty openly gorge their markets with twenty-five
thousand bozal negroes every year. The Havanna has been
and is one of the last inexpugnable haunts of the African slave-
trade pirates.
5th. I spent again about three hours at the Department of.
State, examining the correspondence of Anthony Butler with
the Department concerning his negotiation for the purchase of
Texas. He was himself a speculator in Texan lands. First
dispatched with the instructions of Van Buren to Poinsett of
29th August, 1829, his first letter is from Attakapas, 17th
October, 1829, complaining of having been delayed on the road.
by sickness. On that same day Poinsett's letter of recall was
signed, and a long Jesuitical letter of instructions to himself as
Charge d'Affaires, to which office he had been appointed on
the 1 2th of October. There is some mystification in the dates,
probably explainable.
Butler's second letter is from Bexar, near the river Nueces,
in Texas, November, 1829, and the third, 31st December, 1829,
from the city of Mexico. Poinsett departed immediately after,
loaded with execrations, and Guerrero's Government was in
the agonies of dissolution.
I enquired of Mr. Hunter if any answer had been received
from Robert Campbell, the Consul at the Havanna, to the
secret instructions of 14th January last, and he brought me the
answer, dated 9th February, 1843. He discredits entirely the
secret informer's tale about the intention of the British Govern
ment to take possession of the island of Cuba, but joins in holy
horror of the English abolitionists, and is in full confidential
communication with General Valdez, the present Governor-
General. 6th. In the Clerk's office, I asked of Mr. Burch an explana
tion of an entry on the printed journal of the House of 22d
February last, p. 437 — that respecting the great Latimer pe
tition and five others, when presented by me, under the order
of the House, of 29th March, 1842: "The reception of these
petitions was objected to, and the question of reception was laid
on the table." This entry was false. They were all referred to
the Committee on the Judiciary, of which I furnished to Mr.

I843-] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 355
Burch the written proof in my own list of the petitions pre
sented by me, which I had given to him with the petitions, and
which he had returned to me. Burch admitted the facts, and,
after some titubation, said that Kingman had made the entry,
and that he had overlooked it by inadvertence in his revisal of
the journal ; and he promised to have the error corrected —
which I fear he will not do.
7th. Mr. Child called on me, and gave me the first sheet of a
pamphlet which he is publishing on the Texan Revolution and
the late outrage in California. I had a long conversation with
him on this and other consanguineous subjects, and I advised
him to keep his eye steadily fixed on occurring events in the
island of Cuba.
He told me that Webster had within a few days renewed his ,
propositions to General Almonte for a cession by Mexico of
six degrees of latitude along the shores of the Pacific, and the i
parallel of thirty-six across the continent, to strike the Arkansas
River. This would include Monterey of California and Santa
Fe of New Mexico.
I called upon General Almonte himself, and he told me that
Mr. Webster had renewed the proposal for the cession the other
day, when they exchanged the ratifications of the recent Con
vention for the payment of the adjudicated claims. There are
rumors coming from New Orleans that Santa Anna had released
a Judge Robinson, one of the Texan prisoners, taken in their
late predatory expedition, and through him had made overtures
towards the recognition of the independence of Texas. Al
monte said he had no doubt that Judge Robinson had been
released, but he believed not a word of his having been charged
with any proposal for recognizing the independence of Texas ;
for he knew that Santa Anna considered the recovery of Texas
as vital to the existence of the Mexican republic, and he had
the day before yesterday received letters from Santa Anna, of
very recent date, which gave no intimation of any such pro
posed negotiation, which he thinks there must have been if
it had been contemplated, especially as he himself had been a
prisoner in Texas with Santa Anna and was perfectly acquainted
with all his views concerning that Territory.

356 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [April,
I spoke of the rumors that Great Britain had offered her
mediation between Texas and Mexico.
He said the British Consul had made an informal tender
of such a mediation, but it had been rejected, with an expres
sion of surprise that Great Britain should undertake to nego
tiate for the independence of Texas, knowing, as she did, that
the revolt of that province had originated and was to be con
summated solely for the re-institution of slavery, which had
been abolished by Mexico.
There is now a rumor that Great Britain has offered Texas
to mediate for her independence with Mexico, on condition that
Texas shall abolish slavery. Almonte said he knew nothing
of that. He promised to call on me before I leave the city.
I went to the Department of State, and looked again for about
an hour into Anthony Butler's correspondence, but could not
command my own attention, and came home.
8th. I finished the reading of the message of 22d February,
1 843, on the taking of Monterey, Document 1 66, Twenty-Seventh
Congress, Third Session, in answer to two resolutions offered
by me on the ist of February, under instruction of the Com
mittee of Foreign Affairs, though not so noted on the journal
of the House. On the 31st January I moved the resolutions
in committee. Cushing alone voted against them, on the ground
that they called for all the instructions to Captain Jones, and
all his correspondence, without the usual exception of such as
the President might deem it improper to communicate. When
I moved the resolutions in the House, Granger immediately
moved the previous question. Wise shuffled it off for that day
by calling at the expiration of the morning hour for the orders
of the day. The next day the previous question was carried.
The yeas and nays were taken upon the resolutions — ayes, one
hundred and sixteen, of whom twenty-three Democrats and
only two Virginia Whigs, Stuart and Summers — nays, sixty-
nine, of whom eleven Virginians, Barton and Powell, Whigs,
of the number. Cushing asked to be and was excused from
voting. The message notices the omission of the usual ex
ception in the resolutions ; asserts the right of the Executive
to withhold the communication of papers which he deems im-

1843] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 357
proper for publication ; but says he has in this case commu
nicated all, perceiving no necessity to withhold any. Tyler's
arbitrary spirit and his flinching practice have been signally
manifested throughout this whole transaction. The document
itself is full of matter for future consideration and commentary.
I spent again three hours at the Department of State, hurrying
over Anthony Butler's correspondence, especially on the nego
tiations for Texas, with regard to which there are three classes
of papers — public dispatches, and private letters to the Secre
tary of State, and private letters to President Jackson. There
is no record of the President's letters to him. It was one of
Jackson's practices to hold private and secret correspondences
upon the most important public affairs, without leaving any
copies of his own letters or instructions in the Departments —
a most irregular, mischievous, and imminently dangerous ex
ercise of power, for which the Constitution provides no remedy.
One of its effects is that there is no trace of Anthony Butler
till his appointment in August, 1829, as bearer of dispatches to
Poinsett instructing him to open without delay a negotiation
for the purchase of as much of the province of Texas as could
be obtained. How he came to be at Washington in August,
1829, does not appear; but the negotiation was evidently insti
gated by him, and I have no doubt that he was deeply involved
in Texan land-jobbing.
9th. Palm Sunday.
At the Second Presbyterian Church this morning, Mr. Mc-
Caner preached from Psalm lxxxiv. 11:" For the Lord God
is a sun and shield: the Lord will give grace and glory: no
good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly."
The sermon began with the usual clerical, rather than critical,
sweeping assertion of the immense superiority of the Psalms for
sublimity over every merely human composition, a matter about
which, after a rigorous comparison with the Odes of Pindar
and Horace, especially the " Carmen Sseculare," I have some
doubts. The preacher said, further, that this 84th Psalm was
very beautiful, as it is in the Asiatic or Oriental style ; that it
was believed to be from the pen of David, written at the time
of his expulsion from Jerusalem by the revolt of his unnatural

358 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [April,
and rebellious son, Absalom — of which I perceive no evidence,
external or internal. The Psalmist pours- out his soul in ecsta
sies of desire to enjoy the privilege of devotion in the taber
nacle of the Lord of Hosts. There is no allusion, direct or
indirect, to the rebellion of Absalom; nor to a calamitous
condition as the source of inspiration.
There was then some comment upon the aptitude of illus
tration representing God as at once a sun and a shield. A
sun — the idolatry of nature, the sun of all the visible crea
tion, the object of the greatest beneficence to man, the source
of light and heat, all splendor to the eye ; the parent of all
production for nourishment and subsistence; believed by the
ancient Parsees and the modern Parsees to be God himself, or
the abode of the Deity. Then a shield — in those ancient days
the emblem of protection from all danger, because an effectual
guard against every weapon of assault, whether of sword, fal
chion, arrow, javelin, or spear, before the invention of fire-arms.
Then the comforting promise of the gifts of grace and glory,
and the delightful assurance that He will withhold no good
thing from them that walk uprightly. The good-hearted Pres
byterian seemed for the moment to have forgotten the atone
ment by the blood of the Lamb.
loth. This morning I groped again three hours into the dis
patches of Anthony Butler at the Department of State. The
threefold and double-dealing line of negotiation — i, for a com
mercial treaty; 2, indemnity for all sorts of claims; and 3, to
strip Mexico of Texas, Santa Fe, and California, and annex
them all to this Union — runs into the most curious details of
Jackson and Tyler duplicity. Butler's letter of 17th June,
1835, to Forsyth, suppressed in the communication of 4th July,
1838, to the House of Representatives, is the "passe-partout"
of the whole system, pursued with inflexible perseverance down
to this hour.
1 ith. To concentrate my reflections upon one of the numer
ous projects floating in my brain, I began yesterday an address
to my late constituents of the Twelfth and my future constit
uents of the present Eighth Congressional District of Massa
chusetts, which, if I have the courage and perseverance to finish

1 843.] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 3 59
it, I may deliver as a lecture before the commencement of the
next session of Congress. I know not how this may succeed ;
the time is not propitious for me to speak to my countrymen
unpalatable truths ; but I wish to leave behind me something
which may keep alive the flame of liberty and preserve it in
that conflict between slavery and .freedom, which is drawing to
its crisis, and which is to brighten or to darken the condition
of the human race upon earth.
1 2th. The work upon which I have at length undertaken to
concentrate the employment of my leisure time and the result
of my meditations, in the form of an address to my constit
uents, past and future, deepens in interest as I proceed, and
widens in the list of topics which I propose to discuss. Already
I perceive that one discourse of two hours' duration will not
suffice to unburden my heart of the sentiments and opinions
which I believe vital to the happiness, peace, and future liberty
of this great people. Whether anything that I can do or say
will avail to save and preserve them from the dangers with
which they are beset, or to avert the catastrophe impending
over them, an all-wise Providence will decide. The prospect of
the future is deeply discouraging; but despondency would sur
render the cause, and exertion, even if fruitless, will be sanc
tified by the motive for using it. I went and smothered three
hours more at the Department of State in rapid survey of An
thony Butler's correspondence. This man was, in the last war
with Great Britain, Lieutenant-Colonel and then Colonel of the
twenty-eighth regiment of infantry, appointed as a citizen of
Kentucky. He says in one of his letters that he is a native of
South Carolina, and that he was many years an intimate and
confidential friend of Jackson, under whom he served in the
New Orleans campaign. His appointment in 1829, as bearer of
dispatches to Poinsett, and afterwards as Charge d'Affaires to
Mexico, was as a citizen of Mississippi; and he was at that
very time a jobber in Texan lands. His looseness of moral
principle and political profligacy are disclosed in several of his
letters ; his vanity and self-sufficiency in others. He boasts of
his address in managing Lucas Alaman by mystifying a little,
and, while under the shield of diplomatic privilege, brutally

360 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [April,
insulted the Mexican Minister of War, General Tornel, by
scurrilous and insolent letters, challenging him to fight a duel.
Tornel's conduct in return was rather tame than spirited. Santa
Anna demanded Butler's recall ; but Jackson had already dis
missed him.
Mr. Hunter showed me also a dispatch from Joseph Eve,
Charge d'Affaires in Texas, telling strange and incredible
stories of suspicions and distrust among the Texans of their
President, Houston.
13th. To the office of the National Intelligencer. I saw Mr.
Gales there, somewhat perplexed by the publication of Mr. Web
ster's letter to Edward Everett, recently dispatched, and which
he is instructed to read to Lord Aberdeen and give him a copy
of it if desired. Gales asked me if it was usual in negotiations to
publish in the newspapers controversial notes before they have
been received by the parties to whom they are addressed. I
told him it was not usual heretofore, but that of late years all
negotiation is little more than a perpetual appeal to public opin
ion, and the negotiators little more than advocates before the
tribunal of the civilized world. I referred him to the case of
the Spanish Minister Pizarro, who in 1 8 1 8 addressed to George
W. Erving, Minister of the United States in Spain, a manifesto
against General Jackson's invasion of Florida, equivalent to a
declaration of war, and, before waiting for our reception of it,
published it in a Hamburg gazette, whence it was circulated all
over Europe; in return for which, my answer of instructions
to Erving was communicated to Congress and published all
over the Union before it could reach the Spanish Minister of
Foreign Affairs, as the counterpart to his manifesto. Other
instructions of more recent occurrence were referred to, in
the case of Gorostiza's pamphlet, published here in 1836, of
General Cass's publication of his preposterous protest against
the ratification by France of the Quintuple Treaty, and the
triangular debates between the British Parliament, the French
Legislative Chambers, and the North American Congress — like
a game of chess played by correspondence between the Cape
of Good Hope and Cape Horn, or between Nova Zembla and
New Zealand.

1 843.] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 361
14th. Another day of solitude, rain, and gloom, with the ex
ception of three hours' visit to the Department of State. There
the progress of my enquiries into the biography of Anthony
Butler and of Andrew Jackson's projected dismemberment of
Mexico is disturbed and protracted by the daily occurrence of
new incidents, which consume the time and divert my attention
from the main object of my pursuit. I found at the office this
day four different weekly newspapers in the month of March,
down to the 29th — 1, the Civilian and Galveston City Gazette,
published at Galveston ; 2, the Telegraph and Texas Register,
at Houston; 3, the Texan and Brazos Farmer, at Washington;
and, 4, the Western Advocate, at the city of Austin — a new
paper, of which I had before seen the first number. These
papers are of opposite political parties — are highly excited par
tisans for and against their President, Samuel Houston, all pas
sionately devoted to the lone star of Texas, all of the Catonian
school, exterminating war upon Mexico, and all panting for
annexation to the United States. T. W. Gilmer's letter is in
one of them, with a warm commendation of its object and ar
gument, an earnest exhortation to the Texans to gather up
their forces for a renewed application to our Congress at their
next long session, with assurance of kind support from our
amiable President, and an easy disposal of the opposition of
Johnny Q. Dr. Robinson was at Galveston with the compro
mise propositions of Santa Anna, which will be rejected with
disdain, and Rusk, the appointed Major-General, was breathing
blood and slaughter for the invasion of Mexico, if he could but
get hold of the law for his owrf appointment. Mr. Hunter fur
nished me a new map of Texas, Austin's, published by Tanner in
1840, and showed me another dispatch from Joseph Eve, dated
at Galveston, 29th March. In the midst of all her vices, diffi
culties, and troubles, Texas is swelling with incredible rapidity
into a formidable slave State, which Mexico can never recover,
and from the contamination of whose slavery nothing can save
this Union short of a special interposition of Providence.
Mr. Hunter produced to me also this day a private note,
dated 25th July, 1835, signed A. J., and directed to the then
Secretary of State, Forsyth, proposing additional instructions

362 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [April,
to Butler to offer half a million more for the line of the Rio del
Norte from its mouth to the thirty-seventh degree of latitude,
and thence straight to the Pacific. This note was the seminal
principle of the instruction from Forsyth to Butler of 6th Au
gust, 1835, published in Document 42, p. 18, of message 3d
October, 1837. In the regular examination of Butler's dis
patches, I have only reached his letter of 25th May, 1833, re
ferring to and answering one from him of 24th March, 1833,
which is not at the Department.
15th. "Come, gentle Spring, ethereal mildness, come."
She is here, and brings to me uninterrupted leisure, instead
of which this daily record, my brooding address to my con
stituents, and my researches at the Department of State, fill to
the brim every vacant hour, and keep me on the rack of over-
plied occupation, as laborious as at the busiest period of the
session of Congress.
Meanwhile my correspondence runs into irredeemable arrears,
and my private affairs and impending duties are neglected.
One thing at a time, was the maxim of John De Witt. Too
many irons in the fire at once, is the fatal flaw in my economy
of time. It was past one o'clock this afternoon when I reached
Hunter's chamber at the Department of State. He was not
there. In pursuing the correspondence of Anthony Butler, I
find a letter from him to President Jackson, of 25th May, 1831,
extracts only from which were communicated to H. R. U. S.
in Document 351, p. 382, where a line of stars represents two
most important pages of the dispatch. Jackson, in a letter to
him, had complained of not hearing from him later than the
preceding November. This dispatch is a long and labored
apology for delay in the Texan negotiation, but he proves — 1,
that this delay had been expressly enjoined by Van Buren's in
structions to him, as well as by his own convictions of expedi
ency; and, 2, he proves the shortness of Jackson's memory in
pretending that he had received nothing from him of later date
than November, by referring to a publication in the Washing
ton Telegraph, of a paper transmitted by Butler to him, with a
dispatch dated in January.
This is one of the numberless instances of Jackson's reckless

1843.] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 363
disregard to truth, when the impatience of his temper betrays
the frailty of his memory. Jackson's passion for the acqui
sition of Texas was intense. Butler was a Texan land-jobber,
who treated Jackson as he boasts of having treated Alaman,
the Mexican Secretary of State, and negotiator with him —
"mystified a little, so as to leave him not without hope." Ala
man and Butler played a game of tame cheating, in which each
intended to overreach the other. Butler mystified with Alaman,
and Alaman mystified with Butler. Alaman was the shrewdest
knave of the two. When Butler wrote this dispatch he had
just discovered that Alaman had made him his dupe, and he,
with ludicrous gravity, discloses his first doubts of Mexican
sincerity. He advises Jackson to insult Montoya, who is coming
out to supersede Tornel as the Mexican Charge d'Affaires, and
give him to understand that Mexico was of very little account
with us. Edward Livingston took the place of Martin Van
Buren as Secretary of State on the 27th of May, 183 1, and his
correspondence with Butler began with a sharp altercation
about some irregularity in Butler's accounts.
The Galveston Civilian of 29th March, the comment on
Robinson's mission and on T. W. Gilmer's letter, are to be
remembered. 17th. The address to my constituents, and my investigations
daily at the Department of State into public relations with
Mexico and Texas, all have one object — the contribution of
my last public labors to the cause of human freedom in its
present and impending conflict with slavery. The field is too
vast for me. An address of two hours, which I am proposing
to prepare, will scarcely skim the surface of the subject; and
the dangers of the undertaking are more appalling than its
toils. But I must pass on. Sursum corda!
The preacher whom I heard at St. John's Church yesterday
afternoon, Mr. Shaw, called on me this morning, and had with
me a conversation of more than two hours. He is a native
of Lexington, Massachusetts, and is now a settled minister of
the Episcopal Church at Philadelphia, and a Professor of the
High School in that city. His grandfather was an inhabitant of
Lexington when the Revolutionary War commenced with the

364 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [April,
bloody conflict at that spot, and shared in it. He was also at
the battle of Bunker's Hill, and an ardent patriot of the Revo
lution, and lived and died a country farmer at Lexington. He
had always a strong and bitter prejudice against England and
everything English, and once, in riding down to Cambridge
with his grandson when a boy, and pointing out to him the
University buildings as they passed along, the boy, seeing the
Episcopal church on the other side of the square, enquired
what that was, and he answered, "That is the Tory meeting
house." Mr. Shaw told me other anecdotes of his own life,
and made numerous enquiries relating to mine, which I readily
answered. He said it was so dark yesterday afternoon that he
could not see to read a written sermon, which he had in his
pocket, and was obliged to extemporize; which he did. He
enquired much as to my practice of extempore speaking, which
I acknowledged was wretchedly imperfect, but which yet was
such as anxious labor and unwearied pains have been able to
make it. I considered it as an art, for the gift of which the
seeds are given by nature, to be cultivated by intense study
and matured by frequent practice and long experience — rmy
own original portion of the seed being next to nothing, my
cultivation of it inadequate, my experience much interrupted,
and my practice, like everything about me, unsystematic, con
fused, and drowsy.
At the Department of State my progress with Anthony
Butler is provokingly slow.
1 8th. In the course of my address I find occasion every now
and then to state a fact for the authentication of which I must
have recourse to a document, and that puts me upon a chase
which always consumes hours, and often leaves me disappointed,
having found everything that I did not want and failed to find
precisely what I did. At the Department of State, this day, I
was disconcerted in the examination of Anthony Butler's nego
tiations, from the condition of his correspondence. The nego
tiation for the commercial treaty was open and ostensible.
Poinsett had, on the 12th of January, 1828, concluded with the
then Mexican Government two separate treaties — one of com
merce and one of limits. From the time of the Mexican Decla-

IS43-] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 365
ration of Independence she had assumed the boundary agreed
upon by us with Spain in the Florida Treaty, as the existing
boundary between her and us ; to which we had assented in
1824. Poinsett, under instructions from H. Clay, approved by
me, had proposed and urged the purchase of Texas, for one
million of dollars — which Mexico had rejected, and refused to
conclude a treaty of commerce, unless with another confirming
the Florida Treaty line boundary. The two treaties were to be
ratified and their ratifications exchanged within four months
from their dates ; but they were not. When Jackson came in,
after some time the negotiations were renewed, to revise the
commercial treaty ; but Jackson proposed anew the purchase of
Texas, for which he authorized the offer of five millions of dol
lars, while at the same time Sami Houston went into Texas to
kindle an internal insurrection and separate Texas from Mexico.
Poinsett was recalled, and Butler was charged with the double
negotiation. Poinsett's treaty of limits was re-concluded, and
his commercial treaty revised and altered. The two new trea
ties were signed by Butler, and on the part of Mexico by Ala
man and Manzino, on the 5th of April, 1831. They were to be
ratified and the ratifications exchanged within one year from
the date, and on the 5th of April, 1832, Jackson issued his
proclamation declaring that the ratifications of both treaties
had been exchanged.
19th. Mr. George Brown, the Commissioner to the Sandwich
Islands, was here this morning, and I had a long conversation
with him upon public affairs. He is a speaking example of
the chemical affinity between power, patronage, place, and po
litical opinions. He came here two years ago a flaming Har
rison Whig, devoted soul and body to Daniel Webster, and
shaping all his opinions to the pattern held up by him. He
was then also a great admirer of me, and expected, perhaps,
some aid to obtain a place which might be suitable for him.
He commenced reporter and letter-writer for sundry Northern
Whig newspapers, and has adhered faithfully to Webster
through all the events, vicissitudes of men and things, and dis
appointments of the late years. He clings faithfully, too, to
Caleb Cushing, and insists that if he would offer himself as a

366 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [April,
candidate for election in the Third District he would be elected
by a large majority.
Mr. Samuel Crepps, of Fayette County, Pennsylvania, came
and had some conversation with me. I received a letter from
Seth M. Gates, explaining the address to the people of the free
States against the annexation of Texas. Mr. Seaton sent me
also a manuscript sent to him for publication in the Intelli
gencer by Mr. Horace Everett, but without signature, on the con
troversy concerning the right of search. Mr. Everett requested
it might be perused by me before publication, and in the piece
itself there is a call, rather earnest, upon me, without naming
me, to give to the public my opinions on the subject. I called
at the Intelligencer office and returned to Mr. Seaton Everett's
manuscript, and gave him also the Liberty Press extra, sent to
me by Mr. Gates, and requested him to publish in the Intelli
gencer the joint address to the people of the free States against
the annexation of Texas ; which he promised. I could not
reach the Department of State this day.
It was the 15th of July, 1832, that Butler delivered to Ala
man the paper of proposals for the purchase of Texas, of which
he never transmitted any copy to his own Government. Within
a week after, Alaman was removed from office, and a revolu
tion took place in the government of Mexico. On the 25th of
July, 1832, Butler addressed a note to Monasterio, Chief Clerk
in the Mexican Department of Foreign Affairs, announcing
that President Jackson had proclaimed the treaty of limits as
the law of the land, and was ready to appoint a Commissioner
on the part of the United States to run jointly the boundary
line with a Mexican Commissioner, but that he thought a re
visal and new line of boundary was very desirable.
20th. Going to the Department of State, I met Mr. Caleb
Cushing, who has returned here after a short visit to his late
constituents. Before he went, he gave out that he would offer
himself as a candidate for re-election ; but after he got home
his heart failed him, and he requested his friends not to put
him in nomination. But he still considers himself a public
man, and, though thrice rejected by the Senate on the nomina
tion for Secretary of the Treasury, he evidently still relies upon

1843] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 367
the fixed fact, as the " open sesame" to the precious vaults. He
told me he expected to remain here about ten days.
Mr. Webster returned from his short visit to Marshfield last
evening. At the Department, Mr. Hunter gave me to read a late
dispatch from Mr. Picket, Charge d'Affaires at Lima, in Peru,
written in September last, communicating the fact of Captain
Jones's departure from Lima, and of his intention to take San
Francisco if Mexico and the United States should prove to be
at war, or if it should turn out, as was rumored, that Mexico
had ceded California to Great Britain. All which Mr. Picket
approves. Another letter from Allen A. Hall, written last December
at Caraccas, mentions the arrival there of a Mexican Commis
sioner bound to Lima, in Peru, where a Congress of South
Americans were convening, said to be to form a league of de
fence against the grasping designs of the United States upon
Mexico. Hall is Charge d'Affaires of the United States to
the republic of Venezuela, and thinks this league against our
usurpations very ridiculous. He says it is not at all approved
in Venezuela, and they certainly will not send a Commissioner
to the Assembly.
2 ist I received this morning, under cover from my son at
Boston, to whom it was addressed for me, a letter from Ed
ward Everett in London, answering mine to him of 13th March,
on the fortieth day from that on which it was written. My
letter was acceptable to him ; but whether available is left for
after-consideration. He sends me a printed copy of his answer
to Mr. Schofield and the American bond-holders.
At the Department of State I crept along with pace of snail
in the examination of Anthony Butler's correspondence. In
1833 Santa Anna broke up the federal constitution, and with
the aid of his bayonets was elected President. Mr. Butler is
consulted by persons whom he does not name, to know if the
Government or capitalists in the United States will make a loan
to Mexico ; he says not for how much. He advises to turn
it into a bargain for the sale of Texas, or a loan upon mort
gage, which they will certainly never redeem. He addresses

368 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [April,
this in a private letter to Jackson, who instructs Livingston to
reject at once the loan, and to write forthwith to Butler to bring
his negotiation to a close, for that on the ist of April the
American colonists in Cochuita are to hold a Convention and
declare their independence — after which, he says, it will be use
less to treat with Mexico for Texas. Livingston instructs But
ler accordingly; but Butler hangs on. This precise knowledge
of Jackson, to a day, of the intended design of the colonists to
declare their independence as early as April, 1833, was sup
pressed in the document communicated to the House in 1838.
22d. My address to my constituents absorbs three-fourths of
my time, and I have reached three-fourths of a two hours' ad
dress, and have yet scarcely entered upon my subject. I should
have laid out for an address of three hours; and even then my
stream would have overflowed its banks. It spreads and widens
before me, though I am constantly laboring to dam it in. It is
much the same with Anthony Butler's negotiation for Texas.
For six long years he was mystifying Jackson with the positive
assurance that he was within a hair's breadth of the object, and
sure of success, while Jackson was all the time wriggling along
and snapping at the bait, like a mackerel after a red rag, and
there is not one line to show that Butler ever made to any one
in Mexico the specific proposal that he was instructed to make
at first, or the enormous stride upon it authorized by Forsyth's
letter of 6th August, 1835. The most impressive conclusion
that I draw from the comparison between the manuscript and
the printed documents is the unscrupulous suppression, upon
a call from the House for all the correspondence, at a crisis
when the President had actually asked of Congress authority
to wage war, of every scrap of paper which it did not suit to
make public. It proves how utterly inefficient the reservation
of the power of declaring war to Congress is as a check upon
the will of the President to wage it. My progress in exam
ining Butler's correspondence at the Department of State is
so slow that I shall be obliged to break it up without getting
half through. The steamer Britannia, which brought Edward
Everett's answer to my letter of 13th March, brought also the
reports of a long and searching debate in the British Parlia-

I843-] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 369
ment upon the Ashburton Treaty, terminated, after a pitched
battle between Lord Palmerston and Sir Robert Peel, by the
failure of a quorum in the House.
/ 24th. I called at the Department of State, and saw Mr. Web
ster, and told him the answer I had received from Edward
Everett to my letter of 13th March. J spoke of the recent
debates in Parliament on the Ashburton Treaty, terminating in
the House of Commons by the Speaker's adjourning the House
for lack of a quorum. I spoke of the lucky discovery of Mr.
Oswald's map together with that of Mr. Jay at New York, and
of their blowing up Jared Sparks's impostures in mousing,
among the papers of that old juggler Vergennes. Mr. Webster
lent me some Morning Chronicles, containing reports of the
debate in the Commons, and a dispatch and a confidential letter
from Edward Everett about the maps, the debate, and that
gibbet-bird, United States geologist Featherstonhaugh.
25th. Dr. Heap was here again this morning, very anxious
about the prospect of his obtaining some appointment for sub
sistence in his old age. He has been shabbily treated — removed
from his quiet sinecure at Tunis to make way for W. B. Hodg
son, and appointed Dragoman at Constantinople — that is, trans
lator from and to the Turkish language, of which he never un
derstood one single word; still, he went to Constantinople with
his family, and at Malta, on his way, learnt that he was super
seded, and a young man, a nephew of Commodore Porter, was-
appointed in his place. He came home, leaving his family at
Constantinople, and now must go again to fetch them thence.
I told him I had spoken of him and recommended his case
to Mr. Webster, though I knew not with what success. He
said Mr. Webster had received him with coldness, and Mr.
Tyler with much more ; and upon his representing the uncere
monious manner in which he had been displaced from his office
at Tunis, Mr. Tyler, in a tone of fretful uneasiness, had said,
"I cannot remove my friend Payne'' — meaning John Howard
Payne, the histrionic parasite, who was here all the summer of
1841, currying favor by writing niminy-piminy meretricious
letters of courtly adulation of John Tyler, to be published in
the New York Herald. This was the sycophant, and this the
VOL. xi. — 24

370 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [April,
service for which " my friend Payne" was appointed Consul at
Tunis, instead of an old public servant of forty years, with a
large family, to linger about the world for a beggarly sub
sistence. After drudging all the morning upon the sickening task of
my proposed address, I staggered to the Department of State,
and enquired of Mr. Derrick for several notes of remonstrance
of the former French Minister, Pontois. He gave me to read
three of his letters to the Secretary of State in 1837-38-39, and
of Forsyth's answers to them, with the last of which there was
a list of all the laws in the slave-holding States, proscriptive of
free colored mariners. I asked Mr. Derrick for a copy of this
list — which he promised to have made out and to give me
to-morrow. Returned to the chronology of Anthony Butler's
negotiation for Texas — my progress exceedingly slow.
26th. Dr. Heap called on me again this morning, anxiously
hoping for some cheering news from me. I could give him
nothing, but some cold, vague, indefinite promise to remember
him, from Mr. Webster. He was specially desirous of being
reinstated in his office of surgeon in the navy, and solicitous
for my opinion whether he might hope to obtain it. The
chance is a caprice of Captain Tyler, who, I suspect, has a
grudge against Heap for having been too much delighted with
the Bey's abolition of slavery. Mr. Heap said he must go in
two or three days to embark for Constantinople to fetch his
family home.
At the Department of State, Mr. Derrick gave me the list
of unconstitutional State laws against free colored seamen. I
copied Jackson's endorsement upon Anthony Butler's project
of purchasing Texas with a bribe of half a million of dollars to
the confessor of Santa Anna's sister. Jackson seems to have
seen that this might be a bait thrown out by Santa Anna him
self to get into his hands (the means) to impute offers of corrup:
tion by Jackson. There is color for this suspicion, from the
fact that Hamilton, the Texan diplomatist, did secretly, as lie
thought, make the same identical offer of half a million to Santa
Anna himself, who immediately published the letter and di
vulged the fact. I find also in Butler's correspondence that the

s«43] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 371
Mexican Minister Tornel, after his return home from his mis
sion here, published a pamphlet in which he stated expressly
that on his landing at New York the agent of Colonel Thomas
Benton came twice to him, with numberless other speculators,
to treat with him for Texan lands.
27th. At the office of the Clerk of the House I enquired for
many documents, but found only the message of 28th Febru
ary last, enclosing the correspondence of the Spanish Minister,
Argaiz, with the Secretary of State, Webster, relating to the
case of the schooner Amistad. It was referred to the Com
mittee of Foreign Affairs ; but the papers were sent imme
diately to the printer's, and the committee never saw them.
The correspondence is a fire-brand, over which Tyler casts a
bucket of cold water by recommending to Congress to refund
the salvage claimed by Lieutenant Gedney; but Gedney's claim
supposes that the schooner was Spanish property when taken
by him ; it was the property of the Mendi captors, and ought
to have been restored to them. When will the whole truth be
told concerning this case? If I dare to tell it, I shall be ar
rested before I have proceeded three steps on the way — per
haps charged with treason, perhaps expelled from the House.
28th. I finished at last the address to my constituents, and
am so much dissatisfied with it that I very much doubt whether
I shall ever make any use of it. There is not more than one-
fourth part of the matter that should be included in it. There
should be unity of purpose, symmetry of parts, concentration
of argument, sharpness of conclusion, and impulse to action,
in such a discourse. Of all this there is a lamentable de
ficiency in my address. If I had time, perseverance, and
energy to write four such, and then methodize and abridge
the four into one, it might be of some use. But I have neither
time, nor strength, nor health, nor spirits, nor manhood, to go
through that process.
I must now turn my thoughts and my remnant of life to
other objects. I am engaged to deliver a discourse to the
Historical Society of Massachusetts on the 29th of next month,
on the New England Confederation of the seventeenth century;
half bound to address the Society of Alumni of Harvard Uni-

372 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [May,
versify the last week in August next; and invited, by a letter
received yesterday from Peter S. Du Ponceau, Thomas Ser
geant, William B. Reed, W. Duck, and A. Langdon Elwyn, a
Committee of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, to deliver
an historical discourse before that institution at any time during
the present year that may be agreeable to me. In the decay of
body and mind growing upon me with inexorable speed, I lack
resolution to say no to all these propositions and to retire from
thfe/world of business to that of repose.
,/ Boston, May 6th. — I have accepted an invitation from the
Massachusetts Plistorical Society to deliver, on the 29th of this
month, a discourse before them, and I have come here, without
and before my family, for the purpose of preparing it. I have
paid so little attention to that portion of our history that I
scarcely knew the sources at which the principal facts relating
to it were to be found; nor have I any clue to the aspect in
which it should be viewed for any useful purpose at the present
time. Pope makes it a point of self-glorification
" That not in fancy's maze he wander'd long,
But stoop'd to truth, and moralized his song."
I believe that moral principle should be the alpha and omega
of all human composition, poetry or prose, scientific or literary,
written or spoken, and emphatically of every discourse. An
epic poem, a drama, pastoral, georgic, a fable, ode, sonnet, or
epigram, should alike spring from one vital seminal principle
of morals ; and so should every history, dissertation, treatise,
discourse, or epistle. Pen should never be put to paper but for
the discharge of some duty to God or man.
How, then, shall I best discharge the duty I have undertaken,
of discoursing to my co-associates of the Historical Society
and to my fellow-citizens on the New England Confederation
of 1643 ? What was that confederation, its uses, its origin, its
history, its termination, its influence upon the colonies between
whom it was formed, upon their relations with the Indians,
with the other English colonies, with England, the mother-
country, with the neighboring colonies of other countries, and
with the rest of mankind ? And from the result of all these

1 843.] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 373
enquiries what sound and useful moral principle can be deduced
for the entertainment and instruction of a listening auditory,
and of readers hereafter ?
I called at the chambers of the Historical Society. The
outer door was locked, with a notice that the librarian might
be found at No. 15 Warren Street. It was the residence of
Mr. Joseph B. Felt, whom I found at home, where I also saw
his wife. He accompanied me to the chambers of the Histor
ical Society, and found for me Mather's Magnalia, the second
volume of Hazard's collection of State Papers, and three folio
volumes of manuscripts, which he supposed might assist me
in my enquiries. He lent, me the keys of the chambers, and
promised to call and see me there on Monday.
7th. Dr. Frothingham preached this morning from 1 Corin
thians i. 18. The whole verse reads, " For the preaching of the
cross is to them that perish foolishness ; but unto us which are
saved it is the power of God." But the text was only, " The
preaching of the cross is the power of God;" and the sermon
was a most ingenious and deeply-pathetic declamation upon the
power of the cross as a symbol of the sufferings of Christ and of
the doctrine of Christianity. The use of this symbol has been
one of the sharpest points of controversy between the Roman
Catholic and Protestant Churches. It has been heretofore a
source of much internal dissension in the Episcopal Church of
England, and is even now revived with ominous agitation both
in England and here. It extends even beyond the bounds of
the Episcopal Church; and I was somewhat surprised at the
vivacity and zeal with which Dr. Frothingham seems to have
entered into it. Certain it is that the writings of St. Paul, from
which the Doctor cited several most impressive passages, coun
tenance a reverence for the cross, which endangers the indul
gence of idolatry, as all substitution of attachment to the symbol
for the love of the object represented is prone to do. Of these
trappings of Roman Catholic worship the Church of England
has discarded many, and retained more than enough. She has
retained the sign of the cross only in the administration of the
rite of baptism, where it is made by the finger of the priest
over the forehead of the infant, leaving no trace of it behind.

^74 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [May,
But there is at this very moment a bitter struggle in the Epis
copal Church of England to return to the emblematic worship
of Popery. There was a passage at the close of the Doctor's
discourse which alluded without censure to the Roman Cath
olic worship of the Virgin Mother of Christ, which belongs
to the same school of the adoration of the cross. After the
morning service, Dr. Frothingham administered the commu
nion with admirable and affecting solemnity.
8th. I went to the Emancipator office, and had a long con
versation with Mr. Leavitt. He is to embark next Tuesday
in the steamer for Liverpool, to attend as a delegate from the
American Anti-Slavery Society the second triennial meeting of
the World's Convention for the Promotion of the Abolition of
Slavery and the Slave-Trade throughout the earth.
I urged him very earnestly to observe with unremitting care
the movements of the British Government with regard to
Mexico and Texas. I told him I distrusted them altogether;
I believed their real policy far from desiring to favor the aboli
tion of slavery, either in our Southern States or in Texas. I
suspect, on the contrary, that for a suitable equivalent they
will readily acquiesce both in the annexation of Texas to this
Union and to the perpetuation of slavery here, to weaken and
to rule us.
1 2th. The National Intelligencer of last Tuesday announces
that on the preceding day Mr. Daniel Webster resigned the
office of Secretary of State, and that the charge of the Depart
ment ad interim was taken by the Attorney-General, Legare;
and that on the same day Caleb Cushing was appointed Minis
ter Plenipotentiary to China, in the place of Edward Everett,
who has declined the appointment. The reason of Mr. Web
ster's resignation is not explained.
13th. I had a long visit from Mr. Joshua Leavitt. Long
conversation with him. I urged him to make close observa
tions, so far as he should have opportunity, to ascertain the
real policy of the British Government on this subject, enter
taining, as I do, strong doubts of a compromise between their
commercial and their moral policy, much too obsequious to
the cause of slavery for real fidelity to the cause of justice and

I843-] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 375
of man. I desired him to say to Arnold Buffum and to Joseph
Sturge, from me, that I intended to have written to each of
them, by him, but am prevented by my indisposition ; and I
entreated him, as long as he should be there, to keep his eye
fixed upon Texas, Mexico, California, and especially on the
island of Cuba.
15th. Mr. Savage, President of the Massachusetts Historical
Society, called, and I had a long conversation with him, chiefly
upon a question fit only to make a learned body ridiculous, by
forming a subject for divided opinions, and even of controversy
— that is, on the day for the ceremony.
The day of the Confederation was 19th May, 1643. The day
chosen for the celebration is the 29th of May, because at that
time the difference between the calendars was only ten days.
But the difference is now two days more ; and I told Mr. Sav
age that as the 19th of -May of old style of the present year is
the 31st of the new style, I thought they should take the 31st
for the celebration. But he and Judge Davis have settled the
point between themselves upon principle. He argued it with
me, astronomically and politically, with such lucid illustration
that I lost the thread of his syllogism, and finally did not un
derstand him at all.
I went to visit Dr. Frothingham, who was not at home, and
I called on George Bancroft. I found Robert C. Winthrop
with him ; and of course we talked history. They were en
deavoring to ascertain the relation between Sir John Temple,
Winthrop's grandfather, and the Grenville family — of which I
was surprised to see Winthrop apparently not at all informed.
Mr. Bancroft had a number of manuscript letters, which
Edward Everett has collected for him, from Burke, Fox,
Champion, Dr. Franklin, Arthur Lee, etc., written in 1774, and
among the rest a copy of Thomas Hutchinson's account of his
private interview with King George the Third, in July, 1774,
on Hutchinson's first arrival from this country. He was intro
duced by Lord Dartmouth, and was upwards of two hours with
the King. Much of the dialogue was upon the detection and
exposure by Dr. Franklin of Hutchinson's letters; upon which
the King said that there was not a word in them at which any

376 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [May,
just exception could be taken. Bancroft told me that from this
paper, and all the other disclosures which he has obtained of
the real character of Hutchinson, he had come to the same
conclusion that my father did — that he was a bad man.
Quincy, 19th. — Having no time to spare for the composition
of my address for the Massachusetts Historical Society, and
deeming it necessary for the filling of the time allotted to the
discourse that it should consist of thirty-two pages, occupying
two hours, or thereabouts, I begin the day with that labor, and
prescribing to myself to write two pages each day till I get
through. I began, therefore, this morning, as soon after rising,
dressing, and making my fire as was practicable, and, with the
interval of half an hour for breakfast, kept incessant alternate
reading and writing till the village bell rung for noon, before
my task for the day was completed.
In the course of my treatment of the. subject I was this day
brought to the consideration of the character of Roger Wil
liams and the establishment of the Colony of Rhode Island. It
has in recent times become a sort of literary fashion to extol the
character of Roger Williams by disparaging those of the Massa
chusetts (people) with whom he contended. I have suspected
that there is in this much injustice; and the more minutely I
examine his controversy with them the more firmly this opin
ion fixes itself in my mind. Roger Williams was a Welshman.
He came sharpened for controversy, a polemical porcupine from
Oxford, an extreme puritan, quilled with all the quarrelsome
metaphysical divinity of the age. He arrived eight months
after Winthrop and his company, and began by preaching at
Salem that the Charter was of no avail, because the King had
no power to grant the lands, as they belonged to the Indians ;
and that the Church was no true Church, because she had not
proclaimed her repentance for having held communion with the
Church of England before the emigration. These doctrines
struck at the vitals of the Massachusetts Colony, civil and
ecclesiastical. If there is anything surprising in their treat
ment of him, it was their lenity towards him. His principle of
liberty of conscience — admirable in itself — was utterly at vari
ance with itself in his excommunication of the Colonial Church

1843-3 THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 3-7
for not excommunicating the Episcopal Church of England.
Altogether, he was a mere boute-feu, and they were amply jus
tified in getting rid of him. I see that Bancroft tells his story
with extreme partiality, to puff him up, not only to a saint and
a hero, but to a transcendent genius, a Newton, Kepler, or
Copernicus. His principle of toleration was the inspiration of
a strong mind, and his success in settling a small colony, where
it was carried into practice, gives lustre to his name. The
recent revolution in Rhode Island is the euthanasia of his
system. 20th. I am still entangled with the character and history of
Roger Williams and his democracy of the Providence Planta
tions. I fear to do him injustice in the anxious desire to do
justice to his adversaries. I cannot but think him the ag
gressor against the Massachusetts Colony from the day of his
arrival. I cannot acquit him of the ambition of supplanting
John Cotton as the High-Priest of the Colony. He shuffled
and equivocated in apologizing to the General Court for his first
treatise against the Charter and offering it to them to be burnt.
His excommunications were all intolerant, his refusal to take
the oath of allegiance was factious, his preaching against it
seditious. He appears to have prevaricated on the subject of
his conversion to the Anabaptist denomination ; and his last
controversial writings against the Quakers might as well have
been omitted. Yet his inflexible and finally triumphant prin
ciple of universal toleration makes him a name and a praise for
all future time. I see sharp points shooting out from every
side of the subject.
27th. I came in my address to the parallel between the New
England Confederacy of 1643 and the North American Con
federacy of 1774. I had some hopes in approaching this topic
to bring up some interest with it; but it sinks under me. Not
one of the motives which stimulated the puritans of 1643 had
the slightest influence in actuating the Confederacy of. 1774.
The parties to the New England Union were homogeneous ;
those of the North American Union were not only of hetero
geneous but of hostile elements; and in the latter there was the
ingredient of slavery, which poisoned the whole composition.

378 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [May,
I have touched upon it in this address, but in revisal propose
to strike out all that I have written relating to it.
This afternoon I rode with my daughter and her son Charles
to Weymouth, to enquire of the state of Mrs. Mercy Tufts, who
has been very dangerously ill with the erysipelas. We saw her
two daughters, Mercy and Susan, who told us she was some
what better, though still confined to her bed. We rode home
with a sprinkling rain, and the evening was wintry cold. This
family of Tufts are all that now remain of my childhood's re
membrance of Weymouth. Some of the earliest of my recol
lections are there, and the localities which remain unchanged
bring them back with a pungency for which I scarcely know
how to account. I have no such reminiscences in Boston, be
cause everything there is changed ; but spots of the old road
through Braintree and Weymouth are precisely as they were
seventy years ago, and a return to them seems to sweep away
the interval of time and to make me again a child. But there
is not one individual of my grandfather Smith's blood now
living in Weymouth.
29th. New England Confederacy of 1643.
Boston. — At nine this morning I went with Charles into
Boston, and we stopped at Dr. Frothingham's. There, by a
mistake rather ludicrous, I was shown into his study, where
were assembled a number of persons, who I supposed were
the Massachusetts Historical Society, though I could not con
ceive how they came there. Mr. Peter C. Brooks was presiding,
and they settled their treasurer's accounts, made all their an
nual elections, and chose the Rev. Ezra Stiles Gannett as a
member of their corporation in the place of the late Dr. Wil
liam E. Channing, before I discovered that it was a meeting of
the Massachusetts Congregational Charitable Society. When
they had finished their business, President Quincy, who was
there, took me in his barouche to the chambers of the Histor
ical Society, where a meeting well attended was held. The
President, James Savage, moved that the meeting should ad
journ to his house at eight o'clock this evening, and gave a
general invitation to all the members present to attend there.
A procession was then formed, in which I walked with Presi-

1 843-] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. ?yg
dent Savage to the First Church, in Chauncy Place, where I
delivered the address to the Massachusetts Historical Society,
in celebration of the second centennial anniversary of the New
England Colonial Confederacy of 1643. The performances began
precisely at eleven o'clock, with an appropriate prayer by Dr.
Frothingham, the minister of the church. Then Psalm cvii.
of the New England version of 1640 was sung. I then deliv
ered my address, beginning at twenty minutes past eleven and
closing at five minutes past one, one hour and three-quarters,
omitting about one-eighth of what I had written. It was very
well received, and there was no manifestation of what I most
dreaded, a sense of weariness on the part of the auditory. The
attention was general and unremitting to the last. The house
was well filled, but not crowded — excepting the members of the
Society, about as many women as men. After the address,
Psalm xliv. of the New England version was sung, and the
benediction was pronounced by Dr. Frothingham. Mr. Wil
liam Beach Lawrence, Mr. John Jay, and several other gentle
men were introduced to me as delegates from the Historical
Societies of New York, Connecticut, and Maine. At four in
the afternoon we left Dr. Frothingham's and returned imme
diately to Quincy. Mr. Buckingham's son, part editor of the
Courier, asked the loan of my manuscript, to report an ab
stract from it ; but I had promised to reserve it for the Society.
My voice held out better than I expected ; but I excused my
self from attendance at the President's evening party.
Quincy, 31st — Mr. Lewis Tappan and Mr. Andrews visited
me this morning. Mr. Tappan had with him the New Orleans
Bee of 15th and 16th May, containing several long articles
sounding the trumpet of alarm at the symptoms recently man
ifested in Texas of a strong party with a fixed design to abolish
slavery. The Bee has the name of Henry Clay on its first page,
nominated as its candidate for the Presidency, but its groans at
the prospect of abolition in Texas are agonizing. Mr. Andrews
is a native of Massachusetts, but at present an inhabitant of
Texas. He is the person mentioned in the letter from Joseph
Eve to the Secretary of State, shown to me by Mr. Hunter on
the 14th of April. Eve related that this person had come

380 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [June,
from Austin to Galveston to make a speech in public urging
the expediency and necessity of abolishing slavery, but that
an assemblage of people had gone to him at his lodgings, taken
him by force, and landed him at Virginia Point, on the oppo
site bank of the river. Mr. Andrews says this was true, but
that the men who committed this outrage upon him were a
gang of not more than twenty persons, not at all authorized
or supported by the people, and that he afterwards returned
to Galveston, openly avowing his abolition opinions, without
meeting any ill treatment or opposition. He says he knows
that the Texan President, Houston, is in favor of abolition.
He is now about to embark in the steamer Caledonia, to-mor
row, for England, with e view to obtain the aid of the British
Government to the cause. Mr. Tappan asked me if I would
furnish him with letters of recommendation; which I declined,
having no correspondent in England with whom I could take
the liberty; but I bade him God speed, and told him that I be
lieved the freedom of this country and of all mankind depended
upon the direct, formal, open, and avowed interference of Great
Britain to accomplish the abolition of slavery in Texas ; but
that I distrusted the sincerity of the present British Adminis
tration in the anti-slavery cause. Mr. Andrews offered to write
to me to inform me how his propositions may be received —
which I accepted. Mr. Tappan told me he had himself been
urged to go to England, and asked my advice what he should
do. I declined advising, but said I wished he would go, were
it only for the possibility that he might contribute to advance
the cause.
June 8th. Mr. Forbes, of Milton, called on me this forenoon,
and introduced to me a Mr. Delano, recently returned from
China. He speaks doubtfully of the results of the late war of
Great Britain against China. My son returned before dinner
from the Whig Convention at Worcester, where yesterday they
first nominated John Davis as the Whig candidate for Governor.
Mr. Davis positively and peremptorily declined the nomination;
whereupon they nominated George N. Briggs for Governor,
and John Read, of Yarmouth, for Lieutenant-Governor. There
was a suspension of hostilities between the Clay and Webster

1843.] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 381
fragments of the Whig party, which are already bitterly exas
perated against each other. Webster has undertaken to dragoon
the Whigs of this State from their allegiance to Henry Clay,
whom he proposes to supplant as a supplementary candidate
for the Presidency by a double coalition with John Tyler and
John C. Calhoun. His first movements in this new system of
policy have demolished the prospects of Clay, and driven John
Davis into retirement, but have gone near to demolish also
Webster's own party. The result thus far has been to throw
the State into the hands of Marcus Morton and the radical De
mocracy. This is but a step to that flagitious coalition which
is to prostrate the freedom of this Union before its slavery.
What am I to do in this struggle? to flinch ingloriously from
it, or to perish in fruitless resistance against it ? Is it not a
craven spirit that holds me still in suspense on this mighty
movement upon the history of man ?
1 2th. I answered a letter from William Pitt Fessenden, a
member of the last Congress from Portland, Maine, who has
been charged in an abolitionist address to the people of that
State with lukewarmness in support of the right of petition.
He wrote to me requesting my testimony as to his course in
the House. I have given him my testimony. The abolitionist
charges against him are unjust; but zeal in support of the right
of petition can do nothing in the Congress of the United States.
I wrote this answer with great difficulty, much hesitation, and
not a little imprudence in lifting up one corner of the curtain
which covers the hideous reality of the slave ascendency in the
Government of this Union — the double representation of the
slave-owners in the House of Representatives and in the Elec
toral Colleges for the choice of President and Vice-President.
Semper ego auditor tantum?
13th. Nicholas Machiavel and Ignatius Loyola have fallen
into a mesmeric sleep, but I received this morning a letter from
Asa Walker and two others, a committee of correspondence
for a public meeting of the citizens of Bangor and vicinity,
holden on the 27th of last month, and at which a resolution
was adopted to observe the 1st of next August as the anniver
sary of West India emancipation, by a public address and other

382 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [June,
suitable exercises, and the committee appointed to carry the
resolution into execution invite me to deliver the address.
The temptation is almost irresistible, but must be resisted. My
time is not yet come. How shall I answer this letter?
The same question is of more than daily recurrence. I have,
for example, an invitation, dated the 19th of April, from a com
mittee of the directors of the Bunker Hill Monument Associa
tion, to unite with them in celebrating the completion of that
monument, by a civic and military procession, and an address
by the Hon. Daniel Webster. Upon this pageant has been en
grafted another, to bedaub with glory John Tyler, the slave-
breeder, who is coming with all his court, in gaudy trappings
of mock royalty, to receive the homage of hungry sycophants,
under color of doing homage to the principles of Bunker Hill
martyrdom. I answered this invitation, declining to attend,
with a struggle between inclination and decorum to suppress
the most imperative motive for my absence — the disdain to be
associated with the mouth-worship of liberty from the lips of
the slave-breeder. I succeeded but indifferently in veiling my
emotions, and touched upon the martyrdom of Bunker Hill only
by transparent generalities, which will yet provoke censure.
1 6th. This was the day of the reception of the President
of the United States, by the city of Boston. He comes with
his Cabinet, and a ridiculous parade of ostentation, to attend
the celebration of the completion of the Bunker Hill Monu
ment — a costly pageant, first got up by Joseph Tinker Buck
ingham, President of the Bunker Hill Monument Association,
and editor of the Boston Courier, the most respectable of
Webster's trumpeters. The corner-stone of the monument
was laid by La Fayette, on the 17th of June, 1825, on which
occasion he delivered an eloquent discourse. He is to deliver
another. The object now is to glorify him. A formal invi
tation was sent to him last fall, immediately after the completion
of the monument, inviting him to the performance of this ser
vice, which he then accepted, and the invitation and acceptance
were published in newspapers all over the country. The. invi
tation to the President and his Cabinet to attend is a political
device of Webster's own — a gull-trap for popularity, both for

1843.] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS.

383

himself and for Tyler, by which he hopes to whistle back his
Whig friends, whom he had cast off, as a huntsman his pack,
and who now threaten to hunt him, like the hounds of Actseon.
The reception of the President this day had all the appearances
of cordiality, notwithstanding a drenching rain to cool it. He
is lodged at the Tremont House, at an enormous expense to
the city, was entertained there with a sumptuous dinner by the
City Council, and went to the theatre, and to an evening party
at the Postmaster, Gordon's, house. I was invited to the dinner,
but sent an excuse.
17th. This was the day of the great celebration of the com
pletion of the monument on Bunker Hill ; and never since the
existence of the three hills was there such a concourse of
strangers upon their sides as has been assembled on the banks
of " majestic Charles" this day. What a name in the annals
of mankind is Bunker Hill ! what a day was the 17th of June,
1775 ! and what a burlesque upon them both is an oration
upon them'by Daniel Webster, and a pilgrimage of John Tyler,
and his Cabinet of slave-drivers, to desecrate the solemnity by
their presence ! And then a dinner at Faneuil Hall in honor
of a President of the United States, hated and despised by
those who invited him to it, themselves as cordially hated and
despised by him.
I have throughout my life had an utter aversion to all
pageants and public dinners, and never attended one when I
could decently avoid it. I was a student at Cambridge when,
on the 17th of June, 1786, Charles River bridge was opened.
The colleges were emptied on that day of the students, who
flocked to witness the procession and the pageant. I passed
the day in the solitude of my study, and dined almost alone in
the hall. I had then no special motive for my absence. But
now, with the ideal association of the thundering cannon, which
I heard, and the smoke of burning Charlestown, which I saw,
on that awful day, combined with this pyramid of Quincy
granite, and Daniel Webster spouting, and John Tyler's nose,
with a shadow outstretching that of the monumental column —
how could I have witnessed all this at once, without an unbe
coming burst of indignation, or of laughter ? Daniel Webster

384 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [June,
is a heartless traitor to the cause of human freedom; John
Tyler is a slave-monger. What have these to do with the
Quincy granite pyramid on the brow of Bunker's Hill? What
have these to do with a dinner in Faneuil Hall, but to swill like
swine, and grunt about the rights of man ?
I stayed at home, and visited my seedling trees, and heard
the cannonades of the rising, the meridian, and the setting sun,
and answered a letter from the Rev. Joseph Emerson, dated at
New London, Connecticut, making enquiries about a transla
tion of Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary, published under the
name of John Quincy Adams, and secretly circulating, as he
says, about the country as my work.1 I saw the sun set from the
front of Charles's house at the extremity of his northwestern
declination, and as I heard the cannonade salute of the closing
day, and saw the smoke ascending from the side of the pyr
amid, the top of which was full in view, there came in forcible
impulse to my memory the cannonade, and the smoke, and the
fire, of the 17th of June, 1775.2 I waited to see the revolving
fire of the Boston light-house kindled, and then returned to
my peaceful home.
1 8th. The Rev. Benjamin Kent, now keeper of a school for
girls at Roxbury, preached for Mr. Lunt this morning with a
double text — Romans vii. 24 : " O wretched man that I am !
who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" and Phi-
lippians iv. 13: "I can do all things through Christ which
strengtheneth me." The doctrine of the discourse was that
the will of a perfect Christian fortified by conscience is om
nipotent — that nothing is impossible for it to achieve; and to
elucidate the principle, he presented a parallel between these
two passages from the writings of St. Paul — first in the Epistle
to the Romans, in the agonies of despair, and then four years
later to the Philippians, in the exultation of a glorious victory
and triumph, by the strength of Christ assisting him. The
first, written in the midst of the terrible struggle of his conver
sion, and while he was yet uncertain of its success. The last
1 This was a printer in Boston, whose name was doubtless made use of for the
purpose here described.
2 Vol. i. p. 5.

I843-] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. ,3,.
was written after his conversion was consummated, and his
confidence in himself, with the strength imparted to him by
Christ, his Lord and Master, was unbounded. Upon this theme
Mr. Kent amplified and dilated, until he reminded me of the
story which I once heard Dr. Franklin tell, of a convent of
monks, who had a very inconvenient hill in front of their
monastery, and, upon their faith like a grain of mustard-seed's
being sufficient to cast the mountain into the sea, set up a
general onset of prayer to remove the mountain, which they
perseveringly pursued till, tired of the obstinate adherence of
the mountain to its place, one of the friars gave out that there
was a mistake in the translation of the text, and that the true
reading should be that with faith like a mountain it is possible
to move a mustard-seed.
Mr. Kent and Mr. Lunt dined with us. They were both at
the Bunker's Hill celebration yesterday, which went off ad
mirably well. Webster's oration was brilliant, and eminently
successful — two hours and seven minutes ; suitable to the oc
casion, and often rapturously cheered. The dinner at Faneuil
Hall was also very well ordered, and passed off agreeably.
The cheering of Webster was hearty and general, that of the
President feeble and cold.
19th. Mr. Stow is Recorder of the city of Buffalo, in the
State of New York. He brought me recommendatory letters-
from Millard Fillmore and from General Peter B. Porter, the
latter very kindly urging me to pay them a visit in that neigh
borhood, to which Mr. Stow added his own very friendly so
licitations. I do not deceive myself by mistaking this earnest
desire to hear me for anything more than mere curiosity; but
it is friendly, and claims my gratitude. I believe there is not
a man in the world more unfit for self-exhibition at public
meetings and banquet dinners. When I go to them it is with
feelings of a culprit to punishment, rather than of a victor to
triumph. I told Mr. Stow that I could not indulge the hope
of ever meeting in public the people of Buffalo, but should be
ever grateful for their kindness, and would pray for their pros
perity. Mr. William Cost Johnson paid me also a visit, with a
Mr. Chapman, a stranger. Mr. Johnson came to witness the
VOL. XI.— 25

386 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [June,
Bunker Hill Monument celebration, and leaves Boston to
-morrow morning, returning to Washington.
20th. Charles brought the account of the decease, this morning
between five and six o'clock, of Hugh S. Legare, of South Caro
lina, Attorney-General of the United States, and acting Secretary
of State. He died at the house of his friend Mr. George Tick-
nor, to which he had been removed the day before from his
lodgings at the Tremont House. He had been invited, as a
member of the President's Cabinet, to the monumental celebra
tion. The duties of his two Departments prevented him from
accompanying the President on his journey; but he left Wash
ington so as to reach the Tremont House on Friday, and was
present at the dinner given to the President by the City Coun
cil at that house on that day. He was then much indisposed,
and the next day so ill that he was unable to attend the cele
bration at the hill. His disease, which was bilious colic, con
tinued increasing in violence, and inaccessible to all medical
treatment, till he expired. He was an able and a very amiable
man, by far the best of the President's present associates.
Just as I was called to dinner came in Dr. Goodale, a stranger,
from the western part of the State of New York. He intro
duced himself, and asked numerous questions of Whig politics,
and particularly concerning the prospects of John Tyler at the
next Presidential election. There is no doubt he believes this
idle pageant and personal courtesy will draw upon him over
powering popularity. The experiment has in part succeeded,
and its total failure is certainly not yet demonstrated. He visited
Lowell yesterday with a numerous train, and was received with
tolerable cordiality.
24th. After an abridged excursion to see the rising sun, and
to visit and study my seedling plants and listen to the matinal
minstrelsy of the bobalink, the spring bird, and the robin, with
the chirp of the sparrow and the new whistle of the quail — I
think, all the aerial music of the time and place — I returned
to my library chamber, and revised the copy of my discourse
on the New England Confederacy of 1643, which I made up
and dispatched by the mail to James Savage, President of the
Massachusetts Historical Society at Boston. In revising this

I843-] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 38"
discourse I had the opportunity of examining it with cooler
judgment than I had while composing it. I was then some
what disqualified by the hurry, agitation, and severe indisposi
tion under which I was laboring, with a keen apprehension that
my catarrh would disable me from delivering it, and extreme
anxiety that it would, if delivered, be tedious and dull to the
auditory. It was, on the contrary, happily delivered, and with
as much favor from the auditory as I could have expected or
ought to have desired. It is now an historical document and
a political disquisition, to be published by the Massachusetts
Historical Society, and will pass to posterity as one of my con
tributions to the labors of that institution. I would it were
wiser, more philosophical, more profound ; I would the faculty
had been conferred upon me to enlighten my brethren of the
human race, to improve their condition upon earth, to rule
them by the energies of the soul. Perhaps one of the sins for
which I may have to answer hereafter is that of repining at
the scantiness of the portion of intellect with which I was
endowed. — ..
26th. I continued, without finishing, my answer to the invita
tion from Bangor to deliver there an oration on the 1st of Au
gust, in celebration of the emancipation of slaves in the British
West Indies. This answer will be instead of the oration itself;
but it is already too long, and must be much longer to be
worthy of the theme. I shall probably not send it, after all ;
but I feel an irremissible duty to bear my testimony once more,
before I go hence, against slavery. To select the time, the
place, and the manner is a subject of great consideration, and
must be neither precipitated nor too long delayed. My ideas
are yet crude, indigested, and confused. I will begin to collect
and assert them in this letter, with the firm resolve to persevere
in the pursuit. —
29th. I went into Boston, and attended the stated monthly
meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society; it was at
noon. Before going to it, I paid a morning visit to Mr. and
Mrs. Abbott Lawrence, whom I found injthe bustle of packing
up for a_voy_ageto England^ They, are to embark in the.-Steamer
Acadia, to sail next Saturday. The voyage is for his health ;

MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [July,
and he says he proposes to return next October. While there,
he intends to sound the Peel Ministers about a reciprocity
treaty, and to consult with Edward Everett ; but he is not
reconciled to the projects or present policy of Daniel Webster,
and he thinks Wefister's great device of bringing Tyler and his
gang here, as bobs to his Bunker Hill Monument kite; a very
small concern.
July 3d. Mr. Caleb Cushing, Commissioner Plenipotentiary
to China, and Joseph Vance, heretofore a member of Congress
from the State of Ohio, and afterwards Governor of that State,
paid me a morning visit before breakfast, and subsequently the
Rev. Samuel K. Lothrop, with Mr. Ezekiel Bacon, of Utica,
New York. Cushing's visit would have surprised me, but that
he had told my son last Friday that he intended to make it.
He has not made his court to Captain Tyler in vain. His ob
sequiousness and sacrifice of principle lost him the favor of
his constituents, who repudiated him at the recent elections;
but Mr. Tyler had more precious favors in his gift, and has lav
ished them in profusion upon Cushing. He is to embark in a
few days for Alexandria, in Egypt, to proceed thence overland
to Bombay, where he is to find the steamer Missouri, which is
to take him to Canton.
Mr. Vance has within a few years experienced also the fickle
ness of popular favor. He was originally a poor laborer, but
rose by his eloquence to Congress and to the Government of
the State, and then was dropped into his primitive obscurity.
Corwin is such another, with more talent, but not with deeper
root. Ezekiel Bacon can tell much the same tale. He was
a member of Congress from Berkshire, Massachusetts, at the
time of Jefferson's Embargo; afterwards moved into' the State
of New York, and engaged deeply in her politics, but has been
many years an invalid, retired altogether from public life, and
writing verses in a sick-chamber at Utica. My correspondence
with him began in 1808, and I have several letters from him,
with enclosed poetry, within the last year. I had not seen him
since I went to Russia, and did not know him, even when named
to me by Mr. Lothrop, till the course of conversation disclosed
who he was.

I843-] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 389
Boston, 4th. — My only surviving son, Charles Francis, de
livered the annual Boston City Oration on the Anniversary of
Independence, an incident of the most intense interest to me,
it being this day fifty years since I performed the same service
to the town. At half-past eight this morning we left my gate,
and went into Boston, alighting at the City Hall, in School
Street, where we found the Mayor of the city, Martin Brimmer,
and the Aldermen, Common Council, with the other city offi
cers, were assembling for a procession. President Quincy and
Captain John Percival were among the persons whom I met
there. Soon after ten the procession moved, escorted by two
military companies, to Faneuil Hall, where, for the first time,
this celebration was held. It has usually been at the Old
South Church, and was there in 1793, when I performed. The
order of performances this day was — 1. Music. 2. An ode by a
select choir of pupils of the public schools, under the direction
of Lowell Mason. 3. Prayer by the Rev. Mr. Hague. 4. Se
lections from the Scriptures, by the Rev. Mr. Gray. 5. Ode,
written by Mrs. L. H. Sigourney. 6. Oration, by Charles Fran
cis Adams. 7. Prayer, by the Rev. Mr. Gray. 8. Hymn, to the
tune of God Save the King. 9. Benediction, by Mr. Hague.
The oration occupied one hour and a quarter in the delivery,
and was received with great, repeated, and long-continued ap
plause. The hall was crowded to its utmost capacity with a
very respectable and highly intelligent auditory. There was
a station assigned in the procession to the members of the
Massachusetts delegation in Congress, in which I walked with
Robert C. Winthrop. Neither Governor Morton nor any mem
ber of his Council was present. About a quarter-past one the
ceremonies were all over. ~~ I
The last time I had been in Boston on the 4th of July was |
in 1809. I went up the hill at sunset, witnessed the fire
works on the Common of Boston. No language can express
the agitation of my feelings and the remembrances of this
day. _£:
6th. At ten o'clock I left home, with my son's wife and her
son John Quincy. We went into Boston^jind dined at Dr.
Frothingham's, meeting there her father, Mr. Peter Chardon

390 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [July,
Brooks.1 Immediately after dinner we proceeded to the depot
of the Western Railroad, where, after taking leave of Charles,
who had just come in from Cambridge, we started in the cars
at half-past three. The weather was fine, clear sunshine, yet
comfortably cool. We passed through the towns of Natick,
Southborough, Westborough, Worcester, Brookfield, Charlton,
and several others which I neglected to ascertain, and at a
quarter-before nine landed at Warriner's United States Hotel,
in Springfield, ninety miles from Boston. Among our travel
ling companions were the Rev. Alexander Young, minister of
the New South Church, Boston, going by the way of Hartford
and New Haven to preach two Sundays at New York, Mr.
and Mrs. Joseph Grinnell, of New Bedford, and Mr. Henry Sar
gent, going to visit his son, settled at Newburgh, opposite to
Fishkill Landing, on Hudson River. The season is delightful
— the face of the country like the garden of Eden. It is the
season of haymaking, and throughout our way the mower with
his scythe, the cocking of the grass, or the spreading it from
cock to dry, followed in alternate succession, and the atmos
phere was charged only with varieties of fragrance. Fields of
Indian corn, rye, potatoes, and oats, interchangeably with pas
tures covered with grazing cattle, neat and comfortable houses,
and kitchen-gardens, and orchards laden with ripening fruit,
attested a genial climate, a fruitful season, and a region of peace,
plenty, and contentment. As the cars flew along from Boston,
till we passed through Natick, the contrast of the seasons
crowded upon my observation,, between the present aspect of
the country and that which I witnessed last November, when
I went to deliver the lecture, with the ice-glazed road to Mr.
Wilson's house,2 and the falling snow of the next morning, as I
returned to Boston. At Springfield we took our lodgings for
the night at Jeremy Warriner's United States Hotel — one of
1 This trip was originally devised for the benefit of Mrs. C. F. Adams, then out
of health, by her father, Mr. Brooks. It was meant for a purely private journey.
Mr. Adams was asked to join it because he had never seen the Falls of Niagara,
and he readily consented, without an idea that it would be by that means converted
by the public feeling into an ovation.
2 Henry Wilson, since Vice-President of the United States.

I843-] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 39 T
the most elegant houses of public entertainment that I ever
visited. Springfield, 7th. — Mr. Young departed at seven this morn
ing, in a steamer for Hartford. Mr. Sargent disappeared in
another direction for Hudson's River. I rose with the sun, and
wrote in my bed-chamber till breakfast-time at eight, having
no time to examine a narrative of an expedition to the Oregon"
Territory in 1835, 36, and 37, by Dr. Samuel Parker, or the life
of the Rev. Samuel Haynes, a mulatto minister of the gospel,
born in 1753, and deceased in 1833, of whom I had never heard
before, but who was many years eminent as a preacher in Con
necticut and the western part of the State of New York — books
which I found on the table at which I wrote.
After breakfast, Colonel Howard and Mr. Ashmun called to
see us, and accompanied Mr. Brooks and myself, with John
Quincy, to the arsenal and the armory. At the arsenal we saw
thirty thousand stands of arms^and were told that there were
one hundred ancThtty thousand ready for use in case of need.
At the armorjHSIajoT'RTprey went round with us, and we saw
the various processes" of making the gun-barrels and the black
walnut gun-stocks. I had seen these processes in 1828, but
they are constantly making improvements in the manipulation""
of the musketry. They are now substituting the percussion-
lock and cap for the flint-lock and pan ; but Major Ripley told
me that unless an appropriation should be very shortly made
to repair, or rather to rebuild, the house over the water-fall,
in which they make the gun-barrels and stocks, he apprehends
it will crumble into ruin, and carry the workmen employed
with it.
On our return to Warriner's we had a visit from Mr. William
B. Calhoun, and Mrs. Grinnell was visited by her two sisters,
Mrs. Dalton and Mrs. Bentley. We had a magnificent colla
tion dinner, and at one o'clock rode to the depot and resumed.
our seats in the railroad-cars. Mr. and Mrs. Grinnell were still
with us to Pittsfield, fifty-four miles through a country contrast
ing with that through which we had passed yesterday— -ajwjlcL
region of dark forests and stupendous^ rocks, through many of
which deep cuts and inclined planes have been made for the

392 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [July,
Western Railroad, which has cost ten millions of dollars. At
Pittsfield we quitted the railroad, and bid farewell to Mr. and
Mrs. Grinnell, and our new acquaintance, Mr. Porter, of Lee,
a member of Governor Marcus Morton's Council. We took
a carriage, and came in two hours to Lebanon Springs, over
a heavy, mountainous road. Here we are to pass three or four
days for the sake of the baths, said to be salubrious. We
expected to have met here my old class-mate Judge Samuel
Putnam, and Mr. Caleb Loring, of Boston, but were dis
appointed. They went away this morning. Mr. Charles G.
Loring is here, with his wife, a daughter of Judge Putnam,
and a son and daughter.
Lebanon, 8th. — The Columbian Hall at the Lebanon Springs,
the house at which we have taken our lodgings, is an hotel kept
by Hull and Bentley, with about one hundred and twenty bed
chambers, in four low stories of a wooden mansion, with a
wide piazza round three sides of the house, on the second and
third stories ; a large dining-hall on the ground-floor, with a
reading- and bar-room, over which, ascending a flight of steps,
there is also a large drawing-room.
The house is built on the eastern side of a high and steep hill,
in the form of a half rectangle, the short side of which fronts the
street, and the long side a very extensive valley between two
ranges of lofty mountains, chiefly covered with oak, chestnut,
beech, birch, black walnut, and especially sugar-maple trees,
interspersed with willows and sycamores of respectable size
and stature, but none of them very large or tall. The sumach
and locust are also very common among them.
On rising this morning and walking round the piazza, I was
much struck by the successive lights and shades of the sun,
rising in a crystal clear sky, gilding the tops of the mountains
successively in proportion to their respective elevations, piercing
through interstitial passages between the hills into parts of
the valley, and casting long dark shades of solitary trees in
one direction before them. For three-quarters of an hour the
peaks of the mountains were taking one after another the
golden tinge, before the sun became visible from the piazza on
which I was walking and listening to the morning concert of

I843-] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS.

393

the birds. This was very little varied by the spring and yellow
birds, with the kingbird, wren, swallow, and robin, none but
what I hear at Quincy, and no sound either of bobalink or
quail. I wrote till breakfast-time at eight, and soon after, with all
our party, a Mr. Aymer and two ladies from New York, and
Edward, a son of Patrick Johnson, we rode in two carriages
up the hills to a tower, about fifty feet high, on the loftiest
summit of this neighborhood, whence we had a range of pros
pect round the compass, with a radius of fifty miles. The line
between the States of New York and Massachusetts is on the
road from Lebanon to the tower, which is in Berkshire County,
and whence parts of the States of Massachusetts, New Hamp
shire, Vermont, and New York are visible at one view. Re
turning from the tower at noon, I took a bath. Water at 900 ;
not warm.
After dinner I had a visit from Mr. Dunham and Mr. Hay-,
den, of Pittsfield, to invite me there; but I declined. Mr. Dun
ham brought with him his daughter Helen Maria's album for me
to write my name in it. We next rode, taking with us a small
boy, a son of Mrs. Crowninshield, to the village of the Shakers,
and visited a man named John Mantle, and a woman, living
in two rooms of one house, where they keep a small shop of
Shakerism at unconscionable prices. We saw also their dairy
and cheeses, and cow-yard, with two women milking twenty-
five cows. Returned, and after tea spent the evening on the
piazza, in converse with a cluster of strangers.
Niagara Falls, 24th. — This morning, after breakfast, Gen
eral Porter, with his nephew and namesake, the Judge's son,
took me, with Mr. Brooks and Mr. Grinnell, to a farm-house
and farm, owned by him, on the brink of the river, two miles
above the Falls, and to Schlosser, a mile or more higher up,
and in 1837 the scene of that memorable transaction, the seiz
ure and destruction, by a party from the British side of the
river, of the steamboat Caroline, an incident which brought us
nearer to a British border and civil war than any other since
the Peace of Ghent. At Schlosser there is only a single house,
but a landing-place at the river's edge. In the middle of the

394

MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [July,

river, Navy Island, belonging to the British, and Grand Island,
to the United States and part of the State of New York, both
covered with forests of primeval trees, are so narrowly sepa
rated by the channel of the river that they seem at Schlosser
to be one continuous island, and just below them commence
the rapids rushing to the Falls, which render the river impass
able in boats. There is no trace of the tread of hostile feet
remaining, and nothing noticeable on the spot save its reminis
cences. After dinner, with all our party, we again visited the Falls
upon Goat or Iris Island. There is a kitchen- and fruit-garden
there, through which I passed with General Porter, and I went
to the top of the tower, built by General Porter, at a point on
the island, whence the view of the Falls is, on this side the
river, most grand and picturesque.
Returning again to the Cataract House, several visitors at the
Falls were introduced to me, and among them Mr. Meyer, minis
ter of a Lutheran Church at Philadelphia, and his two daughters.
I received a written invitation from Syracuse to stop and visit
the people there. Professor Mitchel, of Cincinnati, came with
two resolutions from the Astronomical Society of that place,
inviting me to lay the corner-stone of an observatory which
they are about to erect there, and with two letters from Judge
Burnet and Mr. Pendleton, urging me to accept the invitation.
I asked Mr. Mitchel for a short interval of time to make up
my mind upon a proposal so strange to me, and so flattering
that I scarcely dare to think of it with composure.
25th. This morning I delivered to Professor Mitchel my
answer to the resolutions of the Cincinnati Astronomical So
ciety of the 1 8th instant, inviting me to lay the corner-stone of
the Observatory which they propose to erect, and to deliver an
oration on the occasion. I have accepted the invitation, and
promised to perform the duty, if in my power, on some day in
the month of November next, to suit the convenience of the
Society. This is a rash promise, and, in faithfully analyzing
my motives for making it, I wish I could find them pure from all
alloy of vanity and self-glorification. It is an arduous, hazard
ous, and expensive undertaking, the successful performance of

1S43 ] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 305
which is more than problematical, and of the event of which it
is impossible for me to foresee anything but disappointment.
Yet there is a motive pure and elevated, and a purpose benevo
lent and generous, at least, mingling with the impulses which in
this case I obey, and upon which I may without irreverence
invoke the blessing of Heaven, as I do, for fortitude, energy,
and perseverance to accomplish what I have promised. Mr.
Mitchel, after receiving my answer, took his departure to return
to Cincinnati.
Mr. Millard Fillmore and Mr. Love, heretofore members of
Congress, came this day, deputed from the city of Buffalo to
invite me to visit that place, and Mr. Fillmore delivered to me
a similar written invitation signed by thirteen citizens of Syra
cuse. I went this morning with General Porter to Goat Island,
to bespeak a warm bath at the bathing-house just above the
single-sheeted fall from which it borrows the stream that sup
plies the bath. They had then no heated water, but promised
to have some ready for me this evening. I then walked about
an hour before breakfast with the General, to re-inspect all the
points from which the cascades and the rapids are seen to the
best advantage. The sky was unusually clear, the sun shining
in cloudless splendor, and the snowy foam of the spray re
flected the burning beams in a constantly-shifting rainbow,
adding exquisite beauty to the awful grandeur of the falling
flood. After breakfast, General Porter, with Mr. Brooks, Mr. and
Mrs. Grinnell, Mrs. Charles and her son, descended the steps
to the ferry, and crossed the river in a small ferry-boat over
a placid and gentle stream, scarcely conscious of the falling
tempest so close above them. The ascent on the western side
of the river, though steep and rocky, is practicable; and we
found at' the landing two carriages waiting for us, in which we
ascended the heights, and rode first to view the scene of the
action at Lundy's Lane in the last war with Great Britain. We
then went to the Clifton House, and ordered dinner. Then,
leaving the ladies there, we proceeded to the plains of Chip
pewa, where General Porter explained to us the movements on
the battle-ground at that place on the 25th of July, 18 14 — of

396 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [July,
which day this is the anniversary. Returning, we stopped and
saw the phenomenon of the burning spring, and I drank a tum
bler of its cool sulphuric water. Dined at the Clifton House ;
visited the table rock and the cavern under it. Returned over
the ferry. Warm bath. Evening party at General Porter's.
26th. The train of cars leaves the Falls for Buffalo at two p.m.
But the committee from that city had concluded to take me up
from Schlosser in the steamer Bunker Hill. General Porter
took me in his carriage to Schlosser, and there all our party
met precisely at noon — the time which had been fixed. The
committee from Buffalo, with a numerous company of ladies
and gentlemen, who had taken this opportunity for an excur
sion, cordially greeted me and all our party. Here General
Porter took leave of me, declining, from indisposition, the
earnest invitation of the citizens of Utica to accompany me
thither. There was another steamer, the Cleveland, with a
company of ladies and gentlemen equally numerous, on a sep
arate excursion, but joining us, as in procession. The passage
from Schlosser to Buffalo occupied four hours, the banks of
the river on both sides presenting a succession of beautiful
landscapes. Some of us landed on Grand Island and inspected
the pyramid announcing in Hebrew and in English the city
of Ararat, founded. by Mordecai M. Noah. We dined in the
steamer, a cold-water dinner, and at four o'clock entered in beau
tiful style the harbor of Buffalo, at the entrance of Lake Erie.
We were received by shouting multitudes at the landing. I
was conducted in an open barouche to a stage at the Park, re
ceived a complimentary address from Mr. Fillmore, which was
answered by me, addressing the people. After this I rode
round the city with Mr. Fillmore and the Mayor, then to the
American Hotel, and shook hands with some hundreds of
men and women. Firemen's torchlight procession. Thunder-
shower, and evening party.
Buffalo, 27th. — The splendid evening party and supper at
Buffalo last evening was at the house of General ,
who had invited us the day before at the Niagara Falls. The
editor of a newspaper at Buffalo, who had been in the Park
when I answered the address of Mr. Fillmore, was so distant

1843.] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS.

397

from me that he could not hear me, and requested me to write
out my speech — which was impossible. He then offered to
come at five o'clock this morning and take it down at my dic
tation — to which I agreed. He came accordingly precisely at
five, and wrote by my dictation till half-past seven. It was a
full report of my speech, as correct as my memory could repeat
what I said.
Before breakfast I received a note from Frederick Whittle
sey, Thomas Kempshall, and Graham H. Chapin, all three
heretofore members at different times of the House of Repre
sentatives of the United States, requesting an interview with
me. They came as a deputation from the citizens of Rochester
to invite me to visit that city; which invitation I accepted.
At half-past eight a.m. we left Buffalo in the cars, thirty-five
miles to Batavia. Here they stopped to take in wood and
water. Here a crowd was assembled, with Phineas L. Tracy,
heretofore a member of Congress, who introduced me to them.
A platform in front of the door broke down from the weight of
the pressure upon it, and one gentleman, who had accompanied
us from Buffalo, was so much hurt that he was obliged to leave
us. I was stepping from the platform into the house when the
crash happened, and just escaped falling through. From Ba
tavia to Rochester is thirty-two miles. We arrived at Roches
ter between two and three, and found guns firing, bells ringing,
and an immense crowd of people shouting. The first person
whom I saw before alighting from the cars was Francis Gran
ger, who had come in deputation from Canandaigua to invite
me to stop a day there; and he brought me a kind and friendly
invitation from Mr. John Greig', late member of Congress,
chosen to supply Granger's place when he was appointed
Postmaster-General, and who, when Granger retired from the
Tyler Cabinet, resigned, to bring him again into the House.
I consented to. stop and dine to-morrow with Mr. Greig at Can
andaigua, to have an interview and hand-shaking with the in
habitants, and then proceed on to Auburn in the evening.
I remained for this day at Rochester. We dined at the Eagle
Hotel. After dinner, rode round the city and to the cemetery
of Mount Hope — a copy from that of Mount Auburn, superior

398 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [July,
to the original. At six p.m. was the public meeting. The
Mayor, Isaac Mills; addressed me from a stage in front of a
public building. I answered him by a speech, and Granger,
being called out, made a short one. Then came the shaking of
hands. In the evening I received the ladies at the Eagle Hotel,
and made them a short speech. The firemen's torchlight pro
cession closed the day.
Rochester, 28th. — I had about two hours this morning to
retrieve one day of arrears, which, since I left Quebec, have
crept upon my diary in spite of every possible exertion. The
lapse of unrecorded time constantly reminds me of that irresist
ible current which hurries down and dashes over the cataracts
of Niagara. So am I hurried down the stream of time, and
day after day turns over the precipice and is lost. We break
fasted at the hotel, and, as we were about passing into the cars,
Mr. Isaac Mills, the Mayor of Rochester, sent to our ladies a
basket of delicious black-heart and white-heart cherries, per
fectly ripe, and of a size such as I have not seen for many years.
Mr. Granger and Mr. Jared Wilson accompanied us to Canan-
daigua, whence they had been sent as a deputation to meet us.
At the entrance of the town we met a cavalcade in military
uniform, with a band of music, and numerous carriages, all of
which united in a procession of a full mile, with bells ringing
and a firing of cannon, which left me in amazement to enquire
of myself what all this was for. The procession, however, led
me to the Brick Church, where Mr. Francis Granger introduced
me to all the beauty and fashion of Canandaigua, in a highly
complimentary address, which I answered as best I could, in a
speech full of inanity and gratitude, shamefaced and awkward,
as I must always be in answering compliments to myself.
After the speeches and shaking hands with all the men and
women introduced to me in the church, I rode with Mr. Francis
Granger, whose brother, John A. Granger, was the Marshal of
the day, to the house of his mother, with whom he resides, and
where I found his daughter. Thence I went to the splendid
mansion of Mr. John Greig — a princely palace — where I dined
with a select party of his friends. He has a handsome library,
and fine collections of paintings, engravings, ancient coins,

I843-] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 390
and shells — among the rest, a volume of Italian engravings,
showing the history of the art of painting, from Cimabue to
Raphael ; also a volume of fancy caricature portraits, long before
Hogarth. We proceeded in the cars to Auburn, accompanied
by the ex-Governor William H. Seward, and another deputy
from Auburn, with an invitation to me to stop there. At Ge
neva and several other places on the road, crowds were collected
to shake hands with me, to hear me speak a few words, and
shout me onward. We arrived at Auburn between nine and
ten at night, and by the torchlight procession of the firemen I
was transported to Governor W. H. Seward's house for the
night. Auburn, 29th. — At nine o'clock we went to the Presbyterian
church, where Mr. Seward addressed and introduced me to
the people ; and I answered in a speech of about half an
hour. Christopher Morgan, a member of the Twenty-Sixth
and Twenty-Seventh Congresses, had come from Aurora to meet
me and invite me there ; but I could not go. He came on with
me to Syracuse, as did Mr. Seward and others of the Auburn
committee, and the whole military company of the Auburn
Guards. The distance from Auburn to Syracuse is twenty-six
miles, which we traversed in one hour and five minutes. Rep
etition of address, answer, and shaking of hands, a public din
ner with cold water, and a speech and toast from Governor
Seward, briefly answered by me. Here I met the Rev. J. P.
Boyd Storer. Ride after dinner to the Salt Spring and Salt
Works ; address and answer there. At six returned to the cars ;
reached Utica at ten in the evening; torchlight to Alexander!
B. Johnson's.
Utica, 30th. — Mr. Ezekiel Bacon called on me early this
morning. Though chairman of the committee of arrange
ments for my reception at Utica, such was the confusion in the
crowd and darkness of last evening that he missed of meeting
me. I was taken to a carriage and brought to Mr. Johnson's
house through a dense mass of population, I know not how
or by whom. They brought me by the torchlight procession
of firemen. From the porch of Mr. Johnson's house I thanked
them for their kindness, and said I hoped and trusted that we

400 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [August,
should all devote this day to the worship and service of Al
mighty God, and that to-morrow I should have the happiness
of meeting again my fellow-citizens face to face, when I should
endeavor to find words to thank them for their kindness.
August ist. I received yesterday a letter from David Thomp
son, Benjamin Anderson, and Tucker Woodson, a committee
appointed by the colored citizens of Utica to wait on me and
return their thanks for my efforts in protecting the right of pe
tition and promoting the abolition of slavery, and proposing to
come, if it would be agreeable to me, in the evening.
I accordingly received them about eight o'clock, and one of
them addressed me in a short but formal speech, modest and
well delivered. I answered them with equal brevity, thank
ing them for their kind attentions to me, assuring them that I
had no claim to gratitude from them for services in which
I had performed no more than my indispensable (duty ;) that I
should still and ever be happy to serve them to the utmost
extent of my power, and commend them to the protection of
our common Father and Creator.
My first visit this morning, immediately after breakfast, was to
the Female Seminary, where I was introduced to the assembled
teachers and pupils, and addressed in behalf of the trustees of that
institution by Mr. Spencer, in a manner so affecting that it made
a child of me. It consisted chiefly of extracts which he read from
my mother's published letters of 19th August, 1774, to my father,
and of June, 1778, to me. I actually sobbed as he read, utterly
unable to suppress my emotion. Oh, my mother! Is there any
thing on earth so affecting to me as thy name ? so precious as
thy instructions to my childhood, so dear as the memory of thy
life? I answered I know not what. My thoughts were all
upon my mother ; my heart was too full for my head to think,
and my presence of mind was gone. At the close of his ad
dress, Mr. Spencer presented to me, at the request of the ladies,
twelve numbers of a monthly publication, from August, 1842,
to July, 1843, called " The Young Ladies' Miscellany," the origi
nal productions of the Utica Female Academy.
At ten o'clock the reception took place, on a stage erected in
front of the Bleeker House, where Mr. Bacon addressed and

1843.] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 40I
welcomed me in the name of the citizens of Utica. I answered
him in a speech of about half an hour, sufficiently cheered for
my hopes or wishes, but of mortifying inanity to myself. The
shaking of some hundred hands then followed, and on my way
returning to Mr. Johnson's I stopped, and four daguerreotype
likenesses of my head were taken, two of them jointly with
the head of Mr. Bacon — all hideous. Then a visit to the dwarf
C. F. Stratton, called General Tom Thumb, eleven years old,
twenty-five inches high, weighing fifteen pounds, dressed in
military uniform, mimicking Napoleon.
2d. From Utica to Schenectady the distance is seventy-seven
miles, and from Schenectady to Albany sixteen. At Herkimer;
fourteen miles, at Little Falls, twenty-two, from Utica, and at
every place in the valley of the Mohawk where the cars stopped
five minutes for wood and water, crowds of people were assem
bled, received me with three cheers, and manifested a desire to
see and hear me — with which I complied by descending from
the cars, shaking hands with as many of them as could reach
me, and addressing them till the passing bell called me back to
my seat.
At Little Falls I was addressed and welcomed by Arphaxad
Loomis, an ex-member of the Twenty-Sixth Congress, whom I
did not recognize till after I had answered. In the valley of
the Mohawk we saw the fortress dwelling-house of Sir William
Johnson, and that of the Indian chief Brant, said to be his son.
About an hour before we reached Schenectady, the wind raised
by the rapid motion of the car lodged on the ball of my left
eye, beneath the under lid, a small sharp-angled pebble, of the
entrance of which I was not conscious when it happened, but
which fretted the eye to torture, produced considerable inflam
mation, and made it impossible for me to look in the face of
those whom I was to address. A sumptuous dinner had been
prepared for us at Schenectady. I was in anguish unutterable.
I retired to a private chamber, and washed the eye in cold water,
without relief. Dr. Duane, who had observed my suffering,
followed me to the chamber, examined the eye, discovered the
offensive pebble, wiped it out with the corner of a towel, and I
was well.
VOL. xi. — 26

402 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY -ADAMS. [August,
Mr. De Graff, a member of former Congresses, presided at the
cold-water dinner. After dinner an address of welcome, from
the porch of a dwelling-house, was answered by me as the mo
ment inspired. Mr. Daniel D. Barnard, and two other gentle
men from Albany, met us at Schenectady, were at the dinner,
and accompanied us to their home. There we were received
after sunset with firing of cannon, ringing of bells, a procession,
and cavalcade of butchers, and many thousand citizens ; and,
after announcing from the steps of the Capitol that I would
meet them at ten to-morrow morning, I came with Mr. Barnard
to his house and received an evening serenade.
3d. At ten o'clock this morning I met again the people of
Albany, in company with Mr. Barnard, who addressed and wel
comed me, in their name, from the stoop of Mr. Gregory's
house facing the Capitol Park. There was no public building
in the city capable of containing a tithe of the assembled mul
titude. I answered Mr. Barnard's address by a speech of about
half an hour, well received, and of which the only fault I heard
found was that it was too short. To myself it was but the
crowning proof how unfit I am for such occasions, and a lesson
at once of profound gratitude and humility.
When the shouts that followed its close had subsided, notice
was given to the citizens that I would repair to the Governor's
chamber in the Capitol and there shake hands with any one
who would desire it. About five hundred of them, perhaps
one-tenth of the whole number, went through this ceremony;
after which there was a separate presentation to some two hun
dred ladies, assembled in the Senate-chamber, and to whom I
also made a grave, and not a flattering, speech. After this, I
was conducted by the committee of arrangements and viewed
the public offices of the State Government, and then, in another
building, those of the city. Some of the most ancient archives
of the State, in the Low Dutch language, were exhibited to me.
Among the persons who now accompanied me was Mr.
Flagg, heretofore the Comptroller of the State. Mr. Bouck,
the son of the present Governor, was among the individuals
introduced to me last evening, and again this morning. He
presented to me his father's compliments, with his regret that

1843.] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS.

4Qi

he had been obliged to leave the city upon private business
yesterday morning. Governor Marcy was among those who
met and greeted me, as was Mr. Edwin Croswell, the somewhat
celebrated editor of the Albany Argus. Mr. Van Buren himself I
is at the Saratoga Springs, as we were informed by Mr. Isaac
C. Bates, who came from thence last evening and proceeded
on his journey homeward this morning. —
After a retirement of two hours to my chamber at Mr. Bar
nard's for repose, I met at his table a party of about twenty
of his friends, among whom were the Mayor of the city, and
Mr. Lansing, General Rufus King, a son of Charles King,.
Doctor Potter, the rector of the Episcopal church at which.
Mr. Barnard worships, and others, strangers, whose names I
could not retain. ^\
After dinner we visited the mansion-house of the Patroon>.
the late Stephen Van Rensselaer, whose eldest son, of the same-
name, resides there. He is now absent; but his wife, and her
brother-in-law and sister, Mr. and Mrs. Bayard, received and
treated us with great kindness. The house is about two-
miles out of the city ; garden and green-house are elegant and.
comfortable. We returned to Albany, and the evening closed.
with a party of ladies and gentlemen, given by Mr. Barnard,
and from which, by a refinement of courtesy to me, the com
pany retired at an early hour.
4th. At half-past six this morning, Mr. Barnard took me im
his carriage to the landing-place in the city of Albany, whence
the steamboat crosses the river Hudson, to take the cars of the
Great Western Railroad to Boston. He crossed the river withi
me, and took leave of me at the cars. Mr. George N. Briggs had
come deputed with an invitation to me from the inhabitants of
Pittsfield, and I had received a written invitation from Mr. Ed
ward A. Newton to take rooms, during my visit to Pittsfield,
at his house. Mr. Briggs and another of the deputies accom
panied me. The distance from Albany to Boston, traversed by
the Western Railroad, is two hundred miles. Pittsfield is fifty-
two miles, and Springfield one hundred, from Albany. The
cars reached Pittsfield at ten o'clock in the morning. The road
from Albany was the same we had travelled on the 1 ith of last

404 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [August,
month, as far as Canaan, where we then came from the Lebanon
Springs, and returned to the train we had parted from, four
days before, at Pittsfield. We again came through the village
of Kinderhook, and again passed through the subterranean
tunnel. We passed in sight of Lebanon, which I remembered
with pleasure, and the spot was pointed out to me of the line
which separates from each other the States of New York and
Massachusetts. Mr. Newton's carriage was at the depot in Pittsfield, and I
was taken to his house. It was immediately crowded with
visitors, till the citizens were informed that I would meet and
exchange salutations with them at the Presbyterian church, at
noon. In the mean time the Berkshire County Medical Asso
ciation, casually assembled here upon business of their own;
came with their president at their head — his Honor Henry H.
Childs, Lieutenant-Governor of this Commonwealth, who intro.
duced them all to me, perhaps to the number of one hundred
and twenty, and with them all I cordially shook hands. I found
myself suddenly, though not unexpectedly, unwell, and retired
for an hour of repose to a bed-chamber.
Mr. Newton has among his pictures a portrait of my father,
upon which he asked my opinion. It was a copy by his brother,
an eminent painter, who died in England three or four years
since, of one of Stuart's portraits of my father.
At noon, a procession was formed to the church, and there
Mr. Briggs addressed and welcomed me in a highly compli
mentary speech, which I answered with whatever of spirit was
left me, mortified, exhausted, and ashamed. I then shook hands
in the church with all the men and women who presented
themselves ; after which we proceeded to the public house and
partook of a plentiful cold-water dinner. Among the guests
to this were Mr. Henry Shaw, of Lanesborough, and Josiah
Quincy, Jr., now abiding at Lenox. Lieutenant-Governor Childs
presided, and after dinner there was a quantum sufficit of toasts,
of sentiments, and of flabby speeches. They were succeeded
by a ride of eight or ten of the party to the Female Academy,
where we were met by a procession of the lady teachers and
pupils. An address, a speech, and a song by the young ladies.

I843-] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 405
At six p.m. we took the cars for Springfield, and arrived there
after nine.
Springfield, 5th. — I was very much indisposed all night,
and rose this morning worn out and exhausted. Mr. William
B. Calhoun had come in last evening to arrange the reception
which had been projected for me at Springfield. But the people
had expected my arrival this morning, and by coming prema
turely, Calhoun said, I had spoiled all the fun. The sight of
me is no novelty at Springfield. They have seen me come and
go time after time without exciting any interest or emotion. I
thought a reception here would be flat and unprofitable, and
concluded to make the best of my way home by taking the
morning cars and escaping from another repetition of a cere
mony already satiated with repetitions. Mr. Calhoun, after
urging me, without importunity, to stay, insisted, if I would go,
upon accompanying me as far as Worcester. Mr. Briggs and
Mr. Pomeroy took leave of me, and, at half-past six, departed
in the morning cars upon their return to Pittsfield, immediately
after which I took my seat in the train for Boston, and, among
many other fellow-passengers, all strangers, met my old pupil,
subsequent protege, and now alienated friend, Alexander H.
Everett, a political outcast, the wreck of his own ill-woven am
bition and the envious and vindictive craftiness of another man,
more cunning and unprincipled than himself. At Worcester
Mr. Calhoun took leave of me to return home, and I closed
my journey alone.
Quincy, 7th. — Lewis Tappan was here with his wife and two
daughters, but the ladies declined alighting from his carriage,
and he stayed with me but a few minutes. The day after he
was here, on the 31st of last May, he embarked for England,
and has just now returned. He attended the second World's
Convention, held at London from the 18th to the 22d of June,
and gave me a brief and rapid summary of their proceedings.
He said he had a letter to me from Thomas Clarkson, and
sundry papers containing full and detailed reports of the pro
ceedings of the Convention. But they were at Brookline, and
he would send them to me. He was to go for New York this
afternoon. He said he had told Lord Aberdeen of my distrust

406 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [August,
of the British Government on the subject of slavery, and par
ticularly on the surrender of fugitive slaves. He said Lord
Aberdeen was startled at the suggestion, and utterly disclaimed
all intention of suffering the tenth article of the Ashburton
Treaty to be made the instrument of reclaiming slaves.
This article is a pattern example of diplomatic swindling.
There is hope that its purpose may be defeated by the alarm
of the English abolitionists, and their remonstrances against it,
before the enactment of it by Parliament as English law. A
grosser fraud was never practised upon nations than was in
tended by that article. The apologies for it by Lord Ashburton
and by the British Ministers are lame and prevaricating, and,
from the statements of Mr. Tappan, all my suspicions of the
duplicity of the British Ministers on the subject of Texas and
slavery are but too strongly confirmed. The policy of the
British Government is to cherish, sustain, and protect the insti
tutions of slavery in our Southern States and Texas, and their
task is to do it by humbugging the abolitionists in England into
the belief that they intend directly the reverse.
ioth. I received this morning by the mail the Bangor Courier
of the , containing my letter of 4th July last to Asa Walker,
Charles A. Stackpole, and F. M. Sabine. It is announced as a
letter from John Quincy Adams on slavery, with a statement
that it was read at the meeting on the 1st of August, without
one word of comment upon it. I have expected the publication
of this letter, and expect to be held to severe responsibility for
writing it. Before my lamp is burnt out, I am desirous that
my opinions concerning the great movement throughout the
civilized world for the abolition of slavery should be explicitly
avowed and declared. God grant that they may contribute to
the final consummation of that event! There are sundry errors
of the press and of the manuscript to be rectified, and to which
I must attend.
nth. I received this morning, forwarded from New York
by Lewis Tappan, a letter from Thomas Clarkson of 2d July,
1843, at Playford Hall, near Ipswich, Suffolk, in England, with
a printed prospectus for the publication of the proceedings of
the Anti-Slavery Convention held at London from the 13th to

1843-3 ™E TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 407
the 20th of June last, a printed address, signed by Thomas Clark
son, in behalf of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society,
dated 7th July, 1843, to Lord Aberdeen, and earnestly remon
strating against the annexation of Texas to the United States,
the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Reporter of 14th, 21st,
28th June, and 12th July, and the Morning Chronicle of 14th
July- These contain a full exposition of the proceedings of the
second World's Convention, at which no very conspicuous
person attended, excepting Lord Morpeth. His speech to the
Convention on taking the chair was firm, moderate, and discreet.
The resolution honorary to me which he offered, and which
was unanimously adopted, is an indication of personal respect
for my character, beyond the Atlantic, which ought to fill my
soul with humility and with fervent gratitude to God. These
events, occurring at the same period with the manifestation of
kindly feeling towards me from the people of the State of New
York, and with the invitation from Cincinnati to lay the corner
stone of their Observatory, seem temptations of prosperity too
great for frail human nature to resist, or to bear with impunity.
I pray for the calmness and sensibility suited to justice and to
the true estimate of worldly honors.
I received a letter from Mr. Andrews, the young lawyer from
Texas who visited me the day before he embarked with Mr.
Tappan for England. He is encouraged in the hope of ac
complishing, with the aid of British influence, the abolition
of slavery in Texas. But I perceive nothing, as yet, to relieve
the deep distrust, which I would fain discard if I could, of the
British ministerial policy with regard to slavery in Texas and
in our Southern States. Her interest is to sustain and cherish
slavery there, and there is too much reason to surmise that in
the conflict between policy and principle slavery will bear off
the palm.
1 2th. The Boston Courier of this morning republishes, from
the Bangor Courier, my letter of the 4th of July last to the
Bangor Committee for celebrating the anniversary of the
emancipation of slaves in the British West India Islands, with
all the errors of the Bangor paper, and several more. Not a

408 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [August,
word of comment upon the letter is in either of the papers. I
expected the publication of that letter, and wrote it for the
purpose of exhibiting in as brief a compass as possible my
principles, feelings, and opinions relating to the abolition of
slavery and the slave-trade throughout the world. I meant it
as a note of defiance to all the slave-holders, slave-breeders,
and slave-traders upon earth. As the experiment of summons
to the whole freedom of this Union in its own defence, I sent it
forth alone to try its fortune in the world, and made it pur
posely bold and startling, to rouse, if possible, both friend and
foe. The two publications without comment give no promise
of a rally for the support of freedom. As yet, there is no hos
tile notice of it abroad. It may remain altogether unnoticed
— which is the worst fate that can befall it ; for, if I can but
raise a controversy by it — that is, an adversary worthy of being
answered — it shall be, if my life and health will admit, a text
book for future enlargement and illustration for the whole
remnant of my toilsome days.
16th. On my return home from Canada, I found among the
newspapers on my table one with the title of Boston Investi
gator, devoted to the protection and development of infidel
principles, vol. xiii., No. 13, Wednesday, August 2d, 1843. It
had apparently been sent to me for a scurrilous article on the
second page, entitled "Another Specimen of Christian Criti
cism," being a knavish commentary upon the Rev. Joseph Em
erson's letter to me, and my answer, respecting the translation
of Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary, imputed to me, because
the title-page announces it as printed and published by J. Q.
Adams. The article now states that it was published in 1836,
at the Investigator office, and purports to be with additional
notes, both critical and argumentative, by Abner Kneeland.
This man was an avowed atheist and preacher of atheism, of
which his translation of Voltaire's dictionary was one of the
gospels. He was shortly after convicted upon an indictment
for blasphemy, imprisoned, and soon pardoned. His atheist
church was broken up ; but it seems his weekly atheist news
paper still continues. Two or three days since, I received an
octavo weekly journal, edited by G. Vale, at New York, 5th

1 843] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 409
August, third series, vol. i., No. 18, The Beacon, seventh year,
a coadjutor of the Boston Investigator in the propagandism of
the atheistic church. In this paper there is an article, headed
" Voltaire and J. Q. Adams," containing my letter of 17th June,
1843, to Mr. Emerson, with one from him to the editors of
the New York Observer, requesting them to publish it. The
correspondent of The Beacon extracts them from the Journal
of Commerce, without noticing the offensive fraud of palming
upon me the act of printing and publishing these excrements
of Voltaire, but with a malignant imputation of false pretences
in my remarks upon the base and filthy infidelity of Voltaire.
These periodical publications, The Investigator and The Bea
con, indicate the pertinacity with which this little atheistic
club pursue their will-of-the-wisp over the low swampy lands
of Christendom.
September 19th. I received a second letter from Mr. Gid
dings, with one of the same date (13th September) from him,
James M. Bloss, and Gaius N. St. John, as a committee of the
people of Ashtabula County, Ohio, inviting me to visit them
on my way to, or returning from, Cincinnati. This afternoon I
answered the invitation and the letter from Giddings ; but it left
me in the evening only the power to finish the page I had
begun yesterday of my discourse. In the distribution of my
time, it is distressing to be so exceedingly straitened for hours
to read, and I feel it cruelly now, when I want to compress a
history of astronomy into a discourse of three hours' delivery.
My task is to turn this transient gust of enthusiasm for the
science of astronomy at Cincinnati into a permanent and per
severing national pursuit, which may extend the bounds of
human knowledge and make my country instrumental in ele
vating the character and improving the condition of man upon
earth. The hand of God Himself has furnished me this oppor
tunity to do good. But, oh, how much will depend upon my
manner of performing that task ! and with what agony of soul
must I implore the aid of Almighty Wisdom for powers of
conception, energy of exertion, and unconquerable will, to ac
complish my design !
October nth. I received a letter from Mr. Henry Clay, with a

410 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [October,
kind and cordial invitation to Kentucky, and to Ashland, his
house, on the occasion of my approaching tour to Cincinnati ;
and the invitation is extended equally to Mrs. Adams. I re
ceive it with a full sense of the generous and friendly feeling
of Mr. Clay, but under equal embarrassment whether to ac
cept or to decline it. I had intended not to protract my journey
beyond the absolute necessity required for the performance of
the duty which I have engaged to perform, and that becomes
more formidable as I approach the day of performance. Even
now it brings me to the borders of distraction. There are
numerous reasons why I should not step beyond the State
of Ohio, and my deliberate judgment is that I should adhere
to that determination. Yet there. are considerations of great
weight prompting to my acceptance of the invitations to Ken
tucky, and especially that of Mr. Clay. I must wait for counsel.
24th. I was up till near one this morning, preparing for this
day, and, at half-past four, again up; but the time for action
came, and I was not half prepared. I wanted one week more.
At half-past seven, with my son and Mr. Brigham, I rode to
Dedham, and we were met by a cavalcade at Paul's Bridge,
who escorted us to the house of Mr. Sweet. There I received
and shook hands with perhaps two hundred men, and eight or
ten women, from many towns of the Congressional district.
At ten a procession was formed under the direction of Major
Thomas Adams, of Quincy, which wheeled round into the Rev.
Dr. Burgess's meeting-house, next door to Mr. Sweet's. Mr.
Copeland, Chairman of the Norfolk County Convention's Com
mittee, read the resolution of the Convention inviting me to
address the Whigs of the county. A song, tune of "Auld
Lang Syne," highly complimentary to me, was sung, and I de
livered my address, of two hours and a half, to a house as
crowded as it could hold — a miserable fragment of what it
should have been, cut short by my observing the clock close
upon the stroke of one. I gave Dr. Brewer, one of the editors
of the Atlas, the written part of my speech, and he promised a
report of the whole in the Atlas to-morrow. Charles and I,
with his son John Quincy, who had gone with us, returned
home to Quincy to dine.

I843-] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. ^ t
25th. Yesterday was one of the most beautiful days of
autumn, and was peculiarly favorable to the meeting at Ded
ham. The weather this morning was not promising, but, after
a hasty breakfast at a quarter-past five, I came in the carriage
alone to the depot of the Western Railroad, at Boston, which
I reached at ten minutes past six. Mr. Grinnell1 came soon,
and Mrs. Grinnell was with him. Mr. Stearns, of Springfield,
accosted me, and said he had come to Boston to escort me to
Springfield. At seven the cars started from the depot, and at
half-past nine we reached Worcester. Mr. Dalton, the husband
of Mrs. Grinnell's sister, came also with us. Mr. Morris, Judge
of Probate for the county of Hampden, joined us. After we
had passed Worcester, Mr. Joshua Leavitt came into the car in
which we had taken our seats, and left us at West Brookfield.
He had left Boston with us in the same train, but another car.
He read to me from a newspaper slip Wise's letter to the party
which gave a public dinner to Robert Mercer Taliaferro Hunter.
We reached Springfield soon after noon, and were visited by
Mr. William B. Calhoun, Mr. John B. Kirkham, and sundry
others, among whom a Mr. Bliss, of Wilbraham, a person rather
eccentric in his conversation, but very kind in his disposition,
who said he had come twelve miles from Wilbraham purposely
to see me. Mr. Morris was also warmly complimentary in his
expressions of respect for my character. We took lodging at
Warriner's Hotel, one of the best in the United States. He
gave me an excellent bed-chamber, with a fire. We dined at
two, and after dinner I was so worn down with weariness, three
almost sleepless nights, and anxiety, that my faculties seemed
benumbed, and I felt as if falling into a lethargy. I retired to
my chamber, threw myself on the bed, and had two hours of
refreshing sleep.
Colonel Howard had been one of the first persons to greet us
on our arrival. We took tea at his house. His family consists
of two daughters, both invalids, one particularly, in appearance
healthy and handsome, but threatened with blindness. At half-
past six we repaired to a meeting-house, and I read my lecture
' Joseph Grinnell, of New Bedford, who had been with him on a part of his
summer tour.

412 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [October,
on Society and Civilization, from a stage in front of the pulpit,
before a table with four wax candles. I read the manuscript
with great difficulty and frequent hesitation. A crowded house
and listening auditory — an hour and a half.
Albany, 27th. — In crossing the river last evening I felt as if
I was incrusted in a bed of snow. The sun had peered out just
before going down, but set in a cloud. We lodged at Congress
Hall, where I was surprised to meet Mr. Josiah Quincy, Jr.,
and a young Englishman named Crawford, who, two days
before, had been introduced to me at Dedham. The Lieuten
ant-Governor and Senate of New York are in session as the
Supreme Court of Error, and most of them were lodging at
Congress Hall, as was the United States District Judge Conk-
ling, whom I met in the entry, and who told me he had been
holding a Court.
When I awoke this morning I heard a rattling of hail against
the windows of my bed-chamber, which continued, and turned
to snow. I wrote till half-past six, when I sallied out to the
barber's shop, adjoining the Hall, and was shaved. As I
was putting on my coat, after coming out of the hands of the
shaver, another man, who was sitting on the anxious stool,
looking at me, says, "Who is that stranger?" Said I, "My
name is John Quincy Adams, if you ever heard it before."
" I thought so," said he, and, starting up with his face covered
with lather, came and shook hands with me, and said his name
was Weeks.
At seven o'clock we breakfasted, and at eight were driven in
a cab omnibus to the train of "Western cars, which were frozen
to the ground, so that it took half an hour of hard tugging and
scourging of horses to get them loose. Another half-hour was
lost in raising to its operative point the steam of the locomotive,
and the snow falling incessantly on the rail made it so slippery
that great care was necessary to guard the wheels from slipping
off the rail. The snow continued inexorably till we arrived at
Utica, nearly two hours belated. Precisely such an accident
had happened to me on the ist of December, 1841, when I first
attempted the Western Railroad from Boston to the Hudson
River. I did not expect it on the 27th of October; but Marshal

I843-] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. ^x 3
Bertrand had it last Monday, the 23d. And there was a snow
storm which covered the ground on the 1 8th. My only re
source this day was to adhere to my seat in the car the whole
way to Utica, with the windows closed, passing through Sche
nectady, Amsterdam, Little Falls, and Herkimer, and the whole
valley of the Mohawk, as if in the dead of night. At Utica I
found Charles Adams Johnson1 at the depot, but his brother
William* had gone on before to join us at Geneva. We had
but half an hour to dine* at Utica, during which Mr. Alexander
B. Johnson came to bid us welcome and farewell. We started
just before sunset, and reached Syracuse at half-past nine in
the evening. The cars proceeded to Auburn, but we had our
trunks taken out of the baggage-w.agon, and took our lodging
for the night here, to take the morning train to-morrow. Mr.
J. P. B. Storer paid me an evening visit.
28th. There is no uniformity in human life more monoto
nous than that of travelling in railroad cars. We traversed this
day one hundred and eighty miles of one of the most beautiful
countries in the world, presenting at this moment a dreary and
desolate aspect, like Nova Zembla in January, one white sheet
of snow covering two-thirds of the way, and bare ground the
remainder, interspersed with orchards loaded with apples. It
was the same country through which I had passed last July
with so many flattering testimonials of kindness and regard by
the inhabitants. My passage now is silent and unnoticed. It
is known only to Mr. Johnson, of Utica, and his family, that I
am upon this road. At Geneva we found William Clarkson
Johnson waiting for us, and he came on with us. At Auburn,
Canandaigua, and Rochester, we met persons whom we had
seen in the summer, but whose names all slip from my memory
excepting Gideon Granger, son of Francis, at Canandaigua.
The father is at New York. During the short half-hour for
changing cars at Auburn, a gentleman went to give notice to
Mr. William H. Seward that I was there, but he was not at
home. We reached Rochester just before five p.m., and had
half an hour to go to the hotel, dine, and return to the cars.
We had yet eighty miles to travel, and night was coming on.
1 Sons of a niece of Mr. Adams, married to Mr. A. B. Johnson here mentioned.

414 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [October,
At Batavia, where the platform broke down when we passed
through before, there was solitude now ; but the keeper of the
house, Mr. Hall, remembered me, and introduced to me his
sister and his daughter. Of fellow-travellers we had many
changes through the day. Several of them recognized and
conversed with me, but left no trace of themselves on my
memory, except the President of Geneva College, and I do not
remember his name. From the railroad depot at Buffalo to
the American Hotel we came in a double cab. At a quarter-
before one, Sunday morning, they gave me a small bed-chamber
for the night, and at two I was in bed.
Buffalo, 29th. The room in which I slept was so small, so
cold, and so dark, that they gave me another this morning,
very comfortable, the same in which I had slept last July. Im
mediately after breakfast, Mr. Thompson, Dr. Johns, and Mr.
Dobbins called on me and informed me that they, together
with Mr. Hunter and General Charles M. Read, member of
Congress elect from the Erie District of Pennsylvania, had
been appointed a committee by the inhabitants of the borough
to invite me to visit them on my way to Cincinnati — which
invitation I accepted, and it was agreed that we should em
bark at eight o'clock to-morrow morning in the steamer Gen
eral Wayne, in which those gentlemen had come down to meet
me. Mr. Fillmore came in immediately after, and invited us
to tea at his house this evening, and offered us seats in his pew
at the Unitarian Church, which we accepted. The preacher
was Mr. Hosmer, and his text was from Matthew vi. 31 : "What
shall we eat ? or, What shall we drink ? or, Wherewithal shall
we be clothed ?" He left out the preceding words of the verse,
" Therefore take no thought, saying," so that the sermon was
not directly upon the negative precept, but upon the anxious
cravings of mankind for the supply of these wants, incident
to their physical nature. The discourse was an earnest and
affectionate exhortation to the auditory not to indulge this ex
cessive anxiety for the necessaries of life, but to guard against
them by industry, moderation, and frugality, and most espe
cially by suppressing their propensity to lavish and extrava
gant expense, which he denounced as the besetting sin of the

1 843.] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 415
age, and especially of the place. An excellent and eminently
practical sermon.
Mr. Hosmer gave notice that the anniversary festival of the
Protestant Reformation would be held this evening. I ob
served that the usage of the worshippers is to be seated during
prayer, and to stand at the singing of the hymns. They use
the compilation of the late Dr. Greenwood.
We dined at the hotel, and, by invitation of Mr. Rogers,
attended the evening service of the Episcopal Church, where a
stranger read prayers for the twentieth Sunday after Trinity,
and Mr. Hawks, the settled minister, was the preacher. His
text and his sermon have slipped from my memory — which
is the fault, not of his mediocrity, but of my lethargy. Mr.
Hawks is a young man, a brother of the celebrated Dr. Hawks,
and married a sister of Mrs. Edward Stanly. Returning from
church, I met in the street my old friend Albert H. Tracy,
and was visited at the hotel by Lieutenant Williams, the engi
neer, and others. We attended a tea and evening party at Mr.
Fillmore's, Mr. Love having insisted that I should first step
in at his house, where his eldest daughter sang and played
upon the piano "The Old Arm- Chair." Conversation with
Tracy. 30th. We embarked this morning before eight in the steamer
General Wayne, with falling snow, which began about five.
We had many opinions of the great imprudence of going out
in that state of the weather; but the deputation from Erie were
impatient to get home, and I was not the less impatient to reach
as soon as possible the point of my destination, Cincinnati. I
made, therefore, no objection to departing, but thought it very
reckless and absurd. By the time we were fairly upon the
lake, the storm freshened, and, after heading it about an hour
and pitching as if the boat would come to pieces, the cap
tain lodged her at anchor under Point Abino, a small cove
on the Canadian side of the lake. I did suppose that it was
only for an hour or two, and that we should resume our prog
ress, at least, immediately after dinner; but the storm continued
and the snow howled the whole day, in the course of which
a small coasting vessel, and the steamers Buffalo and General

4i 6 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [October,
Harrison, followed our example, and sought refuge under the
Point. As a harbor, it is perfectly safe, and the gale was not
very robustious, but cold as Nova Zembla. Most of the female
passengers, and no small proportion of the men, were seasick;
but my predominating sentiment was vexation at meeting this
rebuff in the first moment of my committing myself on the
bosom of Lake Erie. The captain insisted upon my taking his
state-room for my berth — which I did, and lay down two hours
after dinner. I was not conscious of having steeped my senses
in forgetfulness one moment, but Mr. Grinnell thought I had
taken a comfortable nap. I was extremely uneasy at the con
scious imbecility of being wind-bound and doing nothing. I
was in that state of mind which labors and produces nothing.
I lost the day. There was a stereotype Bible without the
Apocrypha, published by the American Bible Society, and pre
sented by the Young Men's Bible Society, at Buffalo, to the
boat. I disapprove the omission of the Apocrypha. There was
also a volume of the Memoirs of the Life of Aaron Burr, by
Matthew L. Davis. I read several pages of it, in confirmation
of the opinion I have entertained of the trifling and profligate
character of Burr. The character of his daughter Theodosia
was not so bad, and not much better.
31st. I went to bed last evening before nine, from merely
having nothing to do, hoping that with this morning's dawn
the boat would be far under way, for the sky cleared off as
the sun went down, with the promise of fair weather this day.
I rose at four this morning, believing it was after sunrise, but
on going upon the upper deck found my mistake, and returned
to bed. I could not sleep, nor could I endure to pass another
day doing nothing. I had promised to write some verses for
Mary Foster. She is in a deep decline, and will probably not
live through this winter. She has lately, through Louisa C.
Smith, reminded me of my promise, and seemed to take it
much to heart. As I was ransacking my thoughts this morn
ing to write something, it occurred to me to turn the incident
of our voyage into verse for her, and accordingly related it in
seven four-line stanzas, which I composed ; then rose, took
my writing-paper, inkstand, and steel pen out of my trunk,

1843-] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 4T7
wrote the verses and a short letter, which W. C. Johnson copied
into my letter-book.
At breakfast it was yet expected that we should remain wind-
bound at Point Abino all this day and night. The morning
was clear, the sun bright, and the water at the Point smooth
and calm. But there was a heavy northwester blowing on the
lake, and our captain was afraid to breast it. I sent for my
diary and wrote up the record of Sunday at Buffalo, when, just
before eleven, the captain determined to weigh anchor and try
his luck again upon the lake. The other vessels which had
taken refuge at the Point did the same, and we had a very
pleasant day of navigation to Erie in the State of Pennsylvania,.
where we arrived about seven in the evening. The crowd at
our landing was very great. I was taken by the committee
of arrangements, one of whom was Mr. John Galbraith, to the
City Hall, where a complimentary address was made to me by
Mr. Sill, heretofore a member of Congress for this district. I
answered Mr. Sill by an address to the assembled multitude..
I then passed into another hall, where a few ladies were sitting,
and others were constantly coming in. I made a short address
on taking leave of them, and, with a military escort, a band of
music, and a firemen's torchlight procession, I returned to the
steamer and proceeded on my voyage.
I had promised Mr. Joshua R. Giddings to stop at Ashtabula,
and to visit him at Jefferson, his place of residence; but my
catarrhal cough, with hoarseness and a sore throat, has returned
heavily upon me, with symptoms of fever. A stoppage at
Ashtabula and Jefferson would delay me another day, and the
roads thence to Cleveland are excessively bad — not without
danger. With extreme reluctance I determined to pass on to
Cleveland. Cleveland, November ist. — We landed at Cleveland at seven
this morning, and here parted from Mr. Standart, one of our
fellow-passengers from Buffalo, by whose advice we had come
on without stopping at Ashtabula. From this place there are
two modes of proceeding to Columbus, distant two hundred and
thirty-two miles — one by land stages travelling night and day,
with excessively bad and very dangerous roads ; the other by
VOL. XI. — 27

4i 8 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [November,
canal-boat on the Ohio Canal, which will take us four days to
reach Columbus. We were advised by all means to take the
latter mode, which we concluded to do, and took passage in the
packet canal-boat Rob Roy, Captain Phillips. She was to de
part at two o'clock p.m., and in the mean time I was to undergo
a reception. I was first recognized at the barber's shop, while
being shaved before breakfast. Immediately after breakfast a
crowd of people thronged my chamber at the American Hotel,
to be introduced and to shake hands with me. Mr. John W.
Allen and Mr. Sherlock J. Andrews, heretofore members of
Congress from this district, and the Mayor of the city, with
multitudes of the citizens of all classes, pressed into my cham
ber, till Mr. Allen, with two other members of the committee of
arrangements, took me to ride round the city ; after which we
¦called at the house of Mr. Beattie, who married a daughter of
my old and true friend John W. Taylor, and at whose house
he now resides, a helpless cripple with the numb palsy. A
nephew of Mr. George N. Briggs was among the most active
persons of the day; and a brother of George Bradburn told me
that I should find him convalescent at Cincinnati. The recep
tion was in a church. Mr. Andrews made the address to me,
which I answered as usual, and shook hands with the men,
women, and children ; after which we dined at the American
Hotel, and embarked in the canal-boat Rob Roy.
Akron, 2d. — I came on board of the canal packet-boat Rob
Roy yesterday very unwell with my catarrh, hoarseness, and
sore throat, and some fever. This boat is eighty-three feet
long, fifteen wide, and had, besides the persons I have named,
about twenty other passengers. It is divided into six compart
ments, the first in the bow, with two settee beds, for the ladies,
separated by a curtain from a parlor bed-chamber, with an iron
stove in the centre, and side settees, on which four of us slept,
feet to feet; then a bulging stable for four horses, two and two
by turns, and a narrow passage, with a side settee for one pas
senger to sleep on, leading to the third compartment, a dining-
hall and dormitory for thirty persons ; and, lastly, a kitchen and
cooking apparatus, with sleeping-room for cook, steward, and
crew, and necessary conveniences. So much humanity crowded

1843-] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. ^g
into such a compass was a trial such as I had never before ex
perienced, and my heart sunk within me when, squeezing into
this pillory, I reflected that I am to pass three nights and four
days in it. We came on board the boat at two o'clock, the
time when she was to depart, but it was four before she left the
wharf. We were obliged to keep the windows of the cabins
closed against the driving snow, and the stoves, heated with
billets of wood, made the rooms uncomfortably warm. It was
a comfortless evening; but before its close I found that our
fellow-travellers who shared the after-cabin with us were well-
bred persons and pleasant companions. Mr. John B. Macy re
sides at Cincinnati; his brother Francis, at Portsmouth, Ohio;
his daughter Charlotte, a handsome and amiable young woman,
and Miss Langdon, of Buffalo, with fascinating manners, sub
stitutes for beauty, relieved the tediousness of the evening. Mr.
Russell, grandfather of Charlotte Macy, was also of the com
pany, and Mr. Chamberlin, a young man who had met me at
Cleveland with an invitation from the inhabitants of Akron to
me to visit that place.
About eleven o'clock I took to my settee bed, with a head
ache, feverish chills, hoarseness, and a sore throat, and my
"tussis senilis" in full force. After a restless, sleepless night, I
rose twice, first at four and again at half-past six. As soon as
daylight came, I was taken in a carriage to a hotel, where we
had a plentiful breakfast. I was then taken again in a carriage
to the Town Hall, where I was addressed, and answered by a
short speech, after which I shook hands with the men, women,
and children. Among the women, a very pretty one, as I took
her hand, kissed me on the cheek. I returned the salute on
the lip, and kissed every woman that followed, at which some
made faces, but none refused. We returned to the boat, and
continued all day our progress through the canal, at the rate of
about two miles and a half an hour. I was able to occupy part
of the day, morning and afternoon, with writing in this diary.
There was snow great part of the day — no encouragement to
open the windows, or to view the country through which we
pass. 3d. In the course of yesterday and this day we passed

420 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [November,
through the places named in the margin of Wednesday's page.1
We reached Massillon last evening after dark, and, it being a
considerable place, there were symptoms of a desire on the
part of its inhabitants to give me a reception. Several of them
came on board the boat. Two or three were introduced to me,
but I could not retain their names. We finally persuaded them
to let us pass on quietly. As acquaintance became familiar
with my fellow-passengers, time slipped away more cheerily.
They are all kind and obliging, the young ladies very lively
and good-humored. The weather has been so harsh and churl
ish that we have not been tempted to open our windows, or to
stand on the deck of the boat to see the country around us.
The banks of the canal are so muddy that there is no comfort
in walking. We see we are in a beautiful country, with a deep,
rich soil, but much of it along the borders of the canal is wood
land, and much with the wood cut down, and the stumps stand
ing, like the pins of a bowling-green, and presenting an aspect
rather of desolation than of plenty.
In the common dining-room and dormitory I made out with
no small trouble and inconvenience to write for about two
hours in the forenoon of yesterday and this day, and one hour
of each afternoon, in this diary, but without fully keeping up
with the flight of time. We beguile some of our supernumerary
hours with card-parties at whist and euchre — a game of which
I had never heard before. I write amidst perpetual interrup
tions, in the presence of half a dozen strangers, who seem to
think me a strange, sulky person, to spend so much time in
writing. The most uncomfortable part of our navigation is
caused by the careless and unskilful steering of the boat into
and through the locks, which seem to be numberless, upwards
of two hundred of them on the canal. The boat scarcely
escapes a heavy thump on entering every one of them. She
strikes and grazes against their sides, and staggers along like
a stumbling nag.
We passed, in the course of last night, through a settlement
of Germans, called Zoar, a community under an absolute ruler,
and this day through Gnadenhutten, originally a Moravian
1 The names of forty-five towns between Cleveland and Columbus.

I843-] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. *2l
settlement, but now fallen into the ordinary track of breeding
towns. This afternoon the sky cleared off, and on approaching
a place called Roscoe, several of us landed, and walked about
a mile, when we were obliged to return to the boat. W. C.
Johnson dispatched through the post-office a letter which, at
my request, he had written to my wife, and addressed to her
at Washington, advising her of our progress. I find myself
utterly unable to write.
About eight this evening, on taking a momentary look out,
I saw a large circle round the moon, whence I predicted foul
weather for to-morrow morning. Spent the evening at euchre,
and, at ten, retired to my settee.
4th. About one o'clock this morning Mr. Grinnell came to
my settee and awoke me, to communicate to me a letter just
received from Mr. John Mathiot, late Representative from his
Congressional district in that body, residing at Newark, earn
estly inviting me to visit him and that place, where we were to
arrive about sunrise. The messenger was dispatched with an
affirmative answer, and I thought I slept no more for the re
mainder of the night. On reaching Newark we landed, and
walked to Mr. Mathiot's house, where he and Mrs. Mathiot re
ceived us with great cordiality. Here I was shaved by an elo
quent mulatto barber. Numerous visitors came in, who were
introduced to me, all highly respectable-looking men, but of
whose names and faces my memory can give no account. After
breakfast we went to the Town Hall, I believe, crowded with
good-looking persons of both sexes, and there a gentleman
welcomed me with a complimentary address, which I answered
as well as I could; after which I shook hands with them, men,
women, and children.
We returned to the boat, and proceeded, to terminate our
navigation at Hebron. Here we took leave of the Macy
family, Mr. Russell, and Miss Langdon, whom we had found
charming travelling companions. They proceed in the boat to
Portsmouth, where the canal reaches the Ohio River. We are
henceforth to go by land stages to Cincinnati. There was a
stage ready to start as we landed, and a crowd of people at the
door of the house. As I passed, a gentleman in the midst of

422 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [November,
that crowd addressed me by name, and, with a very few com
plimentary words, gave me, in the name of the inhabitants of
Hebron, a hearty welcome, for which I replied in words as
brief, assuring the speaker that of all the addresses with which
I had been honored by my fellow-citizens, there was not one
more gratifying to my feelings than that which he had just
uttered. Eight miles from Hebron we came to Kirkenville,
where we dined; and, just as we were sitting down, in came Mr.
William Greene, one of the committee of three sent by the
Astronomical Society to Cleveland to accompany me to Cin
cinnati. They arrived at Cleveland Wednesday evening, after
we had left that place. They returned by land to Columbus,
whence Mr. Greene came out with a somewhat more represent
ative stage-coach to meet us. To this we were transferred, and
in it made our entry into Columbus, about four in the afternoon.
Crowds of people in the streets, and at the door of Neil's Hotel,
where we lodge. At eight in the evening at Dr. Hague's Pres
byterian Church. The Mayor of Columbus welcomed me in
the name of the inhabitants. I answered as usual, shook hands
with the people, and returned to Neil's Hotel.
Columbus, 5th. — From the close of the afternoon public
worship until eleven this evening a succession of visitors dis
posed of my time. My catarrhal cough is returning upon me
severely. The three members of the Astronomical Society of
Cincinnati, who went to meet us at Cleveland and came back
to meet us here, are persons of great respectability, and in their
attentions to me full of kindness. Mr. Greene is a lawyer of
Cincinnati, a native of Rhode Island, son of Ray Greene, here
tofore a Senator of the United States from that State, appointed
by my father Judge of the United States District Court in
Rhode Island, and disappointed by Jefferson, who withheld his
commission and appointed another man. Among our visitors
one of the most attentive is Mr. Jesse B. Thomas, heretofore
United States Senator from the State of Illinois, but now a
citizen of the State of Ohio, residing about twenty miles distant
from Columbus, whence he came for the sole purpose of meet
ing me. Mr. Sloane and Mr. Ridgway are unremitting in their
good offices.

1843.] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 423
6th. A mulatto, by the name of David Jenkins, came to see
me just after daylight, the only time, he said, when he could
expect to obtain access to me, to return the thanks of the
colored people of this city for my exertions in defence of their
rights. He referred to a correspondence which he has had
with me on this subject, and which I remembered.
We were to have left Columbus at eight this morning, but
there were two military companies of Germans from whom I
had received a message requesting leave to escort me out of
the city, which I cannot reject. It delayed our departure about
an hour, during which numerous visitors thronged the house,
among whom was the Governor of the State, Shannon. The
German companies, with a band of martial music, escorted us
to the Scioto River and over it, and Mr. Neil accompanied us
in person. Our first stage was fourteen miles to Jefferson,
where there was a gathering of the people, with whom I ex
changed greetings and shook hands. Then fourteen miles to
Springfield, where we dined, and a similar intercourse took
place. Then fourteen miles to Dayton, on our approach to
which we were met by a cavalcade and a gentleman by the
name of Odlin, with an elegant open barouche, in which I took
a seat, and thus in triumphal procession we entered the city of
Dayton. As we reached the hotel where we were to lodge, we
found avast multitude of the people assembled, and the Mayor
of the city, from a stage erected in front of the house, welcomed
me in a complimentary speech, which I answered standing in
the open barouche. I then passed into the house, between a
dense mass of population on both sides, but, as there was no
general shaking of hands, as usual, immediately after the ad
dress, I was beset the whole evening by a succession of visitors
in squads, to be introduced and shake hands, to every one of
whom I was a total stranger, and the name of not one of whom
can I remember. My friends Grinnell and W. C. Johnson give
me every possible aid and encouragement in getting along; but
the strangeness of these proceedings increases like a ball of
snow. I cannot realize that these demonstrations are made for
me ; and the only comfort I have is that they are intended to
manifest respect, and not hatred.

424. MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [November,
7th. All the morning there was again a succession of visitors,
to shake hands, with the interval for breakfast, a walk round
the city, and two calls at the house of Mr. Phillips, a wealthy
citizen of the place, who, together with Mrs. Phillips and their
son-in-law, Mr. Odlin, entertained us with the most cordial hos
pitality. Many ladies called at Mr. Phillips's while we were
there, with whom we shook hands.
At eleven o'clock we left Dayton, and rode twenty-two miles
to Lebanon ; before reaching which we were met by a large
deputation from the Astronomical Society of Cincinnati, con
sisting of Judge Burnet, Mr. John C. Wright, and others ; also
by a carriage and escort, with which we entered Lebanon in
procession, where Mr. Thomas Corwin, heretofore a distin
guished member of the House of Representatives of the United
States, and late Governor of the State of Ohio, welcomed me
at the Presbyterian church by an address of splendid eloquence.
These premeditated addresses by men of the most consum
mate ability, and which I am required to answer off-hand, with
out an instant for reflection, are distressing beyond measure
and humiliating to agony.
After these ceremonies we walked in procession to the hotel,
where crowds met and followed us. Mr. Bellamy Storer came
in from Cincinnati, and sundry others. Through the whole
evening there came a succession of visitors, among whom many
ladies. Supper, from which I retired early, worn out with fa
tigue. Judge Burnet gave me a copy 0/ the address which he
proposes to make to me in the name of the Astronomical So
ciety. W. C. Johnson read to me the part of my manuscript
oration which I propose to deliver. A young Quaker limner
of nineteen or twenty took an egregious caricature likeness
of me in pencil, and told me that he took it for the bold and
intrepid manner in which I had defended and sustained the
right of petition; for which I thanked him. Afterwards, he
said another idea had occurred to him ; which was, that if I
would adhere with patience and perseverance to the principles
that I have asserted and maintained, all would ultimately be well.
I told him I thanked him for his advice, and hoped to profit by it.
This dialogue was exceedingly diverting to Mr. Greene, who

I843-] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 425
was present The activity and unceasing attentions of this gen
tleman, since he joined us, have alleviated much my anxiety;
but my catarrh, and excessive kindness, drive me to despair.
8th. We breakfasted at Lebanon, and proceeded twenty-two
miles to Cincinnati. We had now with us a numerous com
mittee from the Astronomical Society, and, on approaching the
city, met a large cavalcade with several carriages, the Mayor
of Cincinnati, and Professor O. M. Mitchel. I descended from
the stage, and was conducted to an elegant open barouche with
four horses, in which I took a seat with Judge Burnet, the Mayor
of the city, and Professor Mitchel. The day was fine, and the
sun shone bright ; but Cincinnati is embosomed in a circle of
steep and lofty hills — at the turn of a corner in descending one
of which the pole of our carriage snapped short off, and we
were obliged to pass into an ordinary barouche-and-pair. An
immense crowd of people followed us to the Henry House, in
Third Street, kept by Major Henry, where lodgings were pro
vided for us. In front of this house there is a large balcony
overlooking the street, upon which Mr. Spencer, the Mayor,
delivered a complimentary address, welcomed me to the city,
and introduced me to the assembled multitude, who answered
by deafening shouts of applause. My answer was flat, stale, and
unprofitable, without a spark of eloquence or a flash of oratory,
confused, incoherent, muddy, and yet received with new shouts
of welcome. The crowd then dispersed ; but a continual suc
cession of visitors beset my chamber till late in the evening,
leaving scarcely an interval for dinner and tea.
The arrangements for laying the corner-stone of the Obser
vatory, and for the delivery of my oration to-morrow, were con
certed with Professor Mitchel, Judge Burnet, and Mr. Greene ;
but the address on the spot, in the act of laying the corner
stone, was not yet prepared. Worn down with fatigue, anxiety,
and shame, as I was, and with the oppression of a catarrhal
load upon my lungs, I sat up till one in the morning, writing
the address, which, from utter exhaustion, I left unfinished, and
retired to a sleepless bed. I fear I am not duly grateful to
Divine Providence for the blessing of these demonstrations of
kindness and honor from my countrymen; but I dread still

426 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [November,
more the danger of being pampered and elated into vanity by
them. 9th. I rose again at four, and before breakfast finished the
address to be delivered at the laying of the corner-stone. A
succession of visitors, invitations, and deputations ensued till
ten o'clock, when a dense crowd of people gathered in the street
fronting the Henry House, and the procession of the members
of the Astronomical Society was formed. An open barouche,
with four horses, was at the door, into which I entered with
Judge Burnet, the President of the Society, Professor O. M.
Mitchel, and This was followed by other carriages,
anescortof military companies, with a band of music, and an
innumerable crowd of people. As we entered the carriage it
began to rain, and we were obliged to raise the sides over our
heads for shelter, and exclude the sight of me from the people,
and of the people from me. The procession marched round
sundry streets, the rain increasing till it poured down in tor
rents ; yet the throng in the streets seemed not at all to dimin
ish. It looked like a sea of mud. The ascent of the hill was
steep and slippery for the horses, and not without difficulty at
tained. The summit of the hill was a circular plain, of which
the corner-stone was the centre. At the circumference a stage
was erected, from which my discourse was to have been de
livered ; but the whole plain was covered with an auditory of
umbrellas, instead of faces. It was then determined that the
discourse should be delivered to-morrow morning in the Wes-
leyan Methodist Chapel, and the corner-stone now laid — which
ceremony I performed, and read the address which I had
written last evening and this morning, to which the circle of
hearers gathered around responded by three hearty cheers.
My manuscript was so defaced by the rain that it was scarcely
legible. The procession then dispersed, and the barouche
returned and landed me at the Henry House, leaving the only
part of the ceremony important to me still to be performed.
In the evening there was a temperance tea-party, given by the
ladies of Cincinnati, and to which I had been invited by Mrs.
Burnet, Mrs. Staughton, and Mrs. Beecher. It was held in a
large theatre, into which an old dwelling-house of Judge Burnet

1843-1 THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 427
had been turned. I walked to it with Judge Burnet, between a
double line of a torchlight procession of firemen. Mr. John C.
Wright addressed me, and presented me to the assembled ladies.
I answered. Mr. Bellamy Storer made a flowery speech, and
Dr. Beecher closed with a benediction. There was a sort of sub
terranean conveyance to the supper-room, which was crowded.
I walked home with Mr. Wright.
10th. Breakfasted with Mr. John D. Jones, one of the mem
bers of the committee of the Astronomical Society, who went to
meet me at Cleveland and returned to Columbus, where we met.
Mr. Greene walked with me to his house, which is handsome
and furnished with elegance without ostentation. His wife is a
handsome middle-aged woman, of plain, unaffected manners,
and they have a graduation of seven fine boys, with a very
likely prospect of having seven more. A party of ten or
twelve of Mr. Jones's friends partook with us of the breakfast.
I returned to the Henry House, whence, at ten o'clock, the
procession of the Astronomical Society went to the Wesleyan
Methodist Chapel, the largest church in the city. There, after
a fervent prayer by Dr. Wilson, Judge Burnet delivered an ad
dress of about half an hour's duration, with some enlargement
of the copy which he communicated to me at Lebanon. After
a very brief action of thanks to him and to the Society for this
address, I delivered about one-half of the oration which I had
written, and it was well received. The house was full and over
flowing. I spoke nearly two hours, without a symptom of im
patience or inattention of the auditory. Resolutions of thanks
to me, and to Judge Burnet, were adopted by the Astronomical
Society, with requests of copies for publication, and a reso
lution that the Observatory hill should henceforth be called
" Mount Adams." I then shook hands with the members of
the Astronomical Society, and all others in the church who
desired it, and returned to the Henry House. A crowd of
visitors followed. Governor Moorhead and Mr. Southgate gave
me urgent invitations to visit Covington — which I promised to
do next Monday morning. Mr. Rariden, with a large deputa
tion from Wayne County, Indiana, personally and in writing,
gave me an earnest invitation there. Governor Hendricks gave

428 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [November,
me a separate call. Deputations from Louisville and Lexing
ton, Kentucky, came also. A sub-committee, from a committee
of fifteen of the colored people, came and enquired when I would
receive them ; and I appointed to-morrow at ten.
We dined at Mr. John G. Pendleton's, with a party of about
twenty — a splendid entertainment, in the highest style. Mr.
Pendleton lives in princely state. He has two daughters mar
ried, and several sons. Mrs. Pendleton is a second wife, very
handsome, and many years younger than he. At seven in the
evening we returned again to the Henry House, and thence
with Mr. Walker, an impromptu acquaintance, to the theatre,
in the midst of the performance of the comedy of "London
Assurance." After hearing part of two acts, without under
standing the plot of the play, we retired, and went to a ball
at Mr. Springer's, an opulent citizen of Cincinnati. The ball
was splendid, the banquet sumptuous and temperate, and the
company genteel and lovely. Thus closes, blessed be God, one
memorable day of my life.
nth. We breakfasted this morning with Professor O. M.
Mitchel. Mrs. Mitchel entertained us with great courtesy.
They have seven children — five sons and two daughters. The
party at breakfast was fifteen, and numerous visitors, chiefly
ladies, came to meet us there. Professor Mitchel showed me
a volume, just received, of the observations at the Imperial Ob
servatory at Vienna; also a large transparency on a pasteboard
tablet representing the planet Saturn as seen magnified through
a large telescope. He said he had a number of these trans
parent tables, and called them his telescope; that he had ex
hibited them at his astronomical lectures, to the great delight
of crowded auditories; and that they were the exciting causes
of the enthusiasm which led to the formation of the Society
and to their undertaking to erect the Observatory here.
Returning to the Henry House, at ten o'clock I received the
large committee of fifteen of the colored people of Cincinnati.
A young mulatto, son of a wealthy Virginia planter, but bearing
the name of his negress mother, Langston, addressed me in
their name in a speech of about fifteen minutes, which I answered
in eight or ten. My answer was unpremeditated; but Edward

I843-] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS.

429

Cranch, who was present, reported it in substance correctly for
the Cincinnati Atlas, a daily newspaper. This over, I went to
the exhibition of the Horticultural Society, accompanied by
their President, Mr. Buchanan. The show of apples was very
fine; that of pears, good, but with little variety; grapes, next
to nothing; shagbark-nuts, indifferent; no others; native wines,
much like Adlum's — though I was told that Judge Burnet
makes a thousand barrels of wine a year. The exhibition of
flowers was dreary.
Our next movement was to the house of Mr. Longworth,
the wealthy patron of the arts — of Powers, and Clevenger, and
of the projected Observatory, any deficiency of funds for the
establishment of which, by the contribution of others, he
has promised to supply. We saw at his house a marble bust
of Ginevra, by Powers; a large picture of Laertes with the
dead body of Ophelia, by West; a copy of the Matron of the
Chair; and sundry other pictures. A bouquet of flowers was
presented to me by a lady at the Horticultural Exhibition,
and an assortment of fine apples, with some nuts, were sent to
me by the President, Mr. Buchanan.
At twelve I attended a meeting of the bar of Hamilton
County, at which Judge Este delivered a highly complimentary
address, which I answered off-hand, as desperation dictated.
Mr. Southgate, of Covington, was there. Dinner given by the
members of the bar, at three. Judge John C. Wright presided.
Toasts. Speech by Judge Burnet. My answer. Bellamy Storer.
Retired early. Gave Professor Mitchel my two manuscripts of
the oration.
13th. A deputation from the inhabitants of Covington, of
which Governor Moorhead and Mr. Southgate were members,
came at ten o'clock, took me into an open barouche-and-four,
and, in the ferry-boat, over the river Ohio, to Covington, in
Kentucky. We were received at the landing by an immense
crowd, which immediately formed a procession, and marched,
with a military company and martial music, to the Episcopal
church, where I was addressed with eloquent panegyric by
Governor Moorhead, and answered to the best of my ability.
The address was preceded by a fervent prayer from the minister

430 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [November,
of the church. The shaking of hands with men, women, and
children followed. A very pretty woman, as she took my
hand, whispered, " The first kiss in Kentucky" — which I did
not refuse.
Returning to Cincinnati, I stopped to visit Colonel Bedinger,
an officer of the Revolutionary army in the war for independ
ence, who told me he had been at the battle of Bunker's Hill,
and with Washington at Dorchester Heights. He lives with
his son Dr. Bedinger, but is much disabled. I rode with Judge
Burnet and Professor Mitchel to the summit of Mount Adams,
the spot where I laid last Thursday the corner-stone of the
Astronomical Observatory. The prospect from it now, of the
city in the valley and of the surrounding hills, with the wind
ings of the Ohio River, is eminently beautiful. It is four hun
dred and fifty feet above the river, and no better site could
have been selected for the building to be erected there. Before
returning to the Henry House, we stopped at a daguerreotype
office, where three attempts were made to take my likeness. I
believe neither of them (succeeded). Our friends dined with us,
and we took leave of them. About four p.m. we embarked in
the steamer Benjamin Franklin, No. 6, Captain Blair Semmons,
for Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. A vast concourse followed us to
the vessel. The crowd at the landing was great, and, just as
the sun sank behind the hills, the boat parted from the wharf,
and I addressed a few words of final thanks and parting blessing
to the people, to which they responded by repeated shouts of
farewell. My duty has thus been performed, and I am now upon my
return to my home and to the discharge of other high obliga
tions. There was a splendid evening, and a magnificent display
of the canopy of heaven. Colonel Anderson goes with us part
of the way, under a charge from the Astronomical Society, of
which he is a member, to direct the movements of the boat.
14th. The night was nearly sleepless, and I was, of course,
unfitted through this day for reading. I had received warm
invitations from Maysville, Kentucky, and from Portsmouth,
Ohio, to visit them and receive a welcome. Immediately after
breakfast this morning we reached Maysville, sixty-five miles

I843-] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 43!
from Cincinnati. On landing, we proceeded with a dense crowd
of people to a hotel, where we breakfasted again, and then re
paired, with the Mayor and a large deputation of the citizens,
to the Methodist church. There I was welcomed to the city
and introduced to the people in a highly complimentary ad
dress by the Mayor, which I answered, and, as I had done at
Covington, included in my remarks a just tribute of respect to
Mr. Clay. And here I solemnly declare that the charges of
corrupt bargaining which had been trumped up against him
and me were utterly without foundation. There has been a
cordiality in my reception at Covington and here not surpassed
even at Cincinnati. But the impulse is from the friends of Mr.
Clay, and all the affectionate part of the caresses is meant for
him. The Mayor thanked me warmly for my answer, and re
quested me at my leisure to furnish him with a copy of it for
publication. I met here Mr. Landaff W. Andrews, a member of the last
Congress from this district, but who failed to obtain a re-elec
tion; also Mr. William Russell, late member from the Ports
mouth District, Ohio, who came with a deputation from Ports
mouth to accompany me thither. I re-embarked, after shaking
hands with all the people at the church, and parted from Mays
ville with firing of guns, ringing of bells, waving of handker
chiefs, and huzzas. Idle morning. I sought an hour of repose
on my bed, during which a steamer from Pittsburg passed by
us and saluted us with three cheers. At half-past three p.m.
we reached Portsmouth, fifty-five miles from Maysville, and
went again through the same ceremony — a procession to a
market-house, where the women Were within the house and the
men without, where, on a platform between the two, Mr. Peck
read me an address of three long pages, to which I gave a
short answer. After the shaking of hands, we returned in
procession to the steamer. Here Colonel Anderson, Mr. S. P.
May, Mr. William Russell, and the deputation, left us. We have
numerous fellow-passengers, men and women. I passed great
part of the day in the ladies' cabin, to which men are here ad
mitted. Of the passengers in the ladies' cabin, are Mr. and
Mrs. Hamilton, of Hanging Rock ; Mrs. Stillwell, from Vicks-

432 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [November,
burg, where her husband remains ; she is going to Philadel
phia ; Miss Mary Emma Rhey, of Pittsburg, with her brother,
and Miss Amanda Mcllhenny, of New Castle, Pennsylvania,
twenty-five miles from Pittsburg. With these ladies Mr.
Johnson soon made us familiar by whist-parties ; and Miss
Mcllhenny, a beautiful girl of about twenty, observing me
dispirited, came and sat down by me at my request, and
cheered me with several delightful songs.
15th.1 Our course up the river is as follows. We passed
by Gallipolis about four this morning without seeing it, and
reached Marietta at half-past three this afternoon. I had re
ceived invitations to visit Marietta, and landed there with the
usual demonstrations of welcome — a great crowd of people,
guns fired, bells rung, and a procession to the Presbyterian
church, where an address of welcome was read by Judge Put
nam, a son of General Rufus Putnam. In my answer, refer
ring to the interest I had always taken in the city of Marietta,
I related the incident of my visit to the Rev. Manasseh Cutler
at his house in Ipswich hamlet after his return from his visit
to Marietta in 1788, and of my conversation with him con
cerning the Western country at that time ; and I said that
from the time of that conversation I had taken a deep interest
in the whole West, and watched its progress, step by step, to its
present great and flourishing condition. These remarks were
received apparently with lively satisfaction, and the shaking of
hands was with heartier squeeze than almost anywhere else.
After this ceremony I took a short ride round the city to
visit the remarkable Indian mounds in this place. There is no
tradition indicating when, or by whom, or for what purpose,
they were constructed ; but they are very extensive, and the
central mound is about forty feet high, two hundred feet square
at the base, and one hundred at the top, perfectly formed in its
1 The following table of distances is given in the margin of the original:
From Cincinnati to Maysville, 65 miles
Portsmouth, 50 — 115
Gallipolis, 85 — 200
Marietta, 100 — 300
Wheeling, 90 — 390
Pittsburg, 90 — 480

i843-] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS.

433

symmetry. There is an article upon these works, by Dr.
Manasseh Cutler, in the first volume of the Transactions of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences. When we returned
to the steamer, a committee of three members — Ephraim Cut
ler, Caleb Emerson, and Joseph Barker — embarked with us to
accompany us to Pittsburg.
16th. Between two and three this morning we passed by
Wheeling, in Virginia, where many of our fellow-passengers
left us, and the deputation from Pittsburg — Messrs. Denny,
Bakewell, Eichbaum, Darragh, and Stevens — came on board to
meet us. As we passed, a gun was fired from our boat, and
returned from the shore. There had been talk at Wheeling of
inviting me tq the place and giving me a reception. Many
persons wished it, and many thought an invitation had been*
sent to me; but there was none. We passed equally by Steuben-
ville, in Ohio, and Beaver, in Pennsylvania, without notice. The-
deputation from Pittsburg had expected our arrival there to
morrow morning, and all the arrangements had been made for
a magnificent reception at that time. Among the rest, all the-
fire-company associations had held meetings and passed sundry
resolutions for having a grand display of their own ; and Mr.
Brentlinger, as a deputation, (presented) a copy of their resolu
tions — one of which was that I should be conducted to some
public building, where I was to be addressed in their name and.
should be requested to deliver an oration. And a temperance
association, not to be behindhand with the firemen, had held;
meetings and chosen a deputation to invite me to deliver art
oration upon temperance.
I delivered to Mr. Brentlinger an answer declining to pro
nounce the oration to the firemen. I shall take the same course
with the temperance association. The Pittsburg deputation
were sadly disconcerted at our arrival before the time, and se
riously proposed that we should land at Rapp's settlement of
Economy, pass the night there, and proceed to Pittsburg to
morrow in another steamer to be sent down for us ; but this
project was abandoned, and at half-past three in the afternoon
we landed at Pittsburg. There was a considerable crowd of
people assembled on the wharf, to whom, from the steamer,
VOL. xi. — 28

434 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [November,
Mr. Harmar Denny introduced me by name, and who received
me with three cheers. The Mayor of the city, Mr. Alexander
Hay, came on board to meet me, and at my own request
walked with me to the Exchange Hotel, followed by the crowd,
who were notified that the procession and reception would
take place to-morrow morning, as it was regulated by the pro
gramme published in the newspapers of this day. The multi
tudes then, after three cheers, dispersed ; but individuals were
pressing in the whole evening. We had pressing letters from
Mr. McKennan, of Washington, Pennsylvania, and from Mr.
Andrew Stewart, of Uniontown, to know the precise moment
when we shall arrive at those places. We first determined
to go on Saturday to Washington, and on Monday to Union-
town ; but, on remonstrances from Mr. Denny, we concluded
to remain over the Sunday at Pittsburg, and to go on Monday
to Washington, on Tuesday to Uniontown — and we wrote
accordingly; Wednesday to Cumberland; Thursday, home.
17th. "Debellare superbos." There is a special providence
in the fall of a sparrow, and, were it not itself arrogant self-
sufficiency in me to believe, I should believe that this special
providence comes to pass for the chastisement of my pride
and vanity. The scene of laying the corner-stone of the Astro
nomical Observatory last week at Cincinnati has been repeated,
with still more mortifying circumstances, this day at Pittsburg.
That pageant was intended to promote the cause of science in
the minds of the people. It had a moral purpose, an important
end, to the attainment of which I heartily concurred. Had
the day passed off successfully and without accident, the im
pression left on the minds of the spectators and hearers would
have been favorable to the accomplishment of the undertaking,
and honorary to me. The inexorable rain was literally a flood
of cold water poured out on the whole ceremony. All was
disappointment. But my duty, and the purpose of the Society
in their invitation to me, were performed. The corner-stone of
the Astronomical Observatory was laid, with supplication by
me to the throne of heaven that the erection of the building
may be conducive to the improvement of the condition of man
upon earth. It is not for man to exult even in his good inten-

IS43-] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 435
tions. It is his duty to bear disappointment, even of the best
purposes, with resignation and equanimity.
The pageant of this day was of no earthly importance. It
was ostensibly all honorary to me. I had been invited by the
city authorities to visit the city on my way to or from Cincin
nati; and it was a reception. A large procession, at the head
of which I was exhibited in a barouche with four handsome
horses, accompanied by the Mayor of the city, Mr. Hay, Mr.
Harmar Denny, and Mr. Richard Biddle, started from the Ex
change Hotel, where we lodge, with military companies, mar
tial music, and all the companies of the Firemen's Association,
in their respective showy and variegated uniforms, traversed,
through the abundant mud streams, all the principal streets of
the city, with a heavy, drenching rain pouring down all the
time. We returned to the same Exchange, whence, from an
open balcony, Mr. McCandless delivered by heart the welcoming
address, of which he had sent me a copy. My answer was very
short, apologizing for having come before the time, and declaring
my unwillingness to detain them in the rain. The procession
then terminated, the crowd dispersed, but came up in squads to
my chamber to shake hands with me through the whole day.
1 8th. I had renewed applications yesterday from the Fire
men's Association, who had determined at all events to have
their torchlight procession, and equally resolved to have an
oration from me; but I again declined. I did the same with
the temperance association, at the head of whose deputation
Judge Wilkins made the application to me. Judge Wilkins is
a member of the approaching Congress, elect, and told me he
would leave home on Monday for Washington, and offered me
a seat in his carriage — which I declined, for the engagements
to visit Mr. McKennan and Mr. Stewart.
I also received yesterday a large deputation from the Liberty
party, with an address, and a request that I would meet and
address them. This I declined. On the ground of having been
invited here by the concurrence of all parties, I am interdicted
from discoursing upon topics of deep party feeling; but, in a
speech of about twenty minutes, I gave my opinions without
reserve on all the slavery questions now in agitation. One of

436 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [November,
the members of the deputation brought me this day a meagre
and most imperfect abstract of part of my speech, which he
proposes to publish as a part of it. I reminded him of several
important omissions ; and there were others which I did not
notice. I received yesterday and this day letters informing me of my
election as an honorary member of the Webster and Tilghman
Literary Societies, to which I answered by letters of acceptance.
We had last evening a very elegant party and supper at Mr.
Harmar Denny's. This morning I wrote from the time of
rising until eight, upon my journal; and immediately after,
with Mr. Denny, Mr. Biddle, and Mr. Grinnell, I crossed the
Monongahela in the ferry-boat, and visited Mr. Loreng's iron
works, and another establishment, where we saw the process of
rolling and hammering iron, and the work of the red-hot ball
hammered into a bloom, and the blast. Thence, recrossing
the river, we ascended to the top of the Court-House, whence
beautiful prospects were in view — the junction of the Monon
gahela and Alleghany Rivers, the Alleghany City itself, and
the hills all around.
Our next visit was to Captain Howard and the iron ship on
the stocks, which he is building for the Government. We saw
one of the ribs of the ship fashioned from the anvil. Thence
we rode to the United States Arsenal, about three miles from
the city, where we were received and temperately entertained
by Captain and Mrs. Harding. The river Alleghany flows beau
tifully in front of the building, and there is Washington's Island.
I thought of my lamented nephew Lieutenant T. B. Adams,
who was stationed here three years. Returning to Pittsburg,
we visited the cotton factory of Mr. Bakewell, and saw the
spinning-jennies and heard the rattling of the spindles and the
looms. Returned to the Exchange Hotel at three.
19th. After returning to the hotel yesterday, I received the
visits of ladies and gentlemen indiscriminately, and shook hands
with them all.. Among the persons who have been the most
kindly attentive here has been Mr. Walter Forward, the late
Secretary of the Treasury. He has two or three times men
tioned to me that there would be some movement of memorial

I843-] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 437
here against the annexation of Texas to this Union. But I
did not trust myself to speak freely with him. Mr. Forward
is a worthy, well-meaning man, of considerable talent, and too
pliable disposition — not the man of iron mould that the times
require. Last evening, after dark, I went with Mr. Grinnell and Mr.
Johnson to visit Miss Rhey, one of oar travelling companions
from Cincinnati, who had sent me a beautiful bouquet of flowers
and had invited us for last or this evening. We saw her
father, mother, brothers, and sisters, a respectable family in
private life. She was not at home when we called, but came in
as we were taking leave. We were followed in the dark by
a number of persons from the Exchange Hotel to Mr. Rhey's
door. We went to the Monongahela House, to visit Mrs. Campbell,
and had not been there ten minutes before Mr. Hay, the Mayor
of the city, rushed in, and said that the Firemen's Association
torchlight procession were coming, having collected and exhib
ited themselves in front of the Exchange Hotel, and, finding
me not there, had followed me down. I went out upon the
balcony, and the Mayor announced me to the company. I ad
dressed them in a few words of thanks for the honor done me
by them, and of excuse from physical disability for declining a
large discourse, after which they let me off with three bouncing
cheers, while I heard a single voice saying, " Mr. Adams, give
us a speech."
They then strolled off" to Mr. McCandless's house, where
they called him out and exacted from him a speech, which he
gave them, and they dispersed.
20th. We left Pittsburg at eight o'clock this morning, for
Washington, Pennsylvania. My stay at Pittsburg from Thurs
day last, when we reached it, has been tumultuary, honorary,
and inexpressibly irksome. I had received from Pittsburg, at
various times, testimonials of sympathy, which had already
bound me in gratitude to the city, and I was pleased with an
invitation which gave me the opportunity of expressing it in
person ; but these mass-meetings, at which I find myself held
up as a show, where the most fulsome adulation is addressed

438 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [November,
to me face to face in the presence of thousands, and where long
premeditated written discourses are read to me, tp be answered
without a moment of reflection — all this is so adverse to my
nature that it has, in a great measure, solved the continuity of
my existence, and I am like one coming out of a trance or a
fainting-fit, unconscious of what has been passing around me.
This morning Mr. Ewing and Mr. Read, the deputation who
came to meet us at Pittsburg from Washington, Pennsylvania,
had provided for us an excellent stage-coach, and travelled with
us in it, with Mr. Baird. Mr. Hay, the Mayor of Pittsburg,
and Mr. Harmar Denny, accompanied us over the Monongahela
ferry, to the summit of the heights opposite the city, and there
took leave of us. To the unremitting kindness and attentions
of these gentlemen during the whole of our visit here, I have
been under the greatest obligations. I answered last evening a
very earnest invitation from Somerset, Pennsylvania, with an en
closure from Samuel W. Pearson, which required a special letter,
though Mr. Pearson is a total stranger to me. I received also
a letter of invitation from the Mayor of Cumberland, Maryland,
through which we are to pass. Our stage travel this day was
the first we have had on this expedition. 'Tis only twenty-five
miles from Pittsburg to Washington, but it took us the whole
of the day to travel them. Our first stage was to the half-way
house ; but nine miles short of Washington was Cannonsburg,
and Jefferson College. Here we met Mr. McKennan and a
cavalcade from Washington ; but Dr. Brown, the President of
Jefferson College, insisted upon my going to it, and there ad
dressed me extemporaneously, and welcomed me in the name
of the officers and students, to whom he introduced me. I
answered the address, and shook hands with the students
and others, then returned to the stage and proceeded to Wash
ington, followed by the increasing files of horsemen coming
out to meet us. Military company. Committee of reception.
Exchange Hotel. Dinner. Rain and mud.' Walk to the Court-
House. Dense crowd of people. Address of welcome to me
from the President of Washington College. My answer. Shake
hands with the multitude. Walk to Mr. McKennan's house.
Richard H. Lee. Tea. Visit to the Female Seminary. Address

I843-] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS.

439

of Miss Foster, the principal teacher, to me. My answer. Re
turn to Mr. McKennan's. Party and supper.
2ist The stamina of my constitution are sinking under the
hardships and exposures of travelling at this season and at my
time of life, aggravated by the continual overwhelming kindness
of my political friends, and the empty honors showered upon
me ostensibly by the people as I pass along, but embracing
only part of the people, and carrying with it no solid perma
nent opinion. They bring to my heart no feeling of pride, to
my mind no new or useful truth. Momentary joy at the expe
rience of kind treatment from my fellow-men. " Vanitas vani-
tatum," as spoke the inspired preacher, " O curas hominum,
quantum est in rebus inane !" as spoke the Roman poet, bring
me to the only just conclusion — humble submission to Divine
Providence. We breakfasted at Mr. McKennan's, and left his house in
stages, at eight, in the midst of a heavy squall of thunder,
lightning, and snow. We were accompanied by Mr. Andrew
Stewart, member elect to Congress from the district, who came
in last evening from Wheeling, and by two gentlemen, who also
came last evening with an invitation to me to stop at Browns
ville. I took leave of Mr. McKennan, his wife, four sons, and
two daughters, all of full age or verging close upon it, and
of Professor Richard Henry Lee, his two sons, fine boys, and
daughter of about fifteen. Mr. McKennan's supper-party last
evening consisted of about thirty gentlemen, professors and
teachers at the college, and inhabitants of the vicinity, all well-
bred, intelligent men. He proposed to them, in a temperate
glass of wine, the health and happiness of his guest, which
they drank, and to which I responded by my thanks, and by
giving, " The county of Washington, the town of Washington,
and the College of Washington, Pennsylvania. Success, pros
perity, and happiness to all who belong to them." He then let
me off to bed.
This day we came twenty-five miles to Brownsville, where
we dined, stopping ten minutes at Centreville on the way.
At Brownsville I was transferred to a barouche. Procession.
Dinner, with a Roman Catholic priest at the head of the table.

440 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [November,
The church building. Procession tp the Presbyterian church.
Address of welcome by a young clergyman named Adams, a
cousin, descended from William Adams of Ipswich, son of the
first Henry. My answer. Hand-shaking. Proceed twelve miles,
on to Uniontown. Transfer to a barouche. Cavalcade escort.
Military company. Band of music. Mud ankle-deep. Proces
sion in barouche-and-four to Presbyterian church. Address of
welcome, excellent, by My answer. Take
affectionate leave of Pennsylvania. Political remarks. Shake
hands. McLelland's Hotel. Andrew Stewart takes leave of us.
Cumberland, 23d. — At four I rose, dressed, and wrote till
seven. We travelled this day on the railroad from Cumberland
to Washington City. There was breakfast, of which I took a
single cup of coffee. Neither Mayor nor committee of recep
tion made their appearance; a number, not large, perhaps a
hundred, of respectable-looking men, and half as many boys,
gathered at the hotel or followed me to the railroad depot, and
shook hands with me as I was seated in the car. Just after
sunrise, at half-past seven, we started, and rode miles
to Harper's Ferry, to dinner. Mr. Sidney Breese, U. S. Senator
from the State of Illinois, was in the same car with me, and
spoke to me. I did not recognize his person, though I have
seen him before, and have had some correspondence with him.
Most of the country we came through this day was within
the bounds of Virginia — a plain, open, champaign country,
covered with alternate fields of pasture and of green winter
wheat just out of the ground.
At Harper's Ferry, where we arrived about two p.m., the offal
of a train of cars from Baltimore was left for our party to dine
upon. I found myself at table by the side of Benjamin Tappan,
U. S. Senator from Ohio ; and Mr. Wilkins, member of the
House elect from Pittsburg, spoke to me, and said I might
have come with him in his carriage, as he had offered me, but
for my engagements on the road. Harper s Ferry I remember
with pleasing and sad recollections of the Congress party from
Georgetown, in the iron canal-boat, on the Chesapeake and
Ohio Canal, in June, 1834.' It looks much now as it did then.
* Volume ix. pp. 140-142.

1843] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 44T
We now proceed on the Baltimore and Ohio Railway, pass
Ellicott's Mills with other reminiscences, and at the dusk of
evening, five p.m., reach the Relay House and Thomas's viaduct,
nine miles from Baltimore. Here we land with our baggage
from the cars, which proceed forthwith to the Monumental City.
We wait half an hour for the cars coming thence for Washing
ton City, take our seats in them, and at half-past seven land
safely at the foot of Capitol Hill.
Washington, 24th. — I have performed my task, I have exe
cuted my undertaking, and am returned safe to my family and
my home. It is not much in itself. It is nothing in the esti
mation of the world. In my motives and my hopes, it is con
siderable. The people of this country do not sufficiently esti
mate the importance of patronizing and promoting science as a
principle of political action; and the slave oligarchy systematic
ally struggle to suppress all public patronage or countenance to
the progress of the mind. Astronomy has been specially neg
lected and scornfully treated. This invitation had a gloss of
showy representation about it that wrought more on the public
mind than many volumes of dissertation or argument. I hoped
to draw a lively and active attention to it among the people, and
to put in motion a propelling power of intellect which will no
longer stagnate into rottenness. I indulge dreams of future
improvement to result from this proclamation of popular hom
age to the advancement of science, and am willing even to see
my name perhaps ostentatiously connected with a movement
to which I so long and so anxiously strove to give an im
pulse in vain. For whatever of vainglory there may be in
this self-approving reflection, I pray to be forgiven. But I
return to my home with the symptoms of speedy dissolution
upon me. I had no conception of the extent to which I have
been weakened by this tussis senilis, or pneumonia notha, or
old man's cough. My strength is prostrated beyond anything
that I ever experienced before, even to total impotence. I have
little life left in me; but it is my duty to cherish that which
God has given me, till it shall be His pleasure to take it back.1
' There can be little doubt that this statement is substantially true. Mr. Adams
had much overtaxed his physical powers in this trip.

442 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [December,
28th. Paid a visit to Mr. Moseley, the member elect from the
Buffalo District, New York, who gave me some Dutch lozenges
and talked about the election of the Speaker of the House.
He said he was informed there was yesterday a long interview
between William Wilkins and Robert Barnwell Rhett, of South
Carolina, at which Mr. Wilkins was offered the Speaker's chair
upon condition that he shall organize the committees to the
taste of the slave-mongers. This is the desperation of Cal-
hounism. Rhett is the man who oiled the palm of Cushing
to make him Chairman of the Committee of Foreign Affairs
in my place.
General Don Juan N. Almonte, the Mexican Minister Pleni
potentiary, had requested of me by note a personal interview
to make me a communication, as he had been ordered. I ap
pointed between six and seven o'clock this evening, which time
he had suggested, to receive him. He came, and delivered to
me a copy of a letter of instructions from Mr. Bocanegra, the
Mexican Minister of Foreign Affairs, dated 18th March, 1843,
ordering General Almonte, in an official visit to me, to tender
to me the thanks of the Mexican Government and nation for
the candor and generosity of my conduct towards Mexico,
both in the Congress of the United States and at meetings
of the people. I said I was happy to receive this testimonial
of the approbation of the Mexican Government of my endeavors
to promote peace and harmony between the two countries,
and to observe the law of justice on the part of my country
ards Mexico and all other nations.
December 2d. I had a morning visit from Mr. John White,
the Speaker of the House in the last Congress, with Ex-Gov
ernor of Ohio Vance, and Mr. Harper, also heretofore a mem
ber from Ohio. They understand that of the members already
arrived there is a number sufficient of Kinderhook Democrats
to elect a Speaker against any combined opposition. They
spoke of the preliminary question of the admission of members
elected by general ticket. There is no doubt they will all be
admitted in defiance of the law ; but Mr. White expressed a
doubt whether the ruling party would allow a discussion of the
question, and supposed there might be some difficulty in raising

I843-] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. ..?
it. They intimated a wish that I would undertake to raise it,
which I told them I would do if it was desired, but that the
state of my health utterly disabled me from taking a leading
part in the discussion or management of the movement.
I met at the House many members. I was told there had
been this morning a Kinderhook caucus for the choice of
Speaker, at which the Calhoun party, said to be fifteen, did not
attend. The Whig caucus was to be held at four this afternoon,
and Mr. Moseley promised to call on me this evening and in
form me of its result. Returning home, I met on the way and
spoke to T. W. Gilmer, B. Ogle Tayloe, with George Evans,
Senator from Maine, Dillet, of Alabama, and Beardsley, of Utica.
3d. Mr. Hudson and Mr. King, members elect of the House
of Representatives from Massachusetts, called on me last even
ing, and had much conversation with me on the prospects of
the impending session of Congress and the inauspicious com
position of the House. The question of the admission of the
members from four States, elected by general ticket, must arise
at the first movement for the organization of the House ; but
so overwhelming is the majority of the Democracy in the
House that the Whigs are much perplexed to determine how
to raise the question. They expect it will be strangled by a
tissue of forms. The slavery questions are, in my estimation,
more important than that of the admission of general-ticket
members, and the aspect of the slavery questions is appalling.
The most imminent of my dangers is the loss of my temper —
from which I fervently pray I may be preserved.
4th. At noon I rode to the Capitol, and found the House
assembled, the Clerk of the late House, Matthew St. Clair
Clarke, having just called them to order, and beginning the
call of the roll with the State of Maine and the name of Lu
ther Severance. After Maine came New Hampshire, and the
Clerk called the name of Edmund Burke, who answered. John
Campbell, of South Carolina, rose, and objected to the 0dmis-
sion of the members from New Hampshire, elected by general
ticket, in defiance of the Constitution and the law. He offered
to read a resolution, but was not permitted. Mr. Barnard, of
New York, afterwards renewed the attempt to read a protest,

444 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [December,
signed by fifty members of the House, against the admission
of members elected by general ticket, but his right to read was
denied, and the members were all admitted. One hundred and
eighty-nine were announced to be present, and they proceeded
to elect a Speaker viva voce. John W. Jones, of Virginia, had
one hundred and twenty-eight votes, John White, of Kentucky,
fifty-nine, and William Wilkins, of Pennsylvania, one vote.
Jones was declared elected, and was conducted by Walter Coles,
of Virginia, and me, to the chair. Dromgoole moved to adopt
the rules of the last Congress. I moved to except the rule
excluding certain petitions. Other exceptions were moved and
debated, till near four o'clock, when, without taking a final vote
on the rules, the House adjourned: The usual messages passed
between the House and Senate, and the usual joint committee
of notification to the President was raised. Charles J. Inger
soll gave notice that he would to-morrow ask leave to intro
duce a bill for the relief of Andrew Jackson.
5th. I found the House again in session, and French reading
the journal of yesterday. After it was read, Mr. Barnard moved
an amendment to it, stating the fact of his having offered to
read a paper, signed by fifty members of the House, in the na
ture of a protest against the admission of the members elected
by general ticket ; that his right to read the. paper had been
denied ; that a motion had been made that he have leave to read
the paper, which had been refused by a large majority; of all
this there was not the slightest notice on the journal. Mr.
Barnard moved to amend it and to insert upon the journal
the paper itself. Debate thereupon arose, till Charles J. In
gersoll and Wise, the committee on the part of the House to
wait on the President, came in, and Ingersoll announced that
the message was coming. It came in shortly after, brought by
John Tyler, Jr. After the message was read, Wise moved the
printing of the usual number for the use of the members, and
ten tljpusand copies with the documents; fifteen and twenty
thousand were proposed by members from Alabama ; but, after
much debate, the House rejected the larger numbers and
adopted Wise's original number, though he himself had snapped
at the increased number with pike-like voracity. Cave John-

I843-] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS.

445

son added the precaution that the printing should be done by
the printers to be elected by the House. Adjourned without
resuming the debate on the amendment of yesterday's journal.
6th. I found the House in session, deep sunk in debate on
Barnard's motion to amend the journal by inserting the Whig
protest against the admission of the general-ticket members on
that of Monday. The whimsical state of the question now was
that the protest was inserted on the journal of yesterday, and
was read as part of that journal this morning, so that the
protest is in existence upon the journal, while the House is
debating whether it shall be there or not.
After three hours of this hopeful debate, Cave Johnson moved
to postpone it till to-morrow; which was carried. The House
proceeded to elect a Clerk, viva voce. Votes, one hundred and
ninety — Caleb J. McNulty, of Ohio, one hundred and twenty-
four, Matthew St. Clair Clarke, sixty-six. Clarke conducted
McNulty to the Speaker, who swore him in. McKay offered
a resolution for the appointment of a printer, to which Gilmer
(added) a silly amendment, and the House adjourned.
7th. Mr. John M. Botts yesterday requested me to present
his memorial to the House, contesting the election of John W.
Jones as the Representative of the Sixth Congressional District
of Virginia, and claiming that seat, as lawfully elected to it him
self. The memorial is long, and I thought before presenting it
my duty was to possess myself fully of its contents. I accord
ingly read it attentively.
I had also been requested to announce to the House the
death of Barker Burnell on the 15th of June last, the Repre
sentative elect to the present Congress of the Tenth Congres
sional District of Massachusetts. I employed the last evening
and this morning in preparing the address to the House with
which this annunciation is to be made. I found the House
again in session, and, as I entered, Willoughby Newton, a
member from Virginia, was presenting the memorial of William
L. Goggin, contesting the election of Thomas W. Gilmer as the
Representative of the Fifth Congressional District of Virginia.
I then presented the memorial of Mr. Botts, and, as I was
stating its contents, Jones slunk out of the chair, and Samuel

446 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [December,
Beardsley, of Utica, New York, crept into it. I moved that
the memorial should be printed, and referred to the Committee
of Elections, when that committee shall be appointed; which
was adopted without opposition. Mr. Newton then moved
that Goggin's memorial should also be printed; which was
carried, and Jones resumed the chair.
Then came a debate what business should be taken up, Mr.
Barnard contending that his motion to amend the journal of
last Monday had precedence, and the Speaker deciding that
the business last under consideration at the adjournment yester
day must first be taken up now. White, the late Speaker, ap
pealed, but the House — one hundred and seventeen to fifty-five
— sustained Jones's decision. He afterwards decided that the
previous question cut off all amendments. White took an
appeal again, and again the House sustained Jones. After
much trifling disputation, Gilmer's amendment was rejected,
and McKay's resolution was carried.
8th. The elections of yesterday and the day before sufficiently
prove that there is no schism in the Democratic party, and not
the shadow of a party for the election of John Tyler as Presi
dent of the United States. The House adjourned over to next
Monday, to give the Speaker time to make up his commit
tees. He asked to be relieved from the duty of appointing the
Committee of Elections, and put Beardsley again in the chair.
Parmenter moved that the Speaker should appoint all the
committees required by the rule of the House, except the
Committee of Elections ; which, after some talk, was carried.
Then Hopkins moved that the House should immediately
choose a Committee of Elections.
I said I was not ready for that, and, if the House was, the
universal conclusion out-of-doors would be that the committee
was already packed, and it would have been better to let the
Speaker appoint the committee himself.
Saunders, in furore, said that imputation was a conclusive
reason for the House to choose the committee instanter. But
the majority were not ready, and Charles H. Carroll, a graft
from Maryland upon Western New York, an ostensible Whig,
moved that Beardsley himself, Jones's substitute Speaker,

1 843.] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 447
should appoint the committee. This, after some debate, was
carried — ninety-eight to forty-eight. It was growing late. I
said I would postpone to another day the communication I had
to make to the House, and offered a resolution for the appoint
ment of Chaplains ; which was adopted, and the House ad
journed over to Monday for the appointment of the committees.
1 2th. I went to the House, and, as I entered, heard French,
now the Chief Clerk, reading the journal of yesterday, and
pronouncing my name as first of the Committee of Manu
factures, Charles J. Ingersoll Chairman of the Committee of
Foreign Affairs, James J. McKay of the Ways and Means, and
William Wilkins of the Judiciary. After the reading of the
journal, Payne, of Alabama, whom Beardsley had appointed
Chairman of the Committee of Elections, asked to be excused
on account of physical disability. Barnard moved to amend
the journal of yesterday by inserting the protest, and claimed
precedence for his motion. The Speaker decided that Payne's
motion to be excused from serving on a committee was a priv
ileged question, and had precedence by his rising first. Payne
was excused, and Barnard's motion brought up Hector Drom-
goole and a growling debate, till between one and two, when
Dickins, Secretary of the Senate, came in with a message an
nouncing the death of Dr. Linn, a Senator from Missouri;
whereupon a Missouri member pronounced his eulogy, and
offered the usual resolutions, including adjournment.
13th. At the House, after the reading of the journal, I asked
to be excused from serving on the Committee of Manufactures,
the state of my health making it impossible for me to discharge
the arduous duties of that office as they ought to be performed.
I said I had other reasons, with which it was not necessary for
me to trouble the House.
The vote to excuse me passed without opposition.
Reuben Chapman, of Alabama, and Edward J. Black, of
Georgia, appeared and took their seats, and Black made a fiery
speech. L. Q. C. Elmer, who, by the House's excusing Payne
from serving on the Committee of Elections, has become Chair
man of that committee, moved that the papers relating to the
contested elections should be referred to it; which was done.

448 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [December,
Garrett Davis moved that the Committee of Elections do en
quire and report to the House whether the members from the
four general-ticket States have been elected according to law
and are entitled to retain their seats. Steenrod moved to strike
out the Committee of Elections and insert a select committee;
and up sprung a debate, which promised a day of bawling and
chicanery, till between one and two, when a message came in
from the Senate announcing the death of Samuel M. Roberts, a
Senator from the State of Illinois; whereupon Wentworth, a
member from that State, pronounced his eulogy, and the House
adjourned. 14th. The Secretary of the Navy, David Henshaw, was as
smiling and as courteous as his colleague Porter, of the War
Department, had been. He said that if there was anything at
any time in the Department which I wished to be done, if I
would drop him a line it should be immediately attended to.
Such is the way of the world. There is not a man living who
has used fouler means to blacken my reputation and destroy
my character than David Henshaw. Of the two, I prefer the
growling sulkiness of Upshur.
At the House, immediately after the reading of the journal, I
announced to the House the decease of Barker Burnell, the
Representative elect from the Tenth Congressional District of
Massachusetts. I added a speech of about ten minutes of well-
deserved eulogy on his character, and moved the usual resolu
tions in honor of the deceased, including the adjournment of
the House. They were adopted without opposition.
Mr. Wilkins, Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, came to
me and said he wished to have a long conversation with me
upon subjects of importance referred to that committee. Mr.
Collamer, now Chairman of the Committee of Manufactures,
made the same proposition to me, which in both cases I ac
cepted. 15th. At the House, immediately after the reading of the
journal, Dromgoole called up the question about the rules.
There was Garrett Davis's motion for the reference of the gen
eral-ticket elections to the committee, and Mr. Barnard's last
motion to amend the journal so as to insert the protest, both of

I843-] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. ^g
which had precedence over the rules ; but, with the consent of
the movers, both these were postponed. Dromgoole's motion
for a new rule, to exclude from the journals all papers not re
ceived by the House, first came up, and Collamer, of Vermont,
made a short, sensible speech against it. Cave Johnson moved
the previous question, which the Speaker decided cut off" all
amendments. Dromgoole wanted to have his new rule first
adopted, and entreated Cave to suspend his motion for that
purpose; but Cave was inflexible. The previous question was
carried, and the rules, with the exception of the two struck
out on Wise's motion, with my amendment for going into and
coming out of committee of the whole by mere majority votes,
were adopted, including the hour rule and the gag. Drom
goole then moved his rule for excluding from the journal any
paper which the House refuses to receive ; and it was carried
without even taking the yeas and nays. Sundry other resolu
tions were offered, but William H. Stiles, of Georgia, arrested
them by announcing the death of Colonel John Millan, a
member elect of the House from that State, upon whom he
pronounced an eloquent eulogy, and then moved the usual
honorary resolutions ; adopted without opposition, and the
House adjourned.
Mr. John J. Crittenden, one of the Senators from the State
of Kentucky, left with me for my perusal a private and con
fidential letter from H. Clay to him on the subject of Texas,
dated the 5th of this month. He thinks Texas in Tyler's
hands is a mere firebrand, to be noticed as little as possible.
Mr. Crittenden concurs with him in opinion.
16th. I expended all the leisure of this morning in copying;
a list of the yeas and nays on my motion to except the twenty-
third or anti-petition rule from the adoption by the House of
the rules of the last Congress. Two hundred members of the
present House have taken their seats. The vote of the Whigs
has never exceeded sixty-five ; that of the Democracy has not
passed one hundred and thirty. The Democratic majority may
be set down as averaging just two-thirds ; yet on my motion the
vote stood ninety-one to ninety-four— a majority of only three
to retain the rule. Twenty-seven members from New York
VOL. XI. — 29

1/

450 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [December,
voted for my motion — only five against it ; twelve from Penn
sylvania for, and eight against it; Ohio, thirteen for and five
against it
This morning, immediately after the reading of the journal,
the Speaker said the first business in order was the call of
the States for petitions. This caused surprise — the practice of
presenting petitions openly in the House having been super
seded in the last Congress by that of presenting them silently
at the Clerk's table and having them referred to the appro
priate committees. The Speaker was now reminded of this
practice, which he explicitly recognized, but called out, "Peti
tions are in order from the State of Maine." Mr. Barnard first
urged to proceed immediately to the election of a chaplain,
and, cavilling objections being made, moved a suspension of
the rules — which was carried by a vote of two-thirds. Mr. Pettit
had moved a resolution that the House would dispense with
the election of a Chaplain for the present session; but this
proposition was immediately scouted down. At the first viva-
voce vote for Chaplain there was no choice; at the second,
Isaac S. Tinsley was chosen. McKay, Chairman of the Com
mittee of Ways and Means, moved the reference of the annual
report of the Secretary of the Treasury on the finances, in
parcels, to four separate committees. I objected to this, and
insisted that the whole report should be referred to the Com
mittee of Ways and Means — which, after a short and spirited
debate, was done.
Then the Speaker called again for petitions, for which no
one seemed prepared. The States of Maine and New Hamp
shire were quickly dispatched. Massachusetts was called.
Parmenter and D. P. King offered resolutions of the Legis
lature, which were ordered to be referred and printed. The
Speaker hurried on, and called Rhode Island and Connecticut,
till Winthrop called him back. I then rose and presented
a memorial from D. Appleton and Co. and ninety-six book
sellers and traders, praying for an international copyright law,
which was, after some discussion, ordered to be printed, and
referred to a select committee. My next presentment was a
petition from James B. Cooper, and five hundred and eighty-

i843-] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 45 r
five citizens of New York, praying Congress to separate the
people of New York from all connection whatever with slavery;
and this produced a blow-up and adjournment.
17th. The explosion which took place in the House on my
presenting yesterday the anti-slavery petition of citizens of
Western New York, is a premonitory symptom of the despera
tion with which the slave-power will be exercised in the present
Congress. The Latimer petition, signed by upwards of fifty
thousand names, was received at the last session of Congress
and referred to the Judiciary Committee. The petition from
New York, which I \presented yesterday, contains the same
prayer in the same identical words.
The Speaker instantly decided that it was excluded from
reception by the gag-rule, now the twenty-third.
I remonstrated that on the journals of the last session it was
recorded that petitions in the same words were received and
referred to the Judiciary Committee.
Half a dozen slave-breeders were already on their feet.
The Speaker coolly said, " Does the gentleman appeal from
the decision of the Chair?"
I said I had already too much experience not to be aware of
the fate of any appeal from the decision of the Chair, but that
I entreated the Speaker to revise his own decision so far as to
look at the precedent on the journal of the last session. The
Speaker said he considered the petition excluded by the rule.
I then said that if the Speaker refused to look at the precedent
I had no other alternative, and must take an appeal from his
decision. At this instant F. W. Gilmer started up in a panic and moved
to adjourn — which, after a short respite to receive communi
cations from the Executive Departments, was carried without
opposition, the Speaker saying, in the most courteous tone,
that he would very cheerfully examine the precedents.
1 8th. At the House, the new Chaplain, Tinsley, made the
prayer, short of three minutes. After the reading of the journal,
the Speaker said the first business in order was Garrett Davis's
resolution to refer the general-ticket election question to the
Committee of Elections. I enquired how it happened that the

452 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [December,
call for petitions was superseded. He said that G. Davis's reso
lution was a privileged question, and thereby took precedence.
Jameson made a long, bandit speech about his right to his seat
being as good as that of any other member; and Kennedy
moved a resolution declaring them all duly elected. Elmer
moved a modification of G. Davis's motion, which Davis ac
cepted, and the House adjourned without taking the question.
At eight this evening, I met Wise's committee on the revisal
of the rules, in the chamber of the Committee of Commerce.
Only seven members of the committee were present; we sat
till near ten, and adjourned to meet Wednesday morning at ten.
19th. The committee for the revisal of the rules was raised
on the motion of Wise, by a stale device to worm through the
gag-rule at the commencement of a Congress, when the new
members are most prone to renounce the rule, by giving them
a pretext for retaining it for a time. This scheme was tried at
the first session of the last Congress with entire success. The
committee was announced yesterday morning. Henry A.Wise,
John Q. Adams, George C. Dromgoole, Samuel Beardsley, John
White, Charles J. Ingersoll, John W. Davis, Samuel F. Vinton,
and Reuben Chapman are the committee ; and in the course
of the day Wise sent round to the members of the committee
a notification to meet in the chamber of the Committee of Com
merce last and every evening. Seven of us met accordingly.
I found them assembled, Ingersoll and Dromgoole absent. We
had some general conversation about the rules, and then agreed
to take them up and discuss them seriatim. We went through
eight of them, proposing petty amendments as we proceeded,
and then adjourned. Wise had a copy of the rules, with manu
script proposals of amendment by French, now Chief Under
Clerk of the Clerk's Office; but we found very little substance
in them.
At the House, Wise moved a suspension of the rules, to
go into committee of the whole on the state of the Union, to
dole out in driblets the President's message to the standing
committees; and it was carried. Jones gave the chair of the
committee of the whole on the state of the Union to Hopkins,
of Virginia, and Wise parcelled out the message to thirteen or

1 843.] THE TWENTY- EIGHTH CONGRESS. 453
fourteen committees. He came at last to some dark, no-mean
ing words about Western rivers and waters, and moved their
reference to the Committee of Ways and Means. And now the
West blazed out in a cross-fire of debate for three hours — when
Weller, of Ohio, moved the committee to rise, and the House
adjourned. 20th. At ten this morning I was at the chamber of the Com
mittee of Commerce at the House, to which time and place
the committee for the revisal of the rules was adjourned. Suc
cessively the other members of the committee came in, except
Wise, the Chairman, and Dromgoole, who since Saturday night
has been invisible. By a quarter-past ten there was a quorum
of the committee ; but they waited three-quarters of an hour
for the appearance of the Chairman. I then observed that,
being the second person named on the committee, by the rules
of the House, in the absence of the Chairman, the duties of that
office devolved upon me. I proposed, therefore, to resume the
revisal of the rules in their order. The revisal had been made
at the former meeting to the eighth inclusive; the ninth and
tenth were now passed without alteration — when, after eleven,
Wise made his appearance. Beardsley reminded him of the
hour. He said he had mistaken it; that Mr. Espy had been
holding him by the Button till he grazed upon the time of the
meeting of the committee, and he must take care that it should
not happen again.
We then resumed the discussion of the rules, and, after some
fizzing of steam at the sixteenth rule, which gives the power
to the Speaker, or the Chairman of the committee of the whole,
to clear the galleries in cases of disorder, we travelled through
to the eighteenth and nineteenth rules, concerning the admis
sion of stenographers into the House.
There was in the committee a general outbreak against this
corps of reporters, and sundry restrictive amendments to the
rules relating to them were proposed.
I told the committee that it was a hornets' nest, which it
might be prudent not to disturb; whereupon the committee
adjourned till to-morrow at ten.
In the House, the public lands, the Chesapeake and Ohio

454 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [December,
Canal, David Levy's right to his seat as delegate from the
Territory of Florida, and a national foundry, were of the usual
usurpers on the business of the day. The question of recep
tion upon Barnard's motion to amend the journal was at last,
on the motion of Steenrod, laid on the table by yeas and nays —
one hundred and sixteen to fifty-nine. Garrett Davis's motion
directing the Committee of Elections to report on the validity
of the certificates of the members elected by general ticket was
at last adopted by yeas and nays — one hundred and forty-eight
to thirty-two. Petitions. The Speaker reversed his decision of
Saturday, and declared the petition of James B. Cooper, and
five hundred and twenty-five citizens of New York State, not
excluded by the rule ; but the question of reception was made,
and laid on the table — ninety-seven to eighty — and the new
vital struggle for the right of petition commenced, in the midst
of which the House adjourned.
2 ist. The National Intelligencer of this morning announces
the death of Smith Thompson, a Judge of the Supreme Court
of the United States. He died last Monday, at his residence
at Poughkeepsie, in the State of New York. Mr. Charles H.
Carroll, the Representative from the district, read to me yester
day a letter from Judge Thompson's grandson, Smith, written
immediately after he expired, to inform Carroll of the fact.
Judge Thompson was one of my colleagues, as Secretary of the
Navy, in the Cabinet of James Monroe. Of that Cabinet there
remain now living only John C. Calhoun and myself. Monroe
himself, Crawford, Wirt, Southard, Thompson, have gone to
their account. May I be also ready!
This morning I attended again the committee for the re
visal of the rules, first in the chamber of the Committee of
Commerce ; but, as that committee meet at eleven, we passed
into the adjoining room of the Committee on Post-Offices and
Post-Roads. The Chairman, Wise, was again tardy, a full hour ;
and Davis, of Indiana, engaged upon another committee, came
in still later. Dromgoole did not show his cognac face, though
he did afterwards in the House, but without taking any part in
the debate. The committee resumed the revisal of the rules,
and, after discussing, adopting, or rejecting various proposed

I843-] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 455
amendments, came to the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth, con
cerning the presentation and reception of petitions. Here was
the stumbling-block. I moved to strike out the last clause
of the twenty-fourth and the whole of the twenty-fifth rule.
It was noon, and the committee adjourned till ten to-morrow
morning. In the House, the life-and-death struggle for the right of
petition was resumed. The question of reception of the petition
from Illinois was laid on the table — ninety-eight to eighty —
after a long and memorable debate.
I then presented the resolves of the Massachusetts Legis
lature of the 23d of March, 1843, proposing an amendment
to the Constitution of the United States, making the repre
sentation of the people in the House proportioned to the
numbers of free persons, and moved it should be read, printed,
and referred to a select committee of nine. And now sprung
up the most memorable debate ever entertained in the House,
in the midst of which the House, at half-past three, adjourned.
I can give no account of it. Wise formally surrendered at dis
cretion his citadel rule to the right of petition. Then came a
cross-fire between Holmes, Beardsley, Weller, and French, till,
at the motion of Belser, of Alabama, the House adjourned.
R. D. Davis, of New York, had taken the floor.
The crisis now requires of me coolness, firmness, prudence,
moderation, and fortitude, beyond all former example. I came
home in such a state of agitation that I could do nothing but
pace my chamber.1
22d. Pilgrim anniversary. The agony continues. Meeting
of the committee on the revisal of the rules. Wise, the Chair
man, came in reasonable time, but Vinton was very late. I had
moved to strike out the twenty-fifth rule, and that part of the
twenty-fourth which, at my motion, was adopted on the 29th of
March, 1842, as a necessary substitute to obtain the reception
1 In order fully to comprehend these emotions, it seems necessary to state that
the report and the resolutions here referred to had been drawn up by a committee
of the House of Representatives of Massachusetts, of which the present writer
was the chairman, and draftsman of all the papers. It is no more than proper to
add that there had not been the smallest previous understanding on the subject
between father and son.

456 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [December,
of petitions at all. I insisted upon the questions being put on
striking them both out together, which, after some discussion,
was agreed to. The question was taken by yeas and nays —
ayes, Beardsley, John W. Davis, John White, and Adams ;
nays, Wise, Chapman, and C. J. Ingersoll, who, as soon as the
vote was decided, declared he was glad it had passed — it suited
him exactly. Such is the double nature of the man. Wise
had prepared a substitute ten times worse than the rule to be
rescinded — the same that was palmed upon the committee to
revise the rules at the first session of the last Congress — that,
on the presentation of any petition, memorial, or paper relating
in any manner to slavery, the question of consideration shall
always be considered as raised, and they shall be laid on the
table. Wise now declined to offer it, but Chapman did, and
the vote upon it was — ayes, Chapman, Ingersoll, Wise; nays,
Adams, Beardsley, Davis, Vinton, and White. Dromgoole
would have voted against rescinding the existing rule, and for
the substitute; but he was not present, and has not attended
any meeting of the committee.
After this decision the committee discussed two or three
more rules, and adjourned to Tuesday morning at ten. Wise,
as Chairman, put into my hands French's paper-book and the
minutes of the proceedings of the committee hitherto ; said he
was going to Virginia, and should be absent eight or ten days.
In the House, the journal, made up under the direction of the
Speaker, stated that I was called to order for offensive words.
I moved to amend the journal by stating that I was called to
order by Saunders, of North Carolina, for irrelevancy, sustained
by the Speaker — this pretence of irrelevancy being a mere sub
terfuge to suppress the freedom of speech. It was under this
offensive act of the Speaker that I used the words at which he
chose to take offence and to order me to take my seat. Bar
nard and Winthrop urged me to move to strike out the state
ment that I was called to order for offensive words ; but with
this House I knew I should fail on that motion, and as I did
use offensive words, although they were not taken down, or
even assigned by the Speaker as his reason for ordering me to
take my seat, and the Speaker had no right to enter upon the

I843-] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 457
journal that he had called me to order for offensive words, I
was willing to leave that entry as it was, adding the previous
entry, that the Speaker had already sustained a slave-tainted
call of me to order for irrelevancy. He agreed that my amend
ment should be entered on the journal.
The occurrences in the House yesterday and this day have
been so extraordinary that they would require a narrative,
which it is impossible for me to write out, but a brief summary
of which I must borrow a supernumerary page to record.
Yesterday, after the long, snarling debate to suppress the
enthusiastical petition from the State of Illinois, finally read,
and, upon question of its reception, laid on the table, when I
presented the resolves of the Legislature of Massachusetts
and moved the reference of them to a select committee of nine,
Jameson moved the Committee on the Judiciary, Cave Johnson
a committee of one member from each State. Wise rose, called
upon the reporters to take note of what he was about to say,
asked the particular attention of the House, and declared once
for all, and forever, that he renounced this war against Southern
rights, which had been several years waged in the hall. He
would vote for my motion to refer these resolves to a select
committee, and hoped I should be Chairman of it, that the
whole committee should be of the same complexion, and that
the whole mass of abolition petitions should be referred to the
same committee, that we might make a report in our own way,
and the House and the country might see what we were after.
Whereupon Holmes, Beardsley, Weller, and French made
frothy and foaming speeches about abolition. R. D. Davis
rose to take the floor, and I said I hoped I should be in
dulged with an opportunity to say a few words; when the
House adjourned.
This day, when the Speaker announced the call for petitions
as the order of the day, R. D. Davis rose again to take the
floor ; but Preston King, one of the five members from New
York who cling to the gag-rule, made a feeble attempt to
deprive me of the floor to reply to the slave-mongers licensed
all yesterday. He charged me with arresting the progress of
the presentation of petitions.

458 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [December,
I said I would not move a suspension of the rules to obtain
permission to address the House, but only demanded a decision
upon my motion to refer the resolves of the Legislature of Mas
sachusetts to a select committee.
Hudson moved to suspend the rules to enable me to address
the House, and Hunt, of New York, called the yeas and nays
on the motion. The vote was one hundred and twenty-three
to forty-six ; and I spoke about an hour in reply to Wise,
Holmes, Weller, and French — desultory, weak, and superficial
— but effective.
Belser moved to lay the resolves of the Legislature of Mas
sachusetts on the table. Lost — sixty-four to one hundred and
four. Jameson withdrew his motion to refer them to the
Committee on the Judiciary, and my motion to refer them to a
select committee of nine was carried without a division.1
23d. I had received an invitation with a card from Mr. A. P.
Upshur to attend a meeting of the Board of Management of
the National Institute, to be held at the office of the Secretary
of State at ten o'clock this morning. I attended accordingly.
The meeting numbered about forty persons. It was to trans
act the business for which the evening supper-party had been
gathere'd at Colonel Abert's last Tuesday, but which then failed
by the non-attendance of the heads of Departments, who con
stitute the Board of Management. The Secretaries of State,
War, and Navy were now present.
Mr. Upshur proposed me as Chairman of the meeting, and
Joseph R. Ingersoll as Secretary; which was unanimously agreed
to. Then resolutions were proposed and adopted, among which
was one that a committee of five should be appointed by the
Chairman, to draw up a memorial asking for the National In
stitute patronage and pecuniary assistance. All this had been
prepared beforehand by Mr. Markoe, and I appointed this com
mittee immediately, with Richard S. Coxe for their Chairman.
There was a resolution also that Mr. Woodbury should pre
sent the memorial to the Senate, and I to the House, and an
other that Mr. Walker should deliver an address at the next
' Obviously the effect of the popular ovation given to Mr. Adams during the
preceding summer.

1 843.] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 45 g
annual meeting of the Institute, and I an oration in February.
I said I would very cheerfully perform the service assigned to
me, should it be in my power, but it was extremely doubtful
whether it would ever be in my power — certainly not during
the present session of Congress. They altered the words to
read, on some future day, of which due notice will be given.
Charles J. Ingersoll made a speech, sensible enough, but deal
ing in generalities. Mr. Woodbury said he was a strict con
structionist, but he had voted for the Act of Incorporation of
the Institute (27th July, 1842), because it was in the District of
Columbia, and because it was necessary for the preservation and
safe-keeping of the curiosities collected in the several depart
ments of the Government. The meeting adjourned about noon.
24th. I told Mr. Beardsley yesterday morning that I had
thoughts of proposing to the committee on the revisal of the
rules, to report in part immediately, to strike out from the rules
the gag, and the counterpart for the reception of petitions; that
is, the twenty-fifth and the latter part of the twenty-fourth rule.
He asked if I thought that would be the best way to get rid
of the rule. I said I did. He said he was decided for getting
rid of the rule.
I asked Mr. Markoe if it was true, as currently reported, that
Mr. Wise was nominated for the mission to France. He said
he would enquire of the Secretary of State — which he did, and
said Mr. Upshur had answered, Not to his knowledge.
This morning, at the Foundry Methodist Episcopal Church, I
heard the Rev. Mr. Colquitt, of Georgia, otherwise called Judge
Colquitt, or Lawyer Colquitt, or the Hon. Walter T. Colquitt,
Senator of the United States from Georgia. His text was 2
Corinthians vi. I : " We then, as workers together with him, be
seech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain." He
had read the fifth chapter, and stretched over it the commentary
of his text. He is the most thorough jack-of-all-trades in the
public service, and much better suited for an ambassador for
Christ as a Methodist preacher than for a member of either
House of Congress. His action in the pulpit is too excessive
for his sincerity ; there is a convulsive motion in the muscles of
his face, and his voice often sinks from a strong base organ into

460 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [December,
ventriloquism. I have received a letter from a woman, a stranger
to me, but who says she knows him well, and warns me to beware
of him. The house was crowded, and his sermon was eloquent.
25th. I returned the visit of Mr. Charles J. Ingersoll, with
whom I do yet make out to keep on speaking terms, but whose
political morality is so dissolute, and his nature so treacherous,
that my regard for him as a once-valued friend has more than
once exploded. His double-dealing now is from a maggot in his
brain, worming him into the belief that as a Representative of
the Keystone State, with his transcendent talents, he is the man
to hold the balance between the Northern and Southern sections
of the Union, and that in the exercise of that umpirage he is to
cast his dead weight always on the side of the South, as the
weaker party. He has now prevailed upon nineteen of his col
leagues of the Pennsylvania (delegation) to join him in a writ
ten recommendation to President Tyler of Horace Binney for
the office of Judge of the United States, in the place of Smith
Thompson. He knows well that Tyler will not nominate
Binney; but his motive is twofold — first, to ingratiate himself
with Binney, to whom he will take care to make known his
recommendation of him ; and, secondly, to prevent Tyler from
nominating John Sergeant, as he fears he might (under the
influence of Wise, whose wife is Sergeant's daughter) do. This
is the nature of the man, and these are his ways.
The report in the National Intelligencer of my last Friday's
speech is a very indifferent one, and contains several gross
blunders. Mr. Leavitt's notes corrected them in part, but not
entirely, and add nothing to the report except a note alluding
to the call of me to order by the Speaker, and his order to me
to take my seat.
There was circulated yesterday a printed hand-bill about
Calhoun, Van Buren, and Texas. Mr. Leavitt had not seen
it, and I lent it to him ; also the Cincinnati Morning Herald,
containing the reply of the committee of the Irish Repeal
Association at Cincinnati to the answer of the Repeal Associa
tion in Ireland to a letter from the Cincinnati Repealers, written
last summer, and containing an open, brazen-faced defence of
the institution of slavery in this country. The present letter

1 843] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. ^Qx
disavows, in the most indignant tone and manner, the servile
sycophancy of the last summer's letter, and exposes the abom
inations of the slavish power in this country.
26th. I attended, at the room of the Committee of Commerce,
the committee for the revisal of the rules. Present, Adams,
Beardsley, Chapman, J. W. Davis, C. J. Ingersoll, Vinton, and
White; absent, Wise and Dromgoole, whose second week of
drunken vacation has commenced. They call it a breeze. I
proposed to the committee to report forthwith in part, that is,
to rescind the twenty-fifth and the last clause of the twenty-fourth
rule ; but all the other members of the committee were averse to
the proposal, and I did not press it. The committee proceeded
to review the rules in their order, made sundry alterations — none
of which appeared to me to be amendments — and wasted time
in debating and rejecting other critical substitutions of synony
mous words. Adjourned till to-morrow morning at ten.
In the House, there were attempts by several members to
divert the order of business, which, not being duly repressed
by the Speaker, consumed a considerable portion of the day.
I enquired if the business left unfinished in committee of the
whole on the state of the Union last week, that is, the par
celling out of the President's message to the committees, was
not the first in order. The Speaker said it was not.
At last the Speaker called for petitions. I presented one from
Connecticut, containing four prayers — the first of which was for
the abolition of slavery and the slave-trade in the District of
Columbia; the other three prayers were not within the rule,
and I moved the reference of the fourth — intercourse with
Hayti — to the Committee of Foreign Affairs. The Speaker
decided that the whole petition was excluded. This was con
trary to the precedents. I appealed from the decision ; but it
was sustained by the House — one hundred and five to forty.
27th. At ten I met the committee on the revisal of the rules,
in the room of the Committee of Commerce. We made some
progress in the operation. But every member has whims of his
own, to alter and amend; and, in the way of mutual concession,
the m'embers of the committee have so much deference for each
other, that they adopt without discussion one another's humors,

462 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [December,
and, instead of simplifying, complicate the rules and make de
bate for the House. This morning, all present except Wise
and Dromgoole, they agreed by my casting vote to strike out
the hour rule.
At the House, after the prayer by Mr. Tustin and the reading
of the journal, the Clerk announced the select committee on
the resolves of the Legislature of Massachusetts, proposing
an amendment to the Constitution : Adams, Rhett, Joseph R.
Ingersoll, Gilmer, Garrett Davis, Burke, Semple, Morse, and
Giddings. The States and Territories were called through for petitions
in the course of half an hour. I had but one to present. Then
came the call for reports of committees, and then for resolutions.
The first was that of Edmund Burke, of New Hampshire,
that the House will proceed on Thursday, the 4th of January,
to elect a Postmaster. The Calhounites had hitherto staved off
this motion till now. They dared no longer to resist it. Burke
moved the resolution, the previous question, and the yeas and
nays, all at once. A motion to lay the resolution on the table
was lost — seventy-three to eighty-four. The previous question
was carried, and the resolution itself — eighty-three to sixty-nine.
The quid pro quo for New Hampshire sycophancy to the South
is patronage, and Burke fairly dragooned them out of their
bowels of compassion for McCormick, the present Postmaster;
he must go.
Hale, another member from New Hampshire, startled at an
estimate of nine millions of dollars for the navy, moved yes
terday a retrenchment resolution of enquiry about the home
squadron. Charles J. Ingersoll made this day one of his snaky,
rabid retrenchment speeches against Hale's motion, under color
of supporting it. Steenrod moved the previous question. I
said I should be glad to say a few words. He offered to with
draw if I would renew the motion. I declined. The House
refused to sustain the previous question. I replied to Ingersoll.
28th. The visit of Colonel Twiggs and Mr. Baldwin last
evening was for the purpose of convincing me of the absolute
necessity of remounting the second regiment of dragoons. In
the reduction of the army, which I urged with so much zeal

1 843.] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 463
and effect at the second session of the Twenty-Seventh Con
gress, my purpose was to disband that regiment entirely, and
it was carried by a large majority in the House. The Senate
could only be brought to turn it into a rifle regiment, disband
ing the horses. There was an agonizing struggle the whole
of the last session to repeal that part of the Act of 23d August,
1842. It failed, and the horses were sold. And now the
President recommends to remount the regiment, and Colonel
Twiggs and Mr. Baldwin deem it indispensable.
Mr. John T. Towers, publisher here of a newspaper called
The Whig Standard, sent me an extra number of the paper con
taining my speech of last Friday, as reported in the National
Intelligencer of Saturday, with a note stating that he had a
subscription to print a large edition of the speech, and request
ing me to revise the copy sent me — which I did last evening,
and I left it this morning at the Standard office. Mr. Towers
showed me the subscription list for the speech, which amounted
to four thousand copies. \
Committee on the revisal of the rules. Present, Adams,
Beardsley, White, Ingersoll, Davis, Vinton, and Chapman ; ab
sent, Wise and Dromgoole. The committee travelled through
all the remainder of the existing rules, altering, amending,
striking out, and adding. They then adjourned to Saturday
morning, ten o'clock, when a fair copy of the code, as amended
by the committee, is to be presented for their final action and
vote upon it. And, with the exception of the striking out of
the anti-petition rules, all the remainder of the report is not
worth a wisp of straw ; nay, it is worse than nothing, and the
existing rules form a less objectionable system than the adopted
report. In the House, numerous notices were given by different
members of their intention to bring in bills — a new practice,
of which, I believe, I myself set the first example. The States
were called through for petitions. Giddings presented one from
a negro claiming to be free, a citizen of Virginia, named Wil
liam Jones, but now in jail. here and ^advertised to be sold for
jail-fees. Giddings moved its reference to a select committee
of five, with power to send for persons and papers. Another

464 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [December,
explosion, and the subject laid over because it gave rise to
debate. 29th. The record of yesterday must overflow upon this day.
When Giddings presented the petition from the negro William
Jones, now in jail and advertised to be sold for jail-fees, the
whole slave-representation was up in arms. Fifty-five names
are recorded in favor of a motion to lay the petition on the
table. The Speaker ordered the whole subject to lie over,
because it raised debate.
It was followed by a resolution of John Campbell, Chairman
of the Committee on the District of Columbia, from that com
mittee, for an instruction to them to report a bill for abolishing
imprisonment for debt in the District of Columbia — which was
carried; and then Hale's motion of enquiry about the home
squadron came up, and was debated till Weller moved the
previous question, upon which a quorum could not be obtained
to vote, and the House adjourned.
I had notified all the members of the select committee on the
resolves of the Massachusetts Legislature to meet this morning
at ten, in the room of the Committee of Commerce. When I
notified R. B. Rhett, he answered that he received the notice,
but, immediately after, the Speaker announced and read a- letter
from Rhett to him, asking to be excused from serving on that
committee. The House, without opposition, excused him.
The meeting of the committee lasted upwards of an hour.
Present, Adams, Joseph R. Ingersoll, Gilmer, Garrett Davis,
Burke, Semple, Morse, and Giddings. As the appointment
of the ninth member in the place of Rhett had not been an
nounced, it was agreed that nothing decisive should be done
at this meeting; but Mr. Gilmer offered a resolution that the
amendment of the Constitution proposed by the Legislature of
Massachusetts ought not to be recommended. A desultory con
versation was held, in which Gilmer and Ingersoll gave their
opinions against the proposed amendment, and Mr. Giddings
and myself in its favor. We adjourned to meet next Thursday.
30th. On returning yesterday from the Pension Office to the
Capitol with Mr. Grinnell, I found the House in session, and
just entering upon the discussion of the question what to do

I843-] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 465
with the petition of William Jones, the negro claiming to be a
free citizen of Virginia, but now in jail here and advertised to
be sold for jail-fees.
Saunders, of North Carolina, was arguing against any action
of the House upon the petition ; so did John Campbell, Haral
son, Payne, and Cobb ; but the leaning of the House was too
strong the other way. R. D. Davis made a very eccentric or
disingenuous speech, denying that there was any desire in the
North for the abolition of slavery in the Southern States, and
threatening an immediate dissolution of the Union by the North
if the Southern States should immediately abolish slavery.
I presented a parallel between the fire and fury with which
the House on the 18th of June, 1842, passed an Act, at the
instigation of Edward D. White, to release from prison a white
citizen of Louisiana, and the torpid lethargy of the House on
this occasion.
The petition was finally referred to the Committee on the
Judiciary without instructions.
A motion was then made to adjourn, but failed, the yeas
and nays being called. Slidell moved to suspend the rules to
go into committee of the whole to take up Charles J. Ingersoll's
bill to refund Jackson's fine with thirty years' interest. The
House went accordingly into committee, Davis, of Indiana, in
the chair. Slidell made an hour's speech for the bill, but the
passion to pass it was so red-hot that it had not patience to
hear him. Stephens, of Georgia, moved an amendment to
give the bill the form of a donation, with a proviso disclaiming
all censure of Judge Hall; but it was scouted down insultingly.
Past four o'clock Barnard moved an adjournment; the rabble-
ment shouted No, and growled, " Pass the bill." Barnard set
them at defiance, told them they would pass the bill, but the
Senate would not, and was laying out for an hour of argument,
when Charles J. Ingersoll told them there was no need of hurry,
and moved the committee to rise — which they did, and the
House adjourned.
Although the date of Saturday stands at the top of this
page, the record is but a continuation of Friday. The House
adjourned over to Tuesday.
VOL. xi. — 30

466 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [January,
This morning at ten I went to the Capitol to meet the
committee on the revisal of the rules. Only four members
of the committee met — Adams, Beardsley, C. J. Ingersoll, and
Vinton : no quorum. Nevertheless, we proceeded to compare
the copy made in the Clerk's office under French's direction of
the rules revised by the committee, with the copy on which the
amendments agreed upon by them were minuted down, and we
found some errors to be corrected, and some rules requiring
further revisal. We adjourned to next Tuesday morning at
ten, hoping that we shall then have a quorum. I have some
concern about the manner of printing the report. The discus
sion in the House will be difficult and perplexed, unless the
existing rules should be printed in parallel pages with the pro
posed revisal, and, if they are, the chances are that the only
important amendment made by the committee, the exclusion of
the gag-rule, will not be adopted by the House; or be replaced
by the substitute moved by Chapman, ten times worse than the
existing rule. This, I have no doubt, is Wise's real purpose,
and that his solemn parade of renouncing all opposition to the
reception of abolition petitions was a cheat. I borrowed in
the library Rose's Orlando Inamorato and Furioso, and found
his sword Durindana in both of them.
In the law library I borrowed the first volume of a digest of
the Pennsylvania Laws, containing the first Act of the Legisla
ture of that State to abolish slavery. I met Mr. Giddings there,
and he gave me the document containing the report of the
Secretary of War.
January 1st, 1844. — I begin the new year, as I closed the old
one, with praise and prayer to God — with grateful thanksgiving
for the past, with humble supplication for the future. Physical
nature never was more kindly adapted to the enjoyment of man
in commencing the year, than it was this day at this place.
The close of the last year was serene, mild, and beautiful. The
entrance of the new annual portion of everlasting ages was yet
more auspicious and cheering. The morning, noon, and night
of it was delightful. I rose an hour and a half later than my
time, but closed before breakfast the diary of the departed year.

1 844.] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 467
From ten till three o'clock, an uninterrupted stream of visitors
absorbed the time and exhausted my patience. It is generally
meant in kindness — always in civility — and for a succession of
fifteen years, since I left the President's house, has greeted me
in still increasing numbers. Among the visitors of this day
were some of the bitterest political enemies, North and South,
that I have in the world. Holmes and Campbell, of South
Carolina, Burke and Hale, of New Hampshire, were of the
number, and Charles Jared Ingersoll, the cunningest and most
treacherous cat of them all. Holmes, however, could not
cover his sore with court-plaster. He made a merit of his
visit, by saying he had come to see me, notwithstanding the
sword of Orlando — a dash of ridicule that I cast upon him
for his hectoring bravadoes of battle against the abolitionists.
An hour of argument he could answer with blustering sophistry;,
an impregnable syllogism, with rhodomontade; but Durindana.
cut so deep that he will never recover from the wound. Of all
weapons in debate, sarcasm is the " lethafis arundo."
Immediately after I got disengaged from the throng, about.
three, I walked to Mrs. Madison's house and paid her a visit.
Found with her several ladies, of whom were Miss Legare,.
sister of the late Attorney-General, two Misses Bryant, daugh
ters of another sister, and Anna Payne, who lives with her. I
have piles of letters unanswered, and which I never shall find
time to answer. To-morrow recommences the struggle, which,
for me, can terminate only with my life. May the Spirit from.
above in life and death sustain me !
2d. At ten I met the committee on the revisal of the rules-
Present, Adams, Beardsley, C. J. Ingersoll, White, Chapman,
and Vinton; absent, Wise, Davis, and Dromgoole, the last of
whom has not once attended the committee. Before the quorum
was formed this morning, Beardsley told me that he thought the
House would not confirm the vote of the committee to strike
out the gag-rule, and he intimated that Davis, of Indiana, had
changed his opinion, and would move to reverse the decision
of the committee. But Davis did not attend. The members
present, after a final cursory revisal of the whole report, in
structed me to present it this day to the House, and to move

468 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [January,
that it be printed, and made the order of the day for this day
week. I told Beardsley that the action of the House upon the
;gag would depend entirely upon the perseverance of the twenty-
seven members of the New York delegation, and that I was
told the Richmond Enquirer had threatened that if they did
persevere, Van Buren's claim to the Presidency would be
forfeited. He admitted the fact, and said that he hoped the members
¦would not be moved by any such consideration ; two or three
weak-minded men might be.
In the House, the instant after the reading of the journal,
Charles J. Ingersoll moved a suspension of the rules to go into
¦committee of the whole on the state of the Union, to take up
the bill to refund Jackson's fine.
I asked permission of the House to present the report on
.the revisal of the rules, that it might be printed and made the
order of the day for next Tuesday. Charles J. coolly said,
"You can make your report;" but Reding, of New Hamp
shire, objected, and the House, by a vote of more than two-
thirds, went into committee and took up the Jackson fine bill.
Barnard, at the close of his fragment of an hour, was cut off" in
the midst of an unanswerable argument against the bill ; and
now followed the foulest and filthiest shower of slander, upon
the long-since-deceased Judge Hall, that has been witnessed
since the festival of the Harpies, in the ^Eneid — till Weller
moved the committee to rise ; but the House did not im
mediately adjourn.
3d. When Weller moved, yesterday, the committee on the
Jackson fine to rise, it was for the purpose of having a full,
fresh morning hour to disgorge his bilious venom against the
Whigs and his sycophancy to Jackson, on the House.
When the committee rose, I again presented the report of
the committee on the revisal of the rules, and moved that it
should be printed and made the order of the day for next
Tuesday. There was a disorderly, tumultuary opposition to
receiving the report ; but the Speaker did receive it, and stated
the question of printing and assignment. Campbell, of South
Carolina, called for a division of the question. There were

I844-] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 469
slave answers of no, but the Speaker, without heeding them,
pronounced the printing, and took the question of assignment
merely by rising. He declared sixty-three for and sixty-five
against the assignment, and pronounced it rejected.
I, and many others, believed he had miscounted, and that the
real majority was for the assignment. I was about to call for a
count by tellers, but Elmer, Chairman of the Committee of
Elections, had contested the floor with me for a motion that the
committee should be allowed to employ a clerk. The instant
the Speaker announced the decision against the assignment,
Elmer got the floor and made his motion. Houston, a mem
ber of the committee, opposed it, and Charles H. Carroll
started up and commenced a storm against the committee for
neglect of duty in not reporting upon the contested seats of
the general-ticket members. He was called to order repeat
edly for irrelevancy, and decided by Beardsley, in the chair
as Speaker, to be out of order, but persevered till the clamor
for order was growing to a brawl.
Jones, the Speaker, crept in, and Beardsley out of the chair.
Carroll was still vociferating, in spite of the decision that he
was out of order. Elmer, to silence the charge against the
Committee of Elections of neglect of duty, withdrew his
motion for a clerk, and a slaver moved to adjourn. Carroll
insisted that Elmer could not withdraw his motion, nor the
other member move to adjourn while he was on the floor
speaking. The Speaker decided that the motion to adjourn
was in order. From this decision Schenck appealed ; but the
Speaker put the question, and the House adjourned.
This morning Mr. Jones, of the Globe office, came for
instructions as to the mode of printing the report of the com
mittee for the revisal of the rules, which I gave him. I had
hoped to have some leisure for writing; but a flood of news
papers came, and noon was upon me before I had a quarter of
an hour to look into the debates of the Virginia Convention
upon the Constitution of the United States.
At the House, after the reading of the journal, instead of
Charles J. Ingersoll's spring-gun to go into committee of the
whole on the Jackson fine bill, Payne, of Alabama, made

470 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [January,
some fuss about the expense of warming the hall by a furnace
below — which came to nothing; when Cave Johnson moved to
suspend the rules for the purpose of calling the States for
resolutions. Cave Johnson and Charles J. are now the leaders
of the House — Wise not having yet returned from his Christ
mas holidays at home, and Dromgoole just now returned from
his drunken holidays here. Ingersoll and Cave are indefatiga
ble. The rules were suspended by a vote of more than two-
thirds. The Jackson fine bill was turned adrift till further order,
and the call for resolutions, not to be debated now, commenced.
A question was immediately started, whether, under a call
for resolutions, members could introduce bills of which they
had given previous notice. The Speaker decided first that
they could not, and then that they could, and a goodly number
of abortions were thus ushered into being.
The Speaker began with Maine. When he came to Massa
chusetts, I offered, first, a call upon the Secretary of the
Treasury for the present condition of the Smithsonian Fund,
and the origin of its investment in State stocks. Adopted
without lying over a day, and without opposition.
I then asked leave to offer another resolution, which was
tacitly granted. It was a call on the President for copies of all
the instructions to the commanders of the squadron stipulated
by the Ashburton Treaty to be kept on the coast of Africa,
and copies of the British instructions to the commanders of
their squadron, if they have been communicated to our Govern
ment. This, too, was adopted without opposition. Mr. Cary,
of New York, offered a resolution to reconsider the vote of
yesterday, declared by the Speaker to have rejected my motion
to assign next Tuesday for the consideration of the report of
the committee on the revisal of the rules. There was much
chicanery to exclude the reception of this resolution. All this
failing, Boyd moved to lay it on the table. The House refused,
by yeas and nays — eighty to eighty-seven. The question then
was direct on the reconsideration ; but the Speaker was averse
to putting it.
Davis, of Indiana, whose vote in the committee had decided
the rescinding of the gag-rule, now voted to lay on the table

1 844-] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. ^yi
the motion to assign next Tuesday for the consideration of the
report; and Beardsley urged to postpone the question of re
consideration till the close of the call for resolutions, with an
understanding that it should then be immediately taken. It
¦was clear that if I insisted on taking the question of reconsider
ation now, it would fail; and I consented to the postponement.
The call for resolutions continued ; Rhett offered one, to
instruct the Committee of Ways and Means to report a hori
zontal duty bill, and moved the previous question. The Whigs
indulged hiin with a second, and then rejected his resolution,
by yeas and nays — fifty-seven to one hundred and twelve.
John Campbell offered a resolution to appoint McCormick
Postmaster to the House ; but the Northern slavers had pounced
upon their prey, and forced down the throats of their Southern
accomplices an order that the House would elect a Postmaster
to-morrow. So the Speaker declared Campbell's motion out
of order. He then modified it into a resolution to rescind
the order for electing the Postmaster to-morrow; but it availed
him nothing. Weller moved to lay his resolution on the table,
and called for the yeas and nays. Carried — ninety-four to
seventy-six. Thus it is that the Northern phalanx of the slave Democracy
dragoon the South, in the distribution of the spoils, in return
for their sale of the freedom of their constituents in the slave-
market, as the Dutch traders to Japan purchased the privilege
of dealing for spices, by trampling on the Cross.
Black, of Georgia, brought up Rhett's anti-tariff resolution
in another form — an instruction to the Committee of Ways and
Means to report a Tariff bill for raising revenue only ; and this
was rejected, by yeas and nays, by a majority of only one —
eighty-three to eighty-four.
A. G. Brown introduced a bill to repeal the districting section
of the Apportionment law. Campbell moved its reference to
the Committee of Elections. Brown moved its reference to the
committee of the whole on the state of the Union — which was
carried. Duncan moved an instruction to the Committee of Ways and
Means to report in substance the repealed Sub-Treasury bill,

472 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [January,
to divorce the Government from all connection with banks.
Carried, by yeas and nays — one hundred and ten to fifty-eight
McDowell, of Ohio, ran the anti-tariff" racer a third heat,
by a resolution to instruct the Committee of Ways and Means
to report a bill modifying the tariff to a collection of duties for
the object of revenue, and no other. The House adjourned.
4th. I have named in the margin1 all the members, including
myself, of the select committee on the Massachusetts resolves,
all of whom met this morning in the room of the Committee
of Commerce, and, when that committee met, passed into the
room of the Committee on the Militia. I moved that the com
mittees should take minutes of their proceedings, and that when
any member should present any resolution or motion in writing
the question upon it should be taken if he desired it — which was
agreed to, and Joseph Ingersoll consented to keep the minutes,
at my request.
I then moved the two resolutions, which I asked the commit
tee to instruct their Chairman to offer to the House, instructing
the committee to enquire and ascertain as far as may be practi
cable the number of owners of slaves, and the amount of the
chattel property represented, in the House.
Gilmer insisted upon taking immediately the question upon
the motion submitted by him at the last meeting, in writing,
that the amendment to the Constitution proposed by the re
solves of the Legislature of Massachusetts ought not to be
recommended. I first moved, as amendment to that resolution, to strike out
the word not, and then moved to postpone the consideration of
it, to discuss my resolutions looking for calls for information,
and to give time for argumentative reports on both sides to
be prepared and submitted to the committee, and then to the
House, if so decided by the committee. The question on post
ponement was carried by vote — seven to two — Gilmer and Burt
only voting no.
Gilmer then invited me to state candidly my views in support
1 The following are the names referred to: Adams, John Quincy; Ingersoll,
Joseph Reed; Gilmer, Thomas W.; Davis, Garrett; Burke, Edmund; Semple,
Samuel C. ; Morse, Freeman H. ; Giddings, Joshua R. ; Burt, Armistead.

I844-] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 473
of the amendment proposed by the Massachusetts Legislature,
which I did, in a very summary manner, disclaiming all inten
tion of saying anything offensive to any member of the com
mittee, compelled as I was to state the feelings of my con
stituents, under their sense of the wrongs endured by them,
resulting from the slave representation in Congress. Burke and
Gilmer said my father had contended that the slaves should be
represented equally with the whites. But that was in the Con
federation of States, without any representation of the people.
Garrett Davis suggested that if information of the number of
owners of slaves, and of the amount of their value, was to be
sought, similar information of the numbers of other proprietors,
and of the value of other property, would be equally necessary.
From this I dissented, no other property being represented in
Congress. In the House, a bad example was introduced, of dispensing
with the reading of a large portion of the journal. The call
of the States for resolutions was immediately resumed. Tib-
betts, of Kentucky, an oddity, moved a reconsideration of the
yesterday's vote rejecting Black's anti-tariff • resolution, for
which he offered a substitute expressed in such generality as
to mean nothing. Whether this was to ridicule Black, or for a
cunning affectation of simplicity, it did not suit the anti-tariff
slavers, and Saunders moved to lay the motion of reconsidera
tion on the table — which was carried without division.
Then came up McDowell's resolution, upon which the pre
vious question had been called yesterday when the House ad
journed. The previous question was now carried, eighty-one
to thirty-one, and the resolution rejected by yeas and nays,
eighty-four to one hundred and two. Vinton then offered a
resolution for the establishment of a new Committee of Com
merce among the States. This is included in the report of the
Committee on the Rules ; but Vinton believes the report will be
rejected by the House, as I suppose it will.
A multitude of other resolutions was offered, carving out
business for the House, to consume time far beyond the first
Monday of next December.
Dawson, of Louisiana, offered a resolution that on Saturday

474 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [January,
next, at three p.m., debate in committee of the whole on the
state of the Union upon Bill No. i (the Jackson fine bill)
should cease, and the bill be reported to the House, with such
amendments as may be agreed to by the committee, and moved
the previous question; carried — eighty-five to fifty-five. Then
the main question by yeas and nays, one hundred and eighteen
to sixty-six — not two-thirds — and the resolution was lost.
Charles J. Ingersoll was utterly disconcerted at the declara
tion of the Speaker that this was a resolution, requiring a vote
of two-thirds to be carried, and looked oppugnation, but finally
concluded to take his seat.
Hunt, of Michigan, offered a resolution that the House now
proceed to execute the order of the House directing the elec
tion this day of a Postmaster of the House. As this was a
departure from the call for resolutions proceeding under a sus
pension of the rules, I supposed it would require a vote of
two-thirds to be carried. The Speaker decided that a majority
would suffice. I appealed, and the decision of the Speaker was
sustained — one hundred and fourteen to fifty. The House pro
ceeded to the election. Five candidates were nominated. At
the first vote, McCormick, the incumbent, had eighty-four out
of one hundred and eighty-nine votes, the rest scattered. At the
third vote, J. M. Johnson had a majority of all the votes, and was
chosen. McCormick was turned out, and the House adjourned.
5th. . Winthrop, Robert C. ; , Adams, John Q. ; . Ingersoll,
Charles J. ; Black, Edward S. ; Chapman, Reuben ; . Herrick,
Joshua ; , Leonard, Moses G. ; Bowlin, James B. ; Potter,
Emery D. These are the members of the select committee
on the Copyright bill, introduced by Charles J. Ingersoll, and
the memorial1 of the booksellers for an international copy
right law, presented by me. A bare quorum of the committee,
dotted in the margin, met this morning in the chamber of the
Committee of Foreign Affairs, and conversed upon the subject
of copyright internal and external. The conversation was gen
eral, and I offered some suggestions as to the natural right of
literary property, to the principles of which, as entertained by
me, Ingersoll immediately declared his dissent. His principles
are radically depraved, and never can harmonize with mine.

I844-] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. .y,
Winthrop, the Chairman, was very desirous that I should
assume the duties of that office and prepare a report, and
Leonard, of New York City, expressed the same desire. But
I declined, for want of time, and because to take from Win
throp, even at his own request, his office of Chairman, would
savor of presumption. The committee adjourned to this day
fortnight, the 19th.
In the House, the call for resolutions was resumed. The
Territories only remained to be called. Levy, the delegate from
Florida, abused the indulgence of the House in relaxing the
rule which allows a member to offer only one resolution or one
series of resolutions, on the same subject, at a time; he offered
six resolutions which were at once adopted, six which were
laid over one day, and ten bills, which were referred to several
committees. I required that the bills should be read by their
titles, and then enquired of the Clerk how many of them there
were. Levy answered, Eight or ten. I enquired again, How
many? He answered, Ten. I said we should certainly adjourn
in May.
The instant the call for resolutions was closed, C. J. Inger
soll moved to suspend the rules to go into committee on the
Jackson fine bill. I appealed to the good faith of the House,
on the pledge under which I had consented to postpone the
question of reconsideration on the case of the report on the
rules, that the question should be taken immediately after the
call for resolutions.
The-Speaker said that there certainly had been such an under
standing, but the gentleman from Pennsylvania had the right to
move the suspension of the rules, and if two-thirds of the House
should sustain him, it must be so. I protested against this de
cision, and appealed from it. Ingersoll exploded with a volley
of insolent billingsgate upon me, and finished by withdrawing
his motion to suspend the rules. The question of reconsidera
tion was taken by yeas and nays, and carried — one hundred and
two to seventy-eight. Ingersoll, after some other squirming, had
moved to lay the motion for reconsideration on the table. I
objected to his motion, as not in order, the last action of the
House on the subject having been a vote respecting that same

476 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [January,
motion, to lay the motion for reconsideration on the table.
After enquiring as to the fact, and ascertaining it, the Speaker
decided that Ingersoll's motion was not in order.
The question then was upon my original motion reported
from the committee to assign next Tuesday as a special order
for considering the report. I enquired if it would be in order
for me to withdraw that motion and move to consider the
report now.
The Speaker said it would not.
Cave Johnson enquired if the motion would be in order to
make the report the special order for Tuesday.
The Speaker said that, in the opinion of the Chair, it would.
I demanded the yeas and nays, despairing of the success of my
motion. Dromgoole moved to recommit the report, intimating
that after his return from the Christmas holidays he wanted to
have something to do with it. I called him to order. He per
sisted in his motion, and the Speaker, who, five minutes before,
had decided that it would not be in order for me to move to take.
up the report for consideration now, decided that Dromgoole's
motion to recommit the report was in order and debatable.
I said that was precisely what I desired, but, five minutes
before, the Speaker had decided that it would not be in order
for me to move to take up the report now — a true sample of
the Speaker's impartiality.
Black, of Georgia, now exploded — declared he would vote
for the motion to recommit, and moved an amendment to it —
that the committee should be instructed to reinstate in the re
port the twenty-fifth or gag rule ; and then he launched out
into a furious invective and defiance of the committee for
emasculating the rules of the House.
The debate was now fairly under way. Davis, of Indiana,
asked to say a word to set himself right, as he feared he had
been the innocent cause of some of the difficulties of the
House in this case. He had always voted, in concession to the
South', against rescinding this rule, but he had always disap
proved it, and believed it impolitic and unwise. If, therefore,
the report should be recommitted, he should ask to be excused
from serving any further on that committee.

1 844.] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. ^yy
Gilmer made a last abortive attempt to stave off the report
by a point of order — when a long debate ensued, in which
Houston, Haralson, Blake, Beardsley, and Clingman took part,
till Dr. Duncan took the floor, and the House adjourned. The
desperate conflict for the gag has just now commenced.
6th. I had received an invitation from the Secretary of the
Treasury to attend a meeting this morning, at his office, at
eleven o'clock, upon business connected with the National In
stitute. I attended at the Treasury Department accordingly,
but the Secretary was not there. In one of the apartments of
the building there were three or four members of the Institute,
with the New Hampshire Senator, Levi Woodbury, acting as
Chairman, and Mr. Markoe as Secretary. He said the invita
tions to the meeting had been sent under the expectation that
neither House of Congress would have sitten this day. Its
object was to complete some arrangements for holding the an
nual meeting of the Institute, next April. But, as the House
would sit, Mr. Spencer and Mr. Ingersoll had agreed that the
Board of Managers of the Institute were sufficiently authorized
to make the arrangements for the annual meeting in April, and
that the meeting of this day might be adjourned; and accord
ingly Mr. Woodbury did adjourn it without day.
Hurried to the House, where I expected Charles J. Inger
soll would start again his motion to suspend the rules, to go
into committee of the whole on the state of the Union, to take
up the Jackson fine bill; but this time the Speaker saved him
the trouble of making the motion to choke off the debate on
the rules, by deciding that henceforth that debate would only
be in order during the morning hour — a decision, like most
of those of John W. Jones, deeply tainted with slavery. Upon
this decision, Dr. Duncan, of Cincinnati, took the floor, and
occupied three-fourths of the hour with a plausible, but, so far
as relates to the real point at issue, an ambiguous, speech. He
came out sufficiently clear and explicit against the rule, assum
ing the same ground as Hamlin, of Maine, John W. Davis, of
Indiana, and Clingman, of North Carolina, did yesterday, of the
constitutional and unalienable right of petition. But from this
he quickly flew off into a bitter invective upon the abolitionists,

478 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [January,
and upon the negro race — affirming without qualification the
inferiority of that race to that of the whites, insisting that of
all countries on the face of the earth Africa was the only one
where Christianity, after being once introduced, has never
been able to take root, and alluding in a tone of ridicule and
buffoonery to the physical conformation of the negro, main
taining that no length of time, or change of climate, can change
their complexion, their woolly head, their flat nose, or their
crooked leg, or splay foot, and their effluvia. The slavers were
highly delighted with this vulgar slang, and chuckled much
when the Doctor, pointing directly to me, asked what my
opinion on this subject was, and intimated that I owed it to
my own character, and to the country, to answer his question.
I said, yes, but not on this debate, for I considered all that
part of his speech as irrelevant to the question before the
House, and if I attempted to answer it I should in three
minutes of time be called to order, and the Speaker would
pronounce me out of order for irrelevancy ; but that on some
proper occasion I would, if the House would let me, answer
him to his heart's content.
He asked, in a still more pointed manner, a question of
Giddings, with the intention of injuring him and Henry Clay.
Giddings did answer him, sportively, but to his utter confusion.
As soon as he finished, A. O. Brown, of Tennessee, took the
floor; but the morning hour expired in ten minutes, and the
House went into committee of the whole on the state of the
Union upon the Jackson fine bill, which was debated till near
five o'clock, when the committee rose, and the House adjourned.
Douglas, of Illinois, made an eloquent, sophistical speech, pro
digiously admired by the slave Democracy of the House.
8th. Immediately after the reading of the journal in the House
this morning, Thompson, of Mississippi, moved a suspension of
the rules for a motion to cease all debate in committee of the
whole upon the Jackson fine bill at four o'clock this after
noon, and to take the question on the amendments and report
the bill to the House. This is the formula for suppressing all
debate, and was carried by yeas and nays — one hundred and
sixteen to fifty-four — a more than two-thirds vote. Thompson

I844-] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 470
then moved his resolution, to smother debate and take the bill
out of committee at four p.m. this afternoon. /
Pratt, of New York, moved, as a substitute for Thompson's
motion, a resolution to stop debate and take the bill out of
committee in two hours, with a long preamble stating that the
Legislatures of seventeen States, representing a population of
fifteen out of seventeen millions of the people of the United
States, had demanded the restoration of this fine ; and then
enumerating one by one the seventeen States, and the popula
tion of each of them, and concluding that therefore the debate
on this bill should cease in two hours, and the question upon
it be taken this day.
Thompson accepted this as a modification of his own resolu
tion, excepting that he adhered to his own limitation of the
time to four o'clock; to which Pratt acceded, and the resolu
tion was carried. Thompson then moved to go into committee
of the whole, and it was done — John W. Davis, of Indiana, in
the chair.
Schenck, of Ohio, had the floor from Saturday, and made
an hour speech of unrivalled eloquence in that department of
debate which one of the Athenian orators called the Shears —
cutting up the arguments of the adversary. Schenck said little
about the first principles involved in this case, and not much
about the facts, but he did cut up the malignant sycophantic
declamation of Kennedy, Weller, Dean, and Douglas, so that
there was scarcely a shred of them left. His manner is cool,
firm, unhesitating, with conscious mastery of his subject; his
voice clear and strong, his elocution neat and elegant, with a
swelling vein of sarcastic humor, which more than once made
the hall ring with shouts of laughter. He had got hold of
Douglas, and was shaking him as a bull-dog shakes between
his teeth a dead rat, when his hour expired, and A. V. Brown
took the floor-, and from that time, with the exception of a short
quarter of an hour for Severance, the Jackson trumpeters blew
till they brayed like jackasses. At four they passed the bill,
and closed the day with a triumphal drunken bout at the
Apollo Hall, toasting, and crepitating with a cannon in the
street, till long after midnight.

480 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [January,
9th. The select committee on the resolves of the Legislature
of Massachusetts had adjourned to meet this morning at ten,
in the room of the Committee of Commerce. They gathered
one by one till about half-past ten, when they formed a quorum,
and waited another half-hour for Joseph R. Ingersoll, who keeps
the minutes, and whom I found in session with the Committee
of Ways and Means. The members of our committee were
all present, but we found on the mantel-piece a scrap of paper,
which the door-keeper of the room desired me to look at.
There was written on it, " Resolved, that this room is wanted
for the Committee of Commerce every day, except those days
when it is occupied by the Naval Committee." This was a
mere effusion of paltry spite from Holmes, now Chairman of
the Committee of Commerce, and the manner of notifying us
was as ingenious as the resolution itself was courteous. But
it put upon me the responsibility of finding a room for our
committee to meet in.
Our meeting this morning was short. Gilmer pressed hard
for the question on his resolution, that the amendment proposed
by the resolves of the Legislature of Massachusetts ought not
to be recommended. I consented to take the question upon my
proposed amendment to strike out the word "not" and the
vote upon it was six to three against striking out — Giddings,
Morse, and myself only voting for it. I then moved to post
pone the question on Gilmer's resolution to take up my two
resolutions, that the Chairman be authorized to move the House
for instructions to the committee to ascertain, as far as may be
practicable, the number of the owners of slaves and the value
of the property in slaves. The postponement was carried.
Gilmer opposed my first resolution, on the ground that the
committee had already, by their commission from the House,
authority to obtain the information desired by my resolution.
Whereupon I modified my resolution into a motion that the
committee authorize the Chairman to obtain this information;
which suited Gilmer's palate no better than the other propo
sition. But noon arrived, and the committee adjourned to
Thursday morning, ten o'clock.
In the House, George W. Summers took his seat. The first

1844.] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 48 j
half-hour was eliminated, as usual, by disorderly motions for
preference in business, among which was one of D. D. Barnard,
which I could not prevail on myself to oppose, but which,
after all, he could not carry, and then the whole hour was con
sumed in chicanery to stave off the discussion of the report on
the rules. Dilatory motion after motion wasted time, till a
motion was made to lay the whole subject on the table — re
jected by yeas and nays — seventy-six to one hundred and seven.
But the hour was gone. The House went into committee of
the whole on the state of the Union, R. C. Winthrop in the
chair, on the references of the President's message. About
four the committee rose, and the House adjourned. ^
10th. In the House, the rules were suspended by a vote of
more than two-thirds, to receive undebatable resolutions and
calls on the President and heads of Departments for information.
Upwards of two hours were consumed in this process, which I
patiently endured, knowing that I could now have but one hour
a day for the report on the rules, at any rate. As soon as these
crudities were digested, I called for the business of the morning
hour, and the jugglery commenced, to choke off the consider
ation of the report for two weeks, which the Speaker had ruled
could be decided by a bare majority of votes. Winthrop now
moved an amendment that it should be made the special order
of that and every succeeding day till the report should be gone
through. The Speaker decided that this amendment would
require a vote of two-thirds ; but Clinton withdrew his motion
to postpone. A. V. Brown occupied the remainder of the hour
in a speech for the recommitment and instructions. The House
then went into committee of the whole on the state of the
Union upon the references of the President's message, and
adjourned about four.
nth. I met the committee on the resolves of the Legislature
of Massachusetts, in the chamber of the Committee of Manu
factures, of which yesterday I had, by negotiation with the
Speaker and the Doorkeeper, procured the use for the com
mittee. All the members of the committee were present, but
Mr. Morse was at least an hour tardy. My modified motion
that the Chairman be instructed to enquire and ascertain, as far
vol. xi. — 31

482 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [January,
as may be practicable, the number of owners of slaves in the
several States and Territories of this Union and in the District
of Columbia, was earnestly debated, Gilmer struggling to
strangle it by a motion of amendment, proposing to request
the Chairman, and each member of the committee, by the
day of , to ascertain and report any information which
may be thought pertinent to the subject of enquiry. I agreed
to accept this, inserting, before the general, my special subject
of enquiry, the number of slave-owners ; and Sample moved to
insert those words as an amendment to Gilmer's amendment,
which was carried, five to four — Davis voting upon this ques
tion with Sample, Giddings, Morse, and me ; Gilmer, Burke,
Burt, and Ingersoll voting against us. The blank was filled
with the ist of February, Gilmer alone voting against it; and
then the resolution as amended was carried by the same vote
as my special object of enquiry, the number of slave-owners.
My second resolution was then debated. Ingersoll moved to
strike out some of the descriptive words, which was carried by
his own vote, and then my resolution as amended was carried,
Gilmer, Burke, and Burt only voting in the negative.
Gilmer then moved that the journal of the committee be
reported to the House ; he meant immediately to produce an
explosion. I moved an amendment, " with the final reports of
the committee." My amendment was carried, seven to two,
Gilmer and Burt only voting against it, and then the resolution
as amended was adopted by a unanimous vote. The committee
then adjourned to the 1st of February at ten o'clock.
In the House, the rules were suspended to receive reports of
committees which would occasion no debate, and, under this
order, Campbell, Chairman of the Committee on the District
of Columbia, reported a petition from Lockport, New York,
for a revision of the laws of the District of Columbia, with the
unanimous opinion of that committee that it came within the
gag-rule and should be returned to the member who presented
it; and he moved the previous question. I thought it was one
of the petitions presented by me, and protested against the
report of the committee. The petition had been presented by
Mr. Giddings, but was in substance the same as several others

1844] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 483
presented by me. Campbell, to suppress all debate in present
ing the report, had moved the previous question. Hunt, of
New York, moved to lay the report and petition on the table,
and that the petition be printed. This motion was rejected by
yeas and nays — fifty-one to one hundred and eighteen — a vote
which shows of what stuff forty of the members who have
voted to rescind the rule are made. I attempted to show the
direct falsehood of the report.
The Speaker stopped me by saying that the previous ques
tion had,been called, and was not debatable.
I then moved that the report be laid on the table.
The Speaker said that motion was not in order, having just
been rejected by the House.
I said the motion was not the same ; that having been to lay
the report and petition on the table, and print the petition ;
mine being to lay the report on the table.
He said I might have moved a division of the question. It
was now too late.
Giddings raised a point of order, which, after some discus
sion, the Speaker dismissed by saying, "The Chair overrules
the point of order." The previous question was carried —
eighty-three to thirty-six ; and the report was adopted by
yeas and nays — one hundred and eighteen to sixty.
The whole transaction was a signal example of the tyranny
of the rule and of the instability of popular assemblies, affected
by sudden impulses and cramped in the freedom of speech.
Immediately after this exploit, the report on the rules was taken
up, with Dromgoole's motion to recommit, and E. J. Black's
amendment, with instructions to report the twenty-fifth rule.
Rhett made a speech of forty minutes on the right of petition,
and Bidlack a third, of a speech, which was arrested in the
midst of a sentence by the expiration of the morning hour and
the call for the orders of the day. Both these speakers were
under deep agitation — Rhett, eloquent, pathetic, and full of
absurdities ; Bidlack, swelling with emotions which he had
neither compass of mind nor fluency of language to express,
and groaning between the upper and nether millstone of ser
vility to the South and terror of his constituents.

484 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [January,
The House then went into committee of the whole on the
state of the Union, R. C. Winthrop in the chair, on the refer
ences of the parcels of the President's message, and Rathbun,
of New York, and Thomasson hammered upon it till past four
o'clock, when the committee rose, and the House adjourned.
I commenced this evening a report to be submitted to the
select committee on the resolves of the Legislature of Massa
chusetts. 1 2th. At the House, among the trashy and intrusive abortions
of business that are daily usurping the place of the, morning
hour, McKay, Chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means,
moved to go into committee of the whole on the state of the
Union upon an appropriation bill of forty thousand five hun
dred dollars to supply a deficiency in the last year's appropria
tion for the protection and relief of American seamen.
I objected, and said there would be ample time for the passage
of this bill after the expiration of the morning hour. I called
for the order of the day; whereupon Joseph R. Ingersoll moved
a suspension of the rules to go into committee of the whole on
the state of the Union. I asked for the yeas and nays, but they
were refused. The House, by a vote of more than two-thirds,
went into committee, Wilkins in the chair. The bill passed in
committee without opposition, was reported to the House with
out amendment, and passed in the space of a quarter of an hour.
I then again called up the report on the rules, and Bidlack fin
ished his hermaphrodite hour speech, the main purport of which
was that he had always voted for the gag in complacency to the
South as long as they adhered together, but, as they were now
divided, he was afraid he must leave them and vote the other
way. He was followed by Belser, of Alabama, till the expira
tion of the hour. The House then went into committee of the
whole on the state of the Union on the message, which re
ported in part ten of Wise's resolutions, and then rose, and the
House adjourned.
13th. At the House, after the reading of the journal, Mr.
Giddings claimed as a right to make a statement of what he
deemed a breach of privilege, by a violent attack and false
charge against him, published in the Globe of last evening.

I844-] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 485
Immediately the slave representation set their faces against
allowing Giddings to make any explanation. , The Speaker
decided that it was not a privileged question — which made it
necessary for a two-thirds vote to enable Giddings to defend
his character against a cowardly assassin in a newspaper pub
lished by the printers of the House.
Schenck moved a suspension of the rules for that purpose.
The vote was ninety-two to fifty-seven ; and, the affirmative not
carrying two-thirds, Giddings was deprived of the freedom of
speech in self-defence before the House. It was curious to hear
several of the subterraneans vote against his having leave to
explain, and, when they found the vote in his favor, change
their votes, to have the appearance on the record of having
voted to hear him.
15th. In the House, James H. Relfe, of Missouri, moved to
suspend the rules for a motion to discharge the committee of the
whole from the eleventh resolution, offered by Wise, for parcel
ling out to committees the President's message, at three o'clock
this afternoon. Ten of Wise's resolutions had been adopted in
as many minutes, in committee, but had not been reported to
the House. The eleventh opened the wide field of controversy
on the question of internal improvements, and has been debated
now for nearly a month, without seeming to approach a termi
nation. Last Friday an attempt was made to take it out of
committee by the gag process, which failed. I then proposed
that when the House should next take up in committee of the
whole on the state of the Union the partition message, they
should report to the House, in part, the resolutions which they
have adopted, leaving the rest to be further discussed in com
mittee. This was accordingly done, and on Saturday the first
ten of Wise's resolutions were reported to the House. Relfe,
however, was impatient to dispose of the eleventh — the apple
of discord — the internal improvement of the Western waters,
and the Mississippi. Hence his motion to suspend the rules ;
but it failed, by tellers — seventy-one to sixty.
Next came a motion, by Weller, to reconsider a resolution
offered by Patterson, to riddle all the pigeon-holes of the Post-
Office for information to reduce the rates of postage, and to

486 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [January,
abolish the franking privilege. This is a notion which has
recently taken possession of the Northern postage-payers, and
they are clamorous for reduction of the rates, and for the aboli
tion of the franking privilege. In the debate of this day, the
most important question of the concern was not touched at all.
The subject was postponed till to-morrow.
The States were called through for resolutions, and it was
prolific of Yankee notions. I offered a call on the President
for the correspondence with the Government of Texas concern
ing the complaint of President Houston, that our troops had
broken up their Snively expedition against Santa Fe. Objec
tion was made to my resolution, and it lies over. E. J. Black
gave notice that when the bill for organizing the Oregon Terri
tory shall come up he will move an additional section for the
provisional annexation of Texas to the United States.
16th. At the House, there was a remarkable development
of a new phasis in the conflict of internal improvement. The
day before yesterday came the intelligence from St. Louis, Mis
souri, that a large steamer, called The Shepherdess, from New
Orleans, struck a snag within three miles of St. Louis and sunk
instantly, with the loss of from forty to a hundred lives. Thomas
son, of Kentucky, yesterday took advantage of this incident to
move an instruction to the Committee of Ways and Means to
report a bill making an appropriation for removing obstructions
in the Mississippi and its tributary rivers. Thomasson made a
pathetic speech about the disaster of the Shepherdess, and his
resolution passed without opposition ; but Cave Johnson after
wards moved a reconsideration of it, and brought up again the
same interminable dispute about the constitutional power of
Congress, which has been already drained to the dregs in com
mittee of the whole on the President's message. Wilkins, of
Pittsburg, had closed the debate of yesterday on the question
of reconsideration. James B. Bowlin, of Missouri, led it off in
an hour speech this morning, in the course of which he com
plained that the Committee of Ways and Means had struck out
the sum presented in the estimates for improvements on the
Western rivers. Joseph R. Ingersoll, and David L. Seymour,
of New York, knew nothing of this crippling of the estimates ;

1 844.] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 487
but Weller, of Ohio, also a member of the committee, con
firmed it. Andrew Stewart followed in an hour speech, urging
Cave Johnson to modify his motion for reconsideration, so
as to refer Thomasson's resolution of instructions not to the
Committee of Ways and Means, but to the Committee of
Roads and Canals. Stewart plunged into the tariff and the
Presidential election question, and charged Van Buren with
holding all internal improvements beyond the powers of Con
gress. Stewart worried out his hour, frequently interrupted by
insulting comments and charges of falsehood by McConnell,
and frequently called to order by the Speaker for irrelevancy.
Joseph R. Ingersoll followed him, in a flowery, courtly speech.
Kennedy, of Indiana, gave a new specimen of his brutal in
solence; and Holmes, of Charleston, a specimen of his cunning
casuistry. He announced an unanswerable legal argument to
prove that Congress had the power to spend money for the
improvement of the Mississippi, but of no other river. His
authority was the Ordinance for the Northwestern Territory.
17th. I went to the Capitol this morning at eleven, and bor
rowed from the Law Library the second volume of Haggard's
Admiralty Reports, containing (page 94) the case of the slave
Grace, decided by Lord Stowell, in 1827, immediately before
the abolition of slavery in the British West India colonies by
Act of Parliament. I wanted also the twentieth volume of
Howell's State Trials, containing the case of the negro Somer
set; but the book was taken out by the Senator Rufus Choate.
I found the House in session, and Weller discoursing upon
Cave Johnson's motion to reconsider Thomasson's resolution
instructing the Committee of Ways and Means to bring in a
bill appropriating money to remove obstructions in the Missis
sippi River and its tributaries. Weller was violent and abusive
upon Stewart, and charged him directly with falsehood in his
statements of Van Buren's doctrines concerning internal im
provements. Stewart replied by repeating the statements, de
claring that he would prove them from the letters of Mr. Van
Buren himself. After a string of commonplaces from Thomas
Smith, of Indiana, Samuel F. Vinton, of Ohio, took the floor,
and, in a plain, sensible, and moderate speech, placed the ques-

488 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [January,
tion upon its true foundations, and used up the pettifogging
sophistry of Holmes. John J. Hardin, of Illinois, came next,
and then D. D. Barnard, with an argument of irresistible force,
but with a stern and peremptory tone and manner, which irri
tates even those whom it convinces. This is the drop of acid
in Mr. Barnard's oratory, which curdles his eloquence. The
cogency and self-confidence of his argument stung the brutal
temper of Kennedy, the Indiana blacksmith, who grossly in
sulted him, without being rebuked by the Speaker. Cave
Johnson finally got the floor, and retained it unfairly, moved an
amendment that the Committee of Ways and Means enquire
into the expediency of the appropriation, and called for the
previous question — which was carried, and the amendment and
resolution were adopted.
1 8th. Immediately after the reading of the journal, we had
in the House one of those amiable exhibitions of good nature
which the chattel-representation are so much in the habit of
displaying. The Colonization Society had obtained the use of the hall,
and had held a meeting there last Tuesday evening. Not
having finished their business then, they adjourned their meet
ing to this evening; but the Speaker was scrupulous about the
exercise of his power to dispose of the hall, and insisted that
the Society must again obtain the use of the hall by vote of the
House. Before there was a quorum formed, Irwin, of Pennsyl
vania, moved that the Society should have the use of the hall.
Edward J. Black, of Georgia, objected, saying that he regarded
them all as abolitionists. Irwin explained, and moved a sus
pension of the rules to enable him to offer the resolution. The
question was first taken by rising — seventy-six in favor of sus
pending the rules, less than twenty against it, but no quorum
voting. Black persisted in his purpose. A call of the House
was moved, and refused; a call of the yeas and nays was made,
and refused. At last a member moved to adjourn, and called
the yeas and nays. This brought the House to. On the mo
tion to adjourn the vote was one to one hundred and fifty-eight.
Then, on the motion to suspend the rules, the vote, by yeas
and nays, was one hundred and twenty-seven to forty-seven,

1 844.] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 480
and the resolution was adopted without an adverse voice. A
full hour was consumed in this miserable chicanery by Black,
and it is a sample of his daily manifestations of temper.
19th. Met, in the chamber of the Committee of Foreign
Affairs, the select committee on copyrights. Present, Win
throp, Leonard, Bowlin, Black, and Adams. It was near eleven
before there was a quorum. Ingersoll came in after the com
mittee had adjourned. Absent, Herrick, of Maine, Chapman,
of Alabama, and Emery D. Potter, of Ohio. While we were
waiting for a quorum, Winthrop read a long memorial from
Nahum Capen, of Boston, urging the expediency and justice of
an international copyright law. Black came in a little before
eleven, stayed but a few minutes, and said he wanted to make
a report against the bill.
The committee adjourned to this day fortnight, the second
day of February, after agreeing that Winthrop should report a
resolution to print Capen's memorial, and five or six additional
sections, which Ingersoll proposes as amendments to his bill.
In the House, Vance, Chairman of the Committee of Claims,
moved a suspension of the rules for the reception of reports
from committees, such as would give rise to no debate — which
was carried against my remonstrance, and several reports were
received, among which was that of R. C. Winthrop for printing
Nahum Capen's memorial — which was adopted.
I enquired of Hopkins, Chairman of the Committee on Post-
Offices and Post- Roads, whether that committee would report
a bill to reduce the rates of postage, and, if so, when it might
be expected. He answered that the committee had taken the
subject into consideration, but had come to no conclusion
concerning it, nor did he know when they would report, but
probably in the course of a few weeks.
The debate on Dromgoole's motion to recommit the report
on the rules, and Black's amendment to instruct the committee
to report the twenty-fifth rule, was resumed, and Hudson fin
ished his hour, followed by Romulus M. Saunders, who clings
to the rule with the grasp of death.
At the expiration of the hour, it being private-bill day, Cave
Johnson moved the suspension of the rules to go into commit-

49°

MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [January,

tee of the whole on the state of the Union upon the President's
message — which was carried.
Weller, of Ohio, made an hour speech of more brutal fury
than I ever heard — all pointed personally at Andrew Stewart,
cheered and edged on by the Van Buren majority. Brinker-
hoffi of Ohio, followed, but soon became faint. The committee
rose, and the House adjourned.
20th. To the House. Hughes, of Missouri, offered a reso
lution to instruct the Committee on the Territories to enquire
into the expediency of reporting, as soon as possible, a joint
resolution requesting the President to give notice to the British
Government that after twelve months the Government of the
United States will annul and abrogate the Convention of 6th
September, 1827. Williams objected to this resolution, that
there was already one of the same import referred to the Com
mittee of Foreign Affairs.. The yeas and nays were called and
refused on the motion to suspend the rules ; but the resolution
was rejected.
Wentworth, of Illinois, presented a memorial against the
annexation of Texas to the United States, but said one of the
memorialists had written to him that if there was any danger
that England should get Texas, they were willing the United
States should have it in preference.
Cave Johnson moved to go into committee of the whole on
the state of the Union on the reference of the President's mes
sage. I remonstrated against this, claiming the morning hour
for the discussion of the report on the rules, but in vain.
The majority of the House are playing a game of fast-and-
loose with me on this subject, and desert me whenever any op
portunity is afforded them so to do. They went into committee
of the whole, Winthrop in the chair, and jabbered about the
Western waters, and in struggles to refuse Stewart the liberty
to reply to the scandalous and insolent attack of Weller upon
him yesterday. Every species of chicanery was used to de
prive him of this privilege, and when granted he replied under
continual interruptions and calls to order from the majority, and
repeated insults and defiances to fight from McConnell.
At two the voting on the reference of the Western waters

1844-] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. /.gl
commenced. Thomasson's amendment to Wise's resolution,
and all the other amendments, were rejected, and the original
resolution to refer the notice of the Smithsonian bequest to a
select committee was amended by Burke's motion to refer it to
the joint Committee on the Library. The committee reported,
and the House adjourned.
Holmes, by way of bravado, immediately after Stewart con
cluded his speech, had made a motion to instruct the Judiciary
Committee to enquire into the expediency of repealing the law
against duelling, which was received with a shout of laughter.
2 ist. Light snow all the morning. I attended public worship
at the Capitol, where the Rev. Justin Edwards, said to be from
Boston, preached a discourse upon the sanctity of the Sabbath,
from Mark ii. 27 : " The Sabbath was made for man."
This question about keeping the Sabbath holy as a day of
rest, is one of the numerous religious and political excitements
which keep the free people of this Union in perpetual agitation.
They seem to be generated by the condition of the country —
in a state of profound peace. There are in this country, as in
all others, a certain proportion of restless and turbulent spirits
— poor, unoccupied, ambitious — who must always have some
thing to quarrel about with their neighbors. These people are
the authors of religious revivals. They formed, in the_days of
Washington's Administration, the germ of the Jacobin clubs.
During the last war with Great Britain, they generated the
Washington benevolent societies and peace societies. In later
times they have bred the Masonic and anti-Masonic societies,
the temperance societies, the colonization, abolition, and anti-
slavery societies; and they are now beating the drum and
blowing the trumpet for a holy Sabbath society. A numerous
convention is already advertised to promote the cause, and
Mr. Edwards has come to preach for it in the Representative
Hall. After announcing his text, he said that the word Sabbath
meant rest, and that it was one of the ten commandments
written by the finger of God upon stone as laws for all men,
that after six days of labor there should be one day of rest.
He dwelt exclusively upon the commandment, which he said

492 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [January,
was a law of nature for man and for beast, who could perform
more labor, enjoy more health, and live longer upon six days
of labor and one of rest than upon seven successive days of
labor. His illustrations were numerous, and his zeal intense
and evidently sincere ; but he took no notice of the (Saviour's)
exposition of the true meaning of the commandment when His
own disciples were charged with the violation of it.
22d. In my earnestness to recover the encroachment of time
upon my diary record, and yet make progress in my report to
be ready before the 1st of February, I was this day belated half
an hour in my attendance at the House. I found it in session.
It was the day for the reception of petitions, and the Speaker,
who had begun with the Territory of Iowa, had already reached
the State of Ohio in his call. Douglas, of Illinois, had made
a report from the Committee of Elections on the contested
elections, and Garrett Davis had promised a minority report.
Elmer, the ostensible Chairman of the committee, had given
notice that he would call up the report for consideration to
morrow two weeks.
Giddings presented several anti-slavery and abolition peti
tions ; among the rest, one from three hundred and eighty-one
citizens of Hampshire County, Massachusetts, praying Congress
by law to prohibit the officers of the United States from assist
ing to arrest persons suspected of being fugitives from slavery.
There was much fluttering among the slavers. The Speaker
decided that this petition was not within the twenty-fifth rule ;
from which decision Black, of Georgia, appealed. I called for
the yeas and nays.
Saunders attempted to raise the question of reception, but
the Speaker said it was too late. Jameson enquired if laying
the appeal on the table would carry the petition with it. The
Speaker said no. Wilkins said there was just such a petiti'on
referred to the Committee on the Judiciary. Payne moved to
lay the appeal on the table; carried — one hundred and thir
teen ayes. He then made the question of reception, and Cave
Johnson moved to lay that on the table. This is the wooden-
nutmeg form of rejecting a petition without refusing to receive
it. The question to lay on the table was lost — eighty-five to

1 844.] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS.

493

eighty-seven; and then the question to receive was lost — :eighty-
five to eighty-six. In the interval between the two takings of
yeas and nays, Freedom lost two votes, Slavery gained one, and
the majority was changed.
Beardsley presented a petition praying for the repeal of the
Act of February, 1793, and Weller moved to lay it on the table.
Beardsley moved a call of the House, and Hopkins moved to
adjourn, and it was carried. Another slip of the rattlesnake
Slavery from the grasp of Freedom.
23d. A poor negro came in a state almost of distraction, to
implore me to save his wife from being sold away. I asked
him, how I could do that? He said, by purchasing her myself
for four hundred dollars. I told him that Was impossible. The
poor fellow went away in despair.
After the reading of the journal, Charles J. Ingersoll Chair
man of the Committee of Foreign Affairs, instantly moved a
suspension of the rules to receive reports from committees.
Cave Johnson suggested to him to confine his motion to one
hour; to which he readily assented. Their object was to super
sede the debate on the rules, and smuggle it out of the way.
I knew it would be in vain to oppose the movement directly,
and the suspension was carried without opposition.
Holmes, Chairman of the Committee of Commerce, asked
from that committee leave to employ a clerk. Half an hour
of piddling debate, and the motion laid on the table.
C. J. Ingersoll reported from the Committee of Foreign
Affairs against a resolution offered by Robert Dale Owen, and
referred to that committee, to request the President to give
twelve months' notice to the British Government that we will
abrogate the agreement of mutual occupation of the Oregon
Territory. The report of the committee is that it is inexpedi
ent for Congress to take any action whatever upon the subject
at present. No sooner was the resolution of the committee
read than Owen came out with a set speech against it ; and as
the hour drew to a close, when he moved a second suspension
of the rules to go into committee of the whole on the Union,
for him to continue his speech, this barely failed for want of
two-thirds — one hundred and eleven to sixty-three. I called for

494 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [January,
the order of the morning hour, Saunders finished, and Winthrop
began. 24th. At the House, immediately after the reading of the
journal, I called for the order of the day. Hopkins made an
attempt to set it aside, but failed. Garrett Davis made a minor
ity report from the Committee of Elections, on the question of
the members elected by general ticket from the four States.
Campbell moved the printing of five thousand copies of both
reports. But the Speaker said the motion was not in order,
and objection was made. His motion was not received.
The report on the rules was resumed. Winthrop finished his
hour speech, an excellent one, but repeatedly interrupted by the
addle-headed blunders of Rhett, about a precedent from Hatsell
in 1665.
Winthrop was followed by W. W. Payne, of Alabama, in sup
port of the rule. As he was closing, half a dozen members
started up, among whom the Speaker recognized Joseph M.
Wright, of Indiana, who began in so low and tame a tone of
voice that I could not hear what he said. But the Speaker
immediately told him the morning hour had expired.
Committee of the whole on the state of the Union, Campbell,
of South Carolina, in the Chair. Robert Dale Owen, the Scotch
atheist, finished his hour speech for abrogating the Oregon
joint occupation Convention. Thomasson just hinted objec
tions. In the mean time, I had gone into the Senate-chamber
and asked Mr. Choate for the twentieth volume of Howell's
State Trials, which he afterwards sent me. On my return to
the House, I found Wentworth roaming like a bull buffalo,
about the Oregon Territory; but nobody followed him. Par-
menter, acting as Chairman of the Naval Committee, called up
the bill for authorizing the President to transfer naval appro
priations, which started an amusing debate, and came to no
conclusion. C. J. Ingersoll gave notice of a negro catchpoll
bill. 25th. At the House, immediately after the reading of the
journal, I called for the order of the day. But Lucius Quinctius
Cincinnatus Elmer, accidental Chairman of the Committee of
Elections, presented a report on the contested election of Gog-

1844.] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 405
gin and Gilmer, closing with a resolution declaring Gilmer duly
elected. He moved that the report should be referred to the
committee of the whole on the state of the Union, and printed,
and that the memorials presented to the committee on their
first meeting, by both parties, should be printed.
Goggin is said to be sick at home. His friend Willoughby
Newton objected to the printing of his memorial, because it
rested on a state of facts which Goggin had reason to believe
true, but disproved by subsequent evidence ; the motive for
printing it now being to prejudice the public mind against
Goggin at home in his own district.
This gave rise to an acrimonious debate of three hours, the
result of which was, by yeas and nays, to order the printing of
both memorials, and also of the testimony. Schenck obtained
leave to make a minority report on the same case.
I then struggled to get up the report on the rules; but the
House refused to take them or anything else up, and adjourned.
26th. In the House, Charles J. Ingersoll bolted a whole day's
debate by calling on the Speaker to turn out of the House
Nathan Sargent, reporter for the United States Gazette, of Phil
adelphia, under the signature of " Oliver Oldschool," for what
he charged to be a false report, but which was an exactly true
report, of the scene in the House last Tuesday, when he asked
the question whether I was the author of the Massachusetts
resolutions of last winter against the slave-representation, and
without answering him I turned away and called for the yeas
and nays. Ingersoll made no motion, and there was no ques
tion before the House, and when called to specify the part of
the report which he charged with falsehood, he said, the whole.
I declared to the House that the motive imputed to me by
the reporter for not answering the question was true — that I did
consider the question as a piece of impertinence, and therefore
did not answer it.
After three hours of debate, without any question before the
House, and numerous struggles to get rid of it, baffled by the
joint partiality and imbecility of the Speaker, it was at last
disposed of by a large vote of indefinite postponement. I
then called the report on the rules, but the House would not

496 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [January,
second me. It was postponed till to-morrow, and the House
adjourned. 27th. Mr. Sargent called on me this morning to thank me for
having interposed yesterday against the brutal and cowardly
assault of Charles J. Ingersoll upon his character, in which
afterwards Wise, with equal baseness, joined. The day before
this sally of Ingersoll, Weller, with Payne and Belser, of Ala
bama, aiding, abetting, and edging him on, had knocked down,
beaten, and wounded another reporter and letter- writer, named
Shriver, for a report in the Baltimore Patriot of Weller's infa
mous treatment of Stewart last week ; and some days before,
Jones, the Speaker, had displaced Mr. Leavitt from the place
assigned to him.
The simple truth is that the ruffians of the House cannot
bear the exposure of their villainies by the press, and they com
bine with the Speaker to silence or smother its voice. In the
midst of the Babel talk of Charles J. Ingersoll yesterday, Cave
Johnson offered a new rule, that no reporters shall be admitted
within the hall except those for the city papers. That was not
in order; but he gave notice that he would offer it this day
— which he did. Edward J. Black, of Georgia, moved as an
amendment a rule for the appointment of reporters, to be
officers of the House, and presenting in ridiculous detail what
they shall report.
The Speaker did not favor either Cave Johnson's or Black's
resolution, the object of both of them being to strangle the
freedom of debate in the House, and of the press out of it.
Wise presented his minority report from the Committee on
the Rules, signed, he said, by two members (himself and Chap
man). The report was ordered to be printed. Charles J.
Ingersoll wanted to say something about this minority report,
but was not permitted.
The report on the rules was taken up. Joseph A. Wright,
of Indiana, made a feeble half-hour speech against the gag-rule,
and William H. Stiles began a long-concocted and elaborate
speech in support of it.
The House went into the committee of the whole on private
bills, and passed one into the House ; besides debating nearly

IS44-] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. ygy
an hour whether certain bills on that calendar were private or
public bills. Then followed a long debate on a bill reported
by Parmenter from the Naval Committee for the relief of the
widows and orphans of the officers, seamen, and marines of
the schooner Grampus, lost at sea. Levy, the delegate from
Florida, moved to add those of the Sea-Gull. The debate
continued, Gilmer in the chair, till past four.
30th. Between the preparation of my report on the Massa
chusetts resolves, and keeping time with my daily record, the
labor is more than Herculean, and my correspondence is almost
entirely suspended. Five days in the week, the report of the
Committee on the Rules is the first business in order to be
transacted in the House ; and if I were to be absent one day
when it would be called up, it would be laid upon the table
without redemption. When I call it up, scarce a day passes
but some dirty trick is devised to postpone the taking of the
question. This day, Stiles, of Georgia, finished his hour speech,
and twenty-three minutes were lost of the morning hour. A.
Johnson, of Tennessee, another slave-holder, obtained the floor,
and said he wished to deliver his whole speech at once, and
so he moved to postpone the further consideration of the subject
.till to-morrow; against which I remonstrated in vain.
I hear it said that they intend to keep off the question upon
the rules till after my report upon the resolves of the Massa
chusetts Legislature. This policy is a hint for the modification
of mine.
The House went into committee of the whole on the state of
the Union, John Campbell in the chair, upon the bill reported
by Parmenter from the Naval Comrnittee, authorizing the Sec
retary of the Navy to transfer two hundred thousand dollars-
from one head of specific appropriation to another — say, from
pay to repairs of ships. Cave Johnson led off, in opposition.
to the bill, seconded by Stephens, and then by Barnard. An.
amendment, and an amendment to the amendment, were moved,,,
till it called up Wise in aid of Parmenter. Wise delivered a
dissertation upon the usefulness and glory of the navy, with
a general panegyric upon its officers, and especially upon the
midshipmen; all of whom he pronounced fully qualified, to. be.
vol. xi. — 32

498 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [February,
admirals — all which was mere whipped syllabub. The amend
ment, and amendment to the amendment, were both rejected,
and the bill was reported to the House, when it was ordered
to be engrossed. The question upon its passage came up, and
a motion to adjourn prevailed.
31st. I hurried up to the Capitol, to be there at the meeting
of the House. The report on the rules was immediately taken
up, and Andrew Johnson, a new member from Tennessee, made
an hour's speech in support of the gag-rule, and especially
abusive upon me. So they all are. I am compelled not only
to endure it with seeming insensibility, but to forbear, so far as I
can restrain myself, from all reply.
This man took at once the ground that Congress have no
power to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, because
the Legislatures of Virginia and Maryland had no such power
before their cession of the two parts of the District to the
United States. All the arguments of the speech were upon a
level with this.
When he finished, William C. McCauslen took the floor; but
the hour had expired, and there was a call for the orders of
the day. But Edmund Burke moved that the Speaker should
be directed to adjourn the House at two o'clock. There was
some objection made, and he withdrew his motion. Another
member renewed it, and it was adopted without opposition.
It was to allow members to attend the obsequies of Mrs.
Reding, wife of John R. Reding, another of the spurious members
from New Hampshire.
I went into the library, to look at the Madison Papers. They
had only one copy of the work there, and that was in use by
Mr. Rhett. They borrowed it for me for five minutes, and I
found in two of the volumes the leaves doubled down, ready
to my hand ; but Mr. Rhett could not spare the book ; and on
my way home I stopped at Taylor's and bought the book.
Isaac Munroe, with John G. Proud, and his son, brought me
a gold-headed cane, with a flattering letter, from the Banner
Clay Committee, at Baltimore. I was extremely grateful for
the letter and the compliment, but declined accepting the cane.
February 1st. I attended, this morning, the meeting of the

1 844.] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS.

499

select committee on the' resolves of the Massachusetts Legis
lature. The attendance was punctual, and by a quarter-past
ten all the members of the committee were assembled in the
chamber of the Committee of Manufactures, except Thomas
W. Gilmer, who came in a quarter of an hour later.
I moved an adjournment to this day week, on two grounds :
First, that since the last meeting of the committee I had
received a new set of resolves from the present Legislature of
Massachusetts, of the same import with those of the last Legis
lature, with one exception, which was merely the correction of
an error, by the introduction of the word " including," instead
of the word " excluding," with reference to Indians. Secondly,
that I had not yet finished the draft of a report which I pro
posed to submit to the consideration of the committee. I had
twice attempte'd, unsuccessfully, to obtain the reference to this
committee, by the House, of the new resolves of the Legis
lature of Massachusetts. Next Monday will be the regular
day for presenting them to the House, and I shall then again
move their reference to this committee.
Gilmer was very urgent to make an immediate report, and
had one ready, but would not read it until mine should be read?
I stated what the general purport of my argument would be,
.and Gilmer read a part of his report, to justify the refusal
to receive petitions. After much discussion, Ingersoll moved
to adjourn to this day fortnight; which was carried — six to
three — Burke and Burt voting with Gilmer, and Ingersoll and
Garrett Davis with our minority of four. Gilmer moved again
to report the journal of the committee now, to the House.
Rejected — six to three — the same vote as on the adjournment.
In the House, McCauslen, a half-way-house man between
slavery and freedom, occupied not quite the whole hour in a
speech on both sides of the question, but inclining against
retaining the gag-rule, from motives of expediency. When
he finished, Giddings rose, and, after some chicanery, obtained
the floor, but had barely time to commence his speech when
the morning hour expired.
2d. This was the day to which the select committee on copy
rights, internal and international, was adjourned, but I received

500 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [February,
yesterday notice from Robert C. Winthrop, the Chairman, that
the meeting was adjourned to this day week, the 9th. I should
have mentioned yesterday that the House went into committee
of the whole oh the State of the Union. It was at the motion
of Hughes, of Missouri, to take up the resolution reported by
the Committee of Foreign Affairs, of the inexpediency of med
dling with the Oregon Territory questions at this time; but
the committee, by a vote of sixty to fifty-nine, refused to take
it up. Then, at the motion of McKay, Chairman of the Com
mittee of Ways and Means, they took up the Indian Appropri
ation bill, and made some progress in the consideration of that.
This morning, the report of the committee on the rules was
taken up, and Mr. Giddings finished his hour speech, which he
had barely commenced yesterday. When he finished, William
H. Hammett, of Mississippi, took the floor ; but the hour was
expiring, and a message came in from the Senate announcing
the death of Alexander Porter, a Senator from the State of
Louisiana; whereupon John Slidell, the member from New
Orleans, read a cold-blooded obituary eulogy upon the de
ceased. Joseph Vance, of Ohio, pronounced another short,
frothy panegyric upon him, and the usual resolutions were
adopted to wear crape and to adjourn.
Porter was one of the upstarts of fortune who compose the
Government of this Union. He was an Irishman, son of a
patriot executed in one of the Irish rebellions, and emigrated,
with his mother, first to Tennessee and then to Louisiana. He
was a man of fine talents, amiable disposition, pleasant temper,
benevolent heart, elegant taste, and classical acquirements. His
death is a grievous loss to the country, for he will be succeeded
by a stinkard.
After the adjournment, I went first into the Law Library
and looked into Lofft's Reports for the case of the negro James
Somerset, and then into the Supreme Court, where Walter
Jones was opening the case of Stephen Girard's bequest to the
city of Philadelphia. Jones is for the heirs of Girard, and was
as drowsy as the sound of falling waters. Mr. Webster gave
me one of the printed statements of the case.
3d. At the House, David Levy, the' Jew delegate from Florida,

1 844.] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 50!
with much apparent agitation, and awful length of face, moved
a suspension of the rules to enable him to offer a resolution
requesting the President to give notice to the British Govern
ment that the United States wish to terminate the tenth article
of the Ashburton Treaty.'
The Speaker, more cunning than David himself, told him that
his motion was not in order. David looked round the House
for countenance, but found none. I doubt if he will ever renew
his motion. If he does, and the slavers do not instantly lay
it on the table, it will start a question of the severest trial that
I have ever undergone. I ought perhaps to pray that it may
not come. If it does, I pray for prudence and fortitude — no
intemperance — no flinching. David was silenced for this time.
The report on the rules should have come up, but Chapman,
of Alabama, moved its postponement, first to Monday, and next
till Tuesday, on a pretence that Hammett, who had the floor,
was unwell ; though Hammett himself made no such pretence.
I called for the yeas and nays ; but the postponement was
carried — one hundred and thirty-two to forty. They wait for
the Maryland members.
Committee of the whole on the state of the Union upon
the Grampus bill — Gilmer in the chair. John P. Hale made
a thorough-going radical speech against the navy. Holmes
foamed at the mouth about the Grampus having sailed from
Charleston when she was lost. An amendment was carried
striking out the brothers and sisters from the relatives to be
relieved, and the bill was reported and passed, notwithstanding
Mr. Hale's demagogism about the poor people of New Hamp
shire. Hale's Democracy will nevertheless do good service at
the present juncture.
4th. I attended public worship this morning, at the hall of the
House of Representatives. Mr. Tustin preached from Exodus
xx. 8: "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy." His sub
ject was the same with that of Mr. Justin Edwards the Sunday
before last ; but neither of them appears to me to understand
the true character of the institution, or the import of the pre-
1 This is the article which has of late given rise to serious controversy between
the two Governments, not yet settled.

502 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [February,
cept. The answer of Jesus Christ Himself, to the charge against
His disciples of violating the Sabbath, gave the true measure
of its design. He gave an instance of a case in which David,
under the craving of hunger, had broken through the positive
injunction of the law which reserved the shew-bread in the
sanctuary for the use of the priests, and then added that "the
Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath." It
is a day of rest from the ordinary labors of the week, but not a
day of useless idleness or of exemption from the duties of social
life, of justice, benevolence, and humanity. To a minister of
religion himself, instead of being a day of idleness or even of
repose, it is emphatically a day of labor; and there is no por
tion of time more suitable for the performance of any service
of kindness and beneficence to others than the Sabbath day.
Neither Mr. Tustin nor Mr. Edwards understands this. They
receive the commandment in its rigor to the letter, and con
demn the mind of man to total inaction one day in seven ;
and they subject his body to the same law. This doctrine is
so unreasonable that the common sense of mankind revolts
against it. The attempt to make this periodical idleness an
article of religion is not merely fruitless, it produces aversion
to the religion itself of which this is given out as a precept.
Mr. Edwards, for preaching the same doctrine in a church here
on the evening of the same day on which he had delivered it
in the hall, bred a riot, which insulted and silenced him. The
hall this day was well filled by a respectable auditory.
5th. This was at the House the regular day for the call of
the States for petitions. Vance, Chairman of the Committee of
Claims, proposed to vary the order of business, and begin with
a call upon the committees for reports; but that met with no
favor. Levy, the Jew, blustered up again with his motion of
Saturday, to suspend the rules only for one hour, to introduce
his hopeful resolution. Levy said he wanted an hour, that the
Chairman of the Committee of Foreign Affairs might have
something to say on the subject. But C. J. Ingersoll stood
mute, and the Jew took nothing by his motion.
I asked him to show me the documents upon which he based
his proposal.

I844-] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 503
It was a correspondence between the U. S. Marshal for East
Florida, and the Governor of New Providence, on a demand by
the Marshal for the surrender of seven negroes who escaped
from St. Augustine and were indicted for robbery and murder
at Quay Biscayine, on their way to Nassau. The surrender
was refused, because no evidence against the negroes was
produced except the indictment. I doubt whether the slavers
will allow a debate on this subject in the House, and am in
clined to believe that the best policy would be to let them ter
minate the tenth article of the treaty.
The call for petitions began with a call of the House, moved
by Beardsley, upon a motion by Weller to lay on the table an
objection to the reception of a petition from Oneida County,
presented by Beardsley, broken off by an adjournment at the
last call for petitions. Beardsley now renewed the motion for
a call of the House, which they refused, and by yeas and nays
— ninety-seven to seventy — laid the objection to reception on
the table. The call proceeded from New York northward.
I offered the Massachusetts resolutions of the present ses
sion.1 Burt objected to their being received, and, after much
chicanery by yeas and nays, they laid on the table the objec
tion — seventy-four to ninety-one. I presented sundry other
petitions, one of which, in the identical words of the last
year's Massachusetts resolutions, was received, and referred
to the committee ; to another, objection made, and reception
refused — seventy-three to seventy-five. I moved a call of the
House. Refused, and adjourned.
6th. The name of the Portuguese Minister Resident who
visited me last evening is the Chevalier J. C. de Figaniere
e Morao, and he came to speak of a correspondence between
him and our Department of State, in which he complains of the
duties levied upon Portuguese wines by the Tariff of 1842, as
violating the stipulation of our treaty with Portugal, that the
duties levied upon articles the produce of Portugal shall not
be higher than upon the like articles the growth and produce
of any other country. He insists that like articles as respects
wines have reference only to the color — red or white — and
1 Offered on the 26th of January preceding. See page 495.

504 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [February,
that we can levy no higher duties upon Port than upon all
other red wines, and no higher duties upon Madeira than upon
all other white wines. A message of the President has referred
this subject to Congress, and Mr, Morao came to tell me that
the Committee of Foreign Affairs would this day present a
report favorable to his views, and to ask my support to it.
Mr. Morao was quite dissatisfied with his failure to convince Mr.
Webster that a small vin de grave was not a like article with
London particular Madeira, and much pleased that his reason
ing was acknowledged by Mr. Upshur to be extremely strong.
At the House, this day, after two or three intrusive prelimi
naries, the report on the rules came up, and William H. Ham
mett, an Irish transfer from the State of Mississippi, wore out
his hour of insolence and vulgarity for the restoration of the
twenty-fifth rule, at the close of which, Luther Severance, of
Maine, took the floor. But the hour was gone, and Lucius
Quinctius Cincinnatus Elmer, Chairman of the Committee of
Elections, called up the report of that committee on the con
tested general-ticket elections — a privileged subject, which is to
override everything else. The first achievement was to take
it out of the committee of the whole on the state of the Union,
to which it had been referred, and where the previous question
could not be started. Dromgoole made the motion. Elmer
acquiesced. Campbell feebly objected. Schenck, Garrett Davis,
and Barnard protested. Campbell questioned the right of the
members whose seats were contested to vote, on the score of
interest. Beardsley, sitting as Speaker, decided it against him ;
and the House, by yeas and nays — one hundred and seventeen
to sixty-two — sustained the Speaker. By a similar though not
quite so strong a vote, the committee of the whole on the state
of the Union was discharged — one hundred and seven to
seventy-three; and Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus bestowed all
his tediousness upon the House till four o'clock, when they
adjourned. Kennedy, the Indiana blacksmith, said he wanted
no debate. He is the bravest cut-throat of the gang.
7th. At the House, before the Chaplain appeared, Mr. Hud
son came to my seat, and told me that he had heard the Democ
racy had in a mere caucus determined to take immediately the

1 844.] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 505
question on the restoration of the gag-rule ; that Dromgoole
would withdraw his motion to recommit the report, and will
move the previous question. The New York Democrats have
been whipped in by the threat that the South will desert Van
Buren if his friends join to rescind the rule, with a promise of
Calhoun and his party to support Van Buren if the rule is retained
and the tariff broken down. I have been prepared for this re
verse, and must bear it with patience. But this day the report
on the rules, and everything else, was overridden by the zeal of
Mr. Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus Elmer, who, upon his high
horse of privilege, was so intent upon being delivered of the
remnant of his hour speech in support of his senseless majority
report on the general-ticket elections, that he would not even suf
fer Charles J. Ingersoll to make his report from the Committee
of Foreign Affairs on the Portuguese Treaty question about the
meaning of the words " like articles." Elmer finished his hour
speech, and was followed by Belser, of Alabama, a man of his own
kidney, but whom a single spark, not yet extinct in his mind, of
common sense, has kept right in this case, and he made an hour
speech in support of the law. Paul Dillingham, Junr., a Ver
mont Democrat, sophisticated not quite an hour for the spurious
elections, and Joseph Woodward, of South Carolina, twisted
words and ideas into a snarl, on the same side. Milton Brown,
of Tennessee, and Jacob Collamer, of Vermont, recurred to
some of the principles of common honesty, till past four o'clock
— when, after two previous refusals of the House to adjourn,
Samuel Beardsley took the floor, and moved to adjourn, and
it was carried.
I had an evening visit from Mr. Murray, of New York, with
Mr. Charles Butler, a brother of Benjamin F. Butler's, the some
time Attorney-General of Mr. Van Buren. He told me that he
was a Loco-foco, but warmly and anxiously with me on the
right of petition. I received, while those gentlemen were here,
a note from a Mr. Wakeman, requesting an interview with me,
for which I appointed to-morrow morning at nine o'clock.
8th. Mr. Wakeman came, and had a full hour's conversation
with me. He is a young man from Herkimer County, in the
State of New York, an entire stranger to me, but whose object

506 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.. [February,
was to ask questions of my opinions upon various subjects,
chiefly relating to slavery, and also of advice to him for his own
conduct. He said he was in very narrow circumstances, but
was desirous of devoting himself to the profession of the law.
His most immediate and urgent enquiry was, whether his best
course would be to commence off-hand the study of the law, or
to begin by acquiring the preliminary foundation of a college
education. I told him that if his purpose was to become eminent in
the profession, he must lay his foundation broad and deep; he
must commence by making«himself master of college learning ;
but if he aspired to nothing further than qualification for the
practice of a village lawyer, he might pick up his classical and
his law learning together, and, with an industrious use of the
long and tedious leisure which he would have in waiting for
employment of all his time in practice, he could easily gather
general and particular knowledge at the same time.
Mr. Espy, the storm-breeder, came with a complaint that
the Committee of Ways and Means were about to retrench the
appropriation for some small interloping office under the War
Department with which he has been allowed for the last two
years to pursue his study of storms. He said he had cotem-
poraneous observations made at a hundred and fifty military
stations, the results of which he had ' reported to the Secretary
of War, and his report had been communicated with that of
the Secretary, accompanying the President's annual message to
Congress ; and he showed me ninety engraved maps, on which
was marked the direction of all the storms at the several stations
of observation, all confirmative of his theory.
At the House, the day was again consumed on the general-
ticket election question, Beardsley, Henry Grider, of Kentucky,
Caleb B. Smith, of Indiana, G. W.Jones, of Tennessee, Howell
Cobb, of Georgia, and Willoughby Newton, of Virginia, succes
sively occupying the floor, till five o'clock and the adjournment.
9th. At half-past ten I attended the meeting of the com
mittee on copyrights. Bowlin, of Missouri, Herrick, of Maine,
and Potter, of Ohio, absent. Winthrop read C. J. Ingersoll's
bill and sections of amendment to it, printed since the last

1 844-] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 507
meeting of the committee, and consisting of an entire but most
incongruous system touching upon the subject first referred to
the committee — a memorial for an international copyright law.
After the reading of the bill and amendments, I suggested a
question of the expediency of any change in the existing copy
right laws. But there was not time to discuss the question,
and the committee adjourned, to meet again when notified by
the Chairman.
The House again consumed the day on the general-ticket
election question. Jacob Thompson, of Mississippi, and A. H.
Stephens, of Georgia, Aaron Venable Brown, of Tennessee, and
Samuel Chilton, of Virginia, alternated for an (hour) against
the resolution reported by the majority of the Committee of
Elections confirming the spurious members in their seats.
Washington Hunt, of New York, closed this day's debate
against them. At five o'clock, Moses Norris, Junr., of New
Hampshire, took the floor, and the House adjourned. I had
borrowed an hour from this nauseous debate to visit the United
States Supreme Court and hear the plain sense and temperate
argument of John Sergeant in the case of S. Girard's will.
10th. At the House, the everlasting general-ticket elections
again consumed the day. Moses Norris, Junr., of New Hamp
shire, wasted the first hour; Abraham H. Chappell, of Georgia,
and George H. Catlin, of Connecticut, the second. They were
followed by George W. Summers, of Virginia, in. a speech of
sound sense and honest principles; after which came the heavy
stupidity and coarse vulgarity of John Jameson, of Missouri,
closing for the day with John H. Lumpkin, of Georgia, till the
adjournment, after five. I made an escape from the House
while Norris was speaking, and went into the Supreme Court,
where I heard for an hour and a half the argument of Daniel
Webster against the infidel provision in Stephen Girard's will.
nth. I attended public worship this morning at the Repre
sentative Hall, where the Chaplain of the House performed
divine service with so much brevity that it seemed as if he
thought his great official duty was to try in how little time he
could turn it off. The whole job took him not more than
three-quarters of an hour. The text of his discourse was from

508 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [February,
Philippians i. 28: "And in nothing terrified by your adversa
ries: which is to them an evident token of perdition, but to you
of salvation, and that of God" — the latter part of the verse. He
spoke without notes; said nothing which could fix itself upon
the memory — nothing but dull, commonplace devotion, with
out even that fervor which betokens the sincere conviction of
Mr. Tustin of the truth of his own doctrines. He defined not
very accurately the meaning of the word "token," but did not
clearly specify those whose perdition was evidently betokened,
nor what the token was.
This man's election as Chaplain to the House is a problem.
So is the fact that last week a subscription paper was circulated
round the hall for printing his sermon upon Faith, delivered
the Sunday before last. The auditory this day was very small.
After dinner, attended at St. John's Church, where Mr. Haw-
ley read the evening service for Sexagesima Sunday, and the
Bishop of Vermont, Hopkins, preached from Hebrews ii. 15:
"And deliver them who through fear of death were all their
lifetime subject to bondage." What a contrast to the sermon
of the Chaplain! The Bishop's discourse was on the fear of
death inherent in the nature of man, on his subjection to bond
age throughout life by that fear, and on redemption from that
bondage by sincere faith in Christ the Redeemer — a close,
compact argument, all flowing from and returning to the text
—death, bondage, redemption. What intense feeling, what
absorbing interest, what searching pathos, are interwoven with
the solemn discussion of these topics! The Bishop seized
upon them and familiarly handled them all — in composition
of refined and elegant simplicity, in a tone of delivery kind,
affectionate, and deeply impressive. It is long since I have
heard an appeal so eloquent to my own conscience ; and when
the enquiry came to every hearer, whether he could safely
and confidently rely upon his own right to the blessing of
that redemption from that bondage of the fear of death, my
conscience smote me, and the involuntary tear stole down my
cheek. I had never before, to my remembrance, heard the
name of Bishop Hopkins. I shall remember him as long as
any trace of memory remains upon my brain.

1841.] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS.

509

1 2th. In the House, this day, the report of the Committee of
Elections on the right of the spurious general-ticket members
was resumed. Richard French, of Kentucky, gave an hour of
his most elaborate nonsense to prove that the districting sec
tion of the Apportionment Act of 1842 was not law, because
Blackstone defines law to be a rule of conduct and a rule of
action. Then followed Samuel F. Vinton, of Ohio, with a sound,
logical, and conclusive argument in support of the districting
section, in which he pointed out some of the absurdities of
Douglas's report, which Douglas, by frequent interruptions,
vainly attempted to defend.
Edward J. Black, of Georgia, then assumed that the objec
tion to the general-ticket elections was a proposition to expel
twenty-one members from their seats and to disfranchise the
four States which sent them. And then he raved his hour
about the horrible injustice and atrocious tyranny of expelling
twenty-one members and disfranchising four sovereign States,
when the members have committed no offence and are not
even charged with any crime. This shuffling trick of mis
stating the question, and setting up a man of straw to make a
pompous demonstration of knocking him down, is a measure
of the capacity of Edward Black and of the majority of this
House; for his vapid absurdities passed for argument as cogent
as if it had pointed directly at the question before the House.
David W. Dickinson, of Tennessee, came next, and bore down
more upon his colleagues A. V. Brown and Cave Johnson for
voting themselves for the Apportionment Act with this section
which they now pronounced unconstitutional, than upon the
merits of the question. John A. McClernand, of Illinois, talked
off his time, and George Rathbun closed for the day with a fiery
blast against the law, till the adjournment, about six o'clock.
13th. At the House, another long and tedious day was con
sumed in discussing the questions upon the general-ticket elec
tions. The debate of the morning was commenced by Hugh
A. Haralson, of Georgia, and continued by James B. Bowlin,
of Missouri. These are both among the most moderate of the
furious faction now ruling in the Congress. I heard Haralson

5 to MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [February,
through, but there was nothing to remember in his speech ; and
when Bowlin began with his I began then to grow drowsy,
and, to escape an hour or two of soporifics, left the hall and
went into that where the Supreme Court were in session, to see
what had become of Stephen Girard's will, and the scramble of
lawyers and collaterals for the fragments of his colossal and
misshapen endowment of an infidel charity-school for orphan
boys. Webster had just before closed his argument, for which, it is
said, if he succeeds, he is to have fifty thousand dollars for his
share of the plunder. The court-room was nearly deserted,
and Governor Morehead, the Senator from Kentucky, with his
colleague Crittenden sitting at his side, was discoursing to the
Court and the walls upon some Kentucky land case. I re
mained but a short time there, and went thence into the Senate-
chamber, where Jabez W. Huntington, Senator from Connec
ticut, was answering with pith and moment Levi Woodbury's
New Hampshire endorsement of George McDuffie's South
Carolina Anti-Tariff bill. When he finished, McDuffie, who has
already dragged, like a wounded snake, his slow length along
through two enormous speeches on his forty-bale bill, still
claimed the last word, and, to humor him, the question on his
bill was postponed. Returning to the House, I heard I had
lost a handsome hour-argument of Garrett Davis, of Kentucky;
and William H. Stiles, of Georgia, was working on coarse cloth
a tawdry embroidery of flowers. Dromgoole, Barringer, and
D. D. Barnard followed, till eight o'clock in the evening, when
the House adjourned.
14th. At the House, Stephen A. Douglas, of Illinois, the
author of the majority report from the Committee of Elections,
had taken the floor last evening, and now raved out his hour in
abusive invectives upon the members who had pointed out its
slanders, and upon the Whig party. His face was convulsed,
his gesticulation frantic, and he lashed himself into such a heat
that if his body had been made of combustible matter it would
have burnt out. In the midst of his roaring, to save himself
from choking, he stripped off and cast away his cravat, unbut
toned his waistcoat, and had the air and aspect of a half-naked

I844-] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. ;n
pugilist. And this man comes from a judicial bench, and passes
for an eloquent orator !
When the Speaker's hammer pounded him off, there was a
scramble of two or three dozen candidates for the floor; but
the Speaker knew where to fix his eye, and gave it to the ruf
fian John B. Weller, who, after the mockery of a eulogy upon
the unexampled ability displayed in this discussion, said it had
been sufficiently debated, and moved the previous question. It
was carried, and the question was first put on a trap resolution
for the Whigs, that all the members elected from the Districted
States were entitled to their seats. The vote was one hundred
and twenty-eight to two, the Whigs refusing to vote. Then
followed the name of every member from the four general-
ticket States, all declared duly elected, and the yeas and nays
were taken upon each member separately in the delegations of
New Hampshire and Georgia, till about eight o'clock, when
the adjournment was carried.
15th. At ten this morning I had been employing the pre
vious hours of the day in finishing my report on the resolves
of the Massachusetts Legislature. It has been excessively
hurried, and is consequently feeble and indigested. I attended
the meeting of the committee in the chamber of the Committee
of Manufactures. All the members were present and punctual,
except Mr. Davis, who had forgotten that this was the day to
which the committee had adjourned. I read my report, which
occupied two hours.
Immediately after I finished, Burt moved to take the ques
tion upon Gilmer's motion offered at the first meeting of the
committee, " That the amendment of the Constitution, proposed
by the Legislature of Massachusetts, ought not to be recom
mended." I objected to taking this final question until the discussion
on the resolves and petitions referred to the committee should
be completed, and especially till Mr. Gilmer's report should be
read. He then moved that the Chairman should be directed to
ask leave of the House to sit during the sessions of the House
 to which I objected ; and Mr. Sample moved to adjourn till
to-morrow morning at ten o'clock — which was carried, Gilmer,

512 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [February,
Burke, and Burt voting against it. The House had been nearly
half an hour in session when I reached my seat. Amos Abbott
had appeared and been sworn as member from the Third Con
gressional District of Massachusetts. The yeas and nays were
being called on the right of all the general-ticket members
from the State of Mississippi ; for they now took them all in a
lump. Sample asked that the members from the committee on
the Massachusetts resolves, who had been on service in com
mittee when the call of yeas and nays commenced, might be
allowed to vote; but objection was made, and they were not
permitted. I lost my vote, therefore, on that question ; but I
gave it on the repetition of the same question regarding the
members from the State of Missouri ; carried — one hundred
and six to sixty-three, by which the outrage on the Constitution
and law was consummated. Dromgoole then attempted to
introduce a resolution that the general-ticket elections in the
four refractory States were valid, notwithstanding the second
section of the Apportionment Act. He failed for want of a
two-thirds vote. So did A. V. Brown in an attempt to force
the repeal of the districting section.
16th. The committee met at ten. All the members present.
Thomas W. Gilmer read his report on the resolves — such a
report as might be expected from Don Pedro Blanca — the
quintessence of slavery. It took him about an hour and a half
to read; and the instant he finished, Burt called for the con
sideration, not of the resolutions at the close of Gilmer's report,
but of the resolution he had offered at the first meeting of the
committee — that the amendment proposed by the Legislature
of Massachusetts ought not to be recommended. I enquired
if any other member of the committee wished to submit his
views. Ingersoll and Burke said they proposed so to do.
I objected that it was premature to take the final question
before all the members had communicated their opinions. But
Gilmer was this day nominated, and by the Senate immediately
confirmed, as Secretary of the Navy ; and Sample urged the
necessity of an immediate vote on the main question, that Gilmer
might make his report to the House before resigning his seat

1 844.] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 513
as a member. I moved to insert on the minutes that the
question was taken to accommodate a member about to cease
to be of the committee. But all the members of the committee,
except Giddings, voted against this.
Gilmer sneeringly thanked me for my kindness. I answered
him that he might economize his thanks — that I had too much
experience of the character of his kindness to have any such
to offer him in return. I moved the resolution at the close of
my report, to postpone the further consideration of the resolves
to the first Monday of next December. This was rejected on
the final vote. Gilmer, Burke, Burt, Davis, Ingersoll, and
Sample voted for Gilmer's resolution ; Giddings and I voted
against it; and Morse asked to be, and was, excused from voting.
It was then agreed that Gilmer should make his report, also
signed by Burt, to the House ; that when Ingersoll and Burke
should be ready, another meeting of the committee should
be called, when their reports should be read, and with mine,
and the journal, be reported to the House; and the committee
adjourned. In the House, John P. Kennedy, just elected from Baltimore,
took his seat. Gilmer presented his report, and resigned his
seat. The House resumed the morning hour occupation of
debating the report of the Committee on the Rules- Luther
Severance, of Maine, made an excellent hour speech against
retaining the gag, and John Campbell, of South Carolina, took
the floor for to-morrow.
17th. The report on the rules consumed the morning hour.
John Campbell, of South Carolina, consumed it by a speech
worthy of Caesar Borgia. When the drop came upon it, the
Speaker, among a half-score of competitors, gave the floor to
Armistead Burt.
1 8th. I attended the morning public worship in the hall of
the House of Representatives, where the prayers and the sing
ing were performed by the Chaplain of the Senate, Mr. Tustin,
and the sermon was delivered by Mr. Musgrave, a Presbyterian
clergyman from Baltimore. His text was 1 Corinthians xvi.
22: " If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be
Anathema Maranatha." This, with the speaker's exposition,
vol. xi. — 33

i;j4 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [February,
might be termed a cool hundred of eternal damnation. He
first noticed the peculiar position of this malediction, at the
close of the epistle, between the salutation of the apostle with
his own hand, and the benediction upon those to whom the
letter was addressed. He said it was Paul's custom to employ
an amanuensis to write his epistles, and then to address them
in a salutation and benediction with his own hand, and that it
was in this manner that this curse had been so emphatically
denounced. He then explained the meaning of the words.
Anathema was a Greek word, meaning to separate, set apart,
or devote. Maranatha was Hebrew, meaning, The Lord cometh,
or, May the Lord come. He said there were in the Hebrew
ritual three degrees of devoting to a curse, of which Maranatha
was the third, and signified total destruction. Then he noticed
the comprehensive universality of the curse — if " a?iy man," and
so forth; and then he defined the Love of Christ — to love Him
was to obey His commandments — " by their fruits ye shall
know them;" and every man professing to be a Christian must
understand that this condemnation, if he incur it, is eternal, and
that it will be perfectly just.
Incredulus odi ! It cannot be so. But perhaps it may not
be amiss to be told so. A commination which has even a color
of authority from Scripture deserves to be seriously listened
to and deliberately considered. Its tendency is to purity and
righteousness. Take the warning, and be safe. Mr. Musgrave
came to my seat with Mr. Tustin, who introduced him to me.
19th. At the House, this was the day for the call of the
States for petitions ; and I had scarcely taken my seat, when
the Speaker called out, " Petitions are in order from the State
of Massachusetts." I had forgotten that the call would thus
commence, and presented ten or a dozen which I had not yet
entered on my list.
Edmund Burke presented a petition from twenty-two mem
bers of the Legislature of Rhode Island, praying for an in
vestigation of the conduct of President Tyler in the Dorrite
insurrection, and into the right of the present members to hold
their seats. He moved its reference to a select committee of
five, and, at the suggestion of Weller, that it be printed — both

I844-] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 5,5
which, after much agitation, and several takings of yeas and
nays, were carried.
The abolition and anti-slavery petitions were generally treated
very contemptuously by the House. The call went entirely
through the States and Territories.
The report of the Secretary of the Treasury on the present
condition of the Smithsonian Fund was sent in, of which Mr.
Young apprised me by a private note. I moved its reference
to a select committee of nine, and that, with the documents,
it should be printed. Burke moved its reference to the joint
committee on the library. To this I objected, and assigned
my reasons; whereupon Burke, unexpectedly to me, withdrew
his motion, and mine was carried.
20th. The House of Representatives yesterday adjourned
over till to-morrow, on the motion of Isaac E. Holmes, mem
ber from South Carolina, for the avowed purpose of enabling
the members to visit the Princeton, a war steamer and sailing-
vessel combined, with the steam machinery of Ericssen's pro
pellers all within the hull of the vessel and below the water-
line, and carrying twenty-four forty-two pound- carronades, and
on her main deck two enormous wrought-iron cannon, with
barrels of fourteen inches diameter, chargeable with forty
pounds of powder, and discharging a ball of two hundred and
twenty-five pounds' weight. This vessel, a gimcrack of sundry
other inventions of Captain Stockton himself, was built under
his directions, and is commanded by him. She was ordered
round here to be exhibited to the President and heads of the
Executive Departments, and to the members of both Houses of
Congress, to fire their souls with patriotic ardor for a naval war.
On Saturday last, by invitation from Captain Stockton, the
vessel was visited by the President, the heads of Departments,
and Senators, and for this day, at eleven o'clock, Captain Stock
ton had issued a card of invitation to every member of the
House of Representatives, besides a general one in the National
Intelligencer of this morning. Holmes's motion to adjourn over
the day was carried by evading the call for the yeas and nays,
and even the call for tellers. I went with Isaac Hull Adams to
Greenleaf's Point, and thence embarked in the Princeton's barge

5T6 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [February,
on board that vessel. I was punctual to the hour of eleven, and
the first of the company that came. Captain Stockton received
me with great politeness, and showed me all the machinery of
the ship. Afterwards, upwards of a hundred members of the
House came on board. The two great guns are called the
Peacemaker and the Orator. A salute was fired from the
carronades, and the Peacemaker was three times discharged.
The vessel was steamed down twelve miles, to Fort Wash
ington, and back to her moorings, opposite Greenleaf's Point.
A plentiful cold collation was served. We reached home at
Tour p.m.
2 1 st. At the House, John P. Kennedy, of Baltimore, intro
duced John Wethered, his colleague, as member from the Third
Congressional District of Maryland.
By the general consent of the House, I moved that the use
of the hall should be granted for next Tuesday evening to the
American Bible Society, which was adopted without opposition.
There were resolutions of the Legislature of the State of In
diana for the occupation of the Oregon Territory, referred last
Monday to the Committee of Foreign Affairs. The committee
had already reported against the measure, and their report was
before the committee of the whole on the state of the Union.
Charles J. Ingersoll, Chairman of the Committee of Foreign
Affairs, had suffered the reference to be made, then moved a
reconsideration of the vote, but .said he would not press it
then. This day he was not in his seat; and so his motion for
reconsideration was postponed till to-morrow.
Next came the report of the committee on the rules. Armis-
tead Burt, of South Carolina, made a furious hour speech against
the abolitionists, and grossly insulted Beardsley and defied him.
When he closed, Dellet, of Alabama, took the floor for to-morrow.
22d. As 1 was returning from the House yesterday, a man
by the name of Pennington stopped me in the Avenue, and
entreated me to attend, at half-past seven in the evening, a lec
ture which he would deliver on a system of aerostation, or of
aerial steam navigation, of his invention. In rather weak com
pliance with his urgency, I took his ticket and went and heard
his lecture, by which it was apparent that the man was a mono-

1844.J THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 517
maniac. He had a very complicated machine, with a printed
pamphlet and engraving of it, second edition, which, in a very
confused manner, he attempted to explain. There were only
five or six persons present, and his lecture of half an hour
consisted chiefly of complaints that he had been charged with
insanity, and of arguments to show that he was of perfectly
sound mind. I had lost my time; but I could reflect, and
compassionate the frailty of human nature.
This day, at the House, Mr. Kennedy introduced John M. S.
Causin, member from the First, and Francis Brengle, from the
Second Congressional District of Maryland, who were sworn
and took their seats. J. A. Preston, the member from the Third
District, also afterwards came in. James Dellet, of Alabama,
a Whig slave-monger, made an hour speech for the gag, and
against Giddings and me, full of frothy eloquence and invective.
The slavers have become bolder with the arrival of the
Maryland delegation, and, having now ascertained that they
will carry the restoration of the gag, the three successive
speeches of Campbell, Burt, and Dellet have exhibited a reg
ular ascending gradation of overbearing insolence and bully
ing. To leave it all without reply would be tame submission.
To reply in the same tone might breed a brawl; for which I
should be held responsible by the public. To say just what
will be proper, and nothing more, requires counsel from above.
May it not be withheld !
When Dellet's hour closed, Charles Rogers, of New York,
obtained the floor for to-morrow. There is a bill to repeal the
Distribution law introduced by Payne, of Alabama. Drom
goole moved its reference to the Committee of Ways and
Means ; which was carried. Henley, of Indiana, moved a
suspension of the rules to offer a joint resolution for closing
the session in May. The vote was announced one hundred and
eight to fifty-four — exactly two-thirds ; but the Speaker voted
in the negative, and declared the rules were not suspended.
The House went into committee of the whole on the state
of the Union, Campbell in the chair, and took up the Pension
Appropriation bill, which was debated, and finally reported to
the House ; previous question, and adjourned. I had gone

5 18 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [February,
into the Senate-chamber, heard an excellent speech of Choate
on the Oregon question, and had some conversation with Hun
tington and Crittenden.
23d. I answered this morning a letter from my son, and see
by the Boston Courier of Wednesday morning that the re
solves reported by him against the annexation of Texas passed
on Tuesday, in the Senate of Massachusetts, unanimously, with
one exception upon the first resolution. Thirty-four Senators
present; six absent, among whom was Levi Lincoln. My
son's speech is in the Courier, and shows that he is aware of
his position, which he has deliberately assumed, explicitly de
clared, and will firmly maintain. My heart aches at the pros
pect of the dangers and trials that await and already beset him.
May the God of Justice .be his guide and guard, and the God
of Mercy protect him !
At the House there was a snarl of an hour upon a mistake of
the Clerk in recording the name of Mr. Slidell yesterday in the
negative on Henley's motion to suspend the rules for a resolu
tion to adjourn in May. Slidell had voted in the affirmative.
Slidell was allowed to rectify the record of his vote.. But this-
error was the cause of another. The suspension of the rules
was actually carried, and the Speaker, on the strength of former
precedents, decided that Henley might offer his resolution now.
Dromgoole appealed from his decision, and the gang were about
to bully him out of it, when Henley withdrew his motion, and
said he would offer it again next Tuesday.
The report on the rules was then taken up, and Charles
Rogers, of New York, made an hour speech against the gag.
Dromgoole took the floor, and withdrew his motion to re
commit the report, and offered an amendment to the whole
report, including the gag-rule — which he moved to have printed.
But the hour was out, and the House went into committee of
the whole on private bills, Joseph R. Ingersoll in the chair.
I went into the Senate-chamber, and heard William L. Dayton,
on the Oregon question.
24th. This morning I returned the visit of Mr. Pakenham,
the new Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary
from Great Britain, who brought me a letter of introduction

1844.] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONG R ASS.

519

from Edward Everett. He has a secretary with him, a young
man by the name of Bidwell.
At the House, the day was consumed in debate on the report
on the rules. Dromgoole, who had the floor, withdrew his
motion to recommit the report, whereby E. J. Black's instruc
tions fell, of course ; and now Dromgoole moves an amend
ment to strike out the whole report after the thirteenth rule,
and insert another set of his own selection, with revival of all
the rules of despotic majorities ; and he moved to postpone
the further consideration of the subject till next Tuesday, and
that his proposed amendment should be printed.
Dromgoole's object now is to conjure up debate upon many
other points, and mingle them with the gag question, and en
tangle them all together, so as to evade the direct question upon
the gag alone, of the issue of which, so taken, he is afraid.
Numbers of the Northern Democracy, afraid of their constitu
ents if they vote for the gag, and afraid of losing the vote of
the South for Van Buren if they vote against it, suffer Drom
goole to lead them by the nose to relieve them from voting
directly upon that question at all.
Cave Johnson moved, as an amendment to his amendment, to
strike it all out, and substitute the rule that all abolition petitions
shall be received and laid on the table without any other action
of the House upon them. Then came a debate upon that, and
Steenrod moved to lay the whole subject on the table; rejected,
by yeas and nays — eighty-two to one hundred and twelve.
I enquired what had become of Wise's minority report, and
called upon Chapman, who had signed it; whereupon Drom
goole broke out again with the pretension that there is no
right to make minority reports.
Hamlin moved the previous question, but withdrew it at
Chapman's request, he promising to renew it. He then came
out with a dogged attack of a quarter of an hour upon me,
and closed with the previous question. I asked five minutes
to reply, but was refused. Adjourned before four.
25th. The fu rther consideration of the report on the rules
was postponed yesterday till next Tuesday, and Dromgoole's
amendment was ordered to be printed.

520 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [February,
26th. I dispatched a letter to Levi Fahnestock and sundry
others, a committee of the Banner Clay Club at Baltimore, in
answer to one from them, with an elegant walking-stick from
Ashland, which I declined accepting, and promised an answer
to their letter, which, from mere embarrassment what to say, I
have procrastinated till J. P. Kennedy has twice hinted to me
their impatience to receive it.
At the House, it was the regular bi-weekly day for the call
for resolutions, before which sundry Executive communications
were laid before the House — one of them a message from the
President, saying that he had approved the bill authorizing the
transfer of- naval appropriations from one head of expenditure
to another, but that it was of no avail ; he recommends further
legislation upon the subject, and also for the construction of
several ships of war like the Princeton, but of a larger class.
More naval appropriations. Referred to the Committee of
Naval Affairs, of which Parmenter is Chairman since Wise's
resignation. I spoke to him about this message, but he told
me that the committee would not propose any increase of the
naval appropriations.
Bidlack moved a suspension of the rules to take the question
upon a resolution of enquiry moved by him heretofore about
coal and iron. I said I was perfectly willing to vote now, and
in favor of his resolution, if the House would extend the favor
to other resolutions in the same condition. Bidlack withdrew
his motion. Among the resolutions offered was one by Burke,
of enquiry of the Postmaster- General about Isaac Hill's con
tracts to furnish blanks, paper, and twine to that Department ;
adopted. I offered a call upon the Secretary of State, whether any
gross errors have been discovered in the official returns of the
census of 1840, printed under the direction of the State De
partment. I expected objection to this call, but there was
none. It was adopted, as were many others; among them, two
of three anti-abolition abstractions, moved first by Holmes,
and then by Campbell, of South Carolina, which occasioned
much confusion, but were carried by almost unanimous votes.
Adjourned about five o'clock.

*.] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS.

521

27th. After some of the usual casual preliminaries, the report
on the rules, with Dromgoole's amendment, and Cave Johnson's
amendment to that, were resumed. Johnson made an hour
speech in support of his amendment, which was to substitute,
instead of the gag-rule, another, in these words: "That the
rules of the last session of Congress be, and are hereby, adopted
for the government of the Twenty-Eighth Congress, except the
twenty-fifth rule, which shall read as follows: That all me
morials, petitions, or other papers relating to slavery or the
slave-trade between the States and Territories, or in any way
connected with it, shall be received by the House and laid
upon the table without debate."
His argument was that the gag-rule, refusing to receive pe
titions, could not be sustained ; that it was lost by Southern
Whig votes ; and he read over the names of the Southern
members who voted for rescinding the rule.
Then commenced the chicanery of moving for the previous
question and reconsideration, and laying on the table, and to
divide the question, and every species of subterfuge. Cave's
amendment was finally rejected by yeas and nays — thirty-five
to one hundred and forty- three.
The question next came upon Dromgoole's amendment to
strike out the whole report of the committee after the twelfth
rule, and insert another whole body of rules proposed by him.
Schenck moved to divide the question, so as first to take it on
the whole amendment of Dromgoole, except the gag-rule, and
one other, and then separately on each of them.
In this way a direct question was taken on the gag-rule,
which was rejected by a vote of eighty-six to one hundred and
six — a majority of twenty against the rule. But it was in vain.
Barringer, of North Carolina, moved a reconsideration of the
vote adopting Dromgoole's amendment to the report, with two
exceptions, and the House adjourned.
28th. Dies irse. I had received an invitation from Captain
Robert F. Stockton, to another party of pleasure, with the
ladies of my family, on board the war steamer Princeton. We
declined the invitation, as I could not intermit my attendance
at the House, and my wife and daughters were expecting the

522 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [February,
arrival of our friends Mr. and Mrs. F. B. Stockton, who came
to spend a few days with us. Isaac Hull Adams1 had a sepa
rate invitation, and went to the ill-fated party. I had engaged,
also, to dine at six o'clock this evening with Mr. Grinnell and
Mr. Winthrop, in company with Mr. Pakenham, the new British
Minister. At the House, the report on the rules was resumed. Bar-
ringer's motion for the reconsideration of the vote on Drom
goole's rules of forty and forty-one, was rejected by yeas and
nays — fifty-five to one hundred and fifteen. The question then
recurred on the adoption of the report as amended by the
several votes on Dromgoole's substitute. R. D. Davis said,
if this should be rejected the House would be without rules ;
whereupon Chapman moved to lay the whole subject on the
table. The vote on this motion, as taken by yeas and nays,
was eighty-five to ninety ; but after the whole roll had been
called, and all the answers given, the slavers plied their North
ern Democratic allies with personal menace and entreaty till
three of them changed their votes from no to aye, and the
motion to lay the whole subject on the table was carried —
eighty-eight to eighty-seven.
One of the three, Jacob S. Yost, of Pennsylvania, changed
his vote after enquiring of the Speaker (whether), if the vote
should now be to lay on the table, the subject might be re
sumed without a vote of two-thirds, and receiving his answer
that the rules of the House were always under the control of
the majority, by giving one day's notice. An equivocation.
Reding, of New Hampshire, moved a reconsideration of the
vote to lay the whole subject on the table. Weller moved to
lay the motion for reconsideration on the table; which was
carried. A call of the House was moved and rejected. Ad
journed at half-past three.
I went into the chamber of the Committee of Manufactures,
and wrote there till six. Dined with Mr. Grinnell and Mr.
Winthrop. Mr. Pakenham and his Secretary, Mr. Bidwell,
were there.
While we were at dinner, John Barney burst into the cham-
1 A nephew of Mr. Adams.

I844-] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS.

523

ber, rushed up to General Scott, and told him, with groans, that
the President wished to see him ; that the great gun on board
the Princeton, the " Peacemaker," had burst, and killed the
Secretary of State, Upshur, the Secretary of the Navy, T.
W. Gilmer, Captain Beverley Kennon, Virgil Maxcy, a Colonel
Gardiner, of New York, and a colored servant of the Presi
dent, and desperately wounded several of the crew. General
Scott soon left the table; Mr. Webster shortly after; also the
Senator Bayard. I came home before ten in the evening.
29th. At the House, immediately after the reading of the
journal, a message was received from the President announcing
the lamentable catastrophe of yesterday, bewailing the loss of
his two Secretaries, with others, and hoping that Congress
will not be discouraged1 by this accident from going on to
build more and larger war steamers than the Princeton.
George W. Hopkins moved the usual sympathizing resolu
tions adapted to the occasion, and the House adjourned over
to Monday. Hopkins, myself, Charles J. Ingersoll, D. D. Bar
nard, and Cave Johnson, were appointed a committee on the
part of the House, to join a -like committee of the Senate, of
arrangement for the attendance of both Houses, in a body, at
the funeral of the two Secretaries. We went to the Senate-
chamber, where that body had just assembled, and their Secre
tary, Asbury Dickins, was reading the journal of yesterday.
March ist. Yesterday, immediately after the reading of the
journal of the Senate was completed, John Tyler, Junr., the
President's son, delivered the same message which had been
received and acted upon by the House. Whereupon William
C. Rives, a Senator from Virginia, rose, and, after a very brief
and appropriate notice of this awful dispensation of Providence,
moved corresponding resolutions to those which had been
adopted by the House. They were passed by a unanimous
vote, and the committee of arrangements on the part of the
Senate for attendance at the funeral of the two Secretaries,
appointed by the President pro tempore of the Senate, Willie
P. Mangum, were William C. Rives, William S. Archer, Wil
liam R. King, Richard H. Bayard, and Levi Woodbury.
The two committees went into the Vice-President's chamber.

524 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [March,
All present, except Mr. Archer. After a discussion of per
haps an hour, it was agreed to leave to the discretion of the
two Chairmen to concert the arrangements with those made
under the direction of the President, and to give notice in the
newspapers to the members of the two Houses of the order of
the procession.
This morning I went to the Capitol, and at the Clerk's office
procured copies of the yeas and nays on Tuesday upon Chap
man's motion to lay the whole subject on the table — first,
eighty-five to ninety, and then, by the change of three votes,
eighty-eight to eighty-seven. The three votes were Duncan,
of Cincinnati, John W. Davis, of Indiana, and Jacob S. Yost, of
Pennsylvania, who changed on a promise from the Speaker that
the subject might be resumed by a vote of a mere majority — a
promise which the Speaker will take care to break.
2d. I had met yesterday at the Capitol Mr. Rives, the Chair
man of the Senate's committee of arrangements for the funeral,
who told me that the members of the two Houses were to
assemble at their respective halls this morning at half-past ten,
and thence to proceed in a body to the President's house, where
the corpses were deposited, and where, in the East Room, the
religious services were to be performed. I went, accordingly,
to the House this morning. A large portion of the members
of both Houses assembled, and hack carriages were provided
for them. I stepped into one of them, with the Speaker, John
W. Jones, and Mr. Hopkins and Mr. Barnard, my colleague
members of the House committee of arrangements. But before
we had got out of the Capitol yard the Speaker discovered
that the hack was crazy and the horses restive, and he insisted
on changing his carriage. We all alighted. My carriage was
close at hand in the procession. It was beginning to rain, and
he took a seat with me. I could not make the same offer to
the other two gentlemen ; but they were immediately supplied
with a new carriage.
At the President's house the Speaker parted from me to
resume his place at the head of the House — a special place
having been assigned in the procession, immediately after the
President and his Cabinet, to the ex-Presidents of the United

1 844-] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 525
States, of whom I was the only one present. There were four
corpses in plain coffins — those of the three public officers with
the Union flag stretched over them, and Colonel Gardiner's
covered with a black pall. The East Room was crowded with
the President, his Cabinet, and sons, and women of his family,
the two Houses of Congress, foreign Ministers, the Mayors of
Washington, Georgetown, and Alexandria, municipal officers
and of the Departments, Army and Navy, and the relatives of
the deceased. Mr. Hawley read a part of the Episcopal funeral
service, Dr. Laurie made a prayer, and Mr. Butler delivered a
short discourse ; after which the long funeral blackened all the
way from the East Room to the Congressional burial-ground,
near the eastern branch of the Potomac. At the common de
positary vault I heard the remainder of the Episcopal funeral
service recited, and then came home alone. It was four in the
afternoon; and I mused.
5th. At the House, immediately after the reading of the
journal, I moved to take up from the table Reding's motion to
reconsider the vote by which the whole subject of the report
on the rules was laid on the table last Friday. The motion to
reconsider was itself laid on the table, on the motion of Weller.
Before Yost changed his vote from no to aye, which changed
the decision and laid the whole subject on the table, he en
quired whether the subject could be resumed without a vote of
two-thirds. The Speaker promised him that it could by giving
one day's notice. The rules of the House, he said, were thus
always under the control of the majority of the House. I then
noticed in this diary that the Speaker would take care to break
this promise. I gave notice that I should move to dispense
with the rule requiring a majority of two-thirds to take up the
report. The Speaker would not suffer my notice to be entered
on the journal. And this morning, when I moved to take up
the motion for reconsideration which had been laid on the
table last Friday, he said it could be done only by a vote of
two-thirds. I claimed that a motion for reconsideration, being
privileged, could not lose its privilege by being laid on the
table. He decided that it did. I said it was to be presumed
the Speaker of the House was a man of his word, and reminded

5 26 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [March,
him of his promise to Yost. He said he had told Mr. Yost
that the rules of the House might be changed by giving notice,
when it would be in order, of one day. I said he used these
underscored words now, but had not used them then. He said
he had used them then; which was not true. I asked when
such notice would be in order. He said, on the day for offering
resolutions. But this is of no avail. The notice will be ob
jected to, and lie over nominally for one day,. but then cannot
be taken up in its order, the time for which never will come.
The committees were called for reports. Elmer, from the
Committee of Elections, obtained leave for them to continue
the employment of a clerk till they get through the contested
case of Jones and Botts.
A message was received from the President, with the cor
respondence called for by the resolution offered by Levi, the
delegate from Florida, between the United States Marshal ami
the Government of New Providence upon their refusal to deliver
up certain fugitive negroes charged with murder. Levi moved
its reference to the Committee of Foreign Affairs, with instruc
tions — which was carried, and he made a rabid hour speech.
His motion and instructions were carried by the previous ques
tion ; no debate allowed. But the motion to print the message
was debatable, and Giddings made a stinging speech. Pettit
opposed the printing, and I answered him. The printing was
ordered. 6th. Miss Thompson is a young woman of South Carolina,
much in want of money to enable her to go to her brother at
Beaufort in that State. She came here yesterday to solicit
charity of my wife, and repeated her visit this morning to me.
I did not think her a very piteous claimant ofalms, for she was
apparently healthy, and somewhat ambitiously dressed ; but she
reminded me so much of her State that I gave her a five-dollar
bill. At the House, a report by Joseph J. McDowell, of Ohio,
from the Committee of Accounts, remodelling the system of
the folding-room and the discipline and wages of the pages,
which yesterday, after some debate, had been laid on the table,
was reconsidered, debated again, and again laid on the table.

1844.] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 537
Mr. Parmenter, from the Committee of Naval Affairs, reported
a bill making an appropriation recommended by a late message
from the President ; but he told me the report was against any
additional war steamers.
Dromgoole presented resolutions of the Legislature of Vir
ginia, counter to the resolves of the Legislature of Massachu
setts, on the slave-representation, and moved their reference to
a select committee of nine.
Payne, of Alabama, then attempted to present resolutions
from the Legislature of that State.
Winthrop objected to the reception of the Virginia resolu
tions unless those of the Massachusetts Legislature, which I
had offered, should also be received.
Dromgoole said it was too late to object, and moved the
previous question ; which was carried, and the Virginia reso
lutions were referred.
I offered again the Massachusetts resolves ; but Duncan, of
Cincinnati, had the floor for a speech on a bill introduced by
him for holding elections for members of Congress and Electors
of President and Vice-President. He spoke one hour on this
bill, and then L. Q. C. Elmer, Chairman of the Committee of
Elections, moved, as an amendment to Duncan's bill, another
as a substitute for it, upon which he said just enough to give
Duncan another hour to finish his speech. It was a glaring
and preconcerted evasion of the hour rule. Strong objection
was made to his occupying the second hour, but Hopkins, who
occupied the chair as Speaker, decided the question in his favor.
His speech was a bitter invective upon the Whigs, of bribery
and corruption in the election of 1840, particularly in Hamilton
County, Ohio, where Pendleton carried the election for Con
gress against him. He would not vouch for it, but it was said
that this election had cost Pendleton twenty thousand dollars.
When he closed his second hour, Clingman, of North Carolina,
obtained the floor, and moved to adjourn ; which was carried.
John C. Calhoun was this day nominated and confirmed as
Secretary of State.
8th. At the House, Henry Y. Cranston, of Rhode Island,
took fifty minutes to finish the speech which he began yester-

528 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [March,
day, on the motion of Mr. Causin to discharge the select com
mittee on the memorial of the twenty-three members of the
Rhode Island Legislature, from the further consideration of
the subject. It seems to me that Cranston and Potter should
have arrested this movement at the threshold, by protesting
at once against all action of the House upon it. They were
taken by surprise when the first movement was made by Burke,
and have not met it with suitable firmness or sagacity.
When Cranston closed to-day, he was followed by George
Rathbun, of New York, a member of the select committee, and
a venomous Van Burenite, who spoke to the expiration of the
hour, and has the floor for to-morrow.
Vance, Chairman of the Committee of Claims, moved that
the committee should be called for such reports as would not
give rise to debate; and sundry reports were accordingly made;
among them, James J. McKay, Chairman of the Committee of
Ways and Means, reported a bill to modify and amend the Tariff
Act of 30th August, 1842. McKay said he would to-morrow,
or next Monday at the latest, present the report of the majority
of the committee, with certain tabular statements which were
not yet quite ready.
George P. Marsh, from the Committee of Naval Affairs, re
ported a joint resolution of thanks to the British authorities at
Gibraltar, and the commander, officers, and crew of her Britan
nic Majesty's ship Malabar, for their generous zeal displayed
in endeavoring to save from destruction the American steam
frigate Missouri, and in preserving the lives of her officers and
crew, as well as for the kindness and hospitality which charac
terized their treatment of the ship's company of that vessel
after her unfortunate destruction by fire. This resolution was
read three times, and passed without opposition. Hale, of
New Hampshire, did say he would debate it, but, upon a single
word from Parmenter, withdrew his objection.
I combined the slave-envenomed motive to the building of
the ship, the burning thirst for more and more of these infer
nal machines, of Captain Tyler and his late Secretaries, Upshur
and Gilmer, with the humiliating attitude of thanking those for
whose destruction those engines were intended, for endeavoring

I844-] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. t2Q
to save them, and actually saving their crews; and my heart
sunk within me for shame.
9th. At the House, George Rathbun, of Auburn, Twenty-
Fifth Congressional District of New York, finished his hour
speech on the Rhode Island (memorial) — wormwood and gall,
in answer to Cranston, but without touching upon the sharp
points involved in the case. I intend, if I can get the floor,
to make an hour speech on this question, taking for my text,
" Nullum numen adest ni sit Prudentia." " May I be true to
my theme, and may its issue be useful ! On this and kindred
subjects my heart is too full for my head, and my faculties are
in decay. Cranston indiscreetly denied the right of a majority
of the people to change their form of government at pleasure.
Rathbun seized upon this denial, and raved about the self-evi
dent truths of the Declaration of Independence. Cranston had
spoken with great exasperation about Dorr and his partisans
and the memorialists, with admissions concerning their charac
ters, marked more with candor than with controversial address.
Rathbun seized, with the ravin of a shark, every concession and
turned it to his own purpose, making none in return.
When he finished, Elisha R. Potter took the floor, and, as the
morning hour was about expiring, only read one section of a
law of Virginia against popular movements to overthrow the
existing Government, and moved to postpone the subject till
next Tuesday ; which was done.
McKay, Chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means,
presented his tariff report, with the tabular statements. Dixon
H.' Lewis moved to print twenty-five thousand extra copies of
them ; but the Speaker said that motion was not now in order.
Joseph R. Ingersoll, a member of the committee, said he should
present a minority report, and claimed that an equal number of
that should be printed with the other. Question not taken.
1 ith. As this was the semi-monthly day of calling for reso
lutions, I prepared one for a call upon the President for informa
tion whether he has instituted or engaged in a negotiation for
the annexation of Texas to the United States. Just as I was
going out to the House, Mr. Pakenham called on me to pay me
1 This is not the accepted reading in Juvenal ; of which the writer was aware.
VOL. XI. — 34

530 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [March,
a morning visit. I could stay only a few minutes, in which I
assured him of my deep anxiety for the preservation of peace
and harmony between this country and Great Britain. He said
he was assured of that from sentiments that I had expressed in
the House. He said he had rented Mr. Webster's house, and
expected to go into it next week.
At the House, Cranston made a personal explanation, refer
ring to an article in the Globe asserting that Rathbun had made
him take back almost everything that he had said. Cranston
denied that he had taken back any of his assertions. Rathbun
controverted some of his explanatory remarks, and Burke ques
tioned him still more; but they did not reply.
A. V. Brown, from the Committee on the Territories, reported
a new Oregon Territory bill, extending the Iowa Territory to
the Pacific Ocean. Referred to the committee of the whole on
the state of the Union, and ordered to be printed.
The Speaker commenced the call for resolutions at South
Carolina, and moved south and west as far as Ohio. A mul
titude of resolutions were offered, and among them two by
Cave Johnson, who had given notice of them, unnoticed, i«
connivance with the Speaker, on Saturday. They restored the
rules rescinded at the commencement of the session, by which
a bare majority of the House can go into committee of the
whole on the state of the Union, and come out of it, at pleasure.
They were both adopted by yeas and nays this day.
An attempt was made to fix a day for taking up the new
Tariff bill and adhering to it from day to day till finally dis
posed of. The motion to lay this on the table was lost by a
close vote, and the motion for the previous question by a still
closer one, and it failed. An old notice of Giddings to modify
the gag-rule was smothered on a point of order. Adjourned
at half-past three.
1 2th. At the House, Hannibal Hamlin, of Maine, made an ex
planatory statement by reading an article in the Boston Courier,
purporting to be a letter from the correspondent of that paper
at Washington. It charged Hamlin with some silly speech on
a subject upon which he appealed to the whole House to witness
that he had not opened his lips. Elisha R. Potter made a cool,

1 844.] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 531
tame speech on the Rhode Island question. When he closed,
I rose and addressed the Speaker; but he gave the floor to
Andrew Kennedy, the rabid Democrat of Indiana. Motions of
reconsideration were made of votes for printing extra numbers
of copies of the report of the Commissioner of Patents, and of
the Tariff report and bill from the Committee of Ways and
Means ; but both failed.
McKay, Chairman of the committee, moved to suspend the
rules to go into committee of the whole on the state of the
Union to take up the West Point Military Academy Appro
priation bill — which he carried now by a bare majority. Drom
goole was in the chair. Hale, of New Hampshire, had moved
a substitute for the bill, to abolish the Academy. Washing
ton Hunt, of Lockport, Thirty-Fourth Congressional District
of New York, made a judicious and moderate speech in favor
of the Academy, and Thomas H. Seymour, of Hartford, First
Connecticut Congressional District, a hack speech against it.
The debate for the day was well closed by Joseph R. Ingersoll ;
after which the committee rose, and the House adjourned.
13th. At the House, R. C. Winthrop came to my seat and
said he proposed to move to-morrow morning a suspension of
the rules to offer a resolution against the annexation of Texas.
He read the resolution that I had prepared yesterday of a call
on the President to inform the House whether he was nego
tiating for the annexation of Texas, and said the answer to
that call would be of deeper import than perhaps I imagined.
He said he believed it necessary to make an explosion on the
subject. The explosion will come too late.
Parmenter, by leave, reported a bill from the Naval Committee,
limiting the number of officers in the navy and regulating the
complement of crews of vessels of war, and for other purposes,
which was referred to the committee of the whole on the state
of the Union. I enquired if there was a report with the bill;
and Parmenter brought me a short report accompanying an
other bill, which he had before reported, to regulate the civil
department of the navy-yards. He moved to print twenty-five
thousand copies of that report ; which was carried.
Andrew Kennedy then took the floor for an hour on the

532 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [March,
Rhode Island memorial, and expended a full blast of his De
mocracy upon the House. This debate consists, on the part of
Burke, who brought it forward, and his compeers, of indefinite
general invective against the Whigs. When he closed, I ad
dressed the Speaker; but he gave the floor to Caleb B. Smith,
of Indiana, at whose motion the subject was postponed till
to-morrow. Dromgoole reported back from the Committee of Ways and
Means the bill to repeal the first seven sections of the Act to
distribute the proceeds of the sales of the public lands, and to
grant pre-emption rights, approved 4th September, 1 841 ; and
this bill was driven through by a series of previous questions,
against the remonstrances of Whig members. At the third
reading, Andrew Stewart obtained the floor and made an hour
speech against it, answered by Henley, of Indiana, and the pre
vious question. When this work was done, McKay moved a
suspension of the rules to receive reports of committees which
would occasion no debate ; and Dromgoole, from the Com
mittee of Ways and Means, reported the Sub-Treasury bill ;
referred to the committee of the whole on the state of the
nion. Adjourned.
14th. Meeting of the select committee on the resolves of the
Legislature of Massachusetts. All the members of the com
mittee present, except Freeman H. Morse, of Maine, the late
Thomas W. Gilmer's place not having been supplied. His
appointment as Secretary of the Navy, his presentation of his
report to the House, and his resignation as a member of the
House, were all cotemporaneous with the last meeting of the
committee. His instantaneous and violent death by the burst
ing of the great gun of the Princeton may point a moral, but
will not heal the wound inflicted upon freedom and the rights
of human nature by his life.
At this meeting Joseph R. Ingersoll read his report on the
Massachusetts resolves. It is an elaborate, eloquent, verbose,
and sophistical counter-argument to mine, which he has had in
his hands all the time that he has been preparing it. He was
two hours in reading it. Garrett Davis said that he should also
sign it. Edmund Burke said his report was ready, but that he

1844.] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 533
did not wish to read it in committee. Burt was impatient for
the immediate report to the House; but Sample said he wished
to prepare a report also; and it was known that Morse intended
the same thing.
I objected to presenting the final report to the House until
all the separate reports shall have been submitted to the com
mittee ; and we adjourned to meet again Saturday morning
at nine o'clock. I found the House already in session, and
French was reading the journal of yesterday. George J. Catlin,
of Connecticut, Hannibal Hamlin, of Maine, Democrats, and
Charles Hudson, of Massachusetts, Whig, made a joint onset
for a suspension of the rules to obtain the use of. the hall
for an adjourned Congressional temperance-society meeting
next. Friday evening; but they failed for want of a voting
quorum, and chiefly because Hopkins said it would cost the
nation twenty or twenty-five dollars for candles.
Caleb B. Smith, of Indiana, took the floor for an hour upon
the Rhode Island memorial. He exposed the absurdities of
Rathbun and Andrew Kennedy with great spirit, and scruti
nized with great effect the Constitution of New Hampshire,
and the recorded opinions of Martin Van Buren on the right
of suffrage.
When he finished, I made a third attempt to address the
House ; but Causin and McClernand struggled also for the
floor, and the Speaker gave it for to-morrow to McClernand.
The West Point Academy Appropriation bill occupied the
remainder of the day in committee of the whole on the state
of the Union, Dromgoole in the chair.
16th. At nine o'clock the select committee on the resolves
of the Legislature of Massachusetts met in the chamber of the
Committee of Manufactures.
Edmund Burke, after repeatedly saying that he had no de
sire to read his report, did read it, and occupied little short of
two hours. It is an epitome of New Hampshire Democracy,
mingled with South Carolina slavery, a bitter infusion of parti
san malignity, and the oozings out of personal venom against
me. Burt immediately moved that the resolution closing Inger-

534 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [March,
soil's report, that the committee be discharged from the further
consideration of the subject, be reported to the House this
day; but Sample wanted further time to prepare his report,
and Morse, confined to his lodgings by indisposition, wished
also for time to prepare his.
I objected to reporting to the House that the committee be
discharged, till all the separate reports shall have been read in
committee. Ingersoll, in full concert with Burt, was earnest for reporting
this day ; but Davis, more liberal, was willing to allow a few
days for Sample and Morse to prepare their reports. After
some discussion, Ingersoll moved that the report asking to be
dischargedv<should be made to the House next Saturday —
which was carried, though, whimsically enough, Burt, Gid
dings, and myself voted against it. The committee adjourned
to Saturday next, nine o'clock.
Ingersoll, certainly under the spur of Burt, now, for the first
time, objected to my minutes introductory to the journal of
the committee, which commenced at the second meeting on
the 4th of January. I said that my preliminary matter was only
for my own use, to complete the journal of the committee,
and I did not wish it to be made part of the journal, if there
was any objection to it.
1 8th. Mr. Stone, the engraver, called on me and left with me
several papers relating to the frauds practised upon the public,
and especially upon the House of Representatives, in the cost
of engraving maps, which was debated last Saturday. These
papers implicate Hugh A. Garland, the Clerk of the House
of the Twenty-Sixth Congress, and McNulty, the Clerk of the
present House, with Philip Haas, the German Jew lithographer.
Nor is Matthew St. Clair Clarke, the Clerk of the House in the
last Congress, entirely free from blame. The party policy of
screening delinquents of their own side defeats every attempt
to check these frauds.
Mr. French came and invited me to attend a meeting at the
Apollo Hall this evening to form an anti-duelling society, and
to address the meeting — which I declined, owing to my age
and infirmities. I received a letter from the old clergyman Mr.

I844-] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS.

535

Addison, repeating the same invitation, but referred him to
Mr. French for the answer.
At the House, this was the regular day, now occurring only
once a fortnight, for the call of the States for petitions. John
W. Davis moved to suspend the rules to call the committees
for reports, but, not succeeding, George W. Jones moved a
suspension of the rules for one hour, to receive such reports as
would give rise to no debate. This was carried; but it was a
snare. Weller, from the Committee of Ways and Means, re
ported a resolution to print fifteen thousand copies extra of the
report of the committee accompanying the Sub-Treasury bill.
John White, late Speaker, objected, and insisted that the motion
could not be entertained, the suspension of the rules being con
ditional, only for undebatable reports. The Speaker so decided,
but suffered himself to be worried by Weller's overbearing
pertinacity so far as to receive the motion and lay it over till
to-morrow. Campbell, Chairman of the Committee on the District of
Columbia, reported a bill to extend the charter of the District
banks, and a report. McCausland moved to lay the bill on the
table, but, after some sputtering, withdrew his motion. The bill
was referred to the committee of the whole on the state of the
Union, and was ordered, with the report, to be printed. Charles
J. Ingersoll, by the restored tyrant rule of suspending the rules
by a bare majority to go into committee of the whole on the
state of the Union, (moved) to take up a motion made some
weeks since by him to reconsider a resolution reported by him
self from the Committee of Foreign Affairs — that it is inex
pedient for Congress to act in any manner at present on the
Oregon question. He made an elaborate, rascally hour speech,
to which Winthrop and Morse, of Maine, answered off-hand,
and made him eat his words.
The committee rose, the House adjourned, and the day was
lost for petitions and petitioners.
19th. At the House, resolutions from the State Legislatures
were presented (and received without objection) by Alcee La
Branche, from Louisiana, by Benjamin A. Bidlack, from Penn
sylvania, and by William H. Hammett, from Mississippi. One

536 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [March,
of the last was for the annexation of Texas; and no objection
was made to the reception of that. John A. McClernand, of
Illinois, railed out his hour upon the Rhode Island memorial.
When he closed, I rose again and addressed the Chair ; but he
gave the floor to Lemuel Stetson, of Keeneville, New York,
for to-morrow.
20th. The debate at the House on the bill to remove the
United States Circuit and District Courts in the State of Ohio,
from Cincinnati to Columbus, was renewed, on the motion of
John P. Hale, of Dover, New Hampshire, to reconsider the
vote by which the bill was yesterday passed. The report of
Saunders yesterday from the Judiciary Committee had been
against the passage of the bill; so that he readily consented to
the reconsideration, which sent the bill back to the question
upon its passage. The delegation from the State were divided,
rather by a line of local interests than of politics. Duncan and
Weller, two of the bitterest Democrats in the House, were at
sharp points between Cincinnati and Columbus. A further re
consideration of the vote by which the bill had been engrossed
was necessary to place it in an amendable condition — that is, at
the second reading. This was done, and Saunders offered an
amendment, and then the bill passed again the second and third
reading, whereupon Samuel Simons, of Bridgeport, Connecticut,
moved another reconsideration, which the Speaker decided to
be inadmissible — a second motion for reconsideration, after one
has been carried, not being in order. Duncan appealed from
the decision, saying that after the adoption of an amendment
it was no longer the same vote. The Speaker, stubbornly per
sisting in his decision, got into a sharp altercation with John
White, the Speaker of the last House, in which he came off
second best ; so that when it came to the issue by yeas and
nays the vote was a tie, seventy-three to seventy-three, and his
decision was sustained only by his own vote.
The Rhode Island memorial then came up, and Lemuel
Stetson wasted an hour in a labored and very dull defence of
the changeable opinions of Martin Van Buren upon the right
of suffrage.
When he closed, I again addressed the Chair, and said I

1 844.] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 537
wished to say a few words ; but the Speaker said he had assigned
the floor to Mr. Simons.
Committee of the whole on the state of the Union, Cave
Johnson in the chair. The discussion upon the Fortification
bill was closed, and it was laid aside, and at the motion of
Haralson, Chairman of the Committee of Military Affairs, the
bill from the Senate to remount the old second regiment of dra
goons was taken up. McKay very faintly opposed it. Hale
moved an amendment, which he knew to be not in order, to
disband the eighth regiment of infantry. I moved to disband
the rifle regiment itself, and spoke about half an hour.
21st. I made about half my speech yesterday in committee
of the whole on the state of the Union, when the committee
rose, and the House adjourned. My time last evening and
this morning was absorbed in looking up the journals and
proceedings of the second session of the last Congress upon
the reduction of the army and the dismounting of the second
regiment of dragoons and turning it into a rifle regiment.
At the House, after some miscellaneous business, part of
which was a memorial presented by George W.Summers from
the Colonization Society of the District of Columbia, praying
for aid from Congress, the Rhode Island memorial was taken
up. Samuel Simons, of Bridgeport, Connecticut, had the floor
upon Causin's motion to discharge the select committee from the
further consideration of the memorial. Simons moved the pre
vious question; whereupon Burke asked leave to modify his mo
tion for leave to send for persons and papers. It was to limit the
call to two persons in Rhode Island, with papers. The Speaker
pronounced this modification not in order under the previous
question. The main question was first on Causin's motion to
discharge the committee, which was lost by yeas and nays —
seventy to eighty-six; then on the resolution of leave to send
for persons and papers, which Elmer moved to lay on the table ;
lost — seventy-two to eighty-four. And the resolution was then
carried — seventy-eight to seventy-one.
I had repeatedly requested to be heard, and John P. Ken
nedy had appealed to the generosity of the House to indulge
me; but Dromgoole said it could not be done.

538 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [March,
John J. Hardin, of Illinois, voted with the majority for the
privilege of moving a reconsideration, which he did, and thereby
tricked out an hour speech, which he devoted exclusively to a
reply to Stetson's vindication of Martin Van Buren. He closed
by moving the previous question on his motion to reconsider,
which he did, to withdraw it upon my rising to follow him ; but,
before he closed, a motion was made to lay on the table his
motion to reconsider. Weller moved a call of the House —
which consumed a full hour and produced only one hundred
and seventy-one members, when further proceedings were sus
pended ; then Burke's motion to lay on the table the motion to
reconsider was carried — eighty-nine to seventy-seven. I asked
Burke to move now his promised call on the President for in
formation and documents concerning the Rhode Island quarrel ;
but he said he would move the call when it should be in order.
I have thus been, by concerted action of the Speaker, excluded
from speaking on this subject.
A remarkable circumstance of the present times is the habit
ual absence of more than fifty members of the House — about
thirty of them in the city, always ready to answer a party
summons, but seldom seen at any other time in the House.
They are paid as if they attended twelve hours a day. Full
half the time there is no quorum in the House.
After the passage of the resolution allowing the committee
on the Rhode Island memorial to send for persons and papers,
the House went into committee of the whole on the state of
the Union, and took up the bill to repeal the provision of the
Act of August, 1842, which converted the second regiment of
dragoons into a rifle regiment. I completed my hour speech,
and was just entering upon the most interesting point of it, when
Cave Johnson the Chairman's hammer came down like the razor
of the guillotine. Haralson, the Chairman of the Committee
of Military Affairs, answered me by an hour speech, and the
committee rose, and the House adjourned.
Mr. Grinnell and Mr. Winthrop had invited me to meet at
their lodgings the Whig members of the Massachusetts dele
gation, to have some consultation together upon some of the
measures under consideration of the House. I went accord-

1 844.] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 535
ingly. At the meeting we discoursed upon Texas, the tariff,
th'e Massachusetts resolves, and the Virginia counter-resolu
tions. Mr. Abbott is a member of the select committee on the
latter, and said he had not been notified to attend any meeting
of the committee. We came to no definite conclusion upon
anything. 22d. Mr. Francis Markoe, of the Department of State, the
main pillar of the National Institute, had sent me last week
the memorial of that body to Congress, which I had agreed
to present to the House of Representatives, and which Levi
Woodbury presented yesterday to the Senate. Mr. Markoe
had requested an interview with me, and I had promised to call
on him, but was prevented from performing my promise by
visitors, upon business or curiosity, at the only time when I
could have performed it. On going to the House this morn
ing, I met Mr. Markoe at the door of the hall, where he was
watching to meet me, and he asked a short conference with
me; for which purpose we retired into the chamber of the
Committee of Manufactures. He had with him a mass of
manuscript documents, forming a folio volume as thick as a
Corpus Juris, to be communicated to the House with the
memorial, and which he wishes to have printed with it.
I promised to present the memorial on the first day when it
will be in order.
Mr. Markoe urged me, with great importunity, to take an
active part at the anniversary meeting of the Institute, to be
held next month, especially by delivering an address, though
it should be only of a few minutes; but I gave him no en
couragement to expect it. I said, however, that I would do
all in my power to promote the objects of the Institute.
I found the House in session. There had been a motion for
a call of the House to obtain a quorum ; but in the progress
of the motion for the call, a quorum having appeared, the call
was refused, by yeas and nays — sixty-six to seventy-five. The
yeas and nays were also taken upon Weller's motion to print
fifteen thousand extra copies of the Sub-Treasury bill report
from the Committee of Ways and Means — one hundred and
eight to fifty-one; and upon a motion of Garrett Davis to

540 MEMOIRS OF JOHN^QUINCY ADAMS. [March,
suspend the rules for him to introduce a new rule, requiring
the Clerk to call over the roll every morning and record the
members present and the absentees— eighty-five to eighty-six.
The Speaker called for reports from select committees, and
Dromgoole presented a report from the select committee ap
pointed on the 9th on the counter-resolutions of the Legisla
tures of Virginia and Alabama to the resolves of the Legisla
ture of Massachusetts of 23d of March, 1843. The committee
consisted of Dromgoole, Rhett, of South Carolina, Boyd, of
Kentucky, Amos Abbott, of Massachusetts, Reding, of New
Hampshire, Strong, of New York, Brengle, of Maryland, Rob
erts, of Mississippi, and Clinch, of Georgia. The report was
short, and closed with two resolutions — one, that the com
promises of the Constitution ought to be held sacred ; and the
other, that no proposition of amendment of the Constitution
with regard to representation and direct taxation ought to be
recommended by Congress, but that every such proposition
ought to be promptly and decisively condemned. He moved
the previous question on the resolutions.
I asked him to withdraw his motion to allow me to move
the reference of the report and resolutions to the committee of
the whole on the state of the Union, for discussion.
He refused.
Winthrop moved a call of the House ; refused. Abbott said
he had never been notified of any meeting of the select com
mittee, or of the report. Dromgoole said he had sent a mes
senger-boy to notify all the members of the committee ; that
all the members had attended, except Mr. Abbott, who was
sick, and Mr. Strong and Mr. Brengle, who had both gone
home; and the report was unanimous. The previous ques
tion was carried, by yeas and nays — one hundred and eighteen
to fifty-one. Parmenter moved to lay the report and resolu
tions on the table. Winthrop moved as an amendment, until
the question is decided whether the annexation of Texas be
considered as the settled policy of this Government — which
the Speaker decided was not in order.
The motion to lay on the table was lost — forty-three to one
hundred and thirty-two; and, a question being taken on each

1844-] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS.

541

resolution, the first was carried, one hundred and fifty-eight to
eighteen, and the second, one hundred and twenty-seven to
forty-one. These votes, in immediate succession to each other, show
that, of the minority on the second, twenty-three did not vote
on the first at all. Steenrod moved a reconsideration, for the
purpose of having it rejected, and it was rejected without a
division. Before the last vote by yeas and nays, the Speaker
announced that the morning hour had expired; but Dromgoole
moved to suspend the rules to finish this business, and it was
carried. The whole matter was disposed of in an hour and a
half. 23d. Meeting at nine o'clock this morning of the select com
mittee on the resolves of the Legislature of Massachusetts of
23d of March, 1843, proposing an amendment to the Consti
tution of the United States whereby representation and direct
taxation shall be apportioned according to the numbers of free
population. All the members of the committee present, though
two of them came in late.
Mr. Sample, of Indiana, read his report, which occupied about
an hour — a split-difference, Laodicean dissertation — neither
hot nor cold, or rather both hot and cold. Mr. Morse asked
further time, till next Tuesday week, to prepare his report,
pleading sickness and occupation on other committees, and
his own indecision whether he would make a separate report
or not. There had been a vote last Saturday that the report
to the House should be made this day. I moved a recon
sideration of that vote, and the postponement of the report to
the House till Tuesday, the 2d of April. This was carried,
Burke, Burt, and Ingersoll voting against it.
I moved that a list of sixteen petitions referred to the com
mittee should be entered on the minutes of the journal — which
was resisted, in a provoking spirit of chicanery, because they
had not been read and acted upon in committee. The question
was not taken on my motion. The committee adjourned to
Tuesday morning, 2d April.
After the adjournment, Burt gave me notice that he should
move in the House an order to the committee to report to the

542 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [March,
House immediately. He afterwards came to my seat and said
that he should not make his motion till Monday. I found the
House in session, and immediately after I entered, the Speaker,
evidently in concert with Burt, called for reports from select
committees ; but Burt was not ready with his motion, and I
was silent. But Burke, Chairman of the select committee
on the Rhode Island memorial, moved a long and minutely
detailed call upon the President for documents relating to his
interference in the insurgent movements in Rhode Island in
1842. The motion was adopted without a word of opposition
or of comment.
25th. I approach the term when my daily journal must cease
from physical disability to keep it up. I have now struggled
nearly five years, without the interval of a day, while mind and
body have been wearing away under the daily, silent, but un
remitting erosion of time. I rose this morning at four, and,
with smarting, bloodshot eye, and shivering hand, still sat down
and wrote to fill up the chasm of the closing days of the last
week; but my stern-chase after Time is, to borrow a simile from
Tom Paine, like the race of a man with a wooden leg after a
horse. At the House, it was the regular day for the call of resolu
tions ; but James A. Black, Chairman of a select committee on
retrenchment, presented a report with a bill to regulate the pay
of the army, and for other purposes ; twice read, and ordered
to be printed ; and, after some chicanery, five thousand extra
copies of the report were ordered to be printed. Black said
the merit of the bill consisted in reducing half a million of
dollars a year of the public expenditures. Fudge !
The Speaker began the call for resolutions with Ohio, pro
ceeding west and south. Giddings offered counter-resolutions,
asserting the right of proposing amendments to the Constitu
tion against those adopted last Friday. They lie over for
debate. Burt, of South Carolina, made his threatened motion to re
quire the select committee on the Massachusetts resolutions (to
report) to-morrow morning. After some sparring altercation,
and a statement of the facts by me, I moved to lay Burt's reso-

1844.] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS.

543

lution on the table, and it was carried by a majority of two
votes. Woodward then offered the same resolution in the
same words. I objected to it, as not in order, and the Speaker
so decided. Woodward then modified his resolution so as to
call for the report on Wednesday morning. I moved to lay
that on the table, and it was again carried. Lucas, of Virginia,
afterwards moved that another member be appointed on the
committee in the place of T. W. Gilmer; which was carried
without opposition.
After a multitude of other resolutions, John P. Kennedy
offered one declaring the approbation of the House of certain
protective-tariff opinions expressed by Andrew Jackson in a
letter to Dr. L. H. Coleman, April 26th, 1824 — which produced
such a prodigious, perplexity among the Jackson gang that
they could deliver themselves of it only by a premature and
precipitate adjournment.
26th. The Commissioner of Patents, H. L. Ellsworth, came,
with Jeremiah E. Cary, of Cherry Valley, member from the
Twenty-First Congressional District of New York, Otsego and
Scoharie, and delivered to me a letter from himself, with one
from Julius Pratt & Co., manufacturers at Meriden, Connecticut,
and a present of a milk-white ivory cane, one yard long, made
of one elephant's tooth, tipped with silver and steel, with the
American eagle inlaid in gold on its top, and a ring under the
pommel, inscribed with my name, and the words, "Justum, et
tenacem propositi virum." The letter requests that on the day
when the gag-rule shall be finally abolished I will insert the
date after the inscription on the ring.
After expressing my deep sensibility to this testimonial of
kindness and approbation of my public conduct, I promised a
written answer to Mr. Pratt's letter, and, alluding to my custom
of declining valuable presents from individuals for public service,
I accepted the cane as a trust to be returned when the date of
the extinction of the gag-rule shall be accomplished.
At the House, three hours were consumed in a convulsive
struggle to get rid of John P. Kennedy's resolution quoting
and adopting General Jackson's explicit declaration in favor of
a protective tariff in 1824. Brown, of Indiana, offered a lame

544 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [March,
apology for introducing yesterday a spurious counter-sentiment
of Henry Clay; but, while acknowledging that he could not
now substantiate the fact by proof, he attempted to reiterate
the charge by recurring to a report of another speech of Clay,
seeming to give color to the same charge.
John White fastened upon him, and, against a tide and tor
rent of interruptions, prostrated the calumny against Clay till
he drove the Speaker to the last resort of the gag to stop him
for irrelevancy.
Committee of the whole on the state of the Union, Cave
Johnson in the chair. The bill for remounting the second
regiment of dragoons came up. Jameson, of Missouri, Cross,
of Arkansas, and, above all, Henry Dodge, the delegate from
Wisconsin, urged so intensely the necessity of mounted men
for defence against and control over the Indians that all re
sistance was vain. I withdrew the amendment to disband the
regiment, and the bill was reported to the House and passed
by yeas and nays — ninety-four to fifty-six ; only one hundred
and fifty votes. Forty dodgers not yet broken in to hail the
triumph of the military power.
27th. At the House, the Speaker announced that William
Lucas, of Charlestown, Tenth Congressional District of Vir
ginia, was appointed a member of the select committee on the
Massachusetts resolves in the place of the late Thomas W.
Gilmer. James G. Clinton, of Newburgh, Ninth Congressional Dis
trict of New York, moved a suspension of the rules for a reso
lution calling on the Secretary of War to report to the House
whether Lieutenant Braxton Bragg had been ordered away
from this city by the commanding General, Scott, knowing
that Lieutenant Bragg was under examination as a witness
before a committee of the House, and whether he has not been
arrested by order of General Scott for fear or suspicion of the
testimony he was giving before the committee. The rules
were suspended, one hundred and three to forty-three, and the
resolution adopted, ninety to sixty-three, all amendment being
precluded by the previous question.
I voted for the suspension and for the resolution, thinking

I844-] THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS.

545

that the main allegation, that the general had ordered away,
and then arrested, an officer under examination as a witness
by a committee of the House, was a fit subject of enquiry ; but
I totally disapproved the direct imputation upon the motives
of the general, at all events unnecessary, and, as I believed,
unfounded. 30th. At the House this morning, the answer of the Secre
tary of War, William Wilkins, to the resolution adopted last
Wednesday under the screw of the previous question, and con
taining a rash and offensive imputation upon the conduct and
character of General Scott, was communicated by the Speaker
and read. It completely justifies the proceedings of General
Scott in the transactions to which the resolution applied, trans
fers the load of censure upon Lieutenant Bragg, and justly
rebukes the scandalous enquiry as to the motives of General
Scott. The whole proceeding is characteristic of the malig
nant stolidity of James G. Clinton, and of the base subserviency
of the majority of the House to the venomous passions of the
meanest of their party hacks. General Clinch called for the
reading of the report and the accompanying documents, and
the printing of two thousand extra copies of them ; but the
report only was read. The documents were ordered to be
printed, but no extra number of them.
General Clinch told me he had informed General Scott of
the speech I had yesterday made in his defence, for which
he returned me his thanks, and with which he was highly
gratified. Hungerford moved to go into committee of the whole on
the state of the Union. Carried against the private business
— eighty-seven to sixty-one. The bill to regulate the pay of
the army was taken up, Weller in the chair. John Pettit, of
La Fayette, Ninth Congressional District of Indiana, moved to
strike out the seventeenth section of the bill fixing the pay of
chaplains in the army at six hundred dollars a year, and made
a speech against having any chaplains. The same man had
moved at the commencement of the present session of Con
gress to dispense with Chaplains in both Houses. He met with
no support then, nor with any now. Holmes, of Charleston,
voi* xi. — 35

546 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [1844.
South Carolina, Hammett, of Mississippi, Joseph R. Ingersoll
and Edward Joy Morris, of Philadelphia, and Hardin, of Illi
nois, made counter-speeches for display; and John Wentworth,
of Illinois, one of vulgar, hypocritical buffoonery, with con
tinual bitter allusions to the songs at the Whig mass-meetings.
This called up Caleb B. Smith, of Indiana — when Steenrod
interposed, and by the most urgent entreaties prevailed upon
Pettit to withdraw his motion. But the agitation was such that
the committee immediately rose. Joseph R. Ingersoll moved
to adjourn to one o'clock on Monday, to allow time for mem
bers to attend the opening of the anniversary meeting of the
National Institute, but he failed. The House adjourned before
three o'clock.

END OF VOL. XI.