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JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 
 
 HIS CONNECTION WITH 
 
 THE MOJSTEOE DOCTEINE (1823) 
 
 BY 
 
 WORTHINGTON CHAUNCEY FORD 
 
 AND WITH 
 
 EMANCIPATION UNDER MARTIAL LAW (1819-1842) 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS 
 
 [Reprinted from the Proceedings op the Massachusetts Historical 
 Society, for January, 1902] 
 
 CAMBRIDGE 
 JOHN WILSON AND SON 
 
 SSntijersitg Press 
 1902 
 
yd 
 
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 
 
 AND 
 
 THE MONROE DOCTRINE (1823) 
 
 BY 
 
 WORTHINGTON CHAUNCEY FORD 
 
 239934 
 
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 
 
 AND 
 
 THE MONROE DOCTRINE (1823). 
 
 r 
 
 I AM able to use in this place only a part of the unpublished 
 material I have found bearing upon the genesis of the Monroe 
 Doctrine. Nor can the full connection of this new material 
 with what has already been printed be developed, as the story 
 would take me' back to 1817 and forward to 1828, were I to 
 attempt a full relation. I therefore confine myself to some 
 important papers, merely adding that I have found other quite 
 as important papers, which will receive attention at a later time. 
 The notable enunciation of the doctrine that America was 
 no longer open to colonization by any European power is hardly 
 touched upon in the papers now printed. It was a doctrine 
 that admittedly came from John Quincy Adams, and there has 
 never been any doubt as to its authorship. With what re- 
 mains of the Monroe doctrine a reasonable doubt has been 
 maintained ; but I think the documents now published will 
 show that no member of Monroe's Cabinet, except his Secre- 
 tary of State, held a positive opinion on the general phases of 
 Canning's proposals and of the Russian communications, or 
 succeeded in attaining a position which was defensible from 
 every point of view. , Monroe himself has long been judged 
 as unlikely to take so extreme a stand in the face of allied 
 Europe, for he was by nature a timid man, and was at this 
 time in poor health. ^ He had had a large experience in diplo- 
 matic service, but it was on the side of failure and disappoint- 
 ment. This is not to be wondered at, for a long spoon was 
 needed to sup with George Canning in his days of anti-Jac- 
 obinism, or with Talleyrand under a chief even more unscrupu- 
 lous than himself. It is difficult to see the " radical " Monroe 
 of 1794 in the presiding genius of the era of good feeling. 
 
6 
 
 In an appendix will be found certain despatches from Rich- 
 ard Rush to the Secretary of State. Rush, in his " Memoranda 
 of a Residence at the Court of London," prints three of his 
 despatches relating to his conferences with Canning on the 
 affairs of South America, as follows: No. 325, August 23, 
 1823 (p. 415) ; No. 326, August 28 (p. 420) ; and No. 331, 
 September 19 (p. 429). Mr. Adams's reply covered not only 
 these despatches, but also Nos. 323, 330, 332, 334, and 336, 
 which are now printed for the first time, with the notes of 
 Canning enclosed in them or referred to in the other commu- 
 nications.^ From the Monroe papers I take a private letter 
 from Richard Rush to Monroe, dated September 15, and from 
 the same source, a letter from Daniel Sheldon, Secretary of 
 the American Legation at Paris, to John Quincy Adams, dated 
 October 30. From the Adams manuscripts at Quincy I take 
 letters from Richard Rush to the Secretary of State, dated 
 November 26 and December 27, with a private and confiden- 
 tial note from George Canning to Richard Rush, dated De- 
 cember 13. In these twelve letters the story of the English 
 advances is told, with all the details, save such as were given 
 in the three important despatches published by Rush in his 
 " Memoranda," and they constitute the first chapter or division 
 of my material. 
 
 Unfortunately, the " Memoirs of John Quincy Adams " con- 
 tain no entries from September 11, 1823, when the writer was 
 still at Quincy, and November 7, when the first effects of Can- 
 ning's advances had passed away. We are therefore without 
 any record of the effect they produced upon Adams and the 
 members of the Cabinet. Upon the President we know they 
 had a profound influence, leading him to turn for advice and 
 assistance to Jefferson and Madison, to whom he sent copies of 
 these confidential papers, — a somewhat unusual step, and not 
 a little indiscreet. For an accident would have placed Rush 
 in a most awkward position, and could not have been pleasant 
 for Adams, who knew nothing of this reference.'^ Monroe's 
 letter to Jefferson has never been printed, and was as follows : 
 
 1 These papers are taken from the files of the Department of State, and by the 
 courtesy of that Department I obtained copies. 
 
 2 "Be so good as to send the copies mentioned in our meeting to-day, of the 
 correspondence between Mr. Rush and Mr. Canning, since I deem the subject of 
 the highest importance." James Monroe to Adams, Washington, October 11, 
 1823. MS. 
 
 
 
MONROE TO JEFFERSON. 
 
 Oakhill October 17*V 1823 
 Dear Sir, — I transmit to you two despatches, which were received 
 from Mr. Rush, while I was lately in Washington, which involve inter- 
 ests of the highest importance. They contain two letters from Mr. 
 Canning, suggesting designs of the holy alliance, against the Indepen- 
 dence of S° America, & proposing a cooperation, between G. Britain & 
 the U States, in support of it, against the members of that alliance. 
 The project aims in the first instance, at a mere expression of opinion, 
 somewhat in the abstract, but which it is expected by Mr. Canning, 
 will have a great political effect, by defeating the combination. By Mr. 
 Rush's answers, which are also inclosed, you will see the light in which 
 he views the subject, & the extent to which he may have gone. Many 
 important considerations are involved in this proposition. 1^- Shall we 
 entangle ourselves, at all, in European politicks, & wars, on the side of 
 any power, against others, presuming that a concert by agreement, of 
 the kind proposed, may lead to that result ? 2*^- If a case can exist, in 
 which a sound maxim may, & ought to be departed from, is not the 
 present instance, precisely that case ? 3^ Has not the epoch arriv'd 
 when G. Britain must take her stand, either on the side of the raonarchs 
 of Europe, or of the U States, & in consequence, either in favor of 
 Despotism or of liberty & may it not be presum'd, that aware of that 
 necessity, her government, has seiz'd on the present occurrence, as that, 
 which it deems, the most suitable, to announce & mark the commenc'- 
 ment of that career. 
 
 Hy own impression is that we ought to meet the proposal of the 
 British gov% & to make it known, that we would view an interference 
 on the part of the European powers, and especially an attack on the 
 Colonies, by them, as an attack on ourselves, presuming that if they 
 succeeded with them, they would extend it to us. I am sensible however 
 of the extent, & difficulty of the question, & shall be happy to have 
 yours, & Mr. Madison's opinions on it. I do not wish to trouble 
 either of you with small objects, but the present one is vital, involving 
 the high interests, for which we have so long & so faithfully, & harmo- 
 niously, contended together. Be so kind as to enclose to him the de- 
 spatches, with an intimation of the motive. With great respect &c 
 
 James Monroe 
 Reed Oct 23 1 
 
 1 From the Jefferson MSS. in the Department of State, Washington, D. C. 
 
 " I forward you two most important letters sent to me by the President and add 
 his letter to me by which you will perceive his prima facie views. This you will 
 be so good as to return to me, and forward the others to him." Jefferson to Mad- 
 ison, October 24, 1823. MS. 
 
( 
 
 8 
 
 The result of this consultation were the letters from Jeffer- 
 son to Monroe, October 24th, from Madison to Monroe, October 
 30th, and from Madison to Jefferson, November 1st, which are 
 too well known and accessible to require even a summary of 
 their contents. It is, however, worth noting that Monroe 
 kept these replies by him, not showing them to Adams until 
 November 15th, or nearly two weeks after their receipt. 
 
 While this interchange of opinions on the Canning proposals 
 was taking place, a new element was introduced by the stand 
 taken by Russia. It was not unusual for the ruler of that 
 Empire to take the governments of other countries into his 
 confidence and display before them some of the political prin- 
 ciples which controlled his actions or explain some of the 
 motives which actuated his councils. As a member of the 
 Holy Alliance, he was bound by its decisions, and was often 
 made the spokesman of its policy. Such utterances usually 
 took the form of circular letters addressed to the different 
 cabinets of Europe, and, so far as I am able to discover, 
 had not for some years been addressed to the United States. 
 This was only natural, for the United States had deliberately 
 isolated itself from European councils, and could hardly ex- 
 pect to be deemed worthy of being taken into the secret 
 conclaves of the Powers dealing with matters on which our 
 representatives were ever asserting they could give no opinion 
 or pledge of action. Further, the very political system of the 
 United States was so opposed to that dominating Europe, that 
 ground for common action could not be found. If England, 
 with her relatively liberal system and many mutual interests 
 with continental Europe, found herself unable to act with the 
 Holy Alliance, it was out of the question for the United States, 
 without any of these interests, to take part in their proceed- 
 ings. There was every reason for keeping entirely aloof, and, 
 even in a matter that did concern our country, like the nego- 
 tiations on the slave trade, it was only as a matter of favor that 
 the United States was informed of the conclusions, and as a 
 matter of grace invited to give its adherence to the result. It 
 was therefore an unusual episode to receive from the Russian 
 minister communications bearing upon public policy. The 
 nature of those communications is best explained in the elabo- 
 rate memorandum prepared by Mr. Adams for submission to 
 the President.^ 
 
 1 Printed post, p. 26. 
 
 Po«. 
 
9 
 
 In the first week in November three despatches from Rush 
 reached the Department/ and the Memoirs again begin to 
 record the Cabinet meetings. To Canning's original proposals 
 there was no exception to be taken, except on the ground of 
 a certain vagueness as to the possibilit}^ of entire co-operation. 
 He had in his five heads expressed only what the government 
 of the United States had already accepted as its policy. The 
 guarded utterances of Rush in his exchange of notes with 
 Canning had gone as far as it was possible to go without 
 positive instructions from the administration, and those in- 
 structions could have been issued without unduly binding our 
 government to follow Great Britain in every contingency. 
 The President, by the very form of his questions to Jefferson, 
 implied that he would even favor a departure in this instance 
 from the traditional policy of isolation. But Canning blun- 
 dered. He intimated, to Rush that the Alliance had intentions 
 against the late Spanish colonies of South America, and urged 
 the American minister to enter into a definite and binding 
 compact. Yet he did not tell Rush from what source he had 
 obtained this information, and thus gave rise to a suspicion that 
 his solicitude was not entirely disinterested, or his urgency was 
 not calculated to compromit Rush for the benefit of the British 
 government. Upon the despatches from Rush, Adams com- 
 mented : " The object of Canning appears to have been to 
 obtain some public pledge from the government of the United 
 States, ostensibly against the forcible interference of the Holy 
 Alliance between Spain and South America f but really or 
 especially against the acquisition to the United States them- 
 selves of any part of the Spanish-American possessions. . . . 
 By joining with her, therefore, in her proposed declaration, we 
 give her a substantial and perhaps inconvenient pledge against 
 ourselves, and really obtain nothing in return." ^ 
 
 In place of a co-operation with Great Britain, Adams favored 
 seizing the opportunity offered by the communications from the 
 Russian minister. The government of the United States, while 
 declining the overture of Great Britain, could thus take its 
 stand against the Holy Alliance. " It would be more candid, 
 
 1 These were numbered 330, 331, and 332, and were dated September 8, 19, 
 and 20 respectively. No. 330 is endorsed as received November 6, while Nos. 331 
 and 382 were received November 3. 
 
 2 Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, VI 177, 178. 
 
 2 
 
w^- 
 
 \ 
 
 10 
 
 as well as more dignified, to avow our principles explicitly to 
 Russia and France, than to come in as a cock-boat in the wake 
 of the British man-of-war." This was the policy that was dis- 
 cussed under many forms by the Cabinet during the month of 
 November, and for which Adams fought so well. 
 
 It was at this stage that the first of our Adams manuscripts 
 was submitted to the Cabinet, — the draft of his reply to 
 Baron Tuyll. It appears to have been prepared on October 18, 
 two days after the letter from Baron Tuyll had been received, 
 but it was not laid before the Cabinet till November 7. As 
 the communications with the Russian Minister had been part 
 verbal and part in writing, the Secretary thought it would be 
 only proper to reply in the same manner. To answer the 
 whole in one written note might place the Baron in an awk- 
 »<^' 'v/) ward predicament. But he warned the President that " the 
 
 \ ^) fv answer to be given to Baron Tuyll, the instructions to Mr. Rush 
 
 •M A relative to the proposals of Mr. Canning, those to Mr. Middle- 
 
 ton at SiitJBfiiersburgj and those to the minister who must be 
 sent to France, must all be part of a combined system of policy 
 and adapted to each other." 
 
 The draft of the note to Baron de Tuyll was as follows : — 
 
 Adams's Draft.^ 
 Thk Baron dk Tuyll, 
 
 Envoy Extraordinary & Minister Plenipotentiary from Russia. 
 
 Depabtmbnt op State. Washington, ^—^^P 1823. 
 
 Sir, — I have had the honour of receiving your Note of the -j*^ inst* 
 communicating the information that His Imperial Majesty the Emperor 
 of all the Russias has determined in no case whatsoever to receive any 
 agent whatsoever either from the Government of the Republic of Co- 
 lumbia, or from any other of the Governments de facto, which owe 
 their existence to the Events of which the new World has for some 
 years past been the theatre. 
 
 Influenced by the considerations which prescribe it as a duty to inde- 
 pendent Christian Nations of Christians to entertain with each other, 
 the friendly relations which sentiments of humanity and their mutual 
 interests require, and satisfied that those of South America had become 
 irrevocably Independent of Spain the Government of the United States 
 B [have interchanged Ministers Plenipotentiary with the RepubHc of 
 Colombia, have appointed Ministers of the same Rank to the Govern- 
 
 1 What is enclosed in brackets was struck out by the President. Words in 
 italic were also omitted from the final form of this letter. 
 
11 
 
 ments of Mexico, Buenos Ayres and Chili, have received a Minister 
 and other Diplomatic Agents from Mexico, and will continue to receive 
 and send Agents Diplomatic and Commercial, in their intercourse with 
 the other American Independant Nations, as in the performance of 
 their social duties, and in the pursuit of their lawful Interests they 
 shall find expedient proper. While regretting that the political prin- 
 ciples maintained by His Imperial Majesty and his allies, have not yet 
 led the Imperial Government to the same result, and that they have not 
 seen fit to receive the diplomatic agent Minister of Peace said to have 
 been commissioned by the Republican Government of Colombia, to re- 
 side near his Imperial Majesty, the Government of the United States, 
 respecting in others that self-dependent Sovereignty which they exer- 
 cise themselves, receive from you the information of his Majesty's deter- 
 mination on this subject in the Spirit of Candour, frankness, and of 
 amicable disposition with which it is given .1 
 
 D. I avail myself of the occasion to reiterate to you. Sir, the assur- 
 ance of my distinguished Consideration. 
 
 C. From the information contained in your Note, it appears that the 
 political Principles maintained by His Imperial Majesty and his allies, 
 have not led the Imperial Government to the same result. I am in- 
 structed by the President to assure you, that the Government of the 
 United States respecting in others the Independence of the Sovereign 
 authority, which they exercise themselves, receive the communication 
 of H. I. M's determination on that subject in the Spirit of Candour, 
 frankness and of amicable disposition with which it is made. D. 
 
 Monroe's Suggested Changes.^ 
 
 B. The government of the U States thought it proper to ac- 
 knowledge their independance, in March 1822., by an act which was 
 then published to the world. This government has since interchanged 
 ministers with the republic of Columbia, has appointed ministers of the 
 same rank to the governments of Mexico, Buenos Ayres, & Chili, 
 has received a minister & other diplomatic agents from Mexico, and 
 preservd, in other respects the same intercourse, with those new States, 
 that they have with other powers. ^ 
 
 By a recurrence to the message of the President, a copy of which is 
 enclosed, you will find, that this measure was adopted on great con- 
 sideration ; that the attention of this gov. had been called, to the con- 
 test, between the parent country & the Colonies, from an early period 
 that it had marked the course of events with impartiality, & had become 
 perfectly satisfied, that Spain could not reestablish her authority over 
 them : that in fact the new States were completely independant. C. 
 
 1 See Monroe's letter on p. 13. 
 
12 
 
 [Under those circumstances my gov! has heard with great regret, the 
 information containd in your note that the political principles main- 
 taind by his Imperial Majesty & his allies, have not yet led the Imperial 
 gov', to the same result. I am instructed however by the President to 
 assure you, that this communication of H. I. M.'s determination, on this 
 subject has been receivd in the spirit of candour, frankness, & of 
 amicable disposition with which it is given.] 
 
 It was Calhoun who objected to the words Christian^ an- 
 nexed to independent nations, and of peace^ added to the word 
 minister. In spite of Adams explaining that " all the point of 
 my note was in these two words, as my object was to put the 
 Emperor in the wrong in the face of the world as much as pos- 
 sible," they were struck from the draft. The cabinet meeting 
 came to an end before the form of the note had been deter- 
 mined, but developed some difference of opinion upon the man- 
 ner of replying to the Russian communications. With the 
 President Adams agreed to confine his written reply to the 
 purport of the Baron's written note, and to see the Baron 
 again upon the verbal part of his communication. This would 
 be limited to an expression of the intention on the part of the 
 United States to continue to remain neutral. 
 
 Before the Secretary could see the Russian Minister on the 
 next day Monroe began to have doubts, and he wrote the fol- 
 lowing note : — 
 
 JAMES MONROE TO JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 
 
 Nov 8, 1823. 
 
 Dear Sir, — I called to confer a moment with you respecting the 
 concerns depending with the minister of Russia, but not meeting with 
 you, and hearing that you are expected to have an interview with the 
 minister of Russia, to day, I drop you a few lines on that subject. 
 
 In the interview, I think that it will be proper, to extend your con- 
 versation & enquiries to every point, which seems to be embraced, by 
 his note, & informal communication, with a view to make it the basis 
 of all subsequent measures, either with Congress, or through Mr. Rush 
 with the British gov* If you see no impropriety, in it, I think that I 
 would ask him, whether he intended, by the terms "political principles" 
 to refer to the governments established, in the new states, as distinguish- 
 ing them from those of Europe.^ the strict import justifies the conclu- 
 
 1 The Baron said the words were used " in the instructions of the Government 
 to him, and he understood them to have reference to the right of supremacy of 
 Spain over her colonies. I had so understood them myself, and had not enter- 
 tained a moment's doubt as to their meaning." Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, 
 VI. 182. 
 
13 
 
 sion that he does, and that is supported by all the recent movements of 
 the allied powers, in Europe. Still to give it that construction, without 
 his sanction, in this form, might be objected to hereafter. I merely 
 suggest this for your consideration, to which I add, that if there be 
 cause to doubt the propriety of the step, you had better decline it, for 
 further reflection, especially as other opportunities will present them- 
 selves, in future conferences with him, on the same subject. 
 
 On the other point I need add nothing at this time. Indeed I do not 
 know that I can say anything, in addition to what was suggested on it 
 yesterday. It is probable that something may occur in your conference, 
 which may make it proper, to enlarge the sphere of the communication. 
 
 J. M} 
 
 JAMES MONROE TO JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 
 
 Dear Sir, — il enclose you a modification, of your note in reply to 
 that of the Russian minister for your consideration. The part for which 
 it is proposed to be a substitute is marked with a pencil — tho' much of 
 that thus marked is retained. You will be able to decide how far such 
 a modification, will be proper from what may have taken place in your 
 conference with the minister. The object is, to soften the communica- 
 tion, in some degree, without losing any portion of the decision called 
 for by the occasion. 
 
 J. M. 
 Nov>^ 10, 1823.2 
 
 The President's message, was to be sent to Congress early in 
 December, and the usual procedure was followed in compos- 
 ing that document. The head of each Department drew up a 
 memorandum of the important matters pertaining to his De- 
 partment, both matters that were pending and matters that 
 had been accomplished. On November 13th, Adams made 
 such a memorandum for his Department, but found the Presi- 
 dent still " altogether unsettled in his own mind" on the an- 
 swer to be given to Canning's proposals, and " alarmed, far 
 beyond anything that I could have conceived possible, with 
 the fear that the Holy Alliance are about to restore imme- 
 diately all South America to Spain." In this view he was 
 supported by Calhoun, a man who certainly did not err on the 
 side of a cheerful optimism, and the surrender of Cadiz to the 
 
 1 From the Adams MSS. 
 
 2 Ibid. In noting the receipt of this letter from the President, Adams says, 
 " I think also of proposing another modification." The " Memoirs " (VI. 184) tell 
 us what this modification was — " leaving out entirely the expression of regret — 
 which he approved." 
 
14 
 
 French was the immediate cause of this despair. Adams 
 pressed for a decision, either to accept or to decline Canning's 
 advances, and a despatch could then be prepared conformable 
 to either decision.^ 
 
 If Calhoun was the alarmist member of the Cabinet, Adams 
 was at the other extreme. As well expect Chiraborazo to sink 
 beneath the ocean, he believed, as to look to the Holy Alliance 
 to restore the Spanish dominion upon the American continent. 
 If the South Americans really had so fragile governments as 
 Calhoun represented them to be, there was every reason not 
 to involve the United States in their fate. With indecision 
 in the President and dark apprehension in Calhoun, Adams 
 alone held a definite opinion, and in clear phrase he expressed 
 it in summation of the Cabinet discussion : — 
 
 " I thought we should bring the whole answer to Mr. Canning's pro- 
 posals to a test of right and wrong. Considering the South Americans 
 as independent nations, they themselves, and no other nation, had the 
 right to dispose of their condition. We have no right to dispose of 
 them, either alone or in conjunction with other nations. Neither have 
 any other nations the right of disposing of them without their consent. 
 This principle will give us a clue to answer all Mr. Canning's questions 
 with candor and confidence, and I am to draft a dispatch accordingly." ^ 
 
 Before the draft had been prepared two more despatches were 
 received from Rush, dated the 2d and 10th of October, indicat- 
 ing a decided change in Canning's tone, and almost an indiffer- 
 ence on his part to pursue further the project of united action. 
 The immediate cause of this cooling in enthusiasm could not 
 then be known to our minister, but it was to be found in a 
 conference between Canning and Prince de Polignac on Span- 
 ish affairs, during which the representative of France gave 
 positive assurances on the lines of Canning's ideas. The 
 Prince de Polignac declared, — 
 
 " That his Government believed it to be utterly hopeless to reduce 
 Spanish America to the state of its former relations to Spain ; 
 
 " That France disclaimed, on Her part, any intention or desire to avail 
 Herself of the present State of the Colonies, or of the present situation 
 of France towards Spain, to appropriate to Herself any part of the 
 Spanish Possessions in America, or to obtain for Herself any exclusive 
 advantages ; 
 
 1 Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, VI. 185. 
 
 2 Ibid. 186. . . . 
 
15 
 
 "And that, like England, She would willingly see the Mother 
 Country in possession of superior commercial advantages, by amicable 
 arrangements; and would be contented, like Her, to rank, after the 
 Mother Country, among the most favoured nations ; 
 
 " Lastly, that She abjured, in any case, any design of acting against 
 the Colonies by force of arms." ^ 
 
 The draft of the reply to all of Rush's despatches on Can- 
 ning's proposals was prepared on November 17th, and given 
 to the President on the same day. Whatever may have been 
 the general intention of Adams in preparing this draft, the 
 scope of his policy was greatly enlarged by certain communi- 
 cations made by the Russian Minister. It was sufficiently 
 aggravating to have been lectured on political principles in 
 the note instructing the minister to make it known that the 
 Emperor would receive no representatives from the late Span- 
 ish colonies. The few political remarks in reply included in 
 Adams's note to Baron Tuyll had been ruthlessly cut out by 
 the President, as tending to irritate his Imperial Majesty. 
 iFrom a statement of principle it had been turned, as Adams 
 (says, into " the tamest of all State papers." ^ The only conso- 
 lation was that it entirely satisfied the Russian minister, j^. But 
 now another Russian manifesto was communicated, explain- 
 ing more fully the views and intentions of the Holy Alliance, 
 and couched in language which only an autocrat could em- 
 ploy.^ This gave Adams his opening. If the Emperor set up 
 to be tlie mouthpiece of Divine Providence, it would be well 
 to intimate that this country did not recognize the language 
 spoken, and had a destiny of its own, also under the guidance 
 of Divine Providence* If Alexander could exploit his politi- 
 cal principles, those of a brutal repressive policy, the United 
 States could show that another system of government, remote 
 and separate from European traditions and administration, 
 could give rise to a new and more active political principle, — 
 the consent of the governed, between which and the Emperor 
 there could not exist even a sentimental sympathy. If the 
 Holy Alliance could boast of its strength and agreement when 
 engaged in stamping out all opposition to legitimacy, the 
 United States, hearing the whisperings of a projected American 
 
 1 The conference was held October 9th. 
 
 2 Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, VI. 201. 
 ^ This paper is printed post, p. 34. 
 
16 
 
 union with itself at the head, an Alliance that did not arrogate 
 to itself the epithet of Holy, could demand that the European 
 concert justify its existence, its actions and its motives by rec- 
 ords other than the bloody scenes at Naples, in France, and 
 in Spain. Here was Adams's opportunity. It was no longer 
 Canning who was to be answered ; it was Europe, — and he 
 seized it as only a masterful man, certain of his ground, can 
 find in the very reasons of his opponent the best of support for 
 his own position. 
 
 Yet Canning must be answered. The draft of Adams's note 
 to Rush was amended by the President, and the Secretary pre- 
 pared a substitute for those amendments.^ This paper was as 
 follows : — 
 
 Adams's Draft.'^ 
 
 N. 76 Richard Rush, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary, U. S. 
 London. 
 
 Department of State, Washington, 29 November, 1823. 
 
 Sir, —Your despatches numbered 823, 325, 326, 330, 331, 332, 334, 
 and 336 have been received, containing the Reports of your Conferences, 
 and copies of your confidential Correspondence with M"" Secretary Can- 
 ning, in relation to certain proposals made by him tending to a concert 
 of principles, with reference to the Affairs of South America, between 
 the United States and Great Britain, and a combined and candid mani- 
 festation of them to the World. 
 
 The whole subject has Ibeenl received the deliberate consideration of 
 the President, under a deep impression of its general importance, a full 
 conviction of the high interests and sacred principles involved in it, and 
 an anxious solicitude for the cultivation of that harmony of opinions, and 
 unity of object between the British and American Nations, upon which 
 so much of the Peace, and Happiness, and Liberty of the world obviously 
 depend. 
 
 1 am directed to express to you the President's entire approbation 
 of the course which you have pursued, in referring to your Govern- 
 
 1 James Monroe to John Quincy Adams. 
 
 Dear Sir, — I send you the sketch wi} you left with me, of a letter to Mi: Rush, 
 with amendments, which are intended for your consideration, and which If you 
 approve, I wish, when a copy is made, that we submit to a meeting of all the 
 members of the adm" 
 
 If you see any objection to these amendments, we will confer on the subject. 
 
 The other sketches I will return as soon as I maybe able. J. M. 
 
 Nov 20. 23. — From the Adams MSS. 
 
 2 What is enclosed in brackets of both Adams's and Monroe's papers was 
 omitted in the final form of this despatch. 
 
17 
 
 ment the proposals contained in M' Canning's private and confidential 
 Letter to you of 20 August. And I am now to signify to you the de- 
 termination of the President concerning them. A determination which 
 he wishes to be at once candid, explicit, and conciliatory, and which 
 being formed, by referring each of the proposals to the single and un- 
 varying Standard of Right and Wrong, as understood by us and main- 
 tained by us, will present to the British Government, the whole system 
 of opinions and of purposes of the American Government, with regard 
 to South America. 
 
 The first of the principles of the British Government, as set forth by 
 M' Canning is 
 
 1 . We conceive the recovery of the Colonies by Spain to be hopeless. 
 In this we concur. 
 
 The second is 
 
 2. We conceive the question of the Recognition of them as Indepen- 
 dent States, to be one of time and circumstances. 
 
 We did so conceive it, until with a due regard to all the rights of 
 Spain, and with a due sense of our responsibility to the judgment of 
 mankind and of posterity, we had come to the conclusion that the re- 
 covery of them by Spain ivas hopeless. Having arrived at that 'Conclu- 
 sion, we considered that the People of those emancipated Colonies, were 
 of Right, Independent of all other Nations, and that it was our duty so 
 to acknowledge them. We did so acknowledge them in March 1822. 
 From which Time, the recognition has no longer been a question to us. 
 We are aware of considerations just and proper in themselves which 
 might deter Great Britain from fixing upon the same Time, for this 
 recognition, with us ; but we wish to press it earnestly upon her con- 
 sideration, whether, after having settled the point that the recovery of 
 the Colonies by Spain was hopeless — and after maintaining at the 
 Cannon's mouth, commercial Relations with them, incompatible with 
 their Colonial Condition while subject to Spain, the moral obligation 
 does not necessarily result of recognizing them as Independent States. 
 
 " 3. We are however by no means disposed to throw any impedi- 
 ment in the way of an arrangement between them and the mother 
 Country, by amicable Negotiation.^^ 
 
 Nor are we. Recognizing them as Independent States we acknowl- 
 edge them as possessing full power, to levy war, conclude peace, con- 
 tract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things, 
 which Independent States may of right do. Among these an arrange- 
 ment between them and Spain, by amicable negotiation is one, which 
 far from being disposed to impede, we would earnestly desire, and by 
 every proper means in our power endeavour to promote provided it 
 should be founded on the basis of Independence.^ But recognizing 
 
 1 This phrase is taken from Monroe's amendments. 
 3 
 
18 
 
 them as Independent States, we do and shall justly and ^provided their 
 accommodation with 8pain he founded on that basis'] necessarily claim 
 in our relations with them political and commercial to be placed upon a 
 footing of equal favour with the most favoured Nation. 
 
 " 4. We aim not at the possession of any portion of them ourselves.' ' 
 
 " 5. We could not see any portion of them transferred to any other 
 Power, with indifference." 
 
 In both these positions we fully concur — And we add 
 
 That we could not see with indifference any attempt [by one or more 
 powers of Europe to dispose of the Freedom or Independence of those 
 States, without their consent, or against their will.l 
 
 CTo this principle, in our view of this subject all the rest are subor- 
 dinate. Without this, our concurrence with Great-Britain upon all the 
 rest would be useless.] It is upon this ground alone as we conceive 
 that a firm and determined stand could now be jointly taken by Great 
 Britain and the United States in behalf of the Independence of Nations, 
 and never in the History of Mankind was there a period when a stand 
 so taken and maintained, would exhibit to present and future ages a 
 more glorious example of Power, animated by Justice and devoted to 
 the ends of beneficence. 
 
 [With the addition of this principle, if assented to by the British 
 Government, you are authorised to join in any act formal or informal, 
 which shall manifest the concurrence of the two Governments on this 
 momentous occasion. But you will explicitly state that without this 
 basis of Right and moral obligation, we can see no foundation upon 
 which the concurrent action of the two Governments can be harmonized. 
 If the destinies of South America, are to be trucked and bartered be- 
 tween Spain and her European Allies, by amicable negotiation, or other- 
 wise, without consulting the feelings or the rights of the People who 
 inhabit that portion of our Hemisphere.] 
 
 [The ground of Resistance which we would oppose to any interfer- 
 ence of the European Allies, between Spain and South America, is not 
 founded on any partial interest of our own or of others. If the Colonies 
 belonged to Spain we should object to any transfer of them to other 
 Nations, which would materially affect our interests or rights, but with 
 that exception we should consider Spain as possessing the common 
 Power of disposing of her own Territories. Our present opposition to 
 the disposal of any part of the American Continents by Spain, with her 
 European allies, is that they do not belong to Spain, and can no more be 
 disposed of by her, than by the United States. 
 
 With regard to the Islands of Cuba and Porto-Rico, to the Inhabi- 
 tants of which the free Constitution of Spain, as accepted and sworn to 
 by the King has been extended, we consider them as possessing the 
 right of determining for themselves their course of conduct, under the 
 
19 
 
 subversion of that Constitution, by foreign Military power. Our own 
 interest and wish would be that they should continue in their political 
 connection with Spain under the administration of a free Constitution, 
 and in the enjoyment of their Liberties as now possessed; we could not 
 see them transferred to any other Power, or subjected to the antient and 
 exploded dominion of Spain, with indifference. We aim not at the pos- 
 session of them ourselves.] 
 
 I am with great Respect, Sir, your very humble and obed* Serv* 
 
 Monroe's Amendments. 
 
 amendment proposed to first line, S^ pa : 
 
 [" provided their accomodation with Spain was be founded on that 
 basis."] 
 
 substitute the following after attempt in 6'^ line. 
 
 " any attempt by one or more powers of Europe, to restore those new 
 States, to the crown of Spain, or to deprive them, in any manner what- 
 ever, of the freedom and independence which they have acquired, 
 iMuch less could we behold with indifference the trayisfer of those new 
 gov^% or of any portion of the Spanish possessions, to other powers, 
 especially of the territories, bordering on, or nearest to the UStatesP\ 
 
 omit in next parg^' the passage marked & substitute the following — 
 
 "with a view to this object, it is indispensable that the British gov* 
 take like ground, with that which is now held by the UStates, — that 
 it recognize the independance of the new gov*! — That measure being 
 taken, we may then harmonize, in all the [necessary] arrangements and 
 acts, which may be necessary for its accomplishment." [the object.] It 
 is upon this ground alone, &ca [to the end of the parag*".] 
 
 omit the residue & substitute something like the following — 
 
 C^' We have no intention of acquiring any portion of the Spanish 
 possessions for ourselves, nor shall we ever do it by force. Cuba is 
 that portion, the admission of which into our union, would be the most 
 eligible, but it is the wish of this gov*, that it remain, at least for the 
 present, attached to Spain. We have declard this sentiment publickly. 
 & shall continue to act on it. It could not be admitted into our union, 
 unless it should first declare its independance, & that independance 
 should be acknowledged by Spain, events which may not occur for a 
 great length of time, and which the UStates will rather discourage than 
 promote.] 
 
 On this basis, this gov * is willing to move in concert with G. Britain, 
 for the purposes specified. 
 
 [with a view however to that object, it [is submitted'] merits consid- 
 eration, whether it will not [6e most advantageous to~\ contribute most 
 effectually, to its accomplishment, a perfect understanding being estab- 
 lished between the two gov*-, that they act for the present, & until some 
 
20 
 
 eminent danger should occur, separately, each making such represen- 
 tation to the allied powers, or to either of them as shall be deemd most 
 adviseable. Since the receipt of your letters, a communication has been 
 made by Baron T. the Russian minister here, to the following effect, 
 [then state his letter respecting minister &ca, & also the informal com- 
 munication. State also the instructions given to M- Middleton, & 
 the purport of those, which will be given to the minister at Paris.] On 
 this subject, it will be proper for you to communicate freely with Mr 
 Canning, as to ascertain fully the sentiments of his gov* He will 
 doubtless be explicit, as to the danger of any movement of the allied 
 powers, or of any, or either of them, for the subjugation, or transfer of 
 any portion of the territory in question, from Spain, to any other power. 
 If there be no such danger, there will be no motive for such concert, 
 and it is only on satisfactory proof of that danger, that you are author- 
 ized to provide for it.] 
 
 Adams's Substitute. 
 
 We believe however that for the most effectual [object] accomplish- 
 ment of the object common to both Governments, a perfect understanding 
 with regard to it being established between them, it will be most advis- 
 able that they should act separately each making such Representation to 
 the Continental European Allies or either of them, as circumstances may 
 render proper, and mutually communicating to each other the purport 
 of such Representations, and all information respecting the measures and 
 purposes of the Allies, the knowledge of which may enlighten the Coun- 
 cils of Great-Britain and of the United States, in this course of policy 
 and towards the honourable end which will be common to them both. 
 Should an emergency occur in which a joint manifestation of opinion by 
 the two Governments, may tend to influence the Councils of the Euro- 
 pean Allies, either in the aspect of persuasion or of admonition, you 
 will make it known to us without delay, and we shall according to the 
 principles of our Government and in the forms prescribed by our Con- 
 stitution, cheerfully join in any act, by which we may contribute to sup- 
 port the cause of human freedom and the Independence of the South 
 American Nations. 
 
 On November 21st these papers were examined in Cabinet 
 meeting. Canning had said that Great Britain would not 
 throw any impediment in the way of an arrangement between 
 the colonies and mother country, by amicable negotiation. 
 He would not object to the colonies, under that method, grant- 
 ing to Spain commercial privileges greater than those given 
 to other nations. This did not meet the wishes of Adams, who 
 desired for the United States the footing of the most favored 
 
21 
 
 nation. The President did not understand the full meaning 
 of this wish, and proposed a modifying amendment, " which 
 seemed to admit that we should not object to an arrangement 
 by which special favors, or even a restoration of authority, 
 might be conceded to Spain." This was to accept Canning's 
 position to the full, aha perhaps even went further, for the 
 restoration of Spanish authority could hardly have occurred to 
 a man who started from the belief that the recovery of the Col- 
 onies by Spain was hopeless. Both Calhoun and Adams stren-*" 
 uously objected. " The President ultimately acceded to the 
 substance of the phrase as I had in the first instance made the 
 draft ; but finally required that the phraseology of it should 
 be varied. Almost all the other am^dments proposed by the 
 President were opposed principally by Mr. Calhoun, who most 
 explicitly preferred my last substituted paragraph to the Presi- 
 dent's projected amendment. The President did not insist 
 upon any of his amendments which were not admitted by gen- 
 eral consent, and the final paper, though considerably varied 
 from my original draft, will be conformable to my own views." ^ 
 A supplementary despatch intended for Rush is now printed 
 for the first time. 
 
 No. 77. Richard Rush : Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary 
 U. S. London. 
 
 Department of State Washington 30 November, 1823. 
 
 Sir, — The Instructions contained in my Letter dated yesterday were 
 given with a view to enable you to return an explicit answer to the pro- 
 posals contained in Mr. Secretary Canning's confidential Letter to you 
 of the 20*^ of August last. The object of this despatch is to communi- 
 cate to you the views of the President with regard to a more general 
 consideration of the affairs of South America ; to serve for your gov- 
 ernment, and to be used according to your discretion, in any further 
 intercourse which you may have with the British Cabinet on this 
 subject. 
 
 In reviewing the proposals of Mr. Canning and the discussion of 
 them in your Correspondence and Conferences, the President has with 
 great satisfaction adverted to them, in the light of an overture from the 
 British Government, towards a confidential concert of opinions and of 
 operations between us and them, with reference to the countries here- 
 tofore subject to Spain in this Hemisphere. In the exposition of the 
 principles of the British Government, as expressed in the five positions 
 of Mr. Canning's Letter, we perceive nothing, with which we cannot 
 
 1 Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, VI. 193. 
 
 ^ 
 
A 
 
 22 
 
 cheerfully concur with the exception of that which still considers the 
 recognition of the Independence of the Southern Nations, as a question 
 of Time and Circumstances. Confident as we are that the Time is at 
 hand, when Great Britain, to preserve her own consistency must come 
 to this acknowledgment, we are aware that she may perhaps be desirous 
 of reserving to herself the whole merit of it with the South-Americans, 
 and that she may finally yield more readily to the decisive act of recog- 
 nition, when appearing to be spontaneous, than when urged upon her by 
 any foreign suggestion. The point itself has been so earnestly pressed 
 in your correspondence and conferences with Mr. Canning, and is so 
 explicitly stated in my despatch of yesterday as indispensable, in our 
 view towards a co-operation of the two Governments, upon this impor- 
 tant interest, that the President does not think it necessary that you 
 should dwell upon it with much solicitude. The objections exhibited 
 by Mr. Canning against the measure as stated particularly in your 
 despatches are so feeble, and your answers to them so conclusive, 
 that after the distinct avowal of our sentiments, it may perhaps best 
 conduce to the ultimate entire coincidence of purposes between the two 
 Governments to leave the choice of Time for the recognition, which 
 Mr. Canning has reserved to the exclusive consideration of the British 
 Ministers themselves. 
 
 We receive the proposals themselves, and all that has hitherto passed 
 concerning them, according to the request of Mr. Canning as confidential. 
 As a first advance of that character, which has ever been made by the 
 British Government, in relation to the foreign affairs between the two 
 Nations, we would meet it with cordiality, and with the true spirit of 
 confidence, which is candour. The observations of Mr. Canning in 
 reply to your remark, that the policy of the United States has hitherto 
 been, entirely distinct and separate from all interference in the compli- 
 cations of European Politics, have great weight, and the considerations 
 involved in them, had already been subjects of much deliberation among 
 ourselves. As a member of the European community Great Britain 
 has relations with all the other Powers of Europe, which the United 
 States have not, and with which it is their unaltered determination, not 
 to interfere. But American Affairs, whether of the Northern or of the 
 Southern Continent can henceforth not be excluded from the interfer- 
 ence of the United States. All questions of policy relating to them 
 have a bearing so direct upon the Rights and Interests of the United 
 States themselves, that they cannot be left at the disposal of European 
 Powers animated and directed exclusively by European principles and 
 interests. Aware of the deep importance of united ends and councils, 
 with those of Great Britain in this emergency, we see no possible basis 
 on which that harmonious concert of measures can be founded, other 
 than the general principle of South- American Independence. So long 
 
23 
 
 as Great Britaia -.withholds the recognition of that, we may, as we cer- 
 tainly do concur with her in the aversion to the transfer to any other 
 power of any of the colonies in this Hemisphere, heretofore, or yet 
 belonging to Spain ; but the principles of that aversion, so far as they 
 are common to both parties, resting only upon a casual coincidence of 
 interests, in a National point of view selfish on both sides, would be 
 liable to dissolution by every change of phase in the aspects of Euro- 
 pean Politics. So that Great Britain negotiating at once with the 
 European Alliance, and ivith us, concerning America, without being 
 bound by any permanent community of principle, [but only by a casual 
 coincidence of interest with us/] would still be free to accommodate her 
 policy to any of those distributions of power, and partitions of Territory 
 which have for the last half century been the ultima ratio of all Euro- 
 pean political arrangements. While we, bound to her by engagements, 
 commensurate only with the momentary community of our separate 
 particular interests, and self-excluded from all Negotiation with the 
 European Alliance, should still be liable to see European Sovereigns 
 dispose of American Interests, without consulting either with us, or 
 with any of the American Nations, over whose destinies they would thus 
 assume an arbitrary superintendence and controul. 
 
 It was stated to you by Mr. Canning that in the event of a proposal 
 for a European Congress, to determine upon measures relating to South 
 America, he should propose, that you, as the Representative of the 
 United States, should be invited to attend at the same ; and that in the 
 case, either of a refusal to give you that invitation or of your declining 
 to accept it if given. Great Britain would reserve to herself the right of 
 declining also to attend. The President approves your determination 
 not to attend, in case the invitation should be given ; and we are not 
 aware of any circumstances under which we should deem it expedient 
 that a Minister of the United States should be authorized to attend 
 at such a Congress if the invitation to that effect should be addressed 
 to this Government itself. We should certainly decline attending 
 unless the South- American Governments should also be invited to 
 attend by their Representatives, and as the Representatives of Inde- 
 pendent Nations. We, would not sanction by our presence any meet- 
 ing of European Potentates to dispose of American Republics. We 
 shall if such meeting should take place, with a view to any result of 
 hostile action solemnly protest against it, and against all the melancholy 
 and calamitous consequences which may result from it. We earnestly 
 hope that Great Britain will do the same. 
 
 It has been observed that through the whole course of the Corre- 
 spondence and of the Conferences, between Mr. Canning and you, he 
 
 1 The words enclosed have been struck out in pencil, as evidently a repetition 
 of what had been already expressed. 
 
 4- 
 
24 
 
 did not disclose the specific information upon which he apprehended so 
 immediate an interposition of the European Allies, in the affairs of 
 South-America, as would have warranted or required the measure 
 which he proposed to be taken in concert with you, before this Gov- 
 ernment could be advised of it. And this remark has drawn the 
 more attention, upon observing the apparent coolness and apparent 
 indifference, with which he treated the subject at your last conferences 
 after the peculiar earnestness and solemnity of his first advances. It 
 would have been more satisfactory here, and would have afforded more 
 distinct light for deliberation, if the confidence in which his proposals 
 originated had at once been entire. This suggestion is now made with 
 a view to the future ; and to manifest the disposition on our part to meet 
 and return confidence without reserve. 
 
 The circumstances of Mr. Gallatin's private concerns having induced 
 him to decline returning to Europe at this time, and the posture of 
 Affairs requiring in the opinion of the President the immediate renewal 
 of Negotiations with France, Mr. James Brown has been appointed to 
 that Mission, and is expected very shortly to proceed upon it. 
 I am with great Respect &c. 
 
 [John Quinct Adams.]^ 
 
 It was at the same cabinet meeting of November 21 that 
 Adams outlined his intended reply to the later communica- 
 tions received from Baron Tujll, a paper to be first communi- 
 cated verbally and afterwards delivered to him confidentially. 
 " My purpose would be in a moderate and conciliatory manner, 
 but with a firm and determined spirit, to declare our dissent 
 from the principles avowed in those communications; to assert 
 those upon which our own Government is founded, and, while 
 disclaiming all intention of attempting to propagate them hy 
 force, and all interference with the political affairs of Europe, 
 to declare our expectation and hope that the European powers 
 will equally abstain from the attempt to spread their principles 
 in the American hemisphere, or to subjugate by force any part 
 of these continents to their wilL" ^ 
 
 While the President approved this idea, his first draft of his 
 message showed he had not comprehended the general drift of 
 the Secretary's intentions in the conduct of the foreign rela- 
 tions of the United States. In calling the Cabinet meeting for 
 the 21st he had included among the questions to be considered 
 " whether any, & if any, what notice, shall be taken of Greece, 
 
 1 From the Adams MSS. 
 
 2 Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, VI. 194. 
 
25 
 
 & also of the invasion of Spain by France." ^ Accordingly his 
 draft alluded to recent events in Spain and Portugal, " speak- 
 ing in terms of the most pointed reprobation of the late inva- 
 sion of Spain by France, and of the principles upon which it 
 was undertaken by the open avowal of the King of France. 
 It also contained a broad acknowledgment of the Greeks as an 
 independent nation." ^ Where was the future Monroe doc- 
 trine in all this ? It was, as Adams said, a call to arms against 
 all Europe, and for objects of policy exclusively European — 
 Greece and Spain. Protest only led the President to promise 
 to draw up two sketches for consideration, conformable to the 
 two different aspects of the subject. Nothing could better 
 prove how the essential part of Adams's views had escaped 
 Monroe's attention. On the next day the Secretary again 
 urged Monroe to abstain from everything in his message which 
 the Holy Alliance could make a pretext for construing into 
 aggression upon them. He should end his administration — 
 " hereafter to be looked back to as the golden age of this re- 
 public" — in peace. If the Holy Alliance were determined 
 to make up an issue with the United States, " it was our pol- 
 icy to meet it, and not to make it. . . . If they intend now to 
 interpose by force, we shall have as much as we can do to pre- 
 vent them, without going to bid them defiance in the heart of 
 Europe." ^ And Adams again stated the heart of his desired 
 policy in unmistakable words : " The ground that I wish to take 
 is that of earnest remonstrance against the interference of the 
 European powers by force with South America, but to dis- 
 claim all interference on our part with Europe ; to make an 
 American cause and adhere inflexibly to that." In Gallatin 
 Adams found a congenial spirit on every point save that of the 
 Greeks ; and Gallatin talked with Monroe. The result of the 
 
 1 James Monroe to John Quincy Adams. 
 
 Dear Sir, — I have given notice to the other members of the adm^, who are 
 present, to meet here at one o clock, at which time you will bring over the draught 
 of the instruction to Mr, Rush for consideration. I mean to bring under con 
 sideration, at the same time, the important question, whether any, & if any, 
 what notice, shall be taken of Greece, & also of the invasion of Spain by France. 
 With a view to the latter object, be so good as to bring over with you, a copy of 
 the King's Speech, to the legislative corps, announcing the intended invasion. 
 
 . / ,, J. M. 
 
 Nov' 21. 1823. 7 .^.1 — Adams MSS. 
 
 2 Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, VI. 194. ^ 8 md, 197. 
 
 4 
 
26 
 
 urgency of these two men was that the President modified his 
 paragraphs on foreign affairs, and made them conformable to 
 the spirit of Adams's position. 
 ""The evidence given in these pages all tends to show that it 
 was Adams alone who gave tone to the discussions in Cabinet 
 on the Canning propositions, and it was due to his efforts that 
 the question passed from that of a combination, more or less 
 defined, with Great Britain for her own interested views and 
 aims, to that of a general and independent policy, distinctly 
 American, and broad enough to bear the heavy burdens laid 
 upon it since. It is not likely that the manuscript of Monroe's 
 message of 1823 is in existence ; nor is it likely that it would 
 show the paragraphs announcing the Monroe doctrine to be in 
 Adams's writing. Yet it was certainly Adams and not Mon- 
 roe who spoke in those paragraphs. 
 
 I have stated there is no entry in the diary of John Quincy 
 Adams from September 11 to November 7, 1823. From the 
 Adams manuscripts I take a paper prepared by the Secretary 
 of State for submission to the President, giving an account of 
 his conversations with Baron Tuyll, the Minister of Russia 
 in the United States. This paper is of special value because 
 it supplies what the Diary does not give, — the preliminar}'- 
 stages of the intercourse. The various papers mentioned in 
 this account are also given, because they are essential to a 
 complete understanding of the scope of Adams's reply. 
 
 Adams's Account of his Communications with Baron Tuyll. 
 
 On the 16*-^ of October 1823. the Baron de Tuyll, the Russian Min- 
 ister, at an interview with me at the Office of the Department of State 
 informed me that the Emperor of Russia having learnt that General 
 Devereux had been appointed as a Minister Plenipotentiary from the 
 Government of the Republic of Colombia to reside at his Court, had 
 determined not to receive him in that capacity : nor to receive any 
 agent from any of the Governments recently formed in the new world 
 — and that he, Baron Tuyll was instructed to make this determination 
 of his Imperial Majesty known, so that there might no doubt be enter- 
 tained in that respect with regard to his intentions. That he had not 
 been instructed to make an official communication of this fact to the 
 American Government ; but that, as he considered such a communica- 
 tion the most effectual means of making it known to them, and thereby 
 of fulfilling the intentions of his sovereign as indicated in his instruc- 
 tions he should address to me an official Note to that effect. 
 
27 
 
 The Baron added that by two several Instructions of prior dates, in 
 June and December 1822, he had been informed of the satisfaction with 
 which the Emperor had observed that the Government of the United 
 States, when recognizing the Independence of the South American 
 States, had declared that it was not their intention to deviate from the 
 neutrality which they had until then observd, in the contests between 
 Spain and her American Colonies ; and that it was the wish and hope 
 of the Emperor, that the United States should persevere in that course 
 of neutrality. The Baron added that he had not thought it necessary 
 to communicate officially the purport of these Instructions, and that he 
 should not refer to them in the Note which he now proposed to transmit 
 to the Department of State ; but having concluded to give in the form 
 of a Note the information of the Emperor's determination with regard 
 to the Mission of General Devereux, he had thought the occasion a 
 proper one for making a verbal communication of the purport of his 
 prior Instructions. 
 
 I observed to the Baron de Tuyll, that upon the President's return 
 from Virginia, which was expected in a very few days, I would lay 
 before him, as well the Note, which I should in the meantime receive 
 from the Baron, as the purport of the oral communication which he 
 then made to me. That I should probably be instructed to return a 
 written answer to his Note, and that I should also be directed what to 
 say in answer to his verbal remarks. That the Declaration of the 
 American Government when they recognized the Southern American 
 Nations, that they would persevere in the neutrality till then observed 
 between Spain and her emancipated Colonies, had been made under the 
 observance of a like neutrality by all the European Powers to the same 
 contest. That so long as that state of things should continue, I could 
 take upon me to assure the Baron, that the United States would not 
 depart from the neutrality so declared by them. But that if one or 
 more of the European powers should depart from their neutrality, that 
 change of circumstances would necessarily become a subject of further 
 deliberation in this Government, the result of which it was not in my 
 power to foretell. 
 
 On the same day I received from the Baron de Tuyll the Note, copy 
 of which marked 1 is herewith enclosed.^ 
 
 the 21'.' of October, the Baron again called at the Office of the 
 department of State, and read to me the draught of a despatch that he 
 had prepared giving an account to his Government of the purport of 
 the conference between us of the 1 6^''. He said that being desirous of 
 making the statement with perfect accuracy, he submitted this draught 
 to me, with a view to making any alteration in it, which I might think 
 that, to the accomplishment of that object, it would require. I ob- 
 
 1 Printed on page 32, post. 
 
1^ 
 
 28 
 
 served that it appeared to me to be quite correct, with the exception, 
 that in the statement of the final remarks that I had made to him, he 
 had so concentrated the substance of it, as to give to it a tone of dryness 
 in the manner, which had not been intended by me. That he was 
 aware the conversation between us had been in manner altogether 
 friendly and confidential, and that after saying to him that I should re- 
 port to the President the purport of his communication to me, and 
 answer it according to the directions that I should receive from him, I 
 had added that I could at once take it upon myself to assure him, that 
 while the European Powers should continue to observe their neutrality 
 between Spain and South America, the United States would not depart 
 from theirs. But that a change of the State of the question, by for- 
 eign and European interposition, would necessarily give rise to delib- 
 eration here, the result of which he must perceive it was not for me 
 to foretell. The relations between the United States and Russia had 
 always been of the most friendly character, and I knew it was the 
 earnest wish of the President that they should so continue. The Per- 
 sonal Relations in which I had stood for several years with the Russian 
 Government, and the proof of Friendship which during that period the 
 Emperor Alexander had repeatedly given to the United States, had left 
 on my mind, an indelible impression of respect for his character. I 
 should regret the possible inference that might be drawn by the Im- 
 perial Government, from the compressed substance of what I had said 
 to him, that it had been in terms as short and dry, as it appeared in 
 his report. He said that he immediately saw the force of my remark, 
 and would alter his despatch accordingly. 
 
 On the 24'!' of October he came again to the office, and read to me 
 the amended draft of his despatch, to the general correctness of which 
 I assented. He afterwards, as will appear furnished me with a copy 
 of it, as sent to his Court, dated ^f October 1823. 
 
 At this conference of the 24*!" of October, the Baron intimated to me 
 a wish, that the substance of his Note of the -^ October, might be 
 published, in the form of an Editorial Article, in the National Intelli- 
 gencer, or that an article which he should prepare, stating the fact that 
 such communication had been made by him to this Government, might 
 be inserted by his direction, not as official, but yet as from an authentic 
 source. He said that his motive for this wish, was to discharge faith- 
 fully his duty to his Government, which had enjoined him not to suffer 
 any doubt to be entertained with regard to the Emperor's intentions, 
 on the subject to which it relates. 
 
 I observed that as to an Editorial paragraph apparently authoritative, 
 stating the fact of his written communication, it would doubtless excite 
 much attention, and lead to the enquiry what answer had been given to 
 it. That I should send him an answer, which I supposed would be of a 
 
29 
 
 nature, not to require a reply, and that the correspondence on that sub- 
 ject would terminate with it. That after he should receive the answer, 
 if he still desired that the whole transaction should be made public, I 
 did not apprehend there would be any objection on our part to make it 
 so, either in the form of a newspaper paragraph, or by the publication 
 of the two Notes. But perhaps the most suitable manner would be 
 that they should be communicated, with the documents accompanying 
 the President's Message to Congress at their approaching Session. 
 
 That with regard to a publication by his direction, I had to remark; 
 that from the perfect freedom of the Press in this Country foreign Min- 
 isters, if they chose to avail themselves of it, possessed the means of 
 operating upon the public mind, in a manner not accessible to them in 
 countries where the Press was under the controul of the Government. 
 Foreign Ministers in the United States had often so availed themselves 
 of it ; but never with any success ; and always with a result of disservice 
 rather than of service to their own Government. We considered it as an 
 improper expedient for them to resort to. And that as between Nation 
 and Nation, no foreign Minister in the United States, could with pro- 
 priety insert in the public prints, any thing that an American Minister 
 in his Country would by the existing state of the Press be debarr'd from 
 publishing there. 
 
 That in the present case if he should publish a statement of the com- 
 munication made by him, it would immediately excite the enquiry what 
 answer had been returned to it by this Government. An enquiry which 
 upon the Meeting of Congress could not fail to present itself in the form 
 of a Resolution in one or the other House, calling upon the Executive 
 for information concerning it, and the natural answer to which would 
 be the communication of the two Notes. But in the meantime, the 
 first publication from him would give rise to animadversions in the 
 public Prints, and perhaps in Congress, which might be unacceptable 
 both to him and to his Government, and the character of which would 
 readily occur to his own Reflections. 
 
 He said he believed the best mode of giving the publicity to the 
 whole subject, which might be necessary to give effect to the views of 
 his Government, would be by the communication of the papers to Con- 
 gress, as I had proposed. But if it was agreeable to me, he would 
 wait to receive my answer, and would then request another interview 
 with me, at which he would candidly state to me his definitive wishes, 
 with regard to the publication. 
 
 Upon the President's return from Virginia, on the 5*? of November, 
 I laid before him the Note of 16 October received from Baron Tuyll, 
 and reported to him the substance of the Conferences between the 
 Baron and me as here related. After a consultation with the Mem- 
 bers of the Administration then in Washington, I was directed by 
 
J 
 
 30 
 
 the President to request another interview with the Baron; which 
 accordingly took place on the 8*1" 
 
 I then told him that I had submitted to the President the Note from 
 him declaring the Emperor's determination not to receive any Minister 
 or Agent from any of the South American States, to which I should 
 shortly send him an answer : that I had also reported to the President 
 the substance of our verbal conferences : of what had been said by him, 
 and of my answers. That the President had directed me to say that 
 he approved of my answers as far as they had gone, and to add that he 
 received the observations of the Russian Government relating to the 
 neutrality of the United States in the contest between Spain, and the 
 Independent States of South America, amicably ; and in return for 
 them wished him to express to the Court the hope of the Government 
 of the United States that Russia would on her part also continue to 
 observe the same neutrality. After some conversation the Baron desired 
 me to repeat what I had said, that he might be sure of perfectly under- 
 standing me : which I did. He then observed that he should immedi- 
 ately prepare a dispatch to his G-overnment, relating to the purport of 
 this conversation, and (it being Saturday) that to be sure of its accuracy 
 he would send it to my house the next day, requesting me to make any 
 observations upon it that I should think advisable. 
 
 At this conference, upon a suggestion from the President, I enquired 
 of the Baron, what was the import of the words "political principles," 
 in his note of -^ October. He said they were used in the Instructions 
 of his Government to him, and he understood them as having reference 
 to the right of Supremacy of Spain over her Colonies ; and that this 
 appeared to him to be so clearly their meaning that he did not think it 
 would be necessary for him to ask of his Government an explanation of 
 them. The Baron reminded me of my observation at a former meeting 
 that my answer to his Note, would probably not be of a nature to require a 
 reply : and of my engagement to refer it for further advisement, whether 
 and how the correspondence should be published. I told him I remem- 
 bered both, and still believed that my answer to his note, would require 
 no reply, but that of that he would himself judge. And I stated to him 
 what I supposed would be the substance of my answer; upon which he 
 made no remark.^ 
 
 The next day, 9. November, he sent to my house the draft of his 
 despatch, which, after perusing it I returned to him with a private and 
 
 1 " An acknowledgment of the receipt of his note ; a statement that we had 
 received and sent Ministers and Agents in our intercourse with the independent 
 South American States, and should continue to do the same ; regretting that the 
 Emperor's political principles had not yet led his Government to the same con- 
 clusion. I saw by the Baron's countenance that he was not a little affected at 
 this statement. He took leave of me, however, in perfect good humor." Memoirs 
 of John Quincy Adams, YI. 182. 
 
31 
 
 confidential note, containing two observations relating to it. The first 
 that in reporting my part of the preceeding day's conversation he had 
 used the expressions of contest between Spain and her Colonies^ while 
 I had then and in all our conferences spoken of them as the Independ- 
 ent American States, heretofore Spanish Colonies, and I suggested to him 
 the propriety of making the report of what was said by me conformable 
 to this fact. The second, that as the despatch concluded by stating to 
 his Court, that before making it up he had for the sake of accuracy, 
 submitted it to my inspection, as he had also done with regard to the 
 prior despatch of ^^ October, I thought it necessary, with a view to 
 the certainty of equal accuracy in my reports to the President of the 
 contents of his despatches, to request copies of them both. The next 
 day he sent me confidentially copies of both — the latter of them dated 
 in^i^ 1823, and amended conformably to the suggestion in my con- 
 fidential note to him of the preceding day. Copies of these papers 
 marked 2 and 3 are annexed. 
 
 On the 15"' of November, the answer, copy of which is marked N. 4. 
 was sent to the Baron. On the 17*^ the Baron requested another inter- 
 view with me, in consequences of fresh despatches received from his 
 Government. I received him on the same day ; when he read to me 
 a Letter to him from Count Nesselrode, dated about the last of August, 
 informing him of the intended departure of the Emperor Alexander 
 from S^ Petersburg, on a tour of inspection of his armies, which would 
 probably occupy about three months ; with assurances that no move- 
 ment of hostility was contemplated in connection with this Journey, 
 but that the preservation of general Peace, was still the object of the 
 Emperor's earnest solicitude. 
 
 The Baron communicated to me at the same time, extracts from two 
 other despatches received from his Court — one dated 30 August N. S. 
 containing an exposition of the views of the Emperor Alexander and 
 of his Allies, Austria, Prussia and France in relation to the Affairs of 
 Spain and Portugal — and the other dated 1 September N. S. replying 
 to despatches received from the Baron, after his first arrival here, and 
 relating particularly to the Negotiation, concerning the Northwest 
 Coast of America, and the Imperial Ukaze of the \^ September 1821. 
 He left these extracts with me, to be submitted in confidence to the 
 President, and with permission to take a copy of that of the 30\'' of 
 August. He declared his entire satisfaction with my answer to his 
 note of -^ October.^ 
 
 [Here follows an account of the conference with Baron 
 Tuyll, of November 27th, as given in the Memoirs, vol. vi. 
 pp. 212-214.] 
 
 1 From the Adams MSS. 
 
32 
 
 BAEON TUYLL TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE. 
 
 Monsieur, — L'Empereur, mon Auguste Maitre, ayant ete informe, 
 que la Regence Republicaine de Colombia avait nomme des Agens di- 
 plomatiques aupres de differentes Cours Europeennes et que le General 
 de division d'Evreux avait regu une destination semblable pour St. 
 Petersbourg, sa Majeste Imperiale a enjouit a son Ministere de me 
 prevenir, que, fidele aux principes politiques, qu'Elle suit de concert 
 avec ses allies, EUe ne pourra dans aucun cas recevoir aupres d'Elle 
 aucun agent quelconque, soit de la Regence de Colombia, soit d'aucun 
 des autres Gouvernemens de fait, qui doivent leur existence aux evene- 
 ments, dont le nouveau monde a ete depuis quelques annees le theatre. 
 
 Comme il m'est prescrit de ne pas laisser subsister le moindre doute sur 
 les intentions de sa Majeste Imperiale a cet egard, j'ai jug^, Monsieur, 
 devoir porter cette determination a votre connaissance et je saisis cette 
 occasion pour vous reiterer I'assurance de la haute consideration avec 
 laquelle j'ai Thonneur d'etre, Monsieur, votre tres humble et tres obeis- 
 sant serviteur 
 
 TUYLL. 
 
 Washington, le ^ Octobre, 1823.1 
 
 BARON TUYLL TO COUNT NESSELRODE. 
 
 A S. E. Mb. le Comtk de Nbsselrode 
 
 Washington le |f octobre 1823 
 
 M*" LE CoMTE, — Pour remplir les ordres que V. Ex. m'a fait I'hon- 
 neur de me transmettre par sa dep§che en date du 14 Juin dernier, j'ai 
 adresse le -^ octobre h M'" le Secretaire d'Etat Adams la lettre ci an- 
 nex^e en copie. 
 
 Ayant juge, M"* le Comte, que cette demarche ofRcielle demandait un 
 developpement plus ^tendu des principes et de la fagon de voir de notre 
 Cour, concernant la question des Colonies Espagnoles d'Amerique, je 
 me rendis ce meme jour au Departement des affaires etrangeres et je 
 previns M" le Secretaire d'Etat du Contenu de I'office, qu'il allait rece- 
 voir de ma part. Je passai ensuite a m'expliquer envers ce ministre 
 relativement h I'objet ci dessus mentionne dans un sens entierement con- 
 forme aux depeches de Y. Ex. du ^| Juillet et du ^ Decembre 1822, 
 et je finis par exprimer au nom de S. M. I'Empereur, notre Auguste 
 Maitre, le voeu et I'espoir, que le Gouvernemeut des Etats Unis per- 
 sistera dans le systeme de neutralite entre I'Espagne et les Colonies 
 Espagnoles d'Amerique, qu'il annouQa vouloir suivre k I'epoque, ou il 
 reconnut I'independance et I'existence politique de ces derniers pays. 
 
 Mr Adams me repondit : qu'il pouvait m'assurer, qu'aussi longtems 
 
 1 From the Adams MSS. 
 
33 
 
 que les affaires continueront de rester sous ce rapport dans le meme 
 etat, ou elles se trouvaient au moment, que le Gouvernement Amdri- 
 cain a adopte le systeme de cette neutralite, et ou elles se sont mainte- 
 nues jusqu'^ present le Gouvernement ne se departira point de ce 
 systeme. Mr. le Secretaire d'Etat ajouta ensuite les observations 
 suivantes : 
 
 Que la resolution du Gouvernement des Etats Unis d'observer la 
 neutralite entre I'Espagne et ses Colonies Americaines, ayant ete prise 
 d'apres un etat de choses existant, celui de la neutralite de la part des 
 Puissances de I'Europe dans la guerre, que se font I'Espagne et ses 
 Colonies, tant que cet etat de choses continuera de subsister, ce pays ci 
 n'apportera point d' alteration au systeme de neutralite, qu'il a embrasse. 
 Que si cette situation venait a eprouver un changement de la part de 
 I'une ou de 1' autre Puissance Europeenne, de cette nouvelle situation 
 r^sulterait pour le cabinet de Washington la necessite de deliberations 
 nouvelles ; et qu'il ne saurait, naturellement, pas me dire, quelles pour- 
 raient etre les determinations que dans une semblable hypothese, le 
 Gouvernement des Etats Unis se verrait dans le cas d'adopter. 
 
 J'ai remarque avec satisfaction, Mr. le Comte, que Mr. le Secretaire 
 d'Etat a paru reconnoitre dans les explications, que j'ai pense devoir 
 lui offrir, une nouvelle preuve des vues droites, genereuses et pleines de 
 moderation, qui caracterisent la politique de I'Empereur et un t^moi- 
 gnage de plus des dispositions constamment amicales de Sa Majeste 
 Imperiale envers le Gouvernement des Etats Unis. Je me suis con- 
 firme a cette occasion dans Tidee, que j'avais deja anterieurement con- 
 9ue, du prix, que le Gouvernement de ce pays attache a ces dispositions 
 de notre Auguste Souverain, et de son desir d'y correspondre de son 
 cote sincerement ; sentimens, dont Mr Adams m'a reit^r^ les assurances 
 les plus positives. 
 
 J'ai I'honneur d'etre &c &c.^ [Tuyll.] 
 
 BARON TUYLL TO COUNT NESSELRODE. 
 
 A S. E. Mr. le Comtb de Nesselkode. 
 
 Washington, le ^-^t,, 1823. 
 
 Mr. le Comte, — Mr. le Secretaire d'Etat Adams m'ayant invite de 
 me rendre le fi,?^tlmb°re ^^ Departement des affaires ^trangeres, ce mi- 
 nistre me donna a connaitre, qu'il avait mis la lettre officielle, que je lui 
 adressai le -^ Octobre et sur laquelle je recevrai incessamment une r^- 
 ponse par ecrit, sous les yeux de Mr. le President des Etats Unis et 
 qu'il lui avait egalement rendu compte tant des explications verbales, 
 dans lesqu elles j'etois entre k cette occasion, concernant la neutralite de 
 
 1 From the Adams MSS. 
 5 
 
34 
 
 ce pays entre I'Espagne et ses Colonies Americaines, que de ce qu'il 
 m'avait r^pondu, de meme verbalement, k ce sujet. 
 
 Mr. Adams me dit ensulte que Mr. le President avait pleinement 
 approuve cette response de Mr. le Secretaire d'Etat, qu'il I'avait de 
 plus charge de m'assurer que les observations, qu'au nom de S. M. 
 FEmpereur j'avais presentees au Gouvernement des Etats Unis relative- 
 ment au point susmentionne, avaient ete re9ues amicalement par Mr. le 
 President et que ce dernier desirait, qu'en portant cette assurance a la 
 connaissance de ma Cour, j'y ajoutasse simultanement I'expression de 
 vosu, que forme de sou cote le President des Etats Unis : " que Sa 
 Majeste Imperiale put trouver bon de continuer de m^me h suivre le 
 systeme de neutralite, qu'EIle a jusqu'k present observe dans les diffe- 
 rences, qui subsistent entre I'Espagne et les Etats iudependans, ci devant 
 Colonies d'Espagne en Amerique." 
 
 J'ai pense devoir prier Mr. Adams de prendre lecture de mon rapport 
 en date du ^f Octobre, que ce ministre a reconnu rendre fidelement le 
 sens de ce qui s'est passe dans nos premieres conferences, et j'ai encore 
 adopte aujourd'hui la meme marche, afin de m'assurer d'autant mieux 
 de I'exactitude de la presente depeche. 
 
 J'ai rhonneur d'etre &c., &c.,^ [Tuyll.] 
 
 ' COUNT NESSELRODE TO BARON TUYLL. 
 
 Extrait. St. Petersbourg le 30. Aoiit, 1823. 
 
 Quand les principes qu'une cour a resolu de suivre, sont etablis avec 
 precision ; quand le but qu'elle se propose est clairement indique, les 
 ^venements deviennent faciles k juger pour Ses Ministres & Agents 
 diplomatiques. Ceux de I'Empereur n'avaient done pas besoin d'in- 
 structions nouvelles pour apprecier & considerer sous leur vrai point 
 de vue les heureux changements qui viennent de s'accomplir dans la 
 P4ninsule. 
 
 Penetres de I'esprit qui dirige la politique de Sa Majeste Imperiale, 
 ils auront applaudi aux declarations, dont ces changements ont ete pre- 
 cedes, exprime les voeux les plus sinceres en faveur d'une entreprise 
 qui embrasse de si hauts interets & annonce sans hesitation que I'Em- 
 pereur & ses allies voyaient avec un veritable sentiment de joie, la 
 marche des troupes de S. M. T. C. couronnee d'un double succes par le 
 concours des peuples auxquels I'arm^e fran9aise a offert uue genereuse 
 assistance & par Taffranchissement des pais oil la revolution etait par- 
 venue a detroner Tautorite legitime. 
 
 Aujourd'hui que les artisans des malheurs de I'Espagne, renfermes 
 dans Cadiz & dans Barcelone, pen vent bien encore abreuver de nou- 
 
 1 From the Adama MSS. 
 
35 
 
 veaux outrages leurs prisonniers augustes, mais non asservir & tyran- 
 niser leur patrie ; aujourd'hui que le Portugal a noblement secoue le 
 joug d'une odieuse faction, nous sommes arrives k une epoque, oil il ne 
 sera point inutile de vous informer des decisions & des vues ulterieures 
 de Sa Majeste Imperiale. 
 
 La force des armes deployee kpropos ; environnee de toutes les 
 garanties que reclamait la resolution d'y avoir recours ; temperee par 
 toutes les mesures & toutes les promesses qui pouvaient tranquilliser 
 les peuple sur leur avenir; soutenue, enfin, par cette puissance d'union 
 & d'accord qui a cree de nos jours un nouveau systeme politique : la 
 force des armes n'a eu en quelque sorte qu'a se laisser appercevoir pour 
 demasquer aux yeux du monde un despotisme qu'avaient trop souvent 
 revoque en doute, ou I'erreur des hommes a theories qui s'abusaient in- 
 voloutairement peut-^tre sur le veritable etat des choses, ou la mauvaise 
 foi des hommes a projets criminels qui ne cherchaient que les moyens 
 d'etendre & de propager la contagion des memes malheurs. 
 
 En Espagne, la nation toute entiere attendait impatiemment I'occa- 
 sion de prouver que la plus coupable imposture avait seule pu lui preter 
 ces vceux subversifs de I'ordre social & ce desir d'avilir la Religion & 
 le Trone que dementait d'avance chaque page de son histoire. En 
 Portugal, il a suffi d'un exemple & du courage d'un jeune Prince, pour 
 que r edifice revolutionnaire tombat au premier choc, & pour ainsi dire, 
 de sa propre faiblesse. C'est une grande & consolante legon que la 
 Providence Divine nous reservait. EUe accorde la justification d'un 
 eclatant triomphe aux desseins des Monarques qui ont pris I'engage- 
 ment de marcher dans ses voies ; mais peut-etre n'a-t-on pas assez ob- 
 serve que les memorables evenements, dont nous sommes temoins, 
 marquent une nouvelle phase de la civilisation Europeenne. Sans 
 s'affaiblir, le patriotisme parait s'etre eclaire ; la raison des peuples a 
 fait un grand pas, en reconnoissant que, dans le systeme actuel de 
 TEurope, les conquetes sont impossibles ; que les Souverains qui avait 
 mis leur gloire h reparer les effets de ces anciennes interventions dont 
 la malveillance essayait encore d'allarmer la credulite publique, ne re- 
 nouveleraient point ce qu'ils avaient toujours condamne, & que ces 
 vieilles haines nationales qui repoussaient jusqu'aux services rendus 
 par une main etrangere, devaient disparaitre devant un sentiment uni- 
 versel, devant le besoin d'opposer une digue impenetrable au retour des 
 troubles & des revolutions dont nous avons tons ete, trente ans, les 
 jouets et les victimes. Que Ton compare TEspagne telle que nous la 
 peignaient des predictions sinistres, h I'Espagne telle qu'elle se montre 
 aujourd'hui ; que Ton suive les rapides progres de la bonne cause, depuis 
 I'annee derniere, & on se convaincra de ces utiles verites, on verra que 
 la paix, en se retablissant, aura pour base la conviction gen^ralement 
 acquise des pr^cieux avantages d'une politique qui a delivre la France, 
 
36 
 
 en 1814 et 1815, vole au secours de I'ltalie en 1821, brise les chaines 
 de I'Espagne & du Portugal en 1823 ; d'une politique, qui n'a pour 
 objet que de garantir la tranquillite de tous les Etats dont se compose 
 le monde civilise. 
 
 II importe que les Ministres & Agents de TEmpereur ne perdent pas 
 de vue ces graves considerations & qu'ils les developpent toutes les fois 
 qu'ils trouvent I'oecasion de les faire apprecier. 
 
 L' Alliance a ete trop calomniee & elle a fait trop de bien pour qu'on 
 ne doive pas confondre ses accusateurs, en plagant les resultats k cote 
 des imputations, & I'honneur d'avoir afFranchi & sauv6 les peuples, k 
 cote du reproche de vouloir les asservir & les perdre. 
 
 Tout autorise h croire que cette salutaire Alliance accomplira sans 
 obstacle serieux I'oeuvre dont elle s'occupe. La Revolution expirante 
 peut bien compter quelques jours de plus ou de moins d'agonie, mais il 
 lui sera plus difficile que jamais de redevenir Puissance ; car les Mo- 
 narques Allies sont decides h ne pas transiger, a ne pas meme trailer 
 avec elle. Certes, ils ne conseilleront, en Espagne, ni les vengeances 
 ni les reactions ; & leur premier principe sera constamment, que 1' inno- 
 cence obtienne une juste garantie & I'erreur un noble pardon ; mais ils 
 ne sauraient reconnaitre ancien droit cree & soutenu par le crime ; ils 
 ne sauraient practiser avec ceux qu'on a vus renouveler a I'isle de Leon, 
 a Madrid & a Seville des attentats qui prouvent le mepris ouvert de 
 tout ce que les hommes devraient respecter le plus dans I'interet de leur 
 repos & de leur bonheur. C'est avec cette determination qu'a ete 
 forme & que sera poursuivi le siege de Cadix. On ne posera les armes 
 qu'au moment ou la liberte du roi aura enfin ete conquise & assuree. 
 
 Ce moment sera celui, ou les Allies rempliront envers I'Espagne le 
 reste de leurs engagements & de leurs devoirs. lis se garderont de 
 porter la plus legere atteinte a I'independance du Roi, sous le rapport 
 de I'administration interieure de ses Etats, mais par I'organe de leurs 
 Ambassadeurs (Sa Majeste Imperiale se propose alors d'accrediter tem- 
 porairement le Lieutenant General Pozzo di Borgo aupres de S. M. C.) 
 ils eleveront la voix de I'amitie, ils useront de ses privileges, ils profi- 
 teront de leur position, pour insister avec energie sur la necessite d'em- 
 pdcher que Tavenir ne reproduise les erreurs du passe, de confier a 
 des Institutions fortes, monarchique & toutes nationales les destinees 
 futures de I'Espagne & de rendre desormais inutile I'assistance qu'elle 
 a re^ue, on y fondant un gouvernement dont la surete residera dans le 
 bien meme dont il sera I'instrument & I'auteur. 
 
 Les Allies ne pourrant signaler ni les loix, ni les mesures, ni les 
 hommes les plus capable de realiser de telles intentions. Mais ils croi- 
 raient manquer h une de leurs obligations les plus essentielles, s'ils 
 n'avertissaient Ferdinand VII., redevenue libre, que leur entreprise 
 demande encore une derniere apologie aux yeux de I'Europe, & que si 
 
37 
 
 la prosper! te de I'Espagne n'en est la consequence immediate, ils n'au- 
 ront rien fait ni pour lui, ni pour eux. 
 
 L'Erapereur souhaite avec la meme sincerite & le meme desinte- 
 ressement un bonheur durable k la Nation portugaise. Nos communica- 
 tions jointes h celles des Cours d' Autriche, de France et de Prusse qui 
 partage ce desir, en offriront la meilleure preuve au Cabinet de Lis- 
 bonne, & nous n'aurons plus de voeux a former, si le nouveau gou- 
 vernement du Portugal prepare avec prudence & maturite les materiaux 
 d'une restauration solide, s'il les met en oeuvre, quand I'Espagne 
 pourra se livrer aux memes soins, & s'il rivalise de zele avec le Cabinet 
 de Madrid pour decider, k I'avantage reciproque des deux Etats, les 
 questions de politique exterieure & administrative, qu'ils ont, Fun a 
 Fautre, k mediter & a resoudre. 
 
 Tel est le sens dans lequel ont agi & dans lequel continueront d'agir 
 I'Empereur & ses Allies. . . . 
 
 Vous etes autorise a faire usage de la presente dans vos rapports con- 
 fidentiels avec le gouvernement des Etats-Unis d'Amerique.^ 
 
 On November 25, Adams " made a draft of observations 
 upon the communications recently received from the Baron de 
 Tuyl, the Russian Minister. Took the paper, together with 
 the statement I had prepared of what has passed between 
 him and me, and all the papers received from him to the 
 President." ^ The paper is as follows : — 
 
 Observations on the Communications recently received 
 FROM THE Minister of Russia.^ 
 
 The Government of the United States of America is [essentiallyl 
 Republican. By their Constitution it is provided that " The United 
 States shall guaranty to every State in this Union, a Republican form 
 of Government, and shall protect each of them from invasion." 
 
 [The principles of this form of Polity are; 1 that the Institution 
 
 1 From the Adams MSS. 
 
 " The second extract was an exposition of principles relating to the affairs of 
 Spain and Portugal, in a tone of passionate exultation at the counter-revolution 
 in Portugal and the impending success of the French army in Spain ; an ' lo 
 Triumphe' over the fallen cause of revolution, with sturdy promises of determi- 
 nation to keep it down ; disclaimers of all intention of making conquests ; bitter 
 complaints of being calumniated, and one paragraph of compunctions, acknowl- 
 edging that an apology is yet due to mankind for the invasion of Spain, which it 
 is in the power only of Ferdinand to furnish, by making his people happy. That 
 paragraph is a satire upon the rest of the paper." Memoirs of John Quincy 
 Adams, VI. 190. 
 
 2 Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, VI. 199. 
 
 3 What is enclosed between brackets was struck out of the paper. 
 
38 
 
 of Government, to be lawful, must be pacific, that is founded upon 
 the consent, and by the agreement of those who are governed ; and 2 
 that each Nation is exclusively the judge of the Government best suited 
 to itself, and that no other Nation, can justly interfere by force to impose 
 a different Government upon it. The first of these principles may be 
 designated, as the principle of Liberty — the second as the principle of 
 National Independence — They are both Principles of Peace and of 
 Good Will to Men.] 
 
 [A necessary consequence of the second of these principles is that] 
 The United States recognize in other Nations the right which they 
 claim and exercise for themselves, of establishing and of modifying 
 their own Governments, according ;to their own judgments, and views 
 of their interests, not encroaching upon the rights of others. 
 
 Aware that the Monarchical principle of Government, is different 
 from theirs, the United States have never sought a conflict with it, for 
 interests not their own. Warranted by the principle of National Inde- 
 pendence, which forms one of the bases of their political Institutions, 
 they have desired Peace, Commerce and Honest Friendship with all 
 other Nations, and entangling alliances with none. 
 
 From all the combinations of European Politics relative to the dis- 
 tribution of Power, or the Administration of Government the United 
 States have studiously kept themselves aloof. They have not sought, 
 by the propagation of their principles to disturb the Peace, or to inter- 
 meddle with the policy of any part of Europe. In the Independence 
 of Nations, they have respected the organization of their Governments, 
 however different from their own, and [Republican to the last drop of 
 blood in their veins,] they have thought it no sacrifice of their principles 
 to cultivate with sincerity and assiduity Peace and Friendship even 
 with the most absolute Monarchies and their Sovereigns. 
 
 To the Pevolution and War which has severed the immense Terri- 
 tories, on the american {Territories] continents heretofore subject to 
 the dominion of Spain from the yoke of that power, the United States 
 have observed an undeviating neutrality. So long as the remotest 
 prospect existed that Spain by Negotiation or by arms could recover 
 the possession she had once held of those Countries, the United States 
 forbore to enquire by what title she had held them, and how she had 
 fulfilled towards them the duties of all Governments to the People 
 under their charge. "\V^hen the South- American Nations, after succes- 
 sively declaring their Independence, had maintained it, until no rational 
 doubt could remain, that the dominion of Spain over them was irre- 
 coverably lost, the United States recognized them as Independent 
 Nations, and have entered into those relations with them commercial 
 and political incident to that Condition — Relations the more important 
 to the interests of the United States, as the whole of those emancipated 
 
39 
 
 Regions are situated in their own Hemisphere, and as the most exten- 
 sive, populous and powerful of the new Nations are in their immediate 
 vicinity; and one of them bordering upon the Territories of this Union. 
 
 To the contest between Spain and South America all the European 
 Powers have also remained neutral. The maritime Nations have freely 
 entered into commercial intercourse with the South- Americans, which 
 they could not have done, while the Colonial Government of Spain 
 existed. The neutrality of Europe was one of the foundations upon 
 which the United States formed their judgment, in recognizing the 
 South- American Independence; they considered and still consider, that 
 from this neutrality the European Nations cannot rightfully depart. 
 
 Among the Powers of Europe, Russia is one with whom the United 
 States have entertained the most friendly and mutually beneficial inter- 
 course. Through all the vicissitudes of War and Revolution, of which 
 the world for the last thirty years has been the theatre, the good under- 
 standing between the two Governments has been uninterrupted. The 
 Emperor Alexander in particular has not ceased to manifest sentiments 
 of Friendship and good-will to the United States from the period of his 
 accession to the throne, to this moment, and the United States on their 
 part, have as invariably shown the interest which they take in his 
 Friendship and the solicitude with which they wish to retain it. 
 
 In the communications recently received from the Baron de Tuyll, so 
 far as they relate to the immediate objects of intercourse between the 
 two Governments, the President sees with high satisfaction, the avowal 
 of unabated cordiality and kindness towards the United States on the 
 part of the Emperor. 
 
 With regard to the communications which relate to the Affairs of 
 Spain and Portugal, and to those of South America, while sensible 
 of the candour and frankness with which they are made, the President 
 indulges the hope, that they are not intended either to mark an JEra 
 either of change, in the friendly dispositions of the Emperor towards 
 the United States or of hostility to the principles upon which their 
 Governments are founded ; or of deviation from the system of neutrality 
 hitherto observed by him and his allies, in the contest between Spain 
 and America. 
 
 To the Notification that the Emperor, in conformity with the political 
 principles maintained by himself and his Allies, has determined to re- 
 ceive no Agent from any of the Governments de facto, which have been 
 recently formed in the new World it has been thought sufficient to 
 answer that the United States, faithful to their political principles, have 
 recognised and now consider them as the Governments of Independent 
 Nations. 
 
 To the signification of the Emperor^s hope and desire that the United 
 States should continue to observe the neutrality which they have pro- 
 
40 
 
 claimed between Spain and South-America, the answer has been that 
 the Neutrality of the United States will be maintained, as long as that 
 of Europe, apart from Spain, shall continue and that they hope that of 
 the Imperial Government of Russia will be continued. 
 
 [To the confidential communication from the Baron de Tuyll, of the 
 Extract, dated S* Petersburg 30 August 1823. So far as it relates 
 to the affairs of Spain and Portugal, the only remark which it is thought 
 necessary to make, is of the great satisfaction with which the President 
 has noticed that paragraph, which contains the frank and solemn admis- 
 sions that ^Hhe undertaking of the Allies^ yet demands a last Apology to the 
 eyes of Europe."} 
 
 In the general declarations that the allied Monarchs will never com- 
 pound, and never will even treat with the Revolution and that their 
 policy has only for its object by forcible interposition to guaranty the 
 tranquility of all the States of which the civilised world is composed^ the 
 President wishes to perceive sentiments, the application of which is 
 limited, and intended in their results to be limited to the Affairs of 
 Europe. 
 
 That the sphere of their operations was not intended to embrace the 
 United States of America, nor any portion of the American Hemi- 
 sphere. 
 
 And finally deeply desirous as the United States are of preserving 
 the general- peace of the world, their friendly intercourse with all the 
 European Nations, and especially the most cordial harmony and good- 
 will with the Imperial Government of Russia, it is due as well to their 
 own unalterable Sentiments, as to the explicit avowal of them, called 
 for by the communications received from the Baron de Tuyll, to declare 
 
 That the United States of America, and their Government, could 
 not see with indifference, the forcible interposition of any European 
 Power_, other than Spain, either to restore the dominion of Spain over 
 her emancipated Colonies in America, or to establish Monarchical Gov- 
 ernments in those Countries, or to transfer any of the possessions here- 
 tofore or yet subject to Spain in the American Hemisphere, to any 
 other European Power. 
 
 Department of State Washington 27 November 1823 
 
 The remarkable discussion this paper caused in the Cabinet 
 is too long for insertion in this place, and is fully described in the 
 " Memoirs of John Quincy Adams," vol. vi. pp. 199-212. That 
 the timidity of the President was awakened that record shows ; 
 but the persistence of Adams, and the very weighty arguments 
 he advanced in its favor, induced Monroe to yield, but not 
 until it was too late for the purpose intended. For the paper 
 
41 
 
 was read to the Russian Minister without the disputed para- 
 graphs. Now that their nature is known, we may wonder at 
 the extreme susceptibility of the President in the matter. 
 
 JAMES MONROE TO JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 
 
 Dear Sir, — I am inclind to think that the second parag^ had bet- 
 ter be omitted, & that such part of the 3^ be also omitted, as will make 
 that parag"?, stand, as the second distinct proposition, in our system. 
 The principle of the paper, will not be affected by this modification, & 
 it will be less likely to produce excitement anywhere. 
 
 Two other passages, the first in the first page, & the second, in the 
 3? are also marked for omission. J. M. 
 
 You had better see the Baron immediately. 
 
 Nov: 27, 1823.1 
 
 JAMES MONROE TO JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 
 
 Nov^ 27 [1823.] 
 The direct attack which the parag^ makes on the recent of move- 
 ments, of the Emperor, & of course, censure, on him, and its tendency 
 to irritate, suggest the apprehension that it may produce an unfavorable 
 effect. The illustration of our principles, is one thing ; the doing it, in 
 such a form, bearing directly, on what has passed, & which is avoided 
 in the message, is another. Nevertheless, as you attach much interest 
 to this passage, I am willing that you insert it, being very averse to your 
 omitting any thing w'^^ you deem so material. J. M.^ 
 
 As connected with this matter, three letters from Monroe 
 will not be without interest, especially as they throw some 
 light upon his position and lead up to the continuation of my 
 story. Canning was answered ; it remained to make a reply 
 to the Russian communications. In his second letter to 
 Jefferson, Monroe touches upon the matter, thus giving a 
 connecting link. 
 
 MONROE TO JEFFERSON. 
 
 Washington, Dec' 4, 1823. 
 Dear Sir, — I now forward to you a copy of the message, more 
 legible than that which [was] sent by the last mail. I have concurred 
 thoroughly with the sentiments expressd in your late letter, as I am 
 
 1 From the Adams MSS. 2 juj^ 
 
 6 
 
42 
 
 persuaded, you will find, by the message, as to the part we ought to act, 
 toward the allied powers, in regard to S° America. I consider the 
 cause of that country, as essentially our own. That the crisis is fully 
 as menacing, as has been supposed, is confirmd, by recent communica- 
 tions, from another quarter, with which I will make you acquainted in 
 my next. The most unpleasant circumstance, in these communications 
 is, that Mr. Canning's zeal, has much abated of late. Whether this 
 proceeds, from the unwillingness of his gov*, to recognize the new gov*?, 
 or from offers made to it, by the allied powers, to seduce it, into their 
 scale, we know not. We shall nevertheless be on our guard, against 
 any contingency. Very respectfully and sincerely Yours, 
 
 James Monroe. 
 Reed Dec. 7.i 
 
 MONROE TO S. L. GOUVERNEUR. 
 
 Washington, Dec. 4, 1823. 
 
 Dear Samuel, — I have only a moment to inform you that your 
 aunt escaped her chill last night, & is much better today. She was 
 bled yesterday & had also taken some Calomel to which we attribute 
 this improvement. 
 
 I send you two copies of the message, better printed than that which 
 I sent yesterday, with the information, which we possess, of the views 
 of the allied powers, which altho' applicable to S° am:, touch us, on 
 principle, it was thought a duty to advert to the subject, & in plain 
 terms. It has been done, nevertheless, in mild, respectful, & friendly 
 terms. Had I omitted to put the country on its guard, & any thing 
 had occurrd of a serious character, I should probably have been cen- 
 surd as it is they may look before them, and what may be deemed 
 expedient. I shall be glad to hear in what light the warning is 
 viewd. 
 
 I hope that neither you, Mr. Tillotson or Mr. Morris, will pledge 
 either yourselves, or me, in favor of Mr. Randolph, further than as to 
 the respectability of his character, & what I have heard of his estate, 
 which I stated that I had not seen. I think it valuable, & that he 
 would not misrepresent facts. Be on your guard as to this. Tell Maria 
 that we are much relieved, by the favorable change in her mothers 
 health. If she escapes to morrow, we trust, that all further anxiety 
 will cease, affectionate regards attend you all — 
 
 Your friend 
 
 James Monroe.^ 
 
 1 From the Jefferson Papers in the Department of State, Washington, D. C. 
 
 2 From the Monroe Papers in the New York Public Library. 
 
43 
 
 MONROE TO JEFFERSON. 
 
 Washington, Dec', 1823. 
 
 Dear Sir, — Shortly after the receipt of yours of the 24*'' of 
 October, & while the subject treated in it, was under consideration, 
 the Russian minister, drew the attention of the gov* to the same sub- 
 ject, tho' in a very different sense from that in which it had been done 
 by Mr. Canning. Baron Tuyll, announcd in an official letter, and as 
 was understood by order of the Emperor, that having heard that the 
 republic of Columbia had appointed a minister to Russia, he wished it 
 to be distinctly understood that he would not receive him, nor would 
 he receive any minister from any of the new gov*^ de facto, of which 
 the new world had been recently the theatre. On another occasion, 
 he observ'd, that the Emperor had seen with great satisfaction, the 
 declaration of this gov*, when those new gov*^ were recognized, that it 
 was the intention of the UStates, to remain neutral. He gave this 
 intimation for the purpose of expressing the wish of his master, that 
 we would persevere in the same policy. He communicated soon 
 afterwards, an extract of a letter from his gov*, in which the conduct 
 of the allied powers, in regard to Naples, Spain, & Portugal, was 
 reviewed, and that policy explain'd, distinctly avowing their determi- 
 nation, to crush all revolutionary movements, & thereby to preserve 
 order in the civilized world. The terms ''civilized world" were 
 probably intended to be applied to Europe only, but admited an ap- 
 plication to this hemisphere also. These communications were receivd 
 as proofs of candour, & a friendly disposition to the UStates, but 
 were nevertheless answer'd, in a manner equally explicit, frank, & 
 direct, to each point. In regard to neutrality it was observ'd, when 
 that sentim* was declard, that the other powers of Europe had not 
 taken side with Spain — that they were then neutral — if they should 
 change their policy, the state of things, on which our neutrality was 
 declar'd, being alterd, we would not be bound by that declaration, 
 but might change our policy also.^ Informal notes, or rather a 
 proces verbal, of what passed in conference, to such effect, were 
 exchangd between Mr Adams & the Russian minister, with an 
 understanding however that they should be held confidential. 
 
 When the character of these communications, of that from Mr. 
 Canning, & that from the Russian minister, is considerd, & the time 
 when made, it leaves little doubt that some project against the new 
 gov*^, is contemplated. In what form is uncertain. It is hoped that 
 the sentiments expressd in the message, will give a check to it. We 
 certainly meet, in full extent, the proposition of Mr. Canning, & in the 
 
 1 To this point in thick lines ; showing a change of pen, and presumably a 
 change in time, what follows being written at a later day. 
 
44 
 
 mode to give it the greatest effect. If his govt makes a similar decl", 
 the project will, it may be presumd, be abandoned. By taking the 
 step here, it is done in a manner more conciliatory with, & respectful 
 to Russia, & the other powers, than if taken in England, and as it 
 is thought with more credit to our gov* Had we mov'd in the first 
 instance in England, separated as she is in part, from those powers, 
 our union with her, being marked, might have producd irritation with 
 them. We know that Russia, dreads a connection between the 
 UStates & G. Britain, or harmony in policy. Moving on our own 
 ground, the apprehension that unless she retreats, that effect may be 
 producd, may be a motive with her for retreating. Had we mov'd in 
 England, it is probable, that it would have been inferr'd that we acted 
 under her influence, & at her instigation, & thus have lost credit as 
 well with our southern neighbours, as with the allied powers. 
 
 There is some danger that the British gov*, when it sees the part 
 we have taken, may endeavour to throw the whole burden on us, and 
 profit, in case of such interposition of the allied powers ; of her neutral- 
 ity, at our expense. But I think that this would be impossible after 
 what has passd on the subject ; besides it does not follow, from what 
 has been said, that we should be bound to engage in the war, in such 
 event. Of this intimations may be given, should it be necessary. A 
 messenger will depart for Engl- with despatches for Mr. Rush in a 
 few days, who will go on to S* Petersb? with others to Mr. Middleton. 
 And considering the crisis, it has occurr'd, that a special mission, of 
 the first consideration from the country, directed to Engl^ in the first 
 instance, with power, to attend, any congress, that may be conven'd, 
 on the affrs of S? am : or Mexico, might have the happiest effect. 
 You shall hear from me further on this subject. 
 
 Very sincerely your friend 
 
 Endorsed " rec^ Dec. 11. " i [no signature.] 
 
 KICHARD RUSH TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE. 
 
 (Rec'd 9th October.) 
 
 No. 323. London, August 19, 1823. 
 
 Sir, — When my interview with Mr. Canning on Saturday was about 
 to close, I transiently asked him whether, notwithstanding the late news 
 from Spain, we might not hope that the Spaniards would get the better 
 of all their difficulties. I had allusion to the defection of Baltasteros, in 
 Andalusia, an event seeming to threaten with new dangers the consti- 
 tutional cause. His reply was general, importing nothing more than 
 his opinion of the increased difficulties and dangers with which, un- 
 doubtedly, this event was calculated to surround the Spanish cause. 
 
 1 From the Jefferson Papers in the Department of State, Washington, D. G. 
 
45 
 
 Pursuing the topick of Spanish affairs, I remarked that should 
 France ultimately effect her purposes in Spain, there was at least 
 the consolation left, that Great Britain would not allow her to go 
 farther and lay her hands upon the Spanish colonies, bringing them too 
 under her grasp. I here had in my mind the sentiments promulgated 
 upon this subject in Mr. Canning's note to the British ambassador at 
 Paris of the 31st of March, during the negotiations that preceded the 
 invasion of Spain. It will be recollected that the British government 
 say in this note, that time and the course of events appeared to have 
 substantially decided the question of the separation of these colonies 
 from the mother country, although their formal recognition as inde- 
 pendent states by Great Britain might be hastened or retarded by 
 external circumstances, as well as by the internal condition of those 
 new states themselves; and that as his Britannic majesty disclaimed 
 all intention of appropriating to himself the smallest portion of the late 
 Spanish possessions in America, he was also satisfied that no attempt 
 would be made by France to bring any of them under her dominion, 
 either by conquest, or by cession from Spain. 
 
 By this we are to understand, in terms sufficiently distinct, that 
 Great Britain would not be passive under such an attempt by France, 
 and Mr. Canning, on my having referred to this note, asked me what 
 I thought my government would say to going hand in hand with this, 
 in the same sentiment ; not as he added that any concert in action 
 under it, could become necessary between the two countries, but that 
 the simple fact of our being known to hold the same sentiment would, 
 he had no doubt, by its moral effect, put down the intention on the 
 part of France, admitting that she should ever entertain it. This 
 belief was founded he said upon the large share of the maritime 
 power of the world which Great Britain and the United States shared 
 between them, and the consequent influence which the knowledge that 
 they held a common opinion upon a question on which such large mari- 
 time interests, present and future, hung, could not fail to produce upon 
 the rest of the world. 
 
 I replied, that in what manner my government would look upon 
 such a suggestion, I was unable to say, but that I would communi- 
 cate it in the same informal manner in which he threw it out. I 
 said, however, that I did not think I should do so with full advantage, 
 unless he would at the same time enlighten me as to the precise situa- 
 tion in which His Majesty's government stood at this moment in relation 
 to those new states, and especially on the material point of their own 
 independence. 
 
 He replied that Great Britain certainly never again intended to lend 
 her instrumentality or aid, whether by mediation or otherwise, towards 
 making up the dispute between Spain and her colonies : but that if this 
 
46 
 
 result could still be brought about, she would not interfere to prevent 
 it. Upon my intimating that I had supposed that all idea of Spain 
 ever recovering her authority over the colonies had long since gone by, 
 he explained by saying that he did not mean to controvert that opinion, 
 for he too believed that the day had arrived when all America might be 
 considered as lost to Europe, so far as the tie of political dependence 
 was concerned. All that he meant was, that if Spain and the colonies 
 should still be able to bring the dispute, not yet totally extinct between 
 them, to a close upon terms satisfactory to both sides, and which should 
 at the same time secure to Spain commercial or other advantages not 
 extended to other nations, that Great Britain would not object to a 
 compromise in this spirit of preference to Spain. All that she would 
 ask would be to stand upon as favored a footing as any other nation 
 after Spain. Upon my again alluding to the improbability of the dis- 
 pute ever settling down now even upon this basis, he said that it was 
 not his intention to maintain such a position, and that he had expressed 
 himself as above rather for the purpose of indicating the feeling which 
 this cabinet still had towards Spain in relation to the controversy, than 
 of predicting results. 
 
 Wishing, however, to be still more specifically informed, I asked 
 whether Great Britain was at this moment taking any step, or con- 
 templating any, which had reference to the recognition of these states, 
 this being the point in which we felt the chief interest. 
 
 He replied that she had taken none whatever, as yet, but was upon 
 the eve of taking one, not final, but preparatory, and which would still 
 leave her at large to recognize or not according to the position of events 
 at a future period. The measure in question was, to send out one 
 or more individuals under authority from this government to South 
 America, not strictly diplomatic, but clothed with powers in the nature 
 of a commission of inquiry, and which in short he described as analo- 
 gous to those exercised by our commissioners in 1817 ; and that upon the 
 result of this commission much might depend as to the ulterior conduct 
 of Great Britain. I asked whether I was to understand that it would 
 comprehend all the new states, or which of them ; to which he replied 
 that, for the present, it would be limited to Mexico. 
 
 Reverting to his first idea he again said, that he hoped that France 
 would not, should even events in the Peninsula be favorable to her, 
 extend her views to South America for the purpose of reducing the 
 colonies, nominally perhaps for Spain, but in effect to subserve ends of 
 her own ; but that in case she should meditate such a ' policy, he was 
 satisfied that the knowledge of the United States being opposed to it as 
 well as Great Britain, could not fail to have its influence in checking 
 her steps. In this way he thought good might be done by prevention, 
 and peaceful prospects all round increased. As to the form in which 
 
47 
 
 such knowledge might be made to reach France, and even the other 
 powers of Europe, he said in conclusion that that might probably be 
 arranged in a manner that would be free from objection. 
 
 I again told him that I would convey his suggestions to you for the 
 information of the President, and impart to him whatever reply I might 
 receive. My own inference rather is, that his proposition was a fortu- 
 itous one ; yet he entered into it I thought with some interest, and 
 appeared to receive with a corresponding satisfaction the assurance I 
 gave him that it should be made known to the President. I did not 
 feel myself at liberty to express any opinion unfavorable to it, and was 
 as careful to give none in its favor. 
 
 Mr. Canning mentioned to me at this same interview, that a late 
 confidential despatch which he had seen from Count Nesselrode to 
 Count Lieven, dated, I think, in June, contained declarations respect- 
 ing the Russian ukase relative to the northwest coast that were satis- 
 factory ; that they went to show that it would probably not be executed 
 in a manner to give cause of complaint to other nations, and that, in 
 particular, it had not yet been executed in any instance under orders 
 issued by Russia subsequently to its first promulgation. 
 
 I have the honor to remain, with very great respect, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 Richard Rush. 
 
 Honorable John Quincy Adams, Secretary of State. 
 
 {Enclosure with Mr. Rush's No. 325, August 23, 1823.) 
 
 GEORGE CANNING TO RICHARD RUSH. 
 
 Private and confidential. Foreign Office, Aug. 20, 1823. 
 
 • My dear Sir, — Before leaving Town I am desirous of bringing 
 before you in a more distinct, but still in an unofficial and confidential 
 shape, the question which we shortly discussed the last time that I had 
 the pleasure of seeing you. 
 
 Is not the moment come when our Governments might understand 
 each other as to the Spanish American Colonies? And if we can 
 arrive at such an understanding, would it not be expedient for our- 
 selves, and beneficial for all the world, that the principles of it should 
 be clearly settled and plainly avowed ? 
 
 For ourselves we have no disguise. 
 
 1. We conceive the recovery of the Colonies by Spain to be 
 hopeless. 
 
 2. We conceive the question of the recognition of them, as Inde- 
 pendent States, to be one of time and circumstances. 
 
 3. We are, however, by no means disposed to throw any impedi- 
 
48 
 
 ment in the way of an arrangement between them and the mother 
 country by amicable negotiations. 
 
 4. We aim not at the possession of any portion of them ourselves. 
 
 5. We could not see any portion of them transferred to any other 
 Power, with indifference. 
 
 If these opinions and feelings are as I firmly believe them to be, 
 common to your Government with ours, why should we hesitate mutu- 
 ally to confide them to each other ; and to declare them in the face of 
 the world? 
 
 If there be any European Power which cherishes other projects, 
 which looks to a forcible enterprize for reducing the colonies to subju- 
 gation, on the behalf or in the name of Spain ; or which meditates the 
 acquisition of any part of them to itself, by cession or by conquest ; 
 such a declaration on the part of your government and ours would be 
 at once the most effectual and the least offensive mode of intimating our 
 joint disapprobation of such projects. 
 
 It would at the same time put an end to all the jealousies of Spain 
 with respect to her remaining Colonies, and to agitation which prevails 
 in those Colonies, an agitation which it would be but humane to allay ; 
 being determined (as we are) not to profit by encouraging it. 
 
 Do you conceive that under the power which you have recently 
 received, you are authorized to enter into negotiation and to sign any 
 Convention upon this subject? Do you conceive, if that be not within 
 your competence, you could exchange with me ministerial notes upon it ? 
 
 Nothing could be more gratifying to me than to join with you in such 
 a work, and, I am persuaded, there has seldom, in the history of the 
 world, occurred an opportunity when so small an effort of two friendly 
 Governments might produce so unequivocal a good and prevent such 
 extensive calamities. 
 
 1 shall be absent from London but three weeks at the utmost ; but 
 never so far distant but that I can receive and reply to any communi- 
 cation within three or four days. 
 I have the honor to be 
 
 My Dear Sir, with great respect and esteem 
 
 Your obedient and faithful servant 
 
 R. EusH, Esqr. (Signed) George Canning. 
 
 {Enclosure with Mr. Rush's No. 326, August 28, 1823.) 
 
 GEORGE CANNING TO RICHARD RUSH. 
 
 Private and confidential. Liverpool, August 23, 1823. 
 
 Mt dear Sir, — Since I wrote to you on the 20th, an additional 
 motive has occurred for wishing that we might be able to come to some 
 
49 
 
 understanding on the part of our respective Governnaents on the subject 
 of my letter ; to come to it soon, and to be at liberty to announce it to 
 the world. 
 
 It is this. I have received notice, but not such a notice as imposes 
 upon me the necessity of any immediate answer or proceeding — that 
 so soon as the military objects in Spain are achieved (of which the 
 French expect, how justly I know not, a very speedy achievement) a 
 proposal will be made for a Congress, or some less formal concert and 
 consultation, specially upon the affairs of Spanish America. 
 
 I need not point out to you all the complications to which this pro- 
 posal, however dealt with by us, may lead. 
 
 Pray receive this communication in the same confidence with the 
 former; and believe me with great truth 
 
 My Dear Sir, and esteem, 
 
 Your obedient and faithful servant, 
 
 R. Rush, Esqr. (Signed) Geo. Canning. 
 
 RICHARD RUSH TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE. 
 
 (Rec'd 5 November.) 
 
 No. 330. London, September 8, 1823. 
 
 Sir, — I yesterday received another confidential note from Mr. Can- 
 ning, dated the thirty first of August, a copy of which I have the honor 
 to enclose herewith for the President's information. 
 
 From this note it would appear that Mr. Canning is not prepared to 
 pledge this government to an immediate recognition of the independence 
 of the South American States. I shall renew to him a proposition to 
 this effect when we meet ; but should he continue to draw back from 
 it, I shall on my part not act upon the overtures contained in his first 
 note, not feeling myself at liberty to accede to them in the name of my 
 government, but upon the basis of an equivalent. This equivalent as I 
 now view the subject could be nothing less than the immediate and full 
 acknowledgment of those states, or some of them, by Great Britain. 
 
 I shall send this despatch by this evening's mail to Liverpool, and 
 have reason to hope that it will go in a ship that sails on the eighth, 
 whereby there will have been not a moment's delay in putting you 
 in possession of all the correspondence that has passed between Mr. 
 Canning and me, or that now seems likely to pass, upon this delicate 
 subject. I cannot help thinking, however, that its apparent urgency 
 may, after all, be lessened by the turn which we may yet witness in 
 affairs, military and political, in Spain. 
 
 I have the honor to remain with very great respect, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 Richard Rush. 
 
 Honorable John Quinct Adams, Secretarv of State. 
 
 7 
 
50 
 
 {3)iclosure with Mr, Rush's No, 330, September 8, 1823.) 
 GEORGE CANNING TO RICHARD RUSH. 
 
 Private and Confidential. Storks, Westmorland, Aug. 31, 1823. 
 
 My dear Sir, — I have now to acknowledge the receipt of your 
 answer to both my letters ; and whatever may be the practical result 
 of our confidential communication, it is an unmixed satisfaction to me 
 that the spirit in which it began on my part, has been met so cordially 
 on yours. 
 
 To a practical result eminently beneficial I see no obstacle ; except 
 in your want of specific powers, and in the delay which may inter- 
 vene before you can procure them ; and during which events may get 
 before us. 
 
 Had you felt yourself authorized to entertain any formal proposition, 
 and to decide upon it, without reference home, I would immediately 
 have taken measures for assembling my Colleagues in London, upon my 
 return, in order to be enabled to submit to you as the act of my govern- 
 ment, all that I have stated to you as my own sentiments and theirs. 
 But with such a delay in prospect, I think I should hardly be justified 
 in proposing to bind ourselves to any thing positively and uncondition- 
 ally ; and think on the other hand that a proposition qualified either in 
 respect to the contingency of your concurrence in it, or with reference 
 to possible change of circumstances, would want the decision and frank- 
 ness which I should wish to mark our proceeding. 
 
 Not that I anticipate any change of circumstances, which could vary 
 the views opened to you in my first letter : — nor that, after what you 
 have written to me in return, I apprehend any essential dissimilarity of 
 views on the part of your Government. 
 
 But we must not place ourselves in a position in which, if called upon 
 from other quarters for an opinion, we cannot give a clear and definite 
 account not only of what we think and feel, but of what we have done 
 or are doing, upon the matter in question. To be able to say, in an- 
 swer to such an appeal, that the United States and Great Britain con- 
 cur in thinking so and so — would be well. To anticipate any such 
 appeal by a voluntary declaration to the same effect would be still better. 
 But to have to say that we are in communication with the United 
 States but have no conclusive understanding with them, would be in- 
 convenient — our free agency would thus be fettered with respect 
 to other Powers; while our agreement with you would be yet 
 unascertained. 
 
 What appears to me, therefore, the most advisable is that you should 
 see in my unofficial communication enough hope of good to warrant 
 you in requiring Powers and Instructions from your Government on 
 
51 
 
 this point, in addition to the others upon which you have recently been 
 instructed and empowered ; treating that communication not as a prop- 
 osition made to you, but as the evidence of the nature of a proposition 
 which it would have been my desire to make to you, if I had found you 
 provided with authority to entertain it. 
 
 I have the honor to be, with the greatest esteem and respect, 
 
 My Dear Sir, 
 Your obedient and faithful servant, 
 
 (Signed) Geo. Canning. 
 Richard Rush, Esr., 
 
 etc., etc., etc. 
 
 RICHARD RUSH TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE. 
 
 (Rec'd 3rd Nov.) 
 
 No. 332. London, September 20, 1823. 
 
 Sir, — Notwithstanding what I have said of the publick advantage 
 which (as I have presumed to think and still think) would be likely to 
 result from giving me a colleague in the negociation should it all come 
 on, I shall, of course, prepare myself to go through it alone should the 
 President decide not to send one out. 
 
 But as in your number seventy two, I am informed that I shall prob- 
 ably have one in the event of Mr. Gallatin's return to Europe, or if a 
 successor to him should soon be appointed, I have concluded to pause 
 until I hear from you again on this point. In my conference with Mr. 
 Canning the day before yesterday, our attention was so exclusively en- 
 grossed by the South American subject, that that of the negociation 
 was not mentioned by him. When however I had finished reading the 
 introductory reflections of your number seventy two, I stated to him 
 what you had written to me respecting a colleague, and that as I had 
 therefore some reason to expect one, contingently, I should deem it 
 proper and even incumbent upon me to wait a while until this contin- 
 gency was decided, or until I heard something more of it from my gov- 
 ernment, as I probably should soon. 
 
 I found Mr. Canning unprepared as yet to designate in what manner, 
 or to what extent, the negociation would be taken up by this gov- 
 ernment. He barely hinted at the number and complication of the 
 subjects which I had laid before him. 
 
 Mr. Hughes reached London on the night of the sixth instant, and 
 went away on the twelfth. His short stay, added to his own engage- 
 ments as well as mine whilst he did stay, made it impossible for me to 
 impart to him, in personal interviews, the various and voluminous 
 matter embraced in my late instructions. Nevertheless, understanding 
 your request in this respect as contained in your number seventy two. 
 
52 
 
 to mean, in its spirit, that he ought in some way to be afforded the op- 
 portunity by me of being made acquainted with it all, it appeared that 
 nothing was left but to send him the instructions themselves. I accord- 
 ingly transmitted them all, by a careful hand, to his lodgings, on the 
 morning of the ninth instant, that they might remain by him for perusal 
 at his own convenience, and they were all safely returned to me on the 
 day of his departure. They consisted of your despatches from number 
 64 to 72 inclusive, with all their enclosures. 
 
 I have the honor to remain, etc., etc., 
 
 Richard Rush. 
 
 Honorable John Quinct Adams, Secretary of State. 
 
 RICHARD RUSH TO PRESIDENT MONROE. 
 
 Private. London, September 15, 1823. 
 
 Dear Sir, — Mr. Canning was to have returned from his country 
 excursion on the 11th instant, but I have not yet heard if he has got 
 back. In the meantime I am giving myself up to investigations which 
 may the better prepare me for taking in hand the various subjects which 
 I have been instructed to arrange by negociation with this government. 
 I continue to feel their importance, and can only again promise a dili- 
 gent and faithful attention to them all. 
 
 - 1 shall expect to receive an invitation to an interview from Mr. Can- 
 ning very shortly after he does return. The topick of Spanish Ameri- 
 can affairs, will doubtless be resumed in our conversations, and it is my 
 intention to urge upon him the immediate and unequivocal recognition 
 of those new states, by Great Britain. Upon no other footing what- 
 ever shall I feel warranted in acceding to the proposals he has made 
 to me. I shall continue to receive in a conciliatory manner his further 
 overtures, should he meditate any ; but I am bound to own, that I shall 
 not be able to avoid, at bottom, some distrust of the motives of all such 
 advances to me, whether directly or indirectly, by this government, at 
 this particular juncture of the world. 
 
 As regards the principles of traffick, and especially as regards the 
 whole range of her foreign trade, we have, it is true, witnessed of late 
 on the part of this nation an approach to more liberality than has gov- 
 erned her heretofore. It is possible that she may go farther in this 
 policy ; a policy irresistibly recommended, and, as she will not scruple 
 herself to admit, forced upon her, by the changing circumstances of the 
 commercial world. But, as regards the principles of political freedom, 
 whether in relation to herself or other states, we shall not find it easy 
 to perceive as yet any such favorable alteration in her conduct. Even 
 if there be indications of a coming change in this latter line too, the 
 motives of it are perhaps not all of a nature to challenge our ready con- 
 
53 
 
 fidence and cooperation. We have seen her wage a war of 20 years 
 at a cost of treasure and blood incalculable, in support of the independ- 
 ence of other states (as she said) when that independence was threat- 
 ened by a movement proceeding from the people of France. We have 
 seen her at the close of that contest abandoning the great interests of 
 the people of other states, anxious apparently only about monarchs 
 and thrones. We have seen her at the same epoch become in effect a 
 member of the Holy Alliance ; though she could not in form, and con- 
 tinue to abet its principles up to the attack on Naples. Even then the 
 separation was but partial, and, true to her sympathy with the mo- 
 narchical principle, we find her faith pledged and her fleets ready to 
 interpose not on any new extremity of wrong or oppression to the 
 people of Naples, but on any molestation to the royal family. Since 
 the present year set in, she has proclaimed and until now cautiously 
 maintained her neutrality under an attack by France upon the inde- 
 pendence of Spain, as unjust, as nefarious, and as cruel, as the annals 
 of mankind can recount, this attack having been made upon the people 
 of a country, by a legitimate king, urged on by legitimate nobles. It 
 is thus that Britain has been from the very beginning, positively or 
 negatively, auxiliary to the evils with which this Alliance under the 
 mark of Christianity has already affected the old, and is now menacing 
 the new world. It is under this last stretch of ambition that she seems 
 about to be roused, not, as we seem forced to infer after all we have 
 seen, from any objections to the arbitrary principles of the Combina- 
 tion, for the same men are still substantially at the head of her affairs ; 
 but rather from the apprehensions which are now probably coming upon 
 her, touching her own influence and standing through the formidable 
 and encroaching career of these continental potentates. She at last 
 perceives a crisis likely to come on, bringing with it peril to her own 
 commercial prospects on the other side of the Atlantic, and to her 
 political sway in both hemispheres. Hence probably some of her re- 
 cent and remarkable solicitudes. The former war of 20 years more 
 than once shook her prosperity and brought hazards to her existence, 
 though for the most part she was surrounded by allies. A second war 
 of like duration with no ally for her in Europe might not have a second 
 field of Waterloo for its termination. Such are the prospective dangers 
 that possibly do not escape her. 
 
 The estimate which I have formed of the genius of this government, 
 as well as of the characters of the men who direct, or who influence, all 
 its operations, would lead me to fear that we are not as yet likely to 
 witness any very material changes in the part which Britain has acted 
 in the world for the past fifty years, when the cause of freedom has 
 been at stake ; the part which she acted in 1774 in America, which she 
 has since acted in Europe, and is now acting in Ireland. I shall there- 
 
54 
 
 fore find it hard to keep from my mind the suspicion that the approaches 
 of her ministers to me at this portentous juncture for a concert of policy 
 which they have not heretofore courted with the United States, are 
 bottomed on their own calculations. I wish that I could sincerely see 
 in them a true concern for the rights and liberties of mankind. Never- 
 theless, whatever may be the motive of these approaches, if they give 
 promise of leading to good effects, effects which the United States from 
 principle and from policy would delight to hail, I grant that a dispas- 
 sionate and friendly ear should be turned to them, and such shall be 
 my aim in the duties before me. 
 
 In exhibiting the foregoing summary of the opinions which have been 
 impressed upon me during my publick residence in this quarter, I 
 would not have it inferred that I intend they should comprehend the 
 imputation of any sinister motives towards the United States, as pecu- 
 liar to the British cabinet as it is now composed. I am so far from 
 thinking so, that I believe the present cabinet to be as well disposed 
 towards us permanently as any party in England, and at this moment 
 more cordially so than any other party. I believe that if Earl Grey 
 and his associates were to come into power tomorrow that we should 
 not get better terms, if as good, in our approaching negociation, should 
 it come on, as from Mr. Canning and his associates. I would say the 
 same thing of a cabinet to be composed of such men as Sir Francis Bur- 
 dett and Mr. Hobhouse ; and should it happen that Mr. Canning and 
 Lord Liverpool ever become actively and publickly in their official places 
 the advocates of a policy more intimate aud friendly in all respects 
 towards the United States than any hitherto adopted (a contingency not 
 impossible, no matter from what motives arising) I do not fear to pre- 
 dict that we shall in the end see the whigs and reformers the decided 
 opponents of such a policy. As regards the beneficent principle of 
 abolishing privateering, for example, I should little expect to see the 
 whigs its patrons, since I have heard Sir James Macintosh denounce it 
 in parliament since I have been here. 
 
 I remain, dear sir, with the highest respect, 
 
 Your faithful and attached sert 
 
 President Monroe.^ Richard Rush. 
 
 EICHARD RUSH TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE. 
 
 (Rec'dlQNov.) 
 
 No. 334. London, October 2, 1823. 
 
 Sir, — I had another interview with Mr. Canning on the twenty 
 
 sixth of last month, at Gloucester Lodge, his residence a short distance 
 
 from town. 
 
 1 From the Monroe MSS., Department of State, Washington, D. C. 
 
55 
 
 The immediate motive of his inviting me to this interview was, to 
 show me a despatch which he had just received from Sir Charles 
 Stewart, the British Ambassador at Paris, which had a bearing upon our 
 late conferences respecting Spanish America. It recounted a short con- 
 versation which he had had with our charge d'affaires at that Court, 
 Mr. Sheldon, the purport of which was, that Sir Charles having taken 
 occasion to mention to Mr. Sheldon the projects of France and the 
 Alliance upon Spanish America, Mr. Sheldon replied that the govern- 
 ment of the United States was aware of them all, and disapproved of 
 them. Mr. Canning, inferring that this reply of our charge d'affaires 
 probably rested upon some instructions or information from the govern- 
 ment of the United States, also inferred that it might lend its aid 
 towards my consent to his proposals of the 20th of August. He added, 
 that the despatch of Sir Charles Stewart had proceeded from no previ- 
 ous communication whatever from him (Mr. Canning) upon the subject, 
 but had been altogether written on his own motion. 
 
 I replied, that what instructions or information the Legation of the 
 United States at Paris might have received upon this subject, I could 
 not undertake to say with confidence ; but that I scarcely believed any 
 had reached it which were not common to me. That certainly I had 
 none, other than those general instructions which I had already men- 
 tioned to him, evidently never framed to meet the precise crisis which 
 he supposed to be at hand respecting Spanish America, but under the 
 comprehensive spirit of which I was nevertheless willing to go forward 
 with him in his proposals upon the terms I had stated, in the hope of 
 meeting this crisis. 
 
 He now declared that this government felt great embarrassments as 
 regarded the immediate recognition of these new states, embarrass- 
 ments which had not been common to the United States, and asked 
 whether I could not give my assent to his proposals on a promise by 
 Great Britain oi future acknowledgment. To this intimation I gave 
 an immediate and unequivocal refusal. Further conversation passed 
 between us though chiefly of a desultory nature, (it shall be reported at 
 a future time,) and the conference ended by his saying that he would 
 invite me to another interview in the course of a few days. 
 
 Having waited until now without yet hearing from him, I have 
 concluded to write you thus much of what passed on the 26th, without 
 more delay. It does not fall within any of my intentions to accede 
 to Mr. Canning's overtures but on the basis of a previous and explicit 
 acknowledgment of the new states by this government in manner as 
 formal and ample in all respects as was done by the United States, 
 whose act of acknowledgment will be the example upon which I shall 
 stand. Even then, the guarded manner in which alone my consent 
 will be given when I come to use the name of my government, will, I 
 
56 
 
 trust, be found to free the step from all serious exception on my part, 
 should I finally take it. 
 
 I cannot be unaware, that in this whole transaction the British 
 cabinet are striving for their own ends; yet if these ends promise in 
 this instance to be also auspicious to the safety and independence of 
 all Spanish America, I persuade myself that we cannot look upon them 
 but with approbation. England it is true has given her countenance, 
 and still does, to all the evils with which the holy Alliance have 
 afflicted Europe; but if she at length has determined to stay the 
 career of their formidable and despotick ambition in the other hemis- 
 phere, the United States seem to owe it to all the policy and to all the 
 principles of their system, to hail the effects whatever may be the 
 motives of her conduct. 
 
 Mr. Canning at the close of the above interview, expressed his 
 desire, that in informing my government of his communications to me, 
 I would treat them as entirely confidential, as well the verbal as the 
 written ; the more so if no act resulted from them. That no act will 
 result from them, is my present belief. 
 
 I have the honor to remain, with very great respect, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 Richard Rush. 
 Honorable John Quinct Adams, Secretary of State. 
 
 RICHARD RUSH TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE. 
 
 (Rec'd 19 Nov.) 
 
 No. 336. London, October 10, 1823. 
 
 Sir, — At the conference with Mr. Canning the day before yester- 
 day, he said nothing of Spanish American affairs, except barely to 
 remark at parting, that he should send off consuls to the new states 
 very soon, perhaps in the course of this month. I asked whether 
 consuls or commercial agents. He said he believed they might as well 
 be called by the former name, as they would be invested with the 
 powers and charged with the duties that belonged to the consular 
 oflSce. I asked if they would be received in that capacity by the gov- 
 ernments between which and Great Britain no political or diplomatic 
 relations had yet been formed. He said, that this he did not know 
 with any certainty ; he rather supposed that they would be received. 
 
 I saw him again at the foreign office yesterday, and he said not one 
 single word relative to South America, although the occasion was 
 altogether favorable for resuming the topick, had he been disposed to 
 resume it. I therefore consider that all further discussion between us 
 in relation to it is now at an end. I had myself regarded the ques- 
 tions involved in the discussion as essentially changed by the arrival 
 
57 
 
 of the news of the convention of the 4th of July between Buenos 
 Ayres and the commissioners from Spain ; and of the complete 
 annihilation of the remnant of the royal forces in Colombia under 
 Morales, on the third of August, both which pieces of intelligence have 
 reached England since the twenty sixth of September, the date of my 
 last conference with Mr. Canning on the South American subject. 
 
 The termination of the discussion between us may be thought some- 
 what sudden, not to say abrupt, considering how zealously as well as 
 spontaneously it was started on his side. As I did not commence it, 
 it is not my intention to revive it. If I had actually acceded to his 
 proposals, I should have endeavored to have placed my conduct in a 
 satisfactory light before the President. The motives of it would not, 
 I flatter myself, have been disapproved. But as the whole subject is 
 now before my government, and as I shall do nothing further in it 
 without instructions, I should deem it out of place to travel into any 
 new reasons in support of a step not in fact taken. 
 
 Mr. Canning not having acceded to my proposal, nor I to his, we 
 stand as we were before his first advance to me, with the exception 
 only of the light which the intervening discussion may be supposed to 
 have shed upon the dispositions and policy of England in this im- 
 portant matter. It appears that having ends of her own in view, she 
 has been anxious to facilitate their accomplishment by invoking my 
 auxiliary offices as the minister of the United States at this court ; but 
 as to the independence of the new states of America, for their own 
 benefit, that this seems quite another question in her diplomacy. It is 
 France that must not be aggrandized, not South America that must 
 be made free. The former doctrine may fitly enough return upon 
 Britain as part of her permanent political creed ; but not having been 
 taught to regard it as also incorporated with the foreign policy of the 
 United States, I have forborne to give it gratuitous succour. I would 
 have brought myself to minister to it incidentally on this occasion, 
 only in return for a boon which it was in the power of Britain herself 
 to have offered; a boon that might have closed the sufferings and 
 brightened the prospects of those infant Republics emerging from the 
 new world, and seeming to be connected as by a great moral chain 
 with our own destinies. 
 
 Whether any fresh explanations with France since the fall of Cadiz 
 may have brought Mr. Canning to so full and sudden a pause with 
 me, I do not know, and most likely never shall know if events so fall 
 out that Great Britain no longer finds it necessary to seek the aid 
 of the United States in furtherance of her schemes of counteraction 
 as against France or Russia. That the British cabinet, and the 
 governing portion of the British nation, will rejoice at heart in the 
 downfal of the constitutional system in Spain, I have never had a 
 
 8 
 
58 
 
 doubt and have not now, so long as this catastrophe can be kept from 
 crossing the path of British interests and British ambition. This 
 nation in its collective, corporate, capacity has no more sympathy 
 with popular, . rights and freedom now, than it had on the plains of 
 Lexington in America ; than it showed during the whole progress of 
 the French revolution in Europe, or at the close of its first great act, at 
 Vienna, in 1815 ; than it exhibited lately at Naples in proclaiming a 
 neutrality in all other events, save that of the safety of the ro3'al family 
 there ; or, still more recently, when it stood aloof whilst France and 
 the Holy Alliance avowed their intention of crushing the liberties 
 of unoffending Spain, of crushing them too upon pretexts so wholly 
 unjustifiable and enormous that English ministers, for very shame, were 
 reduced to the dilemma of speculatively protesting against them, whilst 
 they allowed them to go into full action. With a king in the hands of 
 his ministers, with an aristocracy of unbounded opulence and pride, 
 with what is called a house of commons constituted essentially by this 
 aristocracy and always moved by its influence, England can, in reality, 
 never look with complacenc}^ upon popular and equal rights, whether 
 abroad or at home. She therefore moves in her natural orbit when 
 she wars, positively or negatively, against them. For their own sakes 
 alone, she will never .war in their fayor. 
 
 In the conference with Mr. Canning at Gloucester Lodge on the 
 26th of last month, he informed me that this government had sent out 
 three commissioners to Mexico with objects such as I have already 
 stated in a former communication to you. Should the course and 
 progress of events after their arrival in Mexico, render recognition by 
 Great Britain advisable, one of these commissioners was furnished, he 
 said, with contingent credentials to be minister, another would be con- 
 stituted secretary of Legation, and the third consul. He also said that 
 these appointments, as well as those of commercial agents or consuls, 
 whichsoever they might be, to go to the new states generally, would 
 probably have the effect of inviting in the end further approaches from 
 them all, to an intercourse with Great Britain, which approaches, should 
 they be made, might be met by Great Britain, according to circumstances. 
 
 It may perhaps afford room for conjecture what has led to the pref- 
 erence of Mexico over the other ex-colonies for such a provisionary 
 diplomatic representation. I have heard a rumour, that an eye to some 
 immediate advantage from the mines of that country has been the 
 motive. Whilst the independence of Mexico has been of more recent 
 establishment, it seems not less true, that her advances to internal sta- 
 bility have been less sure than we have seen in some of the other new 
 states. Mr. Canning himself in one of our conversations thought fit to 
 select Mexico as aff*ording a prominent illustration of interior disquiet. 
 Whether then the above rumour is the key to this early preference, or 
 
59 
 
 the proximity of this new state to the territories of the United States — 
 or what considerations may have led to it, a little more time will prob- 
 ably disclose. It may rest on the mere fact of her greater population 
 and riches. 
 
 Mr. Canning also informed me, that orders would be given by this 
 government to its squadron in the West Indies, to protect the trade of 
 British subjects (to the extent of making reprisals if necessary) with 
 the Spanish colonies, in case the licence for this trade which the Cortes 
 granted in January last was not renewed. It will be recollected, that 
 the same decree of the Cortes in that month which settled, under a 
 threat of reprisals, the British claims upon Spain for captures, laid 
 open the trade of the ultra marine provinces to Britain for ten years. 
 This period of time being upon the eve of expiring, the intention of 
 Britain is, to revive the orders for reprisals by her squadron, unless the 
 time be extended. 
 
 So much for a measure against Spain in her present extremity. It 
 will next be seen that her ex-colonies come in for their share of this 
 prompt and summary species of remedy of which Britain is setting other 
 nations the example, for Mr. Canning also informed me that if the Co- 
 lombian government did not make speedy reparation for the alleged 
 aggression committed upon a British ship by the fort at Bocachica at 
 the entrance of the bay of Carthagena, orders would be given to block- 
 ade that port. He remarked that the blockade would be confined merely 
 to Bocachica as a measure of local redress, other satisfaction having 
 been refused, and that it was intended that an explanation to this 
 effect should be given to the government of Colombia, through a neutral 
 minister residing at that government. He added that his wish was, 
 that the minister of the United States should be the channel of com- 
 munication. Into the detail of circumstances that belong to this alleged 
 aggression Mr. Canning did not go. From the account I have had of 
 it from the Colombian minister in this city, Mr. Bavenga, I infer and 
 believe that the offence was on the side of the British ship. 
 
 The subject of blockade being mentioned, Mr. Canning asked me if 
 I knew in what manner my government would be likely to view the 
 turning off of our frigate by the French squadron from before Cadiz, 
 with our ministers Mr. Nelson and Mr. Rodney on board. I said that 
 I did not, and in turn asked him how England would act under similar 
 circumstances. His first reply consisted of an expression of his satis- 
 faction that England had had the good fortune to escape from such a 
 difficulty at this juncture, and that the question had fallen into such 
 good hands as ours ! But next I asked, how a British blockading 
 force would treat a neutral frigate under the same circumstances. He 
 said he would be quite candid in his answer ; that, all things considered, 
 it did not become England to reason down maritime or helUgerent 
 
60 
 
 doctrines; that the case was an unusual one; he recollected in modem 
 history hut one other instance of a besieged king, which was that of 
 the king of Denmark ; that had a neutral ship of war, a Eussian frigate 
 for example, attempted to enter the harbour of Copenhagen when the 
 British fleet was investing it, the Captain alleging that he was carrying a 
 letter to the Danish king, he must say that he thought the British 
 admiral would not have permitted the frigate to pass for such a purpose ; 
 he even inclined to believe, that a neutral vessel of war would not have 
 been allowed to pass under such circumstances, for any purpose. These 
 were his sentiments though he spoke, he said, without any full or exact 
 examination of the subject. 
 
 I replied, that neither was I master of the subject, though awake to 
 the interest of it; that I had, from a personal curiosity, been turning 
 in a cursory manner to some of the admiralty books in the hope of get- 
 ting light upon it, but as yet could only say that I had found nothing. 
 I was disposed to think that book learning upon the point would be 
 found scanty, and that it would have to be decided by recurring to 
 principles. Nothing further was said on the subject, and I must own 
 that I draw no very favorable augury to parts of our coming negocia- 
 tion, from as much as fell from him whilst we were upon it. 
 
 Throughout the progress of our discussion on Spanish American 
 affairs, I thought it proper to apprize Mr. Ravenga, confidentially, of all 
 that was going on. I take this opportunity of saying, that I have had 
 equal pleasure in all my personal intercourse with this gentleman, and 
 in my attempts to subserve the interests of his country. 
 
 At the close of my interview with Mr. Canning I took occasion to say 
 to him, that, if no objections existed to the request, I should be glad to 
 be furnished with a copy of the note from Count Nesselrode to Count 
 Lieven relative to the Russian ukase, of which I have made mention 
 in my number 323. He replied that he would have been happy to 
 comply with my request, but that having asked Count Lieven for per- 
 mission to give out a copy of the note, the Count had said that he did 
 not feel authorized to grant a copy with that view. 
 
 I have the honor to remain, with very great respect, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 Richard Rush. 
 Honorable John Quinct Adams, Secretary of State.i 
 
 1 " The Spanish American topick has been dropped by Mr. Canning in a most 
 extraordinary manner. Not another word has he said to me on it since the 26**^ 
 of last month, at the interview at Gloucester Lodge, which I have described in 
 my despatches to the department, and he has now gone out of town to spend the 
 remainder of this, and part of the next month. I shall not renew the topick, and 
 should he, which I do not expect, I shall decline going into it again, saying that 
 I must now wait until I hear from my government." Rush to Monroe, 22 
 October, 1823. 
 
61 
 
 DANIEL SHELDON TO JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 
 
 (private) Paris, 30 October, 1823. 
 
 Sir, — Soon after the date of my dispatch of the 18th of this month, 
 I was informed by the British Embassador that he had conferred with 
 the French Ministers (M. de Chateaubriand and M. de Villele) on the 
 subject of the Spanish American Colonies. He told me that his object 
 had been to prevent them from engaging hastily in any measures relat- 
 ing to those Colonies, and that he had insisted that whatever measures 
 might be taken should be adopted in common and after consultation 
 among the powers really interested in the question, which were Eng- 
 land, France, and the U. S. alone, the interest of the great Continental 
 Powers of Europe being, on this particular point only, of a secondary 
 nature. The french Ministers assured him that they would undertake 
 nothing by themselves, and that the subject would be brought forward 
 for mutual consideration. In the Journal des Debats, the Ministerial 
 paper, of to day, will be found an article, confirming entirely this prin- 
 ciple. It is however most probable that France will insist upon the 
 concurrence of the Continental Powers and will reject entirely that of 
 the U. S. The subject has never been mentioned to me in any way 
 whatever by any of the French ministers. The motive for this course 
 on their part is obvious enough ; — the United States having acknowl- 
 edged the independence of the Colonies, they cannot be expected to 
 concur in or assent to any measures not having that result for their 
 basis ; and they are not yet prepared here to go that length, though it 
 is difficult to conceive that England would consent to any plan which 
 would again place the Colonies under the dominion of Spain. At all 
 events, no steps are likely to be taken hastily or immediately in rela- 
 tion to those countries; and, indeed, the affairs of the mother Country 
 will yet require for some time all the cares of this Government. The 
 Article of the Journal des debats announces that Councils of modera- 
 tion have at last made some impression on the King. The course he 
 was taking alarmed not only the Ministry, but the Politicians here 
 who are many degrees higher toned than the Ministry. Even Kussia 
 is obliged to insist upon moderation, and Pozzo, who is gone to Madrid, 
 will exercise the influence of that Power to soften down the system 
 the King is disposed to adopt, and which, from his untractable nature, 
 there is great difficulty in persuading him to abandon. I have the 
 honor to be, with great Respect, Sir, your most Obed' & very humble 
 servant (s^) D^ Sheldon j^ 
 
 The Hon : John Quincy Adams, Secretary of State, Washington. 
 
 (Endorsement) private Oct' 30, 1823. M' Sheldon to M' Adams. i 
 
 1 From the Monroe Papers in the Department of State, Washington, D. C. 
 
62 
 
 RICHARD RUSH TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE. 
 
 No. 346. London, November 26, 1823. 
 
 Sir, — I had an interview with Mr. Canning on the twenty fourth 
 instant, at the foreign office, when he afforded me some information on 
 Spanish American affairs which I now proceed to lay before you. 
 
 He began by saying that our conversations on this subject at Glouces- 
 ter Lodge, (on the 26th of September,) having led him to conclude 
 that nothing could be accomplished between us, owing to the ground 
 which I had felt it necessary to take respecting the immediate recog- 
 nition of the late colonies by Great Britain, he had deemed it indis- 
 pensable as no more time was to be lost, that Great Britain should 
 herself, without any concert with the United States, come to an 
 explanation with France. He had, accordingly, seen the Prince de 
 Polignac, the French Ambassador at this court, and stated to him that 
 as it was fit that the two courts should understand each other, dis- 
 tinctly, on the Spanish American question, it was his intention to 
 unfold the views of Great Britain in an official note to him, the 
 prince, or to Sir Charles Stewart, the British Ambassador at Paris, to 
 be communicated to the French Court; or in the form of an oral con- 
 ference with the Prince himself, — whichever of these modes the latter 
 might indicate as preferable. The Prince taking some interval to 
 decide, it was finally agreed to adopt the method of oral conference, 
 with the precaution of making a minute of the conversation; so that 
 each government might have in its possession a record of what passed, 
 to be previously assented to, as correct on both sides. 
 
 In pursuance of this course Mr. Canning held several conferences 
 with the Prince de Polignac, in the early part of October, in which 
 each party unfolded the views of their respective governments, on this 
 branch of public affairs, and agreed upon the written memorandum or 
 paper which was to embody them. 
 
 This paper Mr. Canning said was of a nature which did not leave 
 him at liberty to offer me a copy of it; but he had invited me to the 
 foreign office, for the purpose of reading it to me, having only since 
 his return to town last week exhibited it to the ministers of other 
 powers, and not yet to all of them. 
 
 He accordingly read the paper to me. When he had closed, I said 
 to him, notwithstanding what had previously fallen from him about 
 not giving a copy of it, that its whole matter was so interwoven with 
 our past discussions, verbal and written, upon the same subject, that I 
 could not help thinking that my government would naturally expect a 
 copy, as the regular termination of a subject, the previous stages of 
 which it had been my special duty to make known to my government. 
 
63 
 
 To this remark he replied that he would willingly furnish me with a 
 copy of that part of it which embodied the views of this government, 
 but that, where those of France were at stake, he did not feel that he 
 had the same discretion; upon which footing my remarks was left 
 without more commentary. 
 
 I am therefore relieved from the task of recapitulating to you the 
 contents of that portion of this paper of which I may expect to receive 
 a copy. The points which chiefly arrested my attention, as new to 
 me, (and these I now communicate without waiting for the paper 
 itself) were, that Great Britain declares that she will recognize the 
 independence of the colonies, first, in case France should employ 
 force in aid of their re- subjugation ; or, secondly, in case Spain herself 
 reverting to her ancient system^ should attempt to put a stop to the 
 trade of Britain with those colonies. But it is not said what Britain 
 will do beyond recognizing their independence, her ulterior conduct 
 being left to be shaped, as we may infer, by ulterior events. She 
 claims a right to trade with the colonies, on the footing of a permis- 
 sion given by Spain herself so long back as 1810, as an equivalent 
 for British mediation, offered at that day between the parent state and 
 the colonies. As regards the form of government most desirable for 
 the colonies as independent states, a preference is expressed for 
 monarchy, could it be practicable. 
 
 With the exception of the foregoing points, I recollect nothing 
 material in the paper as regards the policy or intentions of Great 
 Britain, not heretofore made known in my own communications upon 
 this subject, beginning with that of the 19th of August, and continued 
 in my numbers 325, 326, 330, 334 and 336. The letter of Mr. Can- 
 ning to Sir Charles Stuart of the 31st. of March, 1823, is still assumed 
 as the basis of the policy of Great Britain. 
 
 To report, with the requisite fidelity, the views of France, from this 
 paper read over but once to me, I might find an office more hazardous, 
 from the fact of my having had less acquaintance beforehand with 
 them. I shall, therefore, not attempt to do so, with any detail, from 
 a fear that I might err. I have also the confident hope that an entire 
 copy of it, although not given to me, will get to your hands, through 
 some other channel. I am not able for my own share to discern the 
 adequate motives for wrapping it up in such secrecy, and have little 
 doubt but that even the public journals of Europe will, before very 
 long, enlighten us, with sufiicient precision, upon all its contents. 
 The London journals of the present week have themselves made a 
 beginning towards this end. 
 
 Having said thus much, I will proceed in my endeavours, to state 
 the main points of this paper where it was illustrative of the policy of 
 France. 
 
64 
 
 1. It declares that France, like England, regards Ihe recovery of 
 the colonies by Spain as hopeless. 
 
 2. It expresses the determination (I think this was the very word), 
 of France, not to assist Spain in attempting their re-conquest. 
 
 3. It expresses the desire of France to see the dispute made up by 
 amicable arrangements, between the mother country and the colonies. 
 
 4. It disclaims for France all idea of deriving exclusive commercial 
 advantages from the colonies, saying that, like England, she only asks 
 to be placed on the footing of the most favored nation, after Spain. 
 
 5. It knows not what there is to be recognized as independent 
 in the colonies, France regarding all government there as a mockery. 
 The reasoning employed is to this effect. 
 
 6. It labors to show the necessity of assembling a congress, to 
 which England should be a party, (which she declines) to bring about 
 the benevolent end of reclaiming those remote regions from their past 
 errors, and making up the dispute between them and the parent state, 
 upon terms satisfactory to both, as the policy worthy of both ! 
 
 These were the material points of the paper, as I collected them. 
 I am sensible that I state some of them in a way to start further 
 questions as to their true meaning, questions which I could myself 
 raise, without, at this moment, being able to resolve them. Whether, 
 among other things, France is to abstain from all kinds of aid to 
 Spain, (force she says she will not employ) does not appear quite clear 
 to my recollection. The apprehensions of Britain however seem to be 
 fully allayed, at least for the present, on the score of French aggran- 
 dizement in Spanish America, and it is certain that she does not now 
 anticipate any speedy interruption of the peace of Europe from this 
 cause. 
 
 Whether her apprehensions on this score were ever real, notwith- 
 standing Mr. Canning's advances to me, or whether France, from 
 uneasiness at a prospect of collision with Britain, has, herself, re- 
 ceded, for a while, from her ambitious projects, and only for a while, 
 are points around which there may be some obscurity. The language 
 which she now holds to Britain is obviously at variance with that 
 which her manifestos breathed when her troops entered Spain in 
 the spring. Her duplicity, therefore, in this whole peninsular war, 
 from her memorable avowals respecting the cordon sanitaire, to the 
 present time, appears to have been as signal as her ambition. 
 
 In the course of the paper on the British side, there is allusion to 
 the interest that the United States have in the question, which is 
 met, on the side of France by a declaration that she does not profess 
 to be acquainted with our views on the subject. It is in the part 
 which relates to the assembling of a congress. I might probably have 
 made myself more accurately master of the whole paper, by recurring, 
 
65 
 
 in conversation, to a few of the passages after Mr. Canning had finished 
 reading it ; hut I was precluded the opportunity of doing this from his 
 heing pressed, (whether by his previous wishes or otherwise, I will 
 not say) with another appointment, a very few moments after he had 
 closed. 
 
 Notwithstanding the tranquillizing professions of Erance, it would 
 seem that the sentiments of Russia, (if we may so infer from Pozzo di 
 Borgo's address to Ferdinand, which has just come before the world) 
 are, that the Holy Alliance consider themselves as still bound to keep 
 a superintending eye upon the affairs of Spain, throughout all her 
 dominions. 
 
 I have the honor to remain with very great respect, your obedient 
 servant, 
 
 ElCHARD RUSH.^ 
 
 GEORGE CANNING TO RICHARD RUSH. 
 
 Private & Confidential. 
 
 Gloucester Lodge, Dec^ 13, 1823. 
 
 My dear Sir, — In transmitting to you a copy of the memoran- 
 dum of a Conference between the French Ambassador and me, upon 
 the affairs of Spanish America, (which I had the honor to read to you 
 yesterday) I am naturally led to revert to what passed between us in 
 the summer upon that subject. 
 
 Had you had it in your power, at that time, to concur in any joint 
 consideration of the measures to be adopted, you know how happy I 
 should have been to be enabled to propose such a concert. But time, 
 and the pressure of events did not allow of an indefinite postponement 
 of a matter, which was liable, from day to day, to be brought into 
 immediate discussion by other Powers. Our step was therefore taken 
 within a few weeks after the last interchange of confidential letters 
 between us. The result is before you. You will see that we were 
 not unmindful of your claim to be heard: but I flatter myself that 
 neither you nor we shall now have to lift our voice against any of the 
 designs which were apprehended a few months ago. 
 
 I am sure you will feel. Sir, and I trust it will be felt by your 
 Government that the confidence which I individually reposed in you 
 is sacred; and that our intercourse in August not having led to any 
 
 1 From the Adams MSS. " The conduct of England on this question [South 
 America], as it seems to me, has turned out to be devoid of all justice, of all 
 magnanimity, and even of all true foresight and policy. She at last declares 
 that she will recognize, not because the new states are de facto independent and 
 entitled to it; but she issues her intentions in the light of a threat to be executed 
 on the contingent misdeeds of France or Spain." Rush to Monroe, 1 December, 
 1823. 
 
 9 
 
66 
 
 practical result, nor become matter of discussion between our respective 
 governments will be considered as having passed between two individ- 
 uals relying upon each others honour and discretion. 
 
 I communicate the paper to you in such a way, as to relieve you 
 from any difficulty in transmitting it to your Government. 
 
 I have the honour to be, with great esteem and regard, my dear Sir, 
 your obed* & faithful servant, 
 
 George Canning.^ 
 
 RICHARD RUSH TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE. 
 
 No. 354. London, December 27, 1823. 
 
 Sir, — In my letter No. 346 of the 26th of November, I had the 
 honor to mention that I requested of Mr. Canning a copy of the paper 
 which he read to me embodying the view^s of England and France rel- 
 ative to Spanish America, and that he replied that he would do so of 
 as much of it as related to England, but that over the portion of it that 
 contained the exposition of the views of France he did not feel that he 
 was at liberty to exercise the same option. The attempt to draw this 
 line seemed to me at the time unnecessary, and perhaps would have 
 been found not very easy in practice, and accordingly in the interview 
 which I had with Mr. Canning on the twelfth of this month referring 
 again to the above paper, and to the request I had made of him to be 
 furnished with a copy of the whole of it, he said that he now felt him- 
 self able to comply, the French Government having furnished other 
 states with a copy of it; and he promised to send me the entire copy 
 in a few days. I have abstained from mentioning this promise to you 
 in my intermediate communications, preferring to wait until the paper 
 itself reached me. 
 
 I have this day received it accompanied by a note from Mr. Can- 
 ning, dated the 13th instant, and headed " Confidential," in which he 
 informs me that I am at liberty to communicate it to my government, 
 but only as a confidential paper, not to be made public in the United 
 States. A note of a few lines from Mr. Planta dated yesterday, ex- 
 plains the delay which has taken place in sending it to me. Another 
 note from Mr. Canning, dated also on the 13th instant, and headed 
 " private and confidential " was received at the same time, in which he 
 reverts to what passed between us in the summer on this Spanish 
 American question, states his reason for having gone on to act without 
 my concurrence, and intimates a hope that neither the United States 
 nor Great Britain will now be called upon to lift their voice against 
 the designs that were recently apprehended. In this latter note it will 
 
 1 From the Adams MSS. 
 
67 
 
 also be perceived what renewed anxiety is manifested that the whole 
 subject may be treated by my government as entirely confidential. I 
 have replied in two separate notes of this date to both of Mr. Canning's, 
 and enclose copies of all the correspondence. It will be seen in Mr. 
 Canning's notes that he describes the paper as having been read to me 
 on the 12th instant. This is a mistake. He read it to me on the 
 24th of November, as my communication to you of the 26th of that 
 month shows. The mistake is not material, and is only noticed lest it 
 should otherwise be inferred that the paper was read to me a second 
 time, which was not the case. 
 
 It is plain in my belief, that this extraordinary solicitude for secrecy 
 springs from an unwillingness in this government to risk the cordiality 
 of its standing with the Holy Alliance to any greater extent than can 
 be avoided. All serious danger to Spanish America, being now at an 
 end, I do not at present see what there is to prevent a return to that 
 effective amity between Great Britain and that alliance which has here- 
 tofore existed. Events the most recent and authoritative justify us in 
 saying, that no attempt upon the liberties of Europe, will essentially 
 throw Britain off from the connexion, or impair her coequal allegiance 
 to the monarchical principle ; and the authentic paper of her govern- 
 ment which I this day transmit, indicates that the danger of disunion 
 from the Spanish American question has had its source not in any con- 
 cern of Britain at fresh strides of Tyranny in the alliance, but in an 
 ambitious uneasiness in her Councils at French or other Continental 
 interposition reaching a point which threatened at last to trench upon 
 the commercial empire of England, an empire over which her states- 
 men never cease to keep the most jealous watch. As regards the essen- 
 tial rights of the Spanish American States, their internal polity and 
 organization, it will be seen from the paper, that the foreign Secretary 
 of England permits the most revolting doctrines to be laid down by 
 the Ambassador of France without one word of dissent or disapproba- 
 tion. Some of the questions that started to my mind when I under- 
 took to report the contents of this paper to you from having heard it 
 read, are not entirely solved, I must say, on a more deliberate exami- 
 nation of it. 
 
 In my interview with Mr. Canning on the 12th of this month, he 
 said that the Continental powers had intended to hold a Congress, not, 
 as they now alleged, to coerce the late Colonies, but to assist Spain 
 with their deliberations and advice towards recovering their supremacy 
 over them; but that Spain's proposals had been of a nature to frustrate 
 all their wishes. Their offer to assist her as above had lately been 
 made through the French Ambassador at Madrid. Spain, through the 
 same channel, had simply said in reply, that France, Russia, and the 
 other allies had nothing to do but to furnish ships, troops and money 
 
68 
 
 for the re-conquest, which being effected, Spain was ready to requite 
 them all by a grant of equivalent advantages to be drawn from the 
 Colonies. France had sent these proposals back to Spain as not fit to 
 be entertained, and thus as Mr. Canning seemed to infer, has vanished 
 the project of the Congress. One other scheme only remained, he 
 said, for reducing the Colonies, more wild however, as he added, than 
 all former ones. This was by an association in the form of a private 
 company to be composed of capitalists and bankers in sufficient num- 
 bers, and deriving a charter from Spain, which company with their 
 funds were to hire ships and troops for the reconquest and seek their 
 remuneration in certain exclusive rights of trade to be granted to them, 
 and also in the transfer to them of an interest in the mines of Mexico 
 and Peru. Some modification of this visionary scheme has since made 
 a figure in the journals of Europe, serving, in this country at least, to 
 excite the public derision. 
 
 But the most decisive blow to all despotick interference with the 
 new States is that which it has received in the President's Message at 
 the opening of Congress. It was looked for here with extraordinary 
 interest at this juncture, and I have heard that the British packet 
 which left Kew York the beginning of this month was instructed to 
 wait for it and bring it over with all speed. It is certain that this 
 vessel first brought it, having arrived at Falmouth on the 24th instant. 
 On its publicity in London which followed as soon afterwards as pos- 
 sible the credit of all the Spanish American securities immediately 
 rose, and the question of the final and complete safety of the new 
 States from all European coercion, is now considered as at rest. 
 
 I have the honor to remain, with very great respect your obt servt, 
 
 E/ICHAED EUSH.^ 
 1 From the Adams MSS. 
 
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 
 
 AND 
 
 EMANCIPATION UNDER MARTIAL LAW (1819-1842) 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS 
 
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 
 
 AND 
 
 EMANCIPATION UNDER MARTIAL LAW (1819-1842). 
 
 Reading recently a very suggestive English book, just 
 from the press, entitled " Imperium et Libertas," I came across 
 the following : *' Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff records, in his 
 ' Notes from a Diary,' the saying of an old English Jesuit : 
 ' It is surprising how much good a man may do in the world 
 if he allows others to take the credit of it.' " 
 
 This pregnant, if somewhat cynical, utterance was recalled 
 to my memory by the paper, naturally interesting to me, just 
 read by Mr. Ford. Looking back over the history of the United 
 States during the last century, I think there would be a gen- 
 eral concurrence of opinion that the two most notable utter- 
 ances of presidents of the United States during the whole 
 hundred years were the presidential Message of 1823, in which 
 the '* Monroe Doctrine," so called, Avas enunciated, and the 
 Emancipation Proclamation of President Lincoln, of January 
 1, 1863. Though separated one from the other by forty years 
 of time, the influence of those two pronunciamentos — for both 
 of them were pronunciamentos, in the strict sense of the 
 word — is still felt, and they are constantly referred to in 
 familiar speech. Every one, for instance, knows to a certain 
 extent what is meant when reference is made to the Monroe 
 Doctrine or to the Emancipation Proclamation. In common 
 parlance, the definite article is always prefixed to each. 
 
 In the paper just read, Mr. Ford has shown that, though 
 called b}?^ the name of Monroe, the famous doctrine set forth 
 in the Message of 1823 originated almost verbatim, literatim et 
 punctuatim, as well as in scope and spirit, with Monroe's Sec- 
 retary of State. In view of the continued and long discussion 
 
72 
 
 as to authorship, whether the doctrine in question took its 
 shape with President or Secretary, it is a matter of no little 
 surprise to me that the documentary evidence just produced 
 by Mr. Ford now first sees the light. It has quietly reposed 
 in the files at Quincy, perfectly accessible, through more than 
 forty years. Yet, strange as it appears and is, it never oc- 
 curred to me to look for it before, and apparently it never 
 occurred to my father so to do, when at work on the " Memoirs 
 of J. Q. Adams." Much included in that publication might 
 have been omitted to advantage, if the documents Mr. 
 Ford has to-day brought to light had there found a place 
 instead. 
 
 As to President Lincoln's Proclamation of Emancipation, the 
 second most memorable presidential utterance of a century, it 
 is a fact, though one which has not yet found its fully recog- 
 nized place in history, that Monroe's Secretary of State was 
 hardly less closely identified with it than with the first hardly 
 less memorable and famous utterance of forty years previous. 
 A year ago I had occasion to deliver an address at the dedica- 
 tion of the building of the State Historical Society at Madison, 
 Wisconsin. In the course of that address my subject led me 
 .to refer to the attitude taken by J. Q. Adams in certain memo- 
 arable episodes of his Congressional life connected with the 
 great Slavery debate, and I called attention to the fact that he 
 then enunciated the principle of constitutional, international 
 law, which afterwards furnished the basis of Lincoln's Procla- 
 mation. Though more than twenty years earlier, he in those 
 utterances clearly blazed the path to that great state paper, 
 and its far-reaching consequences. 
 
 The record on this point is of much historical interest. So 
 far as I developed it in the address to which I have referred 
 at Madison, I propose, for the purpose of convenient reference, 
 to incorporate it in our Proceedings with Mr. F'ord's paper, in 
 this way bringing the connection of J. Q. Adams with one of 
 those important State papers in close conjunction with his 
 connection with the other. 
 
 In doing so, moreover, stimulated by the success which has 
 attended Mr. Ford's examination of the files in connection 
 with the Monroe doctrine, I have put the papers at Quincy to 
 a similar examination in connection with the Emancipation 
 Proclamation. I now therefore incorporate into the Proceed- 
 
73 
 
 ings of to-day the record of J. Q. Adams relating to Emanci- 
 pation, not only so far as I had succeeded in exhuming it from 
 the Congressional Record and from the published Memoirs 
 at the time of the delivery of my Madison Address, but I sup- 
 plement and complete that record by a considerable body of 
 other, not uninteresting, material, the fruit of a more careful 
 examination of documents, published and unpublished. 
 I quote first from the Appendix to the Madison Address : 
 " In 1836, Mr. Adams represented in Congress what was then 
 the Massachusetts ' Plymouth ' district. In April of that year 
 the issue, which, just twenty-five years later, was to result in 
 overt civil war, was fast assuming shape ; for, on the 21st of 
 the month, the battle of San Jacinto was fought, resulting im- 
 mediately in the independence of Texas, and, more remotely, 
 in its annexation to the United States and the consequent war 
 of spoliation (1846-48) with Mexico. At the same time peti- 
 tions in great number were pouring into Congress from the 
 Northern states asking for the abolition of slavery, and the 
 prohibition of the domestic slave trade in the District of Co- 
 lumbia. The admission into the Union of Arkansas, with a 
 constitution recognizing slavery, was also under consideration. 
 In the course of a long personal letter dated April 4, 1836, 
 written to the Hon. Solomon Lincoln, of Hingham, a promi- 
 nent constituent of his, Mr. Adams made the following in- 
 cidental reference to the whole subject, indicative of the degree 
 to which the question of martial law as a possible factor in the 
 solution of the problem then occupied his mind : — 
 
 " ' The new pretensions of the slave representation in Congress, of a 
 right to refuse to receive petitions, and that Congress have no constitu- 
 tional power to abolish slavery or the slave trade in the District of 
 Columbia forced upon me so much of the discussion as I did take 
 upon me, but in which you are well aware I did not and could not speak 
 a tenth part of my mind. I did not, for example, start the question 
 whether by the law of God and of nature man can hold property, hered- 
 itary property in man — I did not start the question whether in the 
 event of a servile insurrection and war, Congress would not have com- 
 plete, unlimited control over the whole subject of slavery even to the 
 emancipation of all the slaves in the State where such insurrection should 
 break out, and for the suppression of which the freemen of Plymouth 
 and Norfolk counties, Massachusetts, should be called by acts of Con- 
 gress to pour out their treasures and to shed their blood. Had I spoken 
 
 10 
 
74 
 
 my mind on those two points the sturdiest of the abolitionists would have 
 disavowed the sentiments of their champion.' 
 
 *' A little more than seven weeks after thus writing, Mr. 
 Adams made the following entries in his diary : — 
 
 ^^ May 25th. — ^ At the House, the motion of Robertson, to recommit 
 Pinckney's slavery report, with instructions to report a resolution de- 
 claring that Congress has no constitutional authority to abolish slavery 
 in the District of Columbia, as an amendment to the motion for printing 
 an extra number of the report, was first considered. Robertson finished 
 his speech, which was vehement. . . . 
 
 " ' Immediately after the conclusion of Robertson's speech I addressed 
 the Speaker, but he gave the floor to Owens, of Georgia, one of the 
 signing members of the committee, who moved the previous question, 
 and refused to withdraw it. It was seconded and carried, by yeas and 
 nays. . . . 
 
 " ' The hour of one came, and the order of the day was called — a 
 joint resolution from the Senate, authorizing the President to cause 
 rations to be furnished to suffering fugitives from Indian hostilities in 
 Alabama and Georgia. Committee of the whole on the Union, and a 
 debate of five hours, in which I made a speech of about an hour, wherein 
 I opened the whole subject of the Mexican, Indian, Negro, and English 
 
 j» '^ It was in the course of this speech that Mr. Adams first 
 enunciated the principle of emancipation through martial law, 
 in force, under the Constitution, in time of war. He did so in 
 the following passage : — 
 
 "'Mr. Chairman, are you ready for all these wars? A Mexican 
 war ? A war with Great Britain if not with France ? A general In- 
 dian war ? A servile war ? And, as an inevitable consequence of them 
 all, a civil war ? For it must ultimately terminate in a war of colors as 
 well as of races. And do you imagine that, while with your eyes open 
 you are wilfully kindling, and then closing your eyes and blindly rushing 
 into them ; do you imagine that while in the very nature of things, your 
 own Southern and Southwestern States must be the Flanders of these 
 complicated wars, the battlefield on which the last great battle must be 
 fought between slavery and emancipation ; do you imagine that your 
 Congress will have no constitutional authority to interfere with the in- 
 stitution of slavery in any way in the States of this Confederacy ? Sir, 
 they must and will interfere with it — perhaps to sustain it by war ; 
 perhaps to abolish it by treaties of peace ; and they will not only pos- 
 
75 
 
 sess the constitutional power so to interfere, but they will be bound in 
 duty to do it by the express provisions of the Constitution itself. From 
 the instant that your slave-holding States become the theatre of war, 
 civil, servile, or foreign, from that instant the war powers of Congress 
 extend to interference with the institution of slavery in every way in 
 which it can be interfered with, from a claim of indemnity for slaves 
 taken or destroyed, to the cession of the State burdened with slavery to 
 a foreign power/ 
 
 " The following references to this speech are then found in 
 the diary : — 
 
 " May 29th. — * I was occupied all the leisure of the day and evening 
 in writing out for publication my speech made last Wednesday in the 
 House of Representatives — one of the most hazardous that I ever 
 made, and the reception of which, even by the people of my own District 
 and State, is altogether uncertain.* 
 
 " June 2d. — ' My speech on the distribution of rations to the fugi- 
 tives from Indian hostilities in Alabama and Georgia was published in 
 the National Intelligencer of this morning, and a subscription paper was 
 circulated in the House for printing it in a pamphlet, for which Gales 
 told me there were twenty-five hundred copies ordered. Several mem- 
 bers of the House of both parties spoke of it to me, some with strong 
 dissent' 
 
 " June 19th. — ' My speech on the rations comes back with echoes of 
 thundering vituperation from the South and West, and with one univer- 
 sal shout of applause from the North and East. This is a cause upon 
 which I am entering at the last stage of life, and with the certainty that 
 I cannot advance in it far ; my career must close, leaving the cause at 
 the threshold. To open the way for others is all that I can do. The 
 cause is good and great.' 
 
 " So far as the record goes, the doctrine was not again pro- 
 pounded by Mr. Adams until 1841. On the 7th of June of 
 that year he made a speech in the House of Representatives in 
 support of a motion for the repeal of the twenty-first rule of 
 the House, commonly known as ' the Atherton Gag.' Of this 
 speech no report exists, but in the course of it he again enun- 
 ciated the martial law theory of emancipation. The next day 
 he was followed in debate by C. J. Ingersoll, of Pennsylvania, 
 chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, who took 
 occasion to declare that what he had heard the day previous 
 had made his ' blood curdle with horror ' : — 
 
76 
 
 " * Mr. Adams here rose in explanation, and said he did not say that 
 in the event of a servile war of insurrection of slaves, the Constitution 
 of the United States would be at an end. What he did say was this, that 
 in the event of a servile war or insurrection of slaves, if the people of 
 the free States were called upon to suppress the insurrection, and to 
 spend their blood and treasure in putting an end to the war — a war in 
 which the distinguished Virginian, the author of the Declaration of In- 
 dependence, had said that " God has no attribute in favor of the master " 
 — then he would not say that Congress might not interfere with the 
 institution of slavery in the States, and that, through the treaty-making 
 power^ universal emancipation might not be the result.' 
 
 '^The following year the contention was again discussed in 
 the course of the memorable debate on the ' Haverhill Peti- 
 tion.' Mr. Adams was then bitterly assailed by Henry A. 
 Wise, of Virginia, and Thomas R Marshall, of Kentucky. Mr. 
 Adams at the time did not reply to them on this head ; but, 
 on the I4th of the following April, occasion offered, and he 
 then once more laid down the law on the subject, as he under- 
 stood it, and as it was subsequently put in force : — 
 
 " ' I would leave that institution to the exclusive consideration and 
 management of the States more peculiarly interested in it, just as long 
 as they can keep within their own bounds. So far I admit that Con- 
 gress has no power to meddle with it. As long as they do not step out 
 of their own bounds, and do not put the question to the people of the 
 United States, whose peace, welfare and happiness are all at stake, so 
 long I will agree to leave them to themselves. But when a member 
 from a free State brings forward certain resolutions, for which, instead 
 of reasoning to disprove his positions, you vote a censure upon him, and 
 that without hearing, it is quite another affair. At the time this was 
 done I said that, as far as I could understand the resolutions pro- 
 posed by the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Giddings], there were some of 
 them for which 1 was ready to vote, and some which I must vote against ; 
 and I will now tell this House, my constituents, and the world of man- 
 kind, that the resolution against which I should have voted was that in 
 which he declares that what are called the slave States have the exclu- 
 sive right of consultation on the subject of slavery. For that resolution 
 I never would vote, because I believe that it is not just, and does not 
 contain constitutional doctrine. I believe that so long as the slave 
 States are able to sustain their institutions without going abroad or 
 calling upon other parts of the Union to aid them or act on the subject, 
 so long I will consent never to interfere. 
 ^^" I have said this, and I repeat it ; but if they come to the free States 
 
77 
 
 and say to them you must help us to keep down our slaves, you must 
 aid us in an insurrection and a civil war, then I say that with that call 
 comes a full and plenary power to this House and to the Senate over 
 the whole subject. It is a war power. I say it is a war power, and 
 when your country is actually in war, whether it be a war of invasion 
 or a war of insurrection,'^Congress has power to carry on the war, and 
 must carry it on according to the laws of war ; and by the laws of war 
 an invaded country has all its laws and municipal institutions swept by 
 the board, and martial law takes the place of them. This power in 
 Congress has, perhaps, never been called into exercise under the pres- 
 ent Constitution of the United States. But when the laws of war are 
 in force, what, I ask, is one of those laws ? It is this : that when a 
 country is invaded, and two hostile armies are set in martial array, the 
 commanders of both armies have power to emancipate all the slaves in 
 the invaded territory.'^ Nor is this a mere theoretic statement. The 
 history of South America shows that the doctrine has been carried into 
 practical execution within the last thirty years. Slavery was abolished 
 in Colombia, first, by the Spanish General, Morillo, and, secondly, by 
 the American General, Bolivar. It was abolished by virtue of a mili- 
 tary command given at the head of the army, and its abolition continues 
 to be law to this day. It was abolished by the laws of war, and not by 
 municipal enactments ; the power was exercised by military command- 
 ers, under instructions, of course, from their respective Governments. 
 And here I recur again to the example of General Jackson. What are 
 you now about in Congress ? You are passing a grant to refund to 
 General Jackson the amount of a certain fine imposed upon him by a 
 Judge under the laws of the State of Louisiana. You are going to re- 
 fund him the money, with interest ; and this you are going to do because 
 the imposition of the fine was unjust. And why was it unjust? Be- 
 cause General Jackson was acting under the laws of war, and because 
 the moment you place a military commander in a district which is the 
 theatre of war, the laws of war apply to that district. . . . 
 
 " ' I might furnish a thousand proofs to show that the pretensions of 
 gentlemen to the sanctity of their municipal institutions under a state 
 of actual invasion and of actual war, whether servile, civil, or foreign, 
 is wholly unfounded, and that the laws of war do, in all such cases, take 
 the precedence. I lay this down as the law of nations. Nl say that the 
 military authority takes for the time the place of all municipal institu- 
 tions, and slavery among the rest ; and that, under that state of things, 
 so far from its being true that the States where slavery exists have 
 the exclusive management of the subject, not only the President of the 
 United States but the commander of the army has power to order the 
 universal emancipation of the slaves. I have given here more in detail 
 a principle which I have asserted on this floor before now, and of which 
 
78 
 
 I have no more doubt than that you, Sir, occupy that Chair. I give it 
 in its development, in order that any gentleman from any part of the 
 Union may, if he thinks proper, deny the truth of the position, and may 
 maintain his denial ; not by indignation, not by passion and fury, but 
 by sound and sober reasoning from the laws of nations and the laws of 
 war. And if my position can be answered and refuted, I shall receive 
 the refutation with pleasure ; I shall be glad to listen to reason, aside, 
 as I say, from indignation and passion. And if, by the force of reason- 
 ing, my understanding can be convinced, I here pledge myself to recant 
 what I have asserted. 
 
 " ' Let my position be answered ; let me be told, let my constituents 
 be told, the people of my State be told, — a State whose soil tolerates 
 not the foot of a slave, — that they are bound by the Constitution to 
 a long and toilsome march under burning summer suns and a deadly 
 Southern clime for the suppression of a servile war ; that they are 
 bound to leave their bodies to rot upon the sands of Carolina, to leave 
 their wives and their children orphans ; that those who cannot march 
 are bound to pour out their treasures while their sons or brothers are 
 pouring out their blood to suppress a servile, combined with a civil or 
 a foreign war, and yet that there exists no power beyond the limits of 
 the slave State where such war is raging to emancipate the slaves. I say, 
 let this be proved — I am open to conviction ; but till that conviction 
 .comes I put it forth not as a dictate of feeling, but as a settled maxim 
 of the laws of nations, that in such a case the military supersedes the 
 civil power.' 
 
 " With one exception, the only comment on this utterance 
 made by Mr. Adams in his diary was the following : ' My 
 speech of this day stung the slaveocracy to madness.' 
 
 "Mr. Adams does not seem to have referred to the subject 
 again on the floor of the House of Representatives, nor is any 
 allusion to it found in his subsequent published utterances. 
 His enunciation of the principle, however, was not forgotten. 
 The Civil War broke out exactly nineteen years from the time 
 (April, 1842) that Mr. Adams delivered in the House of Repre- 
 sentatives the speech from which the last of the foregoing ex- 
 tracts was taken. During the first year of the war, on the 30th 
 of August, 1861, Major-General John 0. Fremont, then in com- 
 mand of the Military Department of the West, issued a proc- 
 lamation in which, among other things, was the following — 
 the slaves ' of all persons in tlie State of Missouri, who shall 
 take up arms against the United States . . . are hereby de- 
 clared free men.' This proclamation, afterwards revoked by 
 
79 
 
 President Lincoln, immediately attracted much notice, and 
 was widely discussed. The New York ' Tribune,' in its issue 
 of September 1, 1861, contained an editorial entitled * John 
 Quincy Adams on Slavery Emancipation as Affected by War,* 
 in which the principles laid down in the speech of 1842 were 
 quoted, and applied to the action of General Fremont. The 
 article was very generally reprinted, and the record further ex- 
 amined. Subsequently, Charles Sumner made full use of the 
 material thus collected in a speech delivered before the Repub- 
 lican State Convention, at Worcester, Massachusetts, October 
 1, 1861.1 Mr. Sumner then said : ' No attempt to answer [Mr. 
 Adams] was ever made. . . . Meanwhile his words have stood 
 as a towering landmark and beacon.' Finally, Mr. WilHam 
 Whiting, of Boston, then Solicitor of the War Department, 
 incorporated (pp. 77-82) nearly all the extracts used by Mr. 
 Sumner, in a pamphlet entitled ' The War Powers of the 
 President,' published by him during the summer of 1862, 
 some months before the issuance of Lincoln's preliminar}^ 
 proclamation of the 22d of the following September." 
 
 So much for the record on this subject heretofore published. 
 I now turn to the " Memoirs," and the unpublished files at 
 Quincy. The " Memoirs " seem to indicate that this question 
 first occupied the attention of Mr. Adams sixteen years before 
 delivering his speech of April, 1836, in the House of Repre- 
 sentatives, and in connection with the famous discussion 
 which led to the so-called Missouri Compromise of 1820. 
 
 December 27, 1819. "... His [Jefferson's] Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence is an abridged Alcoran of political doctrine, laying open the 
 first foundations of civil society ; but he does not appear to have been 
 aware that it also laid open a precipice into which the slave-holding 
 planters of his country sooner or later must fall. . . . The seeds of the 
 Declaration of Independence are yet maturing. The harvest will be 
 what West, the painter calls the terrible sublime." 
 
 Mr. Adams at that time was Secretary of State in the first 
 Monroe administration, in which John C. Calhoun also served 
 as head of the War Department. The question of slavery 
 then first presented itself as a sectional issue, and was the 
 subject of angry debate. 
 
 1 Works, vol. vi. pp. 19-23 ; also vol. vii. p. 142. 
 
80 
 
 January 10, 1820. " The Missouri question has taken such hold of 
 my feelings and imagination that, finding my ideas connected with it 
 very numerous, but confused for want of arrangement, I have within 
 these few days begun to commit them to paper loosely as they arise in 
 my mind. There are views of the subject which have not yet been taken 
 by any of the speakers or writers by whom it has been discussed — views 
 which the time has not yet arrived for presenting to the public, but which 
 in all probability it will be necessary to present hereafter. I take it for 
 granted that the present question is a mere preamble — a titlepage to a 
 great tragic volume. I have hitherto reserved my opinions upon it, as 
 it has been obviously proper for me to do. The time may, and I think 
 will, come when it will be my duty equally clear to give my opinion, 
 and it is even now proper for me to begin the preparation of myself for 
 that emergency. The President thinks this question will be winked 
 away by a compromise. But so do not I. Much am I mistaken if it is 
 not destined to survive his political and individual life and mine." 
 
 The following conversation is recorded as having at this time 
 taken place between Mr. Adams and Mr. Calhoun : — 
 
 February 24, 1820. "I had some conversation with Calhoun on the 
 slave question pending in Congress. He said he did not think it would 
 produce a dissolution of the Union, but, if it should, the South would 
 be from necessity compelled to form an alliance, offensive and defensive, 
 with Great Britain. 
 
 " I said that would be returning to the colonial state. 
 
 *^He said, yes, pretty much, but it would be forced upon them. . . . 
 I pressed the conversation no further ; but if the dissolution of the 
 Union should result from the slave question, it is as obvious as any- 
 thing that can be foreseen of futurity, that it must shortly after- 
 wards be followed by the universal emancipation of the slaves. . . . 
 Slavery is the great and foul stain upon the North American Union, and 
 it is a contemplation worthy of the most exalted soul whether its total 
 abolition is or is not practicable : if practicable, by what means it may 
 be effected, and if a choice of means be within the scope of the object, 
 what means would accomplish it at the smallest cost of human suffer- 
 ance. A dissolution, at least temporary, of the Union, as now consti- 
 tuted, would be certainly necessary, and the dissolution must be upon a 
 point involving the question of slavery, and no other. The Union might 
 then be reorganized on the fundamental principle of emancipation. 
 This object is vast in its compass, awful in its prospects, sublime and 
 beautiful in its issue. A life devoted to it would be nobly spent or 
 sacrificed." 
 
 ^November 29, 1820. " If slavery be the destined sword in the hand 
 olf the destroying angel which is to sever the ties of this Union, the 
 
81 
 
 same sword will cut in sunder the bonds of slavery itself. A dis- 
 solution of the Union for the cause of slavery would be followed by a 
 servile war in the slave-holding States, combined with a war between 
 the two severed portions of the Union. It seems to me that its result 
 must be the extirpation of slavery from this whole continent; and, 
 calamitous and desolating as this course of events in its progress must 
 be, so glorious would be its final issue, that, as God shall judge me, I 
 dare not say that it is not to be desired." 
 
 These utterances were certainly prophetic. An interval of 
 sixteen years ensued during which the issue was quiescent. 
 In the meantime Mr. Adams had served one presidential term , 
 and in 1831 had been elected to the House of Representatives 
 from the " Plymouth " district. The question then came again 
 to the front, destined to occupy the attention of the country 
 for the next thirty years. 
 
 December 13, 1838. ^^The conflict between the principle of liberty 
 and the fact of slavery is coming gradually to an issue. Slavery has 
 now the power, and falls into convulsions at the approach of freedom. 
 That the fall of slavery is predetermined in the counsels of Omnipo- 
 tence I cannot doubt ; it is a part of the great moral improvement in 
 the condition of man, attested by all the records of history. But the 
 conflict will be terrible, and the progress of improvement perhaps retro- 
 grade before its final progress to consummation." 
 
 The mind of Mr. Adams seems at once to have reverted to 
 the conclusions reached by him in 1820 ; and those conclusions 
 he set forth in the speech of May 25, 1836. The following 
 passages in the " Memoirs " relate to that speech : — 
 
 March 3, 1842. " Mr. Giddings came to enquire the precise extent to 
 which I hold the subject of slavery in the States subject to the jurisdic- 
 tion 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 ques- 
 tion 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." 
 
 April 17, 1842. " I had called yesterday at the National Intelligencer 
 office, and asked Mr. Gales to send me the slips of my speech of yes- 
 terday to be published to-morrow, for my revisal. He sent them this 
 evening — seven columns of small print, reported by Stansbury. I em- 
 
 11 
 
82 
 
 ployed two hours in revising them, and found very few and slight cor- 
 rections 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 ! " 
 
 The following extracts from the correspondence also relate 
 to the speech : — 
 
 Plymouth, Mass., May 7, 1836. 
 Dear Sir, — ... As to the opinion of your constituents upon the 
 subject of Slavery, I should think a very large majority of them are 
 opposed to it, many of whom, however, disapprove of the measures of 
 the Anti Slavery party, of which number I do not hesitate to say I 
 am. — Some of your friends in this District are very much interested 
 in behalf of the slave, and would have them all free, regardless of con- 
 sequences. — Our town, with a single exception, has been free from 
 any mob spirit, and it has been a great relief to the orderly portion of 
 our inhabitants that the Anti Slavery Lecturers, have kept from us, 
 public opinion in our town is decidedly against the incendiary move- 
 ments of the fanatical part of the Abolition party. — . . . 
 And remain, with very great respect, 
 
 S. Sampson. 
 
 To this letter from a constituent Mr. Adams replied as 
 follows : — 
 
 S. Sampson Esq' Collector of the Customs — Plymouth — Mass^? 
 
 Washington 21 May 1836. 
 
 Dear Sir, — ... This subject of Slavery, which is gradually and 
 irresistibly absorbing all others in the deliberations of Congress, is, as 
 you know one of extreme delicacy with reference to the Union of 
 these States, and the complicated System of our National and State 
 Governments. My own opinions upon the subject are those of a 
 native of the Commonwealth whose children take pride in the recol- 
 lection that in the first Census of the People taken under the Constitu- 
 tion of the United States, she stood alone in the return of the word 
 "none" upon the column under the head of " Slaves." I hold Slavery 
 in utter abhorrence, and look forward to the time when it shall vanish 
 from the face of the Earth, as one of the great stages in the improve- 
 ment of the condition of man upon this terraqueous globe. 
 
 But in the political Constitution of this Union, I am under Bonds. 
 The People of the/ree States (by which I here mean the States with- 
 out Slaves) have formed a federal compact with those in which Slavery 
 forms a part of their political system, and of the social condition of 
 their inhabitants. The terms of this compact I take to be that so far 
 
83 
 
 as Slavery is an institution of internal and domestic policy, the free 
 and the Slave States shall be respectively left by each other, to manage 
 their own affairs in their own way. That Slavery, and all that code of 
 Laws by which it is established and maintained shall be left exclusively 
 to the regulation of the States themselves in their separate and indepen- 
 dent capacities. That with the legislation of the Slave States upon 
 these subjects, so far as it relates to internal and domestic policy, with- 
 out encroaching upon the rights of the free States or of their People, 
 the free States shall not interfere. 
 
 And the people of the free States have in the national compact gone 
 further. They have not recognized Slavery, as a lawful condition in 
 the relations between men. They have not acknowledged Slavery, as 
 an element of the common Constitution. They have studiously, and it 
 might almost be said affectedly, avoided the use of the word, even while 
 making provision for the thing. But in the spirit of concession to the 
 Slave holding States they did stipulate, first that the Slave-holders 
 should be allowed a representation in the national Legislature for their 
 Slaves, under the whimsical denomination of all "other persons," and 
 secondly that they would allow no refuge within their borders to the 
 fugitive Slave, now described as a " person held to service, or labour " 
 — but would deliver up such person, on claim of the party to whom 
 such service or labour may be due. 
 
 And further the free States have concurred with the Slave holding 
 States in giving to Congress the power to provide for calling forth the 
 militia to suppress insurrection and in making it their duty to protect 
 each of the Slave-holding States (on the application of its Legislature, 
 or of its executive, when the Legislature cannot be convened) against 
 domestic violence. 
 
 We are therefore bound by the national compact not only to abstain 
 from all measures, the tendency of which would be to provoke insurrec- 
 tion among the Slaves but to give all our aid and exertions to suppress 
 insurrection if it should break out. I cannot approve therefore of the 
 Anti Slavery Societies nor of the movements of the Abolitionists urging 
 legislative action for the suppression of Slavery. Nor can I vote for, 
 or support the prayer of any petition for the abolition of Slavery or the 
 Slave trade in the District of Columbia at this time. 
 
 But on the other hand I cannot subscribe to the doctrine, that the 
 power to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, does not 
 include the power to abolish Slavery. On the contrary I hold as firmly 
 to the opinion that it does include the power, as I do to the belief that 
 there is a ruler of the Universe, and that I am accountable to him for 
 my opinions as well as of my actions. They are articles of the same 
 faith, and in my mind and heart are indissolubly together. Nor can I 
 give my assent to a great portion of the report of the select Commit- 
 
84 
 
 tee, to whom the Abolition Petitions were referred, and a copy of which 
 I will send you with this letter. I dissent from each and every one of 
 their resolutions, the first and second of which they were instructed by 
 the House to report ; against which instructions I recorded my vote. 
 Their third resolution they were not instructed to report and it is still 
 more exceptionable than the first two, because it strikes directly at the 
 Constitutional right of Petition, and at the freedom of debate in the 
 House. I have thought it proper thus candidly to avow to you my opinions 
 upon this subject — first as to one of my constituents holding as I believe 
 sentiments personally friendly to me; and secondly as to an officer of 
 the Government under the present Administration, bound in duty to its 
 support; and perhaps approving more than I am able to do, its measures 
 and its general policy. I shall probably express some of these opinions 
 in the House before the close of the present Session, as well as upon 
 other subjects, if possible still more momentous and upon which my 
 views are more adverse to those of the present Administration, even, than 
 they are to the question upon Slavery and the Slave trade which this 
 report has brought up for discussion. I allude to the Mexican war with 
 which we are threatened, and to the Indian and Negro war, already rag- 
 ing within our borders. . . . 
 
 The following is from a letter addressed to Mr. Adams by 
 Benjamin Lundy, the well-known emancipator, whose property 
 was, two years later, destroyed by the pro-slavery mob that 
 fired Pennsylvania Hall, Philadelphia : — 
 
 Philadelphia, 5th Mo. 27th, 1836. 
 Esteemed Friend : — ... I percieve the " ice is broken " in the 
 House of Representatives. Perseverance, perseverance^ my friend ! 
 Again, I am in great haste — 
 
 Most Respectfully Thine, &c., 
 Hon. J. Q. Adams. B. Lundy. 
 
 To this Mr. Adams replied, referring to the speech of 
 May 25: — 
 
 Washington, 2 June, 1836. 
 Mt Friend Benjamin Lundy — Philadelphia. 
 
 . . . Yes — "The ice is broken," in the House of Representatives ; 
 and you will see in the National Intelligencer of this day, how^ I have 
 been obliged to break it. I have not yet been able to obtain permis- 
 sion from the House to offer the two Resohitions, calling for information 
 from the President, relating to our affairs with Mexico, nor even to 
 assign the reasons for my vote on the Slavish Resolutions of the Slavery 
 Committee. But I have taken the occasion of another measure to 
 throw out some reflections on both those subjects as well as upon our 
 
85 
 
 Indian War, which I hope may lead our countrymen to think of them 
 seriously. The speech will be printed in a pamphlet, and I will send 
 you a copy of it. . . . 
 
 The following letters and replies relate to the same speech : 
 
 BoRDENTOWN, May 30, 1836. 
 Dear Sir, — I trust that you will soon give us, in extenso, — as if 
 it were a full, written discourse — your late speech relating to the 
 Texian question. On this head, our countrymen — including those of 
 the middle and northern States — seem to need authoritative lessons 
 of morality and policy. I have been shocked at the profligate sentiments 
 and dispositions which have been so generally displayed, and regard them 
 altogether as more ominous for the Union and the American character, 
 than anything which has occurred. . . . 
 
 ' Robert Walsh. 
 
 Washington, 3 June, 1836. 
 Robert Walsh Esq!, Bordentown, N. J. 
 
 Dear Sir, — Your Letters of the 5^ and 30^ ultimo have been duly 
 received. My speech on the resolution for issuing rations to the fugi- 
 tives from Indian Hostilities in Alabama and Georgia, made on the 
 25- ultimo was published in the National Intelligencer yesterday, and 
 will be printed in a pamphlet. The absurd rules of the House of Rep- 
 resentatives, construed as they are by a slave-holding Speaker sustained 
 by a presidential electioneering majority, seal the lips of every member 
 of the House, when the Speaker and majority so please, upon the sub- 
 ject really before the House, and give unbounded license in Committee 
 of the Whole, to say anything, upon any subject, be the question before 
 the Committee what it may. On the morning upon which my speech 
 was made, the Gag — that is, the Previous Question had been applied 
 to three Resolutions on Slavery, reported by a Committee on the Abo- 
 lition Petitions — The first of these Resolutions was 
 
 " That Congress possess no Constitutional authority, to interfere in 
 any way^ with the institution of Slavery in any of the States of this 
 Union." 
 
 I had voted, with only eight other members of the House, against 
 this resolution, and as the sturdiest of the Abolition Petitions had 
 not denied this position, but it had been admitted by them all, and as I 
 knew my vote, without argument, would startle multitudes of my own 
 constituents, I asked of the House only five minutes of time to give 
 my reasons for my vote, and had been denied. I had twice asked per- 
 mission of the House to offer two resolutions calling for information 
 respecting the state of our affairs with Mexico — and had been denied. 
 
86 
 
 The second time, by a minority of the House, because it requires a 
 majority of two thirds to suspend the Rules. 
 
 I was therefore compelled to make the Resolution for distributing 
 rations to the fugitives from Indian revenge in Alabama and Georgia, 
 the text for a commentary on Mexico, Texas, Indian Wars and Treaties, 
 and Slavery ; and to compress into one speech matter redundant for 
 three or four. It was accordingly desultory, and rendered more so by 
 the perpetual interruptions against which I was obliged to make my 
 way. My opinions on the whole subject presented views so different 
 from those of any one here, that I scarcely knew how they would be 
 received by any party. On the Mexican subject I was much aided by 
 the information that I had gathered from the papers of Columbus in 
 the National Gazette . On the resolution that Congress possess no 
 constitutional power to interfere in any way, with the institution of 
 Slavery, in any of the States of this Confederacy, my positions will be 
 as unexpected to the public as they were to the House. Yet there is 
 no principle of which I feel more confident. No one has yet contested 
 my argument on that point, in the House, and Mr. Wise who repre- 
 sents the District including Southampton, in Virginia, and who refused 
 to vote on the Resolution, because he denied the right of Congress to 
 pass any Resolution at all upon the subject, distinctly admitted in an- 
 swering me, that Congress have the constitutional right to interfere, 
 in the Institution of Slavery in the States, for its support. The right 
 of interference, in every way, in the case of war, appears to me so 
 clear that I know not how it can be contested. The greatest excitement 
 apparent in the House was on the charges against the policy of the 
 present Administration towards the Indians and particularly against 
 Georgia and Alabama. Feeble answers were attempted at the time, 
 by members from the two States, as well as by Mr. Thompson of South 
 Carolina ; and I have private [intimations] from several of them, that 
 they intend to justify their policy, and that of the present Administra- 
 tion, beyond the power of reply. 
 
 What the public opinion of the North will be upon my speech, is 
 altogether uncertain in my own estimation. Land jobbing and Presi- 
 dent jobbing have so perverted the mind and heart of a large portion 
 of our People, and they work so insidiously upon the feelings and con- 
 duct of the whole mass, that truth finds an ear as unwilling in the 
 primary assemblies as in the Halls of the Capitol. For the last twelve 
 months the subserviency of the North to Southern Slavery has been so 
 obsequious and sycophantic, that I am sometimes constrained to doubt 
 whether I was born among a Nation of Freemen. These ebullitions of 
 Texian enthusiasm have all the appearance to me of Fraud playing 
 upon the wires of Frenzy. And who could have believed that it is the 
 Democracy of New York and Pennsylvania, that is running in the 
 front ranks [of] this recreant race of servility ? . . . 
 
87 
 
 Akdalusia, [Penn.,] June 5, 1836. 
 
 My dear Sir, — I cannot deny myself the pleasure of thanking 
 you for the high gratification which I received last evening from read- 
 ing your speech in the Nat! Intelligencer. The most uncomfortable 
 symptom of the strange distemper which afflicts the country, is the 
 conduct of some of our public men, who seem to vibrate perpetually 
 between two panic fears — the dread of offending the Executive, and 
 the terror of the populace. While many of them are overawed by the 
 presence and the patronage of persons in office, there are others subdued 
 by an anxiety scarcely less servile, about the newspapers and the 
 rabble. Between them, the voice of manliness and independence has 
 little chance of being heard. It was therefore with singular satisfaction 
 that I felt it break forth, so fully, distinctly and powerfully, in a tone 
 the more grateful, because always associated with delightful recollec- 
 tions. Our people seem to be running wild with all sorts of infatua- 
 tion, and never required more than now to be rebuked into sobriety. I 
 pray you not to renounce that very necessary, tho* irksome function 
 which no one can perform so successfully as yourself, and to let us 
 enjoy frequent manifestations of that intellect which cannot be re- 
 pressed, and will not be suppressed. 
 
 Present my best respects to Mrs. Adams, and believe me always 
 
 With great regard 
 
 N. BiDDLE. 
 Hon^^« John Q. Adams, Washington, D. C. 
 
 Washington, 10 June, 1836. 
 Nicholas Biddlb Esq^- Philadelphia. 
 
 My dear Sir, — Your Letter of the 6^^ inst* comes equally cheering 
 and seasonable. " Facit indignatio versum " — My Speech was ex- 
 torted from me by the foolery of the three Resolutions reported by the 
 Slavery Committee and the cormorant appetite with which the House 
 had swallowed them. It is remarkable that although I have been at- 
 tacked in the House with the bitterest virulence, for my commentary 
 on the tender mercies of Georgia towards the Indians and for my pre- 
 diction that if we take Texas, John Bull will take Cuba, not one word 
 has been said in reply to my assertion that as incidental to the War 
 power, Congress must in the event of a war in any of the slave-hold- 
 ing States, possess the authority to interfere in every way with the 
 institution of Slavery, in the State within which the war would exist. 
 I have not found a man hardy enough to deny the position. The 
 speech as printed in the Intelligencer makes me say that I do not admit 
 that even the Peace Powers of Congress give them authority to in- 
 terfere in any way, with Slavery in the States. I said directly the 
 reverse. I said I did not admit that Congress possess no authority to 
 
88 
 
 interfere with Slavery, in any way — even among the Peace Powers. 
 Thej have at least the power to interfere with Slavery, in the way of 
 supporting it. 
 
 I feel myself strengthened in confidence of the correctness of my 
 own opinions by the concurrence of yours; and I am encouraged by 
 your exhortation to continue my endeavours to open the eyes of our 
 country to the precipice before them. Upon this subject however I 
 need the curb rather than the spur. My course in the House of Repre- 
 sentatives has put me to the ban of all the Presidential parties, and 
 made me obnoxious to all the Sectional rapacity of the South and the 
 West. The Whigs in both Houses, and the senatorial party in their 
 controversies with the President, consummated their own ruin, by the 
 false position which they took in the dispute with France, and the wan- 
 ton attack upon the House of Representatives on the closing night of 
 the last Congress, so strangely renewed by Mr. Webster in his Speech 
 to the Senate on the 14 of last January. Assailed as I was indirectly 
 in that speech, it was impossible for me to remain silent, and it was 
 equally impossible for me to speak without blasting the last hope of his 
 supporters for the presidential succession. These constituted perhaps 
 a majority of the people of my own State, and accordingly he and his 
 partizans have undertaken to demolish me in my own District, where 
 they have already given notice of their intention to contest my reelec- 
 tion to the next Congress. On the other hand, my influence and my 
 vote excluded David Newland from the House of Representatives, and 
 thereby lost to a certainty the vote of North Carolina to Mr. Van 
 Buren, if the election should come into the House. This of course lost 
 me all possible favour with the Van Burenites, and my disclosure of 
 the purpose to plunge us into a war with Mexico for the conquest of 
 Texas and the restoration of Slavery has irretrievably ruined me with 
 the Jacksonites. 
 
 I have received intimations from some of the dearest personal friends 
 that I have upon earth, that I have undertaken more than, in the 
 present condition of our country, it is possible for man to perform. 
 That we must be governed by parties, and that every party must have 
 a head. That all political conduct must be accommodated to the main 
 object of party pursuits, and that to bid defiance one day to one pres- 
 idential Candidate, and the next day to his competitor is mere political 
 Quixotism, — sallying forth in search of Giants, and coming in conflict 
 with every Windmill. To these kind and friendly warnings I scarcely 
 know what to reply, but that having deliberately fixed my purpose of 
 making this experiment upon the virtue and intelligence of the People, 
 and having persevered in it through good and evil Fortune, it is too 
 late for me to depart from it now. I have made moral principle, and 
 not party or selfish purpose the standard of my conduct throughout my 
 
89 
 
 political life, and there is too little of the stake left that I can lose for 
 me now to turn round and become a mere partizan. 
 
 We are drawing towards the close of the Session. Slavery, and the 
 presidential succession are the Azote and the Oxygen of our atmos- 
 pheric air. In them we live and move and have our being. There is 
 some danger that even before Congress rises we shall recognize Texas 
 as a Sovereign and Independent State. And by their next meeting 
 there is equal probability that there will be ready for the consideration 
 of the Senate a treaty for the annexation of Texas to this Union, and 
 if I may rely upon information which ought to be correct, Mexico is 
 ready for a very moderate indemnity to sanction this dismemberment of 
 her domain, and to acquiesce in this Revolution. It has been breeding 
 and maturing through the whole course of this Administration, and the 
 utter impotence, political and military, of the Mexican Confederacy, 
 signalized by the, [as] yet unaccountable, but too well authenticated defeat 
 and capture of Santa Anna, present an ungracious probability that the 
 project will be consummated even before the change of dynasty from 
 the Tennessean Hero to the Northern Man with Southern principles. 
 This acquisition of Texas, indissolubly connected as it is with the issue 
 now making up between Slavery and Emancipation, forms a subject of 
 contemplation too colossal for the grasp of my understanding ! Is the 
 whole Continent of North America, to constitute one Confederation, or 
 one Military Monarchy ? Has Mexico been emancipated from Spain, 
 only to be conquered by the Anglo Saxon race of our Union ? This 
 overflowing of our population into Texas, with the express design of 
 breaking it off from Mexico, and annexing it to the Northern Confed- 
 eracy under the law of perpetual Slavery, has an ominous aspect upon 
 our futurity, and the facility with which it will prove that Mexico may 
 be stripped of her Territories, — where will it end ? I am afraid of 
 trusting my own speculations and must wait for a few more facts — 
 Give me your thoughts. . . . 
 
 The following was addressed to Dr. George Parkman, of 
 Boston, a life-long political friend of Mr. Adams, whose mur- 
 der, by Prof. John W. Webster, of Harvard University, in 
 November, 1849, led to one of the most memorable trials in 
 American criminal annals. 
 
 Washington, 22 June, 1836. 
 Dr. George Parkman, New York. 
 
 My dear Sir, — I enclose in a packet with this Letter twelve 
 copies of my Speech upon the distribution of rations to the sufferers 
 by Indian hostilities in Alabama and Georgia, conformably to the re- 
 quest in your favour of the 16^'' inst*. 
 
 I would that the sentiment of compassion and sympathy for that 
 
 12 
 
90 
 
 hapless race of native Americans, which we are exterminating with 
 such merciless and perjfidious cruelty, extorted from me on that occasion, 
 could contribute even a mite to alleviate or avert their fate. 
 
 Accept once more the assurance of my warmest wishes, and prayers 
 that your European tour may be prosperous and profitable to yourself 
 and to all your family ; and that in due time you may all with equal 
 satisfaction return to your Country and to your friends. Among whom 
 I hope you will not cease to consider as ever faithfully 
 
 Yours — 
 
 The following, from one of the abolitionists of the day, is 
 not without interest as shedding light on the conditions then 
 prevailing in the free States : — 
 
 Philadelphia : 5!^ rao : 29'^ 1836. 
 
 Esteemed Friend, — I would not occupy thy important time by 
 the perusal of a solitary line from my pen, were it not that I hold thee 
 richly entitled to the thanks of every friend of humanity, for the bold 
 and noble stand thou hast made, in relation to the affairs of Texas. I 
 rejoice that thy eyes have been opened, so as to discern that the hand 
 of Providence may clearly be seen, as the director of the movements of 
 the despised, grossly traduced, vilified, and persecuted, friends of Human 
 Rights and eternal Righteous Union, the Abolitionists of the country. 
 
 Thro' our instrumentality facts have been noted and preserved rela- 
 tive to the wicked objects and intentions of the slave-holding and slave- 
 trading Section of our Nation, which would otherwise have kept from 
 view their base and detestable machinations for the purpose of eter- 
 nizing the curse of Slavery upon us. 
 
 I trust thou hast discovered that no time should be lost in proclaim- 
 ing the whole truth upon the housetops, that our Northern brethren 
 maj feel their own danger and save themselves from speedy ruin. 
 
 It is useless for me to draw a picture of the necessary events which 
 would follow the introduction of Texas into this Union, under its present 
 auspices, and the acknowledged designs of the instigators of the present 
 revolt. Thy long intimacy with the institutions of our government, 
 and the bearing of political movements upon its ultimate welfare, render 
 it entirely supererrogatory. Thy experience, knowledge and wisdom, 
 will easily conceive a full-length likeness of the Angel of Judgment and 
 Justice (the day of mercy having passed by) whose phial of Retribution 
 is ready to be poured out upon this guilty Nation, whose measure I be- 
 lieve will be full, if Texas is added as a Slave Section. 
 
 Nothing but the real, permanent prosperity of my Country, which I 
 love with all her faults, would have induced me to brave the obloquy, 
 abuse, &c. which has awaited the little band who were coadjutors with 
 me in rending the vail which cohered the deformities of republican 
 
91 
 
 despotism, and in unmasking the monster which was about to plant his 
 iron hoof upon the neck of the Genius of Liberty, who had, under God, 
 led our Fathers thro' the dark valley of the Shadow of death, in the 
 revolutionary Struggle, and placed their feet upon the rock of deliver- 
 ance from Tyranny and oppression. 
 
 Excuse me, my dear friend, for I love the very Sound of Liberty, and 
 I hope that for the remainder of thy life, which is not likely to be very 
 long, thou wilt unflinchingly sustain her broad principles, and defend 
 her glorious Temple, so that at the end of thy course thou mayst leave 
 an enduring monument in the hearts of her children, and be welcomed 
 among the Spirits of the just made perfect. 
 
 As ever thy friend 
 
 Edwin P. Atlee, M. D. 
 
 J. Q. Adams. N?. 152 N. 5^ St. 
 
 P. S. My best respects to W"" Slade. I hope to see you both on 
 your return home. — If any of thy speeches should be printed in pamph- 
 let form, may I request a copy ? E. P. A. 
 
 Philadelphia : Q^}} mo : 16. 1836. 
 
 Highly esteemed Friend, — As coming events cast their Shadows 
 before, and the whole chain of proceedings during this session of Con- 
 gress have conclusively shown that the deep laid plot of engrafting 
 the system of Slavery, not only on the descendants of Africa in the 
 South, but upon the freemen of the North, was foreseen and predicted 
 by the Antislavery body : and as every moment is now precious for the 
 enlightenment of our fellow citizens, I have dared again to address 
 thee, for the purpose of asking whether the deep interest thou art now 
 actuated by, and the consequent clear vision thy enquiries have pro- 
 duced, would warrant thy appearance before the three Antislavery So- 
 cieties of this City and County, as their Orator, for the ensuing 4*'^ of 
 July? — On the same day 1833, I first appeared before my fellow- 
 citizens, in an address on the subject of Slavery, a copy of which I sent 
 thee. The cause being one nearest to my heart, I publicly pledged 
 myself to deliver a similar address every 4^- of July as long as I lived, 
 and mental and corporeal strength would admit, and as our Country 
 was cursed by this foul stain. 
 
 The following Jan^^ I spoke again before the Female Society of this 
 City. This address was also published, and a copy sent to thee. 
 
 A young attorney of excellent standing delivered an Oration on the 
 4'.'} of July, 1834. 
 
 The state of excitement was so great last year that no person could 
 be found courageous enough to come forward. Finding this to be the 
 case, I had it announced that I should appear again. This address was 
 
92 
 
 extemporaneous and without notes, and was delivered before a highly 
 respectable audience, in the Musical Fund Hall. It was not published, 
 altho' it gave great satisfaction to the auditory, among whom were 
 several Slaveholders, who treated me with cordial attention after the 
 meeting. 
 
 The coming 4!^ has no orator engaged, and as I do not wish to im- 
 pose myself upon the public, and as even a distant agent or member of 
 the Anti-Slavery Society would not probably be acceptable, just now, 
 to the community, I do most heartily, on behalf of the Societies here, 
 desire thou mayst grant the request. If more agreeable to thee to 
 dwell upon Constitutional, inherent, individual rights &c — without 
 bearing too heavily upon the Sin of Slavery we shall be entirely 
 satisfied. 
 
 Please reply as soon as convenient, and confer an additional favor 
 upon the Friends of Freedom, and thy sincere friend 
 
 E. P. Atlee. 
 
 J. Q. Adams. 
 
 The following is the reply of Mr. Adams : — 
 
 Washington, 25 June, 1836. 
 Friend E. P. Atlee — Philadelphia. 
 
 Respected Friend, — I have lately received two letters from you 
 in relation to the course which I have during the present session of 
 Congress pursued on subjects connected with that part of our political 
 condition which results from the existence of Slavery in our Confeder- 
 ated Republic — the most unfortunate, most perplexing and most 
 alarming of all the elements of our civil and political Institutions. In 
 the National Intelligencer of this morning you will find the Report 
 of my part in the debate upon the Bill for the admission of the State 
 of Arkansas into the Union, and I presume you will perceive on the 
 one hand how far short my opinions on the subject of American Slavery 
 fall of the standard which you believe to be that of the true faith, and 
 on the other how very far my concurrence with your opinions tran- 
 scends that which throughout the present Session has been the trium- 
 phant Standard of Slavery in the House of Representatives of the 
 United States. You will see that the utmost extent to which I ven- 
 tured to offer a proposition restrictive upon the overbearing influence 
 of Slavery, was a proviso withholding the assent of Congress from that 
 Article in the Constitution of the State of Arkansas which prohibits 
 the Legislature itself from emancipating Slaves, without the consent 
 of their owners. You will see that upon this proposition only 32 
 votes in its favour could be obtained in the Committee of the Whole to 
 90 votes against it. And as in the Committee of the Whole, the yeas 
 and nays cannot be taken, so you will find that when my proposition 
 
93 
 
 was renewed in the House, the yeas and nays were not allowed to be 
 taken upon it there. They were cut off by the previous question, 
 called for, in a manner unexampled, by a Slave-holding member — 
 authorized, against the rules and usages of the House, by a Slave-hold- 
 ing Speaker, and sustained upon my appeal from his decision by a 
 majority of ten votes. You will also see that of the 97 votes which 
 thus sustained the decision of the Speaker five were given by members 
 from Pennsylvania, and twenty by members from the State of New 
 York. Had these votes been on the Liberty list, upon this question, 
 the Speaker's decision would have been reversed by a vote of 112 to 
 72. Nineteen members from Pennsylvania and only eight from New 
 York voted against the decision. 
 
 The effect of the Resolution of the House to lay upon the table with- 
 out further notice, all petitions, memorials, propositions, or papers re- 
 lating to Slavery, or the abolition of Slavery, was at once a suppression 
 of the right of Petition, and an unconstitutional restriction upon the 
 rights of the members of the House to offer Resolutions upon sub- 
 jects of great public importance ; and perfectly within the scope of de- 
 liberation in the House ever since the existence of the Government. 
 
 The effect of the decision of the Speaker was to deny to me the 
 freedom of debate upon the subject immediately before the House, and 
 to deprive me of the constitutional right of having the yeas and nays 
 recorded upon the question of an amendment which I had offered to a 
 Bill under consideration in the House. 
 
 Both these operations have been effected by the Representatives of 
 Freemen, in their own States unsullied with the taint of Slavery — and 
 above all by Representatives of the People of New York and Pennsyl- 
 vania. The Representatives must be supposed to speak the voice of 
 their constituents. It is a new feature in the character of the people of 
 New York and Pennsylvania, to take the side of Slavery against Free- 
 dom : how long they will chuse to sustain this position in the affairs 
 and opinions of the world, it is not for me to foretell. 
 
 The 4-1' of July is the day fixed upon for closing the present session 
 of Congress. I shall, of course, be necessarily detained here until after 
 that day. I would very cheerfully address the Anti Slavery Societies 
 on that day, but, although concurring in their abstract opinions concern- 
 ing Slavery, and lamenting the delusion, which especially for the last 
 year, has infected the soil of Freedom itself with an unnatural and 
 fanatical sympathy with Slavery, it would be of little avail that I should 
 speak to the people of Pennsylvania, on their own Soil, while my voice 
 is stifled by the will of their Representatives in the Legislative Hall of 
 the Nation. 
 
 I believe that the final issue between Slavery and Emancipation (a 
 word which I prefer to abolition,) is to be made up on this Continent of 
 
94 
 
 North America. I would hope if I could that it will be made up 
 peaceably, and settled without bloodshed — but it must come. It is 
 approaching by such means as it is the special prerogative of Provi- 
 dence to employ. The Society of Friends are among the most effec- 
 tive instruments to the attainment of the end, because all their paths 
 are Peace. Bound as I am by the compact in the Constitution of the 
 United States, in my political capacity I have endeavoured to retard 
 rather than to hasten the conflict between the parties which must ulti- 
 mately be unavoidable. What I have done hitherto has been defen- 
 sively to maintain my own rights, and the free institutions of the 
 Country. I hope they will not perish in my hands — but the People 
 themselves can alone effectually maintain them. 
 
 I am very respectfully your friend — 
 
 The following was from Josiah Quincy, Mr. Adams's life- 
 long friend, then President of Harvard College : — 
 
 Cambridge, [Mass.,] 13 June, 1836. 
 
 My dear Sir, — You will not, I trust, deem it obtrusive if I take 
 the liberty to express to you my thanks for the noble stand you have 
 made against the projects which have for their intent the admission of 
 Texas into the Union ; and also for the notice you have given of your 
 determination to resist the extension of slavery to Arkansas. 
 
 I know not that any congressional exertion of this, or any former 
 session, has been received, in this quarter with more general and heart- 
 felt applause, than has been yours, relative to Texas. 1 suppose, how- 
 ever, the event is inevitable, as I take it for granted to be the policy of 
 administration and the coincident interest of the slave States. Should 
 it take place, I should deem it the deathblow to the Constitution had 
 not that instrument already received so many wounds of that kind as to 
 show that it possesses a mysterious vitality which sets calculation at 
 defiance. 
 
 As to Slavery in the new States, I think that Northern men owe it 
 to their own character, as well as to that of their country, to meet every 
 attempt to extend the evil to new States with the most decided oppo- 
 sition. It is the only way in which they can manifest that the acqui- 
 escence they have shown in the continuance of slavery in the Union 
 has been compelled by their respect to the relations and obligations of 
 the Constitution. Let their acquiescence be limited by those obliga- 
 tions. Let every attempt to extend the iniquitous traffic in human 
 beings, and to plant the evil in other states, be manfully and persever- 
 ingly resisted. . . . 
 
 Josiah Quincy. 
 
 Hon. John Q. Adams. 
 
95 
 
 Cambridge, June 15^^, 1836. 
 
 Mr DEAR Sir, — Accept my thanks for an authenticated copy of 
 your speech, which I received yesterday. I had read it per saltum, in 
 the newspapers, but I was not contented with those scraps, which always 
 smelt of the dish and the caterer. But what you have sent me is the 
 whole head and pluck — heart, lungs, liver and lights, and I assure you 
 I feasted on the savoury repast, but it had this difference from our ordi- 
 nary meals — the more I swallowed the more I longed for, without 
 feeling satiety ; and digestion has gone on to entire satisfaction, and 
 with no small delight. Even the rascally Atlas extols the speech, 
 and to that degree that he felt the necessity of saying something im- 
 pudent of the speaker, for his flying alone like an Eagle, instead of 
 belonging to a flock, like a goose. 
 
 I have been not only much pleased with the noble effusion as an 
 oration, but instructed, as a very first-rate political Lecture. I guess 
 it must have expanded the mind of the President, and that of Mr Van 
 Bureu — so ready are people to judge others by themselves. I ob- 
 served that some tried to stop you, by the disorderly cry of order ! 
 order ; and by that mean subterfuge of a coward " the previous ques- 
 tion, '^ or something like it. I imagine, however that some of your 
 hearers must have sat about as easy as a man on a wool-comber's 
 hatchel. I mean some of your South or South-western members, and 
 who not wishing to retire were compelled to adopt the Indian philo- 
 sophy of " Grin and hear it" ; especially that portion of the philipic 
 which regards the Negroes ; for they know that black cloud will, sooner 
 or later bust over their affrighted heads. 
 
 I had procured one of Mitchell's large maps, and pored over it with 
 the pleasing assiduity of Uncle Toby himself, but I have no Corporal 
 Trim to imbibe and wonder at my knowledge of this Newfoundland of 
 the United States. 
 
 When you speak of the Island of Cuba, I find myself at home with 
 you. I spent five months there ; and covered more pages of it than 
 any Island I ever visited. There I first became acquainted with Col. 
 Miranda^ and renewed our acquaintance after he came to Boston. I 
 used to tell him that Cuba belonged to us, for it was only one of our 
 own Mountains, with its head out of water. I never viewed a country 
 with such admiration. I never saw the wonders of vegetation except 
 there. Plants, flowers and fruit, and rapid vegetation, surpassed every- 
 thing I ever saw before, or since. Their rivulets and brooks exceeded 
 in beauty anything I ever saw, forming a striking contrast with the 
 very mean and degraded inhabitants. I coveted the harbour of 
 Havana, as well as their glorious land and aromatic vegetables. I 
 often whispered to several of my countrymen there that we must and 
 ought to have Cuba. I have mentioned it in my Essay on Junius, 
 
96 
 
 and called it the American Great Britain — the future capital or future 
 metropolis of our new world — that the Spaniards were unworthy of it. 
 What you have said of it has called up afresh the finest natural scenery 
 I ever beheld. 
 
 We have got Continent enough. Perhaps too much. But I do 
 wish that we owned the Summer Island, or Bermuda — merely as 
 a naval station. Commodore Elliot assured me that he conversed 
 largely with General Jackson on the importance of the waters — or 
 water shape of Charleston S. C, and its neighborhood as a naval sta- 
 tion, in spite of their misunderstood bars, and shoals, and that in his 
 nullification cruise, when he had the command by sea, and Gen- Scott 
 by land, he corrected many false notions concerning their sea board, 
 and communicated his ideas to President Jackson. I more than once 
 touched the subject in my correspondence with Governor Levi Wood- 
 bury. The same officer gave him important information respecting 
 Rhode Island and Fall-river as a connecting chain of defence with the 
 outer harbour of Boston, via Quincy, or rather Cohasset by means of 
 two or three fortified Posts. 
 
 Now if all this does not betray a man bitten with Uncle-Tobyism, I 
 shall be glad to know it. It is remarkable the Spaniards, though they 
 have the most gold and silver, are the poorest nation on earth, and the 
 best and most costly, and most numerous, fortifications of stone, with 
 the least energy for defending them. The Moro-castle, and indeed the 
 whole range of their stone masonry which encircles the harbor of the 
 Havanna looks like it ; and so do the bays and harbours of Teneriffe, 
 where I resided more than a month, not to mention the wonderful 
 works at Ferrol. 
 
 Your speech is almost too long to be treated as Alderman Beckford's 
 famous speech to George the Third was, in Guildhall, yet it deserves it 
 more. 
 
 When do you expect to take off your harness, drop your traces and 
 roll at Quincy ? Will they let you come home by mowing time ; but 
 unless our dismal weather should change greatly, you may not be al- 
 lowed " to make hay while the sun shines " for a cloud yet hangs over 
 us. The People, and their Magnates^ are busy in preparing to play 
 Bunker-hill battle^ when Alexander Everett is to say Grace. Accept 
 the affectionate regards of 
 
 Benj^ Waterhouse. 
 
 6^h mo 22"d 1836 
 East Fallowfield, Chester C^. Penn^. 
 
 Respected Friend, — Though, personally, entirely a stranger to 
 thee, yet I cannot rest satisfied in my own mind without returning thee, 
 in some method or form, on behalf of myself and a large and increasing 
 
97 
 
 number of friends, of all sects and parties, our grateful thanks and ac- 
 knowledgments, for thy late bold, feerless, and independant speech in 
 Congress, relative to granting appropriations to relieve those who have, 
 and still are, suffering from Indian depredations. 
 
 I have read it several times to companies of our friends who have 
 listened to it with the most thrilling interest — thankful that we have at 
 least one influential man who dares amidst persecution, threatened as- 
 sassination, and calls to " order, ^ to expose to the faces of our Southern 
 Slavery Texas men, their unholy, unrighteous designs and schemes ; 
 and the fearful, terrible situation in which our country is placed at this 
 eventful crisis. Not only are we thankful, but we are greatful, for the 
 noble stand thou hast taken, — inasmuch as the American press is in 
 a great measure dumb, silent as the tombj or bribed over to an unholy 
 public sentiment, relative to this great subject, which involves in its issue 
 all that is essential in human rights. I therefore hope and trust thou 
 mayest be supported and encouraged to persevere, not only for the sake 
 of millions of our enslaved fellows now in bondage, but because of the 
 unbor[n] millions yet to live and linger out a life of servitude; and 
 because we ourselves are threatened with subjugation to slaveholding 
 encroachments; and therefore if something is not done to circumscribe, 
 check, and totally eradicate this tremendous evil, it will eventually and 
 at no distant day dig the grave of our liberties, and entomb the last 
 hope of the friends of freedom throughout the world. By continuing 
 thy exertion in the cause of human freedom thou wilt not only arouse 
 our countrymen to a sense of their danger and rescue our country from 
 destruction but thou wilt endear thyself to the christian world, to the 
 great and good every where, and the thousands whose bosoms have beat 
 a responsive " Amen " to thy late speech will be increased to millions, 
 in whose hearts there will be erected a monument to John Quincy 
 Adams more dureable than brass, and far, far more enviable. 
 
 Gladly would I write more (less I could not in justice to my own 
 feelings) but I am feerful of occupying too much of thy valuable time 
 and attention. I shall therefore close by assuring thee that our friends 
 look with great interest and confidence to the course which thou hast, 
 and mayest, take in future ; as to one whome we have long honored, 
 and admired, as a christian statesman and scholar. 
 
 Thou wilt greatly oblige me (if agreeable to thy pleasure) by sending 
 a few coppies of thy speech to me, as there is a great anxiety in the com- 
 munity to see it. Any speeches of thine on any subject, and particu- 
 larly relative to slavery, which is becoming the all engrossing question 
 will be most thankfully received. 
 
 Most respectfully thy friend 
 
 James Fulton Jr. 
 
 John Q. Adams, M. C. 
 
 IS 
 
98 
 
 P. S. Please assure William Slade of Vermont that his name is 
 warmly cherished by us, and by every friend of man, for his noble 
 exertions to rescue our prayers and petitions from being " nailed to the 
 table," or ^^ the family vault of all the Ca'puletsP 
 
 J. F. Jr. 
 
 J. Q. A. 
 
 Mr. Adams, as is usual with public men , was at this time in 
 constant receipt of letters of a threatening or abusive character. 
 They have now not much historical value ; but a single speci- 
 men may be worth preserving. It was written, and received 
 more than two months after the adjournment of Congress, and 
 while Mr. Adams was at Quincy. 
 
 Glasgow, Kentucky, 12 Sept. 1836. 
 
 Dr Sir, — I see in the latest news that your speech in Congress on 
 the Texian War has been received in Mexico with acclemation univer- 
 sal, and that you are called the Demosthenes of America, 
 
 I am at a loss to conceive what kind of motives prompted you to de- 
 grade yourself so low as to make so imflamintory and anti-republican 
 speech and manifest in such indubitable characteristics your detestation 
 and abhorence to a free Government. Your ungovernable ambitious 
 propensity stripd you of your hypocritical mask last Autumn and ever 
 sinc[e] you have been an object of scorn and ridicule to the American 
 people. You have tried to paliate your heinous offences and cloke your 
 abandoned degradation by sneaking into party enthusiasm but the dif- 
 ferent partes were not so far estranged from decency as you imagind 
 you were hurled from their ranks with invideous contempt and you 
 withered beneath their just and indignant wrath, and the oration 
 under consideration shows clearly and obviouly the fallen condition 
 into which you have precipitated yourself. You are not only a Hart- 
 ford conventionist — a Blue Light Federalist — but an unprincipled and 
 disorganised Abolitionist a declared enemy to the country which gave 
 you birth and which you have stained by your lonesome and disconsate 
 abandonment of principles which you formally held sacred and a friend 
 and advocate of Mexican cruelty and usupretion. Why did you not 
 pause before you took that fatal step which will stain America in such 
 dark and foul colours that time will never eflfase ? Did she not make 
 you her President ? And are you so debased as to forget such distingish- 
 ing favours so soon and treat her with such horrid and unheard of ingra- 
 itude ? You sir justly merit the withering scorn and indignant condem- 
 nation of every American Citizen for making the oration now under 
 review. I presume you thought yourself the Earl of Chatham and in the 
 British Parliament thundering against the iniquitious cruety of British 
 
99 
 
 warfare you speak of our Governmenfc as tring to arrest the pogress 
 of freedom and forging manacles for the inhabitanc of Mexico and mur- 
 dering without cause the innocen[t] and unoffending Indians and retain- 
 ing in slavery the pure enlighend and humane Negros. Perhaps you 
 had a design in thus speaking as the U. S. have cast you into the vortex 
 of infamy you wish to get a foot hold in Mexico and as Sant Anna 
 has fallen you think there is a chance to succeed him and in order to 
 satiate your demon like revenge upon our Government excite (?) the 
 bloodthirsty savage and the hard hearted and ignorant Negros into 
 creuly invasion and intestinal rebelion. while you with your herds of 
 Mexican desporadoes will march on and aid the bloody intentions and 
 finally overthrow our Country which is freedom's last hope 
 
 Yours Q. D. Randal. 
 
 It was during the following winter (January 23, 1837) that 
 Mr. Adams entered on his historic struggle over the right of 
 petition. He then wrote as follows of Calhoun, his former 
 associate in the Cabinet : — 
 
 Washington, 23 March, 1837. 
 Charles F. Adams, Boston. 
 
 My dear Son, — ... Slavery and the questions inevitably fol- 
 lowing from it will henceforth mingle with every conflict of parties in 
 the Union. The certain and desperate assault upon the whole manu- 
 facturing interest of New England, which as sure as you live will 
 signalize the next Session of Congress, is indissolubly interlinked with 
 Slavery. The annexation of Texas at the hazard of a War with 
 Mexico, which nothing but a special interposition of Providence can 
 prevent, is entwined with the vitals of Slavery. Calhoun is spurring 
 the Administration into a quarrel with Great Britain for three Cargoes 
 of Slaves, driven by stress of weather into the Islands of Bermuda and 
 the Bahamas and there emancipated. I sent you the Document con- 
 taining the correspondence between the Governments of the United 
 States, and Great Britain, upon the claims of our Slave traders for 
 indemnity. T say correspondence, but it is all on one side. The first 
 case, that of the Comet, happened in 1831. And our Secretaries of 
 State and Envoys Extraordinary and Charge d'affaires have been ever 
 since pinching the successive British Administrations, for indemnity to 
 the Slave traders. In six years, the only answer they have got from 
 the British Administration is that the matter has been referred to the 
 Law Officers of the Crown — and these learned Thebans have not 
 yet learnt the distinction between the Piracy of the African, and the 
 lawful Commerce of the American Slave trade. Calhoun made the 
 call for the Document, and upon its production trounced Old Hickory 
 
100 
 
 soundly for not being more saucy in his demands upon John Bull to 
 indemnify the dealers in human flesh, for their property. Calhoun's 
 object is evidently to put stumbling blocks across the path of the 
 little Magician. But his claim and his documents are a disgrace to 
 our Country ; and if his own political condition were not desperation he 
 should have seen how ungraciously a call came from Mm upon the 
 Union to sustain by War the domestic Slavery of the South, while he 
 is making the welkin ring with clamours against the right of the Union 
 to interfere with the domestic Slavery of the South in any manner 
 whatever. . . . 
 
 Washington, 27 March, 1837. 
 KiAH Batley, Esq^:, Hardwick, Vermont. 
 
 Sir, — ... You observe that I have heretofore shown, that Con- 
 gress under the War power is authorized in some cases to meddle with 
 the subject of Slavery ; and you enquire whether the trade regulating 
 power does not place the Slave question very much under the control 
 of Congress? 
 
 But, Sir, please to observe that on the very same day, when as you 
 think, I proved that Congress is authorized in some cases to meddle 
 with the snbject of Slavery, the House of Representatives of the United 
 States did by a majority of one hundred and eighty two votes to nine 
 " Resolve That Congress possesses no Constitutional authority to inter- 
 fere in any way, with the institution of Slavery, in any of the States of 
 this Confederacy " ; and that^ when this Resolution was passed, I asked 
 and entreated of the house, only live minutes of time to prove its 
 utter falsehood and was answered by . . . the Previous Question. 
 
 Of that minority of nine I was one — and three others were members 
 from Vermont. It was also resolved on the next day by a majority of 
 132 votes to 45 — That Congress ought not to interfere in any way^ 
 with Slavery in the District of Columbia. 
 
 Upon that Resolution I asked to be excused from voting ; because, 
 not being allowed to assign my reasons for voting against it, I did not 
 choose to expose myself to the inference that my opinion was that Con- 
 gress ought at that time to abolish Slavery in the District of Columbia. 
 The Resolution itself was of a piece with all the rest — absurd and false. 
 It is not the business of one House of Congress to resolve what the 
 whole Congress ought not to do. Their business is to do what they 
 ought to do ; and to abstain from doing what they ought not to do ; 
 without wasting their time in passing Negative Resolutions. It was 
 therefore absurd. It was false, because there are ways in which Con- 
 gress ought to interfere with Slavery in the District of Columbia — par- 
 ticularly to prohibit the abominable traffic which has so long dishonoured 
 the City under their exclusive jurisdiction. 
 
101 
 
 But while the Congress of the United States are in a temper to pass 
 such Resolutions, and by such overwhelming majorities, what can I an- 
 swer to your enquiries, but that every question relating to Slavery, and 
 the Abolition of Slavery in this Union, is a question not of right and 
 wrong, but of Power, Prudence, and Promise. Of Power, because by 
 the Laws of God and Nature the relation of Master and Slave can 
 never rest upon any other foundation. Of Prudence, because with an 
 Evil so deeply seated in our vital parts there is danger, imminent 
 danger, in giving colour to the idea, that right and wrong have any ap- 
 plication whatever to the case. Of Promise, because we have contracted 
 an Union with the Land of Slavery, and if you will marry into a family 
 afflicted with Scrofula, you must not expect that the blood of your children 
 will escape infection from the disease. We have bound up our destinies 
 in community with the People of States encumbered with Slavery before 
 we sealed the bond ; and by the bond we covenanted to tolerate, to 
 defend, to protect that institution as an offspring of our own, though not 
 as our legitimate progeny. The Resolution therefore that Congress 
 possesses no Constitutional authority to interfere, in any way, with the 
 institution of Slavery in the States, has no more foundation in Peace 
 than in War ; and if it were true, the institution itself would within ten 
 years crumble into ruin. Nothing but the Protection, secured to the 
 institution of Slavery by the Constitution of the United States, sustains 
 it now against the spirit of Abolition ; and the interference of Congress 
 was claimed to sustain it, in various ways, at the very time, when these 
 Resolutions were forced through the House of Representatives, denying 
 the authority of Congress to interfere with it in any way. What was 
 the recommendation of President Jackson to Congress to enact Laws to 
 suppress the conveyance of incendiary publications by the mail, but in- 
 terference with the institution of Slavery, in the worst of ways — 
 against the institutions of Freedom ? What was the Bill, arrested at 
 its third reading in the Senate of the United States, at the first Session 
 of the last Congress, turning every Postmaster throughout the Union 
 into a Catchpoll and Spy, upon the secrets of private correspondence by 
 the Mail; with discretionary power to suppress or betray them as his 
 caprice or party passions might stimulate ; what was this but interfer- 
 ence with the institution of Slavery, in the States ? What has been the 
 whole history of the Colonization Society, and what have been all the 
 patronizing Acts of Congress in its favour, but interferences with 
 the institution of Slavery in the States ? Nay what is the abolition of 
 the Slave trade itself and the prohibition of it upon pain of death, but 
 interferences with the institution of Slavery in the States ? Is not all 
 this enough ? then read the documents which I forward to you with this 
 letter. A message from the President to the Senate of the United 
 States — with a correspondence between the Governments of the 
 
102 
 
 United States and Great Britain^ of and concerning the Cargoes of three 
 slave-trading ships, owned by citizens of the United States, and dis- 
 turbed in this their lawful commerce, by the emancipation of their car- 
 goes in the Islands of Bermuda and of New Providence. There you 
 will see the interference of the Government of the United States not 
 only with the Institution of Slavery in the States, but with the British 
 Law which makes the Slave trade Piracy upon the Ocean, and with the 
 emancipation laws of Great Britain herself. 
 
 I leave all this to your meditations ; but request you not to publish 
 this letter at present ; nor without my consent hereafter. Not that I 
 wish to conceal or disguise my opinions upon these subjects ; but be- 
 cause I have made most of them public in other ways, and because I 
 would not willingly contribute to agitation or excitement beyond the 
 necessities of the time. I would cheerfully engage not to interfere with 
 the institution of Slavery in the States in any manner, if the Slavery in 
 the States would forbear to interfere with the free institutions of my 
 native Commonwealth and of the Union. 
 
 Washington, 23 April, 1839. 
 Samuel Webb, Philadelphia. 
 
 Mt respected Friend, — ... You believe that the question 
 " liow can Slavery he abolished" the easiest part of the subject under 
 consideration. And your plan is that the Slave holders, by Acts of 
 their own Legislatures or other competent authority, surrender their 
 Slaves and Real Estate to Commissioners, at their present value and 
 receive stocks at interest, to be redeemed by the increased value of the 
 Lands, by the Emancipation of the Slaves, and the sale of the Lands 
 to them in small farms for their cultivation. But as the practicability 
 of this measure depends upon its being sanctioned by the Legislatures 
 of the Slave-holding States, I fear it cannot be expected to be made 
 speedily palatable to them or to their constituents. 
 
 I am not sure that my own proposal which I would, if permitted, 
 have offered to the House, has any fairer chance of success. My hopes 
 of a peaceable abolition of Slavery in this Country, at any time, are 
 not sanguine. To any other mode of abolition, I must not only with- 
 hold all voluntary agency of mine, but must avow my most determined 
 opposition. To preserve my own freedom and that of my fellow citi- 
 zens from the usurpations of Slavery, as far as may be in my power, I 
 shall hold to be my irremissible duty. To resist as far as possible all 
 measures adapted or intended to strengthen, support or perpetuate the 
 institution of Slavery, I hold myself equally bound — but for its abo- 
 lition, however desirable, I can countenance no appeal to force, nor any 
 act of legislation, unwarranted by the Constitution of the United 
 
103 
 
 States, or against the will of those whose interests are to [too] exclu- 
 sively affected by the Law. 
 
 I am with great respect and esteem, your fellow citizen and friend — 
 
 To the Rev^ Joshua Leavitt and H. B. Stanton, EsqE of the Committee of 
 
 arrangements of the American Anti Slavery Society — New York. 
 
 QuiNOT, 11 July, 1839. 
 
 Fellow Citizens, — I have received your letter of the 20- ultimo 
 inviting my attendance at the National Antislavery Convention to be held 
 at Albany on Wednesday the 31- of the present month. To this invi- 
 tation you have been pleased to add an earnest adjuration to consider 
 this invitation as a solemn call on me to aid in the rescue of my 
 Country ; and that if I cannot attend in person, I should communicate 
 to the Convention a written expression of my views. . . . 
 
 The Dissolution of the Union, may indeed be the forerunner to the 
 Abolition of Slavery, but then it will not be effected peaceably, nor 
 with the consent of the Masters. A civil, savage, and servile war, 
 would be the natural, if not the necessary consequence of the dissolu- 
 tion of our Union, and that the result of that war would be the total 
 abolition of Slavery throughout this Country is highly probable. If 
 that were the avowed object of the American Anti Slavery Society, I 
 should be compelled to acknowledge that the adaptation of their means 
 to their ends was ingenious and skilful ; but, if the imputation of being 
 a Man stealer cast upon every Slave-holder, were one of them, I should 
 still withhold ray assent from it, as neither just nor true. . . . 
 
 Since the close of the last Session of Congress I have published in 
 the National Intelligencer, two letters addressed to the Petitioners 
 who had committed to my charge their petitions for presentation to 
 the House of Representatives of the United States. Many of these 
 petitions were for the rescinding of the Gag Resolutions of the 12- of 
 Dec^ 1838 — Against the annexation of Texas to this Union — for the 
 promotion of universal Peace, by the Institution of a Congress of 
 Nations — for the recognition of the Republic of Hayti — and for the 
 prohibition of the Internal Slave-trade. To the accomplishment of all 
 these objects I should have taken pleasure in giving my hearty coopera- 
 tion. A decided majority of the House, perseveringly excluded them all 
 from debate. With regard to the abolition of Slavery in the District of 
 Columbia, and throughout the Union, I asked, but could not obtain, the 
 permission of the House to propose three Resolutions of Amendment 
 to the Constitution, for the total abolition of Slavery, by providing that 
 all children born within the United States after a given and distant day 
 shall be born free. That, after a given and nearer day, there shall be 
 neither Slavery nor involuntary servitude, except for the commission of 
 crime, at the seat of Government of the United States — and that, with 
 
104 
 
 the exception of Florida, no Slave State shall be admitted hereafter into 
 the Union. The House refused to receive the Resolutions, and they 
 have met with as little favour from the Abolitionists out of the House 
 as they did from the House itself. 
 
 That this mode of abolition will ever be found practicable, I am not 
 sanguine in the belief; but that it is the only mode in which it could 
 be effected peaceably, and without great injustice, I do firmly believe ; 
 and that all the attempts to the immediate abolition of Slavery by Law, 
 without compensation to the Master, will not only prove utterly abor- 
 tive, but have a direct tendency to the dissolution of the Union, and to 
 a combined civil, servile and Savage War, I see as clearly in the pros- 
 pect of futurity as I can see any event already consummated in the 
 retrospect of the past. . . . 
 
 QuiNCY, 31 July, 1839. 
 Gerrit Smith, Esq., Peterbourough, New York. 
 
 Dear Sir, — I have received your kind and friendly letter of the 
 16- inst- with peculiar gratification, because, though written with the 
 avowal of opinions differing from mine upon points of great importance 
 to our common Country, it bears the impress of Christian Charity, and 
 the marks of a spirit with which I take pleasure in communing, even 
 while hopeless of coming to a concurrence of sentiment, with regard to 
 one or two particular measures bearing upon objects which we have 
 equally at heart. . . . 
 
 I am aware that the unqualified declaration of my opinion that the 
 immediate abolition of Slavery in the District of Columbia and the 
 Territory of Florida, by Act of Congress, is utterly impracticable and 
 would be eminently unjust, has given extensive dissatisfaction to that 
 numerous class of my fellow citizens who call themselves, and are called 
 by others, abolitionists. I have great respect for their virtuous prin- 
 ciples and pure purposes, and regret to lose their good will. But con- 
 tending as I have done, and still do, for their freedom of opinion and of 
 speech, what opinion would they, what opinion would after ages enter- 
 tain of me, if I should basely surrender or disguise my own. My 
 opinion is the result of my judgment, and is not under the controul of 
 my will. The practicability of peaceable^ immediate abolition of 
 Slavery by Law, in the District of Columbia and the Territories, is a 
 mere question of fact. I say it is impracticable. You do not despair 
 of a peaceful and bloodless termination of American Slavery — but 
 your " hopes of such an event are faint." But the Abolition of Slavery 
 in the District and the Territories would not bring you one inch nearer 
 to the termination of American Slavery. Would the Abolition by 
 Act of Congress of Slavery in the District and in Florida, emancipate 
 one single Slave ? No ! — for were it possible that such a Law should 
 
105 
 
 be enacted, in the very progress of its passage through the Houses 
 every Slaveholder would export his live stock into the States where 
 it would still be held as property — It would therefore be a cruel mercy 
 to the Slaves in the District, to abolish Slavery there by Law; for it 
 would doom them all to the worst aggravation of their condition — 
 Transportation to Southern States, and the certainty of unending 
 servitude. 
 
 Of the speedy overthrow of the measureless iniquity of Slavery 
 throughout this Union you are confident — but your prevailing appre- 
 hension is, that violence will accomplish the overthrow. 
 
 If the time should ever come when a majority of both Houses of 
 Congress, and a President of the United States, would concur to enact 
 the immediate abolition of Slavery in the District, without the consent 
 and against the will of the Masters — it could be no otherwise than by 
 a unanimous vote of the free against a unanimous vote of the slave- 
 holding representation. But I believe that long before they can come 
 to this extremity the slave-holding representation would secede in a 
 mass, and that the States represented by them would secede from the 
 Union. I know that among the abolitionists there are some leading 
 and able men, who consider this as a desirable event. I myself believe 
 that it would naturally, and infallibly, lead to the total abolition of 
 Slavery, but it would be through the ultimate operation of a war more 
 terrible than the thirty years' war, which followed the Wittemberg 
 thesis of Martin Luther, and I shrink from it with horror. That the 
 Slave-holders of the South should flatter themselves that by seceding 
 from this Union they could establish their peculiar institutions in perpe- 
 tuity, is in my judgment one of those absurd self delusions which would 
 be surprizing, if they did not compose the first chapter in the history 
 of human nature. The Slaveholders do so flatter themselves, and will 
 act accordingly. . . . 
 
 QuiNCT, 21 August, 1839 — 
 Benjamin D. Silliman Esq"" Brooklyn — Kings-County — New York — 
 
 Dear Sir, — Your Letter of the 12- inst* affords me the opportunity 
 not only of complying with your request, which is itself an obligation 
 conferred upon me, but of taxing your patience more than I could 
 otherwise have presumed to do, by enclosing to you, with the two 
 letters to the Petitioners^ with the presentation of whose petitions I 
 was charged at the last session of Congress, which I presume to be the 
 papers alluded to in your letter, three other documents developing in 
 connection with them the full extent of the views which have regulated 
 my conduct throughout the 25- Congress, and indeed during the eight 
 years that I have held a seat in the House of Representatives of the 
 United States, upon the subjects of the outraged right of petition, and 
 
 14 
 
 
 
106 
 
 of the multitudinous petitions for the immediate, uncompromised abo- 
 lition of Slavery in the District of Columbia, and in the Territories, 
 that is to say in Florida — These are 
 
 1. A Letter to my Constituents, the Inhabitants of the 12- Con- 
 gressional District of Massachusetts, dated 13 Augi 1838. 
 
 2. Speech on the right of Petition, freedom of Speech, and Texas — 
 June and July 1838. 
 
 3. Discourse before the New York historical Society 30 April 1839. 
 And also — 
 
 4. A Letter to the petitioners of the 12- Congressional District of 
 Massachusetts 4 June 1839. The Letter of 13 August 1838, is a 
 report to my Constituents, of what had occurred at the 1- and 2^ 
 Sessions of the 25- Congress, and of my proceedings in them, conform- 
 able to the Resolutions of a Convention of delegates from all parts of 
 the District, held on the 23^ of August 1837, immediately before the 
 meeting of Congress at the special Session. 
 
 You will perceive that among the Resolutions of that Convention, 
 there was not one having reference to the immediate abolition of Slav- 
 ery in the District of Columbia and the Territory, or indeed to Slavery 
 or its abolition at all. The Convention declared their entire approba- 
 tion of the course that I had before that time pursued with regard to 
 the right of Petition and the annexation of Texas, and pledged 
 themselves to support me in the persevering pursuit of the same 
 course. 
 
 The peaceable abolition of Slavery, throughout this Union, has always 
 appeared to me a consummation devoutly to be wished, and I have 
 long entertained serious doubts whether a long continuance of the 
 Union can be compatible with the continued existence of Slavery. My 
 involuntary anticipations of the future have been that Slavery will first 
 effect a dissolution of the Union, and that, as a natural consequence of 
 that event. War will abolish Slavery, and terminate in a mongrel breed 
 of half blood European and African race. A mulatto nation, which 
 will cover the Southern half of this Country, from North Carolina to 
 Mexico. 
 
 This, or the reinstitution of Slavery throughout the United States, 
 seem to me the only alternatives for the future prospects of our Country. 
 I have deemed it my duty to resist, unguis et calcibus, the encroach- 
 ments of Slavery upon our free institutions, but not to follow the stand- 
 ard of any Peter the Hermit in a crusade against the servile institutions 
 of the South. From my heart and soul I wish for the total extinction 
 of Slavery throughout the earth, and especially throughout this Union ; 
 but for my conduct as a Citizen and a Servant of the People, I must 
 abide by the compromise in the Constitution, which I have so often 
 sworn to support. 
 
107 
 
 In Washington's farewell Address to the People of the United States, 
 he says "all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible 
 character, with the real design to direct, controul, counteract, or awe 
 the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are de- 
 structive of this fundamental principle (of popular government) and of 
 fatal tendency." 
 
 There is not in the farewell address one sentiment more valuable as 
 admonition to his Countrymen than this, — I have treasured it as a 
 jewel ; and one of the worst acts of Mr. Van Buren, in my estimation, was 
 narrowing down this maxim of all embracing patriotism into a vene- 
 mous, and malignant denunciation of the antirepublican tendencies of 
 associated wealth ; as if the mischief of associated power was confined 
 to the action of the rich. 
 
 Since the days of Washington, I have always been on my guard 
 against partial associations to controul public measures. I have never 
 been a member of any one of them: not even of a Temperance 
 Society. 
 
 Associations to influence, direct, and controul the action of the Gov- 
 ernment is however the universal expedient of all parties, all inter- 
 ests and all opinions. We have them in numberless varieties of 
 forms. 
 
 The Colonization Society is one of them. A vast undertaking which 
 originated entirely with the Slave-holders, and by which the benevo- 
 lence and humanity of the Northern and Eastern States continue to be 
 egregiously duped. 
 
 The coloured Colonists of Liberia, receiving their bread and Consti- 
 tutions of Sovereign independent Republics, from the American Colo- 
 nization Society, form the most extraordinary communities on the face 
 of the Earth. 
 
 The American Anti Slavery Society, composed of men not holding a 
 single Slave, undertaking to coax and reason five millions of their fellow 
 Citizens into the voluntary surrender of twelve hundred millions of 
 their property, and commencing their discourse to the heart by pro- 
 claiming every holder of a Man in bondage, a Man Stealer, doomed b}^ 
 the Mosaic Law to be stoned to death, is also to the eye of a rational 
 observer a very curious show. Peter Pindar, represents Prudence 
 when she goes into a house, as leaving all her opinions, with her pat- 
 tens, at the door. But it would seem as if every man who enters into 
 a political association, must leave, not only his opinions, but his common 
 sense at the door. 
 
 I have never been permitted by the House of Representatives to give 
 my opinions upon the abolition question generally, nor upon that of 
 abolition in the District of Columbia. My struggle has been for the 
 Right of Petition — freedom of vSpeech — freedom of Debate — freedom 
 
108 
 
 of the Press. The South immediately proscribed me as an Abolition- 
 ist. The Abolitionists sent almost all their petitions to me. Many of 
 them because their Representatives would not present them. I never 
 gave the slightest countenance to their petitions for the immediate un- 
 compensated abolition of Slavery in the District of Columbia or else- 
 where — but the South thought, and said, I did, and their Lecturers and 
 Newspaper Editors were beginning to hold up their rod of political ac- 
 tion, in terrorem, and to give intimations that I must subscribe to their 
 whole creed, or take the consequence of incurring their high displeasure, 
 I found it necessary therefore to be perfectly explicit with them ; and, 
 as I was not allowed to do it in the House, I addressed to them, the 
 two letters which you will find herewith enclosed. 
 
 I was very earnestly invited by Mr. Leavitt and Mr. Stanton to 
 attend the late National Anti-Slavery Convention at Albany ; but de- 
 clined, for reasons which I assigned to them in my answer. 
 
 If the total Abolition of Slavery be, in the purposes of divine Pro- 
 vidence, as I believe and fervently hope it is, other agents and other 
 means will in its own due time be employed than either American Colo- 
 nization or Abolition Societies. Or if these Societies, or either of them, 
 are to be made instrumental to the accomplishment of the grand work, 
 they must entirely change their modes of operation, and come down 
 from the empyrean of their fancy to the vapoury atmosphere of this 
 nether world. 
 
 I am with great respect, Dear Sir, Your obed- Serv* 
 
 President William Henry Harrison died in April, 1841, and 
 Congress was convened in special session on the 31st of May. 
 Mr. Adams at once pressed for an amendment of the rules of 
 the House, by the repeal of the 21st rule, known as " the Ath- 
 erton gag." Excited debates followed, in which Mr. Adams 
 took a leading part. Henry A. Wise, of Virginia, assumed the 
 leading part in the debate on the other side, speaking under 
 great excitement and with indications of extreme physical 
 exhaustion (Memoirs, vol. x. pp. 478, 479). The following 
 letter then reached Mr. Adams : — 
 
 Virginia June 15*^ 1841 
 To that vile Incendiary John Q. Adams, 
 
 On parle peu quand la vanite ne fait pas parler. This french prov- 
 erb applies to all such slang whanging rascals like yourself. Is your 
 pride of abolition oratory not yet glutted ? Are you to spend the re- 
 mainder of your days endeavoring to produce a civil and servile War ? 
 Do you like Aron Burr wish to ruin your Country because you failed 
 
109 
 
 in your election to the Presidency. May the lightning of heaven blast 
 you, and may the great Eternal God in His wrath curse you at the last 
 day and direct you to depart from his presence to the lowest regions 
 of Hell ! 
 
 Is there no bold Virginian or chivalrick Carolinian ready to hurl 
 you from the Land of the living ? I think there is — Your craven 
 spirit would quail before the menace of the outraged Southern man 
 and nothing but a good horsewhip will serve you and you must & shall 
 have it. You detested vindictive villain : Your motives are known it 
 is revenge for your disappointment at the election in 1828. You are 
 an insignificant imitator of Burr Arnold and O'Connell and deserve the 
 gallows for your treason to your Country. 
 
 It will come sooner or later. It is not forgotten — your advocacy 
 of Shays rebellion. The Devil will have his own when he gets your 
 rascally soul. Beware on the 4*'' July * * * 
 
 U, L > D E 
 
 [Postmark, Dumfries, Va. ; endorsed in handwriting of J. Q. Adams : " Brutality."] 
 
 Carefully reviewing this scattered record, the utterances con- 
 tained in it seem to me noticeably suggestive. Possibly I am 
 prejudiced ; but, as I read them, they reveal a trained instinct 
 amounting almost to political prescience. Indeed, in this re- 
 spect I hardly know where to look for their like. Let me 
 briefly summarize, — so to speak, focusing the rays of light. 
 Beginning with 1820, the record extends to 1842, a period of 
 twenty-two years; more than two generations have passed 
 away since the latest entry in it was made ; few now living re- 
 member the time of the first. What has since occurred is mat- 
 ter of history. Beginning with the Mexican acquisitions of 
 1846, we look back on the slow development of the Slavery 
 agitation to the year 1860 ; then came the dissolution of the 
 Union by the withdrawal from it of eleven States, followed by 
 a Civil War the extent and character of which we well remem- 
 ber ; the emancipation of the slave, by virtue of a proclamation 
 issued by the Commander-in-Chief acting by authority of mar- 
 tial law, followed; finally, the Union was re-established on 
 the principle of universal emancipation. Such is the condensed 
 history of the period which opened five years after the record 
 I have made up ended, and closed fifty years after that record 
 
110 
 
 began. Now let me summarize the utterances. They are, I 
 submit, those of a prophet. ' 
 
 1819. " His [Jeiferson's] Declaration of Independence is an abridged 
 Alcoran of political doctrine, laying open the first foundations of civil 
 society ; but he does not appear to have been aware that it also laid 
 open a precipice into which the slave-holding planters of his country 
 sooner or later must fall. . . . The seeds of the Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence are yet maturing. The harvest will be what West, the 
 painter, calls the terrible sublime." 
 
 1820. " The Missouri question has taken such hold of my feelings 
 and imagination that, finding my ideas connected with it very numer- 
 ous, but confused for want of arrangement, I have within these few 
 days begun to commit them to paper loosely as they arise in my mind. 
 ... I take it for granted that the present question is a mere pream- 
 ble — a titlepage to a great tragic volume. . . . The President thinks 
 this question will be winked away by a compromise. But so do not I. 
 Much am I mistaken if it is not destined to survive his political and 
 individual life, and mine." 
 
 ^ " If the dissolution of the Union should result from the slave ques- 
 tion, it is as obvious as anything that can be foreseen of futurity, that it 
 must shortly afterwards be followed by the universal emancipation of 
 the slaves. . . . A dissolution, at least temporary, of the Union, as now 
 constituted, would be certainly necessary, and the dissolution must be 
 upon a point involving the question of slavery, and no other. The 
 Union might then be reorganized on the fundamental principle of 
 emancipation. This object is vast in its compass, awful in its pros- 
 pects, sublime and beautiful in its issue. A life devoted to it would 
 be nobly spent or sacrificed." 
 
 " If slavery be the destined sword in the hand of the destroying 
 angel which is to sever the ties of this Union, the same sword will cut in 
 sunder the bonds of slavery itself. A dissolution of the Union for the 
 cause of slavery would be followed by a servile war in the slave-hold- 
 ing States, combined with a war between the two severed portions of 
 the Union. It seems to me that its result must be the extirpation of 
 slavery from this whole continent; and, calamitous and desolating as 
 this course of events in its progress must be, so glorious would be its 
 final issue, that, as God shall judge me, I dare not say that it is not to 
 be desired." 
 
 1836. " From the instant that your slave-holding States become the 
 theatre of war, civil, servile, or foreign, from that instant the war 
 powers of Congress extend to interference with the institution of slavery 
 in every way in which it can be interfered with." 
 
 " This is a cause upon which I am entering at the last stage of life. 
 
Ill 
 
 and with the certainty that I cannot advance in it far; my career 
 must close, leaving the cause at the threshold. To open the way for 
 others is all that I can do. The cause is good and great." 
 
 " This acquisition of Texas, indissolubly connected as it is with the 
 issue now making up between Slavery and Emancipation, forms a sub- 
 ject of contemplation too colossal for the grasp of my understanding! 
 Is the whole continent of North America, to constitute one Confedera- 
 tion, or one Military Monarchy ? Has Mexico been emancipated from 
 Spain, only to be conquered by the Anglo Saxon race of our Union ? 
 This overflowing of our population into Texas, with the express design 
 of breaking it off from Mexico, and annexing it to the Northern Con- 
 federac}'^ under the law of perpetual Slavery, has an ominous aspect 
 upon our futurity, and the facility with which it will prove that Mexico 
 may be stripp'd of her Territories. Where will it end ? " 
 
 " I believe that the final issue between Slavery and Emancipation 
 (a word which I prefer to abolition) is to be made up on this Conti- 
 nent of North America. I would hope if I could that it will be made 
 up peaceably, and settled without bloodshed — but it must come. It 
 is approaching by such means as it is the special prerogative of Provi- 
 dence to employ." 
 
 1838. " The conflict between the principle of liberty and the fact 
 of slavery is coming gradually to an issue. Slavery has now the power, 
 and falls into convulsions at the approach of freedom. That the fall 
 of slavery is predetermined in the counsels of Omnipotence I cannot 
 doubt ; it is a part of the great moral improvement in the condition of 
 man, attested by all the records of history. But the conflict will be 
 terrible, and the progress of improvement perhaps retrograde before its 
 final progress to consummation." 
 
 1839. " The Dissolution of the Union, may indeed be the fore- 
 runner to the Abolition of Slavery, but then it will not be effected 
 peaceably, nor with the consent of the Masters. A civil, savage, and 
 servile war, would be the natural, if not the necessary consequence of 
 the dissolution of our Union, and that the result of that war would 
 be the total abolition of Slavery throughout this Country is highly 
 probable." 
 
 " If the time should ever come when a majority of both Houses of 
 Congress, and a President of the United States, would concur to enact 
 the immediate abolition of Slavery in the District, without the consent 
 and against the will of the Masters — it could be no otherwise than by 
 a unanimous vote of the free against a unanimous vote of the slave- 
 holding representation. But I believe that long before they can come 
 to this extremity the slave-holding representation would secede in a 
 mass, and that the States represented by them would secede from the 
 Union. I know that among the abolitionists there are some leading 
 
112 
 
 and able men, who consider this as a desirable event. I myself believe 
 that it would naturally, and infallibly, lead to the total abolition of 
 Slavery, but it would be through the ultimate operation of a war more 
 terrible than the thirty years' war, which followed the Wittenberg 
 thesis of Martin Luther, and I shrink from it with horror. That the 
 slave-holders of the South should flatter themselves that by seceding 
 from this Union they could establish their peculiar institutions in per- 
 petuity, is in my judgment one of those absurd self delusions which 
 would be surprising, if they did not compose the first chapter in the 
 history of human nature. The slaveholders do so flatter themselves, 
 and will act accordingly." 
 
 " The peaceable abolition of Slavery, throughout this Union, has 
 always appeared to me a consummation devoutly to be wished, and I 
 have long entertained serious doubts whether a long continuance of the 
 Union can be compatible with the continued existence of Slavery. My 
 involuntary anticipations of the future have been that Slavery will 
 first effect a dissolution of the Union, and that, as a natural consequence 
 of that event, War will abolish Slavery, and terminate in a mongrel 
 breed of half blood European and African race. " 
 
 " If the total Abolition of Slavery be, in the purposes of divine Prov- 
 idence, as I believe and fervently hope it is, other agents and other 
 means will in its own due time be employed than either American 
 Colonization or Abolition Societies. Or if these Societies, or either of 
 them, are to be made instrumental to the accomplishment of the grand 
 work, they must entirely change their modes of operation, and come 
 down from the empyrean of their fancy to the vapoury atmosphere of 
 this nether world." 
 
 1842. " It is a war power. I say it is a war power, and when 
 your country is actually in war, whether it be a war of invasion or a 
 war of insurrection. Congress has power to carry on the war, and must 
 carry it on according to the laws of war; and by the laws of war an 
 invaded country has all its laws and municipal institutions swept by the 
 board, and martial law takes the place of them. This power in Con- 
 gress has, perhaps, never been called into exercise under the present 
 Constitution of the United States. But when the laws of war are in 
 force, what, I ask, is one of those laws ? It is this : that when a 
 country is invaded, and two hostile armies are set in martial array, the 
 commanders of both armies have power to emancipate all the slaves in 
 the invaded territory." 
 
 " I lay this down as the law of nations. I say that the military 
 authority takes for the time the place of all municipal institutions, and 
 slavery among the rest ; and that, under that state of things, so far 
 from its being true that the States where slavery exists have the exclu- 
 sive management of the subject, not only the President of the United 
 
113 
 
 States but the commander of the army has power to order the universal 
 emancipation of the slaves. I have given here more in detail a prin- 
 ciple which I have asserted on this floor before now, and of which I 
 have no more doubt than that you, Sir, occupy that Chair. I give it 
 in its development, in order that any gentleman from any part of the 
 Union may, n he thinks proper, deny the truth of the position, and 
 may maintain his denial ; not by indignation, not by passion and fury, 
 but by sound and sober reasoning from the laws of nations and the 
 laws of war." 
 
 16 
 
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