Browsing: Diary of Charles Francis Adams, Volume 2

5. Continuing his warfare upon JQA’s administration, William Branch Giles (1762–1830), the Virginia state-rights advocate, published on 7 September a confidential letter which the aging Thomas Jefferson had written him on 26 December 1825, expressing his “deep affliction” at the rapid usurpation of power by the federal government, a development illustrated by JQA’s recent message to Congress (Bemis, JQA , 2:163–164).