Adams Family Correspondence, volume 15
ry23 1804
I am sorry to say that I write you from my Sick Chamber, where I have been confined for near a week with the Severest attack of the Rhumatism Which I have experienced for many Years in my Limbs. I hope it will not be very durable, but Submission is my lesson, and patience my Study—
We last Evening received the port folio containing the Character of your much Loved Friend.1 I read it with a sympathizing heart, 329 and dropt a tear over the well delineated Character. no Man in this Country so well knew his worth, or perhaps so possessd his confidence, as he who has paid this tribute of Justice & respect to his memory. towards that Friend Mr Murray always exprest an invariable attachment from his earlyest acquaintance.
At length we have been favord with part of a debate in a Washington
paper upon the alteration of the constitution. it has not yet graced our Boston papers.
it is a full refutation to mr Russels correspondent.2 if the subject of Bridges so much more important does not engrose all the papers in Boston a Month
hence it may appear.3 I presume You have
had the pamphlet which creates So great allarm in Newyork under the Signature of
Aristides. amidst a torrent of calumny, there are many observation Worthy of note to
which every honest Heart will Subscribe. that which I particularly allude to, is upon
the Subject of parties, “That a Man is bound to pursue indiscriminately the measures of
his Party, however unjust in themselves, or Dangerous to the Community, is a doctrine
not novel in this Country, but not the less Wicked. That in defiance of his own
conviction he should be driven by an exasperated party, to the Support of measures Which
he deems hostile to the prosperity & happiness of the Nation, supposes too
outrageous an attack on Mental independance to be tollerated for a Moment”4 I wish the Blind followers of the Blind would
consider concequences, but what else is to be expected from those who compose the
Majority of Voters? How few look into concequences, or see the end and aim of measures
which they adopt? You will find yourself constantly rolling up the Stone of
Syssiphus
Your Brother received a Letter from You to day of Janry 6th5
the point of Etiqutte is curiously adjusted. We are told in Scripture that the wife is the crown of the Husband.6 I certainly would not so much underrate myself as to Yeald a point, which my Husband considerd necessary to Support his dignity. What the Ladies Yeald! give up their Etiquette and their Husbands retain theirs? oh fie— never let the Gentlemen again accuse them upon this Head—
I wrote to You and to Mrs Adams last week, but I realy was so Stupified for want of rest, that I know not what I wrote.7
Your Uncle & Aunt are Without a line from washington to assertain the Situation of Mrs Cranch. I trust She is not worse, or You would have said Something respecting her in your Letter
My Love to mrs Adams and the Children from your truly affectionate Mother
RC (Adams Papers).
For JQA’s obituary of William Vans Murray, see his letter to AA of 22 Dec. 1803, and note 2, above.
JQA’s speech during the debate of the 12th
Amendment, for which see his 9 Dec.
letter to AA
, and note 1, above, appeared in the Washington Federalist, 2 Jan. 1804. Despite
AA’s assertion to the contrary, the Boston Columbian Centinel, 18 Jan., had already printed the speech. The Boston Independent Chronicle, 26 Jan., printed a summary of
JQA’s remarks drawn from the Philadelphia Aurora General Advertiser, 6, 7 Jan., which the Centinel, 28 Jan., condemned as “mutilated members of sentences, and partial
extracts.”
A group of Boston speculators purchased 148 acres on Dorchester
Neck in the summer of 1803 and on 27 Dec. proposed that it be annexed to Boston. The
plan proved controversial because a proposed bridge to the neck from South Street in
Boston cut off wharves in South Bay, and the new lots reduced property values in the
South End. Boston newspapers covered the issue in detail, as proponents argued the
necessity of the land for the expanding city and that the bridge would provide a new
route south for travelers. Residents approved the plan in town meetings of 17 and 30
Jan. 1804 and the Mass. General Court did so on 6 March. A bridge in a less
controversial location further south at present day East Berkeley Street opened on 1
Oct. 1805, and the newly annexed land became known as South Boston (Nancy S.
Seasholes, Gaining Ground: A History of Landmaking in
Boston, Cambridge, 2003, p. 238, 240–241, 243; New-England Palladium, 6 Jan. 1804; Boston Columbian
Centinel, 21 Jan.; Boston Independent Chronicle,
23 Jan.).
Aristides, An Examination of the Various
Charges Exhibited against Aaron Burr, N.Y., 1803, p. 97–98, Shaw-Shoemaker, No. 5491. William Peter
Van Ness wrote the Dec. 1803 pamphlet in response to attacks on Aaron Burr by printer
James Cheetham, whose goal was to replace Burr with George Clinton as the
Democratic-Republican candidate for vice president in the 1804 presidential election.
Van Ness argued that Clinton was subject to the undue influence of his nephew DeWitt
Clinton and criticized Thomas Jefferson for failing to defend Burr. The pamphlet
emboldened Burr to file a libel suit against Cheetham (Isenberg, Fallen Founder
, p.
243, 246, 250–251).
Not found.
Proverbs, 12:4.
Not found.
Your kind favour of the 10th: instt: came to hand last evening— And I would take this
opportunity to request that all letters for me from Quincy, may be put in to the
post-office there; without waiting to send them to Boston— I shall thus get them sooner—
My own letters too I hope go directly to Quincy.— My brother I imagine will be satisfied
with the frequency of my writing or inclosing papers to him— I am often obliged merely
to send papers, but write as often and as much as I can with propriety.
We have been engaged for several days in debating upon a question
for prohibiting the slave-trade in our new of Louisiana (I leave the designation in
blank for want of a name to call it by)— We have just decided by a large majority, in
favour of the prohibition— I voted against this upon the principle that we have no right
to make any Laws for that Country at present.1
The etiquette question among the Ladies has subsided— But 331 much deeper questions between the same parties (not the Ladies though) are in agitation, for the issue of which I am not without concern.
My wife and children are well, and send their duty— The inclosed sheet of Journals is for my brother.2
Faithfully your’s
RC (Adams
Papers); addressed: “John Adams Esqr / Quincy. /
Massachusetts.”; endorsed: “J Q Adams Ja’ry 27 / 1804”;
notation by JQA: “For my mother.”
As part of its consideration over establishing a government for
Louisiana, for which see
JQA to TBA, 18 Feb., and note 1, and
JQA to JA, 20
March, and note 2, both below, the Senate debated from 24 Jan. to 1 Feb.
whether to permit slavery in the new territory. Over the course of the debate
JQA voted six times against limiting the institution. He reflected
little in his Diary on his reasons for doing so, but a running account of the debates
kept by William Plumer of New Hampshire records JQA’s belief that the
United States did not have a right to regulate Louisiana residents who had no state or
federal representation: “I am opposed to slavery; but I have in this bill voted
against the provisions introduced to prohibit & lessen it. I have done this upon
two principles, 1. That I am opposed to legislating at all for that country— 2. I
think we are proceeding with too much haste on such an important question.” Plumer
also recorded JQA’s acknowledgment of arguments by southern senators who
joined him in opposition: “Slavery in a moral sense is an evil; but as connected with
commerse it has important uses.” During the debate James Hillhouse of Connecticut
proposed a resolution directing that only enslaved people brought by settlers would be
permitted and that any others entering the territory would be immediately freed. While
that resolution was on the table, JQA was among those who on 31 Jan.
defeated an amendment proposed by John Breckinridge of Kentucky that would have
instead placed the status of such enslaved people before the courts. On 1 Feb.
JQA joined the opposition in an 18 to 11 vote approving the Hillhouse
resolution. The slavery provision remained in the final law signed by Thomas Jefferson
on 26 March; subsequent lobbying by Louisiana landowners prompted Congress to let the
legislation lapse, thereby allowing unrestricted slavery in the territory (
Annals of
Congress
, 8th Cong., 1st sess., p. 233–234, 240–244;
U.S. Statutes at
Large
, 2:283–289; D/JQA/27, 24, 25, 26, 30,
31 Jan., 1 Feb., APM Reel 30;
Biog. Dir.
Cong.
; Plumer, Memorandum of Proceedings
, p. 114, 126; John Craig
Hammond, “‘They Are Very Much Interested in Obtaining an Unlimited Slavery’:
Rethinking the Expansion of Slavery in the Louisiana Purchase Territories, 1803–1805,”
JER
,
23:353–356 [Autumn 2003]; David Waldstreicher and Matthew Mason, eds., John Quincy Adams and the Politics of Slavery: Selections from
the Diary, N.Y., 2017, p. 15–16).
Enclosure not found.