States under the treaty. I had no doubt that the consent of both
people would be obtained with as much ease and with little more
i822] • JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 343
loss of time than it actually took Congress to prepare an act for the
government of the territory: and I thought that this course of
proceeding, while it would terminate in the same result as the
immediate exercise of ungranted transcendental powers by Con-
gress, would serve as a landmark of correct principle for future
times, as a memorial of homage to the fundamental principles of
civil society, to the primitive sovereignty of the people and the
unalienable rights of man.
Entertaining these questions, on the 3d of November, 1803, I
voted with the majority for the bill appropriating eleven million
two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, to carry into effect the
Louisiana convention; and in a speech to the Senate upon the
passage of that bill the substance of which is printed in the Na-
tional Intelligencer of 25th November, 1803, declared at once my
approbation of the measure, and my belief that, to carry the treaty
into entire execution, an amendment to the constitution would be
necessary. My vote on this bill is recorded in the same journals of
the Senate to which General Smyth has resorted to find his charges
against me; but he has not thought proper to notice either that, or
the printed speech which, if known to him, leaves him without
excuse for representing to you my votes upon the other bills of that
cession relating to Louisiana, as having been dictated by the
spirit of faction, or by hostility to Louisiana.
On the 25th of November, 1803, as appears by the same journals
of the Senate, I moved for the appointment of a committee to
enquire whether any, and if any, what further measures were
necessary for carrying into effect the Louisiana cession treaty; with
leave to report by bill or otherwise. In support of this motion I
stated explicitly that the object of it was that the committee
should prepare and report for the consideration of the Senate an
amendment to the constitution and a bill prescribing the form in
which the sense of the people of Louisiana should be taken, to
sanction in the only form in which I conceived it could lawfully
be accomplished, the union of the two people into one, the annexa-
tion of the inhabitants of Louisiana to the North American Union,
344
THE WRITINGS OF [1822
and the accession to all the rights, privileges, and prerogatives, and
their subjection to all the duties of citizens of the United States.
On the exposition of these objects for the motion the Senate did
not think proper to appoint the Committee which I proposed; and
the only opportunity left me for recording the principles upon
which I acted, was by offering the resolutions which I did on the
loth of January, 1804, and by voting against all the acts of Con-
gress, legislating upon the people of Louisiana during that session.
Let me repeat that all these questions as to the extent of the
powers of Congress were at that time new and unsettled. In form-
ing my judgment upon them I had recourse only to the faculties of
my own understanding, to the letter of the constitution, to the
first principles of society and government as recognized in our
republican institutions, and to the light of the discussions in both
houses of Congress upon that occasion. There was no precedent
upon the record. The annexation of a foreign people to the North
American confederacy formed a new era in our national annals.
The principles upon which that great change in our condition was
to be eiTected, and the forms by which it was to be made lawful,
conformably to the true theory of human rights, involved con-
siderations of a magnitude of which we are not all yet aware. The
laws of that session relative to Louisiana have very recently been
followed as precedents in the annexation to this union of the
territory and people of Florida. In the perfectly regular exercise,
and for purposes of the most rigorous justice, of powers identical
with those assumed and granted by that little section which I have
quoted, you have recently witnessed scenes against which the halls
of Congress, the streets of your cities, the summits of your moun-
tains, and the echoes of your valleys have resounded with clamors
of violated rights and unconstitutional acts of despotism. It was
not in the exercise by General Jackson in 1821, of powers so in-
compatible with all our institutions, it was in the assumption and
grant by Congress of those powers in 1803, that the real constitu-
tional question was involved; and it is no small satisfaction to me
that I am enabled to refer you to those very votes which General
1822] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 345
Smyth imputes to unworthy motives, for proof that, from the
first day that I was called to act in your public councils, I have
held the government of your Union to be a government of limited
powers, that Congress could not lawfully exercise any powers not
granted to them by the people in the constitution, and that powers
in themselves of a transcendental nature, cannot be assumed by
construction as incidental to expressed powers of apparent import so
much more limited than themselves.
Among the citizens who in 1803 and 1804 voted for all these laws
relating to Louisiana, there were some who, upon questions of far
inferior magnitude, according to my conception, have been less
liberal in their indulgence to constructive powers. It is not for
me either to question their motives or to reconcile their opinions
with themselves.
After those questions had been settled by large majorities of both
houses of Congress, and sanctioned by the acquiescence of the
people, both of Louisiana and of the United States, I have con-
sidered them as no longer controvertible. But the consequences
of the principles then settled, and by those very acts against which
I voted, have been as yet but very imperfectly developed. When
the day shall come for your representatives to determine whether
the territories of Ceylon or Madagascar, of Corsica or of Cuba,
shall be governed by rules and regulations emanating from your
Congress; whether the inhabitants of those territories shall be
governed for a discretionary time by such persons and in such man-
ner as the President of the United States shall direct, and whether
their -people shall ultimately be constituted into states, represented
upon the floor of your national legislative assemblies; then will be
the time for discovering in distant perspective the full import and
final consequences of that second section of the act for taking
possession of Louisiana.
Let me again remind you that the question is not of the ad-
vantage to the Union of the acquisition of Louisiana, nor even of
the powers of Congress as they are now established by the con-
struction then given to the constitution. The question is, whether
346 THE WRITINGS OF [1822
my motives must have been factious or anti-republican, because
I believed that the constitution of the United States had not
authorized the Congress to invest the President with all the
absolute powers of a Spanish monarch over a Spanish colony; to
annex the people of that colony to our federal union, and to give
them without naturalization, and to thrust upon them without
their consent, all the rights, privileges and immunities, duties and
burdens of the constituent members of the confederation.
It was upon similar principles fortified by additional considera-
tions that I gave the two votes, from one of which General Smyth
thinks he has fixed me in a dilemma, either of acknowledging my-
self a friend to the slave trade, or that I was desirous to render the
acquisition of Louisiana injurious, by permitting the unrestrained
influx of foreign slaves; while upon the other he denies me the
benefit even of this sorry dilemma, but takes it for proof unques-
tionable that I am a friend to the slave trade.
The first of these votes, given on the 20th of January, 1804, was
against a clause which forbade the importation of slaves into
Louisiana from places without the United States. The second, in
December, 1805, was against bringing in a bill to prohibit, after
the 1st of January, 1808, the importation of slaves into the United
States.
It will be recollected, that in the constitution of the United
States, there is a clause in the following words: "The migration or
importation of such persons as any of the states now existing shall
think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior
to the year 1808." The votes which General Smyth wishes now
to blacken with slave trade complexions, were given in January,
1804, and December, 1805, two and four years before this express
interdiction upon the power of Congress expired. At both these
periods the importation of slaves from abroad was permitted by
the laws of Georgia, and I think of South Carolina. As to the
first, setting aside the general objection that I had against the
power of Congress then to legislate upon the people of Louisiana
at all, of what avail was it to prohibit the importation of slaves
1822] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 347
directly from abroad, while no prohibition could be enacted against
importing them indirectly by the way of Charleston and Savannah?
On both occasions I thought that Congress, by the terms of the
constitution had no power to act. The limitation of the year 1808,
by the express letter of the clause, bears not only upon the im-
portation of the slaves, but upon the prohibitory power of Con-
gress. It was my opinion that until the year 1808, Congress could
not even pass the act of prohibition; and upon that principle I
voted against leave to bring in the bill.
It is remarkable that the minority with whom I voted against
the clause forbidding the importation of slaves from abroad into
Louisiana, consisted of Mr. Baldwin and General James Jackson
of Georgia, Mr. Bradley and Mr. Israel Smith of Vermont, and
Mr. Ellery of Rhode Island. According to the logic of General
Smyth, they were all in the same dilemma with me. They were
all the most ardent republicans, and the most devoted friends to
Mr. Jefferson's administration in the country; and Mr. Bradley
was the man who, in December, 1805, moved for leave to bring
in the bill to prohibit the slave trade after the 1st of January, 1808,
who actually brought it in, and at the succeeding session of Con-
gress carried it through the Senate. Upon the question for leave
to bring in the bill, I voted against it, thinking that the letter of
the constitution forbade Congress from acting on the subject
before 1808. But the principle having been settled, that the
prohibition might be enacted in anticipation, though not to take
effect till 1808, I voted for the bill itself, when it passed in January,
1807.
Upon reviewing all these votes now, the only one upon the
correctness of which I feel a diffidence is that of December, 1805,
against leave to bring in a bill. It was a question, not upon an
ungranted, but upon an interdicted power. Inclining always
against the assumption by Congress of any power not clearly
granted, perhaps I indulged unnecessary scruples against that of a
power expressly forbidden. Had the temper of the times, in
relation to the slave trade, been in 1805, when the bill was brought
348
THE WRITINGS OF [182
in, the same as it had been in 1787, when the interdiction of the
power of prohibition to Congress was inserted in the constitution,
I have little doubt that the construction of the clause upon which I
voted would have been held to be the only one of which it would
fairly admit. But in the interval a great and happy change of the
public mind had taken place. The slave trade, which in 1787 had
been renewed as a privilege too precious to be submitted even
to the prohibitory power of Congress, in 1805 had palled
upon the taste, and become an object of general abhorrence
and disgust even to those whose interests and desires the original
interdiction had been conceded, were willing to forego the remnant
of benefit which they might have claimed from it and to join two
years before its time in prescribing that prohibition, which until
then could not be carried into effect. But if I, from an overweening
scruple against the exercise of a power one day before it became
unequivocally lawful, am to be doomed as unquestionably a friend
to the slave trade, what is to be said of these patriots and sages
with Washington at their head who, in 1787, expressly denied to
Congress for twenty years, the power of prohibiting this flagitious
traffic at all. ^
A vote upon another grave subject is charged upon me as
evidence of my hostility to the republicans, a vote against wearing
crape one month, in memory of Samuel Adams and Edmund
Pendleton, two of the most distinguished friends of virtue and
liberty.
My objection to it was as a precedent. On the same day an
unanimous vote had passed to wear crape for one month for
Stevens Thompson Mason, a member of the Senate, then recently
deceased. As a usual compliment to a member of the body, I had
assented to this. But when on the same day, a resolution was
offered to wear crape for another month for two persons, neither of
them a member of the body and out of the usual course of pro-
ceedings, its obvious tendency was to introduce a practice of
passing such resolutions upon the decease of every eminent man
in the Union. It had the appearance, too, of a disposition to offer
1822] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 349
them by pairs from different sections of the Union, and of leading
to discussions of comparative merits, and to disquisitions upon
characters, neither suitable to the time nor the place. The char-
acters of Samuel Adams and Edmund Pendleton were venerable
and illustrious; but others equally distinguished had died without
that sort of notice which the example, once given, might and
probably would be demanded for others less meritorious until it
should lose all value as an unmeaning formality. These were the
motives upon which I, with a very respectable minority, voted
against that resolution, and although a majority voted for it be-
cause they thought a rejection of it, after it was once offered,
would have appeared disrespectful to the persons whom it was
then especially intended to honor, I have reason to believe that
they were convinced by the result of that day's debate, that it
would be advisable to offer no more such compound resolutions,
and that this mode of political canonization, if ever proper, should
be reserved for characters of at least solitary splendor, and with
regard to whom there would be neither need nor disposition to
take the question by yeas and nays.
General Smyth finally charges me with having, as a Senator,
denied protection to commerce, and seeking as usual a culpable
motive for what he otherwise cannot account for, he imputes it
to an unwillingness that the republican administration should
have the credit of affording protection to commerce. His proofs
are, that in March, 1804, I voted for striking out of the "Act
further to protect the commerce and seamen of the United States
against the Barbary Powers" the clause imposing the duty called
the Mediterranean fund, and finally against the act itself.
My recollections respecting this act, and my reasons for my
votes upon it, are less clear and distinct than with regard to any
of the others pointed out by the General for your reprobation;
because, in the other cases I not only voted, but took an active
part in the debates. In this I gave only silent votes, according to
the conviction of my judgment and upon the strength of argu-
ments urged by others. I well remember, however, the principal
350 THE WRITINGS OF [1822
objections against the Mediterranean fund clause, and against the
act itself.
By the first section of the act an additional duty of two and a
half per cent ad valorem was imposed upon all goods, wares and
merchandise imported, which were already charged with ad
valorem duties. It was contended that this indiscriminate aug-
mentation of duties upon one class of merchandise, many articles
of which were already burthened with charges as heavy as they
could well bear, would operate very unequally and inequitably
upon different portions of the Union; that the funds ought to be
raised by specific impositions upon specific articles, or by some
other mode of taxation. The details of the debate are not present
to my memory; but this was the substance of the objection to the
tax and to the act, and of the reason upon which my vote was
given.
There was another objection to the second section. It provided
that a distinct account should be kept of the duties imposed by the
act, the proceeds of which should constitute a fund to be denom-
inated the Mediterranean fund, which should be applied solely to
the purposes designated by that act; and that the said additional
duty should cease and be discontinued at the expiration of three
months after the ratification of a treaty of peace with Tripoli,
unless we should then be at war with any other of the Barbary
powers, in which case the said additional duty should cease and be
discontinued at the expiration of three months after the ratifica-
tion of a treaty of peace with such power.
It was objected to this section that it contained a delusive
pledge or promise to the people which would never be redeemed;
that it was but sweetening to the nauseous drug of taxation, un-
worthy of the dignity, and discreditable to the sincerity of the
legislature; that it was no other than a costly and cumbersome
fund; that the distinct account of duties to be applied solely to the
purposes of that act, while altogether useless in itself, would only
tend to embarrass and complicate the concerns and management
of the Treasury, and that when once the tax should be thoroughly
1822] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 351
and finally saddled upon the people, the Mediterranean fund and
the distinct account would be dropped, but the burthen would
remain.
How far these arguments were founded in truth, and this fore-
sight was justified by the event, let the records of your national
legislature decide. The ratification of the treaty of peace with
Tripoli, three months after which by this promise the Mediter-
ranean fund duty was to cease and be discontinued, took place in
April, 1806.
On the 2 1 St of the same month Congress passed an act by which
the first section of the act further to protect the commerce and
seamen of the United States against the Barbary powers was con-
tinued till the end of the then next session of Congress, and no
longer. The peace with Tripoli had been ratified, we were not at
war with any other of the Barbary powers. The Mediterranean
fund, the distinct account and specific application of its proceeds,
were all suffered silently to expire; but the additional duty of
two and a half per cent was continued until the end of the next
session of Congress, and no longer.
On the 3d of March, 1807, the same first section of the act, the
duty of two and a half per cent were continued in force, until the
first day of January then next, and no longer.
On the 19th of January, 1808, it was again revived and con-
tinued in force until the first day of January then next, but without
the flattering promise of the words and no longer. By recurring
to the journals of the Senate of nth January, 1808, it will be seen
that it was agreed to expunge these words from the bill. They
were expunged at my motion and in the following manner. The
bill was on its passage to a third reading. The venerable George
Clinton, then in the chair of the Senate, holding the bill in his
hand and about to put the question on its passage, beckoned to
me to come to him from my seat. When I went up, he whispered
to me, "I wish you would move to strike out these words and no
longer." I answered him that I would with pleasure, but asked
him what reason I should assign for the motion. "Why," said
352
THE WRITINGS OF [1822
he, "I am ashamed to sign my name so often to a lie." On this
hint I made the motion, and the words were expunged. But the
duty was continued from year to year until after the declaration of
war against Great Britain, when it merged in the double duty act
of 1st July, 1812.
'Fellow citizens, I have explained to you the reasons and real
motives for all these votes, which your representative, General
Alexander Smyth, has laid to my charge in a printed address to
you, and to which unusual publicity has been given in the news-
papers. I am aware that in presenting myself before you to give
this explanation, my conduct may again be attributed to un-
worthy motives. The best of actions may be, and have been, and
will be, traced to impure sources — by those to whom troubled
waters are a delight. If in many cases where the characters of
public men are canvassed however severely, it is their duty to
suffer and be silent, there are others, in my belief many others,
wherein their duty to their country, as well as to themselves and
to their children, is to stand forth the guardians and protectors of
their own honest fame. Had your representative, in asking again
for your votes, contented himself with declaring to you his inten-
tions concerning me, you never would have heard from me in
answer to him. But when he imputes to me a character and
disposition unworthy of any public man, and adduces in proof
mere naked votes upon questions of great public interest, all given
under the solemn sense of duty impressed by an oath to support
the constitution and by the sacred obligations of a public trust, to
defend myself against charges so groundless and so unprovoked, is,
in my judgment a duty of respect to you, no less than a duty of
self-vindication to me. I declare to you that not one of the votes
which General Smyth has called from an arduous service of five
years in the Senate of the Union, to stigmatize them in the face of
the country, was given from any of the passions or motives to
which he ascribes them; that I never gave a vote either in hostility
to the administration of Mr. Jefferson, or in disregard to republican
principles, or in aversion to republican patriots, or in favor of the
1822] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 353
slave trade, or in denial of due protection to commerce. I will
add, that having often differed in judgment with many of the best
and wisest men of this Union of all parties, I have never lost sight
either of the candor due to them in the estimate of their motives,
or of the diffidence with which it was my duty to maintain the
result of my own opinions in opposition to theirs.
Finally, my friends, I have a motive for meeting thus openly
and explicitly the accusations of General Smyth, which has refer-
ence more to our whole country than to you alone or to me. In
the hearts of us all upon every deliberation, whether in Congress,
in the state legislature, on the election grounds, or in the public
journals, the result to be aimed at by all should be peace, harmony,
union, freedom. Public principle can be settled in accordance with
these ends only by public discussion. On this, as on more than one
other occasion, a personal attack upon me has implicated principles
of morals and policy of the deepest import to you, to us all. With
every vote upon which General Smyth has invoked your censure,
was connected a great and important principle. That which he
could trace to no other spring than selfish passions and sordid
purposes, I have shown you to have been drawn from the deeper
fountains of constitutional law, of genuine human rights, of dis-
criminating moral sentiment. Say, if you please, that upon one or
more, or all of these votes, my judgment was ill advised, but say
that the motives by which it was influenced were pure, and that
the reasons by which it was misled were not trivial or light. To
all my votes on the acts legislating upon Louisiana in the session of
1803 and 1804, I will conclude with calling your permanent and
deliberate attention. They involve, in the most eminent degree,
the question still deeply interesting to you, of the constructive
â– powers of Congress. Not indeed in the same point of view in which
it is more usually presented to your feelings; not a question in
direct conflict with another question as to the extent of the rights
of your state legislatures; not a question between two sets of
servants of the same family to which of them belongs the power
to open a banking house or to dig a watercourse, but a question
354 THE WRITINGS OF [1823