Adams Family Correspondence, volume 14
th:1800
I have not written you for several days, you will easily suppose my time much occupied by having Mrs Johnson, & now our Boston 225 friends here and making preparation to go away. Mrs Johnson will go tomorrow or Tuesday. Mrs Smith on Friday. Thursday will be my last public dinner. Mr & Mrs Stevens can tell you what a crow’d we had on friday evening.1 The rooms and entry were full, and so hot as to give me a great cold. Some of the company appeared really sorrowful others said they were so.
Antifederalism is like to bear sway in New York, if it does the federalists must thank themselves, the conduct of the little General has done more injury to that cause than he has ever done service to this country in any station in which he has ever acted, the Antis think there is no possibility of crushing him, but by a total change in the administration, and it is said here, with what truth I know not, that he has quareld with all his old federal friends, they insisting upon supporting the present executive and he upon setting up some other, in opposition to both P. and vice P. the fact is that the Antifederal party carry the election, and upon that tis said the pivot turns.2 He will draw upon his own head a total annihilation of all his own scheems, for Jefferson will in spite of all his efforts be President. I do not think in that case, that if he could act himself he would overturn the constitution, but the party which brings him in, will rule and govern him, and he has not firmness enough to resist the current. I do not believe that Mr Jefferson has a malignant heart, or that he would act the tyrant, but his party have views very different from him. of one thing I am certain we do not escape a war four years more. However I do not croak, we see but little before us.
I left my letter unfinished that I might add to it
this morning, if I should receive one from you which I have.3 Major Tousard said it was
sickly he heard in camp. I feared it, I inquired last evening of the
secretary of War, he said it was very much so at Harpers ferry, but that
he had not learnt that it was so in the Jersies if the small pox is got
into camp the sooner innoculation takes place the better.4 I presume Col Smith will take
measures to obtain proper directions Since you left me Richard has had
it, and very lightly, he was not so sick a single day so as to be laid
by. The cooks children have both had it. Genrl Brooks has been nominated to the Senate in the room of
General Knox, resigned, the nomination has not been passed upon, the
Jacos, have been fabricating a Bill to prevent the President from
appointing any new officers. It will not pass in their form, the
President is by law obliged to fill vacancies, it will pass it is 226 supposed leaving a discretionary
power with the President.5 I heard from Tousard, and from others that the troops were to be
removed but where I cannot say. I question whether it is yet determined.
General Hamilton I suppose has the direction. As the purveyer of
supplies is dead possibly somethings may as well be provided in other
places, as the City of Philadelphia more than a dozen applications are
already made for the office. Who will have it is more than I can
say.6
The President has nominated Mr Johnson Stamp master
some of the Senate gaped, some scouted, some wanted more light some more information. The truth Mr Johnson’s
daughter married to the son of the President, this was too bare faced to
declare, but I know their hearts. Some hoped and solicited the office
for their friends were disappointed. It has been already a week upon the
table, the fate of it is dubious.7
I sometimes feel sick of human nature, so much intrigue, so much management, necessary to carry through any object. I believe power in one hand better than in many, at least, they should be responsible where it is placed which is not the case in Senate, they have a voice without responsibility.
Adieu Yours &c
Tr in ABA’s hand (Adams Papers); internal address: “To Mrs W. S. Smith”; APM Reel 327.
Possibly Ebenezer Stevens, an agent in the War
Department, and his wife, Lucretia Ledyard Sands Stevens (1756–1846)
(Eugene R. Stevens and William Plumb Bacon, comps., Erasmus Stevens, Boston, Mass., 1674–1690, and
His Descendants, New Britain, Conn., 1914, p. 15, 28).
Interparty rivalries that ultimately splintered the
Federalist Party and divided support between JA and Charles
Cotesworth Pinckney during the election of 1800 were first manifested on
the state level, as partisans electioneered for allied legislative
candidates who would later serve as presidential electors. The first
evidence of the divisions emerged in New York prior to the legislative
elections, with Alexander Hamilton vigorously campaigning for the
Federalists, delivering speeches and publicly debating Aaron Burr.
Hamilton’s later efforts would more explicitly favor Pinckney,
especially in South Carolina and during his summer electioneering tour
of New England, for which see
AA to TBA, 12
July, and note 2, below (Freeman, Affairs
of Honor
, p. 231–233; Hamilton, Papers
, 24:444–452).
Not found.
On 25 April a “billious inflamatory fever” was
circulating in Harpers Ferry, prompting Pinckney to relocate his troops,
and by 13 May their health had improved. On 2 May WSS
reported to Hamilton from New Jersey that a soldier under his command
had smallpox, asking if troop inoculations should begin. Hamilton
responded that other measures should be used to prevent the spread of
the disease, and on 14 May WSS reported that no other cases
had occurred (Hamilton, Papers
, 24:430, 431,
480; WSS to Hamilton, 2, 14 May; Hamilton to
WSS, 6 May, all DLC:Hamilton Papers).
On 31 March JA nominated Gen. John
Brooks (1752–1825), of Reading, Mass., for promotion to major general in
the U.S. Army after Gen. Henry Knox declined the appointment. The Senate
negatived Brooks’ nomination on 14 May. James McHenry in a letter to
JA of 23 May (Adams Papers) stated his 227 opinion that JA did
not have the power to make certain military appointments during the
congressional recess. A bill on disbanding the provisional army during
the upcoming recess, for which see
TBA to JQA, 11
May, and note 3, below, permitted JA to suspend
appointments “according to his discretion” (Jefferson, Papers
, 31:481; Washington, Papers, Revolutionary War Series
, 5:18;
Annals of Congress
, 6th Cong.,
1st sess., p. 713–715, 716;
U.S. Statutes at
Large
, 2:85–86).
Hamilton informed McHenry on 5 May that he had
ordered WSS to prepare the Union Brigade to move to a new
site, possibly in Rhode Island, but it remained in place until the
disbanding of the army on 15 June. Purveyor of public supplies Tench
Francis, for whom see vol. 10:347, died on 1 May and was succeeded on 13
May by Israel Whelen (1752–1806), a Philadelphia merchant and
commissioner of valuations (Hamilton, Papers
, 24:455, 552–554; Hamilton to Lt. Col. Aaron
Ogden, 6 May, NjMoHP:Lloyd W. Smith Coll.; Philadelphia
Gazette, 2 May; John W. Jordan, ed., Colonial and Revolutionary Families of Pennsylvania, 3 vols.,
N.Y., 1911, 2:663–665).
On 28 April JA nominated Joshua Johnson
to be U.S. superintendent of stamps, a newly created position to oversee
a general stamp office created five days earlier. On 5 May the Senate
confirmation vote ended in a tie, which Thomas Jefferson broke by voting
to confirm Johnson’s appointment. Johnson wrote to JA on 12
May (Adams Papers),
thanking him for the federal position. He also offered JA
lodgings during his upcoming visit to Washington, D.C. JA
replied on 18 May (LbC, APM Reel 120), declining Johnson’s
offer, observing, “I am a very troublesome guest” (U.S. Senate, Exec. Jour.
, 6th Cong., 1st
sess., p. 350, 351;
U.S. Statutes at Large
,
2:40–42). For LCA’s view of her father’s appointment, see
LCA, D&A
, 1:177.