Papers of John Adams, volume 20
th1789
I have received the letter you did me the honour to write me on the first of this month with its inclosures: The Letter to The President is conceived with propriety & expressed with decency. As the 18 Investigation of the Characters, Services, Qualifications, and all other pretensions of every Candidate for public employment, is constitutionally, in the President in the first Instance; General Knox’s Advice to you was very proper, and I know of no other Course you can pursue.1 As the Journals & debates of the House are regularly published you will have early information of all the Offices which may be created & will have opportunity to accomodate your application to the Circumstances as they rise—2
It would be to me at all times a pleasing Employment, if I had it in my Power, to contribute to the happiness of a deserving Man & a virtuous Family; but in this buisness is out of my sphere, I can do no more than relate the truth as far I may know it, whenever I may be interrogated concerning Facts—
I am Sir with much Esteem / Your most Obedt & humble Servant
LbC (Adams Papers); internal address: “The Honourable Saml Barrett Esqre— / Boston—”; APM Reel 115.
Frequently, JA replied to the flood of patronage requests much as he did here, reiterating the Constitution’s stipulation that such nominations were a presidential power alone.
Throughout the summer, American newspapers printed the full text
of the judiciary bill, which included provisions for the appointment of clerks; see,
for example, the Boston Gazette, 29 June; Pennsylvania Packet, 29 June. John Beckley, clerk of the
House, and Samuel Allyne Otis, secretary of the Senate, contracted with private
printers to publish journals that appeared at the opening of each congressional
session (vol. 19:478;
First Fed.
Cong.
, 1:x, 2:vii, 3:xiv).