Adams Family Correspondence, volume 13
Yours of 25 Ult. is recd.— Thomas is to
Sett off from N. York to day for Quincy and I wish him a pleasant Journey, which the
fine Weather and convenient Snow promises. An happy Sight of his Friends, will come of
course, without Accidents. He found his Father, forty Years Older than when he left him,
and if he finds his Mother advanced only ten, it may be an agreable disappointment to
him.— But if We should live ten Years longer I Suppose We shall begin like the Hero of
Prussia to think ourselves young at least, not old. I rejoice that P. Willard is
restored to his Family Friends & the Public. Mr Gerry
has seen the Communication and the Annotations. I Should be glad to know the public
Opinion of both. I Shall not commit to writing any Remarks upon the Conduct of such
great Men as Ministers of state & Ambassadors. I agree with you, that voluble old
Women or handsome young ones, are the best Ambassadors to Some Courts & Governments.
I wish some Power or other would send You to me in the first Character.
Tell Mr Porter that I wish to have the
best manure upon the Hill and enough of it to give the Land a good dressing.
RC (Adams Papers); internal address: “Mrs Adams”;
notations: “IA to AA” and “Family.”
th1799 Tuesday Eve.
There is a class of men in this country, possessing some public
confidence, but entirely destitute of any moral principle, whose whole lives are spent
in the prostitution of their talents to the perversion of reason—whose unceasing
endeavors are to mislead the public mind— to obstruct public business and by the aid of
cavil, misrepresentation and artificial odium, to deprive the government of that public
and general confidence and support, without which, it cannot act with vigor and effect.
I am led to these observations by the hellish conduct of the Virginians. Some of them do
not hesitate to say that they wish a seperation of the state from the general union to
take place. Giles openly avows this.1
They appear as if they were determined to bid 396 defiance to all laws
human and divine. A printer at Richmond published seditious matter the day before the
circuit court sat there in hopes of a prosecution; &
the friends of government passed it over on account of the irritation it would produce
& because they knew that such a prosecution would recommend him to the Legislature
for printer to the state.2 You must have
seen the address to the commonwealth of Virginia, proposed by Taylor in house of
Representatives of that state and which passed the house by a majority of 22. This was a
most infamous appeal to the people. I send you with this, the address from the minority
which will prove to you that some good can come even out Nazareth.3
My love to Louisa if your please / Yours / with respect & esteem.4
RC (Adams Papers); endorsed: “W s Shaw Feb’ry / 5th 1799.”
The day after Shaw wrote this letter, an open letter from a J.
Nelson to William Branch Giles appeared simultaneously in newspapers in Philadelphia,
New York, and Charleston, S.C. In it Nelson called upon Giles to refute a report that
in dinner conversation “you did unequivocally declare it
to be your wish and object to effect a dissolution of the
Fœderal compact.” A response from Giles dated 21 Feb. appeared in the Philadelphia Aurora General Advertiser, 19 March: “This information of
the gentleman I unequivocally assert to be totally unfounded
and calumnious.” He added, however, that during a discussion of the Adams
administration at a recent dinner party he had said that he “always had been, and still was a friend to the Union—yet if the measures
proposed were to be adopted as permanent systems; I would
rather see a separation of the Union upon proper and pacific arrangements; than be
perpetually subject to all the pernicious consequences, which in my opinion would
necessarily flow from them” (Philadelphia Gazette of the
United States, 6 Feb.; New York Daily Advertiser,
6 Feb.; Charleston South Carolina State Gazette, 6
Feb.).
The printer was probably John Dixon Jr., who on 22 Nov. 1798, the
day the U.S. Circuit Court convened in Richmond, Va., printed in the Richmond Dixon’s Observatory an essay entitled “Political Creed of a
Virginian,” which stated: “I believe that there was a settled plan in, what, by a certain set, is triumphantly termed the constituted authorities, to subvert the liberties of
the People of America. I believe that when John Adams
approved those bills he did it, knowing that they were subversive of the
Constitution.” Dixon reprinted the essay on 26 Nov., in what would be the last issue
of the newspaper. On 6 Dec. Dixon and new publishing partner Meriwether Jones were
appointed Virginia state printers (
Doc. Hist. Supreme Court
, 3:304; Brandon D.
Quarles, “Public Printers,” in W. Hamilton Bryson, ed., Virginia Law Books: Essays and Bibliographies, Phila., 2000, p. 534).
For the Virginia Resolutions introduced in the Va. house of
delegates by John Taylor, see AA to
Shaw, 20 Dec., and note 3, above. The resolutions actually passed by a tally
of 100 to 63. The Philadelphia Gazette of the United
States, 5 Feb. 1799, printed an address from 58 of the members who voted
against the resolutions. The address supported the Alien and Sedition Acts and called
the union “the rock of our political salvation” (Kevin Raeder Gutzman, Virginia’s American Revolution: From Dominion to Republic,
1776–1840, Lanham, Md., 2007, p. 125).
Shaw also wrote to AA earlier in the day, condemning a recent French decree, which he enclosed to AA, and noting a possible congressional response. He also reported that vacancies in Congress had been filled and a subscription was being raised to pay the expenses of Matthew Lyon (Adams Papers).