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.
after I had closed my Letter Yesterday, I received Yours of the 28th.1 the Garden seeds are in a small Wooden Box in the garret Chamber over the best Chamber, made for the purpose of Securing them from the mice. the Box is locked and Mrs Porter has the Key, tho she may have forgotten it, it is a long Box unpainted
I should like much to have a passage to the Kitchin from the entry; my intention was to have a closset taken of where the Dressers now are, & to have taken in the other closset into the Kitchin. I care very little about the North Window which must be darkned by the other building, but as you observe a window May be made opposite the cellar Door might be removed if necessary, and My Liquors were removed, but that is not practicable at Present; if mr Cranch Dr Tufts or mr Bates can contrive such a communication it would be very desirable—
Major Tousard was with mrs Tousard at the drawing Room,
and he inquired of Louissa if there was any Prospect of procuring Lodgings.
She is a little tight looking fashionable
Native American, made french by her marriage— she is pretty & Much
younger than he is. she is a second wife, has not any children—
You need not write to me after the present week. it is My present intention to leave here some time next week— I will give you notice—228My Coachman is a stranger to the Roads.2 Richard I shall take with me— Mrs smith goes on fryday to N york— I wish it was so, that we could be in company—
I shall have a very buisy week the next; it is the last
time that I shall reside in this city, and as present appearences indicate,
the last time I shall visit it; the people are led blind fold by those who
will ride them without saddle, but well curbed and bitted it is generally
supposed that Nyork would be the balance in the scaile scale skaill, Scaill. (is it
right now? it does not look so.)3 N york by an effort to bring into
their assembly antifederal Men, will make also an antifederal ticket for
President; and this will give all the power Sought by that Party, which at
the sacrifice of all that Good Men hold dear and sacred, they are determined
upon— to this purpose was Randolph Letter, Livingstones Resolutions, and
Coopers libels— with all the host of Callenders lies—4 Much animosity is springing up
between South & North & East; a whole Year we shall hear nothing
else, but abuse and Scandel, enough to ruin & corrupt the Minds and
morals of the best people in the world. out of all this will arise—Something
which tho we may be no more, our Children may live to Rue— I hope we may be
preserved from confusion—but it is much to be dreaded—
adieu my dear sister / affectionatly Yours—
RC (MWA:Abigail Adams Letters); endorsed by
Richard Cranch: “Letter from / Mrs. A: Adams
/ May 5th 1800.”
See Cranch to AA, 25 April, note 3, above.
AA’s new coachman was James Jackson (ca.
1772–1800), with whom she departed Philadelphia for Quincy on 19 May.
After stops in Scotch Plains, N.J., to visit AA2, and New
York City to visit CA, AA arrived in Quincy on
31 May (AA to JA, 19 May, Adams Papers; Sprague, Braintree Families
;
AA to
JA, 22, 23 May, 2 June, all below).
Closing parenthesis has been editorially supplied.
James Thomson Callender intended the first volume of
The Prospect before Us to “exhibit the
multiplied corruptions of the Federal Government, and more especially
the misconduct of the President, Mr. Adams.” With covert financial
support from Thomas Jefferson, Callender alleged that in the
presidential election of 1800 Americans faced a choice “between Adams,
war, and beggary, and Jefferson, peace, and competency!” As a result,
Callender was arrested for sedition on 27 May and found guilty on 3
June. Justice Samuel Chase passed a sentence of nine months’
imprisonment and a $200 fine and required a bond of $1,200 to guarantee
good behavior. Callender remained in prison until 3 March 1801; on the
16th Jefferson pardoned him and remitted the fine (Callender, The Prospect before Us, 3 vols., Richmond,
Va., 1800–1801, 1:3, 167, Evans, Nos. 37083, 37084, Shaw-Shoemaker,
No. 271; Smith, Freedom’s Fetters
, p. 334, 339,
344, 345, 356; Jefferson, Papers
,
33:309–310).