Papers of John Adams, volume 19
This letter will be presented to you by the Hon. William Smith Esquire one of the representaives in Congress from the State of South Carolina—whom I beg leave to introduce to you as a friend and a fellow citizen whose talents, integrity, fortune and connexions are respectable in the eyes of his constituents in the district which he represents, and whose family since the earliest settlement of this country have been endeared to and honor’d by its most distinguish’d inhabitants.1
He is son-in-law of your old acquaintance Mr Izard to whom as
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well as to Mr Smith I am indebted for much hospitality and many civilities in Charlestown during a winter in which I have been engaged in advocating the claims of the foreign creditors of the state— a difficult, unpleasant and laborious piece of business.
Soon after your departure from England I was applied to by a number of these creditors—who understood I had been previously spoken to on the same subject by others in Holland and in France. I listen’d to their complaints and have been toiling for their relief. My assiduity has not been wholly fruitless. But to compleat the good effects of the negotiation I am indispensably obliged to embark again for Europe without delay.
Pray accept my cordial congratulations on an appointment that confers perhaps less honor upon your name than it receives dignity from it. Mrs Adams with yourself ever live / in the grateful remembrance / of your respectful and affectionate
RC (Adams Papers); internal address: “His Excellency John Adams Esquire.”
Federalist, lawyer, and pamphleteer William Loughton Smith (1758–1812), of Charleston, S.C., was a distant cousin of AA’s. He represented South Carolina in the House from 1789 to 1797, then served as the U.S. minister plenipotentiary to Portugal and Spain until 1801 (
AFC
, 1:69;
Biog. Dir. Cong.
).
th.April, 1789.
I have the honor to transmit to you the information of your being elected to the office of Vice-President of the United States of America.1 Permit me, Sir, to hope, that you will soon safely arrive here to take upon you the discharge of the important duties, to which you are so honorably called by the Voice of your country.
I am, sir, with sentiments / of respect, your obedient / humble servant.
Be it known, That the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America being convened in the City and State of New York, this sixth Day of April, in the Year of our Lord, one thousand, seven hundred, and eighty nine, the under-written appointed President of the Senate for the sole Purpose of receiving, opening, and counting the Votes of the Electors, did, in the Presence of the 409 said Senate and House of Representatives, open all the Certificates, and count all the Votes of the Electors for a President, and Vice-President, by which it appears, that the honorable John Adams, Esquire, was duly elected, agreeably to the Constitution, to the Office of Vice-President of the said United States of America.
In Testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my Hand and Seal.
RC and enclosure (Adams Papers); internal address: “The Honble. / John Adams, Esqr.”; enclosure endorsed: “Act of the Senate.”
Riding express for more than two days, Sylvanus Bourne delivered this notification to JA at six o’clock in the evening of Thursday, 9 April. The first vice president-elect left for New York after an eight o’clock breakfast in Braintree on Monday, 13 April. En route to Boston for a farewell luncheon with Massachusetts governor John Hancock, Lt. Gov. Benjamin Lincoln, and others, JA was greeted by thirteen-gun salutes and “a multitude of respectable citizens who had assembled on the occasion, testified their sense of his merits, and applause of his great Republican virtues, by loud huzzas.” A forty-carriage entourage, filled with government officials, Harvard faculty, prominent merchants, and foreign consuls, followed JA in grand procession as far as Watertown. A military escort on horseback accompanied JA through the counties of Suffolk, Middlesex, and Worcester. Marked by military pomp and federal fanfare, JA’s journey was reported widely in detail, with one newspaper observing that “in like manner, will this great and good man be accompanied to New-York—Not with the servile attentions of slaves and subjects—but by the voluntary honours of his fellow citizens.”
Continuing southward, JA stopped in several towns, including Hartford, Conn., where he received a “Piece of Broadcloth, for a Suit of Cloaths,” and New Haven, where he was presented with honorary citizenship. According to several newspapers, these public accolades were “not merely honourary— they were the tribute of gratitude due to a man, who after a few months retirement from trials and services which were of 18 years unremitted continuance, hath again stepped forward to endeavour to establish and perpetuate that Independence—the instrument of which his own hand penned—and which his exertions have so greatly contributed to produce.” On Monday, 20 April, JA and his retinue reached Elizabethtown, N.J., where they were met by a military escort and a congressional delegation and accompanied into New York City. Throughout the trip and over the following weeks, as he settled into his new duties as vice president, JA largely confined his correspondence to AA and family members (
AFC
, 8:331, 332–333; Massachusetts Centinel, 15 April; New York Gazette of the United States, 22 April; New-Jersey Journal, 22 April; Pennsylvania Packet, 23 April).