Secretary of State

September 1817 - February 1825

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12 March 1819
adams-john10 Neal MillikanAfrican AmericansAmerican RevolutionAnti-Slavery MovementsColonization MovementsDuelingLouisiana PurchaseOregon CountryPrivateeringSlave TradeUS Constitution
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12. VII: At the President’s this morning, he mentioned that he wished shortly to have a meeting of the members of the Administration, to consider the effect of the Acts passed at the late Session of Congress against Piracy, and Slave trade; and he intimated that the Committee of the Colonization Society had applied to him, to purchase a territory on the Coast of Africa, to which the Slaves who may be taken under the late Act may be sent. The President said there had been only an appropriation of one hundred thousand dollars; which could not be sufficient for purchasing a territory; but perhaps Congress would appropriate more hereafter. I told him I thought it impossible that Congress should have had any purchase of territory in contemplation of that Act, and that I had no opinion of the practicability or of the usefulness of the objects proposed by the Colonization Society; which object professes to be, to establish a Colony in Africa; where all the free blacks and people of Colour of the United States may be sent and settled— The project is professed to be formed 1. without intending to use any compulsion upon the free people of colour, to make them go. 2. To encourage the emancipation of Slaves by their Masters. 3. To promote the entire abolition of Slavery—and yet 4. Without in the slightest degree affecting, what they call a certain species of property—that is the property of Slaves— There are men of all sorts and descriptions concerned in this Colonization Society; some exceedingly humane, weak-minded men, who have really no other than the professed objects in view; and who honestly believe them both useful and attainable. Some speculators in official profits and honours which a colonial establishment would of course produce— Some speculators in political popularity, who think to please the abolitionists by their zeal for emancipation, and the Slave holders by the flattering hope of ridding them of the free coloured people, at the public expence— Lastly some cunning Slaveholders who see that the plan may be carried far enough to produce the effect of raising the market price of their Slaves— But although the plan obviously imports the engrafting of a Colonial Establishment upon the Constitution of the United States, and thereby an accession of power to the National Government, transcending all its other powers; and although this tremendous machinery would be introduced under an ostensible purpose comparatively so trivial, and in a captivating form which might bring it in unperceived, I do not believe that is the actuating motive of any one member of the Society— For it would only be the motive of a man whose magnificence of design, and depravity of principle, would both go beyond my opinions of any man belonging to the Institution. The President said this subject had been recommended by a Resolution of the Virginia Legislature. And then he enlarged upon the great earnestness there was in Virginia, for the gradual abolition of 60Slavery, and upon the excellent and happy condition of the Slaves in that State—upon the kindness with which they were treated, and the mutual attachment subsisting between them and their Masters— He said that the feeling against Slavery was so strong that shortly after the close of our Revolution, many persons had voluntarily emancipated their Slaves; but this had introduced a class of very dangerous people, the free blacks, who lived by pilfering, and corrupted the Slaves; and produced such pernicious consequences, that the Legislature were obliged to prohibit further emancipation by Law— The important object now, was to remove these free blacks, and provide a place to which the emancipated Slaves might go—the legal obstacles to emancipation might then be withdrawn, and the black population in time be drawn off entirely from Virginia— At the Office the Committee from the Society, General John Mason, Walter Jones and Francis S. Key came and renewed the subject— Jones argued that the late Slave trade Act contained a clear authority to settle a Colony in Africa, and that the purchase of Louisiana, and the settlement, at the Mouth of Columbia river, placed beyond all question the right of acquiring territory, as existing in the Government of the United States— I treated these Gentlemen with all possible civility; but gave them distinctly to understand that the late Slave trade Act, had no reference to the Settlement of a Colony; and that the acquisition of Louisiana, and the establishment at the mouth of Columbia river, being in territory contiguous to and continuous with our own, could by no means warrant the purchase of Countries beyond the Seas, or the establishment of a Colonial System of Government subordinate to and dependant upon that of the United States. To derive powers competent to this from the Slave trade act, was an Indian Cosmogony— It was mounting the World upon an Elephant, and the Elephant upon a Tortoise with nothing for the Tortoise to stand upon. They took leave of me with good humour; but satisfied I believe that they will have no aid from me— A politician would have flattered them. Dr Barton of Philadelphia came to me with a Letter of recommendation from S. Ewing, and J. Sergeant— Barton is a Surgeon with a family, and author of several valuable Botanical Works— But he has some office in the Medical Marine Department which the Secretary of the Navy has determined to suppress as useless; of which Barton having received very short an unexpected notice, is thrown upon the world, and deprived of his principle means of support. He came therefore to obtain if possible a revocation, but at least a respite of the suppressing order; and asks my influence, with the Secretary of the Navy, in his favour— As I was returning home to dinner, I met Mr Edwards the Senator from Illinois— I had seen by the newspapers that he had been re-elected by the Legislature of the State; which I mentioned and told him I now hoped he would come— He said yes— He had hoped his friends would have been able to agree upon some other person, to take his place; but they could not— Now however he should not be obliged to return home after every Session of Congress, and travel twice a year eleven hundred miles to take his seat. I told him General Parker, had said to me the other Evening at Dr Thornton’s, that he was afraid General Jackson had gone from this City to Virginia with the determination to challenge J. W. Eppes— I hoped it was not so— He said no— That he had intended it. That some intimation of this intention had been given to the President, and J. J. Monroe had come with two earnest messages to him, to interfere and restrain Jackson from this design— He had called upon him and met Eaton of Tennessee coming from him. Eaton had been endeavouring to appease him, without success. When he Edwards went in he found Jackson, exasperated beyond any thing that he ever witnessed in Man— But Jackson was always willing to listen to the advice of those whom he knew to be his friends, and to give it all due weight— So he sat down with him and argued the case till two or three O’Clock in the Morning; and then left him perfectly calm and good-humoured, and rescued from his project of fighting Eppes— But when he had first represented to Jackson, that it would have the appearance of an attempt to overawe members of the Legislature in the exercise of their functions, his answer was— But, by ——— Sir, the 4th. of March is past— Any man, may “approve or disapprove my actions, at his pleasure—but my motives—no man shall impeach my motives with impunity”— However, Edwards pressed upon him, that his friends by the earnestness with which they had defended him, had made his cause their own, and that any indiscretion or intemperate violence on his part, would affect them in the public opinion almost as much as himself—a consideration to which he 61finally yielded; and he went off quite cool and composed. Of all this I had no knowledge at the time. I spent this Evening at home, and at last seriously occupied upon the Journal.

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