John Quincy Adams Digital Diary

28. VII: Mr Ninian Edwards the Senator from Illinois called upon me at the Office this Morning. He has several friends whom he recommends for Offices in Florida; but he was especially earnest in behalf of Mr Walton, the person urged by Mr Freeman Walker, the Senator from Georgia, to be the Secretary. Edwards says that Walker will be the head of a third party in Georgia, opposed to both the parties, of Mr Crawford and Governor Clark— Walker is a man of Talents, Eloquence, fair character and popular manners. He is not of the turbulent Spirits who make their way by perpetual conflict, but of those mild and conciliatory characters who win their way by captivating kindness. Edwards told me that Elliott, the other Senator from Georgia, had assured him he had attained the very summit of his ambition. That he could not form a wish in this world for any thing more than a Seat in the Senate of the United States with Freeman Walker for his Colleague. Edwards recommends also a Mr Duval of Kentucky to be a judge, and wishes the appointment of John Pope, as one of the Commissioners of Claims— The Spanish Minister, General Vives, was at the Office, and urges answers to several Notes and Letters that he has written me. Some of them relating to the execution of the Treaty; and others to different objects; among which are the case of the French ship Apollon, the capture by one of our armed ships of a Slave-trading vessel called the Esperanza; and the Arrest for debt at New-Orleans of the Spanish Consul, Villavaso. He also requested me to send him as I had promised the answer to the observations which according to his Instructions he had verbally made to me for the Consideration of the President; at the time when he had declared his readiness to exchange the Ratifications of the Treaty— I accordingly drafted an answer, which was approved by the president, and sent; together with a short answer to one of the General’s Notes. At the President’s I met Mr Thompson the Secretary of the Navy. The President has not yet determined whether to deliver an Address at his second inauguration, or simply to take the Oath, and Mr Thompson inclines to recommend the latter course— I dined this day at the President’s with all the Corps Diplomatique together with several members of Congress. It was a dinner to the French Minister on the occasion of his return to this Country, and to the Spanish Minister on the final conclusion of the Treaty— The Senate this day by a vote of 28 to 14. adopted the Resolution for the conditional admission of the State of Missouri into the Union, reported by the large joint Committee, and which had yesterday passed the house of Representatives, and thus this second Missouri question has been compromised like the first. The greatest results of this conflict of three Sessions have been to make John W. Taylor, Speaker of the House of Representatives, and to bring into full display the talents and resources of influence of Mr Clay. By a singular piece of good Fortune for him, just at the moment of his arrival here, Mr Lowndes in whose management it had been, was confined by severe illness to his chamber, and is so still. The majority against the unconditional admission was small, but very decided. The problem for the Slave representation to solve was the precise extent of concession necessary for them to detach from the opposite party a sufficient number of anti-servile votes just to turn the majority. Mr Clay found at last this expedient, which the Slave-voters would not have accepted from any one not of their own party, and to which his greatest difficulty was to obtain the acquiescence of his own friends— The timid and weak-minded, dropped off one by one from the free side of the question, until a majority was found for the compromise of which the serviles have 540the substance, and the liberals the shadow. In the progress of this Affair the distinctive character of the inhabitants of the several great divisions of this Union has been shewn more in relief than perhaps in any National transaction since the Establishment of the Constitution— It is perhaps accidental that the combination of talent and influence has been greatest on the Slave side.— The importance of the question has been much greater to them than to the other side. Their union of exertion has been consequently closer, and more unshakable. They have threatened and intreated, bullied and wheedled, until their more simple adversaries have been half coaxed half frightened into a surrender of their principles for a bauble of insignificant promises. The champions of the North did not however judiciously select their position for this contest— There must be at some time a conflict upon this very question between Slave and free-representation; but this is not the time; nor was this the proper occasion for contesting it— There was also a message this day sent to both Houses of Congress, suggesting the expediency of prolonging the time for receiving the returns of the Census— Its necessity chiefly proceeds from delays in the Eastern District of Virginia.