24 December 1834
adams-john10 Neal Millikan Nullification Recreation
465

24. VI:45. Wednesday.

Overslept myself till broad daylight, which in my present state of occupations was a heavy loss of time— I had hoped to finish by this day my second and abridged Oration upon the Life and Character of La Fayette; but am disappointed, and have yet work for three or four days— At the House, the concurrent Resolution fixing the 31st. instt. for the delivery of the Oration upon La Fayette had been yesterday ordered to be engrossed for a third reading; but this morning the Speaker said it was a concurrent, and not a joint Resolution and did not require three readings. He should therefore consider it as passed, and send it to the Senate for concurrence. When the Resolution offered yesterday by Mr Lincoln to call upon the President for information of the State of the Negotiation respecting the North Eastern boundary 466came up, Gorham Parks opposed its passage in a long, acrimonious Speech against its passage, professing at the same time to be altogether indifferent about it and objecting especially to the latter part of it— His object seemed to be to vent his spleen, against the State of Massachusetts, and to rouse the party feeling of the Administration men to put down the Resolution— Evans of Maine answered him with a mild, temperate, playful and cutting severity, exposing the inconsistencies and profligacy of the party in Maine, which have used this controversy as an Engine against the last Administration, and are now tamely sacrificing the territory of the State itself in servile submission to the present Administration Evans among other things noticed the boisterous nullification doctrines of the party in Maine, until the President’s Proclamation of December 1832, referring to debates in the Legislature in which he had opposed in vain those doctrines, and to the tameness with which they have been abandoned since the Proclamation— T. F. Foster of Georgia followed Evans with a spirited speech in honour of nullification— Lincoln replied fully to the objections of Parks— F. O. J. Smith, makes a Speech against that of Evans, but says he shall vote for the Resolution— The Orders of the day were called for at the expiration of the hour; but the house were so much amused by the debate on Lincoln’s resolution that they refused to pass to the orders, and the debate continued till past 3. when the house adjourned over to Saturday— Beatty of Kentuckey, nettled at the failure of his motion yesterday for a joint Resolution to adjourn over to Monday now opposed the motion to adjourn over Christmas day at-all; and called for the yeas and nays, but the house denied them— There is no trial of temper more provoking than that of conflicting with a majority of a deliberative Assembly; and none where a manifestation of temper is more useless and unwise— I have fallen into this error more than once, and occasionally made myself exceedingly obnoxious by it— The manifestation of temper must be most carefully distinguished from resistance to the will of a Majority, which is sometimes a duty of the highest order— Walk home in company with Jarvis.

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