John Quincy Adams Digital Diary

373 Washington. Friday 18 June 1841.

18. IV. Friday.

Slaymaker James F. De Bodisco Alexander Harriet de Bodisco

This Mr Slaymaker is a young man from Philadelphia, who came to solicit an office in one of the Departments, because he was lately graduated at some college with the highest honours; because he is in poor health; and because he is a moral man, and he said he understood that many of the Clerks in the public offices were not moral men— He wanted a recommendation from me, which I declined to give— His intellect seemed disordered— I called at the Treasury Department, but the Secretary Ewing was at the President’s— I enquired of the Chief Clerk, whether the late President Harrison, had drawn upon the Treasury for any part of his Salary, and was informed that he had not— I then called at the Department of State and enquired of Mr Webster whether the census returns were or would be ready for communication to Congress during the present Session— He said they were all ready—except from one District in Kentucky and one in Louisiana. I had half an hour’s conversation with him upon the cases of N. P. Trist of M’Leod and of the Amistad— When Harrison came into office, he determined to remove Trist from the Office of Consult at the Havana.— Trist took himself off to Charleston S.C Mr Webster wrote him that he would be removed, but before receiving the Letter he embarked and returned to the Havana— Mr Tyler declined to remove him without a further investigation of the complaints against him, and the question is to be decided upon Cabinet consultation next week— Mr Webster is yet in negotiation with Mr Argaiz the Spanish Minister upon the Amistad case, and wishes to see my argument upon the trial before the Supreme Court— I called again at Mr Palmer’s lodgings, but he was out. At the house I put the question to the Speaker, whether the standing Committees appointed under Rules cancelled by the reconsideration of the resolution adopting them were still extant— I did not so consider them, or hold myself a member of any such committee— And to test the sense of the house I moved the usual order that the standing committees of the house be now appointed. The Speaker said that the motion was not in order; as he considered the appointment of the standing committees already made as in full force. I then asked to be excused from serving as chairman of the Committee on Indian Affairs, and was excused without opposition— Calhoun, from the rule revising committee reported a very good rule, which after some struggle was adopted— Then Committee of the whole on the state of the Union, Taliaferro in the Chair on the bill for the relief of Mrs Harrison, which after a ferocious debate of 6 hours was reported to the house, with the blank filled with 25000 dollars moved by me, then after other obstructions broken down by previous questions, and refusals to adjourn, was passed to be engrossed and passed—122 to 66. Adjourned at half past 8. p.m.