The Amistad Case and Final Years
January 1839 - February 1848
page 530
- Parker Daniel
I was first up this morning at 3. O’Clock; but returned to bed and
between sleeping and waking lay unconsciously till a quarter before 7.
two hours and a half later than I should have done.— Last evening
General Parker, Chief Clerk
of the War Department called and spent an hour with me— I shewed him the
Note from General Jackson of 25.
Jany 1819. declining our invitation of
him and his family to dinner,
and asked him if he knew in whose hand writing it was. He said it was
Coll.
Robert Butler’s— The note accepting the invitation to dine
on the 4th. of March 1819. is in another
hand, not Jackson’s. Parker said he should know it if he could see it—
But it is mislaid. I know not whether here or at Quincy— At the meeting
of the house this day Cave Johnson
from the joint Committee to wait on the President reported that they had performed that service,
and the President had informed them that he would make a communication
to Congress at 12. O’Clock this day. R.
M. Saunders moved the appointment of the standing
Committees which was agreed to— In pursuance of the notice I had given
yesterday— I moved the following Resolution— [“]Resolved that the 25th standing rule, for conducting business in
this house, in the following words—‘No petition, memorial, resolution or
other paper, praying the abolition of Slavery in the District of
Columbia, or any State or Territory or the Slave trade between the
States or Territories in which it now exists shall be received by this
house or entertained in any way whatever’—be, and the same is hereby
rescinded.”— I called for the yeas and nays— Jacob Thompson of Mississippi moved
to lay the Resolution on the Table— I called for the yeas and nays on
that motion— As the Clerk was
about to begin the call the President’s Message was announced and
received— A member called for the reading of the Message. I said I hoped
the question upon my resolution would be taken— The Clerk called the
roll, and the motion to lay on the table was rejected 81 to 104— The
question was then put on the resolution and it was carried 108 to
80.—blessed ever blessed be the name of God!— The President’s Message
was immediately afterwards read and some debate followed how to dispose
of it— Referred to the Committee of the whole on the state of the Union
and 10000 copies of it to be printed— After some miscellaneous business
about 3 the house adjourned. General Parker was again here this evening,
and I received two pension certificates from the Commissioner of Pensions.