Beschreibung:

ADAMS, JOHN QUINCY President . Autograph letter signed ("J.Q. Adams") as President, TO SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY RICHARD RUSH Washington, D.C., 22 August 1828. 2 pages, 4to, 255 x 200mm. (10 x 8 in.), small, clean tear at fold of two leaves, docketed on verso by Rush, marked "Private" by Adams at top . Fine. ADAMS ACCEPTS THE RESIGNATION OF HIS FUTURE RUNNING-MATE President Adams reluctantly accepts Secretary Rush's resignation: "...The Act for the relief of surviving Officers and Soldiers of the Army of the Revolution has added a heavy burden of duties to the office of the Secretary of the Treasury, surcharged with them as it was before. I regret this circumstance chiefly as it has deprived you of that temporary relaxation from aggressive occupations, which was essential to the restoration of your health -- your persevering determination to allow yourself no respite from those duties will, I hope, be duly appreciated by those for whose benefit they are performed. This aggravation of official labour has perhaps unadvisedly devolved upon you. It has reconciled me to the anticipation that your superintendence of the Treasury Department, will certainly terminate with the ensuing winter. You will leave a place never easy to be filled, and never less easy when vacated by you..." Richard Rush (1790-1859) had served as Attorney General under Madison and Monroe, and, as acting Secretary of State, had negotiated the Rush-Bagot Agreement. He only accepted the appointment as Secretary of the Treasury at Adams's insistence; a close personal friend of the President, he ran unsuccessfully for Vice-President with Adams in the election of 1828. Provenance : Elsie O. and Philip D. Sang (sale, Sotheby Parke-Bernet, 14 November 1978, lot 333).