Beschreibung:

ADAMS, JOHN QUINCY President . Autograph letter signed ("J. Q Adams") to Aaron Hobart, Washington, D.C., 3 May 1836, 4 pages, 4to, brittle at edges with some chips and small repairs (tape) at margins, clean horizontal separation to first leaf. A DISPAIRING SENATOR: "OPPOSITION IN THE SENATE...HAS SUNK INTO A TAME AND COMPLACENT MINORITY...I HAVE MYSELF NO CONFIDENCE IN THE PRESENT ADMINISTRATION" A lengthy, very outspoken letter on the collapse of the Senate opposition to Jackson's policies, the ruin of Webster's Presidential ambitions and the confirmation of Roger B. Taney as Chief Justice. Congress, Adams writes, has been "under the most intense excitement that I ever witnessed." A pamphlet "filled with personal invective upon me" has been circulated by Daniel Webster, delivered by "the menials of other Whig pretenders to the Presidency." He is appalled by Webster's recent "indulgence of his Passions" in Congress: "To snatch the lead of the Senate from Mr. Clay, he urged them over the edge of the precipice; and from their struggle against the exercise of unlawful power by the Executive [President Jackson], plunged them into a desparate conflict with the co-ordinate branch [the House]...Of all political movements by the leader of a party that I ever witnessed, this appears to me the most senseless and absurd...as insolent and disgusting...as it was wanton and reckless. It completed the ruin of the Senatorial opposition to President Jackson and demolished the last fragment of Mr. Webster's pretensions to the Presidency forever...." "Does it not more resemble the orgies of Bacchanals than the grave deliberations of a Senate[?]...I did not expose the bald and shallow pretenses of unconstitutionality...upon which the Senatorial rejection [of the Fortifications bill] was founded...," but in due course he will defend his character against Webster's "unprovoked hostility." In the meantime, Webster "is ready to drain the Treasury of its last dollar...He needs no public message of the President...[H]e shudders at no private whisper from the President to any member of Congress friendly to his administration, that [these appropriations] are needed. He votes millions for the suppression of Indian hostilities in Florida, without...waiting to hear from the President" that "such hotilities exist. He has lost all Panic fear of a Dictator. His colleague [Massachusetts Senator Davis] before his face votes advice and consent to the appointment of Roger B. Taney as Chief Justice of the United States," but Webster fails to vote against the confirmation. "The Opposition in the Senate...has sunk into a tame and complacent minority..." On such issues as the National Bank crisis and the currency "I have myself no confidence in the present Administration." In spite of Webster's ineffectiveness, "what is left him of influence...may yet be available for the support of Justice, and of the Union...." Adams promises to write a public letter in his defence for his constituents, if necessary, but asks the Hobart "consider this letter as Confidential." The bitter Congressional wrangling came to a head at the end of the month, when, on 26 May, the House passed the notorious Gag Rule, preventing all discussion of the issue of slavery and its abolition.