2589. EMBARGO, The Union and.—[further continued].
You ask my opinion of
the propriety of giving publicity to what is
stated in your letter, as having passed between
Mr. John Quincy Adams and yourself. Of
this no one can judge but yourself. It is one
of those questions which belong to the forum
of feeling. This alone can decide on the degree
of confidence implied in the disclosure;
whether under no circumstances it was to be
communicated to others? It does not seem to
be of that character, or at all to wear that aspect.
They are historical facts which belong
to the present, as well as future times. I
doubt whether a single fact, known to the
world, will carry as clear conviction to it, of
the correctness of our knowledge of the treasonable
views of the federal party of that day,
as that disclosed by this, the most nefarious
and daring attempt to dissever the Union, of
which the Hartford Convention was a subsequent
chapter; and both of these having failed,
consolidation becomes the fourth chapter of
the next book of their history. But this opens
with a vast accession of strength from their
younger recruits, who, having nothing in them
of the feelings or principles of '76, now look
to a single and splendid government of an
aristocracy, founded on banking institutions,
and moneyed incorporations under the guise
and cloak of their favored branches of manufactures,
commerce and navigation, riding and
ruling over the plundered ploughman and beggared
yeomanry. This will be to them a next
best blessing to the monarchy of their first
aim, and perhaps the surest stepping-stone to
it.—
To William B. Giles. Washington ed. vii, 428.
Ford ed., x, 356.
(M.
1825)
