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Subject Area: Political Theory
Topic: The American Revolution and Constitution

TO THE HEADS OF DEPARTMENT. - John Adams, The Works of John Adams, vol. 8 (Letters and State Papers 1782-1799) [1853]

Edition used:

The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: with a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations, by his Grandson Charles Francis Adams (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1856). 10 volumes. Vol. 8.

Part of: The Works of John Adams, 10 vols.

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TO THE HEADS OF DEPARTMENT.

Philadelphia, 13 March, 1798.

Will it be advisable to present immediately to Congress the whole of the communications from our minister in France, with the exception of the names of the persons employed by the minister Talleyrand to exhibit and enforce his requisitions for a bribe, under an injunction of secrecy as to that particular?

Ought the President, then, to recommend, in his message, an immediate declaration of war?1

John Adams.

[1 ]No answer to these questions, by the secretaries of State or of the Treasury, is found. Mr. Wolcott furnished a draft of a message which may have been his answer, and which was adopted and sent to Congress on the 19th. Mr. McHenry specifies two things as demanded by the French Directory.

1. A bribe of fifty thousand pounds sterling for the ministers and four of their corps.

2. A loan for national purposes, as a condition precedent to the suspension of the order to capture our vessels.

These demands being wholly inadmissible, and no better being likely to be offered a full disclosure to Congress, of all the facts, seems to be advisable and proper.

The objections to this course are:

1. Danger to the personal safety of the ministers.

2. It may make an insurmountable bar to any future negotiation.

3. It may be premature, as circumstances might yet change the designs of the Directory.

The first objection is thought to have but a slight foundation, as the French seem to have expected publicity. The second is better founded. But the President, in communicating to Congress, under an injunction of secrecy, the requisition of the French, devolves the responsibility of divulging it on Congress. As to the third, there seems to be no just ground to suppose any favorable change in the Directory as likely.

As to the second question, Mr. McHenry would avoid an open declaration of war; but instead of it, proposed a defensive plan, like that sketched out in his answer to the queries of the 24th January.

The Attorney-General thought it would be dangerous to the safety of the envoys in France, if the disclosure of the facts were made known before their departure should be ascertained. He was, therefore, not in favor of making the communications at this time.

To the second question he gave an affirmative answer, provided the declaration were not made until the envoys were known to have left France.

Mr. Pickering, “without the privity of any one,” as he says, communicated by two separate letters of the 25th to Mr. Hamilton all the secret information of the government. In one he answers a short letter of the 23d urging the communication of the papers to Congress, and he darkly suggests the policy of a treaty, offensive and defensive, with Great Britain, and proposes that provisional orders to that end should be sent to Mr. King. In the other, he incidentally mentions the fact that the President decided to keep back the despatches on the ground suggested by the Attorney-General. Hamilton’s Works, vol. vi. pp. 272-278.

Notwithstanding the President’s decision, a call was made by Congress for the despatches, on the 2d of April, and they were sent in the next day. “In this case,” writes the keen-eyed Jefferson, “there appeared a separate squad, to wit, the Pinckney interest, which is a distinct thing, and will be seen sometime to lurch the President. It is in truth the Hamilton party, whereof Pinckney is only made the stalking-horse.” See his letter to James Madison. Randolph’s Jefferson, vol. iii. p. 383.