Econlib

The Library

Other Sites

 Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow O. WOLCOTT, SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY, TO JOHN ADAMS. - The Works of John Adams, vol. 9 (Letters and State Papers 1799-1811)

Return to Title Page for The Works of John Adams, vol. 9 (Letters and State Papers 1799-1811)

Search this Title:

Also in the Library:

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

O. WOLCOTT, SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY, TO JOHN ADAMS. - John Adams, The Works of John Adams, vol. 9 (Letters and State Papers 1799-1811) [1854]

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. 9.

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

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


O. WOLCOTT, SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY, TO JOHN ADAMS.

Washington, 8 November, 1800.

Sir,—

I have, after due reflection, considered it a duty which I owe to myself and family, to retire from the office of Secretary of the Treasury; and accordingly I take the liberty to request that the President would be pleased to accept my resignation, to take effect, if agreeable to him, only at the close of the present year.1

In thus suggesting my wishes, I am influenced by a desire of affording to the President suitable time to designate my successor, and also of reserving to myself an opportunity to transfer the business of the department without injury to the public service.

I have the honor to be, &c.

Oliver Wolcott.

[1 ]Mr. Wolcott seems not to have been entirely easy in his mind touching his secret occupations during the preceding two months. His mode of compounding with his conscience is curiously set forth in his letter to Alexander Hamilton of the 3d of September. Gibbs’s Memoirs, &c., vol. ii. p. 416. See also the letter of the 3d October, given in Gibbs, with omissions which are nearly all supplied in Hamilton’s Works, vol. vi. p. 471. The idea of giving the President, whom he was doing his best to eject from office after the 3d of March, time to select a successor for two months, is only one degree less singular than that suggested by his biographer, that his decision was postponed until after he had become satisfied that the last hope of his continuance, through the secret movement for Mr. Pinckney, must fail. See Gibbs’s Memoirs, &c., vol. ii. pp. 443.

In the meantime, Mr. Adams had not the remotest suspicion of what was going on. Not altogether unfitly does Mr. Wolcott himself remark: “It appears to me that certain federalists are in danger of losing character in point of sincerity!” Gibbs, vol. ii. p. 431.