Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont, New York, Maryland, Ohio, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, Louisiana: for general Jackson, New Jersey Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Indiana: for Mr. Crawford,-Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia.

The division in the different colleges was very unequal. In the New York college, for example, Mr. Adams received 18 votes, Mr. Crawford 14, and general Jackson 2. In the Kentucky college, Mr. Adams received 8, general Jackson 4: in Ohio, Mr. Adams had 10, general Jackson 2, Mr. Crawford 2. In the Maryland college, Mr. Adams received 5 out of 9 votes. In the North Carolina college, Mr. Crawford received 10, general Jackson 2, and Mr. Adams 1 vote. * As Jackson counted among his partisans the whole rabble of the country, their rage at their defeat was extreme; and it was the more violent, because their candidate had unquestionably a vast majority of the people on his side, and must have succeeded, if the choice had been by the direct votes of the electors.

On the 4th of March, the inauguration of Mr. Adams took place. Preceded by the vice-president Mr. Calhoun, with a number of members of the House of Repre

sentatives, followed by the expresident and family, by the judges of the supreme court, in their robes of office, and by the members of the senate, Mr. Adams, in a plain suit of black, advanced to the speaker's chair, and took his seat. The chief justice was placed in front of the clerks' table, having before him another table, on the floor of the hall, on the opposite side of which sat the remaining judges, with their faces towards the chair. Silence having been proclaimed, Mr. Adams rose, and read, with a clear and deliberate articulation, his inaugural address, [see Public Documents p. 109*]. As soon as the last sentence was pronounced, a general plaudit throughout the whole assembly continued for some minutes. The president elect then descended from the chair, and placing himself on the right hand of the judges' table, received from the chief justice a volume of the laws of the United States, from which he read, in a loud and clear voice, the oath of office: the close of which was followed by repeated plaudits, and by the discharge of a salute of artillery. Congratulations poured in from every side; and general Jackson was among the first of those who took the hand of the president.

A convention made with Colombia relative to the slave trade,

Jackson.

Number of electors chosen by the people

150,800

Adams. 98,169

for each

shared the same fate as the treaty with Great Britain had experienced in the preceding year. Being laid before the senate for rejection or approval, the first article of the treaty (giving the mutual right of search on the seas and coasts of Africa and the West Indies) was struck out by a vote of 28 to 12: the treaty was rejected unanimously.

The state of Georgia and the Creek nation of Indians mutually claim certain lands in the neighbourhood of that province. Of these the state had long sought to possess itself; but the general government of the United States had refused to allow Georgia to acquire them otherwise than by amicable negotiation. A short time since, a pretended cession of the disputed territory was procured from M'Intosh, one of the chiefs; but soon afterwards the other chiefs of the Creek Indians assembled together, and (as they urge, according to the custom of their tribes) put him to death for executing such an instrument without the assent, previously obtained, of the majority of the chiefs of the nation. Under these circumstances, the governor of Georgia contended that, the cession having been made, the general government of the United States had no further right of interference; whilst the latter insisted, that it was their duty and their right to ascertain whether the act was by Indian custom legal, or whether the rest of the chiefs of the Creek nation refused to confirm the transfer. This conduct on the part of the government, and the steps which had been taken or were in contemplation relative to slavery, produced high displeasure in the provincial authorities; and the governor, in a message, called

the attention of the House of Repre sentatives to the disposition, which latterly had so often evinced itself in the different branches of the general government, to control the domestic affairs, and to intermeddle with and to endanger the peace, repose, and union of the southern states. The House of Representatives referred the subject to a committee, who soon afterwards presented a very vehement and blustering report. "The hour," they

said, "is come, or is rapidly approaching, when the states from Virginia to Georgia, from Missouri to Louisiana, must confederate, and as one man say to the Union, 'We will no longer submit our constitutional rights to bad men in congress or on judicial benches-we disclaim the principle of unlimited submission to the general government.' The powers necessary to the protection of the confederated states from enemies without,' and from enemies within, alone were confided to the United government; all others were retained to the several states separate and sovereign. The states of the south will convey their products to the markets of the world. The world will open wide its arms to receive them. Let our northern brethren, then, if there is no peace in union, if the compact has become too heavy to be longer borne, in the name of all the mercies find peace among themselves. Let them continue to rejoice in their self-righte ousness, let them bask in their own meridian, while they depict the South as a hideous reverse. Athens, as

As

Sparta, as Rome was, we will be: they held slaves, we hold them. In the simplicity of the patriarchal government, we would still remain master and servant, under our own vine, and

our own fig-tree, and confide for safety upon Him, who, of old time looked down upon this state of things without wrath." The report concluded by recommending the adoption of two resolutions, one of which declared "that, having exhausted the argument, we will stand by our arms, and for the support of this determination we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honour." The other resolution recommended that the first should be forwarded to the Executive of each state in the Union, to be laid before their representatives, and that the senators and representatives of Georgia, should be required to co-operate in thwarting obnoxious measures of the government. This was ominous language; but it proved to be mere sound and fury, and was followed by no result.

In December, the first session of the nineteenth congress was opened. The message of Mr. Quincy Adams to the congress on this occasion, had nothing to distinguish it from the usual character of that class of compositions. After mentioning some of the foreign relations of the Union, and noticing particularly that the United States had been invited to send representatives to the congress of the South American republics about to be assembled at Panama, and had accepted the invitation; he proceeded to treat of the internal concerns of the republic; and gave the following view of the American finances:

8,000,000

1,500,000

So that, though eight million dollars of debt had been paid off, only two of these had been raised by loan: consequently, the revenue had afforded a surplus of six million dollars applied in extinction of debt; and, at the same rate, the whole remaining debt of 81,000,000 dollars, would be paid off in thirteen years and a half. The communications by post in the United States were very extensive; and yet, in this year, the Post Office establishment (for the first time) produced a surplus receipt of 45,000 dollars.

After praising the organization and discipline of the army, and the new military academy and artillery school, he passed to the treaties with the Indian tribes, and to the surveys which had been made with a view to opening new communications in the interior. The navy next attracted the president's attention; and he dilated upon the employment of the cruising squadrons in the Mediterranean and Pacific seas, and on their activity in the suppression of the slave trade and of piracy.

The remainder of the message evinced a very laudable zeal in the cause of science. It spoke with applause of" the emulagenerous tion with which the governments of France, Great Britain, and Russia have devoted the genius, the intelligence, and the treasures of their respective nations to the common improvement of the

my, and held those governments up as splendid examples to be followed in this respect by the American legislature. Mr. Adams further quoted the examples of England and France, in their scientific improvement of weights and measures, suggested the endowment of a university, and the construction of an observatory, and recommended certain enlargements of the executive and judiciary departments, as required by the great increase of population, and the wide ramifications of foreign intercourse.

On the 1st day of January, the first meeting of the congress of Mexico, under the constitution adopted in the preceding year, was held. The speech, which the president of the republic then addressed to the senators and deputies, was in a style and spirit very different from that of Mr. Adams's message. "Gentlemen," he began with stating, "It cannot be doubted, though some have affected to do so, whether modern societies established for the liberty of man, are the necessary results of just and beneficial ideas; or whether they exist momentarily, through the scandalous subversion of principles, and the tumultuous progress of the passions. The partisans of superannuated tyranny-those who from the region of the clouds draw down compacts and obligationsrefuse to acknowledge the legitimacy and vigour of those governments which have originated with the sovereign people. According to them, individuals in free nations possess neither restraint nor guarantees. They mutually assault each other, and in this bloody contest, cruelty and the remorseless anger of factions annihilate the hope of any regular system of legislation.

"It is not necessary, gentlemen, for the confusion of the enemies of the people, to lead them to the ruins of Carthage, to call up the remembrance of free Rome, or to open the annals of that Greece whose literature, noble arts, and sublime philosophy, gave a beginning to institutions which have been admired through all ages. No! America, our adored country, raising her head above ancient days, has resolved the problem which most interests the human race, and has torn aside the veils which covered the origin, the end, and the object of power.

"The profound legislator of Carolina, and William Penn, the friend of man, planted in the virgin soil of America the precious seeds of civil liberty, which, cultivated with care by Washington and Franklin, are now deposited, with the fruits which they produced, in this capital, which derived its wisdom from the banks of the Potomac ; from thence shoot desolating beams upon despotism— and from thence arises the generation of sovereign nations. How great is the glory of the New World! How elevated the grandeur of its destinies !"

It is melancholy to think, how low in point of intellect that legislative assembly must be, to whose ears such rhapsodies and nonsense can be acceptable. The only parts of the speech which touched upon the state of the country, were these:

"The high attributes with which the law and the will of my fellow citizens have invested me, as the depositary of the Executive power, have put me in the happy situation of employing them all for their benefit: and a glance on the state and progress of affairs, will