James Madison Papers
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From James Madison to the Senate, 26 June 1809

To the Senate

June 26. 1809

To the Senate of the United States.

The considerations which led to the nomination of a Minister Plenipotentiary to Russia, being strengthened by evidence since received of the earnest desire of the Emperor to establish a diplomatic intercourse between the two Countries, and of a disposition in his Councils favorable to the extension of a commerce mutually advantageous; as will be seen by the extracts from letters from Genl Armstrong and Consul Harris, herewith confidentially communicated;1

I nominate John Quincy Adams, of Massachusetts, to be Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States to the Court of St. Petersburg.

James Madison

RC and enclosures (DNA: RG 46, Executive Proceedings); Tr (MHi: Timothy Pickering Papers). RC in a clerk’s hand, dated and signed by JM. On the RC, someone wrote “a” at the beginning of the second paragraph. Tr in Pickering’s hand. For enclosures, see n. 1.

1Enclosures were copies of Levett Harris (U.S. consul at St. Petersburg) to JM, 7 [19] July 1808, Count Nicolas de Romanzoff (Russian foreign minister) to Harris, 13 [25] June 1808, and an extract of John Armstrong (U.S. minister to France) to JM, 24 Nov. 1808 (printed in ASP description begins American State Papers: Documents, Legislative and Executive, of the Congress of the United States … (38 vols.; Washington, 1832–61). description ends , Foreign Relations, 3:298–99). Armstrong assumed that the Senate would confirm William Short as U.S. minister to Russia and told Romanzoff, then visiting Paris, of his nomination. Czar Alexander I had already appointed André de Daschkoff as consul general and chargé d’affaires to the U.S., but Romanzoff promised that a Russian diplomat “of equal rank would be immediately appointed,” adding that he sought American trade as a substitute for Russia’s dissolved “commercial connexions with Great Britain.” These documents had their intended effect, for the Senate reversed its 7 Mar. rejection of Adams, confirming him on 27 June by a 19 to 7 vote (Senate Exec. Proceedings description begins Journal of the Executive Proceedings of the Senate of the United States of America (3 vols.; Washington, 1828). description ends , 2:119, 126–27; see also JM to Adams, 6 Mar. 1809, n. 1, and Short to JM, 15 Sept. 1809, n. 1).

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