Adams Papers
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Abigail Adams to Abigail Adams Smith, 4 May 1800

Abigail Adams to Abigail Adams Smith

May 4th: 1800

My dear Mrs Smith

I have not written you for several days, you will easily suppose my time much occupied by having Mrs Johnson, & now our Boston friends here and making preparation to go away. Mrs Johnson will go tomorrow or Tuesday. Mrs Smith on Friday. Thursday will be my last public dinner. Mr & Mrs Stevens can tell you what a crow’d we had on friday evening.1 The rooms and entry were full, and so hot as to give me a great cold. Some of the company appeared really sorrowful others said they were so.

Antifederalism is like to bear sway in New York, if it does the federalists must thank themselves, the conduct of the little General has done more injury to that cause than he has ever done service to this country in any station in which he has ever acted, the Antis think there is no possibility of crushing him, but by a total change in the administration, and it is said here, with what truth I know not, that he has quareld with all his old federal friends, they insisting upon supporting the present executive and he upon setting up some other, in opposition to both P. and vice P. the fact is that the Antifederal party carry the election, and upon that tis said the pivot turns.2 He will draw upon his own head a total annihilation of all his own scheems, for Jefferson will in spite of all his efforts be President. I do not think in that case, that if he could act himself he would overturn the constitution, but the party which brings him in, will rule and govern him, and he has not firmness enough to resist the current. I do not believe that Mr Jefferson has a malignant heart, or that he would act the tyrant, but his party have views very different from him. of one thing I am certain we do not escape a war four years more. However I do not croak, we see but little before us.

Monday morning

I left my letter unfinished that I might add to it this morning, if I should receive one from you which I have.3 Major Tousard said it was sickly he heard in camp. I feared it, I inquired last evening of the secretary of War, he said it was very much so at Harpers ferry, but that he had not learnt that it was so in the Jersies if the small pox is got into camp the sooner innoculation takes place the better.4 I presume Col Smith will take measures to obtain proper directions Since you left me Richard has had it, and very lightly, he was not so sick a single day so as to be laid by. The cooks children have both had it. Genrl Brooks has been nominated to the Senate in the room of General Knox, resigned, the nomination has not been passed upon, the Jacos, have been fabricating a Bill to prevent the President from appointing any new officers. It will not pass in their form, the President is by law obliged to fill vacancies, it will pass it is supposed leaving a discretionary power with the President.5 I heard from Tousard, and from others that the troops were to be removed but where I cannot say. I question whether it is yet determined. General Hamilton I suppose has the direction. As the purveyer of supplies is dead possibly somethings may as well be provided in other places, as the City of Philadelphia more than a dozen applications are already made for the office. Who will have it is more than I can say.6

The President has nominated Mr Johnson Stamp master some of the Senate gaped, some scouted, some wanted more light some more information. The truth Mr Johnson’s daughter married to the son of the President, this was too bare faced to declare, but I know their hearts. Some hoped and solicited the office for their friends were disappointed. It has been already a week upon the table, the fate of it is dubious.7

I sometimes feel sick of human nature, so much intrigue, so much management, necessary to carry through any object. I believe power in one hand better than in many, at least, they should be responsible where it is placed which is not the case in Senate, they have a voice without responsibility.

Adieu Yours &c

Tr in ABA’s hand (Adams Papers); internal address: “To Mrs W. S. Smith”; APM Reel 327.

1Possibly Ebenezer Stevens, an agent in the War Department, and his wife, Lucretia Ledyard Sands Stevens (1756–1846) (Eugene R. Stevens and William Plumb Bacon, comps., Erasmus Stevens, Boston, Mass., 1674–1690, and His Descendants, New Britain, Conn., 1914, p. 15, 28).

2Interparty rivalries that ultimately splintered the Federalist Party and divided support between JA and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney during the election of 1800 were first manifested on the state level, as partisans electioneered for allied legislative candidates who would later serve as presidential electors. The first evidence of the divisions emerged in New York prior to the legislative elections, with Alexander Hamilton vigorously campaigning for the Federalists, delivering speeches and publicly debating Aaron Burr. Hamilton’s later efforts would more explicitly favor Pinckney, especially in South Carolina and during his summer electioneering tour of New England, for which see AA to TBA, 12 July, and note 2, below (Freeman, Affairs of Honor description begins Joanne B. Freeman, Affairs of Honor: National Politics in the New Republic, New Haven, 2001. description ends , p. 231–233; Hamilton, Papers description begins The Papers of Alexander Hamilton, ed. Harold C. Syrett, Jacob E. Cooke, and others, New York, 1961–1987; 27 vols. description ends , 24:444–452).

3Not found.

4On 25 April a “billious inflamatory fever” was circulating in Harpers Ferry, prompting Pinckney to relocate his troops, and by 13 May their health had improved. On 2 May WSS reported to Hamilton from New Jersey that a soldier under his command had smallpox, asking if troop inoculations should begin. Hamilton responded that other measures should be used to prevent the spread of the disease, and on 14 May WSS reported that no other cases had occurred (Hamilton, Papers description begins The Papers of Alexander Hamilton, ed. Harold C. Syrett, Jacob E. Cooke, and others, New York, 1961–1987; 27 vols. description ends , 24:430, 431, 480; WSS to Hamilton, 2, 14 May; Hamilton to WSS, 6 May, all DLC:Hamilton Papers).

5On 31 March JA nominated Gen. John Brooks (1752–1825), of Reading, Mass., for promotion to major general in the U.S. Army after Gen. Henry Knox declined the appointment. The Senate negatived Brooks’ nomination on 14 May. James McHenry in a letter to JA of 23 May (Adams Papers) stated his opinion that JA did not have the power to make certain military appointments during the congressional recess. A bill on disbanding the provisional army during the upcoming recess, for which see TBA to JQA, 11 May, and note 3, below, permitted JA to suspend appointments “according to his discretion” (Jefferson, Papers description begins The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Julian P. Boyd, Charles T. Cullen, John Catanzariti, Barbara B. Oberg, James P. McClure, and others, Princeton, N.J., 1950– . description ends , 31:481; Washington, Papers, Revolutionary War Series description begins The Papers of George Washington: Revolutionary War Series, ed. Philander D. Chase, Frank E. Grizzard Jr., Edward G. Lengel, David R. Hoth, and others, Charlottesville, Va., 1985– . description ends , 5:18; Annals of Congress description begins The Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States [1789–1824], Washington, D.C., 1834–1856; 42 vols. description ends , 6th Cong., 1st sess., p. 713–715, 716; U.S. Statutes at Large description begins The Public Statutes at Large of the United States of America, 1789– , Boston and Washington, D.C., 1845– . description ends , 2:85–86).

6Hamilton informed McHenry on 5 May that he had ordered WSS to prepare the Union Brigade to move to a new site, possibly in Rhode Island, but it remained in place until the disbanding of the army on 15 June. Purveyor of public supplies Tench Francis, for whom see vol. 10:347, died on 1 May and was succeeded on 13 May by Israel Whelen (1752–1806), a Philadelphia merchant and commissioner of valuations (Hamilton, Papers description begins The Papers of Alexander Hamilton, ed. Harold C. Syrett, Jacob E. Cooke, and others, New York, 1961–1987; 27 vols. description ends , 24:455, 552–554; Hamilton to Lt. Col. Aaron Ogden, 6 May, NjMoHP:Lloyd W. Smith Coll.; Philadelphia Gazette, 2 May; John W. Jordan, ed., Colonial and Revolutionary Families of Pennsylvania, 3 vols., N.Y., 1911, 2:663–665).

7On 28 April JA nominated Joshua Johnson to be U.S. superintendent of stamps, a newly created position to oversee a general stamp office created five days earlier. On 5 May the Senate confirmation vote ended in a tie, which Thomas Jefferson broke by voting to confirm Johnson’s appointment. Johnson wrote to JA on 12 May (Adams Papers), thanking him for the federal position. He also offered JA lodgings during his upcoming visit to Washington, D.C. JA replied on 18 May (LbC, APM Reel 120), declining Johnson’s offer, observing, “I am a very troublesome guest” (U.S. Senate, Exec. Jour. description begins Journal of the Executive Proceedings of the Senate of the United States of America, Washington, D.C., 1789– . description ends , 6th Cong., 1st sess., p. 350, 351; U.S. Statutes at Large description begins The Public Statutes at Large of the United States of America, 1789– , Boston and Washington, D.C., 1845– . description ends , 2:40–42). For LCA’s view of her father’s appointment, see LCA, D&A description begins Diary and Autobiographical Writings of Louisa Catherine Adams, ed. Judith S. Graham and others, Cambridge, 2013; 2 vols. description ends , 1:177.

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