Adams, John Quincy, Sixth President, as Congressman from Massachusetts

Autograph letter signed ("J.Q. Adams"), 3 pages (10 x 8 in.; 255 x 203 mm), Quincy, 14 September 1831, to Ambrose Spencer of Albany, New York, denouncing John Calhoun's circle of Southern nullifiers and raising constitutional issues; small fold splits.

Autograph letter signed ("J.Q. Adams"), 3 pages (10 x 8 in.; 255 x 203 mm), Quincy, 14 September 1831, to Ambrose Spencer of Albany, New York, denouncing John Calhoun's circle of Southern nullifiers and raising constitutional issues; small fold splits.
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John Quincy Adams's  intensely logical and lawyerly condemnation of South Carolina's call for nullification. Adams commences with the premise that "The doctrine of Blackstone, that Sovereignty is identical with despotic power, and that in all Governments it must exist somewhere appears to me to be the most pernicious of all political errors." He then mentions a South Carolinian politician named M'Duffie,  "who calls upon the State of South Carolina by virtue of her Sovereignty, to nullify an Act of Congress."  Adams's logical retort is: "If Sovereignty be not despotic, where is the right of the State to nullify?"

Following he denounces the political philosophy of his former Vice-President and arch-nemesis, Senator John Calhoun of South Carolina: "Mr. Calhoun's theory that each state in the Union is a Supreme Court of appeal upon all Constitutional questions of power in general government, must be a branch of this despotic Power ... What would have been thought of it in the Convention of any one of the States, to form its Constitution, an Article had been proposed to give their Legislature this Power?  What would have been said in New York if such an Article had been inserted in the Constitution of Massachusetts, and vice versa."

Calhoun led the vanguard of the nullification contest. He held that the states were sovereign, that the Constitution was merely a compact or treaty between separate, sovereign nations, to be construed entirely by the rules of international law; that such a treaty, when broken by one state, was no longer binding upon any; and that, consequently, the declaration of a state that the Constitution had been violated, absolved the people of that state from any further allegiance or obedience to the United States until the wrong had been made good.

In Calhoun's mind, this theory did not militate against the existence of the Union; it only operated as a check upon the tyranny of a national majority.  A master of  "execrable sophistry" (as Adams wrote in his diary on 27 January 1831), Calhoun postulated that the states were originally sovereign, and that they separately, not unitedly, revolted against Great Britain.  His thinking was leagues ahead of the other politicians of his day; the South didn't adopt his position until 1860.

The political furor over sovereignty of the individual states versus the central government devolved from objection to the Tariff Act of 1828. Among the available means of indirect taxation, there were only two of much importance, the customs and the excise. The latter was particularly odious to citizens and finally culminated in Shays' rebellion. The government had to depend, therefore, mainly on the customs for its revenue. The needs of the government kept increasing, and the duties were gradually increased in number and amount for the next twenty-five years with no less than seventeen tariff acts passed between 1789 to 1816. Additional acts in 1818, 1824, 1828 were passed, increasing the number and raising the rate of the duties. In the latter year South Carolina declared the tariff laws of the United States unconstitutional and maintained the power of a state to declare it unenforceable within its borders.

"Calhoun's theory is that each state in the Union is a Supreme Court of appeal." The purpose of any Constitution is both to empower and restrain the government. If the general government should exceed its powers against the will of the people of a state it is within their legitimate power, by means of a convention though not by an act of the legislature to declare the congressional act null and void. Adams points out that Calhoun's declaration of sovereignty entails the usurpation of the judicial branch of government.

Misconstruing the Virginia Resolution of 1798 to the advantage of the nullification movement.  "I should have thought better of Mr. Calhoun's candour, in his recent publication, if while appealing to the Virginia Resolutions of 1798—he had informed the Public whether he undertood them ... as explained by Mr. Madison: and still better if among his authorities he had cited ... the Hartford Convention." Madison pointed out that the Union was a constitutional one and not a mere League.  Therefore, his Virginia Resolution could not be considered a basis for Calhoun's interpretation. The Virginia Resolution was passed as a protest to the Alien and Sedition Acts enacted during the presidency of John Quincy's father. The Resolution took the sensible position that the Federal Government was one of limited and enumerated powers as established by Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution. The question that was begged was who should judge whether the central government was overstepping its rightful powers or not. The Virginia Resolution along with its sister document, the Kentucky Resolution, written by Thomas Jefferson, was circulated among the other state legislatures for comment. Most replied that they could not decide on the constitutionality of Federal laws because this power belonged to the judiciary.  In fact, the Resolutions later spurred John Marshall to define the functions of the Supreme Court.

Concern for states' rights and thoughts of secession were not exclusive to the South. The Hartford Convention was an event in 1814-1815 in which New England's opposition to the War of 1812 reached the point where secession from the United States was discussed but rejected. New England's grievances focused on anti-foreign trade policies, in particular Jefferson's Embargo Act of 1807 (see lot 52)  and President James Madison's Non-Intercourse Act of 1809. During the War of 1812 the British effectively blockaded the coastline, causing all maritime trade to cease, and thus seriously impacting on New England's commercial interests. The New England states refused to surrender their militia to national service, especially when New England was threatened with invasion in 1814. In the course of the Convention the grievances of New England were reviewed, and such matters as the use of the militia were thrashed out. The final report of 5 January 1815 arraigned Madison's administration and the war by proposing several constitutional amendments that would redress what New Englanders considered the unfair advantage given the South under the Constitution. By the time the delegates reached Washington, President Madison had already ended the war with the signing of the Treaty of Ghent. Moreover, Andrew Jackson's victory at New Orleans made any recommendation of the Convention moot. The rights of nullification and secession are poles apart in their purposes and effects. The object of secession is to withdraw a member from the Union; whereas nullification seeks to confine the general government within its prescribed limit of power in order to perpetuate the Union on an equitable basis. Nullification tends to weaken general government, but as demonstrated by the Hartford Convention, the power of amendment is a potentially adequate offset.

Early adumbrations of the dissolution of the Union and Civil War. "On a question involving in its necessary consequences a dissolution of the Union, and civil War (civil War in South Carolina!) ... Cheves I hear has jumped at once to the conclusion that the Union must be dissolved because there is a total incompatibility of interests between North and South." (Langdon Cheves represented South Carolina in the twelfth Congress.) Adams poses a series of ten questions for Spencer to ponder, pointing to slavery as the core of the conflict of interests between the North and the South. For Adams this is an early mention of slavery, as he would not become deeply involved in the anti-slavery movement until 1835. Successive questions involve the grave consequences of such a dissolution. Adams highly doubts that anything positive could result from a dissolution of the Union.  

"1. If there be an incompatibility of Interests between North and South what is its primary and exclusive cause? — Slavery?

"2. If there be such incompatibility — would it cease, upon a dissolution of the Union?

"3. If it should not cease, would it not be greatly aggravated by that event?

"4.  With such incompatibility of interests, the tie of Union dissolved, what would be the relation of the two divisions to each other?"

As evidenced by this letter, the doctrine of state's rights and the institution of slavery had been issues of debate in the United States for decades before the election of Abraham Lincoln brought on the secession of the Southern states. On 20 December 1860 a meeting convened at Charleston passed unanimously the first ordinance of secession, making South Carolina the first state to dissolve its ties to the Union.  In six weeks, six other states followed.

Adams also brings up the racial tensions that began to rock the South. He asks: "Have you observed the religious ferociousness of the blacks in the late horrible insurrection by less than two hundred slaves in Southampton County, Virginia?" The revolt took place at Jerusalem, Virginia (seventy miles east of Richmond) on 22 August 1831, led by a lay preacher named Nat Turner. Fifty-eight whites were murdered.  The rebellion alarmed Southerners in a way that earlier uprisings had not and had a profound influence on their attitude toward slavery, which leads Adams to ask: " Have you noticed the nonchalance with which the Richmond newspapers talk of total extermination of the slaves?" Adams sensed that the only means to end the turmoil between North and South as well as within the bosom of Southern society was with emancipation. "If the cause of incompatibility be Slavery—would not the adjustment necessarily be that which took place in the Republic of Colombia, between the Commanders of the Spanish army and General Bolivar? Both parties filling their ranks by emancipation—and where, and of what colour would be the Planters of South Carolina after that operation? ... Here are questions, I fear more than enough, and very grave ones too. Sleep upon them ..."

Adams instinctively knew that Calhoun's insistence on state sovereignty would eventually revolve around the issue of slavery. On 27 January 1831, having read Jefferson's memoirs and correspondence, Adams commented in his diary, "Mr. Jefferson's love of liberty was sincere and ardent—not confined to himself, like that of his fellow slave-holders. He was above that execrable sophistry of the South Carolinian nullifiers, which would make slavery the corner-stone to the temple of liberty."

Additional information on other references Adams makes in the letter is available through the Books and Manuscripts Department. Sotheby's would like to Sara Sikes, Editorial Assistant of the Adams Papers Project, for her research on this letter.