Message from the President of the United States [James Monroe], Transmitting, (Pursuant to a resolution of the House of Representatives of 7th May,) A Letter of Jonathan Russell, Late one of the Plenipotentiaries of the United States at the Negotiation of Ghent, with Remarks thereon, the the Secretary of State
by MONROE James
Washington: Printed by Gales & Seaton, 1822. . 8vo, disbound, gutter showing evidence of previous pamphlet binding and later side-stapling, This is House Document 131, 17th Congress and concerns the attitudes and actions of the American representatives at the Negotiations of Ghent: John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, James A. Bayard, Sr., Jonathan Russell, and Albert Gallatin, in particular those of John Quincy Adams, Russell and Clay.In what was probably a build-up to the Presidential election of 1824 (in which Adams was pitted against Clay) Clay's friend and supporter Jonathan Russell sent a private letter to President Monroe, which he maintained was an accurate copy of a letter sent to Washington in 1815, but not publicly released. In this letter he impugned Adams, who was by 1822 the Secretary of State, Gallatin, and Bayard for favoring the British by ceding them navigational rights on the Mississippi in return for the right to fish the Newfoundland fishing grounds. Clay and Russell violently opposed this position, Clay was a "war hawk" a group in Congress that had fervently wanted war with Britaillargely because of the Royal Navy's impressing of American ships, but also because of fears of British domination of the Pacific Northwest, Britain, through Canada, laid claim to Oregon until 1846.President Monroe was initially reluctant to release Russell's letter, but pressure from Congress resulted in its publication in the present piece, together with Adams's remarks upon it. Adams also published in 1822 a 258-page detailed account of his own: "The Duplicate Letters, the Fisheries and the Mississippi. Documents Relating to Transactions at the Negotiation of Ghent". Washington: Davis and Force, 1822 citing every document relevant to the Treaty and comparing the supposedly identical texts.Adams's treatment of Russell was so vitriolic that it lead to the end of the latter's political career, and his name came to be used as a verb as in "to Jonathan Russell" somebody, meaning to defeat an opponent soundly. (Inventory #: 2538)