John Quincy Adams: “My first and greatest inducement was to meet in the spirit of kindness and friendship an overture made in that spirit by…”

These papers were prepared at the close of the last session of Congress, at too late a period to be then acted upon.

It leaves me doubtful whether it was intended by the Senate as their decision upon the nomination or not.

To meet the temper with which this proposal was made with a cold repulse was not thought congenial to that warm interest in their welfare with which the people and Government of the Union had hitherto gone hand in hand through the whole…

But an unsettled coast of many degrees of latitude forming a part of our own territory and a flourishing commerce and fishery extending to the islands of the Pacific and to China still require that the protecting power of the Union should…