152^ 



tented and grateful for the satisfaction of our common country with 

 the general rosult of our services, I had no private interests or 

 feelings to indulge, at the expense of others, and my earnest desire 

 would have been, to have seen in every member of the mission, 

 for the rest of my days, no other than a friend and a brother. Disap- 

 pointed in this wish, /ny next hope is, thai even the discords of Ghent 

 may be turned to the promotion of future harmony in the Union. 

 From the nature of our federative constitution, it is probable that 

 hereafter, a^j heretofore, the most important negotiations with for- 

 eign powers will be committed to joint missions of several mem- 

 bers. To every such mission and to all its members the Ghent 

 negotiation will afford instructive lessons, as well by its union as 

 bylts divisions. The conduct of ;VIr. Russell will afford a negative 

 instruction of deep import. It will teach them to beware of leaguing 

 invidious and imaginary sectional or party feelings with the pur- 

 poses of the enemy, against our rights — of assuming the argument 

 of the enemy against ourselves — of proclaiming, without necessity, 

 differences of opinion upon rejected propositions — of secret de- 

 nunciations in the shape of self-vindication — of crude and shallow 

 dissertations against essential interests and just claims, and of in- 

 terpolating public papers to adapt them to the purposes of the mo- 

 ment. It will teach them to have a higher sense of the rights and 

 liberties of this nation, than to believe them to be held at the will 

 of a British king; and it will warn them to turn their talents 

 to better uses than that of sacrificing the essential interests of their 

 country. These are public concerns of great moment, and a just 

 understanding of them in every part of the Union is indissolubly 

 connected with a just estimate of the conduct of the majority of 

 the Ghent mission, held forth to public censure by one of their col- 

 leagues. For a view of the rvhole ground it will be indispensable 

 to compare the documents of the negotiation with the references of 

 both parties to them in the discussion, and to that end it will be ne- 

 cessary that they should all be included in one publication. I ask 

 of the candour of my countrymen to be assured, that this publica- 

 tion will be addressed to no temporary, purposes, to no party feel- 

 ing, to no sectional passions, butto\je whole nation and to pos- 

 terity, upon objects which, although implicating immediately only 

 the conduct of the negotiators at Ghent, are of deep and perma- 

 nent interest to themselves. 



JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 



August 5, 1822. 



