Sold – Clay Slams John Quincy Adams For Handing Spain a Diplomatic Victory

The Adams-Onis Treaty was signed in February 1819 by the United States and Spain. By the terms of this treaty, the United States gained both East and West Florida, it agreed that Texas was on the Spanish side of the boundary line, and Spain agreed to give up its claim to the Northwest Territory north of forty-two degrees. Also, the U.S. agreed to pay $5 million in claims of U.S. citizens against Spain, and to recognize as valid previous land grants made by Spain. The treaty, the chief negotiator of which was John Quincy Adams, was approved by the U.S. Senate on February 24, 1819.

Most Americans thought the treaty a coup for the United States, but some did not; they were  opposed to payment of money and recognition of land holdings. Jonathan Russell and Henry Clay were among these. Curiously, the Spanish government seemed for a time to agree with the Americans who considered the treaty a U.S. victory, as it balked at ratification for two years. So at the end of 1819, it remained a half-ratified treaty, which, as Clay maintains  here, is no treaty at all.

Autograph Letter Signed, House of Representatives, Washington, December 27, 1819, to Russell. “If I have not before offered to you my congratulations upon your safe return to your country and to your friends, you must attribute the omission to any other cause than that of a diminution of my friendship for you, which remains unshaken and unaltered. I transmit to you by this day’s mail the message and documents. You will experience, from their perusal, mortification at the triumph which has been obtained, in diplomacy, over us, by the Dons. I do not think it likely that Congress will concur in the strange opinion that a treaty is binding upon both parties which has been executed by one only; for if it be not obligatory, that the party who has the disadvantageous side of the bargain should hold himself bound, whilst the other remains free.” This letter was obtained by us direct from the Russell descendants and has never before been offered for sale.

Clay’s hope that Congress would somehow step in and repudiate the treaty, or that Spain (the Dons, as he calls them) would refuse to ratify, were overly optimistic. It was fully ratified by both sides in February 1821.

Despite Clay’s feelings about Adams, in the Presidential election of 1824, Clay threw his support to Adams to make him President over Andrew Jackson, whereupon Adams named Clay Secretary of State, a very strange result to a long-simmering antipathy between the two men.