After a conversation with Oliver Wolcott, the successor of Alexander Hamilton as Secretary of the Treasury under Washington, who had been subsequently Governor of Connecticut, Mr. Adams remarked: "Mr. Wolcott views the prospects of the Union with great sagacity, and with hopes more sanguine than mine. He thinks the continuance of the Union will depend upon the heavy population of Pennsylvania, and that its gravitation will preserve the Union. He holds the South Carolina turbulence too much in contempt. The domineering spirit naturally springs from the institution of slavery; and when, as in South Carolina, the slaves are more numerous than their masters, the domineering spirit is wrought up to its highest pitch of intenseness. The South Carolinians are attempting to govern the Union as they govern their slaves, and there are too many indications that, abetted as they are by all the slave-driving interest of the Union, the free portion will cower before them, and truckle to their insolence. This is my apprehension." While Jackson's nominations were pending before the Senate, a senator from New Hampshire said to Mr. Adams that he hoped the whole tribe of editors of newspapers would be rejected; for he thought it the most dangerous precedent that could be established, and, if now sanctioned by the Senate, he despaired of its being controlled hereafter; and added that he was almost discouraged concerning the permanency of our institutions. Mr. Adams replied, that his hopes were better, but that undoubtedly the giving offices to editors of newspapers was of all species of bribery the most dangerous. From the time Mr. Adams took his seat in the House of Representatives, in December, 1831, till the period of his death, few of his contemporaries equalled and none exceeded him in punctuality of attendance. He was usually among the first members in his place in the morning, and the last to leave it. On every question of general interest he bestowed scrupulous attention, yielding to it the full strength of his mind, and his extensive knowledge of public affairs. A full history of the proceedings of Congress during this period alone can do justice to his devotion to the public service. In this memoir his views and course will no further be recorded than as they regard topics obviously nearest his heart, and in which his principles and character are developed with peculiar ability and power.