election.  About the same time, I called on Mr. Adams.  We conversed on the state of things.  I observed to him, that a very dangerous experiment was then in contemplation, to defeat the Presidential election by an act of Congress declaring the right of the Senate to name a President of the Senate, to devolve on him the government during any interregnum:  that such a measure would probably produce resistance by force, and incalculable consequences, which it would be in his power to prevent by negativing such an act.  He seemed to think such an act justifiable, and observed, it was in my power to fix the election by a word in an instant, by declaring I would not turn out the federal officers, nor put down the navy, nor spunge the national debt.  Finding his mind made up as to the usurpation of the government by the President of the Senate, I urged it no further, observed, the world must judge as to myself of the future by the past, and turned the conversation to something else.  About the same time, Dwight Foster of Massachusetts called on me in my room one night, and went into a very long conversation on the state of affairs, the drift of which was to let me understand, that the fears above mentioned were the only obstacle to my election, to all of which I avoided giving any answer the one way or the other.  From this moment he became most bitterly and personally opposed to me, and so has ever continued.  I do not recollect that I ever had any particular conversation with General Samuel Smith on this subject.  Very possibly I had, however, as the general subject and all its parts were the constant themes of conversation in the private tete-a-tetes with our friends.  But certain I am, that neither he nor any other republican ever uttered the most distant hint to me about submitting to any conditions, or giving any assurances to any body; and still more certainly, was neither he nor any other person ever authorized by me to say what I would or would not do.

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[The following official opinion, though inadvertently omitted in its proper place, is deemed of sufficient importance to be inserted here.]

The bill for establishing a National Bank, undertakes, among other things,

1.  To form the subscribers into a corporation.

2.  To enable them, in their corporate capacities, to receive grants of land; and so far, is against the laws of Mortmain.*

* Though the constitution controls the laws of Mortmain, so far as to permit Congress itself to hold lands for certain purposes, yet not so far as to permit them to communicate a similar right to other corporate bodies.

3.  To make alien subscribers capable of holding lands; and so far, is against the laws of Alienage.

4.  To transmit these lands, on the death of a proprietor, to a certain line of successors; and so far, changes the course of Descents.

5.  To put the lands out of the reach of forfeiture or escheat; and so far, is against the laws of Forfeiture and Escheat.