SLAVERY OR FREEDOM

On December 30, 1818, just days before the US Congress opened its investigation of Andrew Jackson’s Florida campaign, the National Intelligencer, a pro-administration daily published several blocks away from the US Capitol, printed a letter intended to sway public and congressional opinion in the general’s favor. Written by Secretary of State John Quincy Adams to the US minister to Spain, George Erving, the lengthy communication was a response to the chorus of complaints from both home and abroad about Jackson’s conduct. By providing a cursory account of the “late Seminole War,” Adams endeavored “to justify the measures of this Government