these accounts.

In January, 1828, Mr. Chilton, of Kentucky, introduced a resolution into
the House of Representatives, declaring the necessity of retrenchments,
to save money and pay off the national debt; and proposing reductions
not only in executive contingencies, but also in those of the two
houses. This movement disconcerted the party to which Mr. Chilton
belonged. They were disposed to point the battery against the
administration, but charges of abusive applications of the public moneys
by the past as well as the present administration, and both houses of
Congress, did not suit party purposes. Randolph, of Virginia, Ingham, of
Pennsylvania, and McDuffie, of South Carolina, accordingly strove, by
amendments, to narrow down the discussion so as to make it bear upon Mr.
Adams or Mr. Clay, and to give countenance to every slander with which
the newspapers were teeming against them, but deprecating all general
investigations.

Being repeatedly asked concerning his rule of conduct relative to
appointments to office, Mr. Adams answered: "My system has been, and
continues to be, to nominate for reaeppointment all officers, for a term
of years, whose commissions expire, unless official or moral misconduct
is charged and substantiated against them. This does not suit the
Falstaff friends 'who follow for the reward;' and I am importuned to
serve my friends, and reproached for neglecting them, because I will not
dismiss, or drop from executive favor, officers faithful and able,
because they are my political opponents, to provide for my own
partisans. This I will not do."

In February, 1828, Mr. Wright, of Ohio, defended Mr. Adams and his
administration, on the subject of his votes in the Senate on the
acquisition of Louisiana, on the Mississippi and fishery question at
Ghent, on an expression in his message to Congress in December, 1825,
and other charges and falsehoods which the friends of General Jackson
were publishing against him in newspapers, handbills, and stump
speeches, throughout the Union.

Mr. Adams was earnestly entreated by his friends to reply to a pamphlet
by Samuel D. Ingham, of which many thousands had been franked by members
of Congress to their constituents. He refused to do it, saying, "The
slanders and falsehoods of that pamphlet have already been abundantly
refuted in the speeches of Jonathan Roberts, Edward Everett, and John C.
Wright."

In the committee on retrenchments, Mr. Wickliffe and Mr.