How many messengers, assistant messengers, doorkeepers and assistant doorkeepers, clerks and assistant clerks, postmasters and assistant postmasters, paperfolders, pages, &c. &c. there are here, I cannot tell, because I do not know, but their numbers must be very large, and they cost the nation a great deal. All the officers of government in the city must amount to one thousand at least, and their salaries would support probably all the State governments in the Mississippi Valley. I make no complaint of this vast expense, but we must not find fault with the expenses of monarchical government in many of the minor governments in the old world. Take from those governments, in the north of Europe, their standing armies, rendered necessary, perhaps, by their peculiar position, and it is possible that their governments might be cheaper than ours. That we have many useless officers, many members of Congress seem to think, but whether they can be cast off, because they are useless, is doubtful. This army of smaller officers are always on the alert, when retrenchment and reform are talked of by members--these creatures crying out: “penny wise and pound foolish.” They have some influence on Congress, and would be glad to have more. So far as the House of Representatives are concerned, there is a strong disposition to reduce the expenses of the government, but the Senate has not yet acted finally on that subject.
Very soon after my return to Washington, I became personally acquainted with Judge Upshur, Secretary of State. From the first day I saw and conversed with him in his office, until the day of his death, I saw him at least once, often twice a day, and wrote down at night what had been the subjects of our conversation in our interview. I did this at his suggestion, so that he could duly consider the subject matter of our discourse in the day time. He was one of the most agreeable, sensible and truly good men, whom I ever became personally acquainted with. Sometimes he has been called a nullifier, perhaps, but no man in the nation was ever more attached to the Union than he was. We thought precisely alike on that subject--that it is the highest duty of all our citizens to use all the means in our power to promote the interests of all sections of the Union, and of all classes of its people.