Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams.
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Title: Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams.
Author: Josiah Quincy
Release date: January 2, 2007 [eBook #20256]
Language: English
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[Illustration: Engraved by H. Wright Smith from a Painting by A. B. Durand
I live in the Faith and Hope of the progressive advancement of
Christian Liberty, and expect to abide by the same in death.
J. Q. Adams.]
MEMOIR
OF
THE LIFE OF
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.
BY
JOSIAH QUINCY, LL. D.
Justum et tenacem propositi virum,
Non civium ardor prava jubentium,
Non vultus instantis tyranni,
Mente quatit solida.
BOSTON:
CROSBY, NICHOLS, LEE AND COMPANY.
1860.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1858, by
PHILLIPS, SAMPSON & CO.,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of
the District of Massachusetts.
Stereotyped by
HOBART & ROBBINS,
New England Type and Stereotype Foundery,
BOSTON.
THE PRESIDENT AND MEMBERS
OF THE
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY,
This Work,
PREPARED AT THEIR REQUEST,
IS
RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED,
BY
THEIR ASSOCIATE,
JOSIAH QUINCY.
BOSTON, _June 1, 1858_.
PREFATORY NOTE.
The ensuing Memoir comprises the most important events in the life of
a statesman second to none of his contemporaries in laborious and
faithful devotion to the service of his country.
The light attempted to be thrown on his course has been derived from
personal acquaintance, from his public works, and from authentic
unpublished materials.
The chief endeavor has been to render him the expositor of his own
motives, principles, and character, without fear or favor,--in the
spirit neither of criticism or eulogy.
JOSIAH QUINCY.
BOSTON, _June 1, 1858_.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
CHAPTER I.
BIRTH.--EDUCATION.--RESIDENCE IN EUROPE.--AT COLLEGE.--AT THE BAR.
--POLITICAL ESSAYS.--MINISTER AT THE HAGUE.--AT BERLIN.--RETURN TO
THE UNITED STATES, 1
CHAPTER II.
RESIDENCE IN BOSTON.--RETURNS TO THE BAR.--ELECTED TO THE SENATE OF
MASSACHUSETTS.--TO THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES.--HIS COURSE
RELATIVE TO THE ATTACK OF THE LEOPARD ON THE CHESAPEAKE.--RESIGNS
HIS SEAT AS SENATOR OF THE UNITED STATES.--APPOINTED MINISTER TO
RUSSIA.--FINAL SEPARATION FROM THE FEDERAL PARTY, 25
CHAPTER III.
VOYAGE.--ARRIVAL AT ST. PETERSBURG.--PRESENTATION TO THE EMPEROR.
--RESIDENCE AT THE IMPERIAL COURT.--DIPLOMATIC INTERVIEWS.--PRIVATE
STUDIES.--APPOINTED ONE OF THE COMMISSIONERS TO TREAT FOR PEACE WITH
GREAT BRITAIN.--LEAVES RUSSIA, 44
CHAPTER IV.
RESIDENCE AT GHENT.--AT PARIS.--IN LONDON.--PRESENTATION TO THE
PRINCE REGENT.--NEGOTIATION WITH LORD CASTLEREAGH.--APPOINTED
SECRETARY OF STATE.--LEAVES ENGLAND, 59
CHAPTER V.
FIRST TERM OF MR. MONROE'S ADMINISTRATION.--STATE OF PARTIES.--SEMINOLE
WAR.--TAKING OF PENSACOLA.--NEGOTIATION WITH SPAIN.--PURCHASE OF THE
FLORIDAS.--COLONIZATION SOCIETY.--THE ADMISSION OF MISSOURI INTO THE
UNION, 77
CHAPTER VI.
SECOND TERM OF MONROE'S PRESIDENCY.--STATE OF PARTIES.--REPORT ON
WEIGHTS AND MEASURES.--PROCEEDINGS AT GHENT VINDICATED.--VOTES
WHEN HE WAS A MEMBER OF THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES DEFENDED.--
INDEPENDENCE OF GREECE.--CONTESTS OF PARTIES.--ELECTED PRESIDENT OF
THE UNITED STATES, 120
CHAPTER VII.
ADMINISTRATION AS PRESIDENT.--POLICY.--RECOMMENDATIONS TO CONGRESS.--
PRINCIPLES RELATIVE TO OFFICIAL APPOINTMENTS AND REMOVALS.--COURSE
IN ELECTION CONTESTS.--TERMINATION OF HIS PRESIDENCY, 142
CHAPTER VIII.
PURSUITS OF MR. ADAMS IN RETIREMENT.--ELECTED TO CONGRESS.--PARTIES
AND THEIR PROCEEDINGS.--HIS COURSE IN RESPECT OF THEM.--HIS OWN
ADMINISTRATION AND THAT OF HIS SUCCESSOR COMPARED.--REPORT ON
MANUFACTURES AND THE BANK OF THE UNITED STATES.--REFUSAL TO VOTE,
AND CONSEQUENT PROCEEDINGS.--SPEECH AND REPORT ON THE MODIFICATION
OF THE TARIFF AND SOUTH CAROLINA NULLIFICATION, 175
CHAPTER IX.
INFLUENCE OF MILITARY SUCCESS.--POLICY OF THE ADMINISTRATION.--MR.
ADAMS' SPEECH ON THE REMOVAL OF THE DEPOSITS FROM THE BANK OF THE
UNITED STATES.--HIS OPINIONS ON FREEMASONRY AND TEMPERANCE SOCIETIES.
--EULOGY ON WILLIAM WIRT.--ORATION ON THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF
LAFAYETTE.--HIS COURSE ON ABOLITION PETITIONS.--ON INTERFERENCE WITH
THE INSTITUTION OF SLAVERY.--ON THE POLICY RELATIVE TO THE PUBLIC
LANDS.--SPEECH ON DISTRIBUTING RATIONS TO FUGITIVES FROM INDIAN
HOSTILITIES.--ON WAR WITH MEXICO.--EULOGY ON JAMES MADISON.--HIS
COURSE ON A PETITION PURPORTING TO BE FROM SLAVES.--FIRST REPORT
ON JAMES SMITHSON'S BEQUEST, 219
CHAPTER X.
MARTIN VAN BUREN PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.--MR. ADAMS' SPEECH
ON THE CLAIMS OF THE DEPOSIT BANKS.--HIS LETTER ON BOOKS FOR UNIVERSAL
READING.--ORATION AT NEWBURYPORT.--SPEECH ON THE RIGHT OF PETITION.--
LETTER TO THE MASSACHUSETTS ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY.--ADDRESS TO THE
INHABITANTS OF HIS DISTRICT.--HIS VIEWS AS TO THE APPLICATION OF THE
SMITHSONIAN FUND.--HIS INTEREST IN THE SCIENCE OF ASTRONOMY.--LETTER
TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE ON AN ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATORY.--LETTER ON
THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.--RESOLUTIONS
FOR THE LIMITING OF HEREDITARY SLAVERY.--DISCOURSE BEFORE THE NEW
YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY.--ADDRESS ON THE SUBJECT OF EDUCATION.--
REMARKS ON PHRENOLOGY.--ON THE LICENSE LAW OF MASSACHUSETTS.--HE
ORGANIZES THE OUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 268
CHAPTER XI.
SECOND REPORT ON THE SMITHSONIAN FUND.--HIS SPEECH ON A BILL FOR
INSURING A MORE FAITHFUL EXECUTION OF THE LAWS RELATING TO THE
COLLECTION OF DUTIES ON IMPORTS.--REMARKS ON THE ESTABLISHMENT OF AN
EXTENSIVE SERIES OF MAGNETICAL AND METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS.--ON
ITINERANT ELECTIONEERING.--ON ABUSES IN RESPECT TO THE NAVY FUND.--ON
THE POLITICAL INFLUENCES OF THE TIME.--ON THE ORIGIN AND RESULTS OF
THE FLORIDA WAR.--HIS DENUNCIATION OF DUELLING.--HIS ARGUMENT IN THE
SUPREME COURT ON BEHALF OF AFRICANS CAPTURED IN THE AMISTAD, 302
CHAPTER XII.
WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.--HIS
DEATH.--VICE-PRESIDENT JOHN TYLER SUCCEEDS.--REMARKS OF MR. ADAMS
ON THE OCCASION.--HIS SPEECH ON THE CASE OF ALEXANDER M'LEOD.--HIS
VIEWS CONCERNING COMMONPLACE BOOKS.--HIS LECTURE ON CHINA AND CHINESE
COMMERCE.--REMARKS ON THE STATE OF THE COUNTRY, AND HIS DUTY IN
RELATION TO IT.--HIS PRESENTATION OF A PETITION FOR THE DISSOLUTION
OF THE UNION, AND THE VOTE TO CENSURE HIM FOR DOING IT.--HIS THIRD
REPORT ON MR. SMITHSON'S BEQUEST.--HIS SPEECH ON THE MISSION TO
MEXICO, 328
CHAPTER XIII.
REPORT ON PRESIDENT TYLER'S APPROVAL, WITH OBJECTIONS, OF THE BILL
FOR THE APPORTIONMENT OF REPRESENTATIVES.--REPORT ON HIS VETO OF
THE BILL TO PROVIDE A REVENUE FROM IMPORTS.--LECTURE ON THE SOCIAL
COMPACT, AND THE THEORIES OF FILMER, HOBBES, SYDNEY, AND LOCKE.--
ADDRESS TO HIS CONSTITUENTS ON THE POLICY OF PRESIDENT TYLER'S
ADMINISTRATION.--ADDRESS TO THE NORFOLK COUNTY TEMPERANCE SOCIETY.
--DISCOURSE ON THE NEW ENGLAND CONFEDERACY OF 1643.--LETTER TO
THE CITIZENS OF BANGOR ON WEST INDIA EMANCIPATION.--ORATION ON
LAYING THE CORNER-STONE OF THE CINCINNATI OBSERVATORY, 364
CHAPTER XIV.
REPORT ON THE RESOLVES OF THE LEGISLATURE OF MASSACHUSETTS PROPOSING
AN AMENDMENT OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES IN EFFECT TO
ABOLISH A REPRESENTATION FOR SLAVES.--FOURTH REPORT ON JAMES
SMITHSON'S BEQUEST.--INFLUENCE OF MR. ADAMS ON THE ESTABLISHMENT
OF THE NATIONAL OBSERVATORY AND THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION.--GENERAL
JACKSON'S CHARGE THAT THE RIO GRANDE MIGHT HAVE BEEN OBTAINED, UNDER
THE SPANISH TREATY, AS A BOUNDARY FOR THE UNITED STATES, REFUTED.--
ADDRESS TO HIS CONSTITUENTS AT WEYMOUTH.--REMARKS ON THE RETROCESSION
OF ALEXANDRIA TO VIRGINIA.--HIS PARALYSIS.--RECEPTION BY THE HOUSE
OF REPRESENTATIVES.--HIS DEATH.--FUNERAL HONORS.--TRIBUTE TO HIS
MEMORY, 409
MEMOIR
OF
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.
CHAPTER I.
BIRTH.--EDUCATION.--RESIDENCE IN EUROPE.--AT COLLEGE.--AT THE BAR.
--POLITICAL ESSAYS.--MINISTER AT THE HAGUE.--AT BERLIN.--RETURN TO
THE UNITED STATES.
John Quincy Adams, son of John and Abigail Adams, was born on the 11th
of July, 1767, in the North Parish of Braintree, Massachusetts--since
incorporated as the town of Quincy. The lives and characters of his
parents, intimately associated with the history of the American
Revolution, have been already ably and faithfully illustrated.[1]
[1] See "Letters of Mrs. Adams, with an Introductory Memoir,"
and "The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United
States, with a Life of the Author," by their grandson, Charles
Francis Adams.
The origin of his name was thus stated by himself: "My great-grandfather,
John Quincy,[2] was dying when I was baptized, and his daughter, my
grandmother, requested I might receive his name. This fact, recorded
by my father at the time, is not without a moral to my heart, and has
connected with that portion of my name a charm of mingled sensibility
and devotion. It was filial tenderness that gave the name--it was the
name of one passing from earth to immortality. These have been,
through life, perpetual admonitions to do nothing unworthy of it."
[2] John Quincy represented the town of Braintree in the
colonial legislature forty years, and long held the office of
speaker.
At Braintree his mother watched over his childhood. At the village
school he learned the rudiments of the English language. In after life
he often playfully boasted that the dame who taught him to spell
flattered him into learning his letters by telling him he would prove a
scholar. The notes and habits of the birds and wild animals of the
vicinity early excited his attention, and led him to look on nature
with a lover's eye, creating an attachment to the home of his
childhood, which time strengthened. Many years afterwards, when
residing in Europe, he wrote: "Penn's Hill and Braintree North Common
Rocks never looked and never felt to me like any other hill or any
other rocks; because every rock and every pebble upon them associates
itself with the first consciousness of my existence. If there is a
Bostonian who ever sailed from his own harbor for distant lands, or
returned to it from them, without feelings, at the sight of the Blue
Hills, which he is unable to express, his heart is differently
constituted from mine."
These local attachments were indissolubly associated with the events
of the American Revolution, and with the patriotic principles
instilled by his mother. Standing with her on the summit of Penn's
Hill, he heard the cannon booming from the battle of Bunker's Hill,
and saw the smoke and flames of burning Charlestown. During the siege
of Boston he often climbed the same eminence alone, to watch the
shells and rockets thrown by the American army.
With a mind prematurely developed and cultivated by the influence of
the characters of his parents and the stirring events of that period,
he embarked, at the age of eleven years, in February, 1778, from the
shore of his native town, with his father, in a small boat, which
conveyed them to a ship in Nantasket Roads, bound for Europe. John
Adams had been associated in a commission with Benjamin Franklin and
Arthur Lee, as plenipotentiary to the Court of France. After residing
in Paris until June, 1779, he returned to America, accompanied by his
son. Being immediately appointed, by Congress, minister plenipotentiary
to negotiate a treaty of peace and commerce with Great Britain, they
both returned together to France in November, taking passage in a
French frigate. On this his second voyage to Europe, young Adams began
a diary, which, with few intermissions, he continued through life.
While in Paris he resumed the study of the ancient and modern
languages, which had been interrupted by his return to America.
In July, 1780, John Adams having been appointed ambassador to the
Netherlands, his son was removed from the schools of Paris to those of
Amsterdam, and subsequently to the University of Leyden. There he
pursued his studies until July, 1781, when, in his fourteenth year, he
was selected by Francis Dana, minister plenipotentiary from the United
States to the Russian court, as his private secretary, and accompanied
him through Germany to St. Petersburg. Having satisfactorily discharged
his official duties, and pursued his Latin, German, and French studies,
with a general course of English history, until September, 1782, he
left St. Petersburg for Stockholm, where he passed the winter. In the
ensuing spring, after travelling through the interior of Sweden, and
visiting Copenhagen and Hamburg, he joined his father at the Hague,
and accompanied him to Paris. They travelled leisurely, forming an
acquaintance with eminent men on their route, and examining architectural
remains, the paintings of the great Flemish masters, and all the
treasures of the fine arts, in the countries through which they passed.
In Paris, young Adams was present at the signing of the treaty of peace
in 1783, and was admitted into the society of Franklin, Jefferson, Jay,
Barclay, Hartley, the Abbé Mably, and many other eminent statesmen and
literary men. After passing a few months in England, with his father,
he returned to Paris, and resumed his studies, which he continued until
May, 1785, when he embarked for the United States. This return to his
own country caused a mental struggle, in which his judgment controlled
his inclination. His father had just been appointed minister at the
Court of Great Britain, and, as one of his family, it would have been
to him a high gratification to reside in England. His feelings and
views on the occasion he thus expressed:
"I have been seven years travelling in Europe, seeing the world, and in
its society. If I return to the United States, I must be subject, one
or two years, to the rules of a college, pass three more in the tedious
study of the law, before I can hope to bring myself into professional
notice. The prospect is discouraging. If I accompany my father to
London, my satisfaction would possibly be greater than by returning to
the United States; but I shall loiter away my precious time, and not
go home until I am forced to it. My father has been all his lifetime
occupied by the interests of the public. His own fortune has suffered.
His children must provide for themselves. I am determined to get my own
living, and to be dependent upon no one. With a tolerable share of
common sense, I hope, in America, to be independent and free. Rather
than live otherwise, I would wish to die before my time."
In this spirit the tempting prospects in Europe were abandoned, and he
returned to the United States, to submit to the rules, and to join,
with a submissive temper, the comparatively uninteresting associations,
of college life. After reviewing his studies under an instructor, he
entered, in March, 1786, the junior class of Harvard University.
Diligence and punctual fulfilment of every prescribed duty, the
advantages he had previously enjoyed, and his exemplary compliance with
the rules of the seminary, secured to him a high standing in his class,
which none were disposed to controvert. Here his active and thoughtful
mind was prepared for those scenes in future life in which he could not
but feel he was destined to take part. Entering into all the literary
and social circles of the college, he became popular among his
classmates. By the government his conduct and attainments were duly
appreciated, which they manifested by bestowing upon him the second
honor of his class at commencement; a high distinction, considering the
short period he had been a member of the university. The oration he
delivered when he graduated, in 1787, on the Importance of Public Faith
to the Well-Being of a Community, was printed and published; a rare
proof of general interest in a college exercise, which the adaptation
of the subject to the times, and the talent it evinced, justified.
After leaving the university, Mr. Adams passed three years in Newburyport
as a student at law under the guidance of Theophilus Parsons, afterwards
chief justice of Massachusetts. He was admitted to the bar in 1790, and
immediately opened an office in Boston. The ranks of his profession were
crowded, the emoluments were small, and his competitors able. His
letters feelingly express his anxiety to relieve his parents from
contributing to his support. In November, 1843, in an address to the bar
of Cincinnati, Mr. Adams thus described the progress and termination of
his practice as a lawyer--
"I have been a member of your profession upwards of half a century.
In the early period of my life, having a father abroad, it was my
fortune to travel in foreign countries; still, under the impression
which I first received from my mother, that in this country every
man should have some trade, that trade which, by the advice of my
parents and my own inclination, I chose, was the profession of the
Law. After having completed an education in which, perhaps, more
than any other citizen of that time I had advantages, and which of
course brought with it the incumbent duty of manifesting by my life
that those extraordinary advantages of education, secured to me by
my father, had not been worthlessly bestowed,--on coming into life
after such great advantages, and having the duty of selecting a
profession, I chose that of the Bar. I closed my education as a
lawyer with one of the most eminent jurists of the age,--Theophilus
Parsons, of Newburyport, at that time a practising lawyer, but
subsequently chief justice of the commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Under his instruction and advice I closed my education, and
commenced what I can hardly call the practice of the law in the
city of Boston.
"At that time, though I cannot say I was friendless, yet my
circumstances were not independent. My father was then in a
situation of great responsibility and notoriety in the government
of the United States. But he had been long absent from his own
country, and still continued absent from that part of it to which
he belonged, and of which I was a native. I went, therefore, as a
volunteer, an adventurer, to Boston, as possibly many of you whom I
now see before me may consider yourselves as having come to
Cincinnati. I was without support of any kind. I may say I was a
stranger in that city, although almost a native of that spot. I say
I can hardly call it practice, because for the space of one year
from that time it would be difficult for me to name any practice
which I had to do. For two years, indeed, I can recall nothing in
which I was engaged that may be termed practice, though during the
second year there were some symptoms that by persevering patience
practice might come in time. The third year I continued this
patience and perseverance, and, having little to do, occupied my
time as well as I could in the study of those laws and institutions
which I have since been called to administer. At the end of the
third year I had obtained something which might be called practice.
"The fourth year I found it swelling to such an extent that I felt
no longer any concern as to my future destiny as a member of that
profession. But in the midst of the fourth year, by the will of the
first President of the United States, with which the Senate was
pleased to concur, I was selected for a station, not, perhaps, of
more usefulness, but of greater consequence in the estimation of
mankind, and sent from home on a mission to foreign parts.
"From that time, the fourth year after my admission to the bar of my
native state, and the first year of my admission to the bar of the
Supreme Court of the United States, I was deprived of the exercise
of any further industry or labor at the bar by this distinction; a
distinction for which a previous education at the bar, if not an
indispensable qualification, was at least a most useful
appendage."[3]
[3] See _Niles' Weekly Register_, New Series, vol. xv., pp. 218,
219.
While waiting for professional employment, he was instinctively drawn
into political discussions. Thomas Paine had just then published his
"Rights of Man," for which Thomas Jefferson, then Secretary of State,
took upon himself to be sponsor, by publishing a letter expressing his
extreme pleasure "that it is to be reprinted here, and that something is
at length to be publicly said against the _political heresies_ which
have sprung up among us. I have no doubt our citizens will rally a
second time round the standard of _Common Sense_."
Notwithstanding the weight of Jefferson's character, and the strength of
his recommendation, in June, 1791, young Adams entered the lists against
Paine and his pamphlet, which was in truth an encomium on the National
Assembly of France, and a commentary on the rights of man, inferring
questionable deductions from unquestionable principles. In a series of
essays, signed Publicola, published in the _Columbian Centinel_, he
states and controverts successively the fundamental doctrines of Paine's
work; denies that "whatever a whole nation chooses to do it has a right
to do," and maintains, in opposition, that "nations, no less than
individuals, are subject to the eternal and immutable laws of justice
and morality;" declaring that Paine's doctrine annihilated the security
of every man for his inalienable rights, and would lead in practice to a
hideous despotism, concealed under the parti-colored garments of
democracy. The truth of the views in these essays was soon made manifest
by the destruction of the French constitution, so lauded by Paine and
Jefferson, the succeeding anarchy, the murder of the French monarch, and
the establishment of a military despotism.
In April, 1793, Great Britain declared war against France, then in the
most violent frenzy of her revolution. In this war, the feelings of the
people of the United States were far from being neutral. The seeds of
friendship for the one, and of enmity towards the other belligerent,
which the Revolutionary War had plentifully scattered through the whole
country, began everywhere to vegetate. Private cupidity openly advocated
privateering upon the commerce of Great Britain, in aid of which
commissions were issued under the authority of France. To counteract the
apparent tendency of these popular passions, Mr. Adams published, also
in the _Centinel_, a series of essays, signed Marcellus, exposing the
lawlessness, injustice, and criminality, of such interference in favor
of one of the belligerents. "For if," he wrote, "as the poet, with more
than poetical truth, has said, 'war is murder,' the plunder of private
property, the pillage of all the regular rewards of honest industry and
laudable enterprise, upon the mere pretence of a national contest, in
the eye of justice can appear in no other light than highway robbery.
If, however, some apology for the practice is to be derived from the
incontrollable law of necessity, or from the imperious law of war,
certainly there can be no possible excuse for those who incur the guilt
without being able to plead the palliation; for those who violate the
rights of nations in order to obtain a license for rapine manifestly
show that patriotism is but the cloak for such enterprises; that the
true objects are plunder and pillage; and that to those engaged in them
it was only the lash of the executioner which kept them in the
observance of their civil and political duties."
After developing the folly and madness of such conduct in a nation whose
commerce was expanded over the globe, and which was "destitute of even
the defensive apparatus of war," and showing that it would lead to
general bankruptcy, and endanger even the existence of the nation, he
maintained that "impartial and unequivocal neutrality was the imperious
duty of the United States." Their pretended obligation to take part in
the war resulting from "the guarantee of the possessions of France in
America," he denied, on the ground that either circumstances had wholly
dissolved those obligations, or they were suspended and made
impracticable by the acts of the French government.
The ability displayed in these essays attracted the attention of
Washington and his cabinet, and the coïncidence of these views with
their own was immediately manifested by the proclamation of neutrality.
Their thoughts were again, soon after, attracted to the author, by a
third series of essays, published in November, 1793, in the _Columbian
Centinel_, under the signature of Columbus, in which he entered the
lists in defence of the constituted authorities of the United States,
exposing and reprobating the language and conduct of Genet, the minister
from the French republic, whose repeated insults upon the first
magistrate of the American Union, and upon the national government, had
been as public and as shameless as they had been unprecedented. For,
after Washington, supported by the highest judicial authority of the
country, had, as President of the United States, denied publicly Genet's
authority to establish consular courts within them, and to issue letters
of marque and reprisal to their citizens, against the enemies of France,
he had the insolence to appeal from the President, and to deny his power
to revoke the exequatur of a French consul, who, by a process issued
from his own court, rescued, with an armed force, a vessel out of the
custody of justice.
In these essays Genet is denounced as a dangerous enemy; his appeal "as
an insolent outrage to _the man_ who was deservedly the object of the
grateful affection of the whole people of America;" "as a rude attempt
of a beardless foreign stripling, whose commission from a friendly power
was his only title to respect, not supported by a shadow of right on his
part, and not less hostile to the constitution than to the government."
The violence of the times, and the existence of a powerful party in the
United States ready to support the French minister in his hostility to
the national government, are also illustrated by the following facts:
"That an American jury had been compelled by the clamor of a collected
multitude to acquit a prisoner without the unanimity required by law;"
"by the circulation of caricatures representing President Washington and
a judge of the Supreme Court with a guillotine suspended over their
heads;" "by posting upon the mast of a French vessel of war, in the
harbor of Boston, the names of twenty citizens, all of them inoffensive,
and some of them personally respectable, as objects of detestation to
the crew;" "by the threatening, by an anonymous assassin, to visit with
inevitable death a member of the Legislature of New York, for
expressing, with the freedom of an American citizen, his opinion of the
proceedings of the French minister;" and "by the formation of a
lengthened chain of democratic societies, assuming to themselves, under
the semblance of a warmer zeal for the cause of liberty, to control the
operations of the government, and to dictate laws to the country."
The talent and knowledge of diplomatic relations, thus displayed,
powerfully impressed the administration, and the nomination of Mr. Adams
as minister from the United States resident at the Netherlands, by
Washington and his cabinet, was confirmed unanimously by the Senate, in
June, 1794. At the request of the Secretary of State, he immediately
repaired to Philadelphia. His commission was delivered to him on the
11th of July, the day he entered his twenty-eighth year. He embarked in
September from Boston, and in October arrived in London, where Messrs.
Jay and Pinckney were then negotiating a treaty between Great Britain
and the United States, who immediately admitted him to their
deliberations. Concerning this treaty, which occasioned, soon after,
such unexampled fury of opposition in the United States, Mr. Adams, at
the time, thus expressed his opinion: "The treaty is far from being
satisfactory to either Mr. Jay or Mr. Pinckney. It is far below the
standard which would be advantageous to the country. It is probable,
however, the negotiators will consent to it, as it is, in their opinion,
preferable to a war. The satisfaction proposed to be made to the United
States for the recent depredations on their commerce, the principal
object of Jay's mission, is provided for in as ample a manner as we
could expect. The delivery of the posts is protracted to a more distant
day than is desirable. But, I think, the compensation made for the
present and future detention of them will be a sufficient equivalent.
The commerce with their West India islands, partially opened to us, will
be of great importance, and indemnifies for the deprivation of the
fur-trade since the treaty of peace, as well as for the negroes carried
away contrary to the engagements of the treaty, at least as far as it
respects the nation. As to the satisfaction we are to make, I think it
is no more than is in justice due from us. The article which provides
against the future confiscation of debts, and of property in the funds,
is useful, because it is honest. If its operation should turn out more
advantageous to them, it will be more honorable for us; and I never can
object to entering formally into an obligation to do that which, upon
every virtuous principle, ought to be done without it. As a treaty of
commerce it will be indeed of little use to us, and we shall never
obtain anything more favorable so long as the principles of the
navigation act are obstinately adhered to by Great Britain. This system
is so much a favorite with the nation that no minister would dare to
depart from it. Indeed, I have no idea we shall ever obtain, by compact,
a better footing for our commerce with this country than that on which
it now stands; and therefore the shortness of time, limited for the
operation of this part of the compact, is, I think, beneficial to us."
After remaining fifteen days in London, Mr. Adams sailed, on the 30th of
October, for Holland, landed at Hellevoetsluis, and proceeded without
delay to the Hague.
His reception as the representative of the United States had scarcely
been acknowledged by the President of the States General, before Holland
was taken possession of by the French, under Pichegru. The Stadtholder
fled, the tree of liberty was planted, and the French national flag
displayed before the Stadthouse. The people were kept quiet by seventy
thousand French soldiers. The Stadtholder, the nobility, and the
regencies of the cities, were all abolished, a provincial municipality
appointed, and the country received as an ally of France, under the name
of the Batavian Republic; the streets being filled with tri-colored
cockades, and resounding with the Carmagnole, or the Marseilles Hymn.
Mr. Adams was visited by the representatives of the French people, and
recognized as the minister of a nation free like themselves, with whom
the most fraternal relations should be maintained. In response, he
assured them of the attachment of his fellow-citizens for the French
people, who felt grateful for the obligations they were under to the
French nation, and closed with demanding safety and protection for all
American persons and property in the country.
Popular societies in Holland were among the most efficient means of the
success of the revolution, as they had been in France. Mr. Adams, being
solicited to join one of them, declined, considering it improper in a
stranger to take part personally in the politics of the country. "It
was," he wrote, "unnecessary for me to look out for motives to justify
my refusal. I have an aversion to political popular societies in
general. To destroy an established power, they are undoubtedly an
efficacious instrument, but in their nature they are fit for nothing
else. The reign of Robespierre has shown what use they make of power
when they obtain it."
The station of Mr. Adams at the Hague gave him opportunities to acquaint
himself with parties and persons, their motives and principles, of which
he availed himself with characteristic industry.
In October, 1795, he was directed by the Secretary of State to repair to
England, and arriving there in November ensuing, he found he was
appointed to exchange ratifications of Mr. Jay's treaty with the British
government. This mission was far from pleasant to him. In effect it was
merely ministerial, and so far as it might result in negotiation, he did
not anticipate any good. "I am convinced," he wrote, "that Mr. Jay did
everything that was to be done; that he did so much affords me a proof
of the wisdom with which he conducted the business, that grows stronger
the more I see. But circumstances will do more than any negotiation. The
pride of Britain itself must bend to the course of events. The rigor of
her system already begins to relax, and one year of war to her and peace
to us will be more favorable to our interests, and to the final
establishment of our principles, than could possibly be effected by
twenty years of negotiation or war."
While in England, the duties of his appointment brought him into
frequent intercourse with Lord Grenville and other leading British
statesmen of the period. After the objects of his mission had been
acceptably fulfilled, he received authority from his government to
return to his station, at the Hague, in May, 1796. His time was there
devoted to official duties, to the claims of general society, to an
extensive correspondence, the study of works on diplomacy, the English
and Latin classics, and the Dutch and Italian languages.
In August, 1796, he received from the Secretary of State an appointment
as minister plenipotentiary to the Court of Portugal, with directions
not to quit the Hague until he received further instructions. These did
not reach him until the arrival of Mr. Murray, his successor, in July,
1797, when he took his departure for England. Truthfulness to himself,
not less than to the public, characterized Mr. Adams. Every day had its
assigned object, which every hour successively, as far as possible,
fulfilled. Daily he called himself to account for what he had done or
omitted. At the close of every month and year he submitted himself to
retrospection concerning fulfilled or neglected duties, judging himself
by a severe standard.
On arriving in London, he found his appointment to the Court of Portugal
superseded by another to the Court of Berlin, with directions not to
proceed on the mission until he had received the necessary instructions.
While waiting for these, an engagement he had formed during a former
visit to England was fulfilled, by his marriage, on the 26th of July,
1797, with Louisa Catharine Johnson, the daughter of Joshua Johnson,
American consul at London; a lady highly qualified to support and to
ornament the various elevated stations he was destined to fill. Mr.
Adams was reluctant to accept the appointment to Berlin, as it had been
made by his father, who had succeeded Washington as President of the
United States. "I have submitted to take it," he immediately wrote to
his mother, "notwithstanding my former declaration to you and my father,
made a short time ago. I have broken a resolution I had deliberately
formed, and that I still think right; but I never acted more
reluctantly. The tenure by which I am for the future to hold an office
of such a nature will take from me the satisfaction I have enjoyed,
hitherto, in considering myself a public servant." To his father he
wrote: "I cannot, and ought not, to discuss with you _the propriety_ of
the measure. I have undertaken the duty, and will discharge it to the
best of my ability, and will complain no further. But I most earnestly
entreat that whenever there shall be deemed no further occasion for a
minister at Berlin I may be recalled, and that no nomination of me to
any other public office whatever may ever again proceed from the present
chief magistrate." His continuance in a diplomatic career had been
repeatedly urged by President Washington. In August, 1795, he wrote to
John Adams, then Vice-President: "Your son must not think of retiring
from the walk he is now in (minister from the United States to Holland).
His prospects, if he pursues it, are fair; and I shall be much mistaken
if, in as short a time as can well be expected, he is not found at the
head of the diplomatic corps, let the government be administered by
whomsoever the people may choose." In a letter dated 20th February,
1797, addressed to Mr. Adams, just before his entrance on the
Presidency, Washington again wrote: "I have a strong hope that you will
not withhold merited promotion to Mr. John Quincy Adams because he is
your son. For, without intending to compliment the father or the mother,
or to censure any others, I give it as my decided opinion that Mr. Adams
is the most valuable public character we have abroad, and that he will
prove himself to be the ablest of all our diplomatic corps. If he was
now to be brought into that line, or into any other public walk, I would
not, on the principles which have regulated my own conduct, disapprove
the caution hinted at in the letter. But he is already entered; the
public, more and more, as he is known, are appreciating his talents and
worth; and his country would sustain a loss if these are checked by over
delicacy on your part."[4]
[4] Sparks' Life and Writings of Washington, XI., p. 56, and p.
188.
This letter, communicated to Mr. Adams by his mother, induced him
reluctantly to acquiesce in this appointment. In reply, he wrote: "I
know with what delight your truly maternal heart has received every
testimonial of Washington's favorable voice. It is among the most
precious gratifications of my life to reflect upon the pleasure which my
conduct has given to my parents. The terms, indeed, in which such a
character as Washington has repeatedly expressed himself concerning me,
have left me nothing to wish, if they did not alarm me by their very
strength. How much, my dear mother, is required of me, to support and
justify such a judgment as that which you have copied into your letter!"
Mr. and Mrs. Adams embarked from Gravesend, and landed at Hamburg on the
26th of October, and reached Berlin early in November. He was received,
with gratifying expressions of regard for the United States, by Count
Finkenstein, the prime minister; but, owing to the king's illness, an
audience could not be granted. After his death Mr. Adams was admitted to
presentation and audience by his successor. New credentials, which were
required, did not arrive until July, 1798, when Mr. Adams was fully
accredited.
The absence of the king from Berlin prevented the renewal of the treaty,
which was not commenced until the ensuing autumn, nor completed, in
consequence of incidental delays, until the 11th of July, 1799, when it
was signed by all the king's ministers and Mr. Adams, and was afterwards
unanimously approved by the Senate of the United States. The object of
his mission being fulfilled, Mr. Adams immediately wrote to his father
that he should, at any time, acquiesce in his recall. While waiting for
the decision of his government, he travelled, with his family, in Saxony
and Bohemia, and, in the ensuing summer, into Silesia. His observations
during this tour were embodied in letters to his brother, Thomas B.
Adams, and were published, without his authority, in Philadelphia, and
subsequently in England. The work contains interesting sketches of
Silesian life and manners, and important accounts of manufactures,
mines, and localities; concluding with elaborate historical,
geographical, and statistical statements of the province.
The following passages are characteristic, and indicate the general
spirit of the work. "Count Finkenstein resides in this vicinity. He was
formerly president of the judicial tribunal at Custrin, but was
dismissed by Frederic II., on the occasion of the miller Arnold's famous
lawsuit; an instance in which the great king, from mere love of justice,
committed the greatest injustice that ever cast a shade upon his
character. His anxiety, upon that occasion, to prove to the world that
in his courts of justice the beggar should be upon the same footing as
the prince, made him forget that in substantial justice the maxim ought
to bear alike on both sides, and that the prince should obtain his right
as much as the beggar. Count Finkenstein and several other judges of the
court at Custrin, together with the High Chancellor Fürst, were all
dismissed from their places, for doing their duty, and persisting in it,
contrary to the will of the king, who, substituting his ideas of natural
equity in place of the prescriptions of positive law, treated them with
the utmost severity, for conduct which ought to have received his
fullest approbation."
"Dr. Johnson, in his Life of Watts, has bestowed a just and exalted
encomium upon him for not disdaining to descend from the pride of genius
and the dignity of science to write for the wants and the capacities of
children. 'Every man acquainted,' says he, 'with the common principles
of human action, will look with veneration on the writer who is at one
time combating Locke, and at another making _a catechism_ for children
in their fourth year.' But how much greater still is the tribute of
admiration, irresistibly drawn from us, when we behold an absolute
monarch, the greatest general of his age, eminent as a writer in the
highest departments of literature, descending, in a manner, to teach the
alphabet to the children of his kingdom; bestowing his care, his
persevering assiduity, his influence and his power, in diffusing plain
and useful knowledge among his subjects, in opening to their minds the
first and most important page of the book of science, in filling the
whole atmosphere they breathed with that intellectual fragrance which
had before been imprisoned in the vials of learning, or enclosed within
the gardens of wealth! Immortal Frederic! when seated on the throne of
Prussia, with kneeling millions at thy feet, thou wert only a king; on
the fields of Lutzen, of Torndoff, of Rosbach, of so many other scenes
of human blood and anguish, thou wert only a hero; even in thy rare and
glorious converse with the muses and with science thou wert only a
philosopher, a historian, a poet; but in this generous ardor, this
active, enlightened zeal for the education of thy people, thou wert
_truly great_--the father of thy country--the benefactor of mankind!"
In 1801, Mr. Adams received from his government permission to return
home. After taking leave with the customary formalities, he left Berlin,
sailed from Hamburg, and on the 4th of September, 1801, arrived in the
United States. During his residence in Berlin his time was devoted to
official labor and intellectual improvement; yet his letters show that
he was seldom, if ever, self-satisfied, being filled with aspirations
after something higher and better than he could accomplish. His
translations, at this period, embraced many satires of Juvenal, and
Wieland's Oberon from the original, into English verse; the last he
intended for the press, had it not been superseded by the version of
Sotheby. He also translated from the German a treatise, by Gentz, on the
origin and principles of the American Revolution, which he finished and
transmitted to the United States for publication, eulogizing it "as one
of the clearest accounts that exist of the rise and progress of the
American Revolution, in so small a compass; rescuing it from the
disgraceful imputation of its having proceeded from the same principles,
and of its being conducted in the same spirit, as that of France. This
error has nowhere been more frequently repeated, nowhere been of more
pernicious tendency, than in America itself."
The last years of Mr. Adams' residence at the Court of Berlin were
painfully affected by the bitter party animadversions which assailed his
father's administration, and which did not fail to bring within the
sphere of their asperities the missions he had himself held in Europe.
These feelings became intense on the publication of Alexander Hamilton's
letter "On the Public Conduct and Character of John Adams, President of
the United States." This letter, with the divisions in the cabinet at
Washington, occasioned by the political friends of Hamilton, excited in
the breast of Mr. Adams a spirit, which, from affection for his father,
and a sense of the injustice done to him, could not be otherwise than
indignant. Though concealed, it was not the less understood. He regarded
Mr. Hamilton's letter as the efficient cause of his father's loss of
power, and attributed its influence to its being circulated at the eve
of the presidential election, and to its adaptation to awaken prejudices
and excite party jealousies; although it contained nothing that could
justly shake confidence in a statesman of long-tried experience and
fidelity. He pronounced that letter as not only a full vindication, but
the best eulogium on his father's administration.
CHAPTER II.
RESIDENCE IN BOSTON.--RETURNS TO THE BAR.--ELECTED TO THE SENATE OF
MASSACHUSETTS.--TO THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES.--HIS COURSE RELATIVE
TO THE ATTACK OF THE LEOPARD ON THE CHESAPEAKE.--RESIGNS HIS SEAT AS
SENATOR OF THE UNITED STATES.--APPOINTED MINISTER TO RUSSIA.--FINAL
SEPARATION FROM THE FEDERAL PARTY.
Under the circumstances stated in the preceding chapter, Mr. Adams
returned to the United States in no disposition to coälesce with either
division of the Federal party. He regarded it as fortunate for himself
that events, in producing which he had no agency, had placed him in a
position free from any constructive pledges to a party which in its
original form no longer existed, and at liberty to shape his future
course according to his own independent views of private interest and
public duty. Resuming his residence in Boston, and his place at the bar
of Massachusetts, under circumstances far from being pleasant or
encouraging, after eight years' employment in foreign official stations,
he had old studies to revise, and new statutes and recent decisions to
explore. To the broad field of diplomacy had succeeded the intricate and
narrow windings of special pleading and local laws. His juniors were in
the field; by the failure of European bankers his property had been
diminished; he had a family to support; yet, neither dispirited nor
complaining, he reëntered his profession, and, devoting his leisure
hours to literature and science, apparently abandoned the political
arena, without manifesting a design or desire to return to it. But he
was not destined to remain long in private life. At this period the
Federalists had lost the control of national affairs, but they retained
their superiority in Massachusetts. Their union as a party was not
sustained by the same identity of feeling and view by which, in earlier
periods, it had been characterized. It was cemented rather by antipathy
to the prevailing power than by any hope of regaining it. A division,
more real than apparent, separated the friends of the elder Adams from
those who, uniting with Hamilton, had condemned his policy in the
presidency. The former were probably larger in number; the latter had
the advantage in talent, activity, and influence. Both soon united in
placing Mr. Adams in the Senate of the state, without any solicitation
or intimation of political coïncidence from him. In this election the
opponents of his father's policy were acquiescent rather than content.
They knew the independence and self-relying spirit of Mr. Adams, his
restiveness in the trammels of party, his disposition to lead rather
than follow; and yielded silently to a result which they could not
prevent. The spirit which they anticipated was soon made evident.
At the annual organization of the state government it had been usual to
choose the members of the Governor's Council from his political friends.
Mr. Adams at once proposed to place in it one or more of his political
opponents. This measure, which he maintained was wise and prudent, was
regarded, according to the usual charity of party spirit, as designed to
gain favor with the Democracy, and was immediately rejected. In other
instances his disposition to think and act independently of the Federal
party was manifested, and was of course not acceptable to its leaders.
In November he was urged to accept a nomination as a member of the House
of Representatives in Congress. This he refused, saying that "he would
not stand in the way of Mr. Quincy,"[1] who had been the candidate at
the preceding election. This objection was immediately removed, by an
assurance of the previous determination of the latter to decline, and of
the satisfaction with which he regarded the nomination of Mr. Adams. The
result was unsuccessful. Out of _thirty-seven hundred votes_, William
Eustis was elected by a majority of _fifty-nine_. The newspapers
assigned as the cause that the day of the election was rainy. Mr. Adams
surmised that it was owing to the indifference to his success of the
leaders of the old Federal party, and remarked on the occasion, "This is
among the thousand proofs how large a portion of Federalism is a mere
fair-weather principle, too weak to overcome a shower of rain. It shows
the degree of dependence that can be placed on such friends. As a party
their adversaries are more sure and more earnest."
[1] The writer of this Memoir.
In an oration, delivered in May of this year, before the Massachusetts
Charitable Fire Society, Mr. Adams paid a just and feeling tribute to
the memory of George Richards Minot, then recently deceased, in which
the character of that historian, the purity of his life, moral worth,
and intellectual endowments, are celebrated with great fulness and
truth. In December he delivered, at Plymouth, an address commemorative
of the Pilgrim Fathers.
During the remainder of the civil year Mr. Adams had more than once
indicated his independence of party, and his settled purpose of thinking
and acting on all subjects for himself. When, therefore, in February,
1803, a vacancy in the Senate of the United States occurred, the
nomination of Mr. Adams was opposed by that of Timothy Pickering, who
was deemed by his friends better entitled to the office, from age and
long familiarity with public affairs. To their extreme disappointment,
however, after three ballotings, without success, in the House of
Representatives, Mr. Adams was chosen, and his election was unanimously
confirmed by the Senate. In March following, another vacancy in the
Senate of the United States having occurred, Mr. Pickering was elected.
Thus, by a singular course of events, two statesmen were placed as
colleagues in the Senate of the United States, from Massachusetts,
between whom, from antecedent circumstances and known want of sympathy
in political opinion, cordial coöperation could scarcely be anticipated.
Apparent harmony of principles and views was, however, manifested. Mr.
Adams well understood the delicacy of his position, arising from the
ill-concealed jealousy of the Federalists, on the one hand, and the open
dislike of the Democracy, on the other. He considered himself placed
between two batteries, neither of which regarded him as one of their
soldiers. He early adopted two principles, as rules of his political
conduct, from which he never deviated,--to seek or solicit no public
office, and, to whatever station he might be called by his country, to
use no instrument for success or advancement but efficient public
service.
In October, 1803, Mr. Adams removed his family to Washington, and took
his seat in the Senate of the United States. On the 26th of that month
he took ground in opposition to the administration upon the bill
enabling the President to take possession of Louisiana, and on which he
voted in coïncidence with his Federal colleagues. His objection was to
the second section, which provided "_that all the military, civil and
judicial powers_, exercised by the officers of the existing government
of Louisiana, shall be vested in _such person and persons_, and shall be
_exercised in such manner, as the President of the United States shall
direct_." The transfer of such a power to the President of the United
States, Mr. Adams deemed and maintained, was unconstitutional; and he
called upon the supporters of the bill to point out the article,
section, or paragraph, of the constitution, which authorized Congress to
confer it on the President. He regarded the constitution of the United
States to be one of limited powers; and he declared that he could not
reconcile it to his judgment that the authority exercised in this
section was within the legitimate powers conferred by the constitution.
Many years afterwards, when his vote on this occasion was made a subject
of party censure and obloquy, in addition to the preceding reasons Mr.
Adams gave to the public the following solemn convictions which
influenced his course:
"The people of the United States had not--much less had the people
of Louisiana--given to the Congress of the United States the power
to form this union; and, until the consent of both people could be
obtained, every act of legislation by the Congress of the United
States over the people of Louisiana, distinct from that of taking
possession of the territory, was, in my view, unconstitutional, and
an act of usurped authority. My opinion, therefore, was that the
sense of the people, both of the United States and Louisiana, should
be immediately taken: of the first, by an amendment of the
constitution, to be proposed and acted upon in the regular form; and
of the last, by taking the votes of the people of Louisiana
immediately after possession of the territory should be taken by the
United States under the treaty. I had no doubt that the consent of
both people would be obtained with as much ease and little more loss
of time than it actually took Congress to prepare an act for the
government of the territory; and I thought this course of
proceeding, while it would terminate in the same result as the
immediate exercise of ungranted transcendental powers by Congress,
would serve as a landmark of correct principles for future
times,--as a memorial of homage to the fundamental principles of
civil society, to the primitive sovereignty of the people, and the
unalienable rights of man."
On the 3d of the ensuing November he manifested his independent spirit
by voting in favor of the appropriation of eleven millions of dollars
for carrying into effect the treaty for the purchase of Louisiana, in
opposition to the other senators of the Federal party;--a vote which,
many years afterwards, in consequence of comments of party, he took the
opportunity publicly to explain. The critical nature of the course to
which he foresaw he was destined was thus expressed by himself: "I have
had already occasion to experience, what I had before reason to expect,
the danger of adhering to my own principles. The country is so totally
given up to the spirit of party, that not to follow the one or the other
is an unexpiable offence. The worst of these has the popular current in
its favor, and uses its triumph with all the unprincipled fury of
faction; while the other is waiting, with all the impatience of revenge,
for the time when its turn may come to oppress and punish by the popular
favor. But my choice is made. If I cannot hope to give satisfaction to
my country, I am at least determined to have the approbation of my own
reflections."
On the 10th of January, 1804, Mr. Adams introduced two resolutions for
the consideration of the Senate: the one declaring that "the people of
the United States have never, in any manner, delegated to this Senate
the power of giving its legislative concurrence to any act imposing
taxes upon the inhabitants of Louisiana without their consent;" the
other, "that, by concurring in any act of legislation for imposing taxes
upon the inhabitants of Louisiana, without their consent, this Senate
would assume a power unwarranted by the constitution, and dangerous to
the liberties of the people of the United States." After a debate of
three hours, both resolutions were rejected, as he anticipated; only
three senators--Tracy, of Connecticut, Olcott, of New Hampshire, and
White, of Delaware--voting with him in favor of the first, and
twenty-two voting in the negative; Mr. Pickering, his colleague, asking
to be excused from voting, and Mr. Hillhouse, the remaining Federalist
in the Senate, absenting himself, obviously to avoid voting: after which
the last was unanimously rejected. Concerning his course on this
occasion Mr. Adams wrote: "I have no doubt of incurring much censure and
obloquy for this measure. I hope I shall be prepared for and able to
bear it, from the consciousness of my sincerity and of my duty."
Mr. Adams alone spoke against the bill for the temporary government of
Louisiana, which passed on the ensuing 18th of February; and only four
senators--Messrs. Hillhouse, Olcott, Plummer, and Stone--voted with him
in the negative; Mr. Pickering absenting himself from the question.
In August, 1805, the corporation of Harvard College elected Mr. Adams
Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory on the Boylston foundation. After
modifications of the statutes, which he suggested, were adopted, he
accepted, and immediately entered upon a course of preparatory studies,
reviving his knowledge of the Greek, and making researches among
English, Latin, and French writers, relative to the objects of his
professorship. In the ensuing December, as a member of the Ninth
Congress, he took an active part in the debates and measures of the
Senate.
In January, 1806, he was appointed on a committee, of which Mr. Smith,
of Maryland, was chairman, on that part of the President's message
"relative to the spoliations of our commerce on the high seas, and the
new principles assumed by the British courts of admiralty, as a pretext
for the condemnation of our vessels in their prize courts." The debates
in that committee resulted in two resolutions, both offered by Mr.
Adams, adopted, reported, and finally passed by the Senate, with some
modifications; Mr. Pickering, Mr. Hillhouse, and Mr. Tracy, the three
Federalists in the Senate, voting for them.
British aggressions and British policy towards neutrals were, in the
judgment of Mr. Adams, to be resisted at every hazard. His opinions on
these subjects had been formed from opportunities which no other
American statesman had equally enjoyed. In 1783 he had been present at
the signature of the treaty of peace, and had imbibed the opinions and
feelings then entertained by the American ministers. In 1795 he had been
engaged in negotiations with British statesmen, particularly with Lord
Grenville. Their views in respect of American commercial rights he
considered selfish and insolent; resistance to them as an emanation from
the spirit of patriotism, to which others gave the name of "prejudice,"
or "antipathy." Of these opinions and feelings he made no concealment;
and to them may be traced the course of policy which, shortly after,
separated him from the Federal party, and subjected him temporarily to
their reproaches and censures.
In June, 1806, Mr. Adams was inaugurated Professor of Oratory in Harvard
University, and during the ensuing two years delivered a course of
lectures on Rhetoric and Oratory, which have been published in two
octavo volumes, and constitute an enduring monument of fidelity,
laborious research, and eloquent illustration of the objects and duties
of his academic station. While engaged in these labors, an event
occurred which intensely excited his feelings as a man and a statesman.
On the 22d of June, 1807, during the recess of Congress, an attack by
the British ship Leopard upon the American frigate Chesapeake, by which
several of her crew were killed, and four of them taken away, created
surprise and indignation throughout the Union. From the previous state
of his opinions, no one partook more strongly of these feelings than Mr.
Adams. He immediately urged his political friends to call a town-meeting
in Faneuil Hall on the subject; but the measure was utterly discouraged
by the leaders of the Federal party. Soon, however, a meeting of the
inhabitants of Boston and the neighboring towns was called at the
Statehouse to consider that outrage. The meeting was not numerous, and
consisted almost entirely of the friends of the administration. Mr.
Gerry was chosen chairman, and Mr. Adams, who had attended it, was
appointed on the committee to prepare appropriate resolutions. These,
when reported and modified according to suggestions made by Mr. Adams,
were unanimously adopted. When it was intimated to him that his course
was regarded as symptomatic of party apostasy, he replied that his sense
of duty should never yield to the pleasure of party.
Soon after, in consequence of letters from a committee of correspondence
at Norfolk, a town-meeting was called at Faneuil Hall, at which
resolutions were passed, reported by a committee of which Mr. Adams was
chairman. Mr. Otis offered a resolution calling on government for the
protection of a naval force; but, Mr. Adams objecting, it was withdrawn.
On the 27th of October, 1807, Mr. Jefferson called a special meeting of
Congress, chiefly on account of the affair of the Chesapeake. On this
subject the discrepancy of the opinions and views of Mr. Adams with
those of the leaders of the Federal party were so openly manifested,
that his separation from it was generally anticipated. He had now been a
member of the Senate during four sessions, but had not been permitted to
exercise any decided influence on the subjects of debate. Many of his
propositions had failed under circumstances which indicated a
disposition to discourage him from such attempts. Some, which on his
motion had been negatived, had been subsequently easily carried, when
moved by members of the administration party. In respect of the general
policy of the country, he had been uniformly in a small and decreasing
minority. His opinion and votes, however, had been oftener in unison
with the administration than with their opponents; and he had met with
quite as much opposition from his party friends as from their
adversaries. At this crisis, however, he took the lead, and, immediately
on the delivery of the President's message, offered to the Senate two
resolutions. 1st. "That so much of the President's message as related to
the recent outrages committed by British armed vessels within the
jurisdiction and in the waters of the United States, and to the
legislative provisions which may be expedient as resulting from them, be
referred to a select committee, with leave to report by bill or
otherwise." 2d. "That so much of the said message as relates to the
formation of the seamen of the United States into a special militia, for
the purpose of occasional defence of the harbors against sudden attacks,
be referred to a special committee, with leave to report by bill or
otherwise."
Both these resolutions were adopted, and on the first Mr. Adams was
appointed chairman. Soon after, in the course of the same session, Mr.
Adams took the incipient step on several important subjects, and was
appointed chairman of the committee to whom they were intrusted in each
of them; thus manifesting that he intended no longer to take a
subordinate part in the proceedings of the Senate, and that a
disposition to disappoint him was no longer a feeling entertained by a
majority of that body.
On the 24th of November, Mr. Adams reported a bill on the British
outrages, and, on a motion to strike out of it a section providing that
"no British armed vessel shall be admitted to enter the harbors and
waters under the jurisdiction of the United States, except when forced
in by distress, by the dangers of the sea, or when charged with public
dispatches, or coming as a public packet." Mr. Adams, with twenty-five
others, voted in the negative. Messrs. Goodrich, Pickering, and
Hillhouse, the only three Federal senators, alone voted in the
affirmative. On the final passage of the bill, Mr. Adams voted with the
majority, in the affirmative, and the three Federal senators in the
negative.
On the 18th of December, 1807, Mr. Jefferson sent a message to Congress
recommending an embargo. A bill in conformity having been immediately
reported, a motion was made, in the Senate, that the rule which required
three different readings on three different days should be suspended for
three days. Violent debates ensued. On the vote to suspend, Mr. Adams
voted in the affirmative. His colleague and every other Federalist voted
in the negative.
On the final passage of the bill laying the embargo, and on the subject
of British aggressions, Mr. Adams again repeatedly separated from his
colleagues and the other members of the Federal party, and voted in
coïncidence with the administration.
Newspaper asperities and severities in debate ensued, which he
supported, as he averred, in the consciousness that the course of the
administration was the only safe one for his country, and in the belief
that it would be justified by events, and receive the sanction of future
times. His course had been, however, opposite to that of the other
Federal members in both houses of Congress. On a subject so momentous to
the commercial states, his colleague, Mr. Pickering, thought proper to
justify to the people of Massachusetts the course and motives of the
Federal party, and on the 16th of February, 1808, addressed a letter to
James Sullivan, Governor of that commonwealth, stating what papers "had
been submitted to Congress by the President in justification of the
embargo," and endeavored to show, by facts and reasonings, that the
measure had been passed "without sufficient motive or legitimate object;
that the avowed dangers were imaginary and assumed; and that the real
motives for it were contained in those French dispatches which had been
confidentially submitted to Congress, and withdrawn by Mr. Jefferson, in
which the French emperor had declared that he will have no neutrals;"
that the embargo was "a substitute--a mild compliance with this harsh
demand;" that he (Mr. Pickering) had reason to believe that the
President contemplated its continuance until the French emperor repealed
his decrees. He concluded by asserting that an embargo was not necessary
to the safety of our seamen, our vessels, or our merchandise, and was
calculated to mislead the public mind to the public ruin.
This letter, though intended for the Legislature of Massachusetts, was
not communicated to it, the political path of Governor Sullivan not
being coïncident with that of Colonel Pickering. But it was soon
published by a friend of the writer. In a letter to Harrison G. Otis, on
the 31st of March, 1808, Mr. Adams published a reply, stating that Mr.
Pickering, in enumerating the _pretences_ (for he thinks there were no
causes) for the embargo, totally omitted the British orders in council,
which, although not made the subject of special communication by the
President, had been published in the _National Intelligencer_ antecedent
to the embargo, the sweeping tendency of whose effects formed, to his
understanding, a powerful motive, and together with the papers a
decisive one, for assenting to the embargo; a measure which he regarded
as "the only shelter from the tempest, the last refuge of our violated
peace." He adds: "The most serious effect of Mr. Pickering's letter is
its tendency to reconcile the commercial states to the servitude of
British protection, and war with all the rest of Europe." Regarding it
as a proposition to strike the standard of the nation, he proceeded to
investigate the claims of Great Britain in respect of impressment, and
to her denying neutrals the right of any commerce with her enemies and
their colonies, which was not allowed in time of peace. This result of
the rule of 1756, he asserted, was "in itself and its consequences one
of the deadliest poisons in which it was possible for Great Britain to
tinge the weapons of her hostility." The decrees of France and Spain, by
which every neutral vessel which submitted to English search was
declared "_denationalized_," and became English property, though cruel
in execution, and too foolish and absurd to be refuted, were but the
reasoning of British jurists, and the simple application to the
circumstances and powers of France of the rule of the war of 1756. Mr.
Adams then proceeded to state and reason upon other aggressions of Great
Britain on our commerce, and asserted that "between unqualified
submission and offensive resistance against the war declared against
American commerce by the concurring decrees of all the belligerent
powers, the embargo had been adopted; and having the double tendency of
promoting peace and preparing for war, in its operation is the great
advantage which more than outweighs all its evils."
A course thus independent, and in harmony with the policy of the
administration, caused Mr. Adams to become obnoxious to suspicions
inevitably incident to every man who, in critical periods, amid party
struggles, changes his political relations. Of the dissatisfaction of
the Legislature of Massachusetts Mr. Adams received an immediate proof.
His senatorial term would expire on the 3d of March, 1809. To indicate
their disapprobation of his course, they anticipated the time of
electing a senator of the United States, which, according to usage,
would have been in the legislative session of that year. James Lloyd
was chosen senator from Massachusetts by a vote of two hundred and
forty-eight over two hundred and thirteen for Mr. Adams, in the House
of Representatives, and of twenty-one over seventeen, in the Senate.
On the same day anti-embargo resolutions were passed in both branches
by like majorities.
The next day Mr. Adams addressed a letter to that Legislature, in which
he stated that it had been his endeavor, deeming it his duty, to support
the administration of the general government in all necessary measures
to preserve the persons and property of our citizens from depredation,
and to vindicate the rights essential to the independence of our
country; that certain resolutions having passed the Legislature,
expressing disapprobation of measures to which, under these motives,
he had given assent, and which he considered as enjoining upon the
representatives of the state in Congress a _sort_ of opposition to the
national administration in which, consistently with his principles, he
could not concur, he, therefore, to give the Legislature an opportunity
to place in the Senate of the United States a member whose views might
be more coincident with those they entertained, resigned his seat in
that body. James Lloyd was immediately chosen by the Legislature to
take the seat thus vacated.
In the midst of these political agitations Mr. Adams was constantly
employed in writing and delivering lectures, as Professor of Rhetoric,
and in pursuing his studies of the Greek language and the science of
astronomy. During the ensuing summer, the neglect or withdrawal of some
former friends, and the open asperities of others, were often trying to
his feelings. Rumors were circulated of promises made or of expectations
held out to him by the administration; and, although he unequivocally
denied their truth, belief in them was in accordance with the party
passions of the moment, and was diligently inculcated on the popular
mind by pamphlets and newspapers. Also in the summer and winter of 1808
he had to support an oppressive weight of obloquy, from which he had no
relief, as he asserted, but an unshaken confidence that his course had
been coïncident with the true interests of his country, and would
finally be approved by it.
In the winter of 1809 he attended the Supreme Court of the United States
at Washington, and while there first received from Mr. Madison, two days
after his inauguration as President of the United States, an intimation
of his intention to offer him the appointment of minister plenipotentiary
to St. Petersburg. When this nomination and the concurrence of the Senate
became public, it was seized and commented upon as unquestionable
evidence of the motives which had occasioned the change in his political
course, and was made the subject of severe animadversions in all the
forms in which indignant partisans are accustomed to express censure and
reproach. This appointment his political adversaries announced as at once
a proof and the reward of his apostasy. Such insinuations were felt by
Mr. Adams as an insupportable wrong. For seven years he had previously
represented his country at foreign courts, in stations to which he had
been first appointed by Washington himself; who had declared that he must
not think of retiring from the diplomatic line, and pronounced him the
ablest, and destined ultimately to become the head, of the diplomatic
corps.[2] Under these circumstances he felt that even party spirit itself
might have spared towards him this reproach, and have recognized higher
motives than seeking and receiving reward for party services. Actuated by
this sense of wrong, while preparing for his departure on the mission to
Russia, he issued from the press a series of strictures, at once severe
and vindictive, on the policy of the Federal leaders, in the form of a
review of the writings of Fisher Ames; which were regarded by the public,
and probably intended by himself, as an evidence of irreconcilable
abandonment of the party to which he had formerly belonged, and a
permanent adhesion to that of the national administration.
[2] See pages 18 and 19.
CHAPTER III.
VOYAGE.--ARRIVAL AT ST. PETERSBURG.--PRESENTATION TO THE EMPEROR.--
RESIDENCE AT THE IMPERIAL COURT.--DIPLOMATIC INTERVIEWS.--PRIVATE
STUDIES.--APPOINTED ONE OF THE COMMISSIONERS TO TREAT FOR PEACE
WITH GREAT BRITAIN.--LEAVES RUSSIA.
After resigning his professorship at Harvard University, Mr. Adams
embarked from Boston, with Mrs. Adams and his youngest son, on the 5th
of August, 1809, in a merchant ship, bound to St. Petersburg. During a
boisterous and tedious voyage his classical and diplomatic studies
were pursued with characteristic assiduity. The English were then at
war with Denmark; and, as they entered the Baltic, a British cruiser
sent an officer to examine their papers. The same day they were
boarded by a Danish officer, who ordered the ship to Christiansand.
The captain thought it prudent to refuse, and to seek shelter from an
equinoctial gale in the harbor of Flecknoe. The papers of the ship and
Mr. Adams' commission were examined, and he afterwards went up to
Christiansand, where he found thirty-eight American vessels, which had
been brought in by privateers between the months of May and August,
and were detained for adjudication. Sixteen had been condemned, and
had appealed to the higher tribunals of the country. The Americans
thus detained presented a memorial to Mr. Adams, to be forwarded to
the President of the United States. The sight of so many of his
countrymen in distress was extremely painful, and he determined to
make an effort for their relief, without waiting for express authority
from his government.
On resuming their voyage, their course was again impeded by a British
squadron. An officer was sent on board by Captain Dundas, of the
Stately, a sixty-four gun ship, to examine their papers. He compared
the personal appearance of each of the seamen with his protection,
threatening to take a native of Charlestown because his person did not
correspond with the description, and finally ordered the ship to
return through the Cattegat.
Mr. Adams immediately went on board the Stately, showed his
commission, and remonstrated with Captain Dundas, who referred him to
Admiral Bertie, the commander of the squadron, who was in his
stateroom on the quarter-deck. After a protracted opposition, the
admiral acknowledged the usage of nations, and, as an ambassador,
permitted him to pursue his voyage by the usual course through the
sound. From these and similar difficulties, Mr. Adams did not land at
St. Petersburg until the 23d of October.
The Chancellor of the empire, Count Romanzoff, received Mr. Adams in
courtly state, and requested a copy of his credential letter, with an
assurance of the pleasure his appointment had given him personally.
His presentation was postponed, from the temporary indisposition of
the emperor; but he was immediately invited, by Count Romanzoff, to a
diplomatic dinner, in a style of the highest splendor. Among the
company was the French ambassador, M. de Caulaincourt, Duke de
Vicence, the foreign ministers then at the Russian Court, and many of
the nobility. In the mansion of the Chancellor Mr. Adams had dined in
1781, as secretary of Mr. Dana, in the same splendid style, with the
Marquis de Verac, at that time French minister at the Russian Court.
His mind was more impressed with the recollection of the magnificence
he had then witnessed on the same spot, and with reflections on the
mutability of human fortune, than with the gorgeous scene around him.
The Emperor Alexander received Mr. Adams alone, in his cabinet, and
expressed his pleasure at seeing him at St. Petersburg. Mr. Adams, on
presenting his credentials, said that the President of the United
States had desired him to express the hope that his mission would be
considered as a proof of respect for the person and character of his
majesty, as an acknowledgment of the many testimonies of good-will he
had already given to the United States, and of a desire to strengthen
commercial relations between them and his provinces. The emperor
replied, that, in everything depending on him, he should be happy to
contribute to the increase of their friendly relations; that it was
his wish to establish a just system of maritime rights, and that he
should adhere invariably to those he had declared. He then entered
into a confidential exposition of the obstacles then existing to a
general pacification, and of the policy of the different European
powers, and said that he considered the system of the United States
towards them as wise and just. Mr. Adams replied, that the United
States, being a great commercial and pacific nation, were deeply
interested in a system which would give security to commerce in time
of war. It was hoped this great blessing to humanity would be
accomplished by his imperial majesty himself; and that the United
States, by all means consistent with their peace, and their separation
from the political system of Europe, would contribute to the support
of the liberal principles to which his majesty had expressed so strong
and just an attachment. The emperor replied, that between Russia and
the United States there could be no interference of interests, no
cause for dissension; but that, by means of commerce, the two states
might be greatly useful to each other; and his desire was to give the
greatest extension and facility to these means of mutual interest.
Passing to other topics, he made many inquiries relative to the cities
of the United States.
The empress and the empress mother each gave Mr. Adams a private
audience; and, after Mrs. Adams had also been presented to the
imperial family, they were invited to a succession of splendid
entertainments. "The formalities of these court presentations," Mr.
Adams remarked, "are so trifling and insignificant in themselves, and
so important in the eyes of princes and courtiers, that they are much
more embarrassing to an American than business of greater importance.
It is not safe or prudent to despise them, nor practicable for a
person of rational understanding to value them."
As the balls and parties given by the emperor, the foreign ministers,
and the nobility, did not usually terminate until four o'clock in the
morning, they so essentially interfered with the studies and official
engagements of Mr. Adams, that he determined, as far as his station
permitted, to relinquish attending them.
In December he requested the Chancellor to solicit the emperor to
interpose his good offices with the Danish government for the
restoration of American property sequestrated in the ports of
Holstein. Count Romanzoff, in reply, stated that the emperor took
great pleasure in complying with that request, and was gratified by
this opportunity to show his friendly disposition towards the United
States, and immediately ordered the Chancellor to represent to the
Danish government the wish of the emperor that the American property
might be examined and restored as soon as possible. The Danish
government acceded at once to the emperor's desire; and the effect of
his interposition was gratefully acknowledged by the Americans whose
property was liberated.
The residence of Mr. Adams in Russia was during an eventful period.
The Emperor Alexander was at first endeavoring to avoid a collision
with Bonaparte, by yielding to his policy; and afterwards, on his
invasion, was engaged in driving him out of Russia, bereft of his army
and continental influence. During these years the release or relief of
American vessels and seamen from the effects of the French emperor's
Berlin and Milan decrees, and from other seizures and sequestrations,
were the chief objects to which Mr. Adams directed his attention.
His subsequent attempts to establish permanent commercial relations
between the United States and Russia were favorably received by that
government. The chancellor of the empire, Count Romanzoff,
acknowledged the importance of a treaty between Russia and the United
States, and intimated that the only obstacle was the convulsed state
of opinion at that period throughout the commercial world, which was
such that "it hardly seemed possible to agree to anything which had
common sense in it." Count Romanzoff conducted towards Mr. Adams not
only with official respect, but with cordiality. On one occasion he
transmitted to him by his private secretary a work relative to an
armed neutrality, which was preparing under his auspices for
publication, requesting the American minister to make such
observations upon it as he thought proper.
The courteous manners of the Emperor Alexander, his apparent desire to
conciliate the United States, and the personal intercourse to which he
admitted its representative, were frequently acknowledged by Mr.
Adams. In the midst of the splendor of the Russian Court, and the
magnificent entertainments of its ministers and of resident
plenipotentiaries, some of whom expended fifty thousand roubles a
year, and the ambassador from the French emperor over four hundred
thousand, he maintained the simplicity of style suited at once to his
salary and to the character of the country he represented. Loans to an
indefinite amount were proffered to him by mercantile houses. These he
uniformly declined, though under circumstances of great temptation to
accept them. "The opportunities," he wrote, "of thus anticipating my
regular income, it is difficult to resist. But I am determined to do
it. The whole of my life has been one continued experience of the
difficulty of a man's adhering to the principle of living within his
income; the first and most important principle of private economy. In
this country beyond all others, and in my situation more than any
other, the temptations to expense amount almost to compulsion. I have
withstood them hitherto, and hope for firmness of character to
withstand them in future."
In connection with this topic, the following anecdote was related by
Mr. Adams: "As I was walking, this morning (in May, 1811), I was met
by the emperor, who was also walking. As he approached he said,
'Monsieur Adams, il y a cent ans que je ne vous ai vu,' and took me
cordially by the hand. After some common observations, he asked me
whether I intended to take a house in the country this summer. I said
'No; that I had for some time that intention, but I had given it
up,'--'And why?' said he. I was hesitating upon an answer, when he
relieved me from my embarrassment by saying, 'Peut-être sont-ce des
considerations de finance.' As he said it in perfect good humor, and
with a smile, I replied, in the same manner, 'Mais, Sire, elles y sont
pour une bonne partie.'--'Fort bien,' said he, 'vous avez raison. Il
faut toujours proportionner la depense à la recette;' a maxim,"
remarks Mr. Adams, "worthy of an emperor, though few emperors practise
upon it."
The customs, manners, and habits, of the nobility and the people;
their public institutions, edifices, monuments, and collections in the
fine arts; the overweening influence of the clergy, their power and
political subserviency; the character of the foreign ministers, and
the policy of the courts they represented, were carefully observed and
noted down for future thought and illustration.
Nor were his researches restricted to subjects of diplomatic duty, or
to objects immediately connected with his foreign relations. He studied
the language and history of Russia, the course and usages of its trade,
especially in relation to China, and made laborious inquiries into the
proportions of Russian, English, and French weights, measures, and
coins. In obtaining a minute accuracy in these proportions, he employed
many hours; on which he observed, "I fear I shall never attain them,
and the usefulness of which is at least problematical;[1] but '_Trahit
sua quemque ipsa voluntas_;' my studies generally command me--I seldom
control them."
[1] The Report of Mr. Adams, when Secretary of State, on weights
and measures, at the call of Congress, sufficiently evidences
the ultimate usefulness of these researches.
The progress of the seasons in Russia, the rising and the setting of
the sun, were daily noted, as also the variation of the climate, by
the thermometer. His thirst for knowledge, and his desire of
investigating causes and effects, were never satiated.
Astronomy was with him a subject of early and intense interest. He
studied the works of Schubert, Lalande, Biot, and Lacroix, and
constantly observed the heavens, and noticed their phenomena, according
to the calendar. By Langlet's and Dufresnoy's tables he attempted to
ascertain with precision the Arabian and Turkish computations of time,
comparing them with those of Christian nations. From astronomy and
chronology he was drawn into the study of mathematics, and the
logarithms in the tables of Collet.
Neither were the works of the ancient philosophers and orators omitted
in the sphere of his studies. The works of Plato, the orations of
Demosthenes, Isocrates, Æschines, and Cicero, were not only read, but
made the subject of critical analysis, comparison, and reflection.
Religion was also in his mind a predominating element. A practice,
which he prescribed to himself, and never omitted, of reading daily
five chapters in the Bible, familiarized his mind with its pages. In
connection with these studies he read habitually the works of Butler,
Bossuet, Tillotson, Massillon, Atterbury, and Watts. With such an ardor
for knowledge, and universality in its pursuit, it is not surprising
that he should say, as on one occasion he did, "I feel nothing like the
tediousness of time. I suffer nothing like _ennui_. Time is too short
for me, rather than too long. If the day was forty-eight hours, instead
of twenty-four, I could employ them all, if I had but eyes and hands to
read and write."
In 1810, citizens of the United States, who had formed a settlement on
the north-west coast of North America, were embarrassed in their
intercourse with China, by the Chinese mistaking American for Russian
vessels. In a conversation with Mr. Adams on the means of avoiding
this difficulty, Count Romanzoff described the obstacles the Russians
had experienced in their commerce with China. He stated that in the
reign of Catharine II. the Emperor of China complained of a governor
of a province bordering on Russia, as "a bad man;" in consequence of
which, the empress caused him to be removed. This concession did not
satisfy the Chinese emperor, who declared the punishment insufficient,
and demanded that "_the offender should be impaled alive by way of
atonement_." This demand so shocked Catharine that she issued an
edict prohibiting her subjects from all commercial relations with
China. This edict continued in force until the Chinese themselves
sought for a renewal of their former intercourse, when the empress
yielded her resentment to policy.
The loss of time from the civilities and visits of his numerous
diplomatic associates was annoying to Mr. Adams. "I have been
engaged," he wrote, "the whole forenoon; and though I rise at six
o'clock, I am sometimes unable to find time to write only part of a
private letter in the course of the day. These visits take up so much
of my time, that I sometimes think of taking a resolution not to
receive them; but, on the other hand, so much information important to
be possessed, and particularly relative to current political events,
is to be collected from them, that they are rather to be encouraged
than discountenanced."
"The French ambassador," writes Mr. Adams, "assured me that he hoped
the difference between his country and mine would soon be settled, and
requested me to inform my government that it was the desire of the
Emperor of France, and of his ministers, to come to the best terms
with the United States; that they knew our interests were the same,
but he was perfectly persuaded that, if any other person but Gen.
Armstrong was there, our business might be settled entirely to our
satisfaction. I told him that, as I was as desirous that we should
come to a good understanding, I regretted very much that anything
personal to General Armstrong should be considered by his government
as offensive; that I was sure the government of the United States
would regret it also, and would wish, on learning it, to be informed
what were the occasions of displeasure which he had given. 'C'est
d'abord un très galant homme,' said the ambassador; 'but he never
shows himself, and upon every little occasion, when by a verbal
explanation with the minister General Armstrong might obtain anything,
he writes peevish notes.' This appears to me," observes Mr. Adams, "an
intriguing manoeuvre, of which the minister thinks I might be made
the dupe."
On one occasion, Count Romanzoff requested an interview with Mr.
Adams, and, among other inquiries, asked what could be done to restore
freedom and security to commerce. He replied, that, "setting aside all
official character and responsibility, and speaking as an individual
upon public affairs," as Count Romanzoff had requested, he thought the
best course towards peace was for his excellency to convince the
French government that the continental system, as they called it, and
as they managed it, was promoting to the utmost extent the views of
England, and, instead of impairing her commerce, was securing to her
that of the whole world, and was pouring into her lap the means of
continuing the war just as long as her ministers should consider it
expedient. He could hardly conceive that the Emperor Napoleon was so
blind as not to have made that discovery already. Three years'
experience, with the effects of it becoming every day more flagrant,
had made the inference too clear and unquestionable. The Emperor
Napoleon, with all his power, could neither control the elements nor
the passions of mankind. He had found his own brother could not or
would not carry his system into execution, and had finally cast at his
feet the crown he had given him, rather than continue to be his
instrument any longer. Count Romanzoff gravely questioned the
statement of Mr. Adams respecting the commercial prosperity of
England, but admitted his views in general to be correct, saying that,
as long as a system was agreed upon, he thought exceptions from it
ought not to be allowed. Mr. Adams then asked him how that was
possible, when the Emperor Napoleon himself was the first to make such
exceptions, and to give licenses for a direct trade with England?
Count Romanzoff replied, that he thought all such licenses wrong, and
he believed that there were not so many of them as was pretended.
There was indeed one case of a vessel coming to St. Petersburg both
with an English license and a license from the Emperor Napoleon. He
was of opinion that she ought to be confiscated for having the English
license. But the French commercial and diplomatic agents were very
desirous that she might go free, on account of her French license; and
perhaps the Emperor, in consideration of his ally, might so determine.
Romanzoff complained bitterly that all the ancient established
principles, both of commercial and political rectitude, had, in a
manner, vanished from the world; and observed that, with all her
faults, England had the advantage over her neighbors, of having
hitherto most successfully resisted all the innovations upon ancient
principles and establishments. For his own part, since he had been at
the head of affairs, he could sincerely protest one wish had been at
the bottom of all his policy, and the aim of all his labors,--and that
was universal peace.
In 1811 Mr. Adams received from the Secretary of State a commission of
an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States; an
appointment which he immediately declined.
In 1812 the emperor directed Count Romanzoff to inquire whether, if he
should offer his mediation to effect a pacification between the United
States and Great Britain, Mr. Adams was aware of any objection on the
part of his government. He replied, that, speaking only from a general
knowledge of its sentiments, the proposal of the emperor would be
considered a new evidence of his regard and friendship for the United
States, whatever determination might be formed. Under this assurance,
the offer was made, transmitted, and immediately accepted. In July,
1813, Mr. Gallatin and Mr. Bayard, being associated with Mr. Adams on
this mission, arrived at St. Petersburg, bringing credentials, for the
purpose of commencing a negotiation, under the mediation of the
emperor.
On communicating these credentials to Count Romanzoff, Mr. Adams
informed him that he had received instructions from the American
government to remain at St. Petersburg under the commission he had
heretofore held; and that he had been mistaken in supposing that his
colleagues had other destination, independent of this mission. His
conjecture had been founded on the doubt whether the President would
have appointed this mission solely upon the supposition that the
mediation would be accepted by the British government; but he was now
instructed that the President, considering the acceptance of the
British government as probable, though aware that if they should
reject it this measure might wear the appearance of precipitation,
thought it more advisable to incur that risk than the danger of
prolonging unnecessarily the war for six or nine months, as might
happen if the British should immediately have accepted the mediation,
and he should have delayed this step until he was informed of it. It
was with the President a great object to manifest, not only a cheerful
acceptance on the part of the United States, but in a signal manner
his sentiments of consideration and respect for the emperor, and to do
honor to the motives on which he offered his mediation. After hearing
these statements of Mr. Adams, the emperor directed Count Romanzoff to
express his particular gratification with the honorable notice the
American government had taken of his offer to effect a pacification
between Great Britain and the United States.
In September Lord Cathcart delivered to the emperor a memoir from the
British government, stating at length their reasons for declining any
mediation in their contest with the United States. But, although the
British government did not choose that a third power should interfere
in this controversy, it had offered to treat directly with the
American envoys at Gottenburg, or in London.
This proposition having been accepted by the United States, Mr. Adams
was associated with Bayard, Clay, and Russell, in the negotiation.
After taking leave of the empress and Count Romanzoff,--the emperor
being then before Paris with the allied armies,--he quitted St.
Petersburg on the 28th of April, 1814. His family remained in that
city, and he travelled alone to Revel. There he received the news of
the taking of Paris, and the abdication of Napoleon. From thence he
embarked for Stockholm.
CHAPTER IV.
RESIDENCE AT GHENT.--AT PARIS.--IN LONDON.--PRESENTATION TO THE PRINCE
REGENT.--NEGOTIATION WITH LORD CASTLEREAGH.--APPOINTED SECRETARY OF
STATE.--LEAVES ENGLAND.
Mr. Adams arrived in Stockholm on the 24th of May, and after visiting
Count Engerström, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and meeting the
Swedish and foreign ministers at a diplomatic dinner, given by Baron
Strogonoff, he left that city on the 2d of June. A messenger from Mr.
Clay informed him that, at the request of Lord Bathurst, the negotiation
of the treaty of peace had been transferred to Ghent. Passing through
Sweden, he embarked from Gottenburg in the United States corvette John
Adams for the Texel, landed at the Helder, and proceeded through Holland
to Ghent, where his associates met for the first time in his apartments
on the 30th of June. The British commissioners did not arrive until the
7th of August, and their negotiations were not concluded until the 24th
of December, 1814. On presenting three copies of the treaty, signed and
sealed by all the commissioners, to Mr. Adams, and on receiving three
from him, Lord Gambier said, he trusted the result of their labors
would be permanent. Mr. Adams replied, he hoped it would be the _last_
treaty of peace between Great Britain and the United States.
The American commissioners were presented to the Prince of Orange, the
sovereign of the Netherlands, and, on the 5th of January, 1815, the
citizens of Ghent celebrated the ratification of the treaty, by inviting
the representatives of both nations to a public entertainment at the
Hotel de Ville. Mr. Adams left that city with characteristic expressions
of gratitude for the result of a negotiation which he hoped would prove
propitious to the union and best interests of his country.
On the 3d of February he arrived in Paris, and met the American
commissioners, and with them was presented by Mr. Crawford, resident
minister of the United States, to Louis the Eighteenth, and to the Duke
and Duchess of Angoulême. He was also presented to the Duke of Orleans,
at the Palais Royal, who spoke with grateful remembrance of
hospitalities he had received in America. Mr. Adams was often in the
society of Lafayette, Madame de Staël, Humboldt, Constant, and other
eminent persons, and was deeply interested in observing the effect of
all changes in the laws and government of France.
The intelligence that Napoleon had left Elba soon caused great
excitement and anxiety in Paris, which continued to increase until the
morning of the 20th of March, when Louis the Eighteenth left the
Tuileries. In the evening Napoleon alighted there so silently, that Mr.
Adams, who was at the Théatre Français, not a quarter of a mile distant,
was unaware of the fact until the next day, when the gazettes of Paris,
which had showered execrations upon him, announced "the arrival of his
majesty, the Emperor, at _his_ palace of the Tuileries." In the Place
du Carousel Mr. Adams, in his morning walk, saw regiments of cavalry,
belonging to the garrison of Paris, which had been sent out to oppose
Napoleon, pass in review before him, their helmets and the clasps of
their belts yet glowing with the arms of the Bourbons. The theatres
assumed the title of Imperial, and at the opera, in the evening, the
arms of the emperor were placed on the curtain and on the royal box.
A few days afterwards, Mr. Adams requested an interview with the
emperor's Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Duke de Vicence, with whom he
had been previously acquainted at St. Petersburg. He assured Mr. Adams
that the late revolution had been effected without effort; that Fouché,
the new Minister of Police, who received reports from every part of the
country, informed him that there had not been one act of violence or
resistance. He said, that if Napoleon had not returned, the misconduct
of the Bourbons would have caused an insurrection of the people in less
than six months; that the emperor had renounced all ideas of extended
conquest, and only desired peace with all the world. Mr. Adams expressed
a hope that the relations between France and the United States would
become friendly and mutually advantageous, and said he was awaiting
orders from his government, and should soon need a passport to England.
The duke assured him of his readiness to comply with any request from
him or from Mr. Crawford. All the other foreign ministers had already
quitted Paris.
After Mrs. Adams had arrived from St. Petersburg, Mr. Adams, having been
appointed American minister at the British Court, left Paris, with his
family, on the 16th of May, 1815. About the time of his departure he
observed: "War appears to be certain. The first thought of the
inhabitants of Paris will be to save themselves. They have no attachment
either to the Bourbons or Napoleon. They will submit quietly to the
victorious party, and do nothing to support either."
On the 25th of May Mr. Adams arrived in London, and on the 29th had an
interview with Lord Castlereagh relative to the treaty of peace, and the
commercial relations of Great Britain with the United States. The Prince
Regent, at a private audience, said the United States might rely with
full assurance on his determination to fulfil all engagements with them
on the part of Great Britain.
After the convention concerning commerce had been concluded, and Mr.
Gallatin and Mr. Clay had departed, Mr. Adams removed his residence to
Boston House, Ealing, nine miles from London, where he commanded time
for his favorite studies, and reciprocated the civilities paid to him
and Mrs. Adams. He continued to receive in public and private the
distinguished attentions due to his official station and his personal
character and attainments. The queen gave him a private audience, and in
May, 1816, with Mrs. Adams, he was present at the marriage of the
Princess Charlotte of Wales. His society was sought and highly
appreciated by the most eminent men of all classes; and he availed
himself, with characteristic assiduity, of all opportunities to acquire
information, especially that relative to the science of government, and
the political relations of Europe.
Some conversations and opinions his papers preserve tend to throw light
upon his course and character. In reply to an inquiry made by Lord
Holland concerning the forms and results of representation in the United
States, Mr. Adams said that one consequence was that a very great
proportion of their public men were lawyers. Lord Holland said it was
precisely the same in England; that the theory of their representation
in the House of Commons was bad, but perhaps no theory could produce a
more perfect practice of representation of all classes and interests of
the community. Even the close boroughs often served to bring in able and
useful men, who by a more correct theory would find themselves excluded.
Men of property could always make their way into Parliament by their
wealth. Men of family might go into the House of Commons for a few years
in youth, to get experience of public business, and to employ time for
useful purposes; and there was no man of real talent who, in one way or
another, could fail of obtaining, sooner or later, admission into
Parliament. But a great proportion of the House of Commons were lawyers,
and most of the business of the house was done by them. In the House of
Lords all that was of any use was done by lawyers. The great practical
use of the House of Lords was to be a check upon mischief that might be
done by the Commons. Many bills passed through that house without
sufficient consideration. The Chancellor is under a sort of personal
responsibility to examine and stop them. His character depends upon it.
He is at the head of the nobility of the country, and his consideration
depends upon his keeping this vigilant eye on the proceedings of the
Commons. All the ordinary business of the house, therefore, rests upon a
lawyer.
Lord Holland observed that from what he heard the most defective part of
our institutions was the judiciary; which Mr. Adams admitted.
In August, 1816, at a diplomatic dinner, given on St. Louis' day, by the
French ambassador, the Marquis D'Osmond, Mr. Adams first met Mr.
Canning, then recently appointed President of the Board of Control. At
his request, he was introduced by Lord Liverpool to Mr. Adams. They both
spoke of the great and rapid increase of the United States, and Canning
inquired when the next presidential election would take place, and who
would probably be chosen. Mr. Adams replied, Mr. Monroe. Lord Liverpool
observed that he had heard his election might be opposed on account of
his being a Virginian. Mr. Adams said that had been a ground of
objection, but it would not avail. He afterwards remarks: "Mr. Canning,
whose celebrity is great, and whose talents are probably greater than
those of any other member of the cabinet, and who has been invariably
noted for his bitterness against the United States, seemed desirous to
make up by an excess of civility for the feelings he has so constantly
manifested against us."
After reading the Gazette Extraordinary sent him by Lord Castlereagh,
containing an account of the victory of Lord Exmouth, on the 27th of
August, over the Algerines, and that the terms of capitulation had
forced them to deliver up all their Christian slaves, to repay
ransom-money, and to stipulate for the formal abolition of Christian
slavery in Algiers forever, Mr. Adams observed, "This is a deed of real
glory."
The Lord Mayor of London introduced Mr. Adams to Sir Philip Francis,
then the supposed author of the letters of Junius. On this celebrated
work, on a subsequent occasion, Mr. Adams remarked: "Sir Philip Francis
is almost demonstrated to be the culprit. The speeches of Lord Chatham
bear the stamp of a mind not unequal to the composition of Junius. Those
of Burke are of a higher order. Were it ascertained that either of them
were the political assassin who stabbed with the dagger of Junius, I
should not add a particle of admiration for his talents, and should lose
all my respect for his morals. Junius was essentially a sophist. His
religion was infidelity, his abstract ethics depraved, his temper
bitterly malignant, and his nervous system timid and cowardly. The
concealment of his name at the time when he wrote was the effect of
dishonest fear. The perpetuation of it could only proceed from the
consciousness that the disclosure of his person would be discreditable
to his fame. The object of Junius, when he began to write, was merely to
overthrow the administration then in power. He attacked them in a mass
and individually; their measures, their capacities, their characters
public and private; charged them with every crime and every vice.
Afterwards, he followed up his general assault by singling out,
successively, the Dukes of Grafton and Bedford, Lord Mansfield, Sir
William Blackstone, and the King himself. He magnified mole-hills into
mountains, inflamed pin-scratches into deadly wounds, and at last
abandoned his course in despair at the very time when he might have
pursued it with the most effect. But while he was battering the ministry
upon paltry topics, which had neither root or stem, he had declared
himself emphatically and repeatedly upon their side on the only subject
on which their fate and the destiny of the nation altogether
depended--the controversy with America. The course he took in the early
stage of that conflict, and his disappearance from the theatre of
politics at the time when it was ripening into the magnitude of its
nature, have marked Junius in my mind as a man of small things--a
splendid trifler, a pompous and shallow politician."
In July, 1816, Mr. Adams showed Lord Castlereagh his authority and
instructions to negotiate a new commercial convention with the British
government, stating "that one object was to open the trade between the
United States and the British colonies in North America and the West
Indies, as great changes had occurred since the existing convention
between the countries was signed. That convention equalized the duties
upon British and American vessels, in the intercourse between Europe and
the United States, and thereby admitted British vessels into the ports
of the United States upon terms of equal competition with American
vessels. But, since that time, the exclusive system of colonial
regulations had been resumed in the West Indies with extraordinary
rigor. American vessels had been excluded from all the ports, and some
seizures had been made with such severity that there were cases upon
which it would soon become his duty to address the British government in
behalf of individuals who had suffered, and deemed themselves entitled
to the restitution of their property. The consequence of these new
regulations, as combined with the operation of the commercial
convention, was, that British vessels being admitted into our ports upon
equal terms with our own, and then being exclusively received in the
British West India ports, not only thus monopolized the trade between
the United States and the West Indies, but acquired an advantage in the
direct trade from Europe to the United States, which defeated the main
object of the convention itself, of placing the shipping of the two
countries upon equal terms of fair competition. In North America the
same system was pursued by the colonial government of Upper Canada. An
act of the Colonial Legislature was passed at their last session,
vesting in the Lieutenant-Governor and Council of the province the power
of regulating its trade with the United States; and immediately
afterwards a new tariff of duties was issued, by an order of the
previous Council, dated the 18th of April, laying excessively heavy
duties upon all articles imported into the province from the United
States, with the exception of certain articles of provision of the first
necessity; and a tonnage duty of twelve and sixpence per ton upon
American vessels, which was equivalent to a total prohibition."
Lord Castlereagh said "that he had not been in the way of following the
measures adopted in that quarter, and was not aware that there had been
any new regulations either in the West Indies or in North America. In
time of war he knew it had been usual to open the ports of the West
India Islands to foreigners, merely as a measure of necessity; and it
was not until the Americans attempted to starve them by their embargo
acts that they were driven to the resort of finding resources elsewhere.
But in time of peace it had been usual to exclude foreigners from these
islands."
He then asked if the trade was considerable. Mr. Adams replied that it
was. "Even in time of peace it was highly necessary to the colonies, in
respect to some of the imports indispensable to their subsistence; and,
by the exports, extremely advantageous to the interests of Great
Britain, by furnishing a market for articles which she does not take
herself, and which could not be disposed of elsewhere. At the very time
of the embargo, the governors of the Islands, so far from adhering to
the principle of excluding American vessels, issued proclamations
inviting them, with promises even that the regular papers should not be
required for their admission, and encouraging them to violate the laws
of their own country by carrying them supplies. In time of peace it was
undoubtedly not so necessary. Even then, however, it was so in a high
degree. The mother country may supply them in part, but does not produce
some of the most important articles of their importation,--rice, for
example, and Indian corn, the best and cheapest articles for the
subsistence of negroes. Even wheat and flour, and provisions generally,
were much more advantageously imported from the United States than from
Europe, being so much less liable to be damaged in those hot climates,
from the comparative shortness of the voyage. Another of their
importations was lumber, which is necessary for buildings upon the
plantations, and which, after the hurricanes to which the islands are
frequently exposed, must be had in large quantities."
Mr. Adams added, "that the American government did not on this ground
now propose that these ports should be opened to their vessels. They did
not seek for a participation in the British trade with them. Great
Britain might still prohibit the importation from the United States of
such articles as she chose to supply herself. But they asked that
American vessels be admitted equally with British vessels to carry the
articles which could be supplied only from the United States, or which
were supplied only to them. The effect of the new regulations had been
so injurious to the shipping interest in America, and was so immediately
felt, that the first impression on the minds of many was that they
should be at once met by counteracting legislative measures of
prohibition. A proposal to that effect was made in Congress; but it was
thought best to endeavor, in the first instance, to come to an amicable
arrangement of the subject with the British government. Immediate
prohibitions would affect injuriously the British colonies; they would
excite irritation in the commercial part of the British communities. The
consideration, therefore, of enacting legislative regulations, was
postponed."
Lord Castlereagh, after expressing the earnest disposition of his
government to promote harmony between the two countries, said "he was
not then prepared to enter upon a discussion on the points of the
question, but would take it into consideration as soon as possible."
Mr. Adams then said "that the American government was anxious to settle
by treaty all the subjects of collision between neutral and belligerent
rights which, in the event of a new maritime war in Europe, might again
arise:--blockade, contraband, searches at sea, and colonial trade, but
most of all the case of the seamen,--concerning whom the American
government proposed that each party should stipulate not to employ, in
its merchant ships or naval service, the seamen of the other."
Lord Castlereagh inquired "whether the proposal in the stipulation
related only to native citizens and subjects; and, if not, how the
question was to be escaped,--whether any act of naturalization shall
avail to discharge a seaman from the duties of his original allegiance."
Mr. Adams replied, "that it was proposed to include in the arrangement
only natives and those who are on either side naturalized already; so
that it would not extend to any hereafter naturalized. The number of
persons included would, of course, be very few." Lord Castlereagh
inquired "what regulations were proposed to carry the stipulation into
effect." Mr. Adams replied, "that if it was agreed to, he thought there
would be no difficulty in concerting regulations to carry it into
execution; and that the American government would be ready to agree to
any Great Britain might think necessary, consistent with individual
rights, to secure the bona fide fulfilment of the engagement." "But,"
said Lord Castlereagh, "by agreeing to this stipulation, is it expected
we should abandon the right of search we have heretofore used; or is
this stipulation to stand by itself, leaving the rights of the parties
as they were before?" Mr. Adams replied, "that undoubtedly the object
of the American government was that the result of the stipulation
should ultimately be the abandonment of the practice of taking men from
American vessels." "How, then," said Lord Castlereagh, "shall we escape
the old difficulty? The people of this country consider the remedy we
have always used hitherto as the best and only effective one. Such is
the general opinion of the nation, and there is a good deal of feeling
connected with the sentiment. If we now give up that, how will it be
possible to devise any regulation, depending upon the performance of
another state, which will be thought as efficacious as that we have in
our own hands? He knew that the policy of the American government had
changed; that it was formerly to invite and encourage British seamen to
enter their service, but that at present it was to give encouragement
to their own seamen; and he was in hopes that the effect of these
internal legislative measures would be to diminish the necessity of
resorting to the right of search." Mr. Adams, in reply, said, "that his
lordship had once before made a similar observation, and that he felt
it his duty to take notice of it. Being under a perfect conviction that
it was erroneous, he was compelled to state that the American
government never did in any manner invite or encourage foreign seamen
generally, or British seamen in particular, to enter their service."
Lord Castlereagh said "that he meant only that their policy arose
naturally from circumstances,--from the extraordinary, sudden, and
almost unbounded increase of their commerce and navigation during the
late European wars; they had not native seamen enough to man their
ships, and the encouragements to foreign seamen followed from that
state of things." Mr. Adams replied, "that he understood his lordship
perfectly; but what he asserted was his profound conviction that he was
mistaken in point of fact. He knew not how the policy of any government
can be manifested otherwise than by its acts. Now, there never was any
one act, either of the legislature or executive, which could have even
a tendency to invite British seamen into the American service." "But,"
said Lord Castlereagh, "at least, then, there was nothing done to
prevent them." Mr. Adams replied, "That may be; but there is a very
material distinction between giving encouragement and doing nothing to
prevent them. Our naturalization laws certainly hold out to them
nothing like encouragement. You naturalize every foreign seaman by the
mere fact of two years' service on board of your public ships, _ipso
facto_, without cost, or form, or process. We require five years'
residence in the United States, two years of notice in a court of
record, and a certificate of character, before the act of
naturalization is granted. Thus far only may be admitted,--that the
great and extraordinary increase of our commerce, to which you have
alluded, had the effect of raising the wages of seamen excessively
high. Our government certainly gave no encouragement to this; neither
did our merchants, who would surely have engaged their seamen at lower
wages, if possible. These wages, no doubt, operated as a strong
temptation to your seamen to go into the American service. Your
merchant service could not afford to pay them so high. The wages in the
king's ships are much lower, and numbers of British seamen,
accordingly, find employment on board American vessels; but
encouragement from the American government they never had in any
manner. They were merely not excluded; and even now, in making the
proposal to exclude them, it is not from any change of policy, but
solely for the purpose of giving satisfaction to Great Britain, and of
stopping the most abundant source of dissension with her. It proves
only the earnestness of our desire to be upon good terms with you."
Mr. Adams said, with regard to his proposal of excluding each other's
seamen, "that he was not prepared to say that an article could not be
framed by which the parties might stipulate the principle of mutual
exclusion, without at all affecting or referring to the rights or claims
of either party. Perhaps it might be accomplished if the British
government should assume it as one of the objects to be arranged by the
convention." On which Lord Castlereagh said: "In that case there will
not be so much difficulty. If it is a mere agreement of mutual
exclusion, tending to diminish the occasion for exercising the right of
search, and undoubtedly if it should prove effectual, it would in the
end operate as an inducement to forbear the exercise of the right
entirely."
Discussions with the same nobleman on other topics bearing upon the
commercial relations between the two nations are preserved among the
papers of Mr. Adams.
On the 16th of April, 1817, Mr. Adams received letters from President
Monroe, with the information that, with the sanction of the Senate, the
Department of State had been committed to him; a trust which he accepted
with a deep sense of its weight and responsibility. In compliance with
Mr. Monroe's request, he made immediate arrangements to return to the
United States. On presenting his letters of recall to Lord Castlereagh,
congratulations on his appointment were attended with regrets at his
removal from his mission. Mr. Adams stated that the uncertainty of his
acceptance of the office of Secretary of State had prevented an
immediate appointment of his successor, but that he was instructed in
the strongest manner to declare the earnest desire of President Monroe
to cultivate the most friendly intercourse with Great Britain. He gave
the same explanation to the Prince Regent, at a private audience, who
replied by an assurance of his disposition to continue to promote the
harmony between the two nations which was required by the interests of
both. There was no formality in the discourse on either side, and the
generalities of mutual assurance were much alike, and estimated at their
real value. In reply to the inquiries of the Prince, the names of the
members of Mr. Monroe's cabinet were mentioned. He was not acquainted
with any of them, but spoke in handsome terms of Mr. Thomas Pinckney and
Mr. Rufus King, and asked many questions concerning the organization of
the American government. Lord Castlereagh, in his final interview with
Mr. Adams, made numerous inquiries relative to the foreign relations of
the United States, especially in regard to Spain, and again expressed
the desire of the British government not only to remain at peace
themselves, but also to promote tranquillity among other nations. Prince
Esterhazy, in a parting visit to Mr. Adams, also assured him that the
cabinets of Europe were never so universally and sincerely pacific as at
that time; that they all had finances to redeem, ravages to repair, and
wanted a period of long repose.
After taking leave of his numerous friends in office and in private
life, Mr. Adams bade farewell to London, and embarked with his family
from Cowes, in the packet-ship Washington, on the 17th of June, 1817,
for the United States.
CHAPTER V.
FIRST TERM OF MR. MONROE'S ADMINISTRATION.--STATE OF PARTIES.--SEMINOLE
WAR.--TAKING OF PENSACOLA.--NEGOTIATION WITH SPAIN.--PURCHASE OF THE
FLORIDAS.--COLONIZATION SOCIETY.--THE ADMISSION OF MISSOURI INTO THE
UNION.
A tedious voyage of seven weeks was beguiled by Mr. Adams with Bacon's
Novum Organum, the novels of Scott, and the game of chess, which last,
in his estimate, surpassed all other resources when at sea. On the 7th
of August he arrived at New York, with mingled emotions of gratitude for
the past, and anxious forecast of the cares and perils of the scene on
which he was about to enter. After a detention in that city by official
business, on the 18th of August he reached Quincy, Massachusetts, and
enjoyed the inexpressible happiness of again meeting his venerable
father and mother in perfect health, after an absence of eight eventful
years. In September, at Washington, he entered upon the duties of
Secretary of State.
The foreign relations of the United States were, at this period,
peaceful, except that questions concerning spoliations on American
commerce and settlement of boundaries were depending with Spain, and the
sympathy of the United States for her revolted colonies excited her
jealousy and fear, which the seizure of Amelia Island, under the real or
pretended authority of one of them, had tended greatly to increase.
Internally, the political relations of the country were in a transition
state. The chief power, which Virginia had held during three
presidencies, was now about to pass from her hands; there being no
statesman among her sons who could compete, as a candidate for the
successorship to Monroe, with the talents and popularity of rising
aspirants in other states. Her policy therefore was directed to secure,
for the next term of the presidency, a candidate friendly to the
political dogmas she cherished, and to the interests and projects of the
Southern States. The character and principles of Mr. Adams were not
adapted to become subservient to her views, and she saw with little
complacency his elevation to the office of Secretary of State, which was
in popular opinion a proximate step to the President's chair. Yet it
could not be doubted that his appointment had the assent, if not the
approbation, of Jefferson and Madison, without whose concurrence Monroe
would scarcely have ventured to raise a citizen of Massachusetts to that
station.
The prospective change, in the principles and influences of public
affairs, which the close of Mr. Monroe's term of office would effect,
elevated the hopes and awakened the activity of the partisans of
Crawford, of Georgia, Clay, of Kentucky, and De Witt Clinton, of New
York. Crawford, who had been Secretary of the Treasury under Madison,
and who was again placed in that office by Monroe, was understood to be
the favorite candidate of Virginia. Clay, one of the most talented and
popular politicians of the period, had been an active supporter of
Monroe for the presidency. His friends did not conceal their
disappointment that he was not invited to take the office of Secretary
of State; nor did he disguise his dissatisfaction at the appointment of
Mr. Adams. In New York, De Witt Clinton, in his struggles with Van Buren
for ascendency in that state, by one of those mysterious changes to
which political tempests are subject, had been at one moment cast out of
the mayoralty of the city, and at the next into the governor's chair.
His partisans, deeming his position and popularity now favorable to his
elevation to the presidency, which he had long desired and once
attempted to attain, placed him in nomination for that office.
Each of these candidates possessed great personal and local popularity,
spirit and power adapted to success, and adherents watchful and
efficient. To cope with all these rival influences, Mr. Adams had
talents, integrity, fidelity to his country, and devotion to the
fulfilment of official duty, in which he had no superior. Having been
absent eight years in foreign countries in public service, he had no
Southern or Western current in his favor; and that which set from the
North, though generally favorable, being divided, was comparatively
feeble, and rather acquiescent in his elevation than active in promoting
it.
On his appointment as Secretary of State, Mr. Adams remarked: "Whether
it is for my own good is known only to God. As yet I have far more
reason to lament than rejoice at the event; yet I feel not less my
obligation to Mr. Monroe for his confidence in me, and the duty of
personal devotion to the success of his administration which it
imposes." Before the lapse of a year that administration was assailed
in Congress and in the newspapers, and the attacks were concentrated
on Mr. Adams. The calumnies by which his father's administration had
been prostrated five-and-twenty years before were revived, and poured
out with renewed malignity. Duane, in his _Aurora_, published in
Philadelphia, and his coädjutors in other parts of the Union,
represented him as "a royalist," "an enemy to the rights of man;" as
a "friend of oligarchy;" as a "misanthrope, educated in contempt of
his fellow-men;" as "unfit to be the minister of a free and virtuous
people." Privately, and through the press, Mr. Monroe was warned that
he "was full of duplicity;" "an incubus on his prospects for the next
presidency, and on his popularity." When these calumnies were uttered,
as some of them were, in the House of Representatives, they naturally
excited the indignation of Mr. Adams, and the anxiety of his friends.
Being asked by one of them whether it would not be advisable to expose
the conduct and motives of rival statesmen, in the newspapers, he
answered explicitly in the negative, saying: "The execution of my
duties is the only answer I can give to censure. I will do absolutely
nothing to promote any pretensions my friends may think I have to the
presidency." On being told that his rivals would not be so scrupulous,
and that he would not stand on an equal footing with them, he replied:
"That is not my fault. My business is to serve the public to the best
of my abilities in the station assigned to me, and not to intrigue for
my own advancement. I never, by the most distant hint to any one,
expressed a wish for any public office, and I shall not now begin to
ask for that which, of all others, ought to be most freely and
spontaneously bestowed."
Among the difficulties incident to the office of Secretary of State,
that of making appointments was the most annoying and thankless. They
were sought with a bold and rabid pertinacity. Success was attributed to
the favor of the President; ill success, to the influence of the
Secretary. When the applicant was a relative his patronage was naturally
expected; but, with every expression of good-will, he avoided all
recommendation in such cases, saying that such claims must be presented
through other channels.
The attention of the government was early drawn to the proceedings of
the Seminole Indians, who had commenced hostilities with circumstances
of great barbarity. Orders were sent to General Jackson to repair to the
seat of war with such troops as he could collect, and the Georgia
militia, and to reduce the Indians by force, pursuing them into Florida,
if they should retreat for refuge there.
About this time the republic of Buenos Ayres sent an agent urging an
acknowledgment of their independence. Their claim was in unison with the
popular feeling in the South; but elsewhere throughout the nation public
opinion was divided, as were also the members of the President's
cabinet. Mr. Adams declared himself against such recognition, as it
would interfere with a negotiation with Spain for the purchase of the
Floridas. He urged, also, that McGregor, the adventurer, who, under a
pretence of authority from Buenos Ayres, had taken possession of Amelia
Island, should be compelled to withdraw his troops by a naval force sent
for that purpose. On this measure, also, both the nation and the cabinet
were divided. Mr. Clay, in the House of Representatives, took ground in
opposition to the policy of the administration, avowing openly his
intention of bringing forward a motion in favor of recognizing the
independence of Buenos Ayres. To control or overthrow the executive by
the weight of the House of Representatives, was apparently his object.[1]
[1] A committee appointed by the House of Representatives, on
McGregor's possession of Amelia Island, waited on Mr. Adams, and
inquired concerning the proposed proceedings of the executive,
and his powers in that respect. Mr. Adams took occasion to state
and explain to them the effects of "the _secret laws_, as they
were called, and which," he said, "were singular anomalies of our
system, having grown out of that error in our constitution which
confers upon the legislative assemblies the power of declaring
war, which, in the theory of government, according to Montesquieu
and Rousseau, is strictly an executive act. But, as we have made
it legislative, whenever secrecy is necessary for an operation
of the executive involving the question of peace and war, Congress
must pass a _secret_ law to give the President power. Now, secrecy
is contrary to one of the first principles of legislation, but the
absurdity flows from having given to Congress, instead of the
executive, the power of declaring war. Of these secret laws there
are four, and one resolution; and one of the laws, that of the 28th
of June, 1812, is so secret, that to this day it cannot be found
among the rolls of the department. Another consequence has followed
from this clumsy political machinery. The injunction of secrecy was
removed on the 6th of July, 1812, from the laws previously passed
by a vote of the House of Representatives, and yet the laws have
never been published."
In January, 1818, McGregor and his freebooters having been driven, by
the authority of the executive, from Amelia Island by the United States
troops, a question arose whether they should be withdrawn, or possession
of the island retained, subject to future negotiations with Spain. Mr.
Adams and Mr. Calhoun advocated the latter opinion. The President, Mr.
Crowninshield, and Mr. Wirt, were in favor of withdrawing the troops.
After discussion of a message proposed to be sent to Congress avowing
the intention to restore the island to Spain, the subject was left
undetermined, the President being embarrassed concerning the policy to
be pursued, by the division of his constitutional advisers. On which Mr.
Adams remarked: "These cabinet councils open upon me a new scene, and
new views of the political world. Here is a play of passions, opinions,
and characters, different from those in which I have been accustomed
heretofore to move."
About this time the President received information that the Spanish
government were discouraged, and that Onis, the Spanish minister, had
received authority to dispose of the Floridas to the United States on
the best terms possible. This intelligence Mr. Monroe communicated to
Mr. Adams, and requested him to see the Spanish minister, and inquire
what Spain would take for all her possessions east of the Mississippi.
When Mr. Adams obtained an interview with Onis, he waived any direct
answer to the question, and asked what were the intentions of the United
States relative to the occupation of Amelia Island. Mr. Adams replied,
that this was a mere measure of self-defence, and asked what guarantee
Onis could give that the freebooters would not again take possession, to
the annoyance of lawful commerce, if the troops of the United States
were removed. Onis said he could give none, except a promise to write to
the Governor of Havana for troops; but he admitted that, if sufficient
force could there be obtained, six or seven months might elapse before
they could be sent to Amelia Island. A continuance of the present
occupation by the United States was thus rendered unavoidable. The
consideration of the question of restoring it to Spain was postponed in
the cabinet, and the message of the President to Congress was so
modified as to state his intention of keeping possession of it for the
present.
During the remainder of this session Mr. Clay took opposition ground on
all the cardinal points maintained by the President, especially on the
constitutional question concerning internal improvements, and upon South
American affairs. His course was so obviously marked with the design of
rising on the ruins of Mr. Monroe's administration, that one of his own
papers in Kentucky publicly stated that "he had broken ground within
battering distance of the President's message." In a speech made on the
24th of March, 1817, on the general appropriation bill, he moved an
appropriation of eighteen thousand dollars as one year's salary and an
outfit for a minister to the government of Buenos Ayres. This was only a
mode of proposing a formal acknowledgment of that government. The motion
was soon after rejected in the House of Representatives by a great
majority, and his attempt to make manifest the unpopularity of the
administration proved a failure.
In July, 1818, news came that General Jackson had taken Pensacola by
storm,--a measure which excited universal surprise. But one opinion
appeared at first to prevail in the nation,--that Jackson had not only
acted without, but against, his instructions; that he had commenced war
upon Spain, which could not be justified, and in which, if not disavowed
by the administration, they would be abandoned by the country. Every
member of the cabinet, the President included, concurred in these
sentiments, with the exception of Mr. Adams. He maintained that there
was no real, though an apparent violation of his instructions; that his
proceedings were justified by the necessity of the case, and the
misconduct of the Spanish commandant in Florida. Mr. Adams admitted that
the question was embarrassing and complicated, as involving not merely
an actual war with Spain, but also the power of the executive to
authorize hostilities without a declaration of war by Congress. He
averred that there was no doubt that _defensive_ acts of hostility
might be authorized by the executive, and on this ground Jackson had
been authorized to cross the Spanish frontier in pursuit of the Indian
enemy. His argument was, that the question of the constitutional
authority of the executive was in its nature defensive; that all the
rest, even to the taking the fort of Barancas by storm, was incidental,
deriving its character from the object, which was not hostility to
Spain, but the termination of the Indian war. This was the justification
offered by Jackson himself, who alleged that an imaginary air-line of
the thirty-first degree of latitude could not afford protection to our
frontier, while the Indians had a safe refuge in Florida; and that all
his operations had been founded on that consideration.
This state of things embarrassed the negotiation with the Spanish
minister, who was afraid, under these circumstances, to proceed without
receiving instructions. Mr. Adams endeavored, however, to satisfy Onis,
by assuring him that Pensacola had been taken without orders; but he
also stated that no blame would be attached to Jackson, on account of
the strong charges he brought against the Governor of Pensacola, who had
threatened to drive him out of the province by force, if he did not
withdraw. In support of these views, Mr. Adams adduced the opinions of
writers on national law. To the members of the cabinet he admitted that
it was requisite to carry the reasoning on his principles to the utmost
extent they would bear, to come to this conclusion; yet he maintained
that, if the question were dubious, it was better to err on the side of
vigor than of weakness, of our own officer than of our enemy. There was
a large portion of the public who coincided in opinion with Jackson, and
if he were disavowed, his friends would assert that he had been
sacrificed because he was an obnoxious man; that, after having had the
benefit of his services, he was abandoned for the sake of conciliating
the enemies of his country, and his case would be compared to that of
Sir Walter Raleigh.
Mr. Monroe listened with candor to the debates of the cabinet, without
varying from his original opinion. They resulted in a disclaimer of
power in the President to have authorized General Jackson to take
possession of Pensacola. On this determination, Mr. Adams finally gave
up his opposition, and acquiesced in the opinion of every other member
of the cabinet, remarking on this result: "The administration are
placed in a dilemma, from which it is impossible for them to escape
censure by some, and factious crimination by many. If they avow and
approve Jackson's conduct, they incur the double responsibility of
having made a war against Spain, in violation of the constitution,
without the authority of Congress. If they disavow him, they must give
offence to his friends, encounter the shock of his popularity, and have
the appearance of truckling to Spain. For all this I should be
prepared; but the mischief of this determination lies deeper. 1. It is
weakness, and confession of weakness. 2. The disclaimer of power in the
executive is of dangerous example, and of evil consequences. 3. There
is injustice to the officer in disavowing him, when in principle he is
strictly justifiable. These charges will be urged with great vehemence
on one side, while those who would have censured the other course will
not support or defend the administration for taking this. I believe the
other would have been a safer and a bolder course." A wish having been
expressed that it should be stated publicly that the opinion of the
members of the cabinet had been _unanimous_, Mr. Adams said that he had
acquiesced in the ultimate determination, and would cheerfully bear his
share of the responsibility; but that he could not in truth say it had
been conformable to his opinion, for that had been to approve and
justify the conduct of Jackson, whereas it was disavowed, and the place
he had taken was to be unconditionally restored.
At this time Mr. Adams was laboriously collecting evidence in support of
these views, and preparing letters of instruction to George Erving,
dated the 19th of November, in which Jackson's conduct is fully stated,
and the execution of Arbuthnot and Ambrister and the taking of Pensacola
defended. Mr. Jefferson wrote to President Monroe expressing in the
highest terms his approbation of these letters, and the hope that those
of the 12th of March and the 28th of November to Erving, with, also,
those of Mr. Adams to Onis, would be translated into French, and
communicated to every court in Europe, as a thorough vindication of the
conduct and policy of the American government. Writing about the affairs
of Florida at this time, Mr. Adams observed: "With these concerns,
political, personal, and electioneering intrigues are mingling
themselves, with increasing heat and violence. This government is
assuming daily, more and more, a character of cabal and preparation, not
for the next presidential election, but for the one after, that is
working and counterworking, with many of the worst features of elective
monarchies. Jackson has made for himself a multitude of friends, and
still more enemies."
In the latter part of December, 1818, when General Jackson visited
Washington, a strong party manifested itself disposed to bring him
forward as a candidate for the next Presidency. "His services during the
last campaign," said Mr. Adams, "would have given him great strength,
had he not counteracted these dispositions by several of his actions in
Florida. The partisans of Crawford and De Witt Clinton took the alarm,
and began their attacks upon Jackson for the purpose of running him
down. His conduct is beginning to be arraigned with extreme violence in
every quarter of the Union, and, as I am his official defender against
Spain and England, I shall come in for my share of the obloquy so
liberally bestowed upon him."
Mr. Adams had the satisfaction of receiving from Hyde de Neuville, the
French minister, an assurance of his coincidence of opinion with him,
and that he had written to his own government that the proceedings of
General Jackson had been right, particularly in respect of the two
Englishmen. Although there was a difference of opinion on the subject
among the members of the diplomatic body, he declared that his own was
that such incendiaries and instigators of savage barbarities should be
put to death.
On one occasion, the President expressed to Mr. Adams his astonishment
at the malignancy of the reports which some newspapers were circulating
concerning him, and asked in what motives they could have originated.
Mr. Adams replied, that the motives did not lie very deep; that there
had been a spirit at work, ever since he came to Washington, very
anxious to find or make occasions of censure upon him. That spirit he
could not lay. His only resource was to pursue his course according to
his own sense of right, and abide by the consequences. To which the
President fully assented.
While these events were agitating the political world, Mr. Adams was
called to lament the death of his mother, dear to his heart by every tie
of affection and gratitude. His feelings burst forth, on the occasion,
in eloquent and touching tributes to her memory. "This is one of the
severest afflictions," he exclaimed, "to which human existence is
liable. The silver cord is broken,--the tenderest of natural ties is
dissolved,--life is no longer to me what it was,--my home is no longer
the abode of my mother. While she lived, whenever I returned to the
paternal roof, I felt as if the joys and charms of childhood returned to
make me happy; all was kindness and affection. At once silent and active
as the movement of the orbs of heaven, one of the links which connected
me with former ages is no more. May a merciful Providence spare for many
future years my only remaining parent!"
The policy of the friends and enemies of Mr. Monroe's administration was
developed by the debates in the House of Representatives on the Seminole
war, and the spirit of intrigue began to operate with great publicity.
Some of the Western friends of Mr. Adams proposed to him measures of
counteraction, on which he remarked: "These overtures afford
opportunities and temptations to intrigue, of which there is much in
this government, and without which the prospects of a public man are
desperate. Caballing with members of Congress for future contingency has
become so interwoven with the practical course of our government, and so
inevitably flows from the practice of canvassing by the members to fix
on candidates for President and Vice-President, that to decline it is to
pass a sentence of total exclusion. Be it so! Whatever talents I
possess, that of intrigue is not among them. And instead of toiling for
a future election, as I am recommended to do, my only wisdom is to
prepare myself for voluntary, or unwilling, retirement." On the same
topic, in February, 1819, he thus expressed himself: "The practice which
has grown up under the constitution, but contrary to its spirit, by
which members of Congress meet in caucus and determine by a majority the
candidates for the Presidency and Vice-Presidency to be supported by the
whole meeting, places the President in a state of undue subserviency to
the members of the legislature; which, connected with the other practice
of reëlecting only once the same President, leads to a thousand corrupt
cabals between the members of Congress and heads of departments, who are
thus made, almost necessarily, rival pretenders to the succession. The
only possible chance for a head of a department to attain the Presidency
is by ingratiating himself with the members of Congress; and as many of
them have objects of their own to obtain, the temptation is immense to
corrupt coalitions, and tends to make all the public offices objects of
bargain and sale."
The treaty with Spain, by which the United States acquired the Floridas,
was signed by Onis and Adams on the 22d of December, 1819. To effect
this treaty, so full of difficulty and responsibility, Mr. Adams had
labored ever since he had become Secretary of State. His success was to
him a subject of intense gratification; especially the acknowledgment of
the right of the United States to a definite line of boundary to the
South Sea. This right was not among our claims by the treaty of peace
with Great Britain, nor among our pretensions under the purchase of
Louisiana, for that gave the United States only the range of the
Mississippi and its waters. Mr. Adams regarded the attainment of it as
his own; as he had first proposed it on his own responsibility, and
introduced it in his discussions with Onis and De Neuville. Its final
attainment, under such circumstances, was a just subject of exultation,
which was increased by the change of relations which the treaty produced
with Spain, from the highest state of exasperation and imminent war, to
a fair prospect of tranquillity and secure peace. The treaty was
ratified by the President, with the unanimous advice of the Senate.
In 1819 a committee of the Colonization Society applied to the
President for the purchase of a territory on the coast of Africa, to
which the slaves rescued under the act of Congress, then recently
passed, against piracy and the slave-trade, might be sent. The subject
being referred to Mr. Adams, he stated in reply that it was impossible
that Congress could have intended to authorize the purchase of
territory by that act, for they had only appropriated for its object
_one hundred thousand dollars_, which was a sum utterly inadequate for
the purchase of a territory on the coast of Africa. He declared also
that he had no opinion of the practicability or usefulness of the
objects proposed by the Colonization Society, of establishing in Africa
a colony composed of the free blacks sent from the United States. "The
project," said he, "is professedly formed, 1st, without making use of
any compulsion on the free people of color to go to Africa. 2d. To
encourage the emancipation of slaves by their masters. 3d. To promote
the entire abolition of slavery; and yet, 4th, without in the slightest
degree affecting what they call 'a certain species of property in
slaves.' There are men of all sorts and descriptions concerned in this
Colonization Society: some exceedingly humane, weak-minded men, who
really have no other than the professed objects in view, and who
honestly believe them both useful and attainable; some speculators in
official profits and honors, which a colonial establishment would of
course produce; some speculators in political popularity, who think to
please the abolitionists by their zeal for emancipation, and the
slaveholders by the flattering hope of ridding them of the free colored
people at the public expense; lastly, some cunning slaveholders, who
see that the plan may be carried far enough to produce the effect of
raising the market price of their slaves. But, of all its other
difficulties, the most objectionable is that it obviously includes the
engrafting a colonial establishment upon the constitution of the United
States, and thereby an accession of power to the national government
transcending all its other powers."
The friends of the measure urged in its favor that it had been
recommended by the Legislature of Virginia. They enlarged on the happy
condition of slaves in that state, on the kindness with which they were
treated, and on the attachment subsisting between them and their
masters. They stated that the feeling against slavery was so strong that
shortly after the close of the Revolution many persons had voluntarily
emancipated their slaves. This had introduced a class of very dangerous
people,--the free blacks,--who lived by pilfering, corrupted the slaves,
and produced such pernicious consequences that the Legislature was
obliged to prohibit their further emancipation by law. The important
object now was to remove the free blacks, and provide a place to which
the emancipated slaves might go; in which case, the legal obstacles to
emancipation being withdrawn, Virginia, at least, might in time be
relieved from her black population.
A committee from the Colonial Society also waited on Mr. Adams,
repeating the same topics, and maintaining that the slave-trade act
contained a clear authority to settle a colony in Africa; and that the
purchase of Louisiana, and the settlement at the mouth of Columbia
River, placed beyond all question the right of acquiring territory as
existing in the government of the United States. Mr. Adams, in reply,
successfully maintained that the slave-trade act had no reference to the
settlement of a colony on the coast of Africa; and that the acquisition
of Louisiana, and the settlement at the mouth of Columbia River, being
in territories contiguous to and in continuance of our own, could by no
reason warrant the purchase of countries beyond seas, or the
establishment of a colonial system of government subordinate to and
dependent upon that of the United States.
In July, 1819, Mr. Adams, writing concerning the failure at the
preceding session of Missouri to obtain admission as a state into the
Union, from the restriction, introduced by the House of Representatives,
excluding slavery from its constitution, thus expressed himself: "The
attempt to introduce that restriction produced a violent agitation among
the members from the slaveholding states, and it has been communicated
to the states themselves, and to the territory of Missouri. The
slave-drivers, as usual, whenever this topic is brought up, bluster and
bully, talk of the white slaves of the Eastern States, and the
dissolution of the Union, and of oceans of blood; and the Northern men,
as usual, pocket all this hectoring, sit down in quiet, and submit to
the slave-scourging republicanism of the planters."
Being urged to use his influence that the language and policy of the
government should be as moderate and guarded as possible, from the
consideration that both England and France were profoundly impressed
with the idea that we were an ambitious, encroaching people, Mr. Adams
replied: "I doubt if we should give ourselves any concern about it.
Great Britain, who had been vilifying us for twenty years as a
low-minded nation, with no generous ambition, no God but gold, had now
changed her tune, and was endeavoring to alarm the world at the gigantic
grasp of our ambition. Spain and all Europe were endeavoring to do the
same; being startled at first by our acquisition of Louisiana, and now
by our pretensions to extend to the South Sea. Nothing we can say will
remove this impression until the world shall be familiarized with the
idea of considering the continent of North America to be our proper
dominion. From the time we became an independent people, it was as much
a law of nature that this should become our pretension, as that the
Mississippi should flow to the sea. Spain had pretensions on our
southern, Great Britain on our northern borders. It was impossible that
centuries should elapse without finding them annexed to the United
States; not from any spirit of encroachment or of ambition on our part,
but because it was a physical, and moral, and political absurdity, that
such fragments of territory, with sovereigns fifteen hundred miles
beyond sea, worthless and burdensome to their owners, should exist,
permanently, contiguous to a great, powerful, enterprising, and
rapidly-growing nation. Most of the territories of Spain in our
neighborhood had become ours by fair purchase. This rendered it more
unavoidable that the remainder of the continent should ultimately be
ours. It was but very lately we had seen this ourselves, or that we had
avowed the pretension of extending to the South Sea; and, until Europe
finds it to be a settled geographical element that the United States and
North America are identical, any effort on our part to reason the world
out of the belief that we are an ambitious people will have no other
effect than to convince them that we add to our ambition hypocrisy."
Concerning the discords which arose in the cabinet, on policy to be
pursued, Mr. Adams remarked: "I see them with pain, but they are sown in
the practice which the Virginia Presidents have taken so much pains to
engraft on the constitution of the Union, making it a principle that no
President can be more than twice elected, and whoever is not thrown out
after one term of service must decline being a candidate after the
second. This is not a principle of the constitution, and I am satisfied
it ought not to be. Its inevitable consequence is to make every
administration a scene of continuous and furious electioneering for the
succession to the Presidency. It was so through the whole of Mr.
Madison's administration, and it is so now."
The signature of the treaty for the acquisition of Florida, sanctioned
by the unanimous vote of the Senate, had greatly contributed to the
apparent popularity of Mr. Monroe's administration. But the postponement
of its ratification by Spain soon clouded the prospect; and the question
whether Missouri should be admitted into the Union as a slave or free
state, in which Mr. Adams took a deep interest, immediately rendered the
political atmosphere dark and stormy. "There is now," Mr. Adams
observed, "every appearance that the slave question will be carried by
the superior ability of the slavery party. For this much is certain,
that if institutions are to be judged by their results in the
composition of the councils of the Union, the slaveholders are much more
ably represented than the simple freemen. With the exception of Rufus
King, there is not, in either house of Congress, a member from the free
states able to cope in powers of the mind with William Pinkney and James
Barbour. In the House of Representatives the freemen have none to
contend on equal terms either with John Randolph or Clay. Another
misfortune to the free party is that some of their ablest men are either
on this question with their adversaries, or lukewarm in the cause. The
slave men have indeed a deeper immediate stake in the issue than the
partisans of freedom. Their passions and interests are more profoundly
agitated, and they have stronger impulses to active energy than their
antagonists, whose only individual interest in this case arises from its
bearing on the balance of political power between the North and South."
The debate on this subject commenced in the Senate. In the course of
January and February, 1820, Rufus King, senator from New York, delivered
two of the most well-considered and powerful speeches that this Missouri
question elicited. The remarks they drew forth from Mr. Adams render it
proper that some idea of their general course should be stated, although
it is impossible that any abstract can do justice to them. Disclaiming
all intention to encourage or assent to any measure that would affect
the security of property in slaves, or tend to disturb the political
adjustment which the constitution had established concerning them, he
enters at large into the power of Congress to make and determine
whatever regulations are needful concerning the territories. He
maintained that the power of admitting new states is by the constitution
referred wholly to the discretion of Congress; that the citizens of the
several states have rights and duties, differing from each other in the
respective states; that those concerning slavery are the most
remarkable--it being permitted in some states, and prohibited in others;
that the question concerning slavery in the old states is already
settled. Congress had no power to interfere with or change whatever has
been thus settled. The slave states are free to continue or abolish
slavery. The constitution contains no provision concerning slavery in a
new state; Congress, therefore, may make it a condition of the admission
of a new state that slavery shall forever be prohibited within it.
Mr. King then enters upon the history of the United States relative to
this subject, and to the rights of the citizens of Missouri resulting
from the terms of the cession of Louisiana, and of the act admitting it
into the Union. From this recapitulation and illustration he
demonstrates, beyond refutation, that Congress possesses the power to
exclude slavery from Missouri. The only question now remaining was to
show that it ought to exclude it. In discussing this point, Mr. King
passes over in silence arguments which to some might appear decisive,
but the use of which in the Senate of the United States would call up
feelings that he apprehended might disturb or defeat the impartial
consideration of the subject.
Under this self-restraint he observed that slavery, unhappily, exists
in the United States; that enlightened men in the states where it is
permitted, and everywhere out of them, regret its existence among us,
and seek for the means of limiting and of eradicating it. He then
proceeds to state and reason concerning the difficulties in the
apportionment of taxes among the respective states under the old
confederation, and in the convention for the formation of the
constitution, which resulted in the provision that direct taxes should
be apportioned among the states according to the whole number of free
persons and three fifths of the slaves which they might respectively
contain. The effect of this provision he then analyzes, and shows that,
in consequence of it, _five_ free persons in Virginia have as much
power in the choice of representatives, and in the appointment of
presidential electors, as _seven_ free persons in any of the states in
which slavery does not exist. At the time of the adoption of the
constitution no one anticipated the fact that the whole of the revenue
of the United States would be derived from indirect taxes; but it was
believed that a part of the contribution to the common treasury would
be apportioned among the states, by the rule for the apportionment of
representatives. The states in which slavery is prohibited ultimately,
though with reluctance, acquiesced in the disproportionate number of
representatives and electors that was secured to the slaveholding
states. The concession was at the time believed to be a great one, and
has proved the greatest which was made to secure the adoption of the
constitution. Great as is this concession, it was definite, and its
full extent was comprehended. It was a settlement between the thirteen
states, and not applicable to new states which Congress might be
willing to admit into the Union.
The equality of rights, which includes an equality of burdens, is a
vital principle in our theory of government. The effect of the
constitution has been obvious in the preponderance it has given to the
slave-holding states over the other states. But the extension of this
disproportionate power to the new states would be unjust and odious. The
states whose power would be abridged and whose burdens would be
increased by the measure would not be expected to consent to it. The
existence of slavery impairs the industry and power of a nation. In a
country where manual labor is performed by slaves, that of freemen is
dishonored. In case of foreign war, or domestic insurrection, slaves not
only do not add to, but diminish the faculty of self-defence.
If Missouri, and the states formed to the west of the River Mississippi,
are permitted to introduce and establish slavery, the repose, if not the
security, of the Union, may be endangered. All the states south of the
River Ohio, and west of Pennsylvania and Delaware, will be peopled with
slaves; and the establishment of new states west of the River
Mississippi will serve to extend slavery, instead of freedom, over that
boundless region. But, if slavery be excluded from Missouri and the
other new states which may be formed in that quarter, not only will the
slave-markets be broken up, and the principles of freedom be extended
and strengthened, but an exposed and important frontier will present a
barrier which will check and keep back foreign assailants, who may be as
brave, and, as we hope, as free as ourselves. Surrounded in this manner
by connected bodies of freemen, the states where slavery is allowed will
be made more secure against domestic insurrection, and less liable to be
affected by what may take place in the neighboring colonies.
At the delivery of these speeches Mr. Adams was present, and thus
expressed his opinion in writing: "I heard Mr. King on what is called
the Missouri question. His manner was dignified, grave, earnest, but not
rapid or vehement. There was nothing new in his argument, but he
unravelled with ingenious and subtle analysis many of the sophistical
tissues of slaveholders. He laid down the position of the natural
liberty of man, and its incompatibility with slavery in any shape; he
also questioned the constitutional right of the President and Senate to
make the Louisiana treaty; but he did not dwell upon those points, nor
draw the consequences from them which I should think important. He spoke
on that subject, however, with great power, and the great slaveholders
in the house gnawed their lips and clenched their fists as they heard
him."
"At our evening parties," he adds, "we hear of nothing but the Missouri
question and Mr. King's speeches. The slaveholders cannot hear of them
without being seized with the cramps. They call them seditious and
inflammatory, which was far from being their character. Never, since
human sentiment and human conduct were influenced by human speech, was
there a theme for eloquence like the free side of this question, now
before the Congress of the Union. By what fatality does it happen that
all the most eloquent orators are on its slavish side? There is a great
mass of cool judgment and of plain sense on the side of freedom and
humanity, but the ardent spirits and passions are on the side of
oppression. O! if but one man could arise with a genius capable of
comprehending, a heart capable of supporting, and an utterance capable
of communicating, those eternal truths which belong to the question,--to
lay bare in all its nakedness that outrage upon the goodness of God,
human slavery,--now is the time, and this is the occasion, upon which
such a man would perform the duties of an angel upon earth."
About this time Mr. Calhoun remarked to Mr. Adams, that he did not think
the slave question, then pending in Congress, would produce a
dissolution of the Union, but, if it should, the South would, from
necessity, be compelled to form an alliance, offensive and defensive,
with Great Britain. Mr. Adams asked if that would not be returning to
the old colonial state. Calhoun said, Yes, pretty much, but it would be
forced upon them. Mr. Adams inquired whether he thought, if by the
effect of this alliance, offensive and defensive, the population of the
North should be cut off from its natural outlet upon the ocean, it would
fall back upon its rocks, bound hand and foot, to starve; or whether it
would retain its power of locomotion to move southward by land. Mr.
Calhoun replied, that in the latter event it would be necessary for the
South to make their communities all military. Mr. Adams pressed the
conversation no further, but remarked: "If the dissolution of the Union
should result from the slave question, it is as obvious as anything that
can be foreseen of futurity, that it must shortly afterwards be followed
by an universal emancipation of the slaves. A more remote, but perhaps
not less certain consequence, would be the extirpation of the African
race in this continent, by the gradually bleaching process of
intermixture, where the white is already so predominant, and by the
destructive process of emancipation; which, like all great religious and
political reformations, is terrible in its means, though happy and
glorious in its end. Slavery is the great and foul stain on the American
Union, and it is a contemplation worthy of the most exalted soul,
whether its total abolition is not practicable. This object is vast in
its compass, awful in its prospects, sublime and beautiful in its issue.
A life devoted to it would be nobly spent or sacrificed."
On the 26th of February, Mr. John Randolph spoke on the Missouri
question in the House of Representatives between three and four hours,
on which speech Mr. Adams observed: "As usual, it had neither beginning,
middle, nor end. Egotism, Virginian aristocracy, slave-purging liberty,
religion, literature, science, wit, fancy, generous feelings, and
malignant passions, constitute a chaos in his mind, from which nothing
orderly can ever flow. Clay, the Speaker, twice called him to order;
which proved useless, for he can no more keep order than he can keep
silence." On the 1st of March the Missouri question came to a crisis in
Congress. The majorities in both branches were on opposite sides, and in
each a committee was raised to effect a compromise. This endeavor
resulted in the abandonment by the House of Representatives of the
principle it had inserted, that slavery should be prohibited in the
Missouri constitution, and in annexing a section that slavery should be
prohibited in the remaining parts of the Louisiana cession, north of
latitude thirty-six degrees thirty minutes. This compromise, as it was
called, was finally carried in the House of Representatives, by a vote
of ninety to thirty-seven, after several successive days, and almost
nights, of stormy debate.
On the 3d of March, a member of the house from Massachusetts told Mr.
Adams that John Randolph had made a motion that morning to reconsider
one of the votes of yesterday upon the Missouri bill, and of the
trickery by which his motion was defeated. The Speaker (Mr. Clay)
declared it when first made not in order, the journal of yesterday's
proceedings riot having been then read; and while they were reading the
journal, the clerk of the house carried the bill as passed by the house
to the Senate; so that, when Randolph, after the reading of the journal,
renewed his motion, it was too late, the papers being no longer in the
possession of the house. "And so it is," said Mr. Adams, "that a law
perpetuating slavery in Missouri, and perhaps in North America, has been
smuggled through both houses of Congress. I have been convinced, from
the first starting of this question, that it could not end otherwise.
The fault is in the constitution of the United States, which has
sanctioned a dishonorable compromise with slavery. There is henceforth
no remedy for it but a reörganization of the Union, to effect which a
concert of all the white states is indispensable. Whether that can ever
be accomplished is doubtful. It is a contemplation not very creditable
to human nature that the cement of common interest, produced by slavery,
is stronger and more solid than that of unmingled freedom. In this
instance the slave states have clung together in one unbroken phalanx,
and have been victorious by the means of accomplices and deserters from
the ranks of freedom. Time only can show whether the contest may ever,
with equal advantage, be renewed; but, so polluted are all the streams
of legislation in regions of slavery, that this bill has been obtained
by two as unprincipled artifices as dishonesty ever devised. One, by
coupling it as an appendage to the bill for admitting Maine into the
Union; the other, by the perpetrating this outrage by the Speaker on the
rules of the house."
Mr. Calhoun, after a debate in the cabinet on the Missouri question,
said to Mr. Adams that the principles avowed by him were just and noble,
but in the Southern country, whenever they were mentioned, they were
always understood as applying to white men. Domestic labor was confined
to the blacks; and such was the prejudice that, if he were to keep a
white servant in his house, although he was the most popular man in his
district, his character and reputation would be irretrievably ruined.
Mr. Adams replied that this confounding the ideas of servitude and labor
was one of the bad effects of slavery. Mr. Calhoun thought it was
attended with many excellent consequences. It did not apply to all sorts
of labor; not, for example, to farming. He, himself, had often held the
plough. So had his father. Manufacturing and mechanical labor was not
degrading. It was only menial labor, the proper work of slaves. No white
person could descend to that. And it was the best guarantee of equality
among the whites. It produced an unvarying level among them. It not only
did not excite, but did not admit of inequalities, by which one white
man could domineer over another.
Mr. Adams replied, that he could not see things in the same light. "It
is in truth all perverted sentiment; mistaking labor for slavery, and
dominion for freedom. The discussion of this Missouri question has
betrayed the secret of their souls. In the abstract they admit slavery
to be an evil. They disclaim all participation in the introduction of
it, and cast it all on the shoulders of 'old grandame Great Britain.'
But, when probed to the quick upon it, they show at the bottom of their
souls pride and vain-glory in their very condition of masterdom. They
fancy themselves more generous and noble-hearted than the plain freemen,
who labor for subsistence. They look down on the simplicity of Yankee
manners, because they have no habits of overbearing like theirs, and
cannot treat negroes like dogs. It is among the evils of slavery that it
taints the very source of moral principle. It establishes false
estimates of virtue and vice; for what can be more false and heartless
than this doctrine, which makes the first and holiest rights of humanity
to depend on the color of the skin? It perverts human reason, and
reduces man endowed with logical powers to maintain that slavery is
sanctioned by the Christian religion; that slaves are happy and
contented in their condition; that between the master and slave there
are ties of mutual attachment and affection; that the virtues of the
master are refined and exalted by the degradation of the slave; while,
at the same time, they vent execrations on the slave-trade, curse Great
Britain for having given them slaves, burn at the stake negroes
convicted of crimes for the terror of the example, and writhe in agonies
of fear at the very mention of human rights as applicable to men of
color."
"The impression produced on my mind," continued Mr. Adams, "by the
progress of this discussion, is, that the bargain between freedom and
slavery contained in the constitution of the United States is morally
and politically vicious; inconsistent with the principles on which alone
our Revolution can be justified; cruel and oppressive, by riveting the
chains of slavery, by pledging the faith of freedom to maintain and
perpetuate the tyranny of the master; and grossly unequal and impolitic,
by admitting that slaves are at once enemies to be kept in subjection,
property to be secured and returned to their owners, and persons not to
be represented themselves, but for whom their masters are privileged
with nearly a double share of representation. The consequence has been
that this slave representation has governed the Union. Benjamin's
portion above his brethren has ravined as a wolf. In the morning he has
devoured the prey, and in the evening has divided the spoil. It would be
no difficult matter to prove, by reviewing the history of the Union
under this constitution, that almost everything which has contributed to
the honor and welfare of this nation has been accomplished in despite of
them, or forced upon them; and that everything unpropitious and
dishonorable, including the blunders of their adversaries, may be traced
to them. I have favored this Missouri compromise, believing it to be all
that could be effected under the present constitution, and from extreme
unwillingness to put the Union at hazard. But perhaps it would have been
a wiser and bolder course to have persisted in the restriction on
Missouri, until it should have terminated in a convention of the states
to revise and amend the constitution. This would have produced a new
Union of thirteen or fourteen states unpolluted with slavery, with a
great and glorious object, that of rallying to their standard the other
states, by the universal emancipation of their slaves. If the Union must
be dissolved, slavery is precisely the question upon which it ought to
break. For the present, however, this contest is laid asleep."
Again he says: "Mr. King is deeply mortified at the issue of the
Missouri question, and very naturally feels resentful at the imputations
of the slaveholders, that his motives on this occasion have been merely
personal aggrandizement,--'close ambition varnished o'er with zeal.' The
imputation of bad motives is one of the most convenient weapons of
political, and indeed of every sort of controversy. It came originally
from the devil.--'Doth Job serve God for naught?' The selfish and the
social passions are intermingled in the conduct of every man acting in a
public capacity. It is right that they should be so. And it is no just
cause of reproach to any man, that, in promoting to the utmost of his
power the public good, he is desirous; at the same time, of promoting
his own. There are, no doubt, hypocrites of humanity as well as of
religion; men with cold hearts and warm professions, trading upon
benevolence, and using justice and virtue only as stakes upon the turn
of a card or the cast of a die. But this sort of profligacy belongs to a
state of society more deeply corrupted than ours. Such characters are
rare among us. Many of our public men have principles too pliable to
popular impulse, but few are deliberately dishonest; and there is not a
man in the Union of purer integrity than Rufus King.
"The most remarkable circumstance in the history of the final decision
of the Missouri question is that it was ultimately carried against the
opinions, wishes, and interests, of the free states, by the votes of
their own members. They had a decided majority in both houses of
Congress, but lost the vote by disunion among themselves. The
slaveholders clung together, without losing one vote. Many of them, and
almost all the Virginians, held out to the last, even against
compromise. The cause of the closer union on the slave side is that the
question affected the individual interest of every slaveholding member,
and of almost every one of his constituents. On the other side,
individual interests were not implicated in the decision at all. The
impulses were purely republican principle and the rights of human
nature. The struggle for political power, and geographical jealousy, may
fairly be supposed to have operated equally on both sides. The result
affords an illustration of the remark, how much more keen and powerful
the impulse is of personal interest than is that of any general
consideration of benevolence and humanity."
The compromise, by which Missouri was admitted into the Union, did not
finally settle the question in. Congress. At the next session it
reappeared, in consequence of the insertion into the constitution of
Missouri of an article declaring it to be the duty of the Legislature to
pass laws prohibiting free negroes and persons of color from coming into
Missouri; which declaration was directly repugnant to that article in
the constitution of the United States which provides that the citizens
of each state shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of
citizens of the other states. The only mode of getting out of this
difficulty, said Mr. Adams, was "for Congress to pass a resolution
declaring the State of Missouri to be admitted from and after the time
when the article repugnant to the constitution of the United States
should be expunged from its constitution. This question was much more
clear against Missouri than was that of their first admission into the
Union; but the people of the North, like many of their representatives
in Congress, began to give indications of a disposition to flinch from
the consequences of this question, and to be unwilling to bear their
leaders out."
Mr. Adams, in conversation with one of the senators of the South,
observed, that "the article in the Missouri constitution is directly
repugnant to the rights reserved to every citizen in the Union in the
constitution of the United States. Its purport is to disfranchise all
the people of color who were citizens of the free states. The
Legislatures of those states are bound in duty to protect the rights of
their own citizens; and if Congress, by the admission of Missouri with
that clause in her constitution, should sanction this outrage upon
those rights, the states a portion of whose citizens should be thus
cast out of the pale of the Union would be bound to vindicate them by
retaliation. If I were a member of the Legislature of one of these
states, I would move for a declaratory act, that so long as the article
in the constitution of Missouri, depriving the colored citizens of the
state (say) of Massachusetts of their rights as citizens of the United
States within the State of Missouri, should subsist, so long the white
citizens of Missouri should be held as aliens within the Commonwealth
of Massachusetts, and not entitled to claim or enjoy, within the same,
any right or privilege of a citizen of the United States." And Mr.
Adams said he would go further, and declare that Congress, by their
sanction of the Missouri constitution, by admitting that state into the
Union without excepting against that article which disfranchised a
portion of the citizens of Massachusetts, had violated the constitution
of the United States. Therefore, until that portion of the citizens of
Massachusetts whose rights were violated by the article in the Missouri
compromise should be reintegrated in the full enjoyment and possession
of those rights, no clause or article of the constitution of the United
States should, within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, be so
understood as to authorize any person whatsoever to claim the property
or possession of a human being as a slave; and he would prohibit by law
the delivery of any fugitive upon the claim of his master. All which,
he said, should be done, not to violate, but to redeem from violation,
the constitution of the United States. It was indeed to be expected
that such laws would again be met by retaliatory laws of Missouri and
the other slaveholding states, and the consequences would be a
dissolution _de facto_ of the Union; but that dissolution would be
commenced by the article in the Missouri constitution. "That article,"
declared Mr. Adams, "is itself a dissolution of the Union. If
acquiesced in, it will change the terms of the federal compact--change
its terms by robbing thousands of citizens of their rights. And what
citizens? The poor, the unfortunate, the helpless, already cursed by
the mere color of their skin; already doomed by their complexion to
drudge in the lowest offices of society; excluded by their color from
all the refined enjoyments of life accessible to others; excluded from
the benefits of a liberal education,--from the bed, the table, and all
the social comforts, of domestic life. This barbarous article deprives
them of the little remnant of right yet left them--their rights as
citizens and as men. Weak and defenceless as they are, so much the more
sacred the obligation of the Legislatures of the states to which they
belong to defend their lawful rights. I would defend them, should the
dissolution of the Union be the consequence; for it would be, not to
the defence, but to the violation of their rights, to which all the
consequences would be imputable; and, if the dissolution of the Union
must come, let it come from no other cause but this. If slavery be the
destined sword, in the hand of the destroying angel, which is to sever
the ties of this Union, the same sword will cut asunder the bonds of
slavery itself."
"In the House of Representatives, on the 4th of December," writes Mr.
Adams, "Mr. Eustis, of Massachusetts, made a speech against the
resolution for admitting Missouri into the Union without condition, and
it was rejected, _ninety-three_ to _seventy-nine_. On the 19th of
December he offered a resolution admitting Missouri into the Union
conditionally; namely, 'from and after the time when they shall have
expunged from their constitution the article repugnant to the
constitution of the United States.' On the 24th of January, 1821, this
resolution was rejected by a vote of one hundred and forty-six to six.
It satisfies neither party. It is too strong for the slave party, and
not strong enough for the free party." In December and January the
subject was ardently debated in the House of Representatives, and,
after commitment and various attempts at amendment, on the 13th of
February the report of a committee of the House of Representatives in
favor of admitting Missouri into the Union, in conformity with the
resolution which had passed the Senate, was rejected, eighty-five to
eighty.
The proceedings of the House of Representatives, in counting the votes
for President and Vice-President, are thus stated by Mr. Adams: "On
the 14th of February, while the electoral votes for President and
Vice-President were counting, those of Missouri were objected to
because Missouri was not a state of the Union--on which a tumultuous
scene arose. A Southern member moved, in face of the rejection by a
majority of the House, that Missouri _is_ one of the states of this
Union, and that her votes ought to be counted. Mr. Clay avoided the
question by moving that it should lie on the table, and then that a
message should be sent to the Senate informing them that the House were
_now_ ready to proceed in continuing the enumeration of the electoral
votes, according to the joint resolution; which was ordered. The Senate
accordingly proceeded to open the votes of Missouri, and they were
counted. The result was declared by the President of the Senate, in the
alternative that if the votes of Missouri were counted there were two
hundred and thirty-one votes for James Monroe as President, and two
hundred and eighteen votes for Daniel D. Tompkins as Vice-President;
and if not counted, there would be two hundred and twenty-eight votes
for James Monroe as President, and two hundred and fifteen for Daniel
D. Tompkins as Vice-President; but, in either event, both were elected
to their respective offices. He therefore declared them to be so
elected.
"After the two houses had separated, Mr. Randolph moved two resolutions:
one, that the electoral votes of the State of Missouri had been counted,
and formed part of the majorities by which the President and
Vice-President had been elected; and the other, that the result of the
election had not been declared by the presiding officer conformably to
the constitution and the law, and therefore the whole proceedings had
been irregular and illegal. This motion, after a very disorderly debate,
was disposed of by adjournment. Mr. Randolph was for bringing Missouri
into the Union by storm, and by bullying a majority of the House into a
minority. The only result was disorder and tumult.
"On the 23d of February, the Missouri question being still undecided, on
a motion of Mr. Clay, the House of Representatives chose by ballot a
committee of twenty-three members, who were joined by a committee of
seven from the Senate. Their object was a last attempt to devise a plan
for admitting Missouri into the Union. On the 26th, the committee
proposed a _conditional_ admission, upon terms more humiliating to
the people of Missouri than it would have been to require that they
should expunge the exceptionable article from their constitution; for
they declared it a fundamental condition of their admission that the
article should never be construed to authorize the passage of any law by
which any citizen of the states of this Union should be excluded from
his privileges under the constitution of the United States; and they
required that the Legislature of the state, by a solemn public act,
should declare the assent of the state to this condition, and transmit a
copy of the act, by the first Monday of November ensuing, to the
President of the United States. But, in substance, this condition bound
them to nothing. The resolution was, however, taken up this day in the
House of Representatives, read three times, and passed by a vote of
eighty-seven to eighty-one. On the 28th of February, the Senate, by a
vote of twenty-eight to fourteen, adopted the resolution.
"This second Missouri question was compromised like the first. The
majority against the unconditional admission into the Union was small,
but very decided. The problem for the slave representation to solve was
the precise extent of concession necessary for them to detach from the
opposite party a number of antiservile votes just sufficient to turn the
majority. Mr. Clay found, at last, this expedient, which the slave
voters would not have accepted from any one not of their own party, and
to which his greatest difficulty was to obtain the assent of his own
friends. The timid and the weak-minded dropped off, one by one, from the
free side of the question, until a majority was formed for the
compromise, of which the servile have the substance, and the liberals
the shadow.
"In the progress of this affair the distinctive character of the
inhabitants of the several great divisions of this Union has been shown
more in relief than perhaps in any national transaction since the
establishment of the constitution. It is, perhaps, accidental that the
combination of talent and influence has been the greatest on the slave
side. The importance of the question has been much greater to them than
to the other side. Their union of exertion has been consequently closer
and more unshakable. They have threatened and entreated, bullied and
wheedled, until their more simple adversaries have been half coaxed,
half frightened into a surrender of their principles for a bauble of
insignificant promises. The champions of the North did not judiciously
select their position for this contest. There must be, some time, a
conflict on this very question between slave and free representation.
This, however, was not the proper occasion for contesting it."
At this period Mr. Adams considered that the greatest danger of the
Union was in the overgrown extent of its territory, combining with the
slavery question. The want of slaves was not in the lands, but in their
inhabitants. Slavery had become in the South and South-western states a
condition of existence. On the falling off of the revenue, which
occurred about this time, he observed that "it stirs up the spirit of
economy and retrenchment; and, as the expenditures of the war department
are those on which the most considerable saving can be made, at them the
economists level their first and principal batteries. Individual,
personal jealousies, envyings, and resentments, partisan ambition, and
private interests and hopes, mingle in the motives which prompt this
policy. About one half of the members of Congress are seekers of office
at the nomination of the President. Of the remainder, at least one half
have some appointment or favor to ask for their relatives. But there are
two modes of obtaining their ends: the one, by subserviency; the other,
by opposition. These may be called the cringing canvass and the flouting
canvass. As the public opinion is most watchful of the cringing canvass,
the flouters are the most numerous party."
CHAPTER VI.
SECOND TERM OF MONROE'S PRESIDENCY.--STATE OF PARTIES.--REPORT ON
WEIGHTS AND MEASURES.--PROCEEDINGS AT GHENT VINDICATED.--VOTES WHEN HE
WAS A MEMBER OF THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES DEFENDED.--INDEPENDENCE
OF GREECE.--CONTESTS OF PARTIES.--ELECTED PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED
STATES.
During the second term of Mr. Monroe's Presidency, Mr. Adams continued
to take his full proportion of responsibility in the measures of the
administration. Questions concerning the Bank of the United States, the
currency, the extinction or extension of slavery, the bankrupt law, the
tariff, and internal improvements, brought into discussion the interests
of the great States of Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New York, combined
with the never-ceasing struggles for power of parties and individuals.
Candidates for the office of President and Vice-President were brought
into the field by their respective adherents. Every topic which could
exalt or depress either was put in requisition, and office-holders and
office-seekers became anxious and alert.
In July, 1821, at the request of the citizens of Washington, Mr. Adams
delivered an address on the anniversary of American Independence. It did
not receive the indulgence usually extended to such efforts, but was
made the occasion of severe animadversions on his character and talents.
In December his friends called his attention to calumnies and aspersions
copied into the _City Gazette_, from papers issued in Georgia and
Tennessee, and expressed their opinions that they ought to be answered
by him, as they knew they could be most triumphantly. Mr. Adams replied:
"Should I comply with your request, it will be immediately said, I was
canvassing for the Presidency. I never, that I can recollect, but once,
undertook to answer anything that was published against me, and that was
when I was in private life. To answer newspaper accusations would be an
endless task. The tongue of falsehood can never be silenced. I have not
time to spare from public business to the vindication of myself."
To place Philip P. Barbour, of Virginia, in the Speaker's chair, and to
prevent the reelection of John W. Taylor, of New York, the tried friend
of the administration, became the next object of all those who hoped to
rise by opposing it. The partisans of Barbour were successful, and the
consequences of his elevation were immediately apparent. As the
Committee of Foreign Relations was, by a practical rule, the medium of
communication between Congress and the executive government, it was
customary for the Speaker to constitute it chiefly of members who
coïncided in their views. But many of those now appointed by Barbour,
especially the chairman, were hostile to their politics. To this
committee all the delicate and critical papers relative to the foreign
relations of the United States were to be confidentially communicated.
No arrangement could have been more annoying to Mr. Monroe and his
cabinet, or more symptomatic of a settled opposition.
By a vote passed in March, 1817, the Senate had required of Mr. Adams a
report on weights and measures; and in December, 1819, the House of
Representatives had by a resolution made the same requisition. To this
subject he had directed his attention when in Russia; and had devoted
the leisure his duties as Secretary of State permitted, without
approximating to its completion, owing to the number and perplexity of
details its pursuit involved.
In the summer of 1820 he relinquished a visit to his father and friends
in Massachusetts, and concentrated his attention, during six months,
exclusively on this report, which he finished and made to Congress, in
February, 1821. At the conclusion of his work he thus expresses himself:
"This subject has occupied, for the last sixty years, many of the ablest
men in Europe, and to it all the powers, and all the philosophical and
mathematical learning and ingenuity, of France and Great Britain, have
been incessantly directed. It was a fearful and oppressive task. It has
been executed, and it will be for the public judgment to pass upon it."
From the abstruse character of this work, the labor, research, and
talent, it evidences have never been generally and justly appreciated.
It commences with the wants of individuals antecedent to the existence
of communities, and deduces from man's physical organization, and from
the exigences of domestic society, the origin of _measures of surface,
distance, and capacity_; and that of _weight_, from the difference
between the specific gravity of substances and its importance in the
exchange of traffic consequent on the multiplication of human wants,
with the increase of the social relations. He then proceeds to state
and analyze the powers and duties of legislators on the subject, with
their respective limitations. The results of his researches relative to
the weights and measures of the Egyptians, Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans,
are successively stated. From the institutions of the nations of
antiquity he derives those of modern Europe and of the United States.
He praises the "stupendous and untiring perseverance of England and
France" in this field, and explains the causes which have not rendered
their success adequate to their endeavors. The system of modern France
on this subject he investigates and applauds, as "one of those attempts
to improve the condition of human kind, which, although it may
ultimately fail, deserves admiration, as approaching more nearly than
any other to the ideal perfection of uniformity in weights and
measures." After stating the difficulties which prevented other nations
from seconding t
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