Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams by William H. Seward (easy books to read txt) 📕

retained his seat in the United States Senate. Although sent there by the suffrages of the Federal party, in the Massachusetts Legislature, yet he did not, and would not, act simply as a partisan. This in fact was a prominent characteristic in Mr. Adams throughout his entire life, and is the key which explains many of his acts otherwise inexplicable. His noble and patriotic spirit arose above the shackles of party. He loved the interests of his country, the happiness of Man, more than the success of a mere party. So far as the party with which he acted advocated measures which he conceived to be wise and healthful, he yielded his hearty and vigorous co-operation. But whenever it swerved from this line of integrity, his influence was thrown into the opposite scale. This was the rule of his long career. No persuasions or emoluments, no threats, no intimidations, could turn him from it, to the breadth of a hair. It was in consequence of this characteristic, that it has so frequently been said of Mr. Adams, that he was not a reliable party man. This was to a degree true. He was not reliable for any policy adopted simply to promote party interests, and secure party ends. But in regard to all measures which in his judgment would advance the welfare of the people, secure the rights of man, and elevate the race, no politician, no statesman the world has produced, could be more perfectly relied upon.

This disposition to act right, whether with or against his party, was developed by the first vote he ever gave in a legislative body. While in the Massachusetts Senate, the Federalists were the dominant party. It was the custom in that State, to choose the whole of the Governor's Council from the party which had the majority in the Legislature. In May, 1802, Mr. Adams was desirous that a rule should be adopted more regardful of the rights of the minority. He accordingly proposed that several anti-Federalists should have seats in the Council of Gov. Strong, and gave his first vote to that measure.

On a certain occasion, Mr. Adams was asked, "What are the recognized principles of politics?" He replied, that there were no principles in politics - there were recognized precepts, but they were bad ones. But, continued the inquirer, is not this a good one - "To seek the greatest good of the greatest number?" No, said he, that is the worst of all, for it looks specious, while it is ruinous. What shall become of the minority, in that case? This is the only principle to seek - "the greatest good of all." [Footnote: Massachusetts Quarterly, June, 1849.]

A few months after Mr. Adams' entrance into the Senate of the United States, a law was passed by Congress, at the suggestion of Mr. Jefferson, authorizing the purchase of Louisiana. Mr. Adams deemed this measure an encroachment on the Constitution of the United States, and opposed it on the ground of its unconstitutionality. He was one of six senators who voted against it. Yet when the measure had been legally consummated, he yielded it his support. In passing laws for the government of the territory thus obtained, the right of trial by jury was granted only in capital cases. Mr. Adams labored to have it extended to all criminal offences. Before the territory had a representative in Congress, the government proposed to levy a tax on the people for purposes of revenue. This attempt met the decided opposition of Mr. Adams. He insisted it would be an exercise of government, without the consent of the governed, which, to all intents, is a despotism.

In 1805, he labored to have Congress pass a law levying a duty on the importation of slaves. This was the first public indication of his views on the subject of slavery. It was a premonition of the bold, unflinching, noble warfare against that institution, and of the advocacy of human freedom and human rights in the widest sense, which characterized the closing scenes of his remarkable career, and which will perpetuate his fame, when other acts of his life shall have passed from the remembrance of men. Although at that early day but little was said in regard to slavery, yet the young senator saw it was fraught with danger to the Union - conferring political power and influence on slaveholders, on principles false and pernicious, and calculated ultimately to distract the harmony of the country, and endanger the permanency of our free institutions. He labored, therefore, to check the increase of slave power, by the only means which, probably, appeared feasible at that time.

But a crisis in his senatorial career at length arrived. The commerce of the United States had suffered greatly by "Orders in Council," and "Milan Decrees." Our ships were seized, conducted into foreign ports and confiscated, with their cargoes. American seamen were impressed by British cruisers, and compelled to serve in a foreign navy. The American frigate Philadelphia, while near the coast of the United States, on refusing to give up four men claimed to be British subjects, was fired into by the English man-of-war Leopard, and several of her crew killed and wounded. These events caused the greatest excitement in the United States. Petitions, memorials, remonstrances, were poured in upon Congress from every part of the Union. Mr. Jefferson endeavored by embassies, negotiations, and the exertion of every influence in his power, to arrest these destructive proceedings, and obtain a redress of grievances. But all was in vain. At length he determined on an embargo, as the only means of securing our commerce from the grasp of the unscrupulous mistress of the seas. An act to that effect was passed in Dec., 1807. This effectually prostrated what little foreign commerce had been left to the United States.

In these proceedings Mr. Jefferson was stoutly opposed by the Federal party. Massachusetts, then the chief commercial State in the Union, resisted with its utmost influence the Embargo Act, as pre-eminently destructive to its welfare, and looked to its Senators and Representatives in Congress to urge an opposition to the extreme. What course should Mr. Adams adopt? On the one hand, personal friendship, the party which elected him to the Senate, the immediate interests of his constituents, called upon him to oppose the measures of the administration. On the other hand, more enlarged considerations presented themselves. The interest, the honor, the ultimate prosperity of the whole country - its reputation and influence in the eyes of the world - demanded that the Government should be supported in its efforts to check the aggressions of foreign nations, and establish the rights of American citizens. In such an alternative John Quincy Adams could not hesitate. Turning from all other considerations but a desire to promote the dignity and welfare of the Union, he threw himself, without reserve, into the ranks of the administration party, and labored zealously to second the measures of Mr. Jefferson.

This act subjected Mr. Adams to the severest censure. He was charged with basely forsaking his party - with the most corrupt venality - with the low motive of seeking to promote ambitious longings and selfish ends. But those who made these charges in sincerity labored under an entire misapprehension of his character and principles of action. At this day, aided by the instructive history of his life, and by a perfect knowledge of his patriotism and devotion to truth and principle, as developed in his long and spotless career, it is clearly seen that in the event under consideration he but acted up to the high rule he had adopted, of making party and sectional considerations secondary to the honor and interest of the nation - an example which no pure and high-minded statesman can hesitate to follow.

The Legislature of Massachusetts disapproved the course of Mr. Adams. By a small majority of Federal votes, it elected another person to take his place in the Senate at the expiration of his term, and passed resolutions instructing its Senators in Congress to oppose the measures of Mr. Jefferson. Mr. Adams could not, consistently with his views of duty, obey these instructions; and having no disposition to represent a body whose confidence he did not retain, he resigned his seat in the Senate, in March, 1808.

Although Mr. Adams gave most of his days to the service of his country, yet he was fond of literary pursuits, and acquired, during his hours of relaxation from sterner duties, a vast fund of classic lore and useful learning. At an early day, he had become distinguished as a ripe scholar, and an impressive, dignified, and eloquent public speaker. His reputation for literary and scholastic attainments quite equalled his fame as a politician and statesman.

In 1804, on the death of President Willard, Mr. Adams was urged by several influential individuals, to be a candidate for the presidency of Cambridge University. He declined the proffered honor. During the following year, however, he was appointed Professor of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, in that institution. He accepted the office, on condition that he should be allowed to discharge its duties at such times as his services in Congress would permit. His inaugural address, on entering the professorship, was delivered on the 12th of June, 1806. His lectures on rhetoric and oratory were very popular. They were attended by large crowds from Boston and the surrounding towns, in addition to the collegiate classes - a compliment which few of the professors since his day have received.

Mr. Adams continued his connection with the University, delivering lectures and conducting exercises in declamation, until July, 1809. "It was at this time, and as a member of one of the younger classes at college, that I first saw Mr. Adams, and listened to his well-remembered voice from the chair of instruction; little anticipating, that after the lapse of forty years, my own humble voice would be heard, in the performance of this mournful office. Some who now hear me will recollect the deep interest with which these lectures were listened to, not merely by the youthful audience for which they were prepared, but by numerous voluntary hearers from the neighborhood. They formed an era in the University; and were, I believe, the first successful attempt, in this country, at this form of instruction in any department of literature. They were collected and published in two volumes, completing the theoretical part of the subject. I think it may be fairly said, that they will bear a favorable comparison with any treatise on the subject, at that time extant in our language. The standard of excellence, in every branch of critical learning, has greatly advanced in the last forty years, but these lectures may still be read with pleasure and instruction. Considered as a systematic and academical treatise upon a subject which constituted the chief part of the intellectual education of the Greeks and Romans, these lectures, rapidly composed as they were delivered, and not revised by the author before publication, are not to be regarded in the light of a standard performance. But let any statesman or jurist, even of the present day, in America or Europe - whose life, like Mr. Adams's, has been actively passed in professional and political engagements, at home and abroad - attempt, in the leisure of two or three summers - his mind filled with all the great political topics of the day - to prepare a full course of lectures on any branch of literature, to be delivered to a difficult and scrutinizing, though in part a youthful audience, and then trust them to the ordeal of the press, and he will be prepared to estimate the task which was performed by Mr. Adams." [Footnote: Edward Everett's Eulogy on the Life and Character of John Quincy Adams.]

Mr. Adams's devotion to