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

reveal to him the laws of their own existence.

"He has his own comforts, his own happiness, his own existence, identified with theirs. He sees the Creator in creation, and calls upon creation to declare the glory of the Creator. When Pythagoras, the philosopher of the Grecian schools, conceived that more than earthly idea of 'the music of the spheres' - when the great dramatist of nature could inspire the lips of his lover on the moonlight green with the beloved of his soul, to say to her: -

'Sit, Jessica. - Look how the floor of Heaven
Is thick inlaid with pattens of bright gold!
There's not the smallest orb which thou beholdest,
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still choiring to the young eyed cherubim!'

"Oh, who is the one with a heart, but almost wishes to cast off this muddy vesture of decay, to be admitted to the joy of listening to the celestial harmony!"


CHAPTER XV.


MR. ADAMS' LAST APPEARANCE IN PUBLIC AT BOSTON - HIS HEALTH - LECTURES ON HIS JOURNEY TO WASHINGTON - REMOTE CAUSE OF HIS DECEASE - STRUCK WITH PARALYSIS - LEAVES QUINCY FOR WASHINGTON FOR THE LAST TIME - HIS FINAL SICKNESS IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES - HIS DEATH - THE FUNERAL AT WASHINGTON - REMOVAL OF THE BODY TO QUINCY - ITS INTERMENT.

The last time Mr. Adams appeared in public in Boston, he presided at a meeting of the citizens of that city, in Faneuil Hall. "A man had been kidnapped in Boston - kidnapped at noon-day, 'on the high road between Faneuil Hall and old Quincy,' and carried off to be a slave! New England hands had seized their brother, sold him into bondage forever, and his children after him. A meeting was called to talk the matter over, in a plain way, and look in one another's faces. Who was fit to preside in such a case? That old man sat in the chair in Faneuil Hall. Above him was the image of his father and his own; around him were Hancock and the other Adams, and Washington, greatest of all. Before him were the men and women of Boston, met to consider the wrongs done to a miserable negro slave. The roof of the old Cradle of Liberty spanned over them all. Forty years before, a young man and a Senator, he had taken the chair at a meeting called to consult on the wrong done to American seamen, violently impressed by the British from an American ship of war - the unlucky Chesapeake. Now an old man, clothed with half a century of honors, he sits in the same Hall, to preside over a meeting to consider the outrage done to a single slave. One was the first meeting of citizens he ever presided over; the other was the last: both for the same object - the defence of the eternal right!" [Footnote: Theodore Parker.]

Few men retain the health and vigor with which Mr. Adams was blessed in extreme old age. When most others are decrepit and helpless, he was in the enjoyment of meridian strength and energy, both of body and mind, and could endure labors which would prostrate many in the prime of manhood. An instance of his powers of endurance is furnished in his journey to Washington, to attend the opening of Congress, when in the 74th year of his age. On Monday morning he left Boston, and the same evening delivered a lecture before the Young Men's Institute, in Hartford, Conn. The next day he proceeded to New Haven, and in the evening lectured before a similar Institute in that city. Wednesday he pursued his journey to New York, and in the evening lectured before the New York Lyceum, in the Broadway Tabernacle. Thursday evening he delivered an address before an association in Brooklyn; and on Friday evening delivered a second lecture before the New York Lyceum. Here were labors which would seriously tax the constitution of vigorous youth; and yet Mr. Adams performed them with much comparative ease.

His great longevity, and his general good health, must be attributed, in no small degree, to his abstemious and temperate habits, early rising, and active exercise. He took pleasure in athletic amusements, and was exceedingly fond of walking. During his summer residence in Quincy, he has been known to walk to his son's residence in Boston (seven miles,) before breakfast. "While President of the United States, he was probably the first man up in Washington, lighted his own fire, and was hard at work in his library, while sleep yet held in its obliviousness the great mass of his fellow-citizens." He was an expert swimmer, and was in the constant habit of bathing, whenever circumstances would permit. Not unfrequently the first beams of the rising sun, as they fell upon the beautiful Potomac, would find Mr. Adams buffeting its waves with all the sportiveness and dexterity of boyhood, while a single attendant watched upon the shore. When in the Presidency, he sometimes made a journey from Washington to Quincy on horseback, as a simple citizen, accompanied only by a servant.

More than four score years had sprinkled their frosts upon his brow, and still he was in the midst of his usefulness. Promptly at his post in the Hall of Representatives stood the veteran sentinel, watching vigilantly over the interests of his country. With an eye undimmed by age, a quick ear, a ready hand, an intellect unimpaired, he guarded the citadel of liberty, ever on the alert to detect, and mighty to repel, the approach of the foe, however covert or however open his attacks. Never did the Union, never did freedom, the world, more need his services than now. A large territory, of sufficient extent to form several States, had been blighted by slavery, and annexed to the United Sates. A sanguinary and expensive war, growing out of this strengthening of the slave power, had just terminated, adding to the Union still larger territories - now free soil indeed, but furnishing a field for renewed battles between slavery and liberty. New revolutions were about to break forth in Europe, to convulse the Eastern Hemisphere, and cause old thrones to totter and fall!

How momentous the era! How deeply fraught with the prosperity of the American Republic - with the progress of man - the freedom of nations - the happiness of succeeding generations! How could he, who for years had prominently and nobly stood forth, as the leader of the hosts contending for the rights and the liberties of humanity, be spared from his post at such a juncture? Who could put on his armor? - who wield his weapons? - who "lead a forlorn hope," or mount a deadly breach in battles which might yet be waged between the sons of freedom and the propagators of slavery? But the loss was to be experienced. A wise and good Providence had so ordered. The sands of his life had run out. A voice from on high called him away from earth's stormy struggles, to bright and peaceful scenes in the spirit land. He could no longer tarry. Death found the faithful veteran at his post, with his harness on. How applicable the words of Scott, on the departure of Pitt: -

"Hadst thou but lived, though stripp'd of power,
A watchman on the lonely tower,
Thy thrilling trump had roused the land,
When fraud or danger were at hand;
By thee, as by the beacon-light,
Our pilots had kept course aright;
As some proud column, though alone,
Thy strength had propp'd the tottering throne.
Now is the stately column broke,
The beacon-light is quenched in smoke,
The trumpet's silver sound is still,
The warder silent on the hill!
O think how, to his latest day,
When death, just hovering, claimed his prey,
With Palinure's unaltered mood,
Firm at his dangerous post he stood;
Each call for needful rest repell'd,
With dying hand the rudder held,
Till, in his fall, with fateful sway,
The steerage of the realm gave way."

It has been supposed by some that the remote cause of Mr. Adams's death was a severe injury he received by a fall in the House of Representatives, in June, 1840. The accident is thus described by an eye witness: -

"It had been a very warm day, and the debates had partaken of extraordinary excitement, when, a few moments before sunset, the House adjourned, and most of the members had sought relief from an oppressive atmosphere, in the arbors and recesses of the adjoining Congressional gardens.

"At that time I held a subordinate clerkship in the House, which usually confined me, the larger portion of the day not devoted to debate, to one of the committee rooms; whilst the balance of the day I occupied as a reporter.

"Mr. Adams was always the first man in the House, and the last man out of it; and, as I usually detained myself an hour or more after adjournment, in writing up my notes, I often came in contact with him. He was pleased to call at my desk very often, before he went home, and indulge in some incidental, unimportant conversation. On the day referred to, just as the sun was setting, and was throwing his last rays through the murky hall, I looked up, and saw Mr. Adams approaching. He had almost reached my desk, and had uplifted his hand in friendly salutation, when he pitched headlong, some six or eight feet, and struck his head against the sharp corner of an iron rail that defended one of the entrance aisles leading to the circle within the bar, inflicting a heavy contusion on his forehead, and rendering him insensible. I instantly leaped from my seat, took the prostrate sufferer in my arms, and found that he was in a state of utter stupor and insensibility. Looking around for aid, I had the good fortune to find that Col. James Munroe, of the New York delegation, had just returned to his desk to procure a paper he had forgotten, when, giving the alarm, he flew to the rescue, manifesting the deepest solicitude for the welfare of the venerable statesman. Follansbee, the doorkeeper, with two or more of his pages, came in next; and after we had applied a plentiful supply of cold water to the sufferer, he returned to consciousness, and requested that he might be taken to his residence. In less than five minutes, Mr. Moses H. Grinnell, Mr. George H. Profit, Mr. Ogden Hoffman, and Col. Christopher Williams, of Tennessee, were called in, a carriage was procured, and Mr. Adams was being conveyed to his residence in President Square, when, it being ascertained that his shoulder was dislocated, the carriage was stopped at the door of the private hotel of Col. Munroe, in Pennsylvania Avenue, between Eleventh and Twelfth streets; the suffering, but not complaining statesman, was taken out, and surgical aid instantly put in requisition. Doctor Sewall was sent for; when it was ascertained that the left shoulder-joint was out of the socket; and, though Mr. Adams must have suffered intensely, he complained not - did not utter a groan or a murmur.

"More than an hour elapsed before the dislocated limb could be adjusted; and to effect which, his arm endured, in a concentrated and continued wrench or pull, many minutes