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

have the same language, a similar religion, and kindred blood. I beg your Majesty's permission to add, that although I have sometimes before been intrusted by my country, it was never, in my whole life, in a manner so agreeable to myself."

George III. replied with dignity, but not without some manifestations of excitement: -

"The circumstances of this audience are so extraordinary, the language you have now held is so extremely proper, and the feelings you have discovered so justly adapted to the occasion, that I must say that I not only receive with pleasure the assurances of the friendly disposition of the People of the United States, but I am very glad the choice has fallen upon you to be their Minister. I wish you, sir, to believe, and that it may be understood in America, that I have done nothing in the late contest, but what I thought myself indispensably bound to do, by the duty which I owed my people. I will be frank with you - I was the last to conform to the separation, but the separation having been made, and having become inevitable, I have always said, as I say now, that I would be the first to meet the friendship of the United States, as an independent power.

"The moment I see such sentiments and language as yours prevail, and a disposition to give this country the preference, that moment I shall say, let the circumstances of language, religion and blood have their natural and full effect."

The kindly feelings expressed by the King, were, however, comparatively, only the language of ceremony, for the British Ministry, and the British people, did not regard the new republic with favor. But they could not withhold the exhibition of reluctant respect.

It was at such a time as this, and in such circumstances, that John Quincy Adams surveyed, from a new position, the colossal structure of British power, and the workings of its combined systems of conservative aristocracy, and progressive democracy. It was here that he imbibed new veneration for Russell, Sidney, Hampden, and Milton, its republican patriots; for Shakspeare, Dryden, and Pope, its immortal poets; and for Addison and Johnson, its moralists; here he learned from Wilberforce the principles of political philanthropy, as well as the patience and perseverance to defend them, and studied eloquence by the living models of Pitt, Fox, Erskine, Burke, and Sheridan.

This, indeed, was a fitting conclusion to a precocious education by the patriots and philosophers of his own country, with practical observations in the courts of Spain and the Netherlands, of the weak but amiable Louis XVI., and the accomplished, but depraved, Catharine II.

John Quincy Adams now became fearful that the duties of manhood would devolve upon him without his having completed the necessary academic studies. He therefore obtained leave to return home in 1785, at the age of eighteen years, and entered Cambridge University, at an advanced standing, in 1786. He graduated in 1788 with deserved honors.


CHAPTER II.

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS STUDIES LAW - HIS PRACTICE - ENGAGES IN PUBLIC LIFE - APPOINTED MINISTER TO THE HAGUE.

After leaving the University, young Adams entered the office of Theophilus Parsons, who was then in the practice of law at Newburyport, and who afterwards for so many years filled with dignity and ability the office of Chief Justice of Massachusetts.

Adams completed the usual term of professional study, and then commenced the practice of the law in Boston. It may encourage some who are oppressed by the difficulties attending initiation in the profession, to know, that during the first and only four years of John Quincy Adams' practice, he had occasion for despondency.

"I had long and lingering anxieties, (he afterwards said,) in looking forward, doubtful even of my prospects of comfortable subsistence, but acquiring more and more the means of it, till in the last of the four years, the business of my profession yielded me an income more than equal to my expenditures."

But the country and the age had claims on John Quincy Adams, as well as on his father, for higher duties than "making writs," and "haranguing juries," and "being happy."

The American Revolution, which had been brought to a successful close, had inspired, throughout Europe, a desire to renovate the institutions of government. The officers and citizens of France who had mingled in the contest, had carried home the seeds of freedom, and had scattered them abroad upon soil quick to receive them. The flame of Liberty, kindled on the shores of the Western Continent, was reflected back upon the Old World. France beheld its beams, and hailed them as a beacon-light, which should lead the nations out from the bondage of ages. Inspirited by the success attending the struggle in the British colonies, the French people, long crushed beneath a grinding despotism, resolved to burst their shackles and strike for Freedom. It was a noble resolution, but consummated, alas amid devastation and the wildest anarchy. The French Revolution filled the world with horror. It was the work of a blind giant, urged to fury by the remembrance of wrongs endured for generations. The Altar of Liberty was reared amid seas of blood, and stained with the gore of innocent victims.

The measurable failure of this struggle in France, teaches the necessity of due preparation before a people can advance to the permanent possession and enjoyment of their rights. The American colonists had been trained to rational conceptions of freedom, by lessons of wisdom and sagacity read them by their Puritan fathers, and by the experience in self-government, afforded during a century and a half of enjoyment of a large share of political privileges, granted by the mother country. They were thus prepared to lay deep and strong the foundations of an enlightened government, which, equally removed from the extremes of despotism on the one hand, and anarchy on the other, and granting its subjects the exercise of their right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," shall endure through ages to come. But the people of France, shut up in darkness during centuries of misrule, passed at a step from abject servitude to unlimited freedom. They were unprepared for this violent transition. Their conceptions of liberty were of the most extravagant description. What wonder that they became dizzy at their sudden elevation! What wonder that blood flowed in rivers! - that dissension and faction rent them asunder - that a fearful anarchy soon reigned triumphant - or that the confused and troubled drama closed in the iron rule of a military conqueror - the Man of Destiny! Let not this lesson be lost upon the world. Let a people who would enjoy freedom, learn to merit the boon by the study of its principles and a preparation to exercise its privileges, under those salutary restraints which man can never throw off and be happy!

The odium excited throughout Europe by the excesses of the French Revolution, was heaped without measure upon the American people. They were charged with the origin of the misrule which convulsed France, and filled the eastern hemisphere with alarm: and were tauntingly pointed to the crude theories promulgated by French democracy, and the failure of their phrenzied efforts to establish an enlightened and permanent Republic, as conclusive evidence that self-government, among any people, was a mere Utopian dream, which could never be realized.

The establishment of a republican government in America, had not been relished by the monarchies of Europe. They looked upon it with distrust, as a precedent dangerous to them in the highest degree. The succor which Louis XVI. had rendered the revolting colonists, was not from a love of democratic institutions: it was his hope to cripple Great Britain, his ancient enemy, and to find some opportunity, perhaps, to win back his Canadian provinces, which had so recently been rent from his possession. When the pent-up flames of revolution burst forth at the very doors of the governments of the old world - when the French throne had been robbed of its king, and that king of his life - when a Republic had been proclaimed in their midst, and signal-notes of freedom were ringing in their borders - they became seriously alarmed. The growing evil must be checked immediately. Led on by England, the continental powers combined to exterminate at a blow, if possible, every vestige of Republicanism in France. Then commenced the long series of bloody wars, which, with little intermission, convulsed Europe for nearly a quarter of a century, and ceased only when the rock of St. Helena received its lonely exile.

In the meantime affairs at home had attained to a critical juncture. The Constitution had been adopted. The new government had been set in operation under the supervision of Washington, as the first President of the Republic. The people, influenced by certain "elective affinities," had become sundered into two great political parties - Conservative and Progressive, or Federal and Democratic. Both were distrustful of the Constitution. The former believed it too weak to consolidate a government capable of protecting its subjects in the peaceful enjoyment of their rights, from discord within, and attacks from without. The latter apprehended that it might easily be transformed, by some ambitious Napoleon, into an instrument of oppression, more fearful even than the limited monarchy from which they had but recently escaped, at an expense of so much blood and treasure. Each of these parties are entitled to the credit of equal sincerity and honesty of purpose.

Washington, with a loftiness of purpose truly characteristic of a great and good mind, refused to identify himself with either party. In forming his first cabinet, moved with a desire to heal the dissensions which distracted the country, he selected its members equally from the adverse factions. Hamilton and Knox represented the Federal party, and Jefferson and Randolph the opposite. During his entire administration, "the Father of his country" steadily aimed to keep himself clear from all party entanglements. He was emphatically the President of the whole people, and not of a faction. His magnanimous spirit would not stoop to party favoritism, nor allow him to exercise the power entrusted him, to promote the interests of any political clique. In all his measures his great object was to advance the welfare of the nation, without regard to their influence on conflicting parties. In these things he left behind him a pure and noble example, richly worthy the imitation of his successors in that high station.

The Revolution in France, and the measures adopted by the Allied Sovereigns to arrest its progress, excited the liveliest interest among the people of the United States. But their sympathies ran in different channels, and very naturally took the hue of their party predilections. The Democrats, believing the French Revolution to be the up-springing of the same principles which had triumphed here - a lawful attempt of an oppressed people to secure the exercise of inalienable rights - although shuddering at the excesses which had been perpetrated, still felt it to be our own cause, and insisted that we were in honor and duty bound to render all the assistance in our power, even to a resort to arms, if need be. The Federalists, on the other hand, were alarmed at the anarchical tendencies in France. They were fearful that law, order, government, and society itself, would be utterly and speedily swept away, unless the revolutionary movement was arrested. Cherishing these apprehensions, they were disposed to favor the views of Great Britain and other European powers, and were anxious that the government of the United States should adopt some active measures to assist in checking what they could not but view as rapid strides to political and social anarchy. However the two parties differed as to the measures proper to