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

influence on mankind. If, on the other side, our Governments should be unfortunately blotted with the reverse of these cardinal virtues, the great cause which we have engaged to vindicate will be dishonored and betrayed; the last and fairest experiment in favor of the rights of human nature will be turned against them, and their patrons and friends exposed to the insults, and silenced by the votaries of tyranny and usurpation.

Senators and Representatives of the People of the State of New York: I had turned my steps away from your honored halls, long since, as I thought forever. I come back to them by your command, to fulfil a higher duty and more honorable service than ever before devolved upon me. I repay your generous confidence, by offering to you this exposition of the duties of the magistrate and of the citizen. It is the same which John Quincy Adams gave to the Congress of the United States, in his oration on the death of James Madison. It is the key to his own exalted character, and it enables us to measure the benefits he conferred upon his country. If then you ask what motive enabled him to rise above parties, sects, combinations, prejudices, passions, and seductions, I answer that he served his country, not alone, or chiefly because that country was his own, but because he knew her duties and her destiny, and knew her cause was the cause of human nature.

If you inquire why he was so rigorous in virtue as to be often thought austere, I answer it was because human nature required the exercise of justice, honor, and gratitude, by all who were clothed with authority to act in the name of the American people. If you ask why he seemed, sometimes, with apparent inconsistency, to lend his charities to the distant and the future rather than to his own kindred and times, I reply, it was because he held that the tenure of human power is on condition of its being beneficently exercised for the common welfare of the human race. Such men are of no country. They belong to mankind. If we cannot rise to this height of virtue, we cannot hope to comprehend the character of John Quincy Adams, or understand the homage paid by the American people to his memory.

Need it be said that John Quincy Adams studied justice, honor and gratitude, not by the false standards of the age, but by their own true nature? He generalized truth, and traced it always to its source, the bosom of God. Thus in his defence of the Amistad captives he began with defining justice in the language of Justinian, "Constans et perpetua voluntas jus SUUM cuique tribuendi." He quoted on the same occasion from the Declaration of Independence, not by way of rhetorical embellishment, and not even as a valid human ordinance, but as a truth of nature, of universal application, the memorable words, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, and that among these rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." In his vindication of the right of debate, he declared that the principle that religious opinions were altogether beyond the sphere of legislative control, was but one modification of a more extensive axiom, which included the unbounded freedom of the press, and of speech, and of the communication of thought in all its forms. He rested the inviolability of the right of petition, not on constitutions, or charters, which might be glossed, abrogated or expunged, but in the inherent right of every animate creature to pray to its superior.

The model by which he formed his character was Cicero. Not the living Cicero, sometimes inconsistent; often irresolute; too often seeming to act a studied part; and always covetous of applause. But Cicero, as he aimed to be, and as he appears revealed in those immortal emanations of his genius which have been the delight and guide of intellect and virtue in every succeeding age. Like the Roman, Adams was an orator, but he did not fall into the error of the Roman, in practically valuing eloquence more than the beneficence to which it should be devoted. Like him he was a statesman and magistrate worthy to be called "The second founder of the Republic," - like him a teacher of didactic philosophy, of morals, and even of his own peculiar art; and like him he made all liberal learning tributary to that noble art, while poetry was the inseparable companion of his genius in its hours of relaxation from the labors of the forum and of the capitol.

Like him he loved only the society of good men, and by his generous praise of such, illustrated the Roman's beautiful aphorism, that no one can be envious of good deeds, who has confidence in his own virtue. Like Cicero he kept himself unstained by social or domestic vices; preserved serenity and cheerfulness; cherished habitual reverence for the Deity, and dwelt continually, not on the mystic theology of the schools, but on the hopes of a better life. He lived in what will be regarded as the virtuous age of his country, while Cicero was surrounded by an overwhelming degeneracy. He had the light of Christianity for his guide; and its sublime motives as incitements to virtue: while Cicero had only the confused instructions of the Grecian schools, and saw nothing certainly attainable but present applause and future fame. In moral courage, therefore, he excelled his model and rivalled Cato. But Cato was a visionary, who insisted upon his right to act always without reference to the condition of mankind, as he should have acted in Plato's imaginary Republic. Adams stood in this respect midway between the impracticable stoic and the too flexible academician. He had no occasion to say, as the Grecian orator did, that if he had sometimes acted contrary to himself, he had never acted contrary to the Republic; but he might justly have said, as the noble Roman did, "I have rendered to my country all the great services which she was willing to receive at my hands, and I have never harbored a thought concerning her that was not divine."

More fortunate than Cicero, who fell a victim of civil wars which he could not avert, Adams was permitted to linger on the earth, until the generations of that future age, for whom he had lived and to whom he had appealed from the condemnation of contemporaries, came up before the curtain which had shut out his sight, and pronounced over him, as he was sinking into the grave, their judgment of approval and benediction.

The distinguished characteristics of his life were BENEFICENT LABOR and PERSONAL CONTENTMENT. He never sought wealth, but devoted himself to the service of mankind. Yet, by the practice of frugality and method, he secured the enjoyment of dealing forth continually no stinted charities, and died in affluence. He never solicited place or preferment, and had no partizan combinations or even connections; yet he received honors which eluded the covetous grasp of those who formed parties, rewarded friends and proscribed enemies; and he filled a longer period of varied and distinguished service than ever fell to the lot of any other citizen. In every stage of this progress he was CONTENT. He was content to be president, minister, representative, or citizen.

Stricken in the midst of this service, in the very act of rising to debate, he fell into the arms of conscript fathers of the Republic. A long lethargy supervened and oppressed his senses. Nature rallied the wasting powers, on the verge of the grave, for a very brief period. But it was long enough for him. The rekindled eye showed that the re-collected mind was clear, calm, and vigorous. His weeping family, and his sorrowing compeers were there. He surveyed the scene and knew at once its fatal import. He had left no duty unperformed; he had no wish unsatisfied; no ambition unattained; no regret, no sorrow, no fear, no remorse. He could not shake off the dews of death that gathered on his brow. He could not pierce the thick shades that rose up before him. But he knew that eternity lay close by the shores of time. He knew that his Redeemer lived. Eloquence, even in that hour, inspired him with his ancient sublimity of utterance. "THIS," said the dying man. "THIS IS THE END OF EARTH." He paused for a moment, and then added, "I AM CONTENT." Angels might well draw aside the curtains of the skies to look down on such a scene - a scene that approximated even to that scene of unapproachable sublimity, not to be recalled without reverence, when, in mortal agony, ONE who spake as never man spake, said, "IT IS FINISHED!"

Only two years after the birth of John Quincy Adams, there appeared on an island in the Mediterranean sea, a human spirit newly born, endowed with equal genius, without the regulating qualities of justice and benevolence which Adams possessed in an eminent degree. A like career opened to both - born like Adams, a subject of a king - the child of more genial skies, like him, became in early life a patriot and a citizen of a new and great Republic. Like Adams he lent his service to the State in precocious youth, and in its hour of need, and won its confidence. But unlike Adams he could not wait the dull delays of slow and laborious, but sure advancement. He sought power by the hasty road that leads through fields of carnage, and he became, like Adams, a supreme magistrate, a Consul. But there were other Consuls. He was not content. He thrust them aside, and was Consul alone. Consular power was too short. He fought new battles, and was Consul for life. But power, confessedly derived from the people, must be exercised in obedience to their will, and must be resigned to them again, at least in death. He was not content. He desolated Europe afresh, subverted the Republic, imprisoned the patriarch who presided over Rome's comprehensive See, and obliged him to pour on his head the sacred oil that made the persons of kings divine, and their right to reign indefeasible. He was an Emperor. But he saw around him a mother, brothers and sisters, not ennobled; whose humble state reminded him, and the world, that he was born a plebeian; and he had no heir to wait impatient for the imperial crown. He scourged the earth again, and again fortune smiled on him even in his wild extravagance. He bestowed kingdoms and principalities upon his kindred - put away the devoted wife of his youthful days, and another, a daughter of Hapsburgh's imperial house, joyfully accepted his proud alliance. Offspring gladdened his anxious sight; a diadem was placed on its infant brow, and it received the homage of princes, even in its cradle. Now he was indeed a monarch - a legitimate monarch - a monarch by divine appointment - the first of an endless succession of monarchs. But there were other monarchs who held sway in the earth. He was not content. He would reign with his kindred alone. He gathered new and greater armies - from his own land - from subjugated lands. He called forth the young and brave - one from every household - from the Pyrenees to Zuyder Zee - from Jura to the ocean. He marshalled them into long and majestic columns, and went forth to seize that universal dominion, which seemed almost within his grasp. But ambition had tempted fortune too far. The nations of the earth resisted, repelled, pursued, surrounded him. The pageant was ended. The crown fell from his presumptuous head. The wife who