[Footnote 5: Senator Mills says of this grand ball:

"Eight large rooms were open and literally filled

to overflowing. There must have been at least a

thousand people there; and so far as Mr. Adams was

concerned it certainly evinced a great deal of

taste, elegance, and good sense.... Many stayed

till twelve and one.... It is the universal opinion

that nothing has ever equalled this party here

either in brilliancy of preparation or elegance of

the company."]

He was in favor of offering to the General the position of (p. 163)

minister to Mexico; and before Jackson had developed into a rival of

himself for the Presidency, he exerted himself to secure the

Vice-Presidency for him. Thus by argument and by influence in the

Cabinet, in many a private interview, and in the world of society,

also by wise counsel when occasion offered, Mr. Adams for many years

made himself the noteworthy and indeed the only powerful friend of

General Jackson. Nor up to the last moment, and when Jackson had

become his most dangerous competitor, is there any derogatory passage

concerning him in the Diary.

As the period of election drew nigh, interest in it absorbed

everything else; indeed during the last year of Monroe's

Administration public affairs were so quiescent and the public

business so seldom transcended the simplest routine, that there was

little else than the next Presidency to be thought or talked of. The

rivalship for this, as has been said, was based not upon conflicting

theories concerning public affairs, but solely upon individual

preference for one or another of four men no one of whom at that

moment represented any great principle in antagonism to any of the

others. Under no circumstances could the temptation to petty intrigue

and malicious tale-bearing be greater than when votes were (p. 164)

to be gained or lost solely by personal predilection. In such a

contest Adams was severely handicapped as against the showy prestige

of the victorious soldier, the popularity of the brilliant orator, and

the artfulness of the most dexterous political manager then in public

life. Long prior to this stage Adams had established his rule of

conduct in the campaign. So early as March, 1818, he was asked one day

by Mr. Everett whether he was "determined to do nothing with a view to

promote his future election to the Presidency as the successor of Mr.

Monroe," and he had replied that he "should do absolutely nothing." To

this resolution he sturdily adhered. Not a breach of it was ever

brought home to him, or indeed--save in one instance soon to be

noticed--seriously charged against him. There is not in the Diary the

faintest trace of any act which might be so much as questionable or

susceptible of defence only by casuistry. That he should have

perpetuated evidence of any flagrant misdoing certainly could not be

expected; but in a record kept with the fulness and frankness of this

Diary we should read between the lines and detect as it were in its

general flavor any taint of disingenuousness or concealment; we should

discern moral unwholesomeness in its atmosphere. A thoughtless

sentence would slip from the pen, a sophistical argument would be (p. 165)

formulated for self-comfort, some acquaintance, interview, or

arrangement would slide upon some unguarded page indicative of

undisclosed matters. But there is absolutely nothing of this sort.

There is no tinge of bad color; all is clear as crystal. Not an

editor, nor a member of Congress, nor a local politician, not even a

private individual, was intimidated or conciliated. On the contrary it

often happened that those who made advances, at least sometimes

stimulated by honest friendship, got rebuffs instead of encouragement.

Even after the contest was known to have been transferred to the House

of Representatives, when Washington was actually buzzing with the

ceaseless whisperings of many secret conclaves, when the air was thick

with rumors of what this one had said and that one had done, when, as

Webster said, there were those who pretended to foretell how a

representative would vote from the way in which he put on his hat,

when of course stories of intrigue and corruption poisoned the honest

breeze, and when the streets seemed traversed only by the busy tread

of the go-betweens, the influential friends, the wire-pullers of the

various contestants,--still amid all this noisy excitement and extreme

temptation Mr. Adams held himself almost wholly aloof, wrapped in the

cloak of his rigid integrity. His proud honesty was only not quite (p. 166)

repellent; he sometimes allowed himself to answer questions

courteously, and for a brief period held in check his strong natural

propensity to give offence and make enemies. This was the uttermost

length that he could go towards political corruption. He became for a

few weeks tolerably civil of speech, which after all was much for him

to do and doubtless cost him no insignificant effort. Since the days

of Washington he alone presents the singular spectacle of a candidate

for the Presidency deliberately taking the position, and in a long

campaign really never flinching from it: "that, if the people wish me

to be President I shall not refuse the office; but I ask nothing from

any man or from any body of men."

Yet though he declined to be a courtier of popular favor he did not

conceal from himself or from others the chagrin which he would feel if

there should be a manifestation of popular disfavor. Before the

popular election he stated that if it should go against him he should

construe it as the verdict of the people that they were dissatisfied

with his services as a public man, and he should then retire to

private life, no longer expecting or accepting public functions. He

did not regard politics as a struggle in which, if he should now (p. 167)

be beaten in one encounter, he would return to another in the hope

of better success in time. His notion was that the people had had

ample opportunity during his incumbency in appointive offices to

measure his ability and understand his character, and that the action

of the people in electing or not electing him to the Presidency would

be an indication that they were satisfied or dissatisfied with him. In

the latter event he had nothing more to seek. Politics did not

constitute a profession or career in which he felt entitled to persist

in seeking personal success as he might in the law or in business.

Neither did the circumstances of the time place him in the position of

an advocate of any great principle which he might feel it his duty to

represent and to fight for against any number of reverses. No such

element was present at this time in national affairs. He construed the

question before the people simply as concerning their opinion of him.

He was much too proud to solicit and much too honest to scheme for a

favorable expression. It was a singular and a lofty attitude even if a

trifle egotistical and not altogether unimpeachable by argument. It

could not diminish but rather it intensified his interest in a contest

which he chose to regard not simply as a struggle for a glittering (p. 168)

prize but as a judgment upon the services which he had been for a

lifetime rendering to his countrymen.

How profoundly his whole nature was moved by the position in which he

stood is evident, often almost painfully, in the Diary. Any attempt to

conceal his feeling would be idle, and he makes no such attempt. He

repeats all the rumors which come to his ears; he tells the stories

about Crawford's illness; he records his own temptations; he tries

hard to nerve himself to bear defeat philosophically by constantly

predicting it; indeed, he photographs his whole existence for many

weeks; and however eagerly any person may aspire to the Presidency of

the United States there is little in the picture to make one long for

the preliminary position of candidate for that honor. It is too much

like the stake and the flames through which the martyr passed to

eternal beatitude, with the difference as against the candidate that

he has by no means the martyr's certainty of reward.

In those days of slow communication it was not until December, 1824,

that it became everywhere known that there had been no election of a

president by the people. When the Electoral College met the result of

their ballots was as follows:--

General Jackson led with 99 votes. (p. 169)

Adams followed with 84 "

Crawford had 41 "

Clay had 37 "

---

Total 261 votes.

Mr. Calhoun was elected Vice-President by the handsome number of 182

votes.

This condition of the election had been quite generally anticipated;

yet Mr. Adams's friends were not without some feeling of

disappointment. They had expected for him a fair support at the South,

whereas he in fact received seventy-seven out of his eighty-four votes

from New York and New England; Maryland gave him three, Louisiana gave

him two, Delaware and Illinois gave him one each.

When the electoral body was known to be reduced within the narrow

limits of the House of Representatives, intrigue was rather stimulated

than diminished by the definiteness which became possible for it. Mr.

Clay, who could not come before the House, found himself transmuted

from a candidate to a President-maker; for it was admitted by all that

his great personal influence in Congress would almost undoubtedly

confer success upon the aspirant whom he should favor. Apparently his

predilections were at least possibly in favor of Crawford; but (p. 170)

Crawford's health had been for many months very bad; he had had a

severe paralytic stroke, and when acting as Secretary of the Treasury

he had been unable to sign his name, so that a stamp or die had been

used; his speech was scarcely intelligible; and when Mr. Clay visited

him in the retirement in which his friends now kept him, the fact

could not be concealed that he was for the time at least a wreck. Mr.

Clay therefore had to decide for himself, his followers, and the

country whether Mr. Adams or General Jackson should be the next

President of the United States. A cruel attempt was made in this

crisis either to destroy his influence by blackening his character, or

to intimidate him, through fear of losing his reputation for

integrity, into voting for Jackson. An anonymous letter charged that

the friends of Clay had hinted that, "like the Swiss, they would fight

for those who pay best;" that they had offered to elect Jackson if he

would agree to make Clay Secretary of State, and that upon his

indignant refusal to make such a bargain the same proposition had been

made to Mr. Adams, who was found less scrupulous and had promptly

formed the "unholy coalition." This wretched publication, made a few

days before the election in the House, was traced to a dull-witted

Pennsylvania Representative by the name of Kremer, who had (p. 171)

obviously been used as a tool by cleverer men. It met, however, the

fate which seems happily always to attend such ignoble devices, and

failed utterly of any more important effect than the utter

annihilation of Kremer. In truth, General Jackson's fate had been

sealed from the instant when it had fallen into Mr. Clay's hands. Clay

had long since expressed his unfavorable opinion of the "military

hero," in terms too decisive to admit of explanation or retraction.

Without much real liking for Adams, Clay at least disliked him much

less than he did Jackson, and certainly his honest judgment favored

the civilian far more than the disorderly soldier whose lawless career

in Florida had been the topic of some of the great orator's fiercest

invective. The arguments founded on personal fitness were strongly

upon the side of Adams, and other arguments advanced by the Jacksonians

could hardly deceive Clay. They insisted that their candidate was the

choice of the people so far as a superiority of preference had been

indicated, and that therefore he ought to be also the choice of the

House of Representatives. It would be against the spirit of the

Constitution and a thwarting of the popular will, they said, to prefer

either of his competitors. The fallacy of this reasoning, if reasoning

it could be called, was glaring. If the spirit of the Constitution (p. 172)

required the House of Representatives not to _elect_ from three

candidates before it, but only to induct an individual into the

Presidency by a process which was in form voting but in fact only a

simple certification that he had received the highest number of

electoral votes, it would have been a plain and easy matter for the

letter of the Constitution to have expressed this spirit, or indeed to

have done away altogether with this machinery of a sham election. The

Jackson men had only to state their argument in order to expose its

hollowness; for they said substantially that the Constitution

established an election without an option; that the electors were to

vote for a person predestined by an earlier occurrence to receive

their ballots. But besides their unsoundness in argument, their

statistical position was far from being what they undertook to

represent it. The popular vote had been so light that it really looked

as though the people had cared very little which candidate should

succeed; and to talk about a manifestation of the _popular will_ was

absurd, for the only real manifestation had been of popular

indifference. For example, in 1823 Massachusetts had cast upwards of

66,000 votes in the state election, whereas in this national election

she cast only a trifle more than 37,000. Virginia distributed (p. 173)

a total of less than 15,000 among all four candidates. Pluralities did

not signify much in such a condition of sentiment as was indicated by

these figures. Moreover, in six States, viz., Vermont, New York,

Delaware, South Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana, the electors were chosen

by the legislatures, not by the people; so that there was no correct

way of counting them at all in a discussion of pluralities. Guesses

and approximations favored Adams, and to an important degree; for

these six States gave to Adams thirty-six votes, to Jackson nineteen,

to Crawford six, to Clay four. In New York, Jackson had hardly an

appreciable following. Moreover, in other States many thousands of

votes which had been "cast for no candidate in particular, but in

opposition to the caucus ticket generally," were reckoned as if they

had been cast for Jackson or against Adams, as suited the especial

case. Undoubtedly Jackson did have a plurality, but undoubtedly it

fell very far short of the imposing figure, nearly 48,000, which his

supporters had the audacity to name.

The election took place in the House on February 9, 1825. Daniel

Webster and John Randolph were tellers, and they reported that there

were "for John Quincy Adams, of Massachusetts, thirteen votes; for

Andrew Jackson, of Tennessee, seven votes; for William H. Crawford,

of Georgia, four votes." Thereupon the speaker announced Mr. Adams (p. 174)

to have been elected President of the United States.

This end of an unusually exciting contest thus left Mr. Adams in

possession of the field, Mr. Crawford the victim of an irretrievable

defeat, Mr. Clay still hopeful and aspiring for a future which had

only disappointment in store for him, General Jackson enraged and

revengeful. Not even Mr. Adams was fully satisfied. When the committee

waited upon him to inform him of the election, he referred in his

reply to the peculiar state of things and said, "could my refusal to

accept the trust thus delegated to me give an opportunity to the

people to form and to express with a nearer approach to unanimity the

object of their preference, I should not hesitate to decline the

acceptance of this eminent charge and to submit the decision of this

momentous question again to their decision." That this singular and

striking statement was made in good faith is highly probable. William

H. Seward says that it was "unquestionably uttered with great

sincerity of heart." The test of action of course could not be

applied, since the resignation of Mr. Adams would only have made Mr.

Calhoun President, and could not have been so arranged as to bring

about a new election. Otherwise the course of his argument would (p. 175)

have been clear; the fact that such action involved an enormous

sacrifice would have been to his mind strong evidence that it was a

duty; and the temptation to perform a duty, always strong with him,

became ungovernable if the duty was exceptionally disagreeable. Under

the circumstances, however, the only logical conclusion lay in the

inauguration, which took place in the customary simple fashion on

March 4, 1825. Mr. Adams, we are told, was dressed in a black suit, of

which all the materials were wholly of American manufacture. Prominent

among those who after the ceremony hastened to greet him and to shake

hands with him appeared General Jackson. It was the last time that any

friendly courtesy is recorded as having passed between the two.

Many men eminent in public affairs have had their best years embittered

by their failure to secure the glittering prize of the Presidency. Mr.

Adams is perhaps the only person to whom the gaining of that proud

distinction has been in some measure a cause of chagrin. This strange

sentiment, which he undoubtedly felt, was due to the fact that what he

had wished was not the office in and for itself, but the office as a

symbol or token of the popular approval. He had held important and

responsible public positions during substantially his whole active (p. 176)

life; he was nearly sixty years old, and, as he said, he now for the

first time had an opportunity to find out in what esteem the people of

the country held him. What he wished was that the people should now

express their decided satisfaction with him. This he hardly could be

said to have obtained; though to be the choice of a plurality in the

nation and then to be selected by so intelligent a body of

constituents as the Representatives of the United States involved a

peculiar sanction, yet nothing else could fully take the place of that

national indorsement which he had coveted. When men publicly profess

modest depreciation of their successes they are seldom believed; but

in his private Diary Mr. Adams wrote, on December 31, 1825:--

"The year has been the most momentous of those that have passed

over my head, inasmuch as it has witnessed my elevation at the

age of fifty-eight to the Chief Magistracy of my country, to the

summit of laudable or at least blameless worldly ambition; not

however in a manner satisfactory to pride or to just desire; not

by the unequivocal suffrages of a majority of the people; with

perhaps two thirds of the whole people adverse to the actual

result."

No President since Washington had ever come into office so entirely

free from any manner of personal obligations or partisan (p. 177)

entanglements, express or implied, as did Mr. Adams. Throughout the

campaign he had not himself, or by any agent, held out any manner of

tacit inducement to any person whomsoever, contingent upon his

election. He entered upon the Presidency under no indebtedness. He at

once nominated his Cabinet as follows: Henry Clay, Secretary of State;

Richard Rush, Secretary of the Treasury; James Barbour, Secretary of

War; Samuel L. Southard, Secretary of the Navy; William Wirt,

Attorney-General. The last two were renominations of the incumbents

under Monroe. The entire absence of chicanery or the use of influence

in the distribution of offices is well illustrated by the following

incident: On the afternoon following the day of inauguration President

Adams called upon Rufus King, whose term of service as Senator from

New York had just expired, and who was preparing to leave Washington

on the next day. In the course of a conversation concerning the

nominations which had been sent to the Senate that forenoon the

President said that he had nominated no minister to the English court,

and

"asked Mr. King if he would accept that mission. His first and

immediate impulse was to decline it. He said that his

determination to retire from the public service had been (p. 178)

made up, and that this proposal was utterly unexpected to

him. Of this I was aware; but I urged upon him a variety of

considerations to induce his acceptance of it.... I dwelt with

earnestness upon all these motives, and apparently not without

effect. He admitted the force of them, and finally promised fully

to consider of the proposal before giving me a definite answer."

The result was an acceptance by Mr. King, his nomination by the

President, and confirmation by the Senate. He was an old Federalist,

to whom Mr. Adams owed no favors. With such directness and simplicity

were the affairs of the Republic conducted. It is a quaint and

pleasing scene from the period of our forefathers: the President,

without discussion of "claims" to a distinguished and favorite post,

actually selects for it a member of a hostile political organization,

an old man retiring from public life; then quietly walks over to his

house, surprises him with the offer, and finding him reluctant

urgently presses upon him arguments to induce his acceptance. But the

whole business of office-seeking and office-distributing, now so

overshadowing, had no place under Mr. Adams. On March 5 he sent in

several nominations which were nearly all of previous incumbents.

"Efforts had been made," he writes, "by some of the senators to obtain

different nominations, and to introduce a principle of change or (p. 179)

rotation in office at the expiration of these commissions, which would

make the Government a perpetual and unintermitting scramble for

office. A more pernicious expedient could scarcely have been

devised.... I determined to renominate every person against whom there

was no complaint which would have warranted his removal." A notable

instance was that of Sterret, naval officer at New Orleans, "a noisy

and clamorous reviler of the Administration," and lately busy in a

project for insulting a Louisiana Representative who had voted for Mr.

Adams. Secretary Clay was urgent for the removal of this man,

plausibly saying that in the cases of persons holding office at the

pleasure of the Administration the proper course was to avoid on the

one hand political persecution, and on the other any appearance of

pusillanimity. Mr. Adams replied that if Sterret had been actually

engaged in insulting a representative for the honest and independent

discharge of duty, he would make the removal at once. But the design

had not been consummated, and an _intention_ never carried into effect

would scarcely justify removal.

"Besides [he added], should I remove this man for this cause it

must be upon some fixed principle, which would apply to others as

well as to him. And where was it possible to draw the line? (p. 180)

Of the custom-house officers throughout the Union, four fifths

in all probability were opposed to my election. Crawford,

Secretary of the Treasury, had distributed these positions among

his own supporters. I had been urged very earnestly and from

various quarters to sweep away my opponents and provide with

their places for my friends. I can justify the refusal to adopt

this policy only by the steadiness and consistency of my adhesion

to my own. If I depart from this in one instance I shall be

called upon by my friends to do the same in many. An invidious

and inquisitorial scrutiny into the personal dispositions of

public officers will creep through the whole Union, and the most

selfish and sordid passions will be kindled into activity to

distort the conduct and misrepresent the feelings of men whose

places may become the prize of slander upon them."

Mr. Clay was silenced, and Sterret retained his position, constituting

thereafter only a somewhat striking instance among many to show that

nothing was to be lost by political opposition to Mr. Adams.

It was a cruel and discouraging fatality which brought about that a

man so suicidally upright in the matter of patronage should find that

the bitterest abuse which was heaped upon him was founded in an

allegation of corruption of precisely this nature. When before the

election the ignoble George Kremer anonymously charged that (p. 181)

Mr. Clay had sold his friends in the House of Representatives to Mr.

Adams, "as the planter does his negroes or the farmer his team and

horses;" when Mr. Clay promptly published the unknown writer as "a

base and infamous calumniator, a dastard and a liar;" when next

Kremer, being unmasked, avowed that he would make good his charges,

but immediately afterward actually refused to appear or testify before

a Committee of the House instructed to investigate the matter, it was

supposed by all reasonable observers that the outrageous accusation

Was forever laid at rest. But this was by no means the case. The

author of the slander had been personally discredited; but the slander

itself had not been destroyed. So shrewdly had its devisers who saw

future usefulness in it managed the matter, that while Kremer slunk

away into obscurity, the story which he had told remained an assertion

denied, but not disproved, still open to be believed by suspicious or

willing friends. With Adams President and Clay Secretary of State and

General Jackson nominated, as he quickly was by the Tennessee

Legislature, as a candidate for the next Presidential term, the

accusation was too plausible and too tempting to be allowed to fall

forever into dusty death; rather it was speedily exhumed from its

shallow burial and galvanized into new life. The partisans of (p. 182)

General Jackson sent it to and fro throughout the land. No denial,

no argument, could kill it. It began to gain that sort of half belief

which is certain to result from constant repetition; since many minds

are so constituted that truth may be actually, as it were,

manufactured for them by ceaseless iteration of statement, the many

hearings gaining the character of evidence.

It is long since all students of American history, no matter what are

their prejudices, or in whose interest their researches are

prosecuted, have branded this accusation as devoid of even the most

shadowy basis of probability, and it now gains no more credit than

would a story that Adams, Clay, and Jackson had conspired together to

get Crawford out of their way by assassination, and that his paralysis

was the result of the drugs and potions administered in performance of

this foul plot. But for a while the rumor stalked abroad among the

people, and many conspicuously bowed down before it because it served

their purpose, and too many others also, it must be confessed, did

likewise because they were deceived and really believed it. Even the

legislature of Tennessee were not ashamed to give formal countenance

to a calumny in support of which not a particle of evidence had ever

been adduced. In a preamble to certain resolutions passed by this (p. 183)

body upon this subject in 1827, it was recited that: "Mr. Adams

desired the office of President; he went into the combination without

it, and came out with it. Mr. Clay desired that of Secretary of State;

he went into the combination without it, and came out with it." No

other charge could have wounded Mr. Adams so keenly; yet no course was

open to him for refuting the slander. Mr. Clay, beside himself with a

just rage, was better able to fight after the fashion of the day--if

indeed he could only find somebody to fight. This he did at last in

the person of John Randolph, of Roanoke, who adverted in one of his

rambling and vituperative harangues to "the coalition of Blifil and

Black George--the combination unheard of till then of the Puritan and

the black-leg." This language led naturally enough to a challenge from

Mr. Clay. The parties met[6] and exchanged shots without result. The

pistols were a second time loaded; Clay fired; Randolph fired into the

air, walked up to Clay and without a word gave him his hand, which

Clay had as it were perforce to take. There was no injury done save to

the skirts of Randolph's long flannel coat which were pierced by one

of the bullets.

[Footnote 6: April 8, 1826.]

By way of revenge a duel may be effective if the wrong man does (p. 184)

not happen to get shot; but as evidence for intelligent men a bloodier

ending than this would have been inconclusive. It so happened,

however, that Jackson, altogether contrary to his own purpose, brought

conclusive aid to President Adams and Secretary Clay. Whether the

General ever had any real faith in the charge can only be surmised.

Not improbably he did, for his mental workings were so peculiar in

their violence and prejudice that apparently he always sincerely

believed all persons who crossed his path to be knaves and villains of

the blackest dye. But certain it is that whether he credited the tale

or not he soon began to devote himself with all his wonted vigor and

pertinacity to its wide dissemination. Whether in so doing he was

stupidly believing a lie, or intentionally spreading a known slander,

is a problem upon which his friends and biographers have exhausted

much ingenuity without reaching any certain result. But sure it is

that early in the year 1827 he was so far carried beyond the bounds of

prudence as to declare before many persons that he had proof of the

corrupt bargain. The assertion was promptly sent to the newspapers by

a Mr. Carter Beverly, one of those who heard it made in the presence

of several guests at the Hermitage. The name of Mr. Beverly, at first

concealed, soon became known, and he was of course compelled to (p. 185)

vouch in his principal. General Jackson never deserted his adherents,

whether their difficulties were noble or ignoble. He came gallantly to

the aid of Mr. Beverly, and in a letter of June 6 declared that early

in January, 1825, he had been visited by a "member of Congress of high

respectability," who had told him of "a great intrigue going on" of

which he ought to be informed. This gentleman had then proceeded to

explain that Mr. Clay's friends were afraid that if General Jackson

should be elected President, "Mr. Adams would be continued Secretary

of State (innuendo, there would be no room for Kentucky); that if I

would say, or permit any of my confidential friends to say, that in

case I were elected President, Mr. Adams should not be continued

Secretary of State, by a complete union of Mr. Clay and his friends

they would put an end to the Presidential contest in one hour. And he

was of opinion it was right to fight such intriguers with their own

weapons." This scarcely disguised suggestion of bargain and corruption

the General said that he repudiated indignantly. Clay at once publicly

challenged Jackson to produce some evidence--to name the "respectable"

member of Congress who appeared in the very unrespectable light of (p. 186)

advising a candidate for the Presidency to emulate the alleged

baseness of his opponents. Jackson thereupon uncovered James Buchanan,

of Pennsylvania. Mr. Buchanan was a friend of the General, and to what

point it may have been expected or hoped that his allegiance would

carry him in support of his chief in this dire hour of extremity is

matter only of inference. Fortunately, however, his fealty does not

appear to have led him any great distance from the truth. He yielded

to the prevailing desire to pass along the responsibility to some one

else so far as to try to bring in a Mr. Markley, who, however, never

became more than a dumb figure in the drama in which Buchanan was

obliged to remain as the last important character. With obvious

reluctance this gentleman then wrote that if General Jackson had

placed any such construction as the foregoing upon an interview which

had occurred between them, and which he recited at length, then the

General had totally misconstrued--as was evident enough--what he, Mr.

Buchanan, had said. Indeed, that Jackson could have supposed him to

entertain the sentiments imputed to him made Mr. Buchanan, as he said,

"exceedingly unhappy." In other words, there was no foundation

whatsoever for the charge thus traced back to an originator who denied

having originated it and said that it was all a mistake. General (p. 187)

Jackson was left to be defended from the accusation of deliberate

falsehood only by the charitable suggestion that he had been unable to

understand a perfectly simple conversation. Apparently Mr. Adams and

Mr. Clay ought now to be abundantly satisfied, since not only were

they amply vindicated, but their chief vilifier seemed to have been

pierced by the point which he had sharpened for them. They had yet,

however, to learn what vitality there is in falsehood.

General Jackson and his friends had alone played any active part in

this matter. Of these friends Mr. Kremer had written a letter of

retraction and apology which he was with difficulty prevented from

publishing; Mr. Buchanan had denied all that he had been summoned to

prove; a few years later Mr. Beverly wrote and sent to Mr. Clay a

contrite letter of regret. General Jackson alone remained for the rest

of his life unsilenced, obstinately reiterating a charge disproved by

his own witnesses. But worse than all this, accumulations of evidence

long and laboriously sought in many quarters have established a

tolerably strong probability that advances of precisely the character

alleged against Mr. Adams's friends were made to Mr. Clay by the most

intimate personal associates of General Jackson. The discussion (p. 188)

of this unpleasant suspicion would not, however, be an excusable

episode in this short volume. The reader who is curious to pursue the

matter further will find all the documentary evidence collected in its

original shape in the first volume of Colton's "Life of Clay,"

accompanied by an argument needlessly elaborate and surcharged with

feeling yet in the main sufficiently fair and exhaustive.

Mr. Benton says that "no President could have commenced his administration

under more unfavorable auspices, or with less expectation of a popular

career," than did Mr. Adams. From the first a strong minority in the

House of Representatives was hostile to him, and the next election

made this a majority. The first indication of the shape which the

opposition was to take became visible in the vote in the Senate upon

confirming Mr. Clay as Secretary of State. There were fourteen nays

against twenty-seven yeas, and an inspection of the list showed that

the South was beginning to consolidate more closely than heretofore as

a sectional force in politics. The formation of a Southern party

distinctly organized in the interests of slavery, already apparent in

the unanimity of the Southern Electoral Colleges against Mr. Adams,

thus received further illustration; and the skilled eye of the (p. 189)

President noted "the rallying of the South and of Southern interests

and prejudices to the men of the South." It is possible now to see

plainly that Mr. Adams was really the first leader in the long crusade

against slavery; it was in opposition to him that the South became a

political unit; and a true instinct taught him the trend of Southern

politics long before the Northern statesmen apprehended it, perhaps

before even any Southern statesman had distinctly formulated it. This

new development in the politics of the country soon received further

illustration. The first message which Mr. Adams had occasion to send

to Congress gave another opportunity to his ill-wishers. Therein he

stated that the invitation which had been extended to the United

States to be represented at the Congress of Panama had been accepted,

and that he should commission ministers to attend the meeting. Neither

in matter nor in manner did this proposition contain any just element

of offence. It was customary for the Executive to initiate new

missions simply by the nomination of envoys to fill them; and in such

case the Senate, if it did not think the suggested mission desirable,

could simply decline to confirm the nomination upon that ground. An

example of this has been already seen in the two nominations of Mr.

Adams himself to the Court of Russia in the Presidency of Mr. (p. 190)

Madison. But now vehement assaults were made upon the President,

alike in the Senate and in the House, on the utterly absurd ground

that he had transcended his powers. Incredible, too, as it may seem at

this day it was actually maintained that there was no occasion

whatsoever for the United States to desire representation at such a

gathering. Prolonged and bitter was the opposition which the

Administration was compelled to encounter in a measure to which there

so obviously ought to have been instant assent if considered solely

upon its intrinsic merits, but upon which nevertheless the discussion

actually overshadowed all other questions which arose during the

session. The President had the good fortune to find the powerful aid

of Mr. Webster enlisted in his behalf, and ultimately he prevailed;

but it was of ill augury at this early date to see that personal

hostility was so widespread and so rancorous that it could make such a

prolonged and desperate resistance with only the faintest pretext of

right as a basis for its action. Yet a great and fundamental cause of

the feeling manifested lay hidden away beneath the surface in the

instinctive antipathy of the slaveholders to Mr. Adams and all his

thoughts, his ways, and his doings. For into this question of (p. 191)

countenancing the Panama Congress, slavery and "the South" entered and

imported into a portion of the opposition a certain element of

reasonableness and propriety in a political sense. When we see the

Southern statesmen banded against President Adams in these debates, as

we know the future which was hidden from them, it almost makes us

believe that their vindictiveness was justified by an instinctive

forecasting of his character and his mission in life, and that without

knowing it they already felt the influence of the acts which he was

yet to do against them. For the South, without present dread of an

abolition movement, yet hated this Panama Congress with a contemptuous

loathing not alone because the South American states had freed all

slaves within their limits, but because there was actually a fair

chance that Hayti would be admitted to representation at the sessions

as a sovereign state. That the President of the United States should

propose to send white citizens of that country to sit cheek by jowl on

terms of official equality with the revolted blacks of Hayti fired the

Southern heart with rage inexpressible. The proposition was a further

infusion of cement to aid in the Southern consolidation so rapidly

going forward, and was substantially the beginning of the sense of

personal alienation henceforth to grow steadily more bitter on (p. 192)

the part of the slaveholders towards Mr. Adams. Without designing

it he had struck the first blow in a fight which was to absorb his

energies for the rest of his life.

Such evil forebodings as might too easily be drawn from the course of

this debate were soon and amply fulfilled. The opposition increased

rapidly until when Congress came together in December, 1827, it had

attained overshadowing proportions. Not only was a member of that

party elected Speaker of the House of Representatives, but a decided

majority of both Houses of Congress was arrayed against the

Administration--"a state of things which had never before occurred

under the Government of the United States." All the committees too

were composed of four opposition and only three Administration

members. With more exciting issues this relationship of the executive

and legislative departments might have resulted in dangerous collisions;

but in this season of political quietude it only made the position of

the President extremely uncomfortable. Mr. Van Buren soon became

recognized as the formidable leader and organizer of the Jackson

forces. His capacity as a political strategist was so far in advance

of that of any other man of those times that it might have secured

success even had he been encountered by tactics similar to his (p. 193)

own. But since on the contrary he had only to meet straightforward

simplicity, it was soon apparent that he would have everything his own

way. It was disciplined troops against the militia of honest merchants

and farmers; and the result was not to be doubted. Mr. Adams and his

friends were fond of comparing Van Buren with Aaron Burr, though

predicting that he would be too shrewd to repeat Burr's blunders. From

the beginning they declined to meet with his own weapons a man whom

they so contemned. It was about this time that a new nomenclature of

parties was introduced into our politics. The administrationists

called themselves National Republicans, a name which in a few years

was changed for that of Whigs, while the opposition or Jacksonians

were known as Democrats, a title which has been ever since retained by

the same party.

The story of Mr. Adams's Administration will detain the historian, and

even the biographer, only a very short time. Not an event occurred

during those four years which appears of any especial moment. Our

foreign relations were all pacific; and no grave crisis or great issue

was developed in domestic affairs. It was a period of tranquillity, in

which the nation advanced rapidly in prosperity. For many years dulness

had reigned in business, but returning activity was encouraged by (p. 194)

the policy of the new Government, and upon all sides various

industries became active and thriving. So far as the rule of Mr. Adams

was marked by any distinguishing characteristic, it was by a care for

the material welfare of the people. More commercial treaties were

negotiated during his Administration than in the thirty-six years

preceding his inauguration. He was a strenuous advocate of internal

improvements, and happily the condition of the national finances

enabled the Government to embark in enterprises of this kind. He

suggested many more than were undertaken, but not perhaps more than it

would have been quite possible to carry out. He was always chary of

making a show of himself before the people for the sake of gaining

popularity. When invited to attend the annual exhibition of the

Maryland Agricultural Society, shortly after his inauguration, he

declined, and wrote in his Diary: "To gratify this wish I must give

four days of my time, no trifle of expense, and set a precedent for

being claimed as an article of exhibition at all the cattle-shows

throughout the Union." Other gatherings would prefer equally

reasonable demands, in responding to which "some duty must be

neglected." But the opening of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal was an

event sufficiently momentous and national in its character to (p. 195)

justify the President's attendance. He was requested in the presence

of a great concourse of people to dig the first shovelful of earth and

to make a brief address. The speech-making was easy; but when the

digging was to be done he encountered some unexpected obstacle and the

soil did not yield to his repeated efforts. Not to be defeated,

however, he stripped off his coat, went to work in earnest with the

spade and raised the earth successfully. Naturally such readiness was

hailed with loud applause and pleased the great crowd who saw it. But

in Mr. Adams's career it was an exceptional occurrence that enabled

him to conciliate a momentary popularity; it was seldom that he

enjoyed or used an opportunity of gaining the cheap admiration or

shallow friendship of the multitude.

At least one moral to be drawn from the story of Mr. Adams's

Presidency perhaps deserves rather to be called an _immoral_, and

certainly furnishes unwelcome support to those persons who believe

that conscientiousness is out of place in politics. It has been said

that no sooner was General Jackson fairly defeated than he was again

before the people as a candidate for the next election. An opposition

to the new Administration was in process of formation actually before

there had been time for that Administration to declare, much less (p. 196)

to carry out, any policy or even any measure. The opposition was

therefore not one of principle; it was not dislike of anything done or

to be done; it did not pretend to have a purpose of saving the people

from blunders or of offering them greater advantages. It was simply an

opposition, or more properly an hostility, to the President and his

Cabinet, and was conducted by persons who wished in as short a time as

possible themselves to control and fill those positions. The sole

ground upon which these opponents stood was, that they would rather

have General Jackson at the head of affairs than Mr. Adams. The issue

was purely personal; it was so when the opposition first developed,

and it remained so until that opposition triumphed.

Under no circumstances can it be more excusable for an elective

magistrate to seek personal good will towards himself than when his

rival seeks to supplant him simply on the basis of enjoying a greater

measure of such good will. Had any important question of policy been

dividing the people, it would have been easy for a man of less moral

courage and independence than belonged to Mr. Adams to select the side

which he thought right, and to await the outcome at least with

constancy. But the only real question raised was this: will Mr. Adams

or General Jackson--two individuals representing as yet no (p. 197)

antagonistic policies--be preferred by the greater number of voters in

1829? If, however, there was no great apparent issue open between

these two men, at least there was a very wide difference between their

characters, a point of some consequence in a wholly personal

competition. It is easy enough now to see how this gaping difference

displayed itself from the beginning, and how the advantage for winning

was throughout wholly on the side of Jackson. The course to be pursued

by Mr. Adams in order to insure victory was obvious enough; being

simply to secure the largest following and most efficient support

possible. The arts by which these objects were to be attained were not

obscure nor beyond his power. If he wished a second term, as beyond

question he did, two methods were of certain utility. He should make

the support of his Administration a source of profit to the

supporters; and he should conciliate good will by every means that

offered. To the former end what more efficient means could be devised

than a body of office-holders owing their positions to his appointment

and likely to have the same term of office as himself? His neglect to

create such a corps of stanch supporters cannot be explained on the

ground that so plain a scheme of perpetuating power had not then (p. 198)

been devised in the Republic. Mr. Jefferson had practised it, to an

extent which now seems moderate, but which had been sufficiently

extensive to deprive any successor of the honor of novelty in originating

it. The times were ripe for it, and the nation would not have revolted

at it, as was made apparent when General Jackson, succeeding Mr.

Adams, at once carried out the system with a thoroughness that has

never been surpassed, and with a success in achieving results so great

that almost no politician has since failed to have recourse to the

same practice. Suggestions and temptations, neither of which were

wanting, were however alike thrown away upon Mr. Adams. Friendship or

hostility to the President were the only two matters which were sure

to have no effect whatsoever upon the fate of an incumbent or an

aspirant. Scarcely any removals were made during his Administration,

and every one of the few was based solely upon a proved unfitness of

the official. As a consequence very few new appointments were made,

and in every instance the appointee was, or was believed to be, the

fittest man without regard to his political bias. This entire

elimination of the question of party allegiance from every department

of the public service was not a specious protestation, but an

undeniable fact at which friends grumbled bitterly, and upon which (p. 199)

foes counted often with an ungenerous but always with an implicit

reliance. It was well known, for example, that in the Customs

Department there were many more avowed opponents than supporters of

the Administration. What was to be thought, the latter angrily asked,

of a president who refused to make any distinction between the sheep

and the goats? But while Mr. Adams, unmoved by argument, anger, or

entreaty, thus alienated many and discouraged all, every one was made

acquainted with the antipodal principles of his rival. The consequence

was inevitable; many abandoned Adams from sheer irritation; multitudes

became cool and indifferent concerning him; the great number of those

whose political faith was so weak as to be at the ready command of

their own interests, or the interests of a friend or relative, yielded

to a pressure against which no counteracting force was employed. In a

word, no one who had not a strong and independent personal conviction

in behalf of Mr. Adams found the slightest inducement to belong to his

party. It did not require much political sagacity to see that in quiet

times, with no great issue visibly at stake, a following thus composed

could not include a majority of the nation. It is true that in fact

there was opening an issue as great as has ever been presented to the

American people,--an issue between government conducted with a (p. 200)

sole view to efficiency and honesty and government conducted very

largely, if not exclusively, with a view to individual and party

ascendency. The new system afterward inaugurated by General Jackson,

directly opposite to that of Mr. Adams and presenting a contrast to it

as wide as is to be found in history, makes this fact glaringly plain

to us. But during the years of Mr. Adams's Administration it was dimly

perceived only by a few. Only one side of the shield had then been

shown. The people did not appreciate that Adams and Jackson were

representatives of two conflicting principles of administration which

went to the very basis of our system of government. Had the issue been

as apparent and as well understood then as it is now, in retrospect,

the decision of the nation might have been different. But

unfortunately the voters only beheld two individuals pitted against

each other for the popular suffrage, of whom one, a brilliant soldier,

would stand by and reward his friends, and the other, an uninteresting

civilian, ignored all distinction between friend and foe.

It was not alone in the refusal to use patronage that Mr. Adams's

rigid conscientiousness showed itself. He was equally obstinate in

declining ever to stretch a point however slightly in order to (p. 201)

win the favor of any body of the people whether large or small. He

was warned that his extensive schemes for internal improvement would

alienate especially the important State of Virginia. He could not of

course be expected to change his policy out of respect to Virginian

prejudices; but he was advised to mitigate his expression of that

policy, and to some extent it was open to him to do so. But he would

not; his utterances went the full length of his opinions, and he

persistently urged upon Congress many plans which he approved, but

which he could not have the faintest hopes of seeing adopted. The

consequence was that he displeased Virginia. He notes the fact in the

Diary in the tone of one who endures persecution for righteousness'

sake, and who means to be very stubborn in his righteousness. Again it

was suggested to him to embody in one of his messages "something

soothing for South Carolina." But there stood upon the statute books

of South Carolina an unconstitutional law which had greatly

embarrassed the national government, and which that rebellious little

State with characteristic contumaciousness would not repeal. Under

such circumstances, said Mr. Adams, I have no "soothing" words for

South Carolina.

It was not alone by what he did and by what he would not do that (p. 202)

Mr. Adams toiled to insure the election of General Jackson far more

sedulously and efficiently than did the General himself or any of his

partisans. In most cases it was probably the manner quite as much as

the act which made Mr. Adams unpopular. In his anxiety to be upright

he was undoubtedly prone to be needlessly disagreeable. His

uncompromising temper put on an ungracious aspect. His conscientiousness

wore the appearance of offensiveness. The Puritanism in his character

was strongly tinged with that old New England notion that whatever is

disagreeable is probably right, and that a painful refusal would lose

half its merit in being expressed courteously; that a right action

should never be done in a pleasing way; not only that no pill should

be sugar-coated, but that the bitterest ingredient should be placed on

the outside. In repudiating attractive vices the Puritans had rejected

also those amenities which might have decently concealed or even

mildly decorated the forbidding angularities of a naked Virtue which

certainly did not imitate the form of any goddess who had ever before

attracted followers. Mr. Adams was a complete and thorough Puritan,

wonderfully little modified by times and circumstances. The ordinary

arts of propitiation would have appeared to him only a feeble and

diluted form of dishonesty; while suavity and graciousness of (p. 203)

demeanor would have seemed as unbecoming to this rigid official as

love-making or wine-bibbing seem to a strait-laced parson. It was

inevitable, therefore, that he should never avert by his words any

ill-will naturally caused by his acts; that he should never soothe

disappointment, or attract calculating selfishness. He was an adept in

alienation, a novice in conciliation. His magnetism was negative. He

made few friends; and had no interested following whatsoever. No one

was enthusiastic on his behalf; no band worked for him with the ardor

of personal devotion. His party was composed of those who had

sufficient intelligence to appreciate his integrity and sufficient

honesty to admire it. These persons respected him, and when election

day came they would vote for him; but they did not canvass zealously

in his behalf, nor do such service for him as a very different kind of

feeling induced the Jackson men to do for their candidate.[7] The

fervid laborers in politics left Mr. Adams alone in his chilling (p. 204)

respectability, and went over to a camp where all scruples were

consumed in the glowing heat of a campaign conducted upon the single

and simple principle of securing victory.

[Footnote 7: Mr. Mills, in writing of Mr. Adams's

inauguration, expressed well what many felt. "This

same President of ours is a man that I can never

court nor be on very familiar terms with. There is

a cold, repulsive atmosphere about him that is too

chilling for my respiration, and I shall certainly

keep at a distance from its influence. I wish him

God-speed in his Administration, and am heartily

disposed to lend him my feeble aid whenever he may

need it in a correct course; but he cannot expect

me to become his warm and devoted partisan." A like

sentiment was expressed also much more vigorously

by Ezekiel Webster to Daniel Webster, in a letter

of February 15, 1829. The writer there attributes

the defeat of Mr. Adams to personal dislike to him.

People, he said, "always supported his cause from a

cold sense of duty," and "we soon satisfy ourselves

that we have discharged our duty to the cause of

any man when we do not entertain for him one

personal kind feeling, nor cannot unless we

disembowel ourselves like a trussed turkey of all

that is human nature within us." With a candidate

"of popular character, like Mr. Clay," the result

would have been different. "The measures of his

[Adams's] Administration were just and wise and

every honest man should have supported them, but

many honest men did not for the reason I have

mentioned."--_Webster's Private Correspondence_,

vol. i. p. 469.]

* * * * *

Mr. Adams's relations with the members of his Cabinet were friendly

throughout his term. Men of their character and ability, brought into

daily contact with him, could not fail to appreciate and admire the

purity of his motives and the patriotism of his conduct; nor was he

wanting in a measure of consideration and deference towards them

perhaps somewhat greater than might have been expected from him,

sometimes even carried to the point of yielding his opinion in (p. 205)

matters of consequence. It was his wish that the unity of the body

should remain unbroken during his four years of office, and the wish

was very nearly realized. Unfortunately, however, in his last year it

became necessary for him to fill the mission to England, and Governor

Barbour was extremely anxious for the place. It was already apparent

that the coming election was likely to result in the succession of

Jackson, and Mr. Adams notes that Barbour's extreme desire to receive

the appointment was due to his wish to find a good harbor ere the

approaching storm should burst. The remark was made without anger, in

the tone of a man who had seen enough of the world not to expect too

much from any of his fellow men; and the appointment was made,

somewhat to the chagrin of Webster and Rush, either one of whom would

have gladly accepted it. The vacancy thus caused, the only one which

arose during his term, was filled by General Peter B. Porter, a

gentleman whom Mr. Adams selected not as his own choice, but out of

respect to the wishes of the Cabinet, and in order to "terminate the

Administration in harmony with itself." The only seriously unpleasant

occurrence was the treachery of Postmaster-General McLean, who saw fit

to profess extreme devotion to Mr. Adams while secretly aiding General

Jackson. His perfidy was not undetected, and great pressure was (p. 206)

brought to bear on the President to remove him. Mr. Adams, however,

refused to do so, and McLean had the satisfaction of stepping from his

post under Mr. Adams into a judgeship conferred by General Jackson,

having shown his impartiality and judicial turn of mind, it is to be

supposed, by declaring his warm allegiance to each master in turn.

The picture of President Adams's daily life is striking in its

simplicity and its laboriousness. This chief magistrate of a great

nation was wont to rise before daybreak, often at four or five o'clock

even in winter, not unfrequently to build and light his own fire, and

to work hard for hours when most persons in busy life were still

comfortably slumbering. The forenoon and afternoon he devoted to

public affairs, and often he complains that the unbroken stream of

visitors gives him little opportunity for hard or continuous labor.

Such work he was compelled to do chiefly in the evening; and he did

not always make up for early hours of rising by a correspondingly

early bedtime; though sometimes in the summer we find him going to bed

between eight and nine o'clock, an hour which probably few Presidents

have kept since then. He strove to care for his health by daily

exercise. In the morning he swam in the Potomac, often for a long (p. 207)

time; and more than once he encountered no small risk in this

pastime. During the latter part of his Presidential term he tried

riding on horseback. At times when the weather compelled him to walk,

and business was pressing, he used to get his daily modicum of fresh

air before the sun was up. A life of this kind with more of hardship

than of relaxation in it was ill fitted to sustain in robust health a

man sixty years of age, and it is not surprising that Mr. Adams often

complained of feeling ill, dejected, and weary. Yet he never spared

himself, nor apparently thought his habits too severe, and actually

toward the close of his term he spoke of his trying daily routine as

constituting a very agreeable life. He usually began the day by

reading "two or three chapters in the Bible with Scott's and Hewlett's

Commentaries," being always a profoundly religious man of the

old-fashioned school then prevalent in New England.

It could hardly have added to the meagre comforts of such a life to be

threatened with assassination. Yet this danger was thrust upon Mr.

Adams's attention upon one occasion at least under circumstances which

gave to it a very serious aspect. The tranquillity with which he went

through the affair showed that his physical courage was as imperturbable

as his moral. The risk was protracted throughout a considerable (p. 208)

period, but he never let it disturb the even tenor of his daily

behavior or warp his actions in the slightest degree, save only that

when he was twice or thrice brought face to face with the intending

assassin he treated the fellow with somewhat more curt brusqueness

than was his wont. But when the danger was over he bore his would-be

murderer no malice, and long afterward actually did him a kindly

service.

* * * * *

Few men in public life have been subjected to trials of temper so

severe as vexed Mr. Adams during his Presidential term. To play an

intensely exciting game strictly in accordance with rigid moral rules

of the player's own arbitrary enforcement, and which are utterly

repudiated by a less scrupulous antagonist, can hardly tend to promote

contentment and amiability. Neither are slanders and falsehoods

mollifying applications to a statesman inspired with an upright and

noble ambition. Mr. Adams bore such assaults, ranging from the charge

of having corruptly bought the Presidency down to that of being a

Freemason with such grim stoicism as he could command. The

disappearance and probable assassination of Morgan at this time led to

a strong feeling throughout the country against Freemasonry, and (p. 209)

the Jackson men at once proclaimed abroad that Adams was one of the

brotherhood, and offered, if he should deny it, to produce the records

of the lodge to which he belonged. The allegation was false; he was

not a Mason, and his friends urged him to say so publicly; but he

replied bitterly that his denial would probably at once be met by a

complete set of forged records of a fictitious lodge, and the people

would not know whom to believe. Next he was said to have bargained for

the support of Daniel Webster, by promising to distribute offices to

Federalists. This accusation was a cruel perversion of his very

virtues; for its only foundation lay in the fact that in the

venturesome but honorable attempt to be President of a nation rather

than of a party, he had in some instances given offices to old

Federalists, certainly with no hope or possibility of reconciling to

himself the almost useless wreck of that now powerless and shrunken

party, one of whose liveliest traditions was hatred of him. Stories

were even set afloat that some of his accounts, since he had been in

the public service, were incorrect. But the most extraordinary and

ridiculous tale of all was that during his residence in Russia he had

prostituted a beautiful American girl, whom he then had in his

service, in order "to seduce the passions of the Emperor Alexander (p. 210)

and sway him to political purposes."

These and other like provocations were not only discouraging but very

irritating, and Mr. Adams was not of that careless disposition which

is little affected by unjust accusation. On the contrary he was

greatly incensed by such treatment, and though he made the most stern

and persistent effort to endure an inevitable trial with a patience

born of philosophy, since indifference was not at his command, yet he

could not refrain from the expression of his sentiments in his secret

communings. Occasionally he allowed his wrath to explode with harmless

violence between the covers of the Diary, and doubtless he found

relief while he discharged his fierce diatribes on these private

sheets. His vituperative power was great, and some specimens of it may

not come amiss in a sketch of the man. The senators who did not call

upon him he regarded as of "rancorous spirit." He spoke of the

falsehoods and misrepresentations which "the skunks of party slander

... have been ... squirting round the House of Representatives, thence

to issue and perfume the atmosphere of the Union." His most intense

hatred and vehement denunciation were reserved for John Randolph, whom

he thought an abomination too odious and despicable to be described

in words, "the image and superscription of a great man stamped (p. 211)

upon base metal." "The besotted violence" of Randolph, he said, has

deprived him of "all right to personal civility from me;" and

certainly this excommunication from courtesy was made complete and

effective. He speaks again of the same victim as a "frequenter of gin

lane and beer alley." He indignantly charges that Calhoun, as Speaker,

permitted Randolph "in speeches of ten hours long to drink himself

drunk with bottled porter, and in raving balderdash of the meridian of

Wapping to revile the absent and the present, the living and the

dead." This, he says, was "tolerated by Calhoun, because Randolph's

ribaldry was all pointed against the Administration, especially

against Mr. Clay and me." Again he writes of Randolph: "The rancor of

this man's soul against me is that which sustains his life: the agony

of [his] envy and hatred of me, and the hope of effecting my downfall,

are [his] chief remaining sources of vitality. The issue of the

Presidential election will kill [him] by the gratification of [his]

revenge." So it was also with W. B. Giles, of Virginia. But Giles's

abuse was easier to bear since it had been poured in torrents upon

every reputable man, from Washington downwards, who had been prominent

in public affairs since the adoption of the Constitution, so that (p. 212)

Giles's memory is now preserved from oblivion solely by the connection

which he established with the great and honorable statesmen of the

Republic by a course of ceaseless attacks upon them. Some of the

foregoing expressions of Mr. Adams may be open to objection on the

score of good taste; but the provocation was extreme; public retaliation

he would not practise, and wrath must sometimes burst forth in

language which was not so unusual in that day as it is at present. It

is an unquestionable fact, of which the credit to Mr. Adams can hardly

be exaggerated, that he never in any single instance found an excuse

for an unworthy act on his own part in the fact that competitors or

adversaries were resorting to such expedients.

* * * * *

The election of 1828 gave 178 votes for Jackson and only 83 for Adams.

Calhoun was continued as Vice-President by 171 votes, showing plainly

enough that even yet there were not two political parties, in any

customary or proper sense of the phrase. The victory of Jackson had

been foreseen by every one. What had been so generally anticipated

could not take Mr. Adams by surprise; yet it was idle for him to seek

to conceal his disappointment that an Administration which he (p. 213)

had conducted with his best ability and with thorough conscientiousness

should not have seemed to the people worthy of continuance for another

term. Little suspecting what the future had in store for him, he felt

that his public career had culminated and probably had closed forever,

and that if it had not closed exactly in disgrace, yet at least it

could not be regarded as ending gloriously or even satisfactorily. But

he summoned all his philosophy and fortitude to his aid; he fell back

upon his clear conscience and comported himself with dignity, showing

all reasonable courtesy to his successor and only perhaps seeming a

little deficient in filial piety in presenting so striking a contrast

to the shameful conduct of his father in a like crucial hour. His

retirement brought to a close a list of Presidents who deserved to be

called statesmen in the highest sense of that term, honorable men,

pure patriots, and, with perhaps one exception, all of the first order

of ability in public affairs. It is necessary to come far down towards

this day before a worthy successor of those great men is met with in

the list. Dr. Von Holst, by far the ablest writer who has yet dealt

with American history, says: "In the person of Adams the last

statesman who was to occupy it for a long time left the White House."

General Jackson, the candidate of the populace and the (p. 214)

representative hero of the ignorant masses, instituted a new system of

administering the Government in which personal interests became the

most important element, and that organization and strategy were

developed which have since become known and infamous under the name of

the "political machine."

While Mr. Adams bore his defeat like a philosopher, he felt secretly

very depressed and unhappy by reason of it. He speaks of it as leaving

his "character and reputation a wreck," and says that the "sun of his

political life sets in the deepest gloom." On January 1, 1829, he

writes: "The year begins in gloom. My wife had a sleepless and painful

night. The dawn was overcast, and as I began to write my shaded lamp

went out, self-extinguished. It was only for lack of oil, and the

notice of so trivial an incident may serve but to mark the present

temper of my mind." It is painful to behold a man of his vigor,

activity, and courage thus prostrated. Again he writes:--

"Three days more and I shall be restored to private life, and

left to an old age of retirement though certainly not of repose.

I go into it with a combination of parties and public men against

my character and reputation, such as I believe never before was

exhibited against any man since this Union existed. Posterity

will scarcely believe it, but so it is, that this combination

against me has been formed and is now exulting in triumph (p. 215)

over me, for the devotion of my life and of all the faculties

of my soul to the Union, and to the improvement, physical, moral,

and intellectual of my country."

Melancholy words these to be written by an old man who had worked so

hard and been so honest, and whose ambition had been of the kind that

ennobles him who feels it! Could the curtain of the future have been

lifted but for a moment what relief would the glimpse have brought to

his crushed and wearied spirit. But though coming events may cast

shadows before them, they far less often send bright rays in advance.

So he now resolved "to go into the deepest retirement and withdraw

from all connection with public affairs." Yet it was with regret that

he foretold this fate, and he looked forward with solicitude to the

effect which such a mode of life, newly entered upon at his age, would

have upon his mind and character. He hopes rather than dares to

predict that he will be provided "with useful and profitable

occupation, engaging so much of his thoughts and feelings that his

mind may not be left to corrode itself."

His return to Quincy held out the less promise of comfort, because the

old chasm between him and the Federalist gentlemen of Boston had been

lately reopened. Certain malicious newspaper paragraphs, born of (p. 216)

the mischievous spirit of the wretched Giles, had recently set afloat

some stories designed seriously to injure Mr. Adams. These were,

substantially, that in 1808-9 he had been convinced that some among

the leaders of the Federalist party in New England were entertaining a

project for separation from the Union, that he had feared that this

event would be promoted by the embargo, that he foresaw that the

seceding portion would inevitably be compelled into some sort of

alliance with Great Britain, that he suspected negotiations to this

end to have been already set on foot, that he thereupon gave privately

some more or less distinct intimations of these notions of his to

sundry prominent Republicans, and even to President Jefferson. These

tales, much distorted from the truth and exaggerated as usual, led to

the publication of an open letter, in November, 1828, addressed by

thirteen Federalists of note in Massachusetts to John Quincy Adams,

demanding names and specifications and the production of evidence. Mr.

Adams replied briefly, with dignity, and, considering the

circumstances, with good temper, stating fairly the substantial import

of what he had really said, declaring that he had never mentioned

names, and refusing, for good reasons given, either to do so now (p. 217)

or to publish the grounds of such opinions as he had entertained.

It was sufficiently clear that he had said nothing secretly which he

had reason to regret; and that if he sought to shun the discussion

opened by his adversaries, he was influenced by wise forbearance, and

not at all by any fear of the consequences to himself. A dispassionate

observer could have seen that behind this moderate, rather deprecatory

letter there was an abundant reserve of controversial material held

for the moment in check. But his adversaries were not dispassionate;

on the contrary they were greatly excited and were honestly convinced

of the perfect goodness of their cause. They were men of the highest

character in public and private life, deservedly of the best repute in

the community, of unimpeachable integrity in motives and dealings,

influential and respected, men whom it was impossible in New England

to treat with neglect or indifference. For this reason it was only the

harder to remain silent beneath their published reproach when a

refutation was possible. Hating Mr. Adams with an animosity not

diminished by the lapse of years since his defection from their party,

strong in a consciousness of their own standing before their fellow

citizens, the thirteen notables responded with much acrimony to Mr.

Adams's unsatisfactory letter. Thus persistently challenged and (p. 218)

assailed, at a time when his recent crushing political defeat made

an attack upon him seem a little ungenerous, Mr. Adams at last went

into the fight in earnest. He had the good fortune to be thoroughly

right, and also to have sufficient evidence to prove and justify at

least as much as he had ever said. All this evidence he brought

together in a vindicatory pamphlet, which, however, by the time he had

completed it he decided not to publish. But fortunately he did not

destroy it, and his grandson, in the exercise of a wise discretion,

has lately given it to the world. His foes never knew how deeply they

were indebted to the self-restraint which induced him to keep this

formidable missive harmless in his desk. Full of deep feeling, yet

free from ebullitions of temper, clear in statement, concise in style,

conclusive in facts, unanswerable in argument, unrelentingly severe in

dealing with opponents, it is as fine a specimen of political

controversy as exists in the language. Its historical value cannot be

exaggerated, but apart from this as a mere literary production it is

admirable. Happy were the thirteen that they one and all went down to

their graves complaisantly thinking that they had had the last word in

the quarrel, little suspecting how great was their obligation to Mr.

Adams for having granted them that privilege. One would think (p. 219)

that they might have writhed beneath their moss-grown headstones

on the day when his last word at length found public utterance, albeit

that the controversy had then become one of the dusty tales of

history.[8]

[Footnote 8: It is with great reluctance that these

comments are made, since some persons may think

that they come with ill grace from one whose

grandfather was one of the thirteen and was

supposed to have drafted one or both of their

letters. But in spite of the prejudice naturally

growing out of this fact, a thorough study of the

whole subject has convinced me that Mr. Adams was

unquestionably and completely right, and I have no

escape from saying so. His adversaries had the

excuse of honesty in political error--an excuse

which the greatest and wisest men must often fall

back upon in times of hot party warfare.]

But this task of writing a demolishing pamphlet against the prominent

gentlemen of the neighborhood to which he was about to return for his

declining years could hardly have been a grateful task. The passage

from political disaster to social enmities could not but be painful;

and Mr. Adams was probably never more unhappy than at this period of

his life. The reward which virtue was tendering to him seemed unmixed

bitterness.

* * * * *

Thus at the age of sixty-two years, Mr. Adams found himself that

melancholy product of the American governmental system--an ex-President.

At this stage it would seem that the fruit ought to drop from the (p. 220)

bough, no further process of development being reasonably probable

for it. Yet Mr. Adams had by no means reached this measure of

ripeness; he still enjoyed abundant vigor of mind and body, and to

lapse into dignified decrepitude was not agreeable, indeed was hardly

possible for him. The prospect gave him profound anxiety; he dreaded

idleness, apathy, and decay with a keen terror which perhaps

constituted a sufficient guaranty against them. Yet what could he do?

It would be absurd for him now to furbish up the rusty weapons of the

law and enter again upon the tedious labor of collecting a clientage.

His property was barely sufficient to enable him to live respectably,

even according to the simple standard of the time, and could open to

him no occupation in the way of gratifying unremunerative tastes. In

March, 1828, he had been advised to use five thousand dollars in a way

to promote his reëlection. He refused at once, upon principle; but

further set forth "candidly, the state of his affairs:"--

"All my real estate in Quincy and Boston is mortgaged for the

payment of my debts; the income of my whole private estate is

less than $6,000 a year, and I am paying at least two thousand of

that for interest on my debt. Finally, upon going out of office

in one year from this time, destitute of all means of (p. 221)

acquiring property, it will only be by the sacrifice of that

which I now possess that I shall be able to support my family."

At first he plunged desperately into the Latin classics. He had a

strong taste for such reading, and he made a firm resolve to compel

this taste now to stand him in good stead in his hour of need. He

courageously demanded solace from a pursuit which had yielded him

pleasure enough in hours of relaxation, but which was altogether

inadequate to fill the huge vacuum now suddenly created in his time

and thoughts. There is much pathos in this spectacle of the old man

setting himself with ever so feeble a weapon, yet with stern

determination, to conquer the cruelty of circumstances. But he knew,

of course, that the Roman authors could only help him for a time, by

way of distraction, in carrying him through a transition period. He

soon set more cheerfully at work upon a memoir of his father, and had

also plans for writing a history of the United States. Literature had

always possessed strong charms for him, and he had cultivated it after

his usual studious and conscientious fashion. But his style was too

often prolix, sententious, and turgid--faults which marked nearly all

the writing done in this country in those days. The world has (p. 222)

probably not lost much by reason of the non-completion of the

contemplated volumes. He could have made no other contribution to the

history of the country at all approaching in value or interest to the

Diary, of which a most important part was still to be written. For a

brief time just now this loses its historic character, but makes up

for the loss by depicting admirably some traits in the mental

constitution of the diarist. Tales of enchantment, he says, pleased

his boyhood, but "the humors of Falstaff hardly affected me at all.

Bardolph and Pistol and Nym were personages quite unintelligible to

me; and the lesson of Sir Hugh Evans to the boy Williams was quite too

serious an affair." In truth, no man can ever have been more utterly

void of a sense of humor or an appreciation of wit than was Mr. Adams.

Not a single instance of an approach to either is to be found

throughout the twelve volumes of his Diary. Not even in the simple

form of the "good story" could he find pleasure, and subtler delicacies

were wasted on his well-regulated mind as dainty French dishes would

be on the wholesome palate of a day-laborer. The books which bore the

stamp of well-established approval, the acknowledged classics of the

English, Latin, and French languages he read with a mingled sense of

duty and of pleasure, and evidently with cultivated appreciation, (p. 223)

though whether he would have made an original discovery of their

merits may be doubted. Occasionally he failed to admire even those

volumes which deserved admiration, and then with characteristic

honesty he admitted the fact. He tried Paradise Lost ten times before

he could get through with it, and was nearly thirty years old when he

first succeeded in reading it to the end. Thereafter he became very

fond of it, but plainly by an acquired taste. He tried smoking and

Milton, he says, at the same time, in the hope of discovering the

"recondite charm" in them which so pleased his father. He was more

easily successful with the tobacco than with the poetry. Many another

has had the like experience, but the confession is not always so

frankly forthcoming.

Fate, however, had in store for Mr. Adams labors to which he was

better suited than those of literature, and tasks to be performed

which the nation could ill afford to exchange for an apotheosis of our

second President, or even for a respectable but probably not very

readable history. The most brilliant and glorious years of his career

were yet to be lived. He was to earn in his old age a noble fame and

distinction far transcending any achievement of his youth and middle

age, and was to attain the highest pinnacle of his fame after he (p. 224)

had left the greatest office of the Government, and during a period

for which presumably nothing better had been allotted than that he

should tranquilly await the summons of death. It is a striking

circumstance that the fullness of greatness for one who had been

Senator, Minister to England, Secretary of State, and President,

remained to be won in the comparatively humble position of a

Representative in Congress.