RESIDENCE IN BOSTON.--RETURNS TO THE BAR.--ELECTED TO THE SENATE OF
MASSACHUSETTS.--TO THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES.--HIS COURSE RELATIVE
TO THE ATTACK OF THE LEOPARD ON THE CHESAPEAKE.--RESIGNS HIS SEAT AS
SENATOR OF THE UNITED STATES.--APPOINTED MINISTER TO RUSSIA.--FINAL
SEPARATION FROM THE FEDERAL PARTY.
Under the circumstances stated in the preceding chapter, Mr. Adams
returned to the United States in no disposition to coälesce with either
division of the Federal party. He regarded it as fortunate for himself
that events, in producing which he had no agency, had placed him in a
position free from any constructive pledges to a party which in its
original form no longer existed, and at liberty to shape his future
course according to his own independent views of private interest and
public duty. Resuming his residence in Boston, and his place at the bar
of Massachusetts, under circumstances far from being pleasant or
encouraging, after eight years' employment in foreign official stations,
he had old studies to revise, and new statutes and recent decisions to
explore. To the broad field of diplomacy had succeeded the intricate and
narrow windings of special pleading and local laws. His juniors were in
the field; by the failure of European bankers his property had been
diminished; he had a family to support; yet, neither dispirited nor
complaining, he reëntered his profession, and, devoting his leisure
hours to literature and science, apparently abandoned the political
arena, without manifesting a design or desire to return to it. But he
was not destined to remain long in private life. At this period the
Federalists had lost the control of national affairs, but they retained
their superiority in Massachusetts. Their union as a party was not
sustained by the same identity of feeling and view by which, in earlier
periods, it had been characterized. It was cemented rather by antipathy
to the prevailing power than by any hope of regaining it. A division,
more real than apparent, separated the friends of the elder Adams from
those who, uniting with Hamilton, had condemned his policy in the
presidency. The former were probably larger in number; the latter had
the advantage in talent, activity, and influence. Both soon united in
placing Mr. Adams in the Senate of the state, without any solicitation
or intimation of political coïncidence from him. In this election the
opponents of his father's policy were acquiescent rather than content.
They knew the independence and self-relying spirit of Mr. Adams, his
restiveness in the trammels of party, his disposition to lead rather
than follow; and yielded silently to a result which they could not
prevent. The spirit which they anticipated was soon made evident.
At the annual organization of the state government it had been usual to
choose the members of the Governor's Council from his political friends.
Mr. Adams at once proposed to place in it one or more of his political
opponents. This measure, which he maintained was wise and prudent, was
regarded, according to the usual charity of party spirit, as designed to
gain favor with the Democracy, and was immediately rejected. In other
instances his disposition to think and act independently of the Federal
party was manifested, and was of course not acceptable to its leaders.
In November he was urged to accept a nomination as a member of the House
of Representatives in Congress. This he refused, saying that "he would
not stand in the way of Mr. Quincy,"[1] who had been the candidate at
the preceding election. This objection was immediately removed, by an
assurance of the previous determination of the latter to decline, and of
the satisfaction with which he regarded the nomination of Mr. Adams. The
result was unsuccessful. Out of _thirty-seven hundred votes_, William
Eustis was elected by a majority of _fifty-nine_. The newspapers
assigned as the cause that the day of the election was rainy. Mr. Adams
surmised that it was owing to the indifference to his success of the
leaders of the old Federal party, and remarked on the occasion, "This is
among the thousand proofs how large a portion of Federalism is a mere
fair-weather principle, too weak to overcome a shower of rain. It shows
the degree of dependence that can be placed on such friends. As a party
their adversaries are more sure and more earnest."
[1] The writer of this Memoir.
In an oration, delivered in May of this year, before the Massachusetts
Charitable Fire Society, Mr. Adams paid a just and feeling tribute to
the memory of George Richards Minot, then recently deceased, in which
the character of that historian, the purity of his life, moral worth,
and intellectual endowments, are celebrated with great fulness and
truth. In December he delivered, at Plymouth, an address commemorative
of the Pilgrim Fathers.
During the remainder of the civil year Mr. Adams had more than once
indicated his independence of party, and his settled purpose of thinking
and acting on all subjects for himself. When, therefore, in February,
1803, a vacancy in the Senate of the United States occurred, the
nomination of Mr. Adams was opposed by that of Timothy Pickering, who
was deemed by his friends better entitled to the office, from age and
long familiarity with public affairs. To their extreme disappointment,
however, after three ballotings, without success, in the House of
Representatives, Mr. Adams was chosen, and his election was unanimously
confirmed by the Senate. In March following, another vacancy in the
Senate of the United States having occurred, Mr. Pickering was elected.
Thus, by a singular course of events, two statesmen were placed as
colleagues in the Senate of the United States, from Massachusetts,
between whom, from antecedent circumstances and known want of sympathy
in political opinion, cordial coöperation could scarcely be anticipated.
Apparent harmony of principles and views was, however, manifested. Mr.
Adams well understood the delicacy of his position, arising from the
ill-concealed jealousy of the Federalists, on the one hand, and the open
dislike of the Democracy, on the other. He considered himself placed
between two batteries, neither of which regarded him as one of their
soldiers. He early adopted two principles, as rules of his political
conduct, from which he never deviated,--to seek or solicit no public
office, and, to whatever station he might be called by his country, to
use no instrument for success or advancement but efficient public
service.
In October, 1803, Mr. Adams removed his family to Washington, and took
his seat in the Senate of the United States. On the 26th of that month
he took ground in opposition to the administration upon the bill
enabling the President to take possession of Louisiana, and on which he
voted in coïncidence with his Federal colleagues. His objection was to
the second section, which provided "_that all the military, civil and
judicial powers_, exercised by the officers of the existing government
of Louisiana, shall be vested in _such person and persons_, and shall be
_exercised in such manner, as the President of the United States shall
direct_." The transfer of such a power to the President of the United
States, Mr. Adams deemed and maintained, was unconstitutional; and he
called upon the supporters of the bill to point out the article,
section, or paragraph, of the constitution, which authorized Congress to
confer it on the President. He regarded the constitution of the United
States to be one of limited powers; and he declared that he could not
reconcile it to his judgment that the authority exercised in this
section was within the legitimate powers conferred by the constitution.
Many years afterwards, when his vote on this occasion was made a subject
of party censure and obloquy, in addition to the preceding reasons Mr.
Adams gave to the public the following solemn convictions which
influenced his course:
"The people of the United States had not--much less had the people
of Louisiana--given to the Congress of the United States the power
to form this union; and, until the consent of both people could be
obtained, every act of legislation by the Congress of the United
States over the people of Louisiana, distinct from that of taking
possession of the territory, was, in my view, unconstitutional, and
an act of usurped authority. My opinion, therefore, was that the
sense of the people, both of the United States and Louisiana, should
be immediately taken: of the first, by an amendment of the
constitution, to be proposed and acted upon in the regular form; and
of the last, by taking the votes of the people of Louisiana
immediately after possession of the territory should be taken by the
United States under the treaty. I had no doubt that the consent of
both people would be obtained with as much ease and little more loss
of time than it actually took Congress to prepare an act for the
government of the territory; and I thought this course of
proceeding, while it would terminate in the same result as the
immediate exercise of ungranted transcendental powers by Congress,
would serve as a landmark of correct principles for future
times,--as a memorial of homage to the fundamental principles of
civil society, to the primitive sovereignty of the people, and the
unalienable rights of man."
On the 3d of the ensuing November he manifested his independent spirit
by voting in favor of the appropriation of eleven millions of dollars
for carrying into effect the treaty for the purchase of Louisiana, in
opposition to the other senators of the Federal party;--a vote which,
many years afterwards, in consequence of comments of party, he took the
opportunity publicly to explain. The critical nature of the course to
which he foresaw he was destined was thus expressed by himself: "I have
had already occasion to experience, what I had before reason to expect,
the danger of adhering to my own principles. The country is so totally
given up to the spirit of party, that not to follow the one or the other
is an unexpiable offence. The worst of these has the popular current in
its favor, and uses its triumph with all the unprincipled fury of
faction; while the other is waiting, with all the impatience of revenge,
for the time when its turn may come to oppress and punish by the popular
favor. But my choice is made. If I cannot hope to give satisfaction to
my country, I am at least determined to have the approbation of my own
reflections."
On the 10th of January, 1804, Mr. Adams introduced two resolutions for
the consideration of the Senate: the one declaring that "the people of
the United States have never, in any manner, delegated to this Senate
the power of giving its legislative concurrence to any act imposing
taxes upon the inhabitants of Louisiana without their consent;" the
other, "that, by concurring in any act of legislation for imposing taxes
upon the inhabitants of Louisiana, without their consent, this Senate
would assume a power unwarranted by the constitution, and dangerous to
the liberties of the people of the United States." After a debate of
three hours, both resolutions were rejected, as he anticipated; only
three senators--Tracy, of Connecticut, Olcott, of New Hampshire, and
White, of Delaware--voting with him in favor of the first, and
twenty-two voting in the negative; Mr. Pickering, his colleague, asking
to be excused from voting, and Mr. Hillhouse, the remaining Federalist
in the Senate, absenting himself, obviously to avoid voting: after which
the last was unanimously rejected. Concerning his course on this
occasion Mr. Adams wrote: "I have no doubt of incurring much censure and
obloquy for this measure. I hope I shall be prepared for and able to
bear it, from the consciousness of my sincerity and of my duty."
Mr. Adams alone spoke against the bill for the temporary government of
Louisiana, which passed on the ensuing 18th of February; and only four
senators--Messrs. Hillhouse, Olcott, Plummer, and Stone--voted with him
in the negative; Mr. Pickering absenting himself from the question.
In August, 1805, the corporation of Harvard College elected Mr. Adams
Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory on the Boylston foundation. After
modifications of the statutes, which he suggested, were adopted, he
accepted, and immediately entered upon a course of preparatory studies,
reviving his knowledge of the Greek, and making researches among
English, Latin, and French writers, relative to the objects of his
professorship. In the ensuing December, as a member of the Ninth
Congress, he took an active part in the debates and measures of the
Senate.
In January, 1806, he was appointed on a committee, of which Mr. Smith,
of Maryland, was chairman, on that part of the President's message
"relative to the spoliations of our commerce on the high seas, and the
new principles assumed by the British courts of admiralty, as a pretext
for the condemnation of our vessels in their prize courts." The debates
in that committee resulted in two resolutions, both offered by Mr.
Adams, adopted, reported, and finally passed by the Senate, with some
modifications; Mr. Pickering, Mr. Hillhouse, and Mr. Tracy, the three
Federalists in the Senate, voting for them.
British aggressions and British policy towards neutrals were, in the
judgment of Mr. Adams, to be resisted at every hazard. His opinions on
these subjects had been formed from opportunities which no other
American statesman had equally enjoyed. In 1783 he had been present at
the signature of the treaty of peace, and had imbibed the opinions and
feelings then entertained by the American ministers. In 1795 he had been
engaged in negotiations with British statesmen, particularly with Lord
Grenville. Their views in respect of American commercial rights he
considered selfish and insolent; resistance to them as an emanation from
the spirit of patriotism, to which others gave the name of "prejudice,"
or "antipathy." Of these opinions and feelings he made no concealment;
and to them may be traced the course of policy which, shortly after,
separated him from the Federal party, and subjected him temporarily to
their reproaches and censures.
In June, 1806, Mr. Adams was inaugurated Professor of Oratory in Harvard
University, and during the ensuing two years delivered a course of
lectures on Rhetoric and Oratory, which have been published in two
octavo volumes, and constitute an enduring monument of fidelity,
laborious research, and eloquent illustration of the objects and duties
of his academic station. While engaged in these labors, an event
occurred which intensely excited his feelings as a man and a statesman.
On the 22d of June, 1807, during the recess of Congress, an attack by
the British ship Leopard upon the American frigate Chesapeake, by which
several of her crew were killed, and four of them taken away, created
surprise and indignation throughout the Union. From the previous state
of his opinions, no one partook more strongly of these feelings than Mr.
Adams. He immediately urged his political friends to call a town-meeting
in Faneuil Hall on the subject; but the measure was utterly discouraged
by the leaders of the Federal party. Soon, however, a meeting of the
inhabitants of Boston and the neighboring towns was called at the
Statehouse to consider that outrage. The meeting was not numerous, and
consisted almost entirely of the friends of the administration. Mr.
Gerry was chosen chairman, and Mr. Adams, who had attended it, was
appointed on the committee to prepare appropriate resolutions. These,
when reported and modified according to suggestions made by Mr. Adams,
were unanimously adopted. When it was intimated to him that his course
was regarded as symptomatic of party apostasy, he replied that his sense
of duty should never yield to the pleasure of party.
Soon after, in consequence of letters from a committee of correspondence
at Norfolk, a town-meeting was called at Faneuil Hall, at which
resolutions were passed, reported by a committee of which Mr. Adams was
chairman. Mr. Otis offered a resolution calling on government for the
protection of a naval force; but, Mr. Adams objecting, it was withdrawn.
On the 27th of October, 1807, Mr. Jefferson called a special meeting of
Congress, chiefly on account of the affair of the Chesapeake. On this
subject the discrepancy of the opinions and views of Mr. Adams with
those of the leaders of the Federal party were so openly manifested,
that his separation from it was generally anticipated. He had now been a
member of the Senate during four sessions, but had not been permitted to
exercise any decided influence on the subjects of debate. Many of his
propositions had failed under circumstances which indicated a
disposition to discourage him from such attempts. Some, which on his
motion had been negatived, had been subsequently easily carried, when
moved by members of the administration party. In respect of the general
policy of the country, he had been uniformly in a small and decreasing
minority. His opinion and votes, however, had been oftener in unison
with the administration than with their opponents; and he had met with
quite as much opposition from his party friends as from their
adversaries. At this crisis, however, he took the lead, and, immediately
on the delivery of the President's message, offered to the Senate two
resolutions. 1st. "That so much of the President's message as related to
the recent outrages committed by British armed vessels within the
jurisdiction and in the waters of the United States, and to the
legislative provisions which may be expedient as resulting from them, be
referred to a select committee, with leave to report by bill or
otherwise." 2d. "That so much of the said message as relates to the
formation of the seamen of the United States into a special militia, for
the purpose of occasional defence of the harbors against sudden attacks,
be referred to a special committee, with leave to report by bill or
otherwise."
Both these resolutions were adopted, and on the first Mr. Adams was
appointed chairman. Soon after, in the course of the same session, Mr.
Adams took the incipient step on several important subjects, and was
appointed chairman of the committee to whom they were intrusted in each
of them; thus manifesting that he intended no longer to take a
subordinate part in the proceedings of the Senate, and that a
disposition to disappoint him was no longer a feeling entertained by a
majority of that body.
On the 24th of November, Mr. Adams reported a bill on the British
outrages, and, on a motion to strike out of it a section providing that
"no British armed vessel shall be admitted to enter the harbors and
waters under the jurisdiction of the United States, except when forced
in by distress, by the dangers of the sea, or when charged with public
dispatches, or coming as a public packet." Mr. Adams, with twenty-five
others, voted in the negative. Messrs. Goodrich, Pickering, and
Hillhouse, the only three Federal senators, alone voted in the
affirmative. On the final passage of the bill, Mr. Adams voted with the
majority, in the affirmative, and the three Federal senators in the
negative.
On the 18th of December, 1807, Mr. Jefferson sent a message to Congress
recommending an embargo. A bill in conformity having been immediately
reported, a motion was made, in the Senate, that the rule which required
three different readings on three different days should be suspended for
three days. Violent debates ensued. On the vote to suspend, Mr. Adams
voted in the affirmative. His colleague and every other Federalist voted
in the negative.
On the final passage of the bill laying the embargo, and on the subject
of British aggressions, Mr. Adams again repeatedly separated from his
colleagues and the other members of the Federal party, and voted in
coïncidence with the administration.
Newspaper asperities and severities in debate ensued, which he
supported, as he averred, in the consciousness that the course of the
administration was the only safe one for his country, and in the belief
that it would be justified by events, and receive the sanction of future
times. His course had been, however, opposite to that of the other
Federal members in both houses of Congress. On a subject so momentous to
the commercial states, his colleague, Mr. Pickering, thought proper to
justify to the people of Massachusetts the course and motives of the
Federal party, and on the 16th of February, 1808, addressed a letter to
James Sullivan, Governor of that commonwealth, stating what papers "had
been submitted to Congress by the President in justification of the
embargo," and endeavored to show, by facts and reasonings, that the
measure had been passed "without sufficient motive or legitimate object;
that the avowed dangers were imaginary and assumed; and that the real
motives for it were contained in those French dispatches which had been
confidentially submitted to Congress, and withdrawn by Mr. Jefferson, in
which the French emperor had declared that he will have no neutrals;"
that the embargo was "a substitute--a mild compliance with this harsh
demand;" that he (Mr. Pickering) had reason to believe that the
President contemplated its continuance until the French emperor repealed
his decrees. He concluded by asserting that an embargo was not necessary
to the safety of our seamen, our vessels, or our merchandise, and was
calculated to mislead the public mind to the public ruin.
This letter, though intended for the Legislature of Massachusetts, was
not communicated to it, the political path of Governor Sullivan not
being coïncident with that of Colonel Pickering. But it was soon
published by a friend of the writer. In a letter to Harrison G. Otis, on
the 31st of March, 1808, Mr. Adams published a reply, stating that Mr.
Pickering, in enumerating the _pretences_ (for he thinks there were no
causes) for the embargo, totally omitted the British orders in council,
which, although not made the subject of special communication by the
President, had been published in the _National Intelligencer_ antecedent
to the embargo, the sweeping tendency of whose effects formed, to his
understanding, a powerful motive, and together with the papers a
decisive one, for assenting to the embargo; a measure which he regarded
as "the only shelter from the tempest, the last refuge of our violated
peace." He adds: "The most serious effect of Mr. Pickering's letter is
its tendency to reconcile the commercial states to the servitude of
British protection, and war with all the rest of Europe." Regarding it
as a proposition to strike the standard of the nation, he proceeded to
investigate the claims of Great Britain in respect of impressment, and
to her denying neutrals the right of any commerce with her enemies and
their colonies, which was not allowed in time of peace. This result of
the rule of 1756, he asserted, was "in itself and its consequences one
of the deadliest poisons in which it was possible for Great Britain to
tinge the weapons of her hostility." The decrees of France and Spain, by
which every neutral vessel which submitted to English search was
declared "_denationalized_," and became English property, though cruel
in execution, and too foolish and absurd to be refuted, were but the
reasoning of British jurists, and the simple application to the
circumstances and powers of France of the rule of the war of 1756. Mr.
Adams then proceeded to state and reason upon other aggressions of Great
Britain on our commerce, and asserted that "between unqualified
submission and offensive resistance against the war declared against
American commerce by the concurring decrees of all the belligerent
powers, the embargo had been adopted; and having the double tendency of
promoting peace and preparing for war, in its operation is the great
advantage which more than outweighs all its evils."
A course thus independent, and in harmony with the policy of the
administration, caused Mr. Adams to become obnoxious to suspicions
inevitably incident to every man who, in critical periods, amid party
struggles, changes his political relations. Of the dissatisfaction of
the Legislature of Massachusetts Mr. Adams received an immediate proof.
His senatorial term would expire on the 3d of March, 1809. To indicate
their disapprobation of his course, they anticipated the time of
electing a senator of the United States, which, according to usage,
would have been in the legislative session of that year. James Lloyd
was chosen senator from Massachusetts by a vote of two hundred and
forty-eight over two hundred and thirteen for Mr. Adams, in the House
of Representatives, and of twenty-one over seventeen, in the Senate.
On the same day anti-embargo resolutions were passed in both branches
by like majorities.
The next day Mr. Adams addressed a letter to that Legislature, in which
he stated that it had been his endeavor, deeming it his duty, to support
the administration of the general government in all necessary measures
to preserve the persons and property of our citizens from depredation,
and to vindicate the rights essential to the independence of our
country; that certain resolutions having passed the Legislature,
expressing disapprobation of measures to which, under these motives,
he had given assent, and which he considered as enjoining upon the
representatives of the state in Congress a _sort_ of opposition to the
national administration in which, consistently with his principles, he
could not concur, he, therefore, to give the Legislature an opportunity
to place in the Senate of the United States a member whose views might
be more coincident with those they entertained, resigned his seat in
that body. James Lloyd was immediately chosen by the Legislature to
take the seat thus vacated.
In the midst of these political agitations Mr. Adams was constantly
employed in writing and delivering lectures, as Professor of Rhetoric,
and in pursuing his studies of the Greek language and the science of
astronomy. During the ensuing summer, the neglect or withdrawal of some
former friends, and the open asperities of others, were often trying to
his feelings. Rumors were circulated of promises made or of expectations
held out to him by the administration; and, although he unequivocally
denied their truth, belief in them was in accordance with the party
passions of the moment, and was diligently inculcated on the popular
mind by pamphlets and newspapers. Also in the summer and winter of 1808
he had to support an oppressive weight of obloquy, from which he had no
relief, as he asserted, but an unshaken confidence that his course had
been coïncident with the true interests of his country, and would
finally be approved by it.
In the winter of 1809 he attended the Supreme Court of the United States
at Washington, and while there first received from Mr. Madison, two days
after his inauguration as President of the United States, an intimation
of his intention to offer him the appointment of minister plenipotentiary
to St. Petersburg. When this nomination and the concurrence of the Senate
became public, it was seized and commented upon as unquestionable
evidence of the motives which had occasioned the change in his political
course, and was made the subject of severe animadversions in all the
forms in which indignant partisans are accustomed to express censure and
reproach. This appointment his political adversaries announced as at once
a proof and the reward of his apostasy. Such insinuations were felt by
Mr. Adams as an insupportable wrong. For seven years he had previously
represented his country at foreign courts, in stations to which he had
been first appointed by Washington himself; who had declared that he must
not think of retiring from the diplomatic line, and pronounced him the
ablest, and destined ultimately to become the head, of the diplomatic
corps.[2] Under these circumstances he felt that even party spirit itself
might have spared towards him this reproach, and have recognized higher
motives than seeking and receiving reward for party services. Actuated by
this sense of wrong, while preparing for his departure on the mission to
Russia, he issued from the press a series of strictures, at once severe
and vindictive, on the policy of the Federal leaders, in the form of a
review of the writings of Fisher Ames; which were regarded by the public,
and probably intended by himself, as an evidence of irreconcilable
abandonment of the party to which he had formerly belonged, and a
permanent adhesion to that of the national administration.
[2] See pages 18 and 19.