SECOND TERM OF MONROE'S PRESIDENCY.--STATE OF PARTIES.--REPORT ON
WEIGHTS AND MEASURES.--PROCEEDINGS AT GHENT VINDICATED.--VOTES WHEN HE
WAS A MEMBER OF THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES DEFENDED.--INDEPENDENCE
OF GREECE.--CONTESTS OF PARTIES.--ELECTED PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED
STATES.
During the second term of Mr. Monroe's Presidency, Mr. Adams continued
to take his full proportion of responsibility in the measures of the
administration. Questions concerning the Bank of the United States, the
currency, the extinction or extension of slavery, the bankrupt law, the
tariff, and internal improvements, brought into discussion the interests
of the great States of Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New York, combined
with the never-ceasing struggles for power of parties and individuals.
Candidates for the office of President and Vice-President were brought
into the field by their respective adherents. Every topic which could
exalt or depress either was put in requisition, and office-holders and
office-seekers became anxious and alert.
In July, 1821, at the request of the citizens of Washington, Mr. Adams
delivered an address on the anniversary of American Independence. It did
not receive the indulgence usually extended to such efforts, but was
made the occasion of severe animadversions on his character and talents.
In December his friends called his attention to calumnies and aspersions
copied into the _City Gazette_, from papers issued in Georgia and
Tennessee, and expressed their opinions that they ought to be answered
by him, as they knew they could be most triumphantly. Mr. Adams replied:
"Should I comply with your request, it will be immediately said, I was
canvassing for the Presidency. I never, that I can recollect, but once,
undertook to answer anything that was published against me, and that was
when I was in private life. To answer newspaper accusations would be an
endless task. The tongue of falsehood can never be silenced. I have not
time to spare from public business to the vindication of myself."
To place Philip P. Barbour, of Virginia, in the Speaker's chair, and to
prevent the reelection of John W. Taylor, of New York, the tried friend
of the administration, became the next object of all those who hoped to
rise by opposing it. The partisans of Barbour were successful, and the
consequences of his elevation were immediately apparent. As the
Committee of Foreign Relations was, by a practical rule, the medium of
communication between Congress and the executive government, it was
customary for the Speaker to constitute it chiefly of members who
coïncided in their views. But many of those now appointed by Barbour,
especially the chairman, were hostile to their politics. To this
committee all the delicate and critical papers relative to the foreign
relations of the United States were to be confidentially communicated.
No arrangement could have been more annoying to Mr. Monroe and his
cabinet, or more symptomatic of a settled opposition.
By a vote passed in March, 1817, the Senate had required of Mr. Adams a
report on weights and measures; and in December, 1819, the House of
Representatives had by a resolution made the same requisition. To this
subject he had directed his attention when in Russia; and had devoted
the leisure his duties as Secretary of State permitted, without
approximating to its completion, owing to the number and perplexity of
details its pursuit involved.
In the summer of 1820 he relinquished a visit to his father and friends
in Massachusetts, and concentrated his attention, during six months,
exclusively on this report, which he finished and made to Congress, in
February, 1821. At the conclusion of his work he thus expresses himself:
"This subject has occupied, for the last sixty years, many of the ablest
men in Europe, and to it all the powers, and all the philosophical and
mathematical learning and ingenuity, of France and Great Britain, have
been incessantly directed. It was a fearful and oppressive task. It has
been executed, and it will be for the public judgment to pass upon it."
From the abstruse character of this work, the labor, research, and
talent, it evidences have never been generally and justly appreciated.
It commences with the wants of individuals antecedent to the existence
of communities, and deduces from man's physical organization, and from
the exigences of domestic society, the origin of _measures of surface,
distance, and capacity_; and that of _weight_, from the difference
between the specific gravity of substances and its importance in the
exchange of traffic consequent on the multiplication of human wants,
with the increase of the social relations. He then proceeds to state
and analyze the powers and duties of legislators on the subject, with
their respective limitations. The results of his researches relative to
the weights and measures of the Egyptians, Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans,
are successively stated. From the institutions of the nations of
antiquity he derives those of modern Europe and of the United States.
He praises the "stupendous and untiring perseverance of England and
France" in this field, and explains the causes which have not rendered
their success adequate to their endeavors. The system of modern France
on this subject he investigates and applauds, as "one of those attempts
to improve the condition of human kind, which, although it may
ultimately fail, deserves admiration, as approaching more nearly than
any other to the ideal perfection of uniformity in weights and
measures." After stating the difficulties which prevented other nations
from seconding the endeavors of France, Mr. Adams concludes this
elaborate treatise with the opinion that universal uniformity on the
subject can only be effected by a general convention, to which all the
nations of the world should be parties. Until such a general course of
measures be adopted, he regards it as inexpedient for the United States
to make any change in their present system. After an elaborate
enumeration of the regulations of the several states of the Union,
accompanied by voluminous documents, he concludes with proposing,
"first, to fix the standard with the partial uniformity of which it is
susceptible for the present, excluding all innovation. Second, to
consult with foreign nations for the future and ultimate establishment
of _permanent_ and _universal_ uniformity."
The Senate ordered six hundred copies of this report to be printed. But
its final suggestions were not made the subject of action in either
branch. A writer of the day said, with equal truth and severity, "It was
not noticed in Congress, where ability was wanting, or labor refused,
to understand it." As Mr. Adams was one of the candidates in the
approaching presidential election, party spirit was inclined to treat
with silence and neglect labors which it realized could not fail to
command admiration and approval. In England the merits of this report
were more justly appreciated. In 1834, Col. Pasley, royal engineer, in a
learned work on measures and money, acknowledged the benefits he had
derived from "an official report upon weights and measures, published
in 1821, by a distinguished American statesman, John Quincy Adams. This
author," he adds, "has thrown more light into the history of our old
English weights and measures _than all former writers on the subject_;
and his views of historical facts, even when occasionally in opposition
to the reports of our own parliamentary committees, appear to me most
correct. For my own part, I do not think I could have seen my way into
the history of English weights and measures in the feudal ages without
his guidance."
In the summer of 1821 Mr. Adams was apprized that rumors, very
unfavorable to his reputation, even for integrity, had been
industriously circulated in the Western country. It had been stated
that he had made a proposition at Ghent to grant to the British the
right to navigate the Mississippi, in return for the Newfoundland
fisheries, and that it was in that section represented as a high
misdemeanor. Mr. Adams said, that a proposition to confirm both those
rights as they had stood before the war, and as stipulated by the
treaty of 1783, had been offered to the British commissioners, not by
him, but by the whole American mission, every one of whom had
subscribed to it. The proposition was not made by him, but by Mr.
Gallatin, who knew it would be nothing to the British but a mere naked
right, of which they could not make any use. It was accordingly
promptly rejected by the British commissioners, and made the ground of
a counter proposition of renouncing the right they had, under the
treaty of 1783, of navigating that river, on condition of our
renouncing the old article on the fisheries. Mr. Adams at once declared
that, if it was acceded to, he would never sign the treaty; and it was
promptly rejected by the American commissioners. When he was again told
that he would be accused in the Western States of the proposition to
confirm the British rights as they stood before the war, he replied,
that he had no doubt it would be so; for Mr. Clay had already, in one
of his speeches in Congress, represented that this proposition had been
made by a _majority_ of the Ghent commissioners, he being in the
minority, without acknowledging _that he had himself signed the note by
which the offer was made_, and without disclosing how lightly the
concession was estimated by the British commissioners, and how promptly
they rejected it.
Accordingly, on the 18th of April, 1822, John Floyd, of Virginia, who,
both in that state and in Congress, was active in seeking and scattering
malign imputations concerning the political course of Mr. Adams, called,
in the House of Representatives, for a letter, written by Jonathan
Russell, in 1814, to Mr. Monroe, then Secretary of State, and, as he
stated, deposited in that office.
This call of Floyd was the springing of the mine for a long-meditated
explosion. On searching the records of state, no such letter could be
found. Mr. Russell immediately volunteered a copy, and deposited it in
that office. This letter was addressed to James Monroe, then Secretary
of State, and was dated Paris, 11th of February, 1815. It was a letter
of seven folio sheets of paper, and amounted, said Mr. Adams, to little
less than a denunciation of a majority of the Ghent commissioners for
proposing the article recognizing the fishery, and the British right to
navigate the Mississippi,--a proposition in which Mr. Russell had
concurred. He wrote this letter at Paris, where all the commissioners
then were, without ever communicating it to Mr. Adams, or letting him
know he had any intention of writing such a letter. It was a most
elaborate, disingenuous, and sophistical argument against principles in
which Mr. Russell himself concurred, and against the joint letters of
the 14th December, 1814, to which he signed his name. His motives, Mr.
Adams considered, for writing then to a Virginian Secretary of State,
under a Virginian President, were, apparently, at once to recommend
himself to their sectional prejudices about the Mississippi, and to
injure him in their esteem and favor, for future effect; and that his
motive for now abetting Floyd, in his call for these papers as a public
document, was to diminish the popularity of Mr. Adams in the Western
States.
With these views of the purposes of Floyd and Russell, Mr. Adams
immediately endeavored to obtain the original letter, of which Mr.
Russell had now deposited in the Secretary of State's office a paper
purporting to be a copy. The original he ascertained was still in the
possession of Mr. Monroe, who had received it soon after its date; but,
as it was marked "private" by Mr. Russell, he considered it
confidential, and did not place it in the office of the Secretary of
State. On ascertaining these facts, Mr. Adams claimed the original
letter from Mr. Monroe, believing, from internal evidence, that the
duplicate, instead of being a true copy of the original, had been in
some respects adapted to present effect. Mr. Monroe declined to listen
to the repeated remonstrances of Mr. Adams, and continued to maintain
that he could not, with honor, make the original letter public. He did
not consent until he was called upon for it by a vote of the House of
Representatives, proposed by the friends of Mr. Adams, and resisted by
Floyd and his party. The original letter being thus obtained, Mr. Adams
prepared and published a severe and scrutinizing examination of its
facts and suggestions, of the motives which prompted those who had
brought it before the public, and of the discrepancies between the
original and the alleged copy which Mr. Russell had volunteered to place
in the office of the Secretary of State. Mr. Russell replied through the
newspapers; on which reply Mr. Adams bestowed a searching and caustic
analysis, commenting with great severity on his language and conduct.
The whole of this controversy was published immediately in an octavo
pamphlet, including important documents relative to the subject and to
the transactions of the commissioners at Ghent, by means of which Mr.
Adams vindicates himself and his colleagues from the charges brought
against them. This elaborate and powerful defence, on which the strength
and character of his mind are deeply impressed, was regarded as
triumphant.[1]
[1] This publication is contained in _Niles' Weekly Register_,
vol. XXII., pp. 198, 209, 220, 296, 327, and continued in vol.
XXIII., pp. 6 and 9.
Mr. Gallatin also published a pamphlet, generally corroborative of the
statements of Mr. Adams; an example which Mr. Clay, another of the Ghent
commissioners, being at that time a prominent competitor with Mr. Adams
for the Presidency, did not see fit to follow. But, as total silence on
his part might be construed to his disadvantage, he published in the
newspapers a letter, dated the 15th of November, 1822, in which he
intimated that there were some errors, both as to matter of fact and
opinion, in the letter of Mr. Adams, as well as in that of Mr. Gallatin;
and declared that he would at some future period, more propitious to
calm and dispassionate consideration, and when there could be no
misrepresentation of motives, lay before the public his own narrative of
these transactions.
Mr. Adams, on the 18th of the ensuing December, in a communication to
the _National Intelligencer_, expressed the pleasure it would have
given him, had Mr. Clay thought it advisable to have specified the
errors he had intimated, to have rectified them by acknowledgment. He
added, that whenever Mr. Clay's accepted time to publish his promised
narrative should come, he would be ready, if living, to acknowledge
indicated errors, and vindicate contested truth. But, lest it might be
postponed until both should be summoned to account for all their errors
before a higher tribunal than that of their country, he felt called
upon to say that what he had written and published concerning this
controversy would, in every particular essential or important to the
interest of the nation, or to the character of Mr. Clay, be found to
abide unshaken the test of human scrutiny, of talents, and of time.
In July, 1822, a plan for an independent newspaper was proposed to Mr.
Adams by some members of Congress, and the necessity of such a paper was
urged upon him with great earnestness. He replied: "An independent
newspaper is very necessary to make truth known to the people; but an
editor really independent must have a heart of oak, nerves of iron, and
a soul of adamant, to carry it through. His first attempt will bring a
hornet's nest about his head; and, if they do not sting him to death or
to blindness, he will have to pursue his march with them continually
swarming over him, and be beset on all sides with obloquy and slander."
In August, 1822, paragraphs from newspapers, laudatory of other
candidates, and depreciatory of Mr. Adams, were shown to him, on which
he remarked, "The thing is not new. From the nature of our institutions,
competitors for public favor and their respective partisans seek success
by slander of each other. I disdain the ignoble warfare, and neither
wage it myself or encourage it in my friends. But, from appearances,
they will decide the election to the Presidency."
In December, 1822, Alexander Smyth, also a representative of one of the
districts of Virginia, followed the example of Mr. Floyd, and, in an
address to his constituents, took occasion to introduce malign
imputations upon the political course of Mr. Adams. To this end, having
ransacked the journals of the Senate of the United States at the time
when Mr. Adams was a member, he undertook to attribute to him base
motives for the votes he had given, particularly such as would be likely
most to affect his popularity in Virginia. Mr. Adams immediately caused
to be printed and published an address to the freeholders of Smyth's
district; the nature and spirit of which reply will be shown by the
following extracts:
"Friends and Fellow-Citizens: By these titles I presume to address
you, though personally known to few of you, because my character has
been arraigned before you by your representative in Congress, in a
printed handbill, soliciting your suffrages for reëlection, who
seems to have considered his first claim to the continuance of your
favor to consist in the bitterness with which he could censure me. I
shall never solicit your suffrages, nor those of your
representatives, for anything. But I value your good opinion, and
wish to show you that I do not deserve to lose it."--"I come to
repel the charges of General Smyth, but neither for the purpose of
moving you to withhold your suffrages from him, nor induce the
General himself to reconsider his opinion concerning me."--"As to
his opinions, you will permit me to be indifferent to the opinions
of a man capable of forming his judgment of character from such
premises as he has alleged in support of his estimate of
mine."--"His mode of proof is this: He has ransacked the journals of
the Senate during the five years I had the honor of a seat in that
body,--a period the expiration of which is nearly fifteen years
distant,--and wherever he has found in the list of yeas and nays my
name recorded to a vote which he disapproves, he has imputed it,
without knowing any of the grounds on which it was given, to the
worst of motives, for the purpose of ascribing them to me. Is this
fair? Is this candid? Is this just? Where is the man who ever served
in a legislative capacity in your councils whose character could
stand a test like this?"
Mr. Adams then proceeds to reply to all the charges brought against him
by Alexander Smyth, analyzing and explaining every vote which he had
made the subject of animadversion fully and successfully. The close of
his defence is as follows:
"Fellow-Citizens: I have explained to you the reasons and real
motives of all the votes which your representative, General
Alexander Smyth, has laid to my charge, in a printed address to you,
and to which unusual publicity has been given in the newspapers. I
am aware that, in presenting myself before you to give this
explanation, my conduct may again be attributed to unworthy motives.
The best actions may be, and have been, and will be, traced to
impure sources, by those to whom troubled waters are a delight. If,
in many cases, when the characters of public men are canvassed,
however severely, it is their duty to suffer and be silent, there
are others, in my belief many others, wherein their duty to their
country, as well as to themselves and their children, is to stand
forth the guardians and protectors of their own honest fame. Had
your representative, in asking again for your votes, contented
himself with declaring to you his intentions concerning me, you
never would have heard from me in answer to him. But when he imputes
to me a character and disposition unworthy of any public man, and
adduces in proof mere naked votes upon questions of great public
interest, all given under the solemn sense of duty, impressed by an
oath to support the constitution, and by the sacred obligations of a
public trust, to defend myself against charges so groundless and
unprovoked is, in my judgment, a duty of respect to you, no less
than a duty of self-vindication to me. I declare to you that not one
of the votes which General Smyth has culled from an arduous service
of five years in the Senate of the Union, to stigmatize them in the
face of the country, was given from any of the passions or motives
to which he ascribes them; that I never gave a vote either in
hostility to the administration of Mr. Jefferson, or in disregard to
republican principles, or in aversion to republican patriots, or in
favor of the slave-trade, or in denial of due protection to
commerce. I will add, that, having often differed in judgment upon
particular measures with many of the best and wisest men of this
Union of all parties, I have never lost sight either of the candor
due to them in the estimate of their motives, or of the diffidence
with which it was my duty to maintain the result of my own opinions
in opposition to theirs."
In 1823, as the Presidential election approached, the influences to
control and secure the interests predominating in the different
sections of the country became more active. Crawford, of Georgia,
Calhoun, of South Carolina, Adams, of Massachusetts, and Clay, of
Kentucky, were the most prominent candidates. In December, Barbour, of
Virginia, was superseded, as Speaker of the House of Representatives,
by Clay, of Kentucky; an event ominous to the hopes of Crawford, and to
that resistance to the tariff, and to internal improvements, which was
regarded as dependent on his success. The question whether a
Congressional caucus, by the instrumentality of which Jefferson,
Madison, and Monroe, had obtained the Presidency, should be again held
to nominate a candidate for that office, was the next cause of
political excitement. The Southern party, whose hopes rested on the
success of Crawford, were clamorous for a caucus. The friends of the
other candidates were either lukewarm or hostile to that expedient.
Pennsylvania, whose general policy favored a protective tariff and
public improvements, hesitated. In 1816 she had manifested an
opposition to that plan of Congressional influence, and in 1823 a
majority of her representatives declined attending any partial meeting
of members of Congress that might attempt a nomination. But the
Democracy of that state, ever subservient to the views of the Southern
aristocracy, held meetings at Philadelphia, and elsewhere, recommending
a Congressional caucus. This motion would have been probably adopted,
had not the Legislature of Alabama, about this time, nominated Andrew
Jackson for the Presidency, and accompanied their resolutions in his
favor with a recommendation to their representatives to use their best
exertions to prevent a Congressional nomination of a President. The
popularity of Jackson, and the obvious importance to his success of the
policy recommended by Alabama, fixed the wavering counsels of
Pennsylvania, so that only three representatives from that state
attended the Congressional caucus, which was soon after called, and
which consisted of _only sixty members_, out of _two hundred and
sixty-one_, the whole number of the House of Representatives; of which
Virginia and New York, under the lead of Mr. Van Buren, constituted
nearly one half. Notwithstanding this meagre assemblage, Mr. Crawford
was nominated for the Presidency, under a confident expectation that
the influence of the caucus would be conclusive with the people, and
the candidate and policy of Virginia would be confirmed in ascendency.
But the days of Congressional caucuses were now numbered. The people
took the nomination of President into their own hands, and the insolent
assumption of members of Congress to dictate their choice in respect of
this office was henceforth rebuked.
While these intrigues were progressing, Mr. Adams was zealously and
laboriously fulfilling his duties as Secretary of State, neither
endeavoring himself, nor exciting his friends, to counteract these
political movements, one of the chief objects of which was to defeat his
chance for the Presidency.
The course of Mr. Adams relative to the application of the Greeks, then
struggling for independence, for the aid and countenance of the United
States, next brought him into opposition to the prevailing tendency of
the popular feeling of the time. A letter was addressed to him, as
Secretary of State, by Andrew Luriottis, envoy of the provisional
government of the Greeks, at London, entreating that political and
commercial relations might be established between the United States and
Greece, and proposing to enter upon discussions which might lead to
advantageous treaties between the two countries. Mr. Rush, the American
minister in London, enclosed this letter to Mr. Adams, and recommended
the subject to the favorable attention of our government. Mr. Adams,
after expressing the sympathy of the American administration in the
cause of Greek freedom and independence, and their best wishes for its
success, proceeded to state that their duties precluded their taking
part in the war, peace with all the world being the settled policy of
the United States; but that if, in the progress of events, the Greeks
should establish and organize an independent government, the United
States would welcome them, and form with them such diplomatic and
commercial relations as were suitable to their respective relations. Mr.
Adams also wrote a letter to Mr. Rush, requesting him to explain to Mr.
Luriottis that the executive of the United States sympathized with the
Greek cause, and would render the Greeks any service consistent with
neutrality; but that assistance given by the application of the public
force or revenue would involve them in a war with the Sublime Porte, or
perhaps with the Barbary powers; that such aid could not be given
without an act of Congress, and that the policy of the United States was
essentially pacific.
The popular feeling in favor of granting aid to the Greeks soon began to
be general and intense. Balls were held and benefits given to raise
funds for their relief, and sermons and orations delivered in their
behalf, in many parts of the United States. "On this subject," Mr. Adams
remarked, "there are two sources of eloquence: the one, with reference
to sentiment and enthusiasm; the other, to action. For the Greeks all is
enthusiasm. As for action, there is seldom an agreement, and after
discussion the subject is apt to be left precisely where it was. Nothing
definite, nothing practical, is proposed." The United States were at
peace with the Sublime Porte, and he did not think slightly of a war
with Turkey. He had not much esteem for that enthusiasm for the Greeks
which evaporated in words.
In the ensuing session, on the 9th of January, 1824, Mr. Webster, in the
Senate of the United States, proposed a resolve "that provision ought to
be made by law for defraying the expense incident to the appointment of
an agent or commissioner to Greece, whenever the President shall deem it
expedient to make such appointment;" supporting it by a speech adapted
to catch the popular tide, then at the full, and, in fact, doing nothing
with the appearance of doing something. A member of Congress consulted
Mr. Adams on an amendment he proposed to make to the project of Mr.
Webster, as specified in his resolve, it being then under consideration
in the House of Representatives. Mr. Adams replied, it was immaterial
what form the resolution might assume; the objection to it would be the
same in every form. It was, in his opinion, the intermeddling of the
legislature with the duties of the executive; it was the adoption of
Clay's South American system; seizing upon the popular feeling of the
moment to embarrass the administration. A few days afterwards, Mr. Adams
took occasion to state his reasons to Mr. Webster for being averse to
his resolution.
Notwithstanding the Virginia doctrine, that the constitution does not
authorize the application of public moneys to internal improvement, was
one of the hinges on which the selection of candidates in the Southern
States turned, Mr. Adams did not refrain from openly expressing his own
opinion. In a letter to a gentleman in Maryland, dated January, 1824, he
stated that "Congress does possess the power of appropriating money for
public improvements. Roads and canals are among the most essential means
of improving the condition of nations; and a people which should
deliberately, by the organization of its authorized power, deprive
itself of the faculty of multiplying its own blessings, would be as wise
as a Creator who should undertake to constitute a human being without a
heart."[2]
[2] _Niles' Register_, vol. XXVI., pp. 251-328.
While the election of President was pending, and the event uncertain, a
member of Congress from Ohio told Mr. Adams there were sanguine hopes of
his success; on which he remarked: "We know so little of that in
futurity which is best for ourselves, that whether I ought to wish for
success is among the greatest uncertainties of the election. Were it
possible to look with philosophical indifference to the event, that is
the temper of mind to which I should aspire. But who can hold a
firebrand in his hand by thinking of the frosty Caucasus? To suffer
without feeling is not in human nature; and when I consider that to me
alone, of all the candidates before the nation, failure of success would
be equivalent to a vote of censure by the nation upon my past services,
I cannot dissemble to myself that I have more at stake in the result
than any other individual. Yet a man qualified for the duties of chief
magistrate of ten millions of people should be a man proof alike to
prosperous and adverse fortune. If I am able to bear success, I must be
tempered to endure defeat. He who is equal to the task of serving a
nation as her chief ruler must possess resources of a power to serve
her, even against her own will. This I would impress indelibly on my own
mind; and for a practical realization of which, in its proper result, I
look for wisdom and strength from above."
At the close of the year 1824, Mr. Adams responded to a like intimation:
"You will be disappointed. To me both alternatives are distressing in
prospect. The most formidable is that of success. All the danger is on
the pinnacle. The humiliation of failure will be so much more than
compensated by the safety in which it will leave me, that I ought to
regard it as a consummation devoutly to be wished."
At this period an apprehension being expressed to him that if he was
elected Federalists would be excluded from office, he said, he should
exclude no person for political opinion, or on account of personal
opposition to him; but that his great object would be to break up the
remnant of all party distinctions, and to bring the whole people
together, in point of sentiment, as much as possible; and that he should
turn no one out of office on account of his conduct or opinions in the
approaching election.
The result of this electioneering conflict was, that, by the returns of
the electoral colleges of the several states, it appeared that none of
the candidates had the requisite constitutional majority; the whole
number of votes being two hundred and sixty-one--of which Andrew Jackson
had ninety-nine, John Quincy Adams eighty-four, William H. Crawford
forty-one, and Henry Clay thirty-seven. For the office of Vice-President,
John C. Calhoun had one hundred and eighty votes, and was elected.
This result had not been generally anticipated by the friends of Mr.
Adams. His political course had been, for sixteen years, identified
with the policy of the leading statesmen of the Southern States, and
had been acceptable to that section of the Union. It had therefore been
hoped that, with regard to him, the general and inherent antipathy to a
Northern President, which there existed, would have been weakened, if
not subdued. His diplomatic talents had been successfully exercised in
carrying into effect Mr. Madison's views during the whole of that
statesman's administration. He had been the pillar on which Mr. Monroe
had, during both terms of his Presidency, leaned for support, if not
for direction. It was, therefore, not without reason anticipated that
at least a partial support would have been given to him in the region
where the influences of Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, were
predominant. But, of the _eighty-four_ votes cast for Mr. Adams, not
one was given by either of the three great Southern slaveholding
states. _Seventy-seven_ were given to him by New England and New York.
The other _seven_ were cast by the Middle or recently admitted states.
The selection of President from the candidates now devolved on the
House of Representatives, under the provisions of the constitution.
But, again, Mr. Adams had the support of none of those slaveholding
states, with the exception of Kentucky, and her delegates were equally
divided between him and General Jackson. The decisive vote was, in
effect, in the hands of Mr. Clay, then Speaker of the House, who cast
it for Mr. Adams;[3] a responsibility he did not hesitate to assume,
notwithstanding the equal division of the Kentucky delegation, and in
defiance of a resolution passed by the Legislature of that state,
declaring their preference for General Jackson.[4] On the final vote
Andrew Jackson had _seven_ votes, William H. Crawford _four_, and John
Quincy Adams _thirteen_; who was, therefore, forthwith declared
President of the United States for four years ensuing the 4th of March,
1825.
[3] _Niles' Register_, vol. XXVII., p. 387.
[4] Ibid., vol. XXVII., p. 321.
In the answer of Mr. Adams to the official notice of his election by the
House of Representatives, after paying tribute to the talents and public
services of his competitors, he declared that if, by refusal to accept
the trust thus delegated to him, he could give immediate opportunity to
the people to express, with a nearer approach to unanimity, the object
of their preference, he would not hesitate to decline the momentous
charge. But the constitution having, in case of such refusal, otherwise
disposed of the resulting contingency, he declared his acceptance of the
trust assigned to him by his country through her constitutional organs,
confiding in the wisdom of the legislative councils for his guide, and
relying above all on the direction of a superintending Providence.