PURSUITS OF MR. ADAMS IN RETIREMENT.--ELECTED TO CONGRESS.--PARTIES
AND THEIR PROCEEDINGS.--HIS COURSE IN RESPECT OF THEM.--HIS OWN
ADMINISTRATION AND THAT OF HIS SUCCESSOR COMPARED.--REPORT ON
MANUFACTURES AND THE BANK OF THE UNITED STATES.--REFUSAL TO VOTE, AND
CONSEQUENT PROCEEDINGS.--SPEECH AND REPORT ON THE MODIFICATION OF THE
TARIFF AND SOUTH CAROLINA NULLIFICATION.
On the 4th of March, 1829, Andrew Jackson was inaugurated President of
the United States, and Mr. Adams retired, as he then thought forever,
from public life. His active, energetic spirit required neither
indulgence nor rest, and he immediately directed his attention to those
philosophical, literary, and religious researches, in which he took
unceasing delight. The works of Cicero became the object of study,
analysis, and criticism. Commentaries on that master-mind of antiquity
were among his daily labors. The translation of the Psalms of David into
English verse was a frequent exercise; and his study of the Scriptures
was accompanied by critical remarks, pursued in the spirit of free
inquiry, chastened by a solemn reference to their origin, and influence
on the conduct and hopes of human life. His favorite science, astronomy,
led to the frequent observation of the planets and stars; and his
attention was also turned to agriculture and horticulture. He collected
and planted the seeds of forest trees, and kept a record of their
development, and, in the summer season, labored two or three hours daily
in his garden. With these pursuits were combined sketches preparatory to
a full biography of his father, which he then contemplated as one of his
chief future employments.
From the subjects to which the labors of his life had been principally
devoted his thoughts could not be wholly withdrawn. As early as the 27th
of April, 1829, a citizen of Washington spoke to him with great severity
on the condition of public affairs, and of the scandals in circulation
concerning them; stating that removals from office were continuing with
great perseverance; that the custom-houses in Boston, New York,
Philadelphia, Portsmouth in New Hampshire, and New Orleans, had been
swept clear; that violent partisans of Jackson were exclusively
appointed, and that every editor of a scurrilous newspaper had been
provided for.
Again, in June of the same year Mr. Adams wrote: "Mr. Van Buren is now
Secretary of State. He is the manager by whom the present administration
has been brought into power. He has played over again the game of Aaron
Burr in 1800, with the addition of political inconsistency, in
transferring his allegiance from Crawford to Jackson. He sold the State
of New York to them both. The first bargain failed by the result of the
choice of electors in the Legislature. The second was barely
accomplished by the system of party management established in that
state; and Van Buren is now enjoying his reward."
On the abolition of slavery, Mr. Adams observed: "It is the only part of
European democracy which will find no favor in the United States. It may
aggravate the condition of slaves in the South, but the result of the
Missouri question, and the attitude of parties, have silenced most of
the declaimers on that subject. This state of things is not to continue
forever. It is possible that the danger of the abolition doctrines, when
brought home to Southern statesmen, may teach them the value of the
Union, as the only thing which can maintain their system of slavery."
On the course and feelings of Mr. Jefferson on this subject, Mr. Adams
thus expressed himself: "His love of liberty was sincere and ardent, but
confined to himself, like that of most of his fellow-slaveholders. He
was above that execrable sophistry of the South Carolina nullifiers,
which would make of slavery the corner-stone of the temple of liberty.
He saw the gross inconsistency between the principles of the Declaration
of Independence and the fact of negro slavery; and he could not, or
would not, prostitute the faculties of his mind to the vindication of
that slavery, which, from his soul, he abhorred. But Jefferson had not
the spirit of martyrdom. He would have introduced a flaming denunciation
of slavery into the Declaration of Independence, but the discretion of
his colleagues struck it out. He did insert a most eloquent and
impassioned argument against it in his Notes on Virginia; but, on that
very account, the book was published almost against his will. He
projected a plan of a general emancipation, in his revision of the
Virginia laws, but finally presented a plan leaving slavery precisely
where it was; and, in his Memoir, he leaves a posthumous warning to the
planters that they must, at no distant day, emancipate their slaves, or
that worse will follow; but he withheld the publication of his prophecy
till he should himself be in the grave."
Mr. Adams was not long permitted to remain in retirement. In October,
1830, he was nominated, in the newspapers, to represent in Congress the
district of Massachusetts in which he resided. When asked if he would
consent to be a candidate, he replied, in the spirit which had governed
his whole life, never to seek and never to decline public service: "It
must first be seen whether the people of the district will invite me to
represent them. I shall not ask their votes. I wish them to act their
pleasure." In the ensuing November he was elected Representative of the
twelfth Congressional district of Massachusetts.
On the 3d of January, 1831, Mr. Adams thus remarked on the resolutions
of the Legislature of Georgia setting at defiance the Supreme Court of
the United States: "They are published and approved in the _Telegraph_,
the administration newspaper at Washington. By extending the laws of
Georgia over the country and people of the Cherokees, the constitution,
laws, and treaties, of the United States, were _quoad hoc_ set aside.
They were chaff before the wind. In pursuance of these laws of Georgia,
a Cherokee Indian is prosecuted for the murder of another Indian,
before a state court of Georgia, tried by a jury of white men, and
sentenced to death. He applies to a chief justice of the Court of the
United States, who issues an injunction to the Governor and executive
officers of Georgia, upon the appeal to the laws and treaties of the
United States. The Governor of Georgia refuses obedience to the
injunction, and the Legislature pass resolutions that they will not
appear to answer before the Supreme Court of the United States. The
constitution, the laws, and treaties, of the United States, are
prostrate in the State of Georgia. Is there any remedy for this state
of things? None; because the State of Georgia is in league with the
Executive of the United States, who will not take care that the laws
be faithfully executed. A majority of both houses of Congress sustain
this neglect and violation of duty. There is no harmony in the
government of the Union. The arm refuses its office. 'The whole head is
sick, and the whole heart faint.' This example of the State of Georgia
will be imitated by other states, and with regard to other national
interests,--perhaps the tariff, more probably the public lands. As the
Executive and Legislature now fail to sustain the Judiciary, it is not
improbable cases may arise in which the Judiciary may fail to sustain
them. The Union is in the most imminent danger of dissolution from the
old, inherent vice of confederacies, anarchy in the members. To this
end one third of the people is perverted, one third slumbers, and the
rest wring their hands, with unavailing lamentations, in the foresight
of evils they cannot avert."
On the 4th of July, 1831, Mr. Adams delivered an oration before the
inhabitants of the town of Quincy, in which he controverted the
doctrine of Blackstone, the great commentator upon the laws of England,
who maintained "that there is, and must be, in all forms of government,
however they began, and by what right soever they subsist, a supreme,
irresistible, absolute, uncontrolled authority, in which the _jura
summi imperii_, or _the rights of sovereignty_, reside." "It is not
true," Mr. Adams remarks, "that there _must_ reside in all governments
an absolute, uncontrolled, irresistible, and despotic power; nor is
such a power absolutely essential to sovereignty. The direct converse
of the proposition is true. Uncontrollable power exists in no
government upon earth. The sternest despotisms, in every region and
every age of the world, _are and have been_ under perpetual control;
compelled, as Burke expresses it, to truckle and huckster. Unlimited
power belongs not to the nature of man, and rotten will be the
foundation of every government leaning upon such a maxim for its
support. Least of all can it be predicated of any government professing
to be founded upon an original compact. The pretence of an absolute,
irresistible, despotic power, existing in every government _somewhere_,
is incompatible with the first principle of natural right."
This proposition Mr. Adams proceeds fully to illustrate, and thus to
apply: "This political sophism of identity between _sovereign_ and
_despotic_ power has led, and continues to lead, into many vagaries,
some of the statists of this our happy but disputatious Union. It
seizes upon the brain of a heated politician, sometimes in one state,
sometimes in another, and its natural offspring is the doctrine of
nullification; that is, the _sovereign_ power of any one state of the
confederacy to nullify any act of the whole twenty-four states which
the _sovereign_ state shall please to consider as unconstitutional.
Stripped of the sophistical argumentation in which this doctrine has
been habited, its naked nature is an effort to organize insurrection
against the laws of the United States; to interpose the arm of state
sovereignty between rebellion and the halter, and to rescue the traitor
from the gibbet. Although conducted under the auspices of state
sovereignty, it would not the less be levying war against the Union;
but, as a state cannot be punished for treason, nullification cases
herself in the complete steel of sovereign power." "The citizen of the
nullifying state becomes a traitor to his country by obedience to the
law of his state,--a traitor to his state by obedience to the law of
his country. The scaffold and the battle-field stream alternately with
the blood of their victims. The event of a conflict in arms between the
Union and one of its members, whether terminating in victory or defeat,
would be but an alternative of calamity to all."
Mr. Adams took his seat in the House of Representatives in December,
1831, and immediately announced to his constituents that he should hold
himself bound in allegiance to no party, whether sectional or political.
Ten years afterwards he had occasion to explain to his fellow-citizens
his policy and feelings at this period. "I thought this independence of
party was a duty imposed upon me by my peculiar position. I had spent
the greatest part of my life in the service of the whole nation, and had
been honored by their highest trust; my duty of fidelity, of affection,
and of gratitude, to the whole, was not merely inseparable from, but
identical with, that which was due from me to my own commonwealth. The
internal conflict between slavery and freedom had been, and still was,
scarcely perceptible in the national councils. The Missouri compromise
had laid it asleep, it was hoped, forever. The development of the moral
principle which pronounced slavery _a crime_ of man against his
brother-man had not yet reached the conscience of Christendom. England,
earnestly and zealously occupied in rallying the physical, moral, and
intellectual energies of the civilized world against the African
slave-trade, had scarcely yet discovered that it was but an instrument,
and in truth a mitigation, of the great, irremissible wrong of slavery.
Her final policy, the extinction of slavery throughout the earth, was
not yet disclosed. The Jackson project of dismembering Mexico for the
acquisition of Texas, already organized and in full operation, was yet
profoundly a secret. I entered Congress without one sentiment of
discrimination between the interests of the North and the South; and my
first act, as a member of the House, was, on presenting fifteen
petitions from Pennsylvania for the abolition of slavery within the
District of Columbia, to declare, while moving their reference to the
committee of the District, that I was not prepared to support the
measure myself, and that I should not. I was not then a sectional
partisan, and I never have been."[1]
[1] Address of John Quincy Adams to his Constituents, at
Braintree, September 17, 1842, p. 27.
When Mr. Adams was entering this new field of labor, Mr. Clay asked him
how he felt at turning boy again, and going into the House of
Representatives; and observed that he would find his situation extremely
laborious. Mr. Adams replied: "I well know this; but labor I shall not
refuse so long as my hands, my eyes, and my brain, do not desert me."
To understand the position in which Mr. Adams was placed, on his taking
his seat in the House of Representatives, it is important that some of
the events which had occurred during his absence from public life should
be briefly recapitulated. General Jackson had been two years President
of the United States. The alliance which he had entered into with Mr.
Van Buren for their mutual advancement, to which allusion has been made
in a former chapter, had not resulted immediately as the high
contracting parties probably intended. An obstacle to the advancement of
Mr. Van Buren to the Vice-Presidency presented itself which was
insurmountable. John C. Calhoun, of South Carolina, possessed an
influence in the slave states which it was important to conciliate, and
imprudent to set at defiance. The allies were, consequently, compelled
to accede to his nomination as Vice-President, and Van Buren was forced
to be content with the prospect of being appointed Secretary of State.
The elevation of Calhoun to the Vice-Presidency, there is reason to
believe, could not have been acceptable to Jackson. It appears, by the
documents published by Calhoun in connection with his account of his
controversy with Jackson, that William H. Crawford had, as early as
December, 1827, taken direct measures to render the friendship of
Calhoun suspected by Jackson. On the 14th of that month he wrote a
letter to Alfred Balch, at Nashville, with the express purpose of its
being shown to Jackson, containing the following statement: "My
opinions upon the next presidential election" (against Adams and in
favor of Jackson) "are generally known. When Mr. Van Buren and Mr.
Cambreling made me a visit, last April, I authorized them, upon every
proper occasion, to make these opinions known. The vote of the State of
Georgia will, as certainly as that of Tennessee, be given to General
Jackson, in opposition to Mr. Adams. The only difficulty that this
state has upon that subject is, that, if Jackson should be elected,
Calhoun will come into power. I confess I am not apprehensive of such a
result. For ---- ---- writes to me, Jackson ought to know, and if he
does not he shall know, that, at the Calhoun caucus in Columbia, the
term _military chieftain_ was bandied about even more flippantly than
it had been by Henry Clay, and that the family friends of Mr. Calhoun
were most active in giving it currency; and I know, personally, that
Calhoun favored Mr. Adams' pretensions until Mr. Clay declared for him.
He well knew that Clay would not have declared for Adams without it was
well understood that he, Calhoun, was to be put down if Adams could
effect it. If he was not friendly to his election, why did he suffer
his paper to be purchased up by Adams' printers, without making some
stipulation in favor of Jackson? If you can ascertain that Calhoun will
not be benefited by Jackson's election, you will do him a service by
communicating the information to me. Make what use you please of this
letter, and show it to whom you please."[2]
[2] See, for Crawford's letter and Calhoun's address, _Niles'
Weekly Register_, vol. XL., p. 12.
That these opinions of Crawford concerning Calhoun were communicated to
Van Buren and Cambreling when they visited him, as he states, on their
electioneering tour, in April, 1827, cannot be reasonably questioned:
and that Crawford's letter to Balch was also communicated to Jackson can
as little be doubted. That at this period Calhoun's want of political
sympathy with Jackson was publicly known and talked about at Nashville,
is apparent from Calhoun's address to the people of the United States in
his controversy with Jackson, in which he bitterly complains: "I
remained ignorant and unsuspicious of these secret movements against me
till the spring of 1828, when vague rumors reached me that some attempts
were making at Nashville to injure me."
Why statements made by such a high authority as Crawford, so well
adapted to kindle the inflammatory temperament of Jackson, and at once
so auspicious to the hopes of Van Buren and so ominous to those of
Calhoun, were not immediately made the subject of action, can only be
accounted for by the fact that Calhoun was at that time too strong in
the affections of the South for them then to commence hostilities; for,
in that case he would, as Crawford intimated, have "favored the
pretensions of Adams," and possibly have defeated the plans of the
alliance. Jackson, therefore, yielded, and allowed Calhoun to be run as
a candidate for the Vice-Presidency on the same ticket with himself, and
postponed any attempt to deprive him of his chance of succession until a
more convenient opportunity. To this arrangement Van Buren also was
compelled to submit, and, after Adams was superseded, and Jackson
inaugurated President, he was appointed Secretary of State.[3]
[3] Jackson's cabinet were, Martin Van Buren, Secretary of State;
Samuel D. Ingham, Secretary of the Treasury; John H. Eaton,
Secretary of War; John Branch, Secretary of the Navy; John M'P.
Berrien, Attorney-General; William T. Barry, Postmaster-General.
In April, 1830, when the Legislatures of New York and Pennsylvania took
incipient measures to nominate Jackson for a second term of office, the
favorable moment arrived to bring his artillery to bear upon Calhoun.
At this time two letters of Crawford were brought to the mind of
General Jackson,--the one to Alfred Balch, already referred to; the
other to John Forsyth, dated the 30th of April, 1830,[4]--in which
Crawford expressly stated that "Mr. Calhoun had made a proposition to
the cabinet of Monroe for _punishing_ him for his conduct in the
Seminole war." Jackson, greatly excited, immediately, on the 12th of
May, 1830, addressed a letter to Mr. Calhoun, declaring his great
surprise at the information those letters contained, and inquiring
whether he had moved or sustained any attempt seriously to affect him
in Monroe's cabinet council. Calhoun replied, that he "could not
recognize the right of General Jackson to call in question his conduct
in the discharge of a high official duty, and under responsibility to
his conscience and his country only." The anger of Jackson was not in
the least assuaged by this reply, nor by the explanations which
accompanied it. A correspondence ensued, which, with collateral and
documentary evidence, occupied fifty-two pages of an octavo pamphlet;
resulting in Jackson's declaration of his poignant mortification to see
in Calhoun's letter, instead of a negative, an admission of the truth
of Crawford's allegations. An irreconcilable alienation between Jackson
and Calhoun was evinced in this correspondence; a state of feeling
which for the time was concealed from the public, but was well known to
their respective partisans, who understood that at the approaching
election the influence of the former would be thrown into the scale of
Van Buren. Jackson's intention of standing for the Presidency a second
time was kept a profound secret until January, 1831. Under the
supposition that he might decline, the partisans of Calhoun, Clay, and
Van Buren, engaged in active measures to put them respectively into the
field.
[4] For which see _Niles' Weekly Register_, vol. XL., pp. 12,
13.
From the party movements during this uncertainty it was clearly
perceived that, if Jackson was not again a candidate, a contest between
Van Buren and Calhoun for the Presidency was unavoidable. Calhoun's
chance of success was preëminent, for he would unite in his favor all
the votes and influence of the South,--Van Buren not having then had an
opportunity to evince his entire subserviency to the slaveholding power.
Jackson, into whose heart Van Buren had wound himself, looked with
little complacency on the probable success of Calhoun. Under these
circumstances, he resolved to enter the lists himself as a candidate for
the Presidency, and, by taking Van Buren with him for the
Vice-Presidency, put him at once in the best position to become his
successor. Van Buren coïncided in these views, and acquiesced in, if he
did not originate, this measure. He foresaw that the popularity of
Jackson would throw Calhoun out of the field, whether he was a candidate
at the next ensuing election for the Presidency or Vice-Presidency. The
time had now come to put an end to the hopes of Calhoun for the
attainment of either of those high stations, by making public the
animosity of Jackson; but this could not be done without a struggle.
Branch, Ingham, and Berrien, all members of Jackson's cabinet, were
known friends to Calhoun, and far from being well disposed to Van Buren.
Under these circumstances, Jackson resolved to dissolve his cabinet, in
which Van Buren himself held a place, and form another, better adapted
to their united views. As a violent contest with the friends of Calhoun
was anticipated, Van Buren, if he should continue Secretary of State,
would be considered responsible for all Jackson's proceedings to
frustrate Calhoun's aspirations for the Presidency, which might
injuriously affect his popularity in the Southern States. Van Buren
therefore retired upon a mission to England.
Such were the general views and policy of these allied aspirants to the
two highest offices of state, which public documents now make apparent,
when, in April, 1831, say the newspapers of the period, "an explosion
took place in the cabinet at Washington, the announcement of which came
upon the public like a clap of thunder in a cloudless day."[5] On the
7th of April, the Secretary of War, General Eaton, resigned, without
giving any other reason than his own inclination, and that he deemed the
moment favorable, as General Jackson's "course of policy had been
advantageously commenced." On the 11th of April, Van Buren resigned the
office of Secretary of State. So far as his motive could be discerned
through the haze of ambiguous and diplomatic language, it was that his
name had been connected with that distracting topic, the question of
successorship, which rendered his continuance in the cabinet
embarrassing, and might be injurious to the public service. The two
other secretaries, Ingham and Branch, were kept in ignorance of these
resignations until the 19th of April, when Jackson informed them that,
to command public confidence and satisfy public opinion, he deemed it
proper to select a cabinet of entirely new materials,[6] and therefore
requested them to resign their respective offices. They accordingly
tendered their resignations, which were accepted by the President, in a
letter to each, couched in language perfectly identical, in which he
admits that the dismissed officers had faithfully performed their
respective official duties, but intimates that the want of harmony in
the cabinet "made its entire renovation requisite."[7] Branch and Ingham
both denied any want of harmony in the cabinet, and the latter declared
that "it had never been interrupted for a moment, nor been divided in a
single instance by difference of opinion as to the measures of the
government."[8] These contradictions, thus openly made, created intense
curiosity, and public clamor for a full development of facts. Branch, in
a letter dated May 31st, 1831, addressed to certain citizens of Bertie
County, North Carolina, declared that "discord had been introduced into
the ranks of the administration by the intrigues of selfish
politicians."[9]
[5] See _Niles' Weekly Register_, vol. XL., pp. 129-145.
[6] Ibid., pp. 152-3.
[7] _Niles' Register_, vol. XL., p. 201.
[8] Ibid., p. 220.
[9] Ibid., p. 253.
The Attorney-General, Mr. Berrien, did not resign until the 15th of June
ensuing, nor until he also had been invited to do so by Jackson. He then
declared that he resigned "simply on account of the President's will,"
and that he knew of no want of harmony in the cabinet which either had
or ought to have impeded the operations of the administration.[10] In
July, Mr. Ingham, on returning home, was received by a great cavalcade
of his fellow-citizens, and was called upon for an explanation of "the
extraordinary measure, the dissolution of the cabinet, which had shocked
the public mind." He replied, that it was exclusively the act of the
President, who alone could perfectly explain his own motives, and he
deemed it improper for him to anticipate the explanation which the
President must deem it his duty to make.[11] As Jackson made no
explanation, Mr. Branch, after being repeatedly called upon in the
public papers, authorized the publication of a letter he had addressed
to Edmund B. Freeman, dated the 22d of August, 1831,[12] in which he gave
a full statement of the overbearing language and conduct of Jackson, and
unequivocally declared that the contemporaneous resignation of Eaton and
Van Buren was a measure adopted for the purpose of getting rid of the
three offensive members of the cabinet; that "their dismission had been
stipulated for, and the reason was that Van Buren, having discovered
that the three members of the cabinet (afterwards ejected) disdained to
become tools to subserve his ambitious aspirings, had determined to
leave them as little power to defeat his machinations as possible; and
that he had become latterly almost the sole confidant and adviser of the
President."
[10] Ibid., p. 304.
[11] _Niles' Weekly Register_, vol. XL., p. 331.
[12] Ibid., vol. XLI., pp. 5, 6.
The details of this controversy belong to general history, and will be
found in the documents of the period. Enough has been given to indicate
the great influence Van Buren had acquired, for his own political
advancement, by an unscrupulous subserviency to the overbearing violence
of the President.
On this subject Mr. Adams observed: "Van Buren outwits Calhoun in the
favor of Jackson. He brought the administration into power, and now
enjoys the reward of his intrigues. Jackson rides rough-shod over the
Senate, in relation to appointments; but they dare not oppose him." It
was impossible, in view of these scenes of discord and mutual
crimination, for Mr. Adams not to feel self-congratulation when he
recollected the uninterrupted harmony which, during four years, had
prevailed in his own cabinet. From without it had been assailed with
calumny and malignant passions; but within was peace, quiet, mutual
assistance and support. No jealousies disturbed the tranquillity of
their meetings. No ambitious spirit had shaped measures to purposes of
his own aggrandizement. Though silent, he could not fail, while
contemplating the comparison, to realize the triumph history was
preparing for himself and his administration. The contrast presented by
its principles, when compared with those of his successor, must have
been also a natural source of intense self-congratulation.
Notwithstanding the warning voice of Henry Clay, a military chieftain
had been placed in the chair of state. He entered it with the spirit of
a conqueror, and conducted in it in the spirit of the camp. The
gratification of his feelings, and the reward of his partisans, were
apparently his chief objects. He dismissed from office, without trial,
without charge, and without fault, faithful and able men. During the
whole period of Mr. Adams' administration not an officer of the
government, from Maine to Louisiana, was dismissed on account of his
political opinions. Many well known to him as opposed to his
reëlection, and actively employed in behalf of his competitor, were
permitted to hold their places, though subject to his power of
dismission. Not one was discharged from that cause. In the early part
of his administration appointments were promiscuously made from all the
parties in the previous canvass. This course was pursued until an
opposition was organized which denounced all appointments from its
ranks as being made for party purposes. Of _eighty_ newspapers employed
in publishing the laws during the four years of his Presidency, only
_twelve_ or _fifteen_ were changed, some for geographical, others for
local considerations. Some papers among the most influential in the
opposition, but otherwise conducted with decorum, were retained. Of the
entire number of changes, not more than four or five were made on
account of their scurrilous character. During the same period _not more
than five_ members of Congress received official appointments to any
office. Even these shocked General Jackson's patriotism, from their
mischievous bearing on the purity of the national legislature, and the
permanency of our republican institutions. Being then a candidate for
the Presidency, in opposition to Mr. Adams, he deliberately declared to
the Legislature of Tennessee his firm conviction that no member of
Congress ought to be appointed to any office except a seat on the
bench; and he added that he himself would conform to that rule.
Notwithstanding this pledge, he appointed _eight_ or _ten_ members of
Congress to office in the first four weeks of his Presidency. Mr. Clay
publicly asserted his belief that within two months after Jackson had
attained that high station more members of Congress had offices
conferred on them "than were appointed by any one of his predecessors
during their whole period of four or eight years." His proceedings
evidenced that among this favorite class no office is too high or too
low for desire and acceptance, from the head of a department to the
most subordinate office under a collector. On editors of newspapers he
bestowed unexampled patronage. Fifteen or twenty of those who had been
most active in his favor during the preceding canvass,--the most
abusive of his opponents, and the most fulsome in his own praise,--were
immediately rewarded with place. Of all attempts, his were the boldest
and the most successful ever made to render the press venal, and to
corrupt this palladium of liberty.[13] Happily the times were not
propitious to give immediate development to these principles of
permanent power. But the degree of success of this first attempt of one
man to constitute "_himself the state_" contains a solemn foreboding as
to the possible future fate of our republic. For, although at this time
the ambition of the individual was not fully gratified, enough was
effected to encourage the reckless and aspiring. The seeds of
corruption were thickly scattered. In that Presidency the doctrine was
first promulgated, "_To the victors belong the spoils_." From that day,
subserviency to the chief of the prevailing party became the condition
on which station and place were given or holden. In his hands was
lodged the power of reward and punishment, to be exercised ruthlessly
for party support and perpetuation; resulting, in the higher
departments, in tame submission to the will of the chief, and, in the
lower, in the adoption of the detestable maxim that _all is fair in
politics_. The consequences are daily seen in the servility of
office-holders and office-seekers; in forced contributions, during
pending elections, for the continuance of the prevailing power, and
afterwards in a heartless proscription of all not acceptable to the
successful dynasty; in the excluding every one from office who has not
the spirit to be a slave, and filling the heart of every true lover of
his country with ominous conjectures concerning the fate of our
institutions.
[13] The facts above stated are chiefly derived from a speech of
Henry Clay, delivered at Lexington, Kentucky, on the 16th of May,
1829, in which all the topics here touched are forcibly and
eloquently illustrated. It may be found at length in _Niles'
Weekly Register_, vol. XXXVI., pp. 399 to 405.
During the early periods of Jackson's administration, Mr. Adams, though
in retirement, was neither unobserving nor silent concerning its
proceedings. In January, 1830, in the course of a conversation with a
senator from Louisiana on the politics and the intrigues then going on
at Washington in relation to the next presidential election, he said:
"There are three divisions of the administration party: one for General
Jackson, whose friends wish his reëlection; one for Mr. Van Buren, and
one for Calhoun. Van Buren sees he cannot eight years longer discharge
the duties of the Department of State; and that he must succeed at the
end of four years, or not at all. His friends insist that Jackson has
given a pledge that he will not serve another term. Calhoun and his
friends are equally impatient, and he is much disposed to declare
himself against the leading measures of the present administration. But
if Mr. Clay was brought forward by his friends as a candidate, it would
close all the cracks of the administration party, and rivet them
together."
In the beginning of February, Mr. Adams remarked: "All the members
of Congress are full of rumors concerning the volcanic state of the
administration. The President has determined to remove Branch, but
was told that if he did the North Carolina senators would join the
opposition, and all his nominations would be rejected. The
administration is split up into a blue and green faction upon a point
of morals; an explosion has been deferred, but is expected."
On the 26th of March, 1830, he again remarked: "There is a controversy
between the _Telegraph_, Calhoun's paper here, and the _New York
Courier_, Van Buren's paper, upon the question whether Jackson is or is
not a candidate for reëlection as President,--the _Courier_ insisting
that he is, and the _Telegraph_ declaring that it is premature to ask
the question. Mr. Van Buren has got the start of Calhoun, in the merit
of convincing General Jackson that the salvation of the country depends
on his reëlection. This establishes his ascendency in the cabinet, and
reduces Calhoun to the alternative of joining in the shout 'Hurra for
Jackson!' or of being counted in opposition."
On the 28th of March, 1830, the question being still in agitation before
the public whether Jackson, if a candidate, would be successful, Mr.
Adams said: "Jackson will be a candidate, and have a fair chance of
success. His personal popularity, founded solely on the battle of New
Orleans, will carry him through the next election, as it did through the
last. The vices of his administration are not such as affect the popular
feeling. He will lose none of his popularity unless he should do
something to raise a blister upon public sentiment, and of that there is
no prospect. If he lives, therefore, and nothing external should happen
to rouse new parties, he may be reëlected not only twice, but thrice."
In June, 1830, he again expressed his views on the policy and prospects
of the administration. He said it was impossible to foresee what would
be the fluctuations of popular opinion. Hitherto there were symptoms of
changes of opinion among members of Congress, but none among the people.
These could be indicated only by the elections. He had great doubts
whether the majorities in the Legislatures of the free states would be
changed by the approaching elections, and was far from certain that the
next Legislature of Kentucky would nominate Mr. Clay in opposition to
the reëlection of General Jackson. The whole strength of the present
administration rested on Jackson's personal popularity, founded on his
military services. He had surrendered the Indians to the states within
the bounds of which they are located. This would confirm and strengthen
his popularity in those states, especially as he had burdened the Union
with the expense of removing and indemnifying the Indians. He had taken
practical ground against internal improvements and domestic industry,
which would strengthen him in all the Southern States. He had, as might
have been expected, thrown all his weight into the slaveholding scale;
and that interest is so compact, so consolidated, and so fervent in
action, that there is every prospect it will overpower the discordant
and loosely constructed interest of the free states. The cause of
internal improvement will sink, and that of domestic industry will fall
with or after it. There is at present a great probability that Jackson's
policy will be supported by a majority of the people.
After a conversation with Oliver Wolcott, the successor of Alexander
Hamilton as Secretary of the Treasury under Washington, who had been
subsequently Governor of Connecticut, Mr. Adams remarked: "Mr. Wolcott
views the prospects of the Union with great sagacity, and with hopes
more sanguine than mine. He thinks the continuance of the Union will
depend upon the heavy population of Pennsylvania, and that its
gravitation will preserve the Union. He holds the South Carolina
turbulence too much in contempt. The domineering spirit naturally
springs from the institution of slavery; and when, as in South Carolina,
the slaves are more numerous than their masters, the domineering spirit
is wrought up to its highest pitch of intenseness. The South Carolinians
are attempting to govern the Union as they govern their slaves, and
there are too many indications that, abetted as they are by all the
slave-driving interest of the Union, the free portion will cower before
them, and truckle to their insolence. This is my apprehension."
While Jackson's nominations were pending before the Senate, a senator
from New Hampshire said to Mr. Adams that he hoped the whole tribe of
editors of newspapers would be rejected; for he thought it the most
dangerous precedent that could be established, and, if now sanctioned by
the Senate, he despaired of its being controlled hereafter; and added
that he was almost discouraged concerning the permanency of our
institutions. Mr. Adams replied, that his hopes were better, but that
undoubtedly the giving offices to editors of newspapers was of all
species of bribery the most dangerous.
From the time Mr. Adams took his seat in the House of Representatives,
in December, 1831, till the period of his death, few of his
contemporaries equalled and none exceeded him in punctuality of
attendance. He was usually among the first members in his place in the
morning, and the last to leave it. On every question of general interest
he bestowed scrupulous attention, yielding to it the full strength of
his mind, and his extensive knowledge of public affairs. A full history
of the proceedings of Congress during this period alone can do justice
to his devotion to the public service. In this memoir his views and
course will no further be recorded than as they regard topics obviously
nearest his heart, and in which his principles and character are
developed with peculiar ability and power.
In December, 1831, on the distribution of the several parts of the
President's message to committees, Mr. Adams was appointed chairman of
that on manufactures. Against this position he immediately remonstrated,
and solicited the Speaker to relieve him from it. He stated that the
subject of manufactures was connected with details not familiar to him;
that, during the long period of a life devoted to public service, his
thoughts had been directed in a very different line. It was replied,
that he could not be excused without a vote of the House; that the
continuance of the Union might depend on the questions relative to the
tariff; and that it was thought his influence would have great weight in
reconciling the Eastern States to such modifications as he might
sanction. He therefore yielded all personal considerations to the
interests of his country, and accepted the appointment.
In the ensuing March, on being appointed on a committee to investigate
the affairs of the United States Bank, Mr. Adams requested of the House
to be excused from service on the Committee on Manufactures, giving the
same reasons he had previously urged, and others resulting from the
incompatibility of the two offices. An opposition was made by
Cambreling, of New York, Barbour, of Virginia, and Drayton, of South
Carolina, in speeches which were characterized by the newspapers of the
times as "most extraordinary."[14] Cambreling said: "The present
condition of the country and of the public mind demanded the
intelligence, industry, and patriotism, for which Mr. Adams was
distinguished. The authority of his name was of infinite importance."
Mr. Barbour followed in a like strain. "The member from Massachusetts,"
said he, "with whom I have been associated in the Committee on
Manufactures, has not only fulfilled all his duties with eminent
ability, in the committee, but in a spirit and temper that demanded
grateful acknowledgments, and excited the highest admiration." He
concluded with an appeal to Mr. Adams, "as a patriot, a statesman, and
philanthropist, as well as an American, feeling the full force of his
duties, and touched by all their incentives to lofty action, to forbear
his request." Mr. Drayton also, in a voice of eulogy, declared that,
"Amidst all the rancor of political parties with which our country has
been distracted, and from which, unhappily, we are not now exempt, it
has always been admitted that no individual was more eminently endowed
with those intellectual and moral qualities which entitle their
possessor to the respect of the community, and to entire confidence in
the purity of his motives, than Mr. Adams."
[14] _Niles' Weekly Register_, vol. XLII., pp. 86-88.
These politicians were the active and influential members of a party
which had raised General Jackson to the President's chair. When laboring
to displace Mr. Adams from that high station, that party had represented
him as "neither a statesman nor a patriot; without talents; as a mere
professor of rhetoric, capable of making a corrupt bargain for the sake
of power, and of condescending to intrigue for the attainment of place
and office." To hear the leaders of such a party now extolling him for
integrity, diligence, and intelligence, upon whose continuance in office
the hopes of the country and the continuance of the Union might depend,
was a change in opinions and language which might well be attributed to
the awakening of conscience to a sense of justice, and a desire for
reparation of wrong, were it not that leaders of factions have never any
other criterion of truth, or rule in the use of language, than
adaptation to selfish and party purposes.
Equally uninfluenced by adulation and undeterred by abuse, on the 23d of
May, 1832, as chairman of the Committee on Manufactures, by order of a
majority, Mr. Adams reported a bill, which, in presenting it, he
declared was not coïncident with the views of that majority, and that
for parts he alone was responsible. After lauding the anticipated
extinction of the public debt, he proceeded to show, by a laborious
research into its history, that such extinction had always been
contemplated, and that the policy of the government, from the earliest
period of its existence, had concurred in the wisdom of this application
of the revenue. He proceeded to expose and deprecate that Southern
policy, which seized on this occasion "to reduce the revenues of the
Union to the lowest point absolutely necessary to defray the ordinary
charges and indispensable expenditures of the government;" a system
which, by inevitable consequence and by avowed design, "left our shores
to take care of themselves, our navy to perish by dry rot upon the
stocks, our manufactures to wither under the blast of foreign
competition;" and he urged, in opposition to these destructive
doctrines, the duty of levying revenue enough for "common defence," and
also to "protect manufactures," and supported his argument by a great
array of facts; severely animadverting upon those politicians who
glorified themselves on the prosperous state of the country, and yet
labored to break down that "system of protection for domestic
manufactures by which this prosperity had been chiefly produced." The
duty of "defensive preparation and internal improvements" he maintained
to be unquestionable, obligations resulting from the language and spirit
of the constitution. The doctrine that the interests of the planter and
the manufacturer were irreconcilable, and that duties for the protection
of domestic industry operate to the injury of the Southern States, he
analyzed, illustrated, and showed to be fallacious, "striking directly
at the heart of the Union, and leading inevitably to its dissolution;" a
result to which more than one distinguished and influential statesman of
the South had affirmed that "his mind was made up." The doctrine that
the interest of the South is identified with the foreign competitor of
the Northern manufacturer, he denounced as in conflict with the whole
history of our Revolutionary War, and a satire on our institutions. If
it should prove true that these interests were so irreconcilable as to
cause a separation, as some Southern statesmen contended, after such
separation the same state of irreconcilable interests would continue,
and "with redoubled aggravation," resulting in an inextinguishable or
exterminating war between the brothers of this severed continent, which
nothing but a foreign umpire could settle or adjust, and this not
according to the interests of either of the parties, but his own. The
consequences of such a state of things he displayed with great power and
eloquence, and concluded with alluding "to that great, comprehensive,
but peculiar Southern interest, which is now protected by the laws of
the United States, but which, in case of severance of the Union, must
produce consequences from which a statesman of either portion of it
cannot but avert his eyes."
Contemporaneously with this report on manufactures, Mr. Adams, as one of
the committee to examine and report on the books and proceedings of the
Bank of the United States, submitted to the House of Representatives a
report, signed only by himself and Mr. Watmough, of Pennsylvania, in
which he declared his dissent from the report of the committee on that
subject. After examining their proceedings with minuteness and searching
severity, he asserted that they were without authority, and in flagrant
violation of the rights of the bank, and of the principles on which the
freedom of this people had been founded.
In February, 1832, Mr. Adams delivered a speech on the ratio of
representation--on the duty of making the constituent body small, and
the representatives numerous; contending that a large representation and
a small constituency was a truly republican principle, and illustrating
it from history, and from its tendency to give the distinguished men of
the different states opportunities to become acquainted with each other.
In July ensuing, a vote censuring a member for words spoken in debate
being on its passage in the House, Mr. Adams, when the roll was called,
and his name announced, rose with characteristic spirit, and delivered
a paper to the clerk, which contained the following words: "I ask to be
excused from voting on the resolution, believing it to be unconstitutional,
inasmuch as it assumes inferences of fact from words spoken by the
member, without giving the words themselves, and the fact not being
warranted, in my judgment, by the words he did use." A majority of the
house, being disposed to put down, and, if possible, disgrace Mr.
Adams, refused to excuse him. On his name being called, he again
declined voting, and stated that he did not refuse to vote from any
contumacy or disrespect to the house, but because he had a right to
decline from conscientious motives, and that he desired to place his
reasons for declining upon the journals of the house. A member observed
that, if they put those reasons on the journal, they would spread on it
their own condemnation; adding that, by going out of the house, Mr.
Adams might easily have avoided voting. The latter replied, "I do not
choose to shrink from my duty by such an expedient. It is not my right
alone, but the rights of all the members, and of the people of the
United States, which are concerned in this question, and I cannot evade
it. I regret the state of things, but I must abide by the consequences,
whatever they may be." A motion made to reconsider the vote refusing to
excuse him was lost--yeas _fifty-nine_, nays _seventy-four_. The
Speaker then read the rule by which every member is required to vote,
and stated that it was the duty of every member to vote on one side or
the other. The question then being repeated, when the clerk called the
name of Mr. Adams, he gave no response, and remained in his seat. A
member then rose, said it was an unprecedented case, and moved two
resolutions. By the one, the facts being first stated, the course
pursued by Mr. Adams was declared "a breach of one of the rules of the
house." By the other, a committee was to be appointed for inquiring and
reporting "what course ought to be adopted in a case so novel and
important." The house then proceeded to pass the original vote of
censure on the member, without repeating the name of Mr. Adams.
The next day the vote for a committee of inquiry on the subject caused a
desultory and warm debate, during which Mr. Adams took occasion to say
that the whole affair was a subject of great mortification to him. The
proposed resolution, after naming him personally, and affirming that he
had been guilty of a breach of the rules of the house, proposed that a
committee of inquiry should be raised, to consider what was to be done
in a case so novel and important. On this resolution, which the mover
seemed to suppose would pass of course, Mr. Adams said, that he trusted
opportunity would be given him to show the reasons which had prevented
him from voting. Mr. Everett, of Massachusetts, then remonstrated with
the majority of the house for attempting thus to censure a man, such as
they knew Mr. Adams to be, than whom he was confident the whole house
would bear him witness that there was not an individual on that floor
more regular, more assiduous, or more laborious, in the discharge of his
public duty. A motion was then made to lay the resolution on the table,
which prevailed--yeas _eighty-nine_, nays _sixty-three_.
Thus ended a debate which severely tested the firmness of the spirit of
Mr. Adams. Neither seduced by the number nor quailing under the threats
and violence of his assailants, he maintained the rights of his public
station, and with silent dignity set at defiance their overbearing
attempts to terrify, until they abandoned their purpose in despair, awed
by the majestic power of principle.
In December, 1832, when the South Carolina state convention was opposing
the revenue laws with great violence, accompanied with threats of
disunion, President Jackson, in his message to Congress, recommended a
reduction of the revenue, and a qualified abandonment of the system of
protection; and also that the public lands be no longer regarded as a
source of revenue, and that they be sold to actual settlers at a price
merely sufficient to reïmburse actual expenses and the costs arising
under Indian compacts. "In this message," said Mr. Adams, "Jackson has
cast away all the neutrality he heretofore maintained upon the
conflicting opinions and interests of the different sections of the
country, and surrenders the whole Union to the nullifiers of the South
and the land speculators of the West. This I predicted nearly two years
since, in a letter to Peter B. Porter."
In January, 1833, with regard to a member friendly to modifying the
tariff according to the Southern policy, and who professed himself a
radical, Mr. Adams remarked: "He has all the contracted prejudices of
that political sect; his whole system of government is comprised in the
maxim of leaving money in the pockets of the people. This is always the
high road to popularity, and it is always travelled by those who have
not resolution, intelligence, and energy, to attempt the exploration of
any other."
On January 16th, 1833, President Jackson communicated, in a message, the
ordinance of the convention of South Carolina nullifying the acts of
Congress laying duties on the importation of foreign commodities, with
the counteracting measures he proposed to pursue. On the 4th of
February, on a bill for a modification of the tariff, Mr. Adams moved to
strike out the enacting clause, thereby destroying the bill. In a speech
characterized by the fearless spirit by which he was actuated, he
declared his opinion that neither the bill then in discussion nor any
other on the subject of the tariff ought to pass, until it was "known
whether there was any measure by which a state could defeat the laws of
the Union." The ordinance of South Carolina had been called a "pacific
measure." It was just as much so as placing a pistol at the breast of a
traveller and demanding his money was pacific. Until that weapon was
removed there ought to be no modification of the tariff. Mr. Adams then
entered at large into the duty of government to protect all the great
interests of the citizens. But protection might be extended in different
forms to different interests. The complaint was, that government took
money out of the pockets of one portion of the community, to give it to
another. In extending protection this must always be more or less the
case. But, then, while the rights of one party were protected in this
way, the rights of the other party were protected equally in another
way. This he proceeded to illustrate. In the southern and southwestern
parts of this Union there existed a certain interest, which he need not
more particularly designate, which enjoyed, under the constitution and
laws of the United States, an especial protection peculiar to itself. It
was first protected by representation. There were on that floor upwards
of twenty members who represented what in other states had no
representation at all. It was not three days since a gentleman from
Georgia said that the species of property now alluded to was "the
machinery of the South." Now, that machinery had twenty odd
representatives in that hall; representatives elected, not by that
machinery, but by those who owned it. Was there such representation in
any other portion of the Union? That machinery had ever been to the
South, in fact, the ruling power of this government. Was this not
protection? This very protection had taken millions and millions of
money from the free laboring population of this country, and put it into
the pockets of the owners of Southern machinery. He did not complain of
this. He did not say that it was not all right. What he said was, that
the South possessed a great interest protected by the constitution of
the United States. He was for adhering to the bargain; but he did not
wish to be understood as saying that he would agree to it if the bargain
was now to be made over again.
This interest was protected by another provision in the constitution of
the United States, by which "no person held to service or labor in one
state, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in
consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such
service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to
whom such service or labor may be due." What was this but protection to
this machinery of the South? And let it be observed that a provision
like this ran counter to all the tenor of legislation in the free
states. It was contrary to all the notions and feelings of the people of
the North to deliver a man up to any foreign authority, unless he had
been guilty of some crime; and, but for such a clause in the compact, a
Southern gentleman, who had lost an article of his machinery, would
never recover him back from the free states.
The constitution contained another clause guaranteeing protection to the
same interest. It guaranteed to every state in the Union a republican
form of government, protection against invasion, and, on the application
of the Legislature or Executive of any state, furnished them with
protection against domestic violence. Now, everybody knew that where
this machinery existed the state was more liable to domestic violence
than elsewhere, because that machinery sometimes exerted a self-moving
power. The call for this protection had very recently been made, and it
had been answered, and the power of the Union had been exerted to insure
the owners of this machinery from domestic violence.
On the 28th of the ensuing February, Mr. Adams, on the part of the
minority of the Committee on Manufactures, made a report, signed by
himself and Lewis Condit, of New Jersey, which was read and ordered to
be printed by the House. In this report he took occasion to express his
dissent from the doctrine of the message, which he asserted to be that
in all countries generally, and especially in our own, the strongest
and best part of our population--the basis of society, and the friends
preëminently of freedom--are the "_wealthy landholders_." This he
controverted with a spirit at once suggestive and sarcastic, as new,
incorrect, and incompatible with the foundation of our political
institutions. He maintained that this assertion was not true even in
that part of the Union where the cultivators of the soil are slaves;
for, although there the landholders possess a large portion of the
wealth of the community, they were far from constituting an equal
proportion of its strength. Nor was it true in that portion of the
Union where the cultivators of the soil earn their bread by the sweat
of their brow, that they were _the best_ part of society. They were as
good as, but no better than, the other classes of the community. The
doctrine is in opposition to the Declaration of Independence and the
government of the Union, which are founded on a very different
principle--the principle that all men are born equal, and with equal
rights. It cannot be assumed as a foundation of national policy, and is
of a most alarming and dangerous tendency, threatening the peace and
directly tending to "the dissolution of the Union, by a complicated
civil and servile war." He traced its consequences, present and future,
in the proposition to give away the public lands, thereby withdrawing
all aid from this source to objects of internal improvement; and in the
destiny to which it consigns our manufacturing interests, and those of
the handicraftsmen and the mechanics of our populous cities and
flourishing towns, for the benefit of these wealthy landholders.
The insincerity of the message and the danger of its doctrines he
elucidates with scrutinizing severity, exposing its fallacies, and
showing that, by its recommendations, "a nation, consisting of ten
millions of freemen, must be crippled in the exercise of their
associated power, unmanned of all the energies applicable to the
improvement of their own condition, by the doubts, scruples, or fanciful
discontents, of a portion among themselves less in number than double
the number in the single city of New York."
Its doctrine, which divides the people into the best and worst part of
the population, is here denounced as "the never-failing source of
tyranny and oppression, of civil strife, the shedding of brothers'
blood, and the total extinction of freedom."
This report earnestly entreats the general government not to abdicate,
by _non user_, the power vested in them of appropriating public money
to great national objects of internal improvements, and declares the
final result of the doctrine of abdicating powers arbitrarily
designated as doubtful is but the degradation of the nation, the
reducing itself to impotence, by chaining its own hands, fettering its
own feet, and thus disabling itself from bettering its own condition.
The impotence resulting from the inability to employ its own faculties
for its own improvement, is the principle upon which the roving Tartar
denies himself a permanent habitation, because to him the wandering
shepherd is the best part of the population; upon which the American
savage refuses to till the ground, because to him the hunter of the
woods is the best part of the population. "Imperfect civilization, in
all stages of human society, shackles itself with fanatical prejudices
of exclusive favor to its own occupations; as the owner of a plantation
with a hundred slaves believes the summit of human virtue to be
attained only by independent farmers, cultivators of the soil."
Mr. Adams avers that the spirit of these recommendations indicates "a
proposed revolution in the government of the Union, the avowed purpose
of which is to reduce the general government to a simple machine.
Simplicity," he adds, "is the essential characteristic in the condition
of slavery. It is by the complication of the government alone that the
freedom of mankind can be assured. If the people of these United States
enjoy a greater share of liberty than any other nation upon earth, it is
because, of all the governments upon earth, theirs is the most
complicated." The simplicity which the message recommends is "an
abdication of the power to do good; a divestment of all power in this
confederate people to improve their own condition."
The recommendation of the message, that the public lands shall cease
as soon as practicable to be a source of public revenue,--that they
shall be sold at a reduced price to actual settlers, and the future
disposition of them be surrendered to the states in which they lie,--Mr.
Adams condemns as the giving away of the national domain, the property
of the whole people, to individual adventurers; and as taking away the
property of one portion of the citizens, and giving it to another, the
plundered portion of the community being insultingly told that those on
whom their lands are lavished are _the best part of the population_.
Neither this, nor the surrender of them to the states in which they lie,
can be done without prejudicing the claims of the United States, and
of every particular state within which there are no public lands, and
trampling under foot solemn engagements entered into before the adoption
of the constitution. He reprobates thus giving away lands which were
purchased by the blood and treasure of our revolutionary fathers and
ourselves, which, if duly managed, might prove an inexhaustible fund
for centuries to come. He maintains that the policy indicated by this
message regards the manufacturing interests of the country "as a victim
to be sacrificed." This view leads him into an illustrative and powerful
argument on the duty of protection to domestic industry, in which are
set forth its nature, limitations, and impressive obligations.
In this report the absurd doctrines of nullification and secession are
canvassed, and it is shown that they never can be carried out in
practice but by a dissolution of the Union. The encouragement given by
the policy of the administration to the unjust claims and groundless
pretensions of South Carolina is exposed. The assumed irreconcilableness
of the interests of the great masses of population which geographically
divide the Union, of which one part is entirely free, and the other
consists of masters and slaves, which is the foundation of those
doctrines, is denied, and the question declared to be only capable of
being determined by experiment under the compact formed by the
constitution of the United States. The nature of that compact is
analyzed, as well as the effect of that representation of property which
it grants to the slaveholding states, and which has secured to them "the
entire control of the national policy, and, almost without exception,
the possession of the highest executive office of the Union." The causes
and modes of operation by which this has been attained Mr. Adams
illustrates to this effect: The Northern and wholly free states conceded
that, while in the popular branch of the Legislature they themselves
should have a representation proportioned only to their numbers, the
slaveholders of the South should, in addition to their proportional
numbers, have a representation for three fifths of their living
property--their machinery; while the citizens of the free states have no
addition to their number of representatives on account of their
property; nor have their looms and manufactories, or their owners in
their behalf, a single representative. The consequent disproportion of
numbers of the slaveholding representation in the House of
Representatives has secured the absolute control of the general policy
of the government, and especially of the fiscal system, the revenues and
expenditures of the nation. Thus, while the free states are represented
only according to their numbers, the slaveholders are represented also
for their property. The equivalent for this privilege provided by the
constitution is that the slaveholders shall bear a heavier burden of all
direct taxation. But, by the ascendency which their excess of
representation gives them in the enactment of laws, they have invariably
in time of peace excluded all direct taxation, and thereby enjoyed their
excess of representation without any equivalent whatever. This is, in
substance, an evasion of the bilateral provision in the constitution. It
gives an operation entirely one-sided. It is a privilege of the Southern
and slaveholding section of the Union, without any equivalent whatever
to the Northern and North-western freemen. Always united in the purpose
of regulating the affairs of the whole Union by the standard of the
slaveholding interest, the disproportionate numbers of this section in
the electoral colleges have enabled them, in ten out of twelve
quadriennial elections, to confer the chief magistracy on one of their
own citizens. Their suffrages at every election have been almost
exclusively confined to a candidate of their own caste. Availing
themselves of the divisions which, from the nature of man, always
prevail in communities entirely free, they have sought and found out
auxiliaries in other quarters of the Union, by associating the passions
of parties and the ambition of individuals with their own purposes to
establish and maintain throughout the confederated nation the
slaveholders' policy. The office of Vice-President--a station of high
dignity, but of little other than contingent power--has been usually, by
their indulgence, conceded to a citizen of the other section; but even
this political courtesy was superseded at the election before the last
(1829), and both the offices of President and Vice-President of the
United States were, by the preponderancy of slaveholding votes, bestowed
upon citizens of two adjoining slaveholding states. "At this moment
(1833) the President of the United States, the President of the Senate,
the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and the Chief Justice of
the United States, are all citizens of this favored portion of this
united republic."
Mr. Adams, regarding "the ground assumed by the South Carolina
convention for usurping the sovereign and limitless power of the people
of that state to dictate the laws of the Union, and prostrate the
legislative, executive, and judicial authority of the United States, as
destitute of foundation as the forms and substance of their proceedings
are arrogant, overbearing, tyrannical, and oppressive," declared his
belief "that one particle of compromise with that usurped power, or of
concession to its pretensions, would be a heavy calamity to the people
of the whole Union, and to none more than to the people of South
Carolina themselves; that such concession would be a dereliction by
Congress of their highest duties to their country, and directly lead to
the final and irretrievable dissolution of the Union."