rebellion, and reared within sight and sound of gathering war, the
earliest political ideas he received were such as John Adams then
uttered--"We must fight." "Sink or swim--live or die--survive or perish
with my country, is my unalterable determination." A mother fervently
pious, and eminent in intellectual gifts, directed with more than maternal
assiduity and solicitude the education of him who was to render her own
name immortal. Never quite divorced from home, yet twice, and for long
periods in his youth, a visitor in Europe, he enjoyed always the parental
discipline of one of the founders of the American State, and often the
daily conversation of Franklin and Jefferson; and combined travel in
France, Spain, England, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, and Russia, and even
diplomatic experience, with the instructions of the schools of Paris, of
the University at Leyden, and of Harvard University at Cambridge; and all
these influences fell upon him at a period when his country, then opening
the way to human liberty through trials of fire, fixed the attention of
mankind.
The establishment of the Republic of the United States of America, is the
most important secular event in the history of the human race. It did not
disentangle the confused theory of the origin of Government, but cut
through the bonds of power existing by prescription, at a blow; and thus
directly and immediately affected the opinions and the actions of men in
every part of the civilized world. It animated them everywhere to seek
freedom from despotic power and aristocratic restraint. Whenever and
wherever they have since moved, either by peaceful agitation or by
physical force, to meliorate systems of government, whether in France at
the close of the last century, or afterward on the second subversion of
the elder branch of the Bourbons, or in the recent overthrow of the
constitutional king, or in Ireland, or in England, or in Italy, or in
Greece, or in South America, whether they succeeded or failed, there, in
the tumult or in the strife, was the spirit of the American Revolution.
"It gave an example of a great people, not merely emancipating themselves,
but governing themselves, without either a monarch to control, or an
aristocracy to restrain them; and it demonstrated, for the first time in
the history of the world, contrary to the predictions and theories of
speculative philosophy, that a great nation, when duly prepared, is
capable of self-government by purely republican institutions."
But the establishment of the American Republic was too great an
achievement to be made all at once. It was a drama of five grand acts,
each of which filled a considerable period, and called upon the stage
actors of peculiar powers and distinguished virtues. Those acts were,
colonization, preparation, revolution, organization, consolidation.
Two of these acts were closed before John Quincy Adams was born. The
third, the revolution, the shortest of them all, dazzles the contemplation
by the rapidity and the martial character of its incidents. The fourth,
the organization of the Government, by the splendors of genius elicited,
and the felicity of the new form of government presented, satisfies the
superficial inquirer that, when the Constitution had been adopted, nothing
remained to perfect the great achievement. But other nations have had
successful revolutions, and have set up free constitutions, and have yet
sunk again under reinvigorated despotism. The CONSOLIDATION of the
American Republic--the crowning act--occupied forty years, reaching from
1789 to 1829. During that period, John Quincy Adams participated
continually in public affairs, and ultimately became the principal actor.
The new Government was purely an experiment. In opposition to the fixed
habits of mankind, it established suffrage practically universal, and
representation so perfect that not one Legislative House only, but both
Houses; not legislative officers only, but all officers, executive,
ministerial, and even judicial, were directly or indirectly elected by the
people. The longest term of the senatorial trust was but six years, and
the shortest only two, and even the tenure of the executive power was only
four years. This Government, betraying so much popular jealousy, was
invested with only special and limited sovereignty. The conduct of merely
municipal affairs was distributed within the States, among Governments
even more popular than the federal structure, and without whose
ever-renewed support that structure must fall.
The Government thus constituted, so new, so complex and artificial, was to
be consolidated, in the midst of difficulties at home, and of dangers
abroad. The constitution had been adopted only upon convictions of
absolute necessity, and with evanescent dispositions of compromise. By
nearly half of the people it was thought too feeble to sustain itself, and
secure the rights for which governments are instituted among men. By as
many it was thought liable to be converted into an over-shadowing
despotism, more formidable and more odious than the monarchy which had
been subverted. These conflicting opinions revealed themselves in like
discordance upon every important question of administration, and were made
the basis of parties, which soon became jealous and irreconcilable, and
ultimately inveterate, and even in some degree disloyal.
These domestic feuds were aggravated by pernicious influences from Europe.
In the progress of western civilization, the nations of the earth had
become social. The new Republic could not, like the Celestial Empire, or
that of Japan, confine itself within its own boundaries, and exist without
national intercourse. It had entered the family of nations. But the
position it was to assume, and the advantages it was to be allowed to
enjoy, were yet to be ascertained and fixed. Its independence, confessed
to be only a doubtful experiment at home, was naturally thought ephemeral
in Europe. Its example was ominous, and the European Powers willingly
believed that, if discountenanced and baffled, America would soon relapse
into colonial subjugation. Such prejudices were founded in the fixed
habits of society. Not only the thirteen colonies, but the whole American
hemisphere, had been governed by European States from the period of its
discovery. The very soil belonged to the trans-atlantic monarchs by
discovery, or by ecclesiastical gift. Dominion over it attached by divine
right to their persons, and drew after it obligations of inalienable
allegiance upon those who became the inhabitants of the new world. The new
world was indeed divided between different powers, but the system of
government was the same. It was administered for the benefit of the
parental State alone. Each power prohibited all foreign trade with its
Colonies, and all intercourse between them and other plantations, supplied
its Colonies with what they needed from abroad, interdicted their
manufactures, and monopolized their trade. The prevalence of this system
over the whole continent of America and the adjacent islands prevented all
enterprize in the colonies, discouraged all improvement, and retarded
their progress to independence.
The American Revolution sundered these bonds only so far as they confined
thirteen of the British Colonies, and left the remaining British
dominions, and the continent, from Georgia around Cape Horn to the
Northern Ocean, under the same thraldom as before. Even the United States
had attained only physical independence. The moral influences of the
colonial system oppressed them still. Their trade, their laws, their
science, their literature, their social connections, their ecclesiastical
relations, their manners and their habits, were still colonial; and their
thoughts continually clung around the ancient and majestic States of the
Eastern Continent.
The American Revolution, so happily concluded here, broke out in France
simultaneously with the beginning of Washington's administration. The
French nation passed in fifteen years from absolute despotism under Louis
XVI., through all the phases of democracy to a military despotism under
Napoleon Bonaparte; and retained through all these changes, only two
characteristics--unceasing ferocity of faction, and increasing violence of
aggression against foreign States. The scandal of the French Revolution
fell back upon the United States of America, who were regarded as the
first disturbers of the ancient social system. The principal European
monarchs combined, under the guidance of England, to arrest the
presumptuous career of France and extirpate democracy by the sword.
Nevertheless, the republican cause, however odious in Europe, was our
national cause. The sympathies of a large portion of the American people
could not be withdrawn from the French nation, which always claimed, even
when marshalled into legions under the Corsican conqueror, to be fighting
the battles of freedom; while, on the other side, the citizens who
regarded innovation as worse than tyranny, considered England and her
allies as engaged in sustaining the cause of order, of government, and of
society itself.
The line already drawn between the American people in regard to their
organic law, naturally became the dividing line of the popular sympathies
in the great European conflict. Thus deeply furrowed, that line became "a
great gulf fixed." The Federal party unconsciously became an English
party, although it indignantly disowned the epithet; and the Republican
party became a French party, although with equal sincerity it denied the
gross impeachment. Each belligerent was thus encouraged to hope some aid
from the United States, through the ever-expected triumph of its friends;
while both conceived contemptuous opinions of a people who, from too eager
interest in a foreign fray, suffered their own national rights to be
trampled upon with impunity by the contending States.
Washington set the new machine of government in motion. He formed his
cabinet of recognized leaders of the adverse parties. Hamilton and Knox of
the Federal party were balanced by Jefferson and Randolph of the adverse
party. "Washington took part with neither, but held the balance between
them with the scrupulous justice which marked his lofty nature." On the
25th of April, 1793, he announced the neutrality of the United States
between the belligerents, and his decision, without winning the respect of
either, exasperated both. Each invaded our national rights more flagrantly
than before, and excused the injustice by the plea of necessary
retaliation against its adversary, and each found willing apologists in a
sympathizing faction in our own country.
Commercial and political relations were to be established between the
United States and the European Powers in this season of conflict.
Ministers were needed who could maintain and vindicate abroad the same
impartiality practised by Washington at home. There was one citizen
eminently qualified for such a trust in such a conjuncture. Need I say
that citizen was the younger Adams, and that Washington had the sagacity
to discover him?
John Quincy Adams successively completed missions at the Hague and at
Berlin, in the period intervening between 1794 and 1801, with such
advantage and success, that in 1802 he was honored by his native
commonwealth with a seat as her representative in the Senate of the United
States. The insults offered to our country by the belligerents increased
in aggravation as the contest between them became more violent and
convulsive. France, in 1804, laid aside even the name and forms of a
Republic, and the first consul, dropping the emblems of popular power,
placed the long-coveted diadem upon his brow, where its jewels sparkled
among the laurels he had won in the conquest of Italy. Washington's
administration had passed away, leaving the American people in sullen
discontent. John Adams had succeeded, and had atoned by the loss of power
for the offence he had given by causing a just but unavailing war to be
declared against France. Jefferson was at the head of the Government; he
thought the belligerents might be reduced to forbearance by depriving them
of our commercial contributions of supplies, and recommended, first an
embargo, and then non-intercourse. Britain was an insular and France a
continental power. The effects of these measures would therefore be more
severe on the former than on the latter, and, unhappily, they were more
severe on our own country than on either of the offenders.
Massachusetts was the chief commercial State in the Union. She saw the
ruin of her commerce involved in the policy of Jefferson, and regarded it
as an unworthy concession to the usurper of the French throne. In this
emergency John Quincy Adams turned his back on Massachusetts, and threw
into the uprising scale of the administration, the weight of his talents
and of his already eminent fame. Massachusetts instructed the recusant to
recant. He refused to obey, and resigned his place. His change of
political relations astounded the country, and, with the customary charity
of partisan zeal, was attributed to venality. It is now seen by us in the
light reflected upon it by the habitual independence, unquestioned purity,
and lofty patriotism of his whole life; and thus seen, constitutes only
the first marked one of many instances wherein he broke the green withes
which party fastened upon him, and maintained the cause of his country,
referring the care of his fame to God and to an impartial posterity. Like
Decimus Brutus, whom Julius Caesar saluted among his executioners with
the exclamation "Et tu, Brute!" John Quincy Adams was not unfaithful, but
he could not be obliged where he was not left free.
Jefferson retired in 1809, leaving to his successor, the scholastic and
peace-loving Madison, the perilous legacy of perplexed foreign relations,
and embittered domestic feuds. Great Britain now filled the measure of
exasperations, by insolently searching our vessels on the high seas, and
impressing into her marine all whom she chose to suspect of having been
born in her allegiance, even though they had renounced it and had assumed
the relations of American citizens. War was therefore imminent and
inevitable. Russia was then coming forward to a position of commanding
influence in Europe, and her youthful Emperor Alexander had won, by his
chivalrous bearing, the respect of mankind. John Quincy Adams was wisely
sent by the United States, to establish relations of amity with the great
power of the North; and while he was thus engaged, the flames of European
war, which had been so long averted, involved his own country. War was
declared against Great Britain.
It was just. It was necessary. Yet it was a war that dared Great Britain
to re-assert her ancient sovereignty. It was a war with a power whose
wealth and credit were practically inexhaustible, a power whose navy rode
unchecked over all the seas, and whose impregnable garrisons encircled the
globe.
Against such a power the war was waged by a nation that had not yet
accumulated wealth, nor established credit, nor even opened avenues
suitable for transporting munitions of war through its extended
territories--that had only the germ of a navy, an inconsiderable army, and
not one substantial fortress. Yet such a war, under such circumstances,
was denounced as unnecessary and unjust, though for no better reason than
because greater contumelies had been endured at the hands of France. Thus
a domestic feud, based on the very question of the war itself, enervated
the national strength, and encouraged the mighty adversary.
The desperate valor displayed at Chippewa and Lundy's Lane, at Fort Erie
and Plattsburgh, and the brilliant victories won in contests between
single ships of war on the ocean and armed fleets on the lakes, vindicated
the military prowess of the United States, but brought us no decisive
advantage. A suspension of the conflict in Europe followed Napoleon's
disastrous invasion of Russia, and left America alone opposed to her great
adversary. Peace was necessary, because the national credit was
exhausted--because the fortunes of the war were inclining against us--and
because the opposition to it was ripening into disorganizing councils.
Adams had prepared the way by securing the mediation of Alexander. Then,
in that critical period, associated with Russell, Bayard, the learned and
versatile Gallatin, and the eloquent and chivalric Clay, he negotiated
with firmness, with assiduity, with patience, and with consummate ability,
a definitive treaty of peace--a treaty of peace which, although it omitted
the causes of the war already obsolete, saved and established and
confirmed in its whole integrity the independence of the Republic--a
treaty of peace that yet endures, and, we willingly hope, may endure
forever.
After fulfilling a subsequent mission at the Court of St. James, the
pacificator entered the domestic service of the country as Secretary of
State in the administration of James Monroe; and at the expiration of that
administration became President of the United States. He attained the
honors of the Republic at the age of fifty-seven, in the forty-ninth year
of independence. He was sixth in the succession, and with him closed the
line of Chief Magistrates who had rendered to their country some tribute
of their talents in civil or military service in the war of independence.
John Quincy Adams, on entering civil life, had found the Republic
unstable. He retired in 1829, leaving it firmly established. It was thus
his happy fortune to preside at the completion of that work of
consolidation, the beginning of which was the end of the labors of
Washington.
John Quincy Adams engaged in this great work while yet in private life, in
1793. He showed to his fellow-citizens, in a series of essays, the
inability of the French people to maintain free institutions at that time,
and the consequent necessity of American neutrality in the European war.
These publications aided Washington so much the more because they
anticipated his own decision. Adams sustained the same great cause when he
strengthened the administration of Jefferson against the preponderating
influence of Great Britain. His diplomatic services in Holland and Russia
secured, at a critical period, a favorable consideration in the Courts of
those countries, which conduced to the same end; and his brilliant success
in restoring peace to the country so sorely pressed, relieved her from her
enemies, reassured her, and gave to sceptical Europe conclusive proof
that her republican institutions were destined to endure.
The administration of John Quincy Adams blends so intimately with that of
Monroe, in which he was chief Minister, that no dividing line can be drawn
between them. Adams may be said, without derogation from the fame of
Monroe, to have swayed the Government during his presidency; and with
equal truth, Monroe may be admitted to have continued his administration
through that of his successor.
The consolidation of the Republic required that faction should be
extinguished. Monroe began this difficult task cautiously, and pursued it
with good effect. John Quincy Adams completed the achievement. The dignity
and moderation which marked his acceptance of the highest trust which a
free people could confer, beautifully foreshadowed the magnanimity with
which it was to be discharged. He confessed himself deeply sensible of the
circumstances under which it had been conferred:--
All my predecessors (he said) have been honored with majorities of the
electoral voices, in the primary colleges. It has been my fortune to be
placed, by the divisions of sentiment prevailing among our countrymen, on
this occasion, in competition, friendly and honorable, with three of my
fellow-citizens, all justly enjoying, in eminent degrees, the public
favor; and of whose worth, talents and services, no one entertains a
higher and more respectful sense than myself. The names of two of them
were, in the fulfilment of the provisions of the constitution, presented
to the selection of the House of Representatives, in concurrence with my
own, names closely associated with the glory of the nation, and one of
them farther recommended by a larger majority of the primary electoral
suffrages than mine. In this state of things, could my refusal to accept
the trust thus delegated to me give an opportunity to the people to form
and to express, with a nearer approach to unanimity, the object of their
preference, I should not hesitate to decline the acceptance of this
eminent charge, and to submit the decision of this momentous question
again to their determination.
It argued a noble consciousness of virtue to express, on such an occasion,
so ingenuously, the emotions of a generous ambition.
He displayed the same great quality no less when he called to the post of
chief Minister, in spite of clamors of corruption, Henry Clay, that one of
his late rivals who alone among his countrymen had the talents and
generosity which the responsibilities of the period exacted.
John Quincy Adams signalized his accession to the post of dangerous
elevation by avowing the sentiments concerning parties by which he was
inflexibly governed throughout his administration:--
Of the two great political parties [he said] which have divided the
opinions and feelings of our country, the candid and the just will now
admit, that both have contributed splendid talents, spotless integrity,
ardent patriotism, and disinterested sacrifices, to the formation and
administration of the Government, and that both have required a liberal
indulgence for a portion of human infirmity and error. The revolutionary
wars of Europe, commencing precisely at the moment when the Government of
the United States first went into operation under the constitution,
excited collisions of sentiments, and of sympathies, which kindled all the
passions and embittered the conflict of parties, till the nation was
involved in war, and the Union was shaken to its centre. This time of
trial embraced a period of five-and-twenty years, during which the policy
of the Union in its relations with Europe constituted the principal basis
of our own political divisions, and the most arduous part of action of the
Federal Government. With the catastrophe in which the wars of the French
Revolution terminated, and our own subsequent peace with Great Britain,
this baneful weed of party strife was uprooted. From that time no
difference of principle, connected with the theory of government, or with
our intercourse with foreign nations, has existed or been called forth in
force sufficient to sustain a continued combination of parties, or given
more than wholesome animation to public sentiment or legislative debate.
Our political creed, without a dissenting voice that can be heard, is that
the will of the people is the source, and the happiness of the people is
the end, of all legitimate government upon earth--that the best security
for the beneficence, and the best guaranty against the abuse of power,
consists in the freedom, the purity, and the frequency of popular
elections. That the General Government of the Union, and the separate
Governments of the States, are all sovereignties of legitimate powers;
fellow servants of the same masters, uncontrolled within their respective
spheres--uncontrollable by encroachments on each other. If there have been
those who doubted whether a confederated representative democracy was a
government competent to the wise and orderly management of the common
concerns of a mighty nation, those doubts have been dispelled. If there
have been projects of partial confederacies to be erected upon the ruins
of the Union, they have been scattered to the winds. If there have been
dangerous attachments to one foreign nation, and antipathies against
another, they have been extinguished. Ten years of peace at home and
abroad have assuaged the animosities of political contention and blended
into harmony the most discordant elements of public opinion. There still
remains one effort of magnanimity, one sacrifice of prejudice and passion,
to be made by the individuals throughout the nation who have heretofore
followed the standards of political party. It is that of discarding every
remnant of rancor against each other, of embracing, as countrymen and
friends, and of yielding to talents and virtue alone that confidence
which, in times of contention for principle, was bestowed only upon those
who bore the badge of party communion.
During the administration of John Quincy Adams, he was really the Chief
Magistrate. He submitted neither his reason nor his conscience to the
control of any partisan cabal. No man was appointed to office in obedience
to political dictation, and no faithful public servant was proscribed. The
result rewarded his magnanimity. Faction ceased to exist. When South
Carolina, a few years afterward, assumed the very ground that the ancient
republican party had indicated as lawful and constitutional, and claimed
the right and power to set aside, within her own limits, acts of Congress
which she pronounced void, because they transcended the Federal authority,
she called on the republican party throughout the Union in vain. The
dangerous heresy had been renounced forever. Since that time there has
been no serious project of a combination to resist the laws of the Union,
much less of a conspiracy to subvert the Union itself.
What though the elements of political strife remain? They are necessary
for the life of free States. What though there still are parties, and the
din and turmoil of their contests are ceaselessly heard? They are founded
now on questions of mere administration, or on the more ephemeral
questions of personal merit. Such parties are dangerous only in the
decline, not in the vigor of Republics. Rome was no longer fit for
freedom, and needed a Dictator and a Sovereign, when Pompey and Caesar
divided the citizens. What though the magnanimity of Adams was not
appreciated, and his contemporaries preferred his military competitor in
the subsequent election? The sword gathers none but ripe fruits, and the
masses of any people will sometimes prefer them to the long maturing
harvest, which the statesmen of the living generations sow, to be reaped
by their successors. For all this Adams cared not. He had extinguished the
factions which for forty years had endangered the State. He had left on
the records of history instructions and an example teaching how faction
could be overthrown, and his country might resort to them when danger
should recur. For himself he knew well, none knew better, that
"He who ascends to mountain-tops shall find
The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow.
He who surpasses or subdues mankind,
Must look down on the hate of those below.
Though high above the sun of glory glow,
And far beneath the earth and ocean spread,
Round him are icy rocks, and loudly blow
Contending tempests on his naked head,
And thus reward the toils which to their summits led."
The federal authority had so long been factiously opposed, that the
popular respect for its laws needed to be renewed. The State of Georgia
presented the fit occasion. She insisted on expelling, forcibly, remnants
of Indian tribes, within her limits, in virtue of a treaty which was
impeached for fraud, and came for revision before the Supreme Court and
the Senate. The President met the emergency with boldness and decision.
The demonstration thus given that good faith should be practised, and the
law have its way, no matter how unequal the litigating parties, operated
favorably toward restoring the moral influence of the Government. That
influence, although sometimes checked, has recently increased in strength,
until the federal authority is universally regarded as final, and liberty
again walks confidently hand in hand with law.
John Quincy Adams "loved peace and ensued it." He loved peace as a
Christian, because war was at enmity with the spirit and precepts of a
religion which he held to be divine. As a statesman and magistrate, he
loved peace, because war was not merely injurious to national prosperity,
but because, whether successful or adverse, it was subversive of liberty.
Democracies are prone to war, and war consumes them. He favored,
therefore, all the philanthropic efforts of the age to cultivate the
spirit of peace, and looked forward with benevolent hope to the ultimate
institution of a General Congress of nations for the adjustment of their
controversies. But he was no visionary and no enthusiast. He knew that as
yet war was often inevitable--that pusillanimity provoked it, and that
national honor was national property of the highest value; because it was
the best national defence. He admitted only defensive war--but he did not
narrowly define it. He held that to be a defensive war, which was waged to
sustain what could not be surrendered or relinquished without compromising
the independence, the just influence, or even the proper dignity of the
State. Thus he had supported the war with Great Britain--thus in later
years he sustained President Jackson in his bold demonstration against
France, when that power wantonly refused to perform the stipulations it
had made in a treaty of indemnity; and thus he yielded his support to what
was thought a warlike measure of the present administration in the
diplomatic controversy with Great Britain concerning the Territory of
Oregon. The living and the dead have mutual rights, and therefore it must
be added that he considered the present war with Mexico as unnecessary,
unjust, and criminal. His opinion on this exciting question is among those
on which he referred himself to that future age which he so often
constituted the umpire between himself and his contemporaries.
With such principles on the subject of war, he regarded the establishment
of a system of national defence as a necessary policy for consolidating
the Republic. He prosecuted, therefore, on a large scale, the work of
fortification, and defended against popular opposition the institution for
the cultivation of military science, which has so recently vindicated that
early favor through the learning, valor, patriotism and humanity exhibited
by its pupils on the fields of Mexico. But with that jealousy of the
military spirit which never forsakes the wise republican statesman, he
cooperated in reducing the army to the lowest scale commensurate with its
necessary efficiency:
It was a vain and dangerous delusion (he said) to believe that in the
present or any probable condition of the world, a commerce so extensive as
ours could exist without the continual support of a military marine--the
only arm by which the power of a confederacy could be estimated or felt by
foreign nations, and the only standing force which could never be
dangerous to our own liberties.
The enlargement of our navy, under the influence of these opinions, is
among the measures of national consolidation we owe to him; and the
institution for naval education we enjoy, is a recent result of his early
suggestions.
But John Quincy Adams relied for national security and peace mainly on an
enlightened and broad system of civil policy. He looked through the future
combinations of States, and studied the accidents to which they were
exposed, that he might seasonably remove causes of future conflict. His
genius, when exercised in this lofty duty, played in its native element.
He had cordially approved the measures by which Washington had secured the
free navigation of the Mississippi. He approved the acquisition of
Louisiana, although with Jefferson he insisted on a preliminary amendment
of the constitution for that purpose. He had no narrow bigotry, concerning
the soil to which the institutions of our fathers should be confined, and
no local prejudice against their extension in any direction required by
the public security, if the extension should be made with justice, honor,
and humanity.
The acquisition of Louisiana had only given us additional territory,
fruitful in new commerce, to be exposed to dangers which remain to be
overcome. Spain still possessed, beside the Island of Cuba, the Peninsula
of the Floridas, and thus held the keys of the Mississippi. The real
independence, the commercial and the moral independence, of the United
States, remained to be effected at the close of the European wars, and of
our own war with England. Our political independence had been confirmed,
and that was all. John Quincy Adams addressed himself, as Secretary of
State, to the subversion of what remained of the colonial system. He
commenced by an auspicious purchase of the Floridas, which gave us
important maritime advantages on the Gulf of Mexico, while it continued
our Atlantic sea-board unbroken from the Bay of Fundy to the Sabine.
The ever-advancing American Revolution was at the same time opening the
way to complete disinthralment. The Spanish-American Provinces revolted,
and seven new Republics, with constitutions not widely differing from our
own--Buenos Ayres, Guatamala, Colombia, Mexico, Chili, Central America,
and Peru--suddenly claimed audience and admission among the nations of the
earth. The people of those countries were but doubtfully prepared to
maintain their contest for independence, or to support republican
institutions. But on the other side Spain was enervated and declining. She
applied to the Holy League of Europe for their aid, and the new Republics
applied to the United States for that recognition which could not fail to
impart strength. The question was momentous. The ancient colonial system
was at stake. All Europe was interested in maintaining it. The Holy League
held Europe fast bound to the rock of despotism, and were at liberty to
engage the United States in a war for the subversion of their
independence, if they should dare to extend their aid or protection to the
rebellious Colonies in South America.
Such a war would be a war of the two continents--an universal war. Who
could foretell its termination, or its dread results? But the emancipation
of Spanish America was necessary for our own larger freedom, and our own
complete security. That freedom and that security required that the
nations of Europe should relax their grasp on the American Continent. The
question was long and anxiously debated. The American people hesitated to
hazard, for speculative advantages, the measures of independence already
obtained. Monroe and Adams waited calmly and firmly. The impassioned voice
of Henry Clay rose from the Chamber of Representatives. It rang through
the continent like the notes of the clarion, inspiring South America with
new resolution, and North America with the confidence the critical
occasion demanded. That noble appeal was answered. South America stood
firm, and North America was ready. Then it was that John Quincy Adams,
with those generous impulses which the impatient blood of his
revolutionary sire always prompted, and with that enlightened sagacity
which never misapprehended the interests of his country, nor mistook the
time nor the means to secure them, obtained from the administration and
from Congress the acknowledgment of the independence of the young American
nations. To give decisive effect to this great measure, Monroe, in 1823,
solemnly declared to the world, that thenceforth any attempt by any
foreign power to establish the colonial system in any part of this
continent, already emancipated, would be resisted as an aggression against
the independence of the United States. On the accession of Adams to the
administration of the Government, the vast American continental
possessions of Brazil separated themselves from the crown of Portugal and
became an independent State. Adams improved these propitious and sublime
events by negotiating treaties of reciprocal trade with the youthful
nations; and, concurring with Monroe, accepted, in behalf of the United
States, their invitation to a General Congress of American States to be
held at Panama, to cement relations of amity among themselves, and to
consider, if it should become necessary, the proper means to repel the
apprehended interference of the Holy League of Europe.
The last measure transcended the confidence of a large and respectable
portion of the American people. But its moral effect was needed to secure
the stability of the South American Republics. Adams persevered, and, in
defending his course, gave notice to the powers of Europe, by this bold
declaration, that the determination of the United States was inflexible:--
"If it be asked, whether this meeting, and the principles which may be
adjusted and settled by it, as rules of intercourse between American
nations, may not give umbrage to European powers, or offence to Spain, it
is deemed a sufficient answer, that our attendance at Panama can give no
just cause of umbrage or offence to either, and that the United States
will stipulate nothing there, which can give such cause. Here the right of
inquiry into our purposes and measures must stop. The Holy League of
Europe, itself, was formed without inquiring of the United States, whether
it would or would not give umbrage to them. The fear of giving umbrage to
the Holy League of Europe was urged as a motive for denying to the
American nations the acknowledgment of their independence. The Congress
and the administration of that day consulted their rights and their
duties, not their fears. The United States must still, as heretofore, take
counsel from their duties, rather than their fears."
Contrast, fellow-citizens, this declaration of John Quincy Adams,
President of the United States in 1825, with the proclamation of
neutrality, between the belligerents of Europe, made by Washington in
1793, with the querrulous complaints of your Ministers against the French
Directory and the British Ministry at the close of the last century, and
with the acts of embargo and non-intercourse at the beginning of the
present century, destroying our own commerce to conquer forbearance from
the intolerant European powers. Learn from this contrast, the epoch of the
consolidation of the Republic. Thus instructed, do honor to the statesman
and magistrate by whom, not forgetting the meed due to his illustrious
compeers, the colonial system was overthrown throughout Spanish America,
and the independence of the United States was completely and finally
consummated.
The intrepid and unwearied statesman now directed his attention to the
remnants of the colonial system still preserved in the Canadas and West
Indies. Great Britain, by parliamentary measures, had undermined our
manufactures, and, receiving only our raw materials, repaid us with
fabrics manufactured from them, while she excluded us altogether from the
carrying trade with her colonial possessions. John Quincy Adams sought to
counteract this injurious legislation, by a revenue system, which should
restore the manufacturing industry of the country, while he offered
reciprocal trade as a compromise. His administration ended during a
beneficial trial of this vigorous policy. But it taxed too severely the
patriotism of some of the States, and was relinquished by his successors.
Indolence begets degeneracy, and immobility is the first stage of
dissolution. John Quincy Adams sought not merely to consolidate the
Republic, but to perpetuate it. For this purpose he bent vast efforts,
with success, to such a policy of internal improvement as would increase
the facilities of communication and intercourse between the States, and
bring into being that great internal trade which must ever constitute the
strongest bond of federal union. Wherever a lighthouse has been erected,
on our sea-coast, on our lakes, or on our rivers--wherever a mole or pier
has been constructed or begun--wherever a channel obstructed by shoals or
sawyers has been opened, or begun to be opened--wherever a canal or
railroad, adapted to national uses, has been made or projected--there the
engineers of the United States, during the administration of John Quincy
Adams, made explorations, and opened the way for a diligent prosecution of
his designs by his successors. This policy, apparently so stupendous, was
connected with a system of fiscal economy so rigorous, that the treasury
augmented its stores, while the work of improvement went on; the public
debt, contracted in past wars, dissolved away, and the nation flourished
in unexampled prosperity. John Quincy Adams administered the Federal
Government, while De Witt Clinton was presiding in the State of New York.
It is refreshing to recall the noble emulation of these illustrious
benefactors--an emulation that shows how inseparable sound philosophy is
from true patriotism.
If [said Adams, in his first annual message to the Congress of the United
States,] the powers enumerated may be effectually brought into action by
laws promoting the improvement of agriculture, commerce and manufactures,
the cultivation and encouragement of the mechanic arts, and of the elegant
arts, the advancement of literature, and the progress of the sciences,
ornamental and profound, to refrain from exercising them for the benefit
of the people would be to hide in the earth the talent committed to our
charge, would be treachery to the most sacred of trusts. The spirit of
improvement is abroad upon the earth. It stimulates the hearts, and
sharpens the faculties, not of our fellow-citizens alone, but of the
nations of Europe, and of their rulers. While dwelling with pleasing
satisfaction upon the superior excellence of our political institutions,
let us not be unmindful that liberty is power, that the nation blessed
with the largest portion of liberty, must in proportion to its numbers be
the most powerful nation upon earth, and that the tenure of power by man
is, in the moral purposes of his Creator, upon condition that it shall be
exercised to ends of beneficence, to improve the condition of himself, and
his fellow men. While foreign nations, less blessed with that freedom
which is power than ourselves, are advancing with gigantic strides in the
career of public improvement, were we to slumber in indolence, or fold our
arms and proclaim to the world that we are palsied by the will of our
constituents, would it not be to cast away the bounties of Providence and
doom ourselves to perpetual inferiority? In the course of the year now
drawing to its close, we have beheld, under the auspices, and at the
expense of one State of this Union, a new university unfolding its portals
to the sons of science, and holding up the torch of human improvement to
eyes that seek the light.[Footnote: The University of Virginia.] We have
seen, under the persevering and enlightened enterprise of another State,
the waters of our Western lakes mingle with those of the ocean. If
undertakings like these have been accomplished in the compass of a few
years, by the authority of single members of our confederacy, can we, the
representative authorities of the whole Union, fall behind our fellow
servants in the exercise of the trust committed to us for the benefit of
our common sovereign, by the accomplishment of works important to the
whole and to which neither the authority nor the resources of anyone State
can be adequate?
The disastrous career of many of the States, and the absolute inaction of
others, since the responsibilities of internal improvement have been cast
off by the federal authorities, and developed upon the States, without
other sources of revenue than direct taxation, and with no other motives
to stimulate them than their own local interests, are a fitting commentary
on the error of that departure from the policy of John Quincy Adams. If
other comment were necessary, it would be found in the fact that States
have revised and amended their constitutions, so as to abridge the power
of their Legislatures to prosecute the beneficent enterprises which the
Federal Government has devolved upon them. The Smithsonian Institute, at
the seat of Government, founded by the liberality of a cosmopolite, is
that same university so earnestly recommended by Adams for the increase
and diffusion of knowledge among men. The exploration of the globe, for
purposes of geographical and political knowledge, which has so recently
been made under the authority of the Union, and with such noble results,
was an enterprize conceived and suggested by the same statesman. The
National Observatory at the capital, which is piercing the regions nearest
to the throne of the eternal Author of the universe, is an emanation of
the same comprehensive wisdom.
Such was the administration of John Quincy Adams. Surely it exhibits
enough done for duty and for fame--if the ancient philosopher said truly,
that the duty of a statesman was to make the citizens happy, to make them
firm in power, rich in wealth, splendid in glory, and eminent in virtue,
and that such achievements were the greatest and best of all works among
men.
But the measure of duty was not yet fulfilled. The Republic thought it no
longer had need of the services of Adams, and he bowed to its command. Two
years elapsed, and lo! the priest was seen again beside the deserted
altar, and a brighter, purer, and more lasting flame arose out of the
extinguished embers.
"He looked in years. But in his years were seen
A youthful vigor, an autumnal green."
The Republic had been extended and consolidated; but human slavery, which
had been incorporated in it, was extended and consolidated also, and was
spreading, so as to impair the strength of the great fabric on which the
hopes of the nations were suspended. Slavery therefore must be restrained,
and, without violence or injustice, must be abolished. The difficult task
of removing it had been postponed by the statesmen of the Revolution, and
had been delayed and forgotten by their successors. There were now
resolute hearts and willing hands to undertake it, but who was strong
enough, and bold enough to lead? Who had patience to bear with enthusiasm
that overleaped its mark, and with intolerance that defeated its own
generous purposes? Slaveholders had power, nay, the national power; and
strange to say, they had it with the nation's consent and sympathy. Who
was bold enough to provoke them, and bring the execration of the nation
down upon his own head? Who would do this, when even abolitionists
themselves, rendered implacable by the manifestation of those sentiments
of justice and moderation, without which the most humane cause, depending
on a change of public opinion, cannot be conducted safely to a prosperous
end, were ready to betray their own champion into the hands of the
avenger? That leader was found in the person of John Quincy Adams. He took
his seat in the House of Representatives in 1831, without assumption or
ostentation. Abolitionists placed in his hand petitions for the
suppression of slavery in the District of Columbia, the seat of the
federal authorities. He offered them to the House of Representatives, and
they were rejected with contumely and scorn. Suddenly the alarm went
forth, that the aged and venerable servant was retaliating upon his
country by instigating a servile war, that such a war must be avoided,
eyen at the cost of sacrificing the freedom of petition and the freedom of
debate, and that if the free States would not consent to make that
sacrifice, then the Union should be dissolved. This alarm had its desired
effect. The House of Representatives, in 1837, adopted a rule of
discipline, equivalent to an act, ordaining that no petition relating to
slavery, nearly or remotely, should be read, debated or considered. The
Senate adopted a like edict. The State authorities approved. Slavery was
not less strongly entrenched behind the bulwark of precedents in the
courts of law than in the fixed habits of thought and action among the
people. The people even in the free States denounced the discussion of
slavery, and suppressed it by unlawful force. John Quincy Adams stood
unmoved amid the storm. He knew that the only danger incident to political
reform, was the danger of delaying it too long. The French Revolution had
made this an axiom of political science. If, indeed, the discussion of
slavery was so hazardous as was pretended, it had been deferred too long
already. The advocates of slavery had committed a fatal error. They had
abolished freedom of speech and freedom of petition to save an obnoxious
institution. As soon as the panic should subside, the people would demand
the restoration of those precious rights, and would scrutinize with
fearless fidelity the cause for which they had been suppressed. He offered
petition after petition, each bolder and more importunate than the last.
He debated questions, kindred to those which were forbidden, with the
firmness and fervor of his noble nature. For age
Had not quenched the open truth
And fiery vehemence of youth.
Soon he gained upon his adversaries. District after district sent
champions to his side. States reconsidered, and resolved in his behalf. He
saw the tide was turning, and then struck one bold blow, not now for
freedom of petition and debate, but a stroke of bold and retaliating
warfare. He offered a resolution declaring that the following amendments
of the constitution of the United States be submitted to the people of the
several States for their adoption:
From and after the fourth day of July, 1842, there shall be, throughout
the United States, NO HEREDITARY SLAVERY, but on and after that day every
child born within the United States shall be FREE.
With the exception of the Territory of Florida, there shall, henceforth,
never be admitted into this Union, any STATE the constitution of which
shall tolerate within the same the existence of SLAVERY.
In 1845, the obnoxious rule of the House of Representatives was rescinded.
The freedom of debate and petition was restored, and the unrestrained and
irrepressible discussion of slavery by the press and political parties
began. For the rest, the work of emancipation abides the action, whether
it be slow or fast, of the moral sense of the American people. It depends
not on the zeal and firmness only of the reformers, but on their wisdom
and moderation also. Stoicism, that had no charity for error, never
converted any human society to virtue; Christianity, that remembers the
true nature of man, has encompassed a large portion of the globe. How long
emancipation may be delayed, is among the things concealed from our
knowledge, but not so the certain result. The perils of the enterprize
are already passed--its difficulties have already been removed--when it
shall have been accomplished it will be justly regarded as the last noble
effort which rendered the Republic imperishable.
Then the merit of the great achievement will be awarded to John Quincy
Adams; and by none more gratefully than by the communities on whom the
institution of slavery has brought the calamity of premature and
consumptive decline, in the midst of free, vigorous, and expanding States.
If this great transaction could be surpassed in dramatic sublimity, it was
surpassed when the same impassioned advocate of humanity appeared, at the
age of seventy-four, with all the glorious associations that now clustered
upon him, at the bar of the Supreme Court of the United States, and
pleaded, without solicitation or reward, the cause of Cinque and thirty
other Africans, who had been stolen by a Spanish slaver from their native
coast, had slain the master and crew of the pirate vessel, floated into
the waters of the United States, and there been claimed by the President,
in behalf of the authorities of Spain. He pleaded this great cause with
such happy effect, that the captives were set at liberty. Conveyed by the
charity of the humane to their native shores, they bore the pleasing
intelligence to Africa, that justice was at last claiming its way among
civilized and Christian men!
The recital of heroic actions loses its chief value, if we cannot discover
the principles in which they were born. The text of John Quincy Adams,
from which he deduced the duties of citizens, and of the republic, was the
address of the Continental Congress to the people of the United States, on
the occasion of the successful close of the American Revolution. He dwelt
often and emphatically on the words:
Let it be remembered, that it has ever been the pride and the boast of
America, that the rights for which she contended were the rights of human
nature. By the blessing of the Author of those rights, they have prevailed
over all opposition, and form the basis of thirteen independent States. No
instance has heretofore occurred, nor can any instance be expected
hereafter to occur, in which the unadulterated forms of republican
government can pretend to so fair an opportunity of justifying themselves
by their fruits. In this view, the citizens of the United States are
responsible for the greatest trust ever confided to a political society.
If JUSTICE, GOOD FAITH, HONOR, GRATITUDE, and all the other qualities
which ennoble the character of a nation and fulfil the ends of government,
be the fruits of our establishments, the cause of liberty will acquire a
dignity and lustre which it has never yet enjoyed, and an example will be
set which cannot but have the most favorable influence on mankind. If, on
the other side, our Governments should be unfortunately blotted with the
reverse of these cardinal virtues, the great cause which we have engaged
to vindicate will be dishonored and betrayed; the last and fairest
experiment in favor of the rights of human nature will be turned against
them, and their patrons and friends exposed to the insults, and silenced
by the votaries of tyranny and usurpation.
Senators and Representatives of the People of the State of New York: I had
turned my steps away from your honored halls, long since, as I thought
forever. I come back to them by your command, to fulfil a higher duty and
more honorable service than ever before devolved upon me. I repay your
generous confidence, by offering to you this exposition of the duties of
the magistrate and of the citizen. It is the same which John Quincy Adams
gave to the Congress of the United States, in his oration on the death of
James Madison. It is the key to his own exalted character, and it enables
us to measure the benefits he conferred upon his country. If then you ask
what motive enabled him to rise above parties, sects, combinations,
prejudices, passions, and seductions, I answer that he served his country,
not alone, or chiefly because that country was his own, but because he
knew her duties and her destiny, and knew her cause was the cause of human
nature.
If you inquire why he was so rigorous in virtue as to be often thought
austere, I answer it was because human nature required the exercise of
justice, honor, and gratitude, by all who were clothed with authority to
act in the name of the American people. If you ask why he seemed,
sometimes, with apparent inconsistency, to lend his charities to the
distant and the future rather than to his own kindred and times, I reply,
it was because he held that the tenure of human power is on condition of
its being beneficently exercised for the common welfare of the human race.
Such men are of no country. They belong to mankind. If we cannot rise to
this height of virtue, we cannot hope to comprehend the character of John
Quincy Adams, or understand the homage paid by the American people to his
memory.
Need it be said that John Quincy Adams studied justice, honor and
gratitude, not by the false standards of the age, but by their own true
nature? He generalized truth, and traced it always to its source, the
bosom of God. Thus in his defence of the Amistad captives he began with
defining justice in the language of Justinian, "Constans et perpetua
voluntas jus SUUM cuique tribuendi." He quoted on the same occasion from
the Declaration of Independence, not by way of rhetorical embellishment,
and not even as a valid human ordinance, but as a truth of nature, of
universal application, the memorable words, "We hold these truths to be
self-evident, that all men are created equal, and that they are endowed by
their Creator with certain inalienable rights, and that among these rights
are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." In his vindication of
the right of debate, he declared that the principle that religious
opinions were altogether beyond the sphere of legislative control, was but
one modification of a more extensive axiom, which included the unbounded
freedom of the press, and of speech, and of the communication of thought
in all its forms. He rested the inviolability of the right of petition,
not on constitutions, or charters, which might be glossed, abrogated or
expunged, but in the inherent right of every animate creature to pray to
its superior.
The model by which he formed his character was Cicero. Not the living
Cicero, sometimes inconsistent; often irresolute; too often seeming to act
a studied part; and always covetous of applause. But Cicero, as he aimed
to be, and as he appears revealed in those immortal emanations of his
genius which have been the delight and guide of intellect and virtue in
every succeeding age. Like the Roman, Adams was an orator, but he did not
fall into the error of the Roman, in practically valuing eloquence more
than the beneficence to which it should be devoted. Like him he was a
statesman and magistrate worthy to be called "The second founder of the
Republic,"--like him a teacher of didactic philosophy, of morals, and even
of his own peculiar art; and like him he made all liberal learning
tributary to that noble art, while poetry was the inseparable companion of
his genius in its hours of relaxation from the labors of the forum and of
the capitol.
Like him he loved only the society of good men, and by his generous praise
of such, illustrated the Roman's beautiful aphorism, that no one can be
envious of good deeds, who has confidence in his own virtue. Like Cicero
he kept himself unstained by social or domestic vices; preserved serenity
and cheerfulness; cherished habitual reverence for the Deity, and dwelt
continually, not on the mystic theology of the schools, but on the hopes
of a better life. He lived in what will be regarded as the virtuous age of
his country, while Cicero was surrounded by an overwhelming degeneracy. He
had the light of Christianity for his guide; and its sublime motives as
incitements to virtue: while Cicero had only the confused instructions of
the Grecian schools, and saw nothing certainly attainable but present
applause and future fame. In moral courage, therefore, he excelled his
model and rivalled Cato. But Cato was a visionary, who insisted upon
his right to act always without reference to the condition of mankind, as
he should have acted in Plato's imaginary Republic. Adams stood in this
respect midway between the impracticable stoic and the too flexible
academician. He had no occasion to say, as the Grecian orator did, that if
he had sometimes acted contrary to himself, he had never acted contrary to
the Republic; but he might justly have said, as the noble Roman did, "I
have rendered to my country all the great services which she was willing
to receive at my hands, and I have never harbored a thought concerning her
that was not divine."
More fortunate than Cicero, who fell a victim of civil wars which he could
not avert, Adams was permitted to linger on the earth, until the
generations of that future age, for whom he had lived and to whom he had
appealed from the condemnation of contemporaries, came up before the
curtain which had shut out his sight, and pronounced over him, as he was
sinking into the grave, their judgment of approval and benediction.
The distinguished characteristics of his life were BENEFICENT LABOR and
PERSONAL CONTENTMENT. He never sought wealth, but devoted himself to the
service of mankind. Yet, by the practice of frugality and method, he
secured the enjoyment of dealing forth continually no stinted charities,
and died in affluence. He never solicited place or preferment, and had no
partizan combinations or even connections; yet he received honors which
eluded the covetous grasp of those who formed parties, rewarded friends
and proscribed enemies; and he filled a longer period of varied and
distinguished service than ever fell to the lot of any other citizen. In
every stage of this progress he was CONTENT. He was content to be
president, minister, representative, or citizen.
Stricken in the midst of this service, in the very act of rising to
debate, he fell into the arms of conscript fathers of the Republic. A long
lethargy supervened and oppressed his senses. Nature rallied the wasting
powers, on the verge of the grave, for a very brief period. But it was
long enough for him. The rekindled eye showed that the re-collected mind
was clear, calm, and vigorous. His weeping family, and his sorrowing
compeers were there. He surveyed the scene and knew at once its fatal
import. He had left no duty unperformed; he had no wish unsatisfied; no
ambition unattained; no regret, no sorrow, no fear, no remorse. He could
not shake off the dews of death that gathered on his brow. He could not
pierce the thick shades that rose up before him. But he knew that eternity
lay close by the shores of time. He knew that his Redeemer lived.
Eloquence, even in that hour, inspired him with his ancient sublimity of
utterance. "THIS," said the dying man. "THIS IS THE END OF EARTH." He
paused for a moment, and then added, "I AM CONTENT." Angels might well
draw aside the curtains of the skies to look down on such a scene--a scene
that approximated even to that scene of unapproachable sublimity, not to
be recalled without reverence, when, in mortal agony, ONE who spake as
never man spake, said, "IT IS FINISHED!"
Only two years after the birth of John Quincy Adams, there appeared on an
island in the Mediterranean sea, a human spirit newly born, endowed with
equal genius, without the regulating qualities of justice and benevolence
which Adams possessed in an eminent degree. A like career opened to
both--born like Adams, a subject of a king--the child of more genial
skies, like him, became in early life a patriot and a citizen of a new and
great Republic. Like Adams he lent his service to the State in precocious
youth, and in its hour of need, and won its confidence. But unlike Adams
he could not wait the dull delays of slow and laborious, but sure
advancement. He sought power by the hasty road that leads through fields
of carnage, and he became, like Adams, a supreme magistrate, a Consul. But
there were other Consuls. He was not content. He thrust them aside, and
was Consul alone. Consular power was too short. He fought new battles, and
was Consul for life. But power, confessedly derived from the people, must
be exercised in obedience to their will, and must be resigned to them
again, at least in death. He was not content. He desolated Europe afresh,
subverted the Republic, imprisoned the patriarch who presided over Rome's
comprehensive See, and obliged him to pour on his head the sacred oil that
made the persons of kings divine, and their right to reign indefeasible.
He was an Emperor. But he saw around him a mother, brothers and sisters,
not ennobled; whose humble state reminded him, and the world, that he was
born a plebeian; and he had no heir to wait impatient for the imperial
crown. He scourged the earth again, and again fortune smiled on him even
in his wild extravagance. He bestowed kingdoms and principalities upon his
kindred--put away the devoted wife of his youthful days, and another, a
daughter of Hapsburgh's imperial house, joyfully accepted his proud
alliance. Offspring gladdened his anxious sight; a diadem was placed on
its infant brow, and it received the homage of princes, even in its
cradle. Now he was indeed a monarch--a legitimate monarch--a monarch by
divine appointment--the first of an endless succession of monarchs. But
there were other monarchs who held sway in the earth. He was not content.
He would reign with his kindred alone. He gathered new and greater
armies--from his own land--from subjugated lands. He called forth the
young and brave--one from every household--from the Pyrenees to Zuyder
Zee--from Jura to the ocean. He marshalled them into long and majestic
columns, and went forth to seize that universal dominion, which seemed
almost within his grasp. But ambition had tempted fortune too far. The
nations of the earth resisted, repelled, pursued, surrounded him. The
pageant was ended. The crown fell from his presumptuous head. The wife
who had wedded him in his pride, forsook him when the hour of fear came
upon him. His child was ravished from his sight. His kinsmen were degraded
to their first estate, and he was no longer Emperor, nor Consul, nor
General, nor even a citizen, but an exile and a prisoner, on a lonely
island, in the midst of the wild Atlantic. Discontent attended him there.
The wayward man fretted out a few long years of his yet unbroken manhood,
looking off at the earliest dawn and in evening's latest twilight, towards
that distant world that had only just eluded his grasp. His heart
corroded. Death came, not unlooked for, though it came even then
unwelcome. He was stretched on his bed within the fort which constituted
his prison. A few fast and faithful friends stood around, with the guards
who rejoiced that the hour of relief from long and wearisome watching was
at hand. As his strength wasted away, delirium stirred up the brain from
its long and inglorious inactivity. The pageant of ambition returned. He
was again a Lieutenant, a General, a Consul, an Emperor of France. He
filled again the throne of Charlemagne. His kindred pressed around him
again, re-invested with the pompous pageantry of royalty. The daughter of
the long line of kings again stood proudly by his side, and the sunny face
of his child shone out from beneath the diadem that encircled its flowing
locks. The marshals of the Empire awaited his command. The legions of the
old guard were in the field, their scarred faces rejuvenated, and their
ranks, thinned in many battles, replenished, Russia, Prussia, Austria,
Denmark and England, gathered their mighty hosts to give him battle. Once
more he mounted his impatient charger, and rushed forth to conquest. He
waved his sword aloft, and cried "TETE D'ARMEE." The feverish vision
broke--the mockery was ended. The silver cord was loosed, and the warrior
fell back upon his bed a lifeless corpse. THIS WAS THE END OF EARTH. THE
CORSICAN WAS NOT CONTENT.
STATESMEN AND CITIZENS! the contrast suggests its own impressive moral.
THE END.