been dull and monotonous, with few amusements and almost no travel, no
art, not many luxuries, and the utter absence of what are called
"modern improvements." But if life at that time is more closely
scrutinized we find in it all the elements of ordinary pleasure,--the
same family ties, the same "loves and wassellings," the same convivial
circles, the same aspirations for distinction, as in more favored
civilizations. If luxuries were limited, people lived in comfortable
houses, sat around their big wood-fires, kept up at small cost, and had
all the necessities of life,--warm clothing, even if spun and woven and
dyed at home, linen in abundance, fresh meat at most seasons of the
year, with the unstinted products of the farm at all seasons, and even
tea and coffee, wines and spirits, at moderate cost; so that the New
Englanders of the eighteenth century could look back with complacency
and gratitude on the days when the Pilgrim Fathers first landed and
settled in the dreary wilderness, feeling that the "lines had fallen to
them in pleasant places," and yet be unmindful that even the original
settlers, with all their discomforts and dangers and privations, enjoyed
that inward peace and lofty spiritual life in comparison with which all
material luxuries are transient and worthless. It is only the divine
certitudes, which can exist under any external circumstances, that are
of much account in our estimate of human happiness, and it is these
which ordinarily escape the attention of historians when they paint the
condition of society. Our admiration and our pity are alike wasted when
we turn our eyes to the outward condition of our rural ancestors, so
long as we have reason to believe that their souls were jubilant with
the benedictions of Heaven; and this joy of theirs is especially
noticeable when they are surrounded with perils and hardships.
Such was the state of society when John Adams appeared on the political
stage. There were but few rich men in New England,--like John Hancock
and John Langdon, both merchants,--and not many who were very poor. The
population consisted generally of well-to-do farmers, shopkeepers,
mechanics, and fishermen, with a sprinkling of lawyers and doctors and
ministers, most of whom were compelled to practise the severest economy,
and all of whom were tolerably educated and familiar with the principles
on which their rights and liberties rested. Usually they were
law-abiding, liberty-loving citizens, with a profound veneration for
religious institutions, and contentment with their lot. There was no
hankering for privileges or luxuries which were never enjoyed, and of
which they never heard. As we read the histories of cities or states, in
antiquity or in modern times, we are struck with their similarity, in
all ages and countries, in everything which pertains to domestic
pleasures, to religious life, to ordinary passions and interests, and
the joys and sorrows of the soul. Homer and Horace, Chaucer and
Shakespeare, dwell on the same things, and appeal to the same
sentiments.
So John Adams the orator worked on the same material, substantially,
that our orators and statesmen do at the present day, and that all
future orators will work upon to the end of time,--on the passions, the
interests, and the aspirations which are eternally the same, unless kept
down by grinding despotism or besotted ignorance, as in Egypt or
mediaeval Europe, and even then the voice of humanity finds entrance to
the heart and soul. "All men," said Rousseau, "are born equal;" and both
Adams and Jefferson built up their system of government upon this
equality of rights, if not of condition, and defended it by an appeal to
human consciousness,--the same in all ages and countries. In regard to
these elemental rights we are no more enlightened now than our fathers
were a hundred years ago, except as they were involved in the question
of negro slavery. When, therefore, Adams began his career as a political
orator, it was of no consequence whether men were rich or poor, or
whether the country was advanced or backward in material civilization.
He spoke to the heart and the soul of man, as Garrison and Sumner and
Lincoln spoke on other issues, but involving the same established
principles.
Little could John Adams have divined his own future influence and fame
when, as a boy on his father's farm in Braintree, he toiled in rural and
commonplace drudgeries, or when he was an undistinguished student at
Harvard or a schoolmaster in a country village. It was not until
political agitations aroused the public mind that a new field was open
to him, congenial to his genius.
Still, even when he boarded with his father, a sturdy Puritan, at the
time he began the practice of the law at the age of twenty-three, he had
his aspirations. Writes he in his diary, "Chores, chat, tobacco, apples,
tea, steal away my time, but I am resolved to translate Justinian;" and
yet on his first legal writ he made a failure for lack of concentrated
effort. "My thoughts," he said, "are roving from girls to friends, from
friends to court, and from court to Greece and Rome,"--showing that
enthusiastic, versatile temperament which then and afterwards
characterized him.
Not long after that, he had given up Justinian. "You may get more by
studying town-meetings and training-days," he writes. "Popularity is the
way to gain and figure." These extracts give no indication of
legal ambition.
But in 1761 the political horizon was overcast. There were difficulties
with Great Britain. James Otis had made a great speech, which Adams
heard, on what were called "writs of assistance," giving power to the
English officers of customs in the Colony to enter houses and stores to
search for smuggled goods. This remarkable speech made a deep impression
on the young lawyer, and kindled fires which were never extinguished. He
saw injustice, and a violation of the rights of English subjects, as all
the Colonists acknowledged themselves to be, and he revolted from
injustice and tyranny. This was the turning-point of his life; he became
a patriot and politician. This, however, was without neglecting his law
business, which soon grew upon his hands, for he could make a speech and
address juries. Eloquence was his gift. He was a born orator, like
Patrick Henry.
In 1765 Parliament passed the Stamp Act, which produced great agitation
in New England, and Adams was fired with the prevailing indignation. His
whole soul went forth in angry protest. He argued its injustice before
Governor Bernard, who, however, was resolved to execute it as the law.
Adams was equally resolved to prevent its execution, and appealed to the
people in burning words of wrath. Chief-Justice Hutchinson sided with
the Governor, and prevented the opening of the courts and all business
transactions without stamps. This decision crippled business, and there
was great distress on account of it; but Adams cared less for the
injury to people's pockets than for the violation of rights,--_taxation
without representation;_ and in his voice and that of other impassioned
orators this phrase became the key-note of the Revolution.
English taxation of the Colonies was not oppressive, but was felt to be
unjust and unconstitutional,--an entering-wedge to future exactions, to
which the people were resolved not to submit. They had no idea of
separation from England, but, like John Hampden, they would resist an
unlawful tax, no matter what the consequences. Fortunately, these
consequences were not then foreseen. The opposition of the Colonies to
taxation without their own consent was a pure outburst of that spirit of
liberty which was born in German forests, and in England grew into Magna
Charta, and ripened into the English Revolution. It was a turbulent
popular protest. That was all, at first, and John Adams fanned the
discontent, with his cousin, Samuel Adams, a greater agitator even than
he, resembling Wendell Phillips in his acrimony, boldness, and power of
denunciation. The country was aroused from end to end. The "Sons of
Liberty" societies of Massachusetts spread to Maryland; the Virginians
boldly passed declarations of rights; the merchants of New York,
Philadelphia, and Boston resolved to import no English goods; and nine
of the Colonies sent delegates to a protesting Convention in New York.
In 1766 the Stamp Act was repealed because it could not be enforced; but
Parliament refused to concede its right of taxation, and there was a
prospect of more trouble.
John Adams soon passed to the front rank of the patriotic party in
Massachusetts. He was eloquent and he was honest. His popularity in
Massachusetts Bay was nearly equal to that of Patrick Henry in Virginia,
who was even more vehement. The Tories looked upon Adams pretty much as
the descendants of the old Federalists looked upon William Lloyd
Garrison when he began the anti-slavery agitation,--as a dangerous man,
a fanatical reformer. The presence of such a leader was now needed in
Boston, and in 1768 Adams removed to that excitable town, which was
always ready to adopt progressive views. Soon after, two British
regiments landed in the town, and occupied the public buildings with the
view of overawing and restraining the citizens, especially in the
enforcement of customs duties on certain imported articles. This was a
new and worse outrage, but no collision took place between the troops
and the people till the memorable "Boston Massacre" on the 5th of March,
1770, when several people were killed and wounded, which increased the
popular indignation. It now looked as if the English government
intended to treat the Bostonians as rebels, to coerce them by armed men,
to frighten them into submission to all its unwise measures. What a
fortunate thing was that infatuation on the part of English ministers!
The independence of the Colonies might have been delayed for
half-a-century but for the stupidity and obstinacy of George III and
his advisers.
By this time John Adams began to see the logical issue of English
persistency in taxation. He saw that it would lead to war, and he
trembled in view of the tremendous consequences of a war with the
mother-country, from which the Colonies had not yet sought a separation.
Adams was now not only in the front rank of the patriotic party, a
leader of the people, but had reached eminence as a lawyer. He was at
the head of the Massachusetts bar. In addition he had become a member of
the legislature, second to no one in influence. But his arduous labors
told upon his health, and he removed to Braintree, where he lived for
some months, riding into Boston every day. With restored health from
out-door exercise, he returned again to Boston in 1772, purchased a
house in Queen Street, opposite the court-house, and renewed his law
business, now grown so large that he resigned his seat in the
legislature. Politics, however, absorbed his soul, and stirring times
were at hand.
In every seaport--Charleston, Annapolis, Philadelphia, New York,
Boston--the people were refusing to receive the newly-taxed tea. On the
17th of December, 1773, three shiploads of tea were destroyed in Boston
harbor by a number of men dressed as Indians. Adams approved of this
bold and defiant act, sure to complicate the relations with Great
Britain. In his heart Adams now desired this, as tending to bring about
the independence of the Colonies. He believed that the Americans, after
ten years of agitation, were strong enough to fight; he wanted no
further conciliation. But he did not as yet openly declare his views. In
1774 General Gage was placed at the head of the British military force
in Boston, and the port was closed. The legislature, overawed by the
troops, removed to Salem, and then chose five men as delegates to the
General Congress about to assemble in Philadelphia. John Adams was one
of these delegates, and associated with him were Samuel Adams, Thomas
Cushing, James Bowdoin, and Robert Treat Paine.
All historians unite in their praises of this memorable assembly, as
composed of the picked men of the country. At the meeting of this
Congress began the career of John Adams as a statesman. Until then he
had been a mere politician, but honest, bold, and talented, in abilities
second to no one in the country, ranking alone with Jefferson in
general influence,--certainly the foremost man in Massachusetts.
But it was the vehemence of his patriotism and his inspiring eloquence
which brought Adams to the front, rather than his legal reputation. He
was not universally admired or loved. He had no tact. His temper was
irascible, jealous, and impatient; his manners were cold, like those of
all his descendants, and his vanity was inordinate. Every biographer has
admitted his egotism, and jealousy even of Franklin and Washington.
Everybody had confidence in his honesty, his integrity, his private
virtues, his abilities, and patriotism. These exalted traits were no
more doubted than the same in Washington. But if he had more brain-power
than Washington he had not that great leader's prudence, nor good sense,
nor patience, nor self-command, nor unerring instinct in judging men and
power of guiding them.
One reason, perhaps, why Adams was not so conciliatory as Jefferson was
inclined to be toward England was that he had gone too far to be
pardoned. He was the most outspoken and violent of all the early leaders
of rebellion except his cousin, Samuel Adams. He was detested by royal
governors and the English government. But his ardent temperament and his
profound convictions furnish a better reason for his course. All the
popular leaders were of course alive to the probable personal
consequences if their cause should not succeed; but fear of personal
consequences was the feeblest of their motives in persistent efforts for
independence. They were inspired by a loftier sentiment than that, even
an exalted patriotism. It burned in every speech they made, and in every
conversation in which they took part. If they had not the spirit of
martyrdom, they had the spirit of self-devotion to a noble cause. They
saw clearly enough the sacrifices they would be required to make, and
the calamities which would overwhelm the land. But these were nothing to
the triumph of their cause. Of this final triumph none of the great
leaders of the Revolution doubted. They felt the impossibility of
subduing a nation determined to be free, by such forces as England could
send across the ocean. Battles might be lost, like those of William the
Silent, but if the Dutch could overflow their dikes, the Americans, as a
last resort, could seek shelter in their forests. The Americans were
surely not behind the Dutch in the capacity of suffering, although to my
mind their cause was not so precious as that of the Hollanders, who had
not only to fight against overwhelming forces, but to preserve religious
as well as civil liberties. The Dutch fought for religion and
self-preservation; the Americans, to resist a tax which nearly all
England thought it had a right to impose, and which was by no means
burdensome,--a mooted question in the highest courts of law; at bottom,
however, it was not so much to resist a tax as to gain national
independence that the Americans fought. It was the Anglo-Saxon love of
self-government.
And who could blame them for resisting foreign claims to the boundless
territories and undeveloped resources of the great country in which they
had settled forever? The real motive of the enlightened statesmen of the
day was to make the Colonies free from English legislation, English
armies, and English governors, that they might develop their
civilization in their own way. The people whom they led may have justly
feared the suppression of their rights and liberties; but far-sighted
statesmen had also other ends in view, not to be talked about in
town-meetings or even legislative halls. As Abraham of old cast his
inspired vision down the vista of ages and saw his seed multiplying like
the sands of the sea, and all the countries and nations of the world
gradually blest by the fulfilment of the promise made to him, so the
founders of our republic looked beyond the transient sufferings and
miseries of a conflict with their mother-country, to the unbounded
resources which were sure to be developed on every river and in every
valley of the vast wilderness yet to be explored, and to the teeming
populations which were to arise and to be blessed by the enjoyment of
those precious privileges and rights for which they were about to take
up the sword. They may not have anticipated so rapid a progress in
agriculture, in wealth, in manufactures, in science, in literature and
art, as has taken place within one hundred years, to the astonishment
and admiration of all mankind; but they saw that American progress would
be steady, incalculable, immeasurable, unchecked and ever advancing,
until their infant country should number more favored people than any
nation which history records, unconquerable by any foreign power, and
never to pass away except through the prevalence of such vices as
destroyed the old Roman world.
With this encouragement, statesmen like Franklin, Washington, Adams,
Jefferson, Hamilton, were ready to risk everything and make any
sacrifice to bring about the triumph of their cause,--a cause infinitely
greater than that which was advocated by Pitt, or fought for by
Wellington. Their eyes rested on the future of America, and the great
men who were yet to be born. They well could say, in the language of an
orator more eloquent than any of them, as he stood on Plymouth Rock
in 1820:--
"Advance, then, ye future generations! We would hail you, as you rise in
your long succession to fill the places which we now fill.... We bid you
welcome to the healthy skies and the verdant fields of New England. We
greet your accession to the great inheritance which we have enjoyed. We
welcome you to the blessings of good government and religious liberty.
We welcome you to the treasures of science, and the delights of
learning. We welcome you to the transcendent sweets of domestic life, to
the happiness of kindred, and parents, and children. We welcome you to
the immeasurable blessings of rational existence, the immortal hope of
Christianity, and the light of everlasting truth!"
John Adams, whose worth and services Daniel Webster, six years after
uttering those words, pointed out in Fanueil Hall when the old statesman
died, was probably the most influential member of the Continental
Congress, after Washington, since he was its greatest orator and its
most impassioned character. He led the Assembly, as Henry Clay
afterwards led the Senate, and Canning led the House of Commons, by that
inspired logic which few could resist. Jefferson spoke of him as "the
colossus of debate." It is the fashion in these prosaic times to
undervalue congressional and parliamentary eloquence, as a vain
oratorical display; but it is this which has given power to the greatest
leaders of mankind in all free governments,--as illustrated by the
career of such men as Demosthenes, Pericles, Cicero, Chatham, Fox,
Mirabeau, Webster, and Clay; and it is rarely called out except in great
national crises, amid the storms of passion and agitating ideas.
Jefferson affected to sneer at it, as exhibited by Patrick Henry; but
take away eloquence from his own writings and they would be commonplace.
All productions of the human intellect are soon forgotten unless infused
with sentiments which reach the heart, or excite attention by vividness
of description, or the brilliancy which comes from art or imagination or
passion. Who reads a prosaic novel, or a history of dry details, if ever
so accurate? How few can listen with interest to a speech of statistical
information, if ever so useful,--unless illuminated by the oratorical
genius of a Gladstone! True eloquence is a gift, as rare as poetry; an
inspiration allied with genius; an electrical power without which few
people can be roused, either to reflection or action. This electrical
power both the Adamses had, as remarkably as Whitefield or Beecher. No
one can tell exactly what it is, whether it is physical, or spiritual,
or intellectual; but certain it is that a speaker will not be listened
to without it, either in a legislative hall, or in the pulpit, or on the
platform. And hence eloquence, wherever displayed, is really a great
power, and will remain so to the end of time.
At the first session of the Continental Congress in Philadelphia, in
1774, although it was composed of the foremost men in the country, very
little was done, except to recommend to the different provinces the
non-importation of British goods, with a view of forcing England into
conciliatory measures; at which British statesmen laughed. The only
result of this self-denying ordinance was to compel people to wear
homespun and forego tea and coffee and other luxuries, while little was
gained, except to excite the apprehension of English merchants. Yet this
was no small affair in America, for we infer from the letters of John
Adams to his wife that the habits of the wealthy citizens of
Philadelphia were even then luxurious, much more so than in Boston. We
read of a dinner given to Adams and other delegates by a young Quaker
lawyer, at which were served ducks, hams, chickens, beef, pig, tarts,
cream, custards, jellies, trifles, floating islands, beer, porter,
punch, wine, and a long list of other things. All such indulgences, and
many others, the earnest men and women of that day undertook cheerfully
to deny themselves.
Adams returned these civilities by dining a party on salt fish,--perhaps
as a rebuke to the costly entertainments with which he was surfeited,
and which seemed to him unseasonable in "times that tried men's souls."
But when have Philadelphia Quakers disdained what is called good living?
Adams, at first delighted with the superior men he met, before long was
impatient with the deliberations of the Congress, and severely
criticised the delegates. "Every man," wrote he, "upon every occasion
must show his oratory, his criticism, and his political abilities. The
consequence of this is that business is drawn and spun out to an
immeasurable length. I believe, if it was moved and seconded that we
should come to a resolution that three and two make five, we should be
entertained with logic and rhetoric, law, history, politics, and
mathematics; and then--we should pass the resolution unanimously in the
affirmative. These great wits, these subtle critics, these refined
geniuses, these learned lawyers, these wise statesmen, are so fond of
showing their parts and powers as to make their consultations very
tedious. Young Ned Rutledge is a perfect bob-o-lincoln,--a swallow, a
sparrow, a peacock; excessively vain, excessively weak, and excessively
variable and unsteady, jejune, inane, and puerile." Sharp words these!
This session of Congress resulted in little else than the interchange of
opinions between Northern and Southern statesmen. It was a mere advisory
body, useful, however, in preparing the way for a union of the Colonies
in the coming contest. It evidently did not "mean business," and
"business" was what Adams wanted, rather than a vain display of
abilities without any practical purpose.