Part 18

I am not to praise Mr. Adams simply because he is dead; what is wrong before is wrong after death. It is no merit to die; shall we tell lies about him because he is dead? No, the Egyptian people scrutinized and judged their kings after death--much more should we our fellow-citizens, intrusted with power to serve the State. "A lavish and undistinguishing eulogium is not praise." I know what coals of terrible fire lie under my feet, as I speak of this matter, and how thin and light is the coat of ashes deposited there in forty years; how easily they are blown away at the slightest breath of "Hartford Convention," or the "Embargo," and the old flame of political animosity blazes forth anew, while the hostile forms of "federalists" and "democrats" come back to light. I would not disquiet those awful shades, nor bring them up again. But a word must be said. The story of the embargo is well known: the President sent his message to the Senate recommending it, and accompanied with several documents. The message was read and assigned to a committee; the ordinary rule of business was suspended; the bill was reported by the committee; drafted, debated, engrossed, and completely passed through all its stages, the whole on the same day, in secret session, and in about four hours! Yet it was a bill that involved the whole commerce of the country, and prostrated that commerce, seriously affecting the welfare of hundreds of thousands of men. Eight hundred thousand tons of shipping were doomed to lie idle and rot in port. The message came on Friday. Some of the Senators wanted yet further information and more time for debate, at least for consideration,--till Monday. It could not be! Till Saturday, then. No; the bill must pass now, no man sleeping on that question. Mr. Adams was the most zealous for passing the bill. In that "debate," if such it can be called, while opposing a postponement for further information and reflection, he said, "The President has recommended the measure on his high responsibility; I would _not consider_, I would _not deliberate_; I would _act_. Doubtless the _President possesses such further information as will justify the measure_!"[21] To my mind, that is the worst act of his public life; I cannot justify it. I wish I could find some reasonable excuse for it. What had become of the "sovereignty of the people," the "unalienable right of resistance to oppression?" Would _not consider_; would _not deliberate_; would _act_ without doing either; leave it all to the "high responsibility" of the President, with a "doubtless" he has "further information" to justify the measure! It was a shame to say so; it would have disgraced a Senator in St. Petersburg. Why not have the "further information" laid before the Senate? What would Mr. Adams have said, if President Jackson, Tyler, or Polk, had sent such a message, and some Senator or Representative had counselled submissive action, without considering, without deliberation? With what appalling metaphors would he describe such a departure from the first duty of a statesman; how would the tempestuous eloquence of that old patriot shake the Hall of Congress till it rung again, and the nation looked up with indignation in its face! It is well known what Mr. Adams said in 1834, when Mr. Polk, in the House of Representatives, seemed over-laudatory of the President: "I shall never be disposed to interfere with any member who shall rise on this floor and pronounce a panegyric upon the chief magistrate.

'No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp, And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee Where thrift may follow fawning.'"

Yet the future of Mr. Polk was not so obvious in 1834, as the reward of Mr. Adams in 1808.

This act is particularly glaring in Mr. Adams. The North often sends men to Washington who might have done it without any great inconsistency; men, too, not so remarkable for infirmity in the head, as for that less pardonable weakness in the knees and the neck; men that bend to power "right or wrong." Mr. Adams was not afflicted with that weakness, and so the more to be censured for this palpable betrayal of a trust so important. I wish I could find some excuse for it. He was forty years old; not very old, but old enough to know better. His defence made the matter worse. The Massachusetts Legislature disapproved of his conduct; chose another man to succeed him in the Senate. Then Mr. Adams resigned his seat, and soon after was sent minister to Russia, as he himself subsequently declared,[22] "in consequence of the support he had for years given to the measures of Mr. Jefferson's administration against Great Britain." But his father said of that mission of his son, "Aristides is banished because he is too just."[23] It is easy to judge of the temper of the times, when such words as those of the father could be said on such an occasion, and that by a man who had been President of the United States! When a famine occurs, disease appears in the most hideous forms; men go back to temporary barbarism. In times of political strife, such diseases appear of the intellectual and moral powers. No man who did not live in those times can fully understand the obliquity of mind and moral depravity which then displayed themselves amongst those otherwise without reproach. Says Mr. Adams himself, referring to that period, "Imagination in her wildest vagaries can scarcely conceive the transformation of temper, the obliquities of intellect, the perversions of moral principle, effected by junctures of nigh and general excitement." However, it must be confessed that this, though not the only instance of injustice, is the only case of servile compliance with the Executive to be found in the whole life of the man. It was a grievous fault, but grievously did he answer it; and if a long life of unfaltering resistance to every attempt at the assumption of power is fit atonement, then the expiation was abundantly made.

About the same time, Mr. Adams was chairman of a committee of the Senate, appointed to consider the case of a Senator from Ohio. His conduct, on that occasion, has been the theme of violent attack, and defence as violent. To the calm spectator, at this day, his conduct seems unjustifiable, inconsistent with the counsels of justice, which, though moving with her "Pace of snail," looks always towards the right, and will not move out of her track, though the heavens fall.

While Mr. Adams was President, Hayti became free; but he did not express any desire that the United States should acknowledge her independence, and receive her minister at Washington,--an African plenipotentiary. In his message,[24] he says, "There are circumstances that have hitherto forbidden the acknowledgment," and mentions "additional reasons for withholding that acknowledgment." In the instructions to the American functionary, sent to the celebrated Congress of Panama, it is said, the President "is not prepared now to say that Hayti ought to be recognized as an independent sovereign power;" he "does not think it would be proper at this time to recognize it as a new State." He was unwilling to consent to the independence of Cuba, for fear of an insurrection of her slaves, and the effect at home. The duty of the United States would be "To defend themselves against the contagion of such near and dangerous examples," that would "constrain them ... to employ all means necessary to their security." That is, the President would be constrained to put down the blacks in Cuba, who were exercising "The unalienable right of resistance to oppression," for fear the blacks in the United States would discover that they also were men, and had "Unalienable rights!" Had he forgotten the famous words, "Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God?" The defence of such language on such an occasion is, that Mr. Adams's eyes were not yet open to the evil of slavery. That is a good defence, if true. To me it seems a true defence. Even great men do not see every thing. In 1800, Fisher Ames, while delivering the eulogy on General Washington, censured even the British government, because, "In the wilds of Africa, it obstructed the commerce in slaves!" No man is so wise as mankind. It must be confessed that Mr. Adams, while Secretary of State, and again, while President, showed no hostility to the institution of slavery. His influence all went the other way. He would repress the freedom of the blacks, in the West Indies, lest American slavery should be disturbed, and its fetters broke; he would not acknowledge the independence of Hayti, he would urge Spain to make peace with her descendants, for the same reason--"not for those new republics," but lest the negroes in Cuba and Porto Rico should secure their freedom. He negotiated with England, and she paid the United States more than a million of dollars[25] for the fugitive slaves who took refuge under her flag during the late war. Mr. Adams had no scruples about receiving the money during his administration. An attempt was repeatedly made by his secretary, Mr. Clay, through Mr. Gallatin, and then through Mr. Barbour, to induce England to restore the "fugitive slaves who had taken refuge in the Canadian provinces," who, escaping from the area of freedom, seek the shelter of the British crown.[26] Nay, he negotiated a treaty with Mexico, which bound her to deliver up fugitive slaves, escaping from the United States--a treaty which the Mexican Congress refused to ratify! Should a great man have known better? Great men are not always wise. Afterwards, public attention was called to the matter; humble men gave lofty counsel; Mr. Adams used different language, and recommended different measures. But long before that, on the 7th of December, 1804, Mr. Pickering, his colleague in the Senate of the United States, offered a resolution, for the purpose of amending the Constitution, so as to apportion representatives, and direct taxes among the States, according to their free inhabitants.

But there are other things in Mr. Adams's course and conduct, which deserve the censure of a good man. One was, the attempt to justify the conduct of England, in her late war with China, when she forced her opium upon the barbarians with the bayonet. To make out his case, he contended that "In the celestial empire ... the patriarchal system of Sir Robert Filmer, flourished in all its glory," and the Chinese claimed superior dignity over all others; they refused to hold equal and reciprocal commercial intercourse with other nations, and "It is time this enormous outrage upon the rights of human nature, and the first principles of the laws of nations, should cease."[27] It is true, the Chinese were "barbarians;" true, the English carried thither the Bible and Christianity, at least their own Christianity. But, even by the law of nations, letting alone the law of nature, the barbarians had a right to repel both Bible and Christianity, when they came in a contraband shape--that of opium and cannon balls. To justify this outrage of the strong against the weak, he quite forgets his old antipathy to England, his devotion to human freedom, and the sovereignty of the people, calling the cause of England "a righteous cause."

He defended the American claim to the whole of Oregon, up to 54 deg. 40'. He did not so much undertake to make out a title to either, by the law of nature or of nations, but cut the matter short, and claimed the whole of Oregon, on the strength of the first chapter of Genesis. This was the argument: God gave mankind dominion over all the earth;[28] between Christian nations, the command of the Creator lays the foundation of all titles to land, of titles to territory, of titles to jurisdiction. Then in the Psalms,[29] God gives the "uttermost part of the earth for a possession" to the Messiah, as the representative of all mankind, who held the uttermost parts of the earth in chief. But the Pope, as head of the visible church, was the representative of Christ, and so, holding under him, had the right to give to any king or prelate, authority to subdue barbarous nations, possess their territory, and convert them to Christianity. In 1493, the Pope, in virtue of the above right, gave the American continent to the Spanish monarchs, who, in time, sold their title to the people of the United States. That title may be defective, as the Pope may not be the representative of Christ, and so the passage in the Psalms will not help the American claim, but then the United States will hold under the first clause in the Testament of God, that is, in Genesis. The claim of Great Britain is not valid, for she does not want the land for the purpose specified in that clause of the Testament, to "Replenish the earth and subdue it." She wants it, "That she may keep it open as a hunting-ground," while the United States want it, that it may grow into a great nation, and become a free and sovereign republic.[30]

This strange hypothesis, it seems, lay at the bottom of his defence of the British in their invasion of China. It would have led him, if consistent, to claim also the greater part of Mexico. But, as he did not publicly declare his opinion on that matter, no more need be said concerning it.

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Such was the most prominent idea in his history; such the departures from it. Let us look at other events in his life. While President, the most important object of his administration was the promotion of internal improvements, especially the internal communication between the States. For this purpose the government lent its aid in the construction of roads and canals, and a little more than four millions of dollars were devoted to this work in his administration. On the 4th of July, 1828, he helped break ground for the Chesapeake and Ohio canal, thinking it an important event in his life. He then said there were three great steps in the progress of America. The first was the Declaration of Independence and the achievement thereof; the second, the union of the whole country under the Constitution; but the third was more arduous than both of the others: "It is," said he, "the adaptation of the powers, physical, moral, and intellectual, of the whole Union, to the improvement of its own condition; of its _moral_ and _political_ condition, by wise and liberal institutions; by the cultivation of the understanding and the heart; by academies, schools, and learned institutions; by the pursuit and patronage of learning and the arts; of its _physical_ condition, by associated labor to improve the bounties and supply the deficiencies of nature; to stem the torrent in its course; to level the mountain with the plain; to disarm and fetter the raging surge of the ocean."[31] He faithfully adhered to these words in his administration.

He was careful never to exceed the powers which the Constitution prescribed for him. He thought the acquisition of Louisiana was "accomplished by a flagrant violation of the Constitution,"[32] and himself guarded against such violations. He revered the God of Limits, who, in the Roman mythology, refused to give way or remove, even for Jupiter himself. No man was ever more conscientious on that ground. To him the Constitution meant something; his oath to keep it meant something.

No great political event occurred in his administration; the questions which now vex the country had not arisen. There was no quarrel between freedom and slavery; no man in Congress ventured to denounce slavery as a crime; the African slave-trade was thought wrong, not the slavery which caused it. Party lines, obliterated under Mr. Monroe's administration, were viewed and marked with a good deal of care and exactness; but the old lines could not be wholly restored. Mr. Adams was not the President of a section of the country; not the President of a party, but of the nation. He favored no special interest of a class, to the injury of another class. He did not reward his friends, nor punish his foes; the party of the spoils, patent or latent at all times, got no spoils from him. He never debauched his country by the removal and appointment of officers. Had he done otherwise, done as all his successors have done, used his actual power to promote his own ambition, no doubt he might have been reelected. But he could not stoop to manage men in that way. No doubt he desired a reelection, and saw the method and means to effect that, but conscience said, "It is not right." He forbore, lost his election, and gained--we shall soon see what he gained.

On the 19th of July, 1826, at a public dinner at Edgefield Court-house, South Carolina, Mr. McDuffie said, "Mr. Adams came into power upon principles utterly subversive of the republican system; substituting the worst species of aristocracy, that of speculating politicians and office-hunters, in the place of a sound and wholesome republican democracy." When Mr. Adams retired from office, he could remember, with the virtuous Athenian, that no man had put on mourning for him because unjustly deprived of his post. Was an office-holder or an office-wanter a political friend of Mr. Adams, that did not help him; a foe, that did not hinder. He looked only to the man's ability and integrity. I wish it was no praise to say these things; but it is praise I dare not apply to any other man since Washington. Mr. Adams once said, "There is no official act of the chief magistrate, however momentous, or however minute, but it should be traceable to a dictate of duty, pointing to the welfare of the people." That was his executive creed.

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As a public servant, he had many qualities seldom united in the same person. He was simple, and unostentatious; he had none of the airs of a great man; seemed humble, modest, and retiring; caring much for the substance of manhood, he let the show take care of itself. He carried the simplicity of a plain New England man into the President's house, spending little in its decorations--about one fourth, it is said, of the amount of his successor. In his housekeeping, public or private, there was only one thing much to be boasted of and remarked upon: strange to say, that was the master of the house. He was never eclipsed by his own brass and mahogany. He had what are called democratic habits, and served himself in preference to being served by others. He treated all that were about him with a marked deference and courtesy, carrying his respect for human rights into the minutest details of common life.

He was a model of diligence, though not, perhaps, very systematic. His State papers, prepared while he was Minister, Secretary, or Member of Congress, his numerous orations and speeches, though not always distinguished for that orderly arrangement of parts which is instinctive with minds of a high philosophical character, are yet astonishing for their number, and the wide learning they display. He was well acquainted with the classic and most modern languages; at home in their literature. He was surprisingly familiar with modern history; perhaps no political man was so thoroughly acquainted with the political history of America, and that of Christian Europe for the last two hundred years. He was widely read and profoundly skilled in all that relates to diplomacy, and to international law. He was fond of belles-lettres, and commented on Shakspeare more like a professor than a layman in that department. Few theologians in America, it is said, were so widely read in their peculiar lore as he. He had read much, remembered much, understood much. However, he seems to have paid little attention to physical science, and perhaps less to metaphysical. His speeches and his conversation, though neither brilliant, nor rich in ideas, astonished young men with an affluence of learning, which seemed marvellous in one all his life devoted to practical affairs. But this is a trifle: to achieve that, nothing is needed but health, diligence, memory, and a long life. Mr. Adams had all these requisites.

He had higher qualities: he loved his country, perhaps no man more so; he had patriotism in an heroic degree, yet was not thereby blinded to humanity. He thought it a vital principle of human society, that each nation should contribute to the happiness of all; and, therefore, that no nation should "regulate its conduct by the exclusive or even the paramount consideration of its own interest."[33] Yet he loved his country, his whole country, and when she was in the wrong he told her so, because he loved her. This, said he, would be a good sentiment: "Our country! May she be always successful; but, whether successful or not, may she be always in the right." He saw the faults of America, saw the corruption of the American government. He did not make gain by this in private, but set an honest face against it.

He was a conscientious man. This peculiarity is strongly marked in most of his life. He respected the limit between right and wrong. He did not think it unworthy of a statesman to refer to moral principles, to the absolutely right. I do not mean to say, that in his whole life there was no departure from the strict rule of duty. I have mentioned already some examples, but kept one more for this place: he pursued persons with a certain vindictiveness of spirit. I will not revive again the old quarrels, nor dig up his hard words, long ago consigned to oblivion; it would be unjust to the living. He was what is called a good hater. If he loved an idea, he seemed to hate the man who opposed it. He was not content with replying; he must also retort, though it manifestly weakened the force of the reply. In his attacks on persons he was sometimes unjust, violent, sharp, and vindictive; sometimes cruel, and even barbarous. Did he ever forgive an enemy? Every opponent was a foe, and he thrashed his foes with an iron hoof and winnowed them with a storm. The most awful specimens of invective which the language affords can be found in his words--bitter, revengeful, and unrelenting. I am sorry to say these things; it hurts my feelings to say them, yours not less to hear them. But it is not our fault they are true; it would be mine, if, knowing they were true, I did not on this occasion point them out in warning words. Mr. Adams says that Roger Williams was conscientious and contentious; it is equally true of himself. Perhaps Mr. Adams had little humor, but certainly a giant's wit; he used it tyrannously and like a giant. Wit has its place in debate; in controversy it is a legitimate weapon, offensive and defensive. After one has beaten the single barley-corn of good sense out of a whole wagon-load of chaff, the easiest way to be rid of the rubbish is to burn it up with the lightning of wit; the danger is, that the burning should begin before the separation is made; that the fire consume the good and bad indifferently. When argument is edged and pointed with wit, it is doubly effective; but when that edge is jagged with ill-will, poisoned, too, with personal spleen, then it becomes a weapon unworthy of a man. Sometimes Mr. Adams used his wit as fairly as his wisdom; and bags of wind, on which Hercules might have stamped and beaten a twelvemonth, but in vain--at a single puncture from that keen wit gave up their ghost and flattened into nothing; a vanity to all men, but a vexation of spirit to him who had blown them so full of his own soul. But sometimes, yes, often, Mr. Adams's wit performs a different part: it sits as a judge, unjust and unforgiving, "often deciding wrong, and when right from wrong motives." It was the small dagger with which he smote the fallen foe. It is a poor praise for a famous man, churchman, or statesman, to beat a blackguard with his own weapons. It must be confessed, that in controversy, Mr. Adams's arrows were sharp and deftly delivered; but they were often barbed, and sometimes poisoned.