"He will be 'gathered to his fathers!' And how great, in this case, is the significance of the expression! It is possible that other men may be attended as he will be to the grave. But when again shall the tomb of a President of the United States open its doors to receive a son who has filled the same office?"
On the following day, the body, under the charge of the municipal officers of Boston, was conveyed to Quincy. In the Unitarian church, in the presence of old neighbors and friends, the last funeral exercises were held, and the last sad burial service was performed.
By the side of the graves of his fathers, overshadowed by aged trees, which had sheltered his head in the days of boyhood, in a plain tomb, prepared under his own direction, and inscribed simply with his name, sleep the ashes of JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.
"Let no weak dropsBe shed for him. The virgin in her bloomCut off, the joyous youth, and darling child,These are the tombs that claim the tender tearAnd elegiac songs. But Adams callsFor other notes of gratulation high;That now he wanders thro' those endless worldsHe here so well descried; and, wondering, talksAnd hymns their Author with his glad compeers.Columbia's boast! whether with angels thouSittest in dread discourse, or fellow blestWho joy to see the honor of their kind;Or whether, mounted on cherubic wing,Thy swift career is with the whirling orbs,Comparing things with things, in rapture lost,And grateful adoration for that lightSo plenteous ray'd into thy mind belowFrom Light himself—oh! look with pity downOn human kind, a frail, erroneous race!Exalt the spirit of a downward world!O'er thy dejected country chief preside,And be her Genius called! her studies raise,Correct her manners, and inspire her youth;For, though deprav'd and sunk, she brought thee forth,And glories in thy name. She points thee outTo all her sons, and bids them eye thy star—Thy star, which, followed steadfastly, shall leadTo wisdom, virtue, glory here, and joyUnspeakable in worlds to come."
EULOGY.[Footnote: Delivered before the Legislature of New York, by Wm. H.Seward.]
———
We are in the midst of extraordinary events. British-American Civilization and Spanish-American Society have come into collision, each in its fullest maturity. The armies of the North have penetrated the chapparels at Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma—passed the fortresses of Monterey, and rolled back upon the heart of Mexico the unavailing tide of strong resistance from the mountain-side of Buena Vista. Martial colonists are encamped on the coasts of California, while San Juan d'Ulloa has fallen, and the invaders have swept the gorge of Cerro Gordo—carried Perote and Puebla, and planted the banner of burning stars and ever-multiplying stripes on the towers of the city of the Aztecs.
The thirtieth Congress assembles in this conjuncture, and the debates are solemn, earnest, and bewildering. Interest, passion, conscience, freedom, and humanity, all have their advocates. Shall new loans and levies be granted to prosecute still farther a war so glorious? or shall it be abandoned? Shall we be content with the humiliation of the foe? or shall we complete his subjugation? Would that severity be magnanimous, or even just? Nay, is the war itself just? Who provoked, and by what unpardonable offence, this disastrous strife between two eminent Republics, so scandalous to Democratic Institutions? Where shall we trace anew the ever-advancing line of our empire? Shall it be drawn on the shore of the Rio Grande, or on the summit of the Sierra Madre? or shall Mexican Independence be extinguished, and our eagle close his adventurous pinions only when he looks off upon the waves that separate us from the Indies? Does Freedom own and accept our profuse oblations of blood, or does she reject the sacrifice? Will these conquests extend her domain, or will they be usurped by ever-grasping slavery? What, effect will this new-born ambition have upon ourselves? Will it leave us the virtue to continue the career of social progress? How shall we govern the conquered people? Shall we incorporate their mingled races with ourselves, or rule them with the despotism of proconsular power? Can we preserve these remote and hostile possessions in any way, without forfeiting our own blood-bought heritage of freedom?
Steam and lightning, which have become docile messengers, make the American people listeners to this high debate, and anxiety, and interest, intense and universal, absorb them all. Suddenly the council is dissolved. Silence is in the capitol, and sorrow has thrown its pall over the land. What new event is this? Has some Cromwell closed the legislative chambers? or has some Caesar, returning from his distant conquests, passed the Rubicon, seized the purple, and fallen in the Senate beneath the swords of self-appointed executioners of his country's vengeance? No! nothing of all this. What means, then, this abrupt and fearful silence? What unlooked for calamity has quelled the debates of the Senate and calmed the excitement of the people? An old man, whose tongue once indeed was eloquent, but now through age had well nigh lost its cunning, has fallen into the swoon of death. He was not an actor in the drama of conquest—nor had his feeble voice yet mingled in the lofty argument—
"A grey-haired sire, whose eye intentWas on the visioned future bent."
And now he has dreamed out at last the troubled dream of life. Sighs of unavailing grief ascend to Heaven. Panegyric, fluent in long-stifled praise, performs its office. The army and the navy pay conventional honors, with the pomp of national woe, and then the hearse moves onward. It rests appropriately, on its way, in the hall where independence was proclaimed, and again under the dome where freedom was born. At length the tomb of JOHN ADAMS opens to receive a SON, who also, born a subject of a king had stood as a representative of his emancipated country, before principalities and powers, and had won by merit, and worn without reproach, the honors of the Republic.
From that scene, so impressive in itself, and impressive because it never before happened, and can never happen again, we have come up to this place surrounded with the decent drapery of public mourning, on a day set apart by authority, to recite the history of the citizen, who, in the ripeness of age, and fulness of honors, has thus descended to his rest. It is fit to do so, because it is by such exercises that nations regenerate their early virtues and renew their constitutions. All nations must perpetually renovate their virtues and their constitutions, or perish. Never was there more need to renovate ours than now, when we seem to be passing from the safe old policy of peace and moderation into a career of conquest and martial renown. Never was the duty of preserving our free institutions in all their purity, more obvious than it is now, when they have become beacons to mankind in what seems to be a general dissolution of their ancient social systems.
The history of JOHN QUINCY ADAMS is one that opens no new truth in the philosophy of virtue; for there is no undiscovered truth in that philosophy. But it is a history that sheds marvellous confirmation on maxims which all mankind know, and yet are prone to undervalue and forget. The exalted character before us was formed by the combination of virtue, courage, assiduity, and modesty, under favorable conditions, with native talent and genius, and illustrates the truth, that in morals as in nature, simplicity is the chief element of the sublime.
John Quincy Adams was fortunate in his lineage; in the period, and in the place of his nativity; in all the circumstances of education; in the age and country in which he lived; in the incidents, as well as the occasions of his public service; and in the period and manner of his death. He was a descendant from one of the Puritan planters of Massachusetts, and a son of the most intrepid actor in the Revolution of Independence. Quincy, the place of his birth, is a plain, bounded on the west by towering granite hills, and swept without defence by every wind from the ocean. Its soil in ancient times was as sterile as its climate is always rigorous.
Born on the eleventh day of July, 1767, in the hour of the agitation of 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 findThe 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 blowContending 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 seenA 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 truthAnd 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.