John Quincy Adams Part 4

"'so long as his (Canning's) professions had been supported by his conduct'--Here Mr. Canning again stopped me by repeating with great vehemence, 'My conduct! I am responsible for my conduct only to my government!'"

Mr. Adams replied, substantially, that he could respect the rights of Mr. Canning and maintain his own, and that he thought the best mode of treating this topic in future would be by writing. Mr. Canning then expressed himself as

"'willing to forget all that had now pa.s.sed.' I told him that I neither asked nor promised him to forget.... He asked again if he was to understand me as refusing to confer with him further on the subject. I said, 'No.' 'Would I appoint a time for that purpose?' I said, 'Now, if he pleased.... But as he appeared to be under some excitement, perhaps he might prefer some other time, in which case I would readily receive him to-morrow at one o'clock;' upon which he rose and took leave, saying he would come at that time."

The next day, accordingly, this genial pair again encountered. Mr.

Adams noted at first in Mr. Canning's manner "an effort at coolness, but no appearance of cheerfulness or good humor. I saw there was (p. 145) no relaxation of the tone he had yesterday a.s.sumed, and felt that none would on my part be suitable." They went over quietly enough some of the ground traversed the day before, Mr. Adams again explaining the impropriety of Mr. Canning questioning him concerning remarks made in debate in Congress. It was, he said, as if Mr. Rush, hearing in the House of Commons something said about sending troops to the Shetland Islands, should proceed to question Lord Castlereagh about it.

"'Have you,' said Mr. Canning, 'any claim to the Shetland Islands?' 'Have you any _claim_,' said I, 'to the mouth of Columbia River?' 'Why, do you not _know_,' replied he, 'that we have a claim?' 'I do not _know_,' said I, 'what you claim nor what you do not claim. You claim India; you claim Africa; you claim'--'Perhaps,' said he, 'a piece of the moon.' 'No,' said I, 'I have not heard that you claim exclusively any part of the moon; but there is not a spot on _this_ habitable globe that I could affirm you do not claim!'"

The conversation continued with alternations of lull and storm, Mr.

Canning at times becoming warm and incensed and interrupting Mr.

Adams, who retorted with a dogged asperity which must have been extremely irritating. Mr. Adams said that he did "not expect to be (p. 146) plied with captious questions" to obtain indirectly that which had been directly denied. Mr. Canning, "exceedingly irritated,"

complained of the word "captious." Mr. Adams retaliated by reciting offensive language used by Mr. Canning, who in turn replied that he had been speaking only in self-defence. Mr. Canning found occasion to make again his peculiarly rasping remark that he should always strive to show towards Mr. Adams the deference due to his "more advanced years." After another very uncomfortable pa.s.sage, Mr. Adams said that the behavior of Mr. Canning in making the observations of members of Congress a basis of official interrogations was a pretension the more necessary to be resisted because this

"'was not the first time it had been raised by a British minister here.' He asked, with great emotion, who that minister was. I answered, 'Mr. Jackson.' 'And you got rid of him!' said Mr.

Canning, in a tone of violent pa.s.sion--'and you got rid of him!--and you got rid of him!' This repet.i.tion of the same words, always in the same tone, was with pauses of a few seconds between each of them, as if for a reply. I said: 'Sir, my reference to the pretension of Mr. Jackson was not'--Here Mr. Canning interrupted me by saying: 'If you think that by reference to Mr.

Jackson I am to be intimidated from the performance of my (p. 147) duty you will find yourself greatly mistaken.' 'I had not, sir,' said I, 'the most distant intention of intimidating you from the performance of your duty; nor was it with the intention of alluding to any subsequent occurrences of his mission; but'--Mr. Canning interrupted me again by saying, still in a tone of high exasperation,--'Let me tell you, sir, that your reference to the case of Mr. Jackson is _exceedingly offensive_.' 'I do not know,' said I, 'whether I shall be able to finish what I intended to say, under such continual interruptions.'"

Mr. Canning thereupon intimated by a bow his willingness to listen, and Mr. Adams reiterated what in a more fragmentary way he had already said. Mr. Canning then made a formal speech, mentioning his desire "to cultivate harmony and smooth down all remnants of asperity between the two countries," again gracefully referred to the deference which he should at all times pay to Mr. Adams's age, and closed by declaring, with a significant emphasis, that he would "never forget the respect due from him _to the American Government_." Mr. Adams bowed in silence and the stormy interview ended. A day or two afterward the disputants met by accident, and Mr. Canning showed such signs of resentment that there pa.s.sed between them a "bare salutation."

In the condition of our relations with Great Britain at the time (p. 148) of these interviews any needless ill-feeling was strongly to be deprecated. But Mr. Adams's temperament was such that he always saw the greater chance of success in strong and spirited conduct; nor could he endure that the dignity of the Republic, any more than its safety, should take detriment in his hands. Moreover he understood Englishmen better perhaps than they have ever been understood by any other of the public men of the United States, and he handled and subdued them with a temper and skill highly agreeable to contemplate.

The President supported him fully throughout the matter, and the discomfiture and wrath of Mr. Canning never became even indirectly a cause of regret to the country.

As the years allotted to Monroe pa.s.sed on, the manoeuvring among the candidates for the succession to the Presidency grew in activity.

There were several possible presidents in the field, and during the "era of good feeling" many an aspiring politician had his brief period of mild expectancy followed in most cases only too surely by a hopeless relegation to obscurity. There were, however, four whose antic.i.p.ations rested upon a substantial basis. William H. Crawford, Secretary of the Treasury, had been the rival of Monroe for nomination by the Congressional caucus, and had then developed sufficient strength (p. 149) to make him justly sanguine that he might stand next to Monroe in the succession as he apparently did in the esteem of their common party.

Mr. Clay, Speaker of the House of Representatives, had such expectations as might fairly grow out of his brilliant reputation, powerful influence in Congress, and great personal popularity. Mr.

Adams was pointed out not only by his deserts but also by his position in the Cabinet, it having been the custom heretofore to promote the Secretary of State to the Presidency. It was not until the time of election was near at hand that the strength of General Jackson, founded of course upon the effect of his military prestige upon the ma.s.ses of the people, began to appear to the other compet.i.tors a formidable element in the great rivalry. For a while Mr. Calhoun might have been regarded as a fifth, since he had already become the great chief of the South; but this cause of his strength was likewise his weakness, since it was felt that the North was fairly ent.i.tled to present the next candidate. The others, who at one time and another had aspirations, like De Witt Clinton and Tompkins, were never really formidable, and may be disregarded as insignificant threads in the complex political snarl which must be unravelled.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Stratford Canning]

As a study of the dark side of political society during this (p. 150) period Mr. Adams's Diary is profoundly interesting. He writes with a charming absence of reserve. If he thinks there is rascality at work, he sets down the names of the knaves and expounds their various villainies of act and motive with delightfully outspoken frankness.

All his life he was somewhat p.r.o.ne, it must be confessed, to depreciate the moral characters of others, and to suspect unworthy designs in the methods or ends of those who crossed his path. It was the not unnatural result of his own rigid resolve to be honest.

Refraining with the stern conscientiousness, which was in the composition of his Puritan blood, from every act, whether in public or in private life, which seemed to him in the least degree tinged with immorality, he found a sort of compensation for the restraints and discomforts of his own austerity in judging severely the less punctilious world around him. Whatever other faults he had, it is unquestionable that his uprightness was as consistent and unvarying as can be reached by human nature. Yet his temptations were made the greater and the more cruel by the beliefs constantly borne in upon him that his rivals did not accept for their own governance in the contest the same rules by which he was pledged to himself to abide. Jealousy enhanced suspicion, and suspicion in turn p.r.i.c.ked jealousy. It is (p. 151) necessary, therefore, to be somewhat upon our guard in accepting his estimates of men and acts at this period; though the broad general impression to be gathered from his treatment of his rivals, even in these confidential pages, is favorable at least to his justice of disposition and honesty of intention.

At the outset Mr. Clay excited Mr. Adams's most lively resentment. The policy which seemed most promising to that gentleman lay in antagonism to the Administration, whereas, in the absence of substantial party issues, there seemed, at least to members of that Administration, to be no proper grounds for such antagonism. When, therefore, Mr. Clay found or devised such grounds, the President and his Cabinet, vexed and hara.s.sed by the opposition of so influential a man, not unnaturally attributed his tactics to selfish and, in a political sense, corrupt motives. Thus Mr. Adams stigmatized his opposition to the Florida treaty as prompted by no just objection to its stipulations, but by a malicious wish to bring discredit upon the negotiator. Probably the charge was true, and Mr. Clay's honesty in opposing an admirable treaty can only be vindicated at the expense of his understanding,--an explanation certainly not to be accepted. But when Mr. Adams attributed to the same motive of embarra.s.sing the (p. 152) Administration Mr. Clay's energetic endeavors to force a recognition of the insurgent states of South America, he exaggerated the inimical element in his rival's motives. It was the business of the President and Cabinet, and preeminently of the Secretary of State, to see to it that the country should not move too fast in this very nice and perilous matter of recognizing the independence of rebels. Mr. Adams was the responsible minister, and had to hold the reins; Mr. Clay, outside the official vehicle, cracked the lash probably a little more loudly than he would have done had he been on the coach-box. It may be a.s.sumed that in advocating his various motions looking to the appointment of ministers to the new states and to other acts of recognition, he felt his eloquence rather fired than dampened by the thought of how much trouble he was making for Mr. Adams; but that he was at the same time espousing the cause to which he sincerely wished well is probably true. His ardent temper was stirred by this struggle for independence, and his rhetorical nature could not resist the opportunities for fervid and brilliant oratory presented by this struggle for freedom against mediaeval despotism. Real convictions were sometimes diluted with rodomontade, and a true feeling was to some extent stimulated by the desire to embarra.s.s a rival.

Entire freedom from prejudice would have been too much to expect (p. 153) from Mr. Adams; but his criticisms of Clay are seldom marked by any serious accusations or really bitter explosions of ill-temper.

Early in his term of office he writes that Mr. Clay has "already mounted his South American great horse," and that his "project is that in which John Randolph failed, to control or overthrow the Executive by swaying the House of Representatives." Again he says that "Clay is as rancorously benevolent as John Randolph." The sting of these remarks lay rather in the comparison with Randolph than in their direct allegations. In January, 1819, Adams notes that Clay has "redoubled his rancor against me," and gives himself "free swing to a.s.sault me ... both in his public speeches and by secret machinations, without scruple or delicacy." The diarist gloomily adds, that "all public business in Congress now connects itself with intrigues, and there is great danger that the whole Government will degenerate into a struggle of cabals." He was rather inclined to such pessimistic vaticinations; but it must be confessed that he spoke with too much reason on this occasion. In the absence of a sufficient supply of important public questions to absorb the energies of the men in public life, the petty game of personal politics was playing with unusual zeal. As time went on, however, and the South American questions (p. 154) were removed from the arena, Adams's ill-feeling towards Clay became greatly mitigated. Clay's a.s.saults and opposition also gradually dwindled away; go-betweens carried to and fro disclaimers, made by the princ.i.p.als, of personal ill-will towards each other; and before the time of election was actually imminent something as near the _entente cordiale_ was established as could be reasonably expected to exist between compet.i.tors very unlike both in moral and mental const.i.tution.[4]

[Footnote 4: For a deliberate estimate of Clay's character see Mr. Adams's Diary, v. 325.]

Mr. Adams's unbounded indignation and profound contempt were reserved for Mr. Crawford, partly, it may be suspected by the cynically minded, because Crawford for a long time seemed to be by far the most formidable rival, but partly also because Crawford was in fact unable to resist the temptation to use ign.o.ble means for attaining an end which he coveted too keenly for his own honor. It was only by degrees that Adams began to suspect the underhand methods and malicious practices of Crawford; but as conviction was gradually brought home to him his native tendency towards suspicion was enhanced to an extreme degree. He then came to recognize in Crawford a wholly selfish (p. 155) and scheming politician, who had the baseness to retain his seat in Mr. Monroe's Cabinet with the secret persistent object of giving the most fatal advice in his power. From that time forth he saw in every suggestion made by the Secretary of the Treasury only an insidious intent to lead the Administration, and especially the Department of State, into difficulty, failure, and disrepute. He notes, evidently with perfect belief, that for this purpose Crawford was even covertly busy with the Spanish amba.s.sador to prevent an accommodation of our differences with Spain. "Oh, the windings of the human heart!" he exclaims; "possibly Crawford is not himself conscious of his real motives for this conduct." Even the slender measure of charity involved in this last sentence rapidly evaporated from the poisoned atmosphere of his mind. He mentions that Crawford has killed a man in a duel; that he leaves unanswered a pamphlet "supported by doc.u.ments"

exhibiting him "in the most odious light, as sacrificing every principle to his ambition." Because Calhoun would not support him for the Presidency, Crawford stimulated a series of attacks upon the War Department. He was the "instigator and animating spirit of the whole movement both in Congress and at Richmond against Jackson and the Administration." He was "a worm preying upon the vitals of the (p. 156) Administration in its own body." He "solemnly deposed in a court of justice that which is not true," for the purpose of bringing discredit upon the testimony given by Mr. Adams in the same cause. But Mr. Adams says of this that he cannot bring himself to believe that Crawford has been guilty of wilful falsehood, though convicted of inaccuracy by his own words; for "ambition debauches memory itself." A little later he would have been less merciful. In some vexatious and difficult commercial negotiations which Mr. Adams was conducting with France, Crawford is "afraid of [the result] being too favorable."

To form a just opinion of the man thus unpleasantly sketched is difficult. For nearly eight years Mr. Adams was brought into close and constant relations with him, and as a result formed a very low opinion of his character and by no means a high estimate of his abilities.

Even after making a liberal allowance for the prejudice naturally supervening from their rivalry there is left a residuum of condemnation abundantly sufficient to ruin a more vigorous reputation than Crawford has left behind him. Apparently Mr. Calhoun, though a fellow Southerner, thought no better of the ambitious Georgian than did Mr.

Adams, to whom one day he remarked that Crawford was "a very (p. 157) singular instance of a man of such character rising to the eminence he now occupies; that there has not been in the history of the Union another man with abilities so ordinary, with services so slender, and so thoroughly corrupt, who had contrived to make himself a candidate for the Presidency." Nor was this a solitary expression of the feelings of the distinguished South Carolinian.

Mr. E. H. Mills, Senator from Ma.s.sachusetts, and a dispa.s.sionate observer, speaks of Crawford with scant favor as "coa.r.s.e, rough, uneducated, of a pretty strong mind, a great intriguer, and determined to make himself President." He adds: "Adams, Jackson, and Calhoun all think well of each other, and are united at least in one thing,--to wit, a most thorough dread and abhorrence of Crawford."

Yet Crawford was for many years not only never without eager expectations of his own, which narrowly missed realization and might not have missed it had not his health broken down a few months too soon, but he had a large following, strong friends, and an extensive influence. But if he really had great ability he had not the good fortune of an opportunity to show it; and he lives in history rather as a man from whom much was expected than as a man who achieved (p. 158) much. One faculty, however, not of the best, but serviceable, he had in a rare degree: he thoroughly understood all the artifices of politics; he knew how to interest and organize partisans, to obtain newspaper support, and generally to extend and direct his following after that fas.h.i.+on which soon afterward began to be fully developed by the younger school of our public men. He was the _avant courier_ of a bad system, of which the first crude manifestations were received with well-merited disrelish by the worthier among his contemporaries.

It is the more easy to believe that Adams's distrust of Crawford was a sincere conviction, when we consider his behavior towards another dangerous rival, General Jackson. In view of the new phase which the relations.h.i.+p between these two men was soon to take on, Adams's hearty champions.h.i.+p of Jackson for several years prior to 1825 deserves mention. The Secretary stood gallantly by the General at a crisis in Jackson's life when he greatly needed such strong official backing, and in an hour of extreme need Adams alone in the Cabinet of Monroe lent an a.s.sistance which Jackson afterwards too readily forgot. Seldom has a government been brought by the undue zeal of its servants into a quandary more perplexing than that into which the reckless military hero brought the Administration of President Monroe. Turned loose (p. 159) in the regions of Florida, checked only by an uncertain and disputed boundary line running through half-explored forests, confronted by a hated foe whose strength he could well afford to despise, General Jackson, in a war properly waged only against Indians, ran a wild and lawless, but very vigorous and effective, career in Spanish possessions. He hung a couple of British subjects with as scant trial and meagre shrift as if he had been a mediaeval free-lance; he marched upon Spanish towns and peremptorily forced the blue-blooded commanders to capitulate in the most humiliating manner; afterwards, when the Spanish territory had become American, in his civil capacity as Governor, he flung the Spanish Commissioner into jail. He treated instructions, laws, and established usages as teasing cobwebs which any spirited public servant was in duty bound to break; then he quietly stated his willingness to let the country take the benefit of his irregular proceedings and make him the scapegoat or martyr if such should be needed. How to treat this too successful chieftain was no simple problem. He had done what he ought not to have done, yet everybody in the country was heartily glad that he had done it. He ought not to have hung Arbuthnot and Ambrister, nor to have seized (p. 160) Pensacola, nor later on to have imprisoned Callava; yet the general efficiency of his procedure fully accorded with the secret disposition of the country. It was, however, not easy to establish the propriety of his trenchant doings upon any acknowledged principles of law, and during the long period through which these disturbing feats extended, Jackson was left in painful solitude by those who felt obliged to judge his actions by rule rather than by sympathy. The President was concerned lest his Administration should be brought into indefensible embarra.s.sment; Calhoun was personally displeased because the instructions issued from his department had been exceeded; Crawford eagerly sought to make the most of such admirable opportunities for destroying the prestige of one who might grow into a dangerous rival; Clay, who hated a military hero, indulged in a series of fierce denunciations in the House of Representatives; Mr. Adams alone stood gallantly by the man who had dared to take vigorous measures upon his own sole responsibility. His career touched a kindred chord in Adams's own independent and courageous character, and perhaps for the only time in his life the Secretary of State became almost sophistical in the arguments by which he endeavored to sustain the impetuous warrior against an adverse Cabinet. The authority given to Jackson to (p. 161) cross the Spanish frontier in pursuit of the Indian enemy was justified as being only defensive warfare; then "all the rest," argued Adams, "even to the order for taking the Fort of Barrancas by storm, was incidental, deriving its character from the object, which was not hostility to Spain, but the termination of the Indian war." Through long and anxious sessions Adams stood fast in opposing "the unanimous opinions" of the President, Crawford, Calhoun, and Wirt. Their policy seemed to him a little ign.o.ble and wholly blundering, because, he said, "it is weakness and a confession of weakness. The disclaimer of power in the Executive is of dangerous example and of evil consequences. There is injustice to the officer in disavowing him, when in principle he is strictly justifiable." This behavior upon Mr.

Adams's part was the more generous and disinterested because the earlier among these doings of Jackson incensed Don Onis extremely and were near bringing about the entire disruption of that important negotiation with Spain upon which Mr. Adams had so much at stake. But few civilians have had a stronger dash of the fighting element than had Mr. Adams, and this impelled him irresistibly to stand shoulder to shoulder with Jackson in such an emergency, regardless of possible consequences to himself. He preferred to insist that the hanging (p. 162) of Arbuthnot and Ambrister was according to the laws of war and to maintain that position in the teeth of Stratford Canning rather than to disavow it and render apology and reparation. So three years later when Jackson was again in trouble by reason of his arrest of Callava, he still found a stanch advocate in Adams, who, having made an argument for the defence which would have done credit to a subtle-minded barrister, concluded by adopting the sentiment of Hume concerning the execution of Don Pantaleon de Sa by Oliver Cromwell,--if the laws of nations had been violated, "it was by a signal act of justice deserving universal approbation." Later still, on January 8, 1824, being the anniversary of the victory of New Orleans, as if to make a conspicuous declaration of his opinions in favor of Jackson, Mr. Adams gave a great ball in his honor, "at which about one thousand persons attended."[5]

[Footnote 5: Senator Mills says of this grand ball: "Eight large rooms were open and literally filled to overflowing. There must have been at least a thousand people there; and so far as Mr. Adams was concerned it certainly evinced a great deal of taste, elegance, and good sense.... Many stayed till twelve and one.... It is the universal opinion that nothing has ever equalled this party here either in brilliancy of preparation or elegance of the company."]

He was in favor of offering to the General the position of (p. 163) minister to Mexico; and before Jackson had developed into a rival of himself for the Presidency, he exerted himself to secure the Vice-Presidency for him. Thus by argument and by influence in the Cabinet, in many a private interview, and in the world of society, also by wise counsel when occasion offered, Mr. Adams for many years made himself the noteworthy and indeed the only powerful friend of General Jackson. Nor up to the last moment, and when Jackson had become his most dangerous compet.i.tor, is there any derogatory pa.s.sage concerning him in the Diary.

As the period of election drew nigh, interest in it absorbed everything else; indeed during the last year of Monroe's Administration public affairs were so quiescent and the public business so seldom transcended the simplest routine, that there was little else than the next Presidency to be thought or talked of. The rivals.h.i.+p for this, as has been said, was based not upon conflicting theories concerning public affairs, but solely upon individual preference for one or another of four men no one of whom at that moment represented any great principle in antagonism to any of the others. Under no circ.u.mstances could the temptation to petty intrigue and malicious tale-bearing be greater than when votes were (p. 164) to be gained or lost solely by personal predilection. In such a contest Adams was severely handicapped as against the showy prestige of the victorious soldier, the popularity of the brilliant orator, and the artfulness of the most dexterous political manager then in public life. Long prior to this stage Adams had established his rule of conduct in the campaign. So early as March, 1818, he was asked one day by Mr. Everett whether he was "determined to do nothing with a view to promote his future election to the Presidency as the successor of Mr.

Monroe," and he had replied that he "should do absolutely nothing." To this resolution he st.u.r.dily adhered. Not a breach of it was ever brought home to him, or indeed--save in one instance soon to be noticed--seriously charged against him. There is not in the Diary the faintest trace of any act which might be so much as questionable or susceptible of defence only by casuistry. That he should have perpetuated evidence of any flagrant misdoing certainly could not be expected; but in a record kept with the fulness and frankness of this Diary we should read between the lines and detect as it were in its general flavor any taint of disingenuousness or concealment; we should discern moral unwholesomeness in its atmosphere. A thoughtless sentence would slip from the pen, a sophistical argument would be (p. 165) formulated for self-comfort, some acquaintance, interview, or arrangement would slide upon some unguarded page indicative of undisclosed matters. But there is absolutely nothing of this sort.

There is no tinge of bad color; all is clear as crystal. Not an editor, nor a member of Congress, nor a local politician, not even a private individual, was intimidated or conciliated. On the contrary it often happened that those who made advances, at least sometimes stimulated by honest friends.h.i.+p, got rebuffs instead of encouragement.

Even after the contest was known to have been transferred to the House of Representatives, when Was.h.i.+ngton was actually buzzing with the ceaseless whisperings of many secret conclaves, when the air was thick with rumors of what this one had said and that one had done, when, as Webster said, there were those who pretended to foretell how a representative would vote from the way in which he put on his hat, when of course stories of intrigue and corruption poisoned the honest breeze, and when the streets seemed traversed only by the busy tread of the go-betweens, the influential friends, the wire-pullers of the various contestants,--still amid all this noisy excitement and extreme temptation Mr. Adams held himself almost wholly aloof, wrapped in the cloak of his rigid integrity. His proud honesty was only not quite (p. 166) repellent; he sometimes allowed himself to answer questions courteously, and for a brief period held in check his strong natural propensity to give offence and make enemies. This was the uttermost length that he could go towards political corruption. He became for a few weeks tolerably civil of speech, which after all was much for him to do and doubtless cost him no insignificant effort. Since the days of Was.h.i.+ngton he alone presents the singular spectacle of a candidate for the Presidency deliberately taking the position, and in a long campaign really never flinching from it: "that, if the people wish me to be President I shall not refuse the office; but I ask nothing from any man or from any body of men."

Yet though he declined to be a courtier of popular favor he did not conceal from himself or from others the chagrin which he would feel if there should be a manifestation of popular disfavor. Before the popular election he stated that if it should go against him he should construe it as the verdict of the people that they were dissatisfied with his services as a public man, and he should then retire to private life, no longer expecting or accepting public functions. He did not regard politics as a struggle in which, if he should now (p. 167) be beaten in one encounter, he would return to another in the hope of better success in time. His notion was that the people had had ample opportunity during his inc.u.mbency in appointive offices to measure his ability and understand his character, and that the action of the people in electing or not electing him to the Presidency would be an indication that they were satisfied or dissatisfied with him. In the latter event he had nothing more to seek. Politics did not const.i.tute a profession or career in which he felt ent.i.tled to persist in seeking personal success as he might in the law or in business.

Neither did the circ.u.mstances of the time place him in the position of an advocate of any great principle which he might feel it his duty to represent and to fight for against any number of reverses. No such element was present at this time in national affairs. He construed the question before the people simply as concerning their opinion of him.

He was much too proud to solicit and much too honest to scheme for a favorable expression. It was a singular and a lofty att.i.tude even if a trifle egotistical and not altogether unimpeachable by argument. It could not diminish but rather it intensified his interest in a contest which he chose to regard not simply as a struggle for a glittering (p. 168) prize but as a judgment upon the services which he had been for a lifetime rendering to his countrymen.

How profoundly his whole nature was moved by the position in which he stood is evident, often almost painfully, in the Diary. Any attempt to conceal his feeling would be idle, and he makes no such attempt. He repeats all the rumors which come to his ears; he tells the stories about Crawford's illness; he records his own temptations; he tries hard to nerve himself to bear defeat philosophically by constantly predicting it; indeed, he photographs his whole existence for many weeks; and however eagerly any person may aspire to the Presidency of the United States there is little in the picture to make one long for the preliminary position of candidate for that honor. It is too much like the stake and the flames through which the martyr pa.s.sed to eternal beat.i.tude, with the difference as against the candidate that he has by no means the martyr's certainty of reward.

In those days of slow communication it was not until December, 1824, that it became everywhere known that there had been no election of a president by the people. When the Electoral College met the result of their ballots was as follows:--

General Jackson led with 99 votes. (p. 169) Adams followed with 84 "

Crawford had 41 "

Clay had 37 "

--- Total 261 votes.

Mr. Calhoun was elected Vice-President by the handsome number of 182 votes.

This condition of the election had been quite generally antic.i.p.ated; yet Mr. Adams's friends were not without some feeling of disappointment. They had expected for him a fair support at the South, whereas he in fact received seventy-seven out of his eighty-four votes from New York and New England; Maryland gave him three, Louisiana gave him two, Delaware and Illinois gave him one each.

When the electoral body was known to be reduced within the narrow limits of the House of Representatives, intrigue was rather stimulated than diminished by the definiteness which became possible for it. Mr.

Clay, who could not come before the House, found himself trans.m.u.ted from a candidate to a President-maker; for it was admitted by all that his great personal influence in Congress would almost undoubtedly confer success upon the aspirant whom he should favor. Apparently his predilections were at least possibly in favor of Crawford; but (p. 170) Crawford's health had been for many months very bad; he had had a severe paralytic stroke, and when acting as Secretary of the Treasury he had been unable to sign his name, so that a stamp or die had been used; his speech was scarcely intelligible; and when Mr. Clay visited him in the retirement in which his friends now kept him, the fact could not be concealed that he was for the time at least a wreck. Mr.

Clay therefore had to decide for himself, his followers, and the country whether Mr. Adams or General Jackson should be the next President of the United States. A cruel attempt was made in this crisis either to destroy his influence by blackening his character, or to intimidate him, through fear of losing his reputation for integrity, into voting for Jackson. An anonymous letter charged that the friends of Clay had hinted that, "like the Swiss, they would fight for those who pay best;" that they had offered to elect Jackson if he would agree to make Clay Secretary of State, and that upon his indignant refusal to make such a bargain the same proposition had been made to Mr. Adams, who was found less scrupulous and had promptly formed the "unholy coalition." This wretched publication, made a few days before the election in the House, was traced to a dull-witted Pennsylvania Representative by the name of Kremer, who had (p. 171) obviously been used as a tool by cleverer men. It met, however, the fate which seems happily always to attend such ign.o.ble devices, and failed utterly of any more important effect than the utter annihilation of Kremer. In truth, General Jackson's fate had been sealed from the instant when it had fallen into Mr. Clay's hands. Clay had long since expressed his unfavorable opinion of the "military hero," in terms too decisive to admit of explanation or retraction.

Without much real liking for Adams, Clay at least disliked him much less than he did Jackson, and certainly his honest judgment favored the civilian far more than the disorderly soldier whose lawless career in Florida had been the topic of some of the great orator's fiercest invective. The arguments founded on personal fitness were strongly upon the side of Adams, and other arguments advanced by the Jacksonians could hardly deceive Clay. They insisted that their candidate was the choice of the people so far as a superiority of preference had been indicated, and that therefore he ought to be also the choice of the House of Representatives. It would be against the spirit of the Const.i.tution and a thwarting of the popular will, they said, to prefer either of his compet.i.tors. The fallacy of this reasoning, if reasoning it could be called, was glaring. If the spirit of the Const.i.tution (p. 172) required the House of Representatives not to _elect_ from three candidates before it, but only to induct an individual into the Presidency by a process which was in form voting but in fact only a simple certification that he had received the highest number of electoral votes, it would have been a plain and easy matter for the letter of the Const.i.tution to have expressed this spirit, or indeed to have done away altogether with this machinery of a sham election. The Jackson men had only to state their argument in order to expose its hollowness; for they said substantially that the Const.i.tution established an election without an option; that the electors were to vote for a person predestined by an earlier occurrence to receive their ballots. But besides their unsoundness in argument, their statistical position was far from being what they undertook to represent it. The popular vote had been so light that it really looked as though the people had cared very little which candidate should succeed; and to talk about a manifestation of the _popular will_ was absurd, for the only real manifestation had been of popular indifference. For example, in 1823 Ma.s.sachusetts had cast upwards of 66,000 votes in the state election, whereas in this national election she cast only a trifle more than 37,000. Virginia distributed (p. 173) a total of less than 15,000 among all four candidates. Pluralities did not signify much in such a condition of sentiment as was indicated by these figures. Moreover, in six States, viz., Vermont, New York, Delaware, South Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana, the electors were chosen by the legislatures, not by the people; so that there was no correct way of counting them at all in a discussion of pluralities. Guesses and approximations favored Adams, and to an important degree; for these six States gave to Adams thirty-six votes, to Jackson nineteen, to Crawford six, to Clay four. In New York, Jackson had hardly an appreciable following. Moreover, in other States many thousands of votes which had been "cast for no candidate in particular, but in opposition to the caucus ticket generally," were reckoned as if they had been cast for Jackson or against Adams, as suited the especial case. Undoubtedly Jackson did have a plurality, but undoubtedly it fell very far short of the imposing figure, nearly 48,000, which his supporters had the audacity to name.

The election took place in the House on February 9, 1825. Daniel Webster and John Randolph were tellers, and they reported that there were "for John Quincy Adams, of Ma.s.sachusetts, thirteen votes; for Andrew Jackson, of Tennessee, seven votes; for William H. Crawford, of Georgia, four votes." Thereupon the speaker announced Mr. Adams (p. 174) to have been elected President of the United States.

This end of an unusually exciting contest thus left Mr. Adams in possession of the field, Mr. Crawford the victim of an irretrievable defeat, Mr. Clay still hopeful and aspiring for a future which had only disappointment in store for him, General Jackson enraged and revengeful. Not even Mr. Adams was fully satisfied. When the committee waited upon him to inform him of the election, he referred in his reply to the peculiar state of things and said, "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 decision." That this singular and striking statement was made in good faith is highly probable. William H. Seward says that it was "unquestionably uttered with great sincerity of heart." The test of action of course could not be applied, since the resignation of Mr. Adams would only have made Mr.

Calhoun President, and could not have been so arranged as to bring about a new election. Otherwise the course of his argument would (p. 175) have been clear; the fact that such action involved an enormous sacrifice would have been to his mind strong evidence that it was a duty; and the temptation to perform a duty, always strong with him, became ungovernable if the duty was exceptionally disagreeable. Under the circ.u.mstances, however, the only logical conclusion lay in the inauguration, which took place in the customary simple fas.h.i.+on on March 4, 1825. Mr. Adams, we are told, was dressed in a black suit, of which all the materials were wholly of American manufacture. Prominent among those who after the ceremony hastened to greet him and to shake hands with him appeared General Jackson. It was the last time that any friendly courtesy is recorded as having pa.s.sed between the two.

Many men eminent in public affairs have had their best years embittered by their failure to secure the glittering prize of the Presidency. Mr.

Adams is perhaps the only person to whom the gaining of that proud distinction has been in some measure a cause of chagrin. This strange sentiment, which he undoubtedly felt, was due to the fact that what he had wished was not the office in and for itself, but the office as a symbol or token of the popular approval. He had held important and responsible public positions during substantially his whole active (p. 176) life; he was nearly sixty years old, and, as he said, he now for the first time had an opportunity to find out in what esteem the people of the country held him. What he wished was that the people should now express their decided satisfaction with him. This he hardly could be said to have obtained; though to be the choice of a plurality in the nation and then to be selected by so intelligent a body of const.i.tuents as the Representatives of the United States involved a peculiar sanction, yet nothing else could fully take the place of that national indors.e.m.e.nt which he had coveted. When men publicly profess modest depreciation of their successes they are seldom believed; but in his private Diary Mr. Adams wrote, on December 31, 1825:--

"The year has been the most momentous of those that have pa.s.sed over my head, inasmuch as it has witnessed my elevation at the age of fifty-eight to the Chief Magistracy of my country, to the summit of laudable or at least blameless worldly ambition; not however in a manner satisfactory to pride or to just desire; not by the unequivocal suffrages of a majority of the people; with perhaps two thirds of the whole people adverse to the actual result."

No President since Was.h.i.+ngton had ever come into office so entirely free from any manner of personal obligations or partisan (p. 177) entanglements, express or implied, as did Mr. Adams. Throughout the campaign he had not himself, or by any agent, held out any manner of tacit inducement to any person whomsoever, contingent upon his election. He entered upon the Presidency under no indebtedness. He at once nominated his Cabinet as follows: Henry Clay, Secretary of State; Richard Rush, Secretary of the Treasury; James Barbour, Secretary of War; Samuel L. Southard, Secretary of the Navy; William Wirt, Attorney-General. The last two were renominations of the inc.u.mbents under Monroe. The entire absence of chicanery or the use of influence in the distribution of offices is well ill.u.s.trated by the following incident: On the afternoon following the day of inauguration President Adams called upon Rufus King, whose term of service as Senator from New York had just expired, and who was preparing to leave Was.h.i.+ngton on the next day. In the course of a conversation concerning the nominations which had been sent to the Senate that forenoon the President said that he had nominated no minister to the English court, and