Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams Part 13

"'Silence! Silence!' resounded through the hall. 'Hear him! Hear him! Hear what he has to say! Hear John Quincy Adams!' was vociferated on all sides.

"In an instant the most profound stillness reigned throughout the hall,--you might have heard a leaf of paper fall in any part of it,--and every eye was riveted on the venerable Nestor of Ma.s.sachusetts--the purest of statesmen, and the n.o.blest of men! He paused for a moment, and, having given Mr. Garland a withering look, he proceeded to address the mult.i.tude.

"'It was not my intention,' said he, 'to take any part in these extraordinary proceedings. I had hoped this house would succeed in organizing itself; that a speaker and clerk would be elected, and that the ordinary business of legislation would be progressed in.

This is not the time or place to discuss the merits of conflicting claimants from New Jersey. That subject belongs to the House of Representatives, which, by the const.i.tution, is made the ultimate arbiter of the qualifications of its members. But what a spectacle we here present! We degrade and disgrace our const.i.tuents and the country. We do not and cannot organize; and why? Because the clerk of this house--the mere clerk, whom we create, whom we employ, and whose existence depends upon our will--usurps the _throne_, and sets us, the representatives, the vicegerents of the whole American people, at defiance, and holds us in contempt! And what is this clerk of yours? Is he to suspend, by his mere negative, the functions of government, and put an end to this Congress? He refuses to call the roll! It is in your power to compel him to call it, if he will not do it voluntarily.' [Here he was interrupted by a member, who said that he was authorized to say that compulsion could not reach the clerk, who had avowed that he would resign rather than call the State of New Jersey.] 'Well, sir, let him resign,' continued Mr. Adams, 'and we may possibly discover some way by which we can get along without the aid of his all-powerful talent, learning, and genius!

"'If we cannot organize in any other way,--if this clerk of yours will not consent to our discharging the trust confided to us by our const.i.tuents,--then let us imitate the example of the Virginia House of Burgesses, which, when the colonial Governor Dinwiddie ordered it to disperse, refused to obey the imperious and insulting mandate, and, like men--'

"The mult.i.tude could not contain or repress their enthusiasm any longer, but saluted the eloquent and indignant speaker, and interrupted him with loud and deafening cheers, which seemed to shake the capitol to its centre. The very genii of applause and enthusiasm seemed to float in the atmosphere of the hall, and every heart expanded with an indescribable feeling of pride and exultation. The turmoil, the darkness, the very 'chaos of anarchy,'

which had for three successive days pervaded the American Congress, was dispelled by the magic, the talismanic eloquence, of a single man; and once more the wheels of government and legislation were put in motion.

"Having, by this powerful appeal, brought the yet unorganized a.s.sembly to a perception of its hazardous position, he submitted a motion requiring the acting clerk to call the roll. Accordingly Mr.

Adams was interrupted by a burst of voices demanding, 'How shall the question be put?' 'Who will put the question?' The voice of Mr.

Adams was heard above the tumult: 'I intend to put the question myself!' That word brought order out of chaos. There was the master mind.

"As soon as the mult.i.tude had recovered itself, and the excitement of irrepressible enthusiasm had abated, Mr. Richard Barnwell Rhett, of South Carolina, leaped upon one of the desks, waved his hand, and exclaimed: 'I move that the Honorable John Quincy Adams take the chair of the Speaker of the house, and officiate as presiding officer till the house be organized by the election of its const.i.tutional officers. As many as are agreed to this will say Ay; those--'

"He had not an opportunity to complete the sentence, 'those who are not agreed will say No;' for one universal, deafening, thundering AY responded to the nomination.

"Hereupon it was moved and ordered that Lewis Williams, of North Carolina, and Richard Barnwell Rhett, conduct John Quincy Adams to the chair.

"Well did Mr. Wise, of Virginia, say: 'Sir, I regard it as the proudest hour of your life; and if, when you shall be gathered to your fathers, I were asked to select the words which, in my judgment, are best calculated to give at once the character of the man, I would inscribe upon your tomb this sentence: _I will put the question myself_.'"

CHAPTER XI.

SECOND REPORT ON THE SMITHSONIAN FUND.--HIS SPEECH ON A BILL FOR INSURING A MORE FAITHFUL EXECUTION OF THE LAWS RELATING TO THE COLLECTION OF DUTIES ON IMPORTS.--REMARKS ON THE ESTABLISHMENT OF AN EXTENSIVE SERIES OF MAGNETICAL AND METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS.--ON ITINERANT ELECTIONEERING.--ON ABUSES IN RESPECT OF THE NAVY FUND.--ON THE POLITICAL INFLUENCES OF THE TIME.--ON THE ORIGIN AND RESULTS OF THE FLORIDA WAR.--HIS DENUNCIATION OF DUELLING.--HIS ARGUMENT IN THE SUPREME COURT ON BEHALF OF AFRICANS CAPTURED IN THE AMISTAD.

On the 5th of March, 1840, Mr. Adams, as chairman of the select committee on the Smithsonian bequest, made a report, in which he recapitulated all the material facts which had previously occurred relative to the acceptance of this fund, and entered into the motives which prevailed with the former committee as to its disposal. It appeared from this report, which was accompanied by a publication of all the doc.u.ments connected with the subject up to that period, that the fund had been received, and paid into the Treasury, and invested in state stocks, and that the President now invited the attention of Congress to the obligation devolving upon the United States to fulfil the object of the bequest. While this message was under consideration various projects for disposing of the funds had been presented by individuals, in memorials, concerning which the report states that they generally contemplated the establishment of a school, college, or university, proposing expenditures absorbing the whole in the erection of buildings, and leaving little or nothing for the improvement of future ages. "In most of these projects," says Mr. Adams, "there might be perceived purposes of personal accommodation and emolument to the projectors, more adapted to the promotion of their own interest than to the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men."

While these memorials and the subject of the disposal of the whole Smithson fund were before the select committee, a resolution came from the Senate appointing "a joint committee, consisting of seven members of the Senate, and such a number as the House of Representatives should appoint, to consider the expediency of providing an inst.i.tution of learning, to be established at the city of Was.h.i.+ngton, for the application of the legacy bequeathed by James Smithson, of London, to the United States, in trust for that purpose." The House, out of courtesy to the Senate, concurred in their resolution, and added on their part the members of that of which Mr. Adams was chairman.

The propositions of the committee on the part of the House and that on the part of the Senate were so widely at variance, that it was found that no result could be obtained in which both committees would concur.

It was finally agreed that the committee on the part of the House should report their project to the House for consideration. Mr. Adams, thereupon, as chairman, reported a series of resolutions, substantially of the following import: That the whole Smithson fund should be vested in a corporate body of trustees, to remain, under the pledge of the faith of the United States, undiminished and unimpaired, at an interest yielding annually six per cent., appropriated to the declared purpose of the founder, exclusively from the interest, and not in any part from the princ.i.p.al,--the first appropriation of interest to be applied for the erection of an astronomical observatory, and for the various objects incident to such an establishment;--that the education of youth had not for its object the _increase_ and diffusion of knowledge among men, but the endowment of individuals with knowledge already acquired; and the Smithson fund should not be applied to the purpose of education, or to any school, college, university, or inst.i.tution of education.

The chairman of the committee of the Senate, in their behalf, presented counter resolutions, disapproving the application of any part of the funds to the establishment of an astronomical observatory, and urging the appropriation of them to the establishment of a university. The bill prepared by the House is presented at large in this report, accompanied with the argument in its support, prepared by Mr. Adams with a strength and fulness to which no abstract can do justice. In this argument he ill.u.s.trates the reasons for preserving the princ.i.p.al of the fund unimpaired, and confining all expenditures from it to the annual interest; also those which preclude any portion of it to be applied to any inst.i.tution for education; showing, from the peculiar expressions of the testator, that it could not have been his intention that the fund should be applied in this manner. He then proceeds to set forth the reasons why the income of the fund should in the first instance be applied to an astronomical observatory, without intending to exclude any branch of human knowledge from its equitable share of this benefaction. The importance of this object he thus eloquently ill.u.s.trates: "The express object of Mr. Smithson's bequest is the _diffusion of knowledge_ among men. IT IS KNOWLEDGE, the source of all human wisdom, and of all beneficent power; knowledge, as far transcending the postulated lever of Archimedes as the universe transcends this speck of earth upon its face; knowledge, the attribute of Omnipotence, of which man alone, in the physical and material world, is permitted to antic.i.p.ate."

Why astronomical science should be the object to which the income of this fund should be first applied he thus proceeds to set forth:

"The express object of an observatory is the increase of knowledge by new discovery. The physical relations between the firmament of heaven and the globe allotted by the Creator of all to be the abode of man are discoverable only by the organ of the eye. Many of these relations are indispensable to the existence of human life, and perhaps of the earth itself. Who, that can conceive the idea of a world without a sun, but must connect with it the extinction of light and heat, of all animal life, of all vegetation and production, leaving the lifeless clod of matter to return to the primitive state of chaos, or to be consumed by elemental fire? The influence of the moon--of the planets, our next-door neighbors of the solar system--of the fixed stars, scattered over the blue expanse in mult.i.tudes exceeding the power of human computation, and at distances of which imagination herself can form no distinct conception;--the influence of all these upon the globe which we inhabit, and upon the condition of man, its dying and deathless inhabitant, is great and mysterious, and, in the search for final causes, to a great degree inscrutable to his finite and limited faculties. The extent to which they are discoverable is and must remain unknown; but, to the vigilance of a sleepless eye, to the toil of a tireless hand, and to the meditations of a thinking, combining, and a.n.a.lyzing mind, secrets are successively revealed, not only of the deepest import to the welfare of man in his earthly career, but which seem to lift him from the earth to the threshold of his eternal abode; to lead him blindfold up to the council-chamber of Omnipotence, and there, stripping the bandage from his eyes, bid him look undazzled at the throne of G.o.d.

"In the history of the human species, so far as it is known to us, astronomical observation was one of the first objects of pursuit for the acquisition of knowledge. In the first chapter of the sacred volume we are told that, in the process of creation, 'G.o.d said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and for years.' By the special appointment, then, of the Creator, they were made the standards for the measurement of time upon earth. They were made for more: not only for seasons, for days, and for years, but for SIGNS. Signs of what? It may be that the word, in this pa.s.sage, has reference to the signs of the Egyptian zodiac, to mark the succession of solar months; or it may indicate a more latent connection between the heavens and the earth, of the nature of judicial astrology. These relations are not only apparent to the most superficial observation of man, but many of them remain inexhaustible funds of successive discovery, perhaps as long as the continued existence of man upon earth. What an unknown world of mind, for example, is yet teeming in the womb of time, to be revealed in tracing the causes of the sympathy between the magnet and the pole--that unseen, immaterial spirit, which walks with us through the most entangled forests, over the most interminable wilderness, and across every region of the pathless deep, by day, by night, in the calm serene of a cloudless sky, and in the howling of the hurricane or the typhoon? Who can witness the movements of that tremulous needle, poised upon its centre, still tending to the polar star, but obedient to his distant hand, armed with a metallic guide, round every point of the compa.s.s, at the fiat of his will, without feeling a thrill of amazement approaching to superst.i.tion? The discovery of the attractive power of the magnet was made before the invention of the alphabet, or the age of hieroglyphics. No record of the event is found upon the annals of human history. But seven hundred years have scarcely pa.s.sed away since its polarity was first known to the civilized European man. It was by observation of the periodical revolution of the earth in her orbit round the sun, compared with her daily revolution round her axis, that was disclosed the fact that her annual period was composed of three hundred and sixty-five of her daily revolutions; or, in other words, that the year was composed of three hundred and sixty-five days. But the shepherds of Egypt, watching their flocks by night, could not but observe the movements of the dog-star, next to the sun the most brilliant of the luminaries of heaven. They wors.h.i.+pped that star as a G.o.d; and, losing sight of him for about forty days every year, during his conjunction with the sun, they watched with intense anxiety for his reappearance in the sky, and with that day commenced their year. By this practice it failed not soon to be found that, although the reappearance of the star for three successive years was at the end of three hundred and sixty-five days, it would, on the fourth year, be delayed one day longer; and, after repeated observation of this phenomenon, they added six hours to the computed duration of the year, and established the canicular period of four years, consisting of one thousand four hundred and sixty-one days.

It was not until the days of Julius Caesar that this computation of time was adopted in the Roman calendar; and fifteen centuries from that time had elapsed before the yearly celebration of the Christian paschal festivals, founded upon the Pa.s.sover of the Levitical law, revealed the fact that the annual revolution of the earth in her orbit round the sun is not precisely of three hundred and sixty-five days and one quarter, but of between eleven and twelve minutes less; and thus the duration of the year was ascertained, as a measure of time, to an accuracy of three or four seconds, more or less--a mistake which would scarcely amount to one day in twenty thousand years.

"It is, then, to the successive discoveries of persevering astronomical observation, through a period of fifty centuries, that we are indebted for a fixed and permanent standard for the measurement of time. And by the same science has man acquired, so far as he possesses it, a standard for the measurement of s.p.a.ce. A standard for the measurement of the dimensions and distances of the fixed stars from ourselves is yet to be found; and, if ever found, will be through the means of astronomical observation.

"The influence of all these discoveries upon the condition of man is no doubt infinitely diversified in relative importance; but all, even the minutest, contribute to the increase and diffusion of knowledge. There is no richer field of science opened to the exploration of man in search of knowledge than astronomical observation; nor is there, in the opinion of this committee, any duty more impressively inc.u.mbent upon all human governments than that of furnis.h.i.+ng means, and facilities, and rewards, to those who devote the labors of their lives to the indefatigable industry, the unceasing vigilance, and the bright intelligence, indispensable to success in these pursuits."

These remarks are succeeded by others on the Royal Observatory of Greenwich, on the connection of astronomy with the art of navigation, on the increase of observatories in the British Islands, in France, and in Russia; and, after repeating the objections to applying the fund of Mr.

Smithson to a school devoted to any particular branch of science, or for general education, Mr. Adams, in behalf of the committee, submitted a bill for the consideration of the house, embracing the principles maintained in his report.

On May 8th, 1840, a bill to insure a more faithful execution of the laws relating to the collection of duties on imports being under consideration of the house, Mr. Adams, after commenting on the nature and injurious consequences of the fraud which it was the object of the bill to prevent, said that this practice was "a sort of national thing,"

to such an extent were the citizens of Great Britain accustomed to come over to this country to cheat us out of our revenue, and to defraud our manufacturing interest, and added:

"I have said that there is something national in this matter, and I will now proceed to state what, in my judgment, lies at the bottom of this proceeding. It is a maxim of British commercial law that it is lawful for the citizens of one nation to defraud the revenues of other nations. The author of the maxim was a man famous throughout the civilized world,--a man of transcendent talents, who fixed, more, perhaps, than any other man of the same century, his impress on the age in which he lived, and upon the laws of England,--I mean Lord Mansfield. In some respects it has been greatly to the advantage of those laws, but in others as much to their disadvantage and discredit, of which the maxim of which I now speak is a signal instance. He was the first British judge who established the principle that it is a lawful thing for Englishmen to cheat the revenue laws of other nations, especially those of Spain and Portugal.

"This principle was first settled in an act of Parliament, the object of which was to suppress what are denominated wager policies of insurance--a species of instrument well known to lawyers as gambling policies, being entered into when the party insuring has no interest in the property insured. It had been a question whether such policies were lawful by the common law. The practice had greatly increased, insomuch that wager policies had become a common thing. It was with a view to suppress these that the statute of the nineteenth of George the Second, chapter thirty-seventh, was pa.s.sed. The object of that statute was good; it was remedial in its character; it went to suppress a public evil; but, while it prohibited wager policies in all other cases, it contained _an express exception in favor of those made on vessels trading to Spain and Portugal_."

After commenting on this act of the British Parliament, he quotes the words of Blackstone, who, after stating the nature of these smuggling policies, and dwelling upon their immorality and pernicious tendency, refers to the law above mentioned, which enacts "that they shall be totally null and void, except as to policies on privateers in the Spanish and Portuguese trade, _for reasons sufficiently obvious_." (2 Blackstone, ch. x.x.x., p. 4, -- 1.) On this statement of Blackstone Mr. Adams remarks:

"It is an old maxim of the schools that frauds are always concealed under generalities. What were these _obvious reasons_? Why were they concealed? It is known to the committee that, in the celebrated controversy of the man in the mask,--I mean Junius with Blackstone,--he said, that for the defence of law, of justice, and of truth, let any man consult the work of that great judge, his Commentaries upon the laws of England; but, if a man wanted to cheat his neighbor out of his estate, he should consult the doctor himself. I go a little further than Junius, although I do it with great reluctance, for I hold the book to be one of the best books in the world. I say that the observation of Junius applies to the book as much as to the judge, when, from reasons like those with which scoundrels cover their consciences, that book evades telling why the exception was made in regard to Spain and Portugal, and what those reasons were which the judge declares to be '_sufficiently obvious_.'

"This exception of the British law was _infectious_; it spread into France, whose government adopted the same provision by way of _reprisal_."

Mr. Adams then read from Emerigon, the princ.i.p.al authority of French lawyers on insurance, who denies the principles of the English statute; and M. Pothier, not a mere lawyer, but a philosopher and moralist, who protests against this doctrine, and appeals to the eternal laws of morality. He then cites the second volume _Term Reports_, p. 164, in which Judge Buller states, "I have heard Lord Mansfield say that the reason of that allowance was to favor the smuggling of bullion from those countries." On which Mr. Adams remarks:

"This is the sum of the whole matter. Judge Buller heard Lord Mansfield say that the object of the exception in regard to Spain and Portugal was to encourage--yes, to _encourage_--the smuggling trade. The object was that smugglers should not only escape the effect of their villany, but should be actually encouraged by government in its perpetration.

"I think I have now established the position which I a.s.sumed, that the lawfulness of violating the revenue laws of other nations is a principle of English law,--a principle sanctioned by the Legislature and the judicial courts of Great Britain,--but one which the best elementary writers, proceeding on the great and eternal principles of morality, have condemned as a false principle; and I have thought it necessary to do this with a view to trace these frauds upon our revenue, committed by British subjects, to what I believe to be their original source in the false morality in the English Parliament and English judges. What is the natural effect of the promulgation of such principles by such authority? What can it be but to encourage frauds on the revenue of other nations? When a principle like this goes out, sanctioned with the legislative authority, it will have its effect on the nation.

"'_Quid leges sine moribus._' The whole moral principle of a nation is contaminated by the legislative authorization and judicial sanction of a practice dishonest in itself, which necessarily includes not merely a permission, but a stimulant, to perjury.

If an English merchant, subscribing to this principle, goes to establish himself in a foreign country, he goes as an enemy, warranted, by the sanction of his own courts and Parliament, to do anything that can defraud its revenue. Perhaps this may be one of the causes of the vulgar saying,--which all must have heard, but which, thank G.o.d, I still hope is not warranted by the practice of the native merchants of our country,--that custom-house oaths have no validity. There is a feeling, but too prevalent, which distinguishes between custom-house oaths and other oaths. It is obvious that smuggling can not be carried on to any extent without the commission of perjury. There must be false swearing; and it is that false swearing which the British laws have sanctioned. None of this bullion, of which Justice Buller speaks, could be smuggled out of Spain and Portugal without false oaths; and you will find, from the details of a case which I shall presently call to your attention, that false swearing is at the bottom of the frauds which this bill seeks to correct--frauds in consequence of which seven eighths of all the woollens imported into New York escaped the payment of the duty charged by law. These people do not hold themselves bound to respect our revenue laws, and thus proceed without scruples to the perpetration of perjury in order to carry on with success the evasion of them."

In the conclusion of his speech Mr. Adams paid the following tribute to the English nation, saying:

"That of the English nation he entertained sentiments of the most exalted admiration; that he was proud of being himself descended from that stock, although two hundred years had pa.s.sed away, during which all his ancestors had been natives of this country. He claimed the great men of England of former ages as his countrymen, and could say with the poet Cowper, in hearty concurrence with the sentiment, that it is

'Praise enough To fill the ambition of a common man, That Chatham's language was his mother tongue, And Wolfe's great name compatriot with his own.'

"He believed that no nation, of ancient or modern times, was more ent.i.tled to veneration for its exertion in the cause of human improvement than the British. He thought their code of laws admirable; but, in the discussion of the bill before the committee, he had been compelled, in the discharge of his duty, to expose one great erroneous principle of morals incorporated into their laws; a principle, the natural and necessary consequence of which had been the occasion of the bill now before the committee; a principle enacted by the British Parliament, and sanctioned by the decision of their highest judicial tribunals, with the express and avowed purpose of encouraging the subjects of Great Britain to the practice of defrauding, even by the commission of perjury, the revenues of a foreign country."

In July, 1840, a memorial was presented to Congress, from the American Philosophical Society of Philadelphia, asking the aid of government to carry on a series of magnetic and meteorological observations. This application was made in cooperation with the Royal Society of Great Britain, and at their solicitation, and had for its object an extended system of magnetic observations at fixed magnetic observatories in different quarters of the globe. Mr. Adams, having been appointed chairman of a committee on the memorial, made a report setting forth at large the motives for concurrence, and the importance of the object asked for. The following extracts ill.u.s.trate his comprehensive views and appreciation of the subject:

"Among the most powerful, most wonderful, and most mysterious agents in the economy of the physical universe, is the magnet. Its attractive properties, its perpetual tendency to the poles of the earth and of the heavens, and its exclusive sympathies with one of the mineral productions of the earth, have been brought within the scope of human observation at different periods of the history of mankind, separated by the distance of many centuries from each other. The attractive power of the magnet was known in ages of antiquity so remote that it transcends even the remembrance of the name of its first discoverer, and the time of its accession to the ma.s.s of human knowledge. Its polarity, or, at least, the application of that property to the purposes of navigation beyond the sight of land, was unknown in Europe, and probably throughout the world, until the twelfth or thirteenth century of the Christian era; and its horizontal variation from the tendency directly to the pole was first perceived by Christopher Columbus, in that transcendent voyage of discovery which gave a new hemisphere to the industry and intelligence of civilized man;--an incident then so alarming to him and his company, that, but for the inflexible and persevering spirit of this intrepid and daring mariner, it would have sunk them into despair, and buried the New World for ages upon ages longer from the knowledge of the Old. Centuries have again pa.s.sed away, disclosing gradually new properties of the magnet to the ardent and eager pursuit of human curiosity, still stimulated by constant observation of the phenomena connected with this metallic substance, dug from the bowels of the earth, yet seeming more and more to elude or defy all the ordinary laws of matter. Thus, in the process of observation to ascertain the horizontal variation of the needle from its polar direction, it was found that it differed in intensity in the different regions of the earth and the seas; that its variations were affected by different causes, some tending in the same direction, alternately east and west, through a succession of years, of ages, even of centuries, and others accomplis.h.i.+ng their circle of existence from day to day, perhaps from hour to hour, or at stated hours of the day. It was found that there was a perpendicular as well as a horizontal deviation from the polar direction; and it became a matter of anxious inquiry to ascertain the intensity both of the dip and variation of the needle at every spot on the surface of the globe. It was inferred, from the different intensities of variation in different lat.i.tudes, that there were magnetic poles not concident with those of the earth; and the northern of these poles has been recently traced to its actual location by the British circ.u.mnavigators, Parry and Ross.

"The attractive power, the polarity, the deviations from the polar direction, horizontal and perpendicular, the varieties even of these deviations, and the detection of the northern magnetic pole, have still left materials for further observation, and suggested problems for solution to the perseverance and ingenuity of the human mind.

"In the spring of 1836 that ill.u.s.trious philosopher and statesman, Baron Alexander Von Humboldt, addressed to the Duke of Suss.e.x, then President of the Royal Society, a letter upon the means of perfecting the knowledge of terrestrial magnetism, by the establishment of magnetic stations and corresponding observations; and solicited the powerful concurrence of the Royal Society in favor of the labors then already undertaken by a learned a.s.sociation in Germany, and which, radiating at once from several great scientific central points in Europe, might lead progressively to the more precise knowledge of the laws of nature."

Mr. Adams then proceeds to state the subsequent proceedings of the Royal Society, and the measures the British government had taken to carry into effect the views of that society, earnestly recommending the compliance with the request of the American Philosophical Society, and adds:

"The committee would hail, with feelings of hope and encouragement, the virtual alliance of great and mighty nations for this union of efforts in the promotion of the cause of science. Long enough have the leagues and federations between the potentates of the earth been confined to alliances, offensive and defensive, to promote purposes of mutual hatred and hostility. It is refres.h.i.+ng to the friends of humanity to witness the rise and progress of a spirit of common and concerted inquiry into the secrets of material nature, the results of which not only go to acc.u.mulate the ma.s.s of human knowledge, but to harmonize in a community of enjoyments the varied tribes of man throughout the habitable globe. The invitation to partic.i.p.ate in these labors, and to acquire the credit and reputation of having contributed to the beneficial results which may confidently be expected from them, is itself creditable to the character of our own country."

In conclusion, the committee recommend the adoption of a resolution, which they report, appropriating twenty thousand dollars for the establishment of five several stations for making observations on terrestrial magnetism and meteorology, conformably to the invitation of the Royal Society of Great Britain to the American Philosophical Society of Philadelphia.

In July, 1840, at the closing of the congressional session, Mr. Adams thus expressed his opinion of the state of public affairs: "The late session of Congress has been painful to me beyond all former experience, by the demonstration it has given of degenerating inst.i.tutions. Parties are falling into profligate factions. I have seen this before; but the worst symptom now is the change in the manners of the people. The continuance of the present administration will, if accomplished, open wide all the floodgates of corruption. Will a change produce a reform?