Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams Part 14

Pause and ponder! Slavery, the Indians, the public lands, the collection and disburs.e.m.e.nt of public moneys, the tariff, and foreign affairs--what is to become of them?"

In September, 1840, Mr. Adams remarked, on the electioneering addresses then made, preparatory to the next election of President: "This practice of itinerant speech-making has suddenly broken out in this country to a fearful extent. Electioneering for the Presidency has spread its contagion to the President himself, to his now only compet.i.tor, to his immediate predecessor, to the candidates Henry Clay and Daniel Webster, and to many distinguished members of both branches of Congress. The tendency of all this is to the corruption of popular elections both by violence and fraud."

Again, in October ensuing: "One of the peculiarities of the present time is that the princ.i.p.al leaders of the political parties are travelling about the country from state to state, and holding forth, like Methodist preachers, to a.s.sembled mult.i.tudes, under the broad canopy of heaven.

Webster, Clay, W. C. Rives, Silas Wright, and James Buchanan, are among the first and foremost in this canva.s.sing oratory; while Andrew Jackson, and Martin Van Buren, with his heads of departments, are harping on another string of the political accordion, by writing controversial electioneering letters. Besides the princ.i.p.al leaders of the parties, numerous subaltern officers of the administration are summoned to the same service, and, instead of attending to the duties of their offices, roam, recite, and madden, round the land."

In a speech made on the 28th of December, 1840, Mr. Adams severely denounced the policy pursued by the government in respect of the navy pension fund; stating that it amounted to one million two hundred thousand dollars; that, without any authority, it had been loaned to different states, and vested in their stocks, which, for the most part, were either depreciated in value, wholly lost, or unsalable. That fund, he maintained, was a sacred trust, and proceeded to state fully and at large the manner in which it had been violated without authority.

Mr. Adams then went on to state the proceedings of the Executive relative to the Smithsonian fund. He said that about the 1st of September, 1838, the sum of five hundred and nine thousand dollars had been deposited in the Mint of Philadelphia in gold,--in mint-drops;--a sacred trust, which the United States had accepted, on the pledge of their faith to keep it whole, entire, for the purpose for which it had been given by a foreigner. Within three days the five hundred thousand dollars were on their way to Arkansas to make a bank. The members of the Senate and of the House from Arkansas had a quick scent of these moneys coming into the Treasury; and care had been taken to insert into a bill for a very different object a provision authorizing the President and Secretary of the Treasury to loan to the states that sum of money when it should come into the Treasury. This was three months beforehand; and three days after the money was received the plan was carried into execution.

"Now, we had heard," said Mr. Adams, "of British gold carrying the elections, which had resulted, not in favor of the present inc.u.mbent of the presidential chair, but against him. There he could put his finger upon five hundred and nine thousand dollars of British gold, which contributed, so far as it could go, to the election of the present executive magistrate; and he thought he had shown the means by which it was done. Go to the State of Arkansas. The dollars are not there, but they _were_ there, and they were sent there from the Mint of the United States. Here was policy--profound policy--economy--democracy; and all this accompanied with so great a horror at the idea of a.s.suming state debts, that the hair of the gentlemen stood on end at the mere mention of the possibility of such a thing. Was not here a debt of the State of Arkansas of half a million of dollars? Had not the general government a.s.sumed that debt? Had they not employed trust-money? If Arkansas should declare herself insolvent to-morrow, Congress must pay that debt; they had a.s.sumed it."

About this time, Mr. Adams, in some of his writings, thus graphically ill.u.s.trates the political influences which have mainly shaped the destinies of the United States: "A very curious philosophical history of parties might be made by giving a _catalogue raisonne_ of the candidates for the Presidency voted for in the electoral colleges since the establishment of the const.i.tution of the United States. It would contain a history of the influences of the presidential office. Would not the retrospect furnish practical principles concerning the operation of the const.i.tution?--1st. That the direct and infallible path to the Presidency is military service, coupled with demagogue policy. 2d. That, in the absence of military service, demagogue policy is the first and most indispensable element of success, and the art of party drilling the second. 3d. That the drill consists in combining the Southern interest in domestic slavery with the Northern riotous democracy. 4th. That this policy and drill, first organized by Thomas Jefferson, accomplished his election, and established the Virginia dynasty of twenty-four years;--a perpetual practical contradiction of its own principles. 5th. That the same policy and drill, invigorated by success and fortified by experience, has now placed Martin Van Buren in the President's chair, and disclosed to the unprincipled ambition of the North the art of rising upon the principles of the South. And 6th.

That it has exposed in broad day the overruling influence of the inst.i.tution of domestic slavery upon the history and policy of the Union."

In the case of a contested election Mr. Adams remarked: "The conduct of a majority of the House has, from beginning to end, been governed by will, and not by judgment; and so I fear it will be always in every case of contested elections."

"The speech of Horace Everett, of Vermont," (made on the 8th June, 1836, on the Indian annuity bill,) said Mr. Adams, "gives a perfectly clear and distinct exposition of the origin and causes of the Florida war, and demonstrates, beyond all possibility of being gainsaid, that the wrong of the war is on our side. It depresses the spirits, and humiliates the soul, that this war is now running into its fifth year, has cost thirty millions of dollars, has successively baffled and disgraced all our chief military generals,--Gaines, Scott, Jesup, and Macomb,--and that our last resources now are bloodhounds and no quarter. Sixteen millions of Anglo-Saxons unable to subdue, in five years, by force and by fraud, by secret treachery and by open war, sixteen hundred savage warriors!

There is a disregard of all appearance of right, in our transactions with the Indians, which I feel as a cruel disparagement of the honor of my country."

On the 1st of January, 1841, Mr. Adams, referring to the accounts he had received that the attendance at the Presidential levees was much smaller than usual, and that the visitors were chiefly from among the President's old adversaries, the Whigs, remarked:

"'_Donec eris felix multos numerabis amicos Tempora si fuerint nubila solus eris._'

There is, perhaps, no occasion in human affairs," he added, "which more uniformly exemplifies this propensity of human nature than the exit of a President of the United States from office."

On the 4th of February, 1841, there arose, incidentally, in the House of Representatives, a debate upon the act to suppress duelling. Mr.

Wise, of Virginia, had said, in the course of a former debate: "The anti-duelling law is producing its bitter fruits. It is making this house a bear-garden. We have an example in the present instance. Here, with permission of the chair and committee, and without a call to order from anybody, we see and hear one member (Mr. Johnson) say to another (Mr. Duncan) that he had been branded as a coward on this floor. The other says back that 'he is a liar!' And, sir, there the matter will stop. There will be no fight." Before proceeding to comment, Mr. Adams called for the reading of this statement, as reported in the _National Intelligencer_. On which Mr. Wise said publicly, in the house, "That is a correct report."[1]

[1] See, for all the proceedings on this subject, the _Congressional Globe_, vol. IX., pp. 320-322.

After this acknowledgment, Mr. Adams proceeded to remark with severity on this statement and language, occasioning an excitement in the house, particularly among the duellists, which belongs to the history of the period. After stating that he understood that statement and language "as maintaining that duelling, between members of this house, for matters pa.s.sing within this house, is a practice that ought not to be suppressed," he continued: "I maintain the contrary; and I maintain it for the independence of this house, for my own independence, for the independence of those with whom I act, for the independence of the members from the Northern section of this country, who not only abhor duelling in theory, but in practice; in consequence of which members from other sections are perpetually insulting them on this floor, under the impression that the insult will not be resented."

Here Mr. Campbell, of South Carolina, as the reporter states, called Mr.

Adams to order. The chairman said something, of which not a word could be heard, the house being in such a state of tempestuous uproar. When the voice of Mr. Adams again caught the ear of the reporter, he was proceeding as follows:

"Would you smother discussion on the duelling law? There is not a point in the affairs of this nation more important than this very practice of duelling,--considered as a point of honor in one part of the Union, and a point of infamy in another,--with its consequences.

I say there is no more important subject that can go forth, North and South, East and West; and I therefore take my issue upon it. I have come here determined to do so between the different portions of this house, in order to see whether this practice is to be continued; whether the members from that section of the Union whose principles are against duelling are to be insulted, upon every topic of discussion, because it is supposed that the insult will not be resented, and that 'there will be no fight.'"

Mr. Adams here called for the reading of "the act to suppress duelling;"

which the clerk having read, he proceeded:

"I was going on to say that the reason why I had brought this subject into the discussion is because it is most intimately connected with all the transactions in this house and this nation; and because I think it time to settle this question between the duellists and non-duellists, whoever they may be. I say that, in consequence of my principles, and what I believe to be the principles of a very large portion of the people in that part of the country from which I came, I will not, as regards the approaching administration, put myself under the lead of any man who considers the duelling law in this district as having borne any bitter fruits whatever. It may not, indeed, be sufficiently potent in its operation to prevent the thirst for blood which follows offensive words; but I believe it has prevented, and will prevent, any such occurrences as we have witnessed here. But, as it bears upon the affairs of the nation, I am not willing to sit any longer here, and see other members from my own section of the country, or those who may be my successors here, made subject to any such law as the law of the duellist. I am unwilling that they should not have full freedom of speech in this house on all occasions--as much so as the primest duellist in the land. I do not want to hear perpetual intimations, when a man from one part of the country means to insult another coming from other parts of the country, as, 'I am ready to answer here or elsewhere;' and 'The gentleman knows where I am to be found;' saying, as the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. W. C. Johnson) did just now, that he would call to account any person who dared make allusion to what had taken place between him and another member of this house. I do not intend to hear that any more, for myself or others, if I can help it. Therefore I move to bring the matter up for full discussion here, whether we are to be twitted and taunted with remarks that a man is ready to meet us here or elsewhere. It goes to the independence of this house; it goes to the independence of every individual member of this house; it goes to the right of speech and freedom of debate in this house; and I felt myself bound to bear my testimony in the most decided manner against the practice of duelling, or anything in the shape of even a virtual challenge taking place in this house, now and forever. If the committee think proper to put me down, after a debate of three weeks, involving almost every topic under the sun, and in which not one man has been called to order, I must submit. It shall go out to the country, and I am willing that the sober sentiment of the whole nation shall be my final judge on this subject."

Mr. Adams, after having recapitulated his course of proceedings on various topics, and explained his motives and their relations on former occasions, and his present general views on those subjects, closes his remarks on duelling by declaring that what he had said had been from motives of pure public spirit, with no disposition to offend any gentleman, and least of all the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wise); but that he had felt it his duty to say what he had said, because he believed that the application of the principle of duelling, as regards different portions of this house, is such that it must be discarded; that duelling must be considered as a crime, and that it must not be countenanced by professions of any necessity for its existence.

In January and March, 1841, Mr. Adams delivered his celebrated argument before the Supreme Court of the United States, in the case of the United States, appellants, against Cinque and others, appellees. This was afterwards published at length. In it he publicly arraigned before that court and the civilized world the conduct of the then existing administration, for having, in all their proceedings relating to these unfortunate Africans, exhibited sympathy for one of the parties, and antipathy for the other; sympathy for the white, antipathy to the black; sympathy for the slaveholders, in place of protection for the unfortunate and oppressed. It is impossible by any abstract or outline to do justice to the laborious ability with which this argument is sustained. The just severity with which he scrutinizes the proceedings of the Executive and the demands of the Spanish Minister, the completeness with which he vindicates for these Africans their right to freedom,--the extensive research into the law of nations, and the broad principles of eternal justice, on which he supports their claim to be liberated, were probably not excelled by any public effort at that period, whether of the bar or the senate. He concluded with the following touching reminiscences of distinguished members of the bench and the bar, with whom in former times he had been a.s.sociated:

"May it please your honors: On the 7th of February, 1804, now more than thirty-seven years past, my name was entered, and yet stands recorded, on both the rolls, as one of the attorneys and counsellors of this court. Five years later, in February and March, 1809, I appeared for the last time before this court, in defence of the cause of justice and of important rights, in which many of my fellow-citizens had property to a large amount at stake. Very shortly afterwards I was called to the discharge of other duties, first in distant lands, and in later years within our own country, but in different departments of her government. Little did I imagine that I should ever again be required to claim the right of appearing in the capacity of an officer of this court; yet such has been the dictate of my destiny, and I appear again to plead the cause of justice, and now of liberty and life, in behalf of many of my fellow-men, before that same court which, in a former age, I had addressed in support of rights of property. I stand again, I trust for the last time, before the same court. '_Hic caestus, artemque repono._' I stand before the same court, but not before the same judges, nor aided by the same a.s.sociates, nor resisted by the same opponents. As I cast my eyes along those seats of honor and of public trust now occupied by you, they seek in vain for one of those honored and honorable persons whose indulgence listened then to my voice. Marshall, Cus.h.i.+ng, Chase, Was.h.i.+ngton, Johnson, Livingston, Todd,--where are they? Where is that eloquent statesman and learned lawyer who was my a.s.sociate counsel in the management of that cause, Robert Goodloe Harper? Where is that brilliant luminary, so long the pride of Maryland and of the American bar, then my opposing counsel, Luther Martin? Where is the excellent clerk of that day, whose name has been inscribed on the sh.o.r.es of Africa as a monument of his abhorrence of the African slave-trade, Elias B. Caldwell? Where is the marshal--where are the criers of the court? Alas! where is one of the very judges of the court, arbiter of life and death, before whom I commenced this anxious argument, even now prematurely closed?

Where are they all? Gone--gone--all gone! Gone from the services which in their day and generation they faithfully tendered to their country. From the excellent characters which they sustained in life, so far as I have had the means of knowing, I humbly hope, and fondly trust, they have gone to receive the rewards of blessedness on high.

"In taking, then, my final leave of this bar, and of this honorable court, I can only e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.e a fervent pet.i.tion to Heaven that every member of it may go to his final account with as little of earthly frailty to answer for as those ill.u.s.trious dead; and that every one, after the close of a long and virtuous career in this world, may be received at the portals of the next with the approving sentence, 'Well done, good and faithful servant; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.'"

CHAPTER XII.

WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.--HIS DEATH.-- VICE-PRESIDENT JOHN TYLER SUCCEEDS.--REMARKS OF MR. ADAMS ON THE OCCASION.--HIS SPEECH ON THE CASE OF ALEXANDER M'LEOD.--HIS VIEWS CONCERNING COMMONPLACE BOOKS.--HIS LECTURE ON CHINA AND CHINESE COMMERCE.--REMARKS ON THE STATE OF THE COUNTRY, AND HIS DUTY IN RELATION TO IT.--HIS PRESENTATION OF A PEt.i.tION FOR THE DISSOLUTION OF THE UNION, AND THE VOTE TO CENSURE HIM FOR DOING IT.--HIS THIRD REPORT ON MR.

SMITHSON'S BEQUEST.--HIS SPEECH ON THE MISSION TO MEXICO.

On the 4th of March, 1841, William Henry Harrison, of Ohio, was inaugurated President of the United States, and John Tyler, of Virginia, Vice-President; each of whom had two hundred and thirty-four out of two hundred and ninety-four votes,--the whole number,--and Martin Van Buren, the only other candidate for the Presidency, had sixty. Mr. Adams remarked that this inauguration was celebrated with demonstrations of popular feeling unexampled since that of Was.h.i.+ngton, in 1789, and at the same time with so much order and tranquillity that not the slightest symptom of conflicting pa.s.sions occurred to disturb the enjoyments of the day. Many thousands of people from the adjoining, and considerable numbers from distant states, were a.s.sembled to witness the ceremony.

On the 4th of April, 1841,--precisely one calendar month after his inauguration,--President Harrison died. On this occasion Mr. Adams thus expressed himself:

"The first impression of this event here, where it occurred, is of the frailty of all human enjoyments, and the awful vicissitudes woven into the lot of mortal man. He had reached, but one short month since, the pinnacle of honor and power in his own country. He lies a lifeless corpse in the palace provided by his country for his abode. He was amiable and benevolent. Sympathy for his suffering and his fate is the prevailing sentiment of his fellow-citizens. The bereavement and distress of his family are felt intensely, albeit they are strangers here, and known scarcely to any one.

"The influence of this event upon the condition and history of the country can scarcely be foreseen. It makes the Vice-President of the United States, John Tyler, of Virginia, acting President of the Union for four years, less one month.

"Tyler is a political sectarian, of the slave-driving, Virginian, Jeffersonian school; principled against all improvement; with all the interests and pa.s.sions and vices of slavery rooted in his moral and political const.i.tution; with talents not above mediocrity, and a spirit incapable of expansion to the dimensions of the station on which he has been cast by the hand of Providence, unseen, through the apparent agency of chance. To that benign and healing hand of Providence I trust, in humble hope of the good which it always brings forth out of evil. In upwards of half a century this is the first instance of a Vice-President being called to act as President of the United States, and brings to the test that provision of the const.i.tution which places in the executive chair a man never thought of for it by anybody.

"Tyler deems himself qualified to perform the duties and exercise the powers and office of President, on the death of President Harrison, without any other oath than that which he has taken as Vice-President; yet, as doubts might arise, and for greater caution, he will take and subscribe the oath as President. May the blessing of Heaven upon this nation attend and follow this providential revolution in its government! For the present it is not joyous, but grievous.

"The moral condition of this country is degenerating, and especially through the effect of that part of its const.i.tution which is organized by the process of unceasing elections. The spirit of the age and country is to acc.u.mulate power in the hands of the mult.i.tude: to shorten terms of service in high public places; to multiply elections, and diminish executive power; to weaken all agencies protective of property, or repressive of crime; to abolish capital punishments and imprisonment for debt. Slavery, intemperance, land-jobbing, bankruptcy, and sundry controversies with Great Britain, const.i.tute the materials for the history of John Tyler's administration. But the improvement of the condition of man will form no part of his policy, and the improvement of his country will be an object of his most inveterate and inflexible opposition."

In September, 1841, one Alexander McLeod was imprisoned at Lockport, in the State of New York, under an indictment for murder. The following circ.u.mstances were the occasion of these proceedings. A steamer, called the Caroline, owned and fitted out at Buffalo, had been engaged in aiding certain insurgents against the Canadian government with military apparatus and provisions; and an expedition, sent by the British authorities, had cut the Caroline out of the port of Buffalo, set her on fire, and sent her floating over the Niagara Falls. In the fight which occurred one of the men on board the Caroline was killed.

The excitement was general and excessive throughout the State of New York. McLeod was the leader in this expedition, and having, after the lapse of some time, visited that state, he was arrested, imprisoned, indicted, and the popular voice was clamorous that he should be _hanged_. Notwithstanding the British government had declared that he had acted under their authority as a military man, simply obeying the order of his superiors, a like state of feeling and purpose had extended to Congress, and a resolution had been introduced requesting the President to inform the House "whether any officer of the army, or the Attorney-General, had been directed to visit the State of New York for any purpose connected with the imprisonment or trial of Alexander McLeod; or whether, by any executive measures, the British government had been given to understand that McLeod would be released."

Fearing that the result of these proceedings might lead to a great and most formidable issue of peace and war between the United States and Great Britain, Mr. Adams took this occasion to express his views on the subject.

"The first question which occurs to me is," he said, "what is the object of this resolution, and for what purpose has the house been agitated with it from the commencement of the session to this day?

The gentleman who offered it has disclaimed all party purposes; he breathes in a lofty atmosphere, elevated high above that of party.

But what sort of comprehension had both the friends and the opponents of the resolution put upon it? No party complexion! O, no!

No; it was patriotism--pure patriotism--patriotism pure and undefiled! Well; I am disposed to give gentlemen on all sides of the house credit for whatever patriotism they profess; but sure it is that patriotism is a coat of many colors, and suited to very different complexions; and, if it had not been for that unqualified profession of patriotism and no party, which had rung through this house, from every gentleman who had supported this resolution, I should have felt bound to believe it the rankest party measure that ever was introduced into this house.

"What is the object of this resolution? It is to make an issue with Great Britain--an issue of right or wrong--upon the affair of burning the Caroline. No, sir; never shall my voice be for going to war upon that issue. I will not go to war upon an issue upon which, when we go to a third power to arbitrate upon it, they will say we are wrong. The issue will be decided against us. We shall be told it is not the thing for us to quarrel about.

"I have not the time, were I possessed of the information, to give a history of the affair of the Caroline; and it is known as much to every member of the house as it is to me. We have heard a great deal of talk about territorial rights, and independence, and of state rights. But, in a question of that kind, other nations do not look much to your state rights nor to your independence questions. They will not talk of your independence; but they will say who is right, and who is wrong. Who struck the first blow? I take it, will be the main question with them. I take it that in the late affair the Caroline was in hostile array against the British government, and that the parties concerned in it were employed in acts of war against it; and I do not subscribe to the very learned opinion of the Chief Justice of the State of New York (not, I hear, the Chief Justice, but a Judge of the Supreme Court of that state), that there was no act of war committed. Nor do I subscribe to it that every nation goes to war only on issuing a declaration or proclamation of war. This is not the fact. Nations often wage war for years without issuing any declaration of war. The question is here not upon a declaration of war, but acts of war. And I say that, in the judgment of all impartial men of other nations, _we_ shall be held as a nation responsible; that the Caroline there was in a state of war against Great Britain; for purposes of war, and the worst kind of war,--to sustain an insurrection--I will not say rebellion, because rebellion is a crime, and because I heard them talked of as 'patriots.' Yes; and I have heard, in the course of the discussion here, these patriots represented as carrying on a righteous cause, and that we ought to have a.s.sisted them; that we ought to have given them that a.s.sistance that a nation fighting for its liberty is ent.i.tled to from the generosity of other nations. Well, admit that merely for a moment. If we were bound to do it, we were bound to do it avowedly and above-board. But we disclaimed all intention of taking any part in it; and yet there was very little disguise about this expedition, and that this vessel was there for the purposes of hostility against the Canadian government. I say, therefore, that we struck the first blow; and if, instead of pressing this matter to a war, we were to refer it to a third power, even if it should be to a European republic,--if any such thing is remaining,--and should say there had been an invasion of our territory, they would ask us a question something like that which was put to a character in a play of Moliere: _Que diable allait il faire dans cette galere?_--What the devil had we to do in that galley?

"Now, I think the arbitrator would say, "What the devil had you to do with that steamboat?" He would say that we struck the first blow.

Now, admit that,--and none of your state rights men can deny it,--admit that, and all the rest follows of course. They will say it was wrong--abstractly, if you please. Talking of abstractions, it was wrong for an expedition to come over and burn the steamboat, and send her over the falls. But what was your steamboat about? What had she been doing? What was she to do the next morning? And what ought you to do? You have reparation to make for all the men, and for all the arms and implements of war, which we were transporting, and going to transport, to the other side, to foment and instigate rebellion in Canada. That is what the third party would say to us.

And it would come, in the end, after all the blood and treasure had been wasted by a war between the two countries, to this, that we must shake hands and drink champagne together, after having made a mutual apology for mutual transgression. That is the way things are settled between individuals,--'If you said so, why, I said so,'--and thus the dispute is amicably settled. So we should have to do with this national matter; for there is not any great difference in the essentials of quarrelling and making up between nations and individuals."

Mr. Adams then proceeded to another point of view in which he objected to this resolution. He said:

"A prodigious affair has been made of this matter, as if the government of the United States had outraged the State of New York, because the great empire State of New York had undertaken to say that she would _hang_ McLeod, whatever Great Britain or the general government might do. Yes; whatever they might do, the great empire State of New York would _hang_ McLeod! That was the language.