Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams Part 18

On the 4th of July, 1843, Mr. Adams, in a letter addressed to the citizens of Bangor, in Maine, declining their invitation to deliver an address on the 1st of August, the anniversary of British emanc.i.p.ation of slavery in the West Indies, thus expressed his views on that subject:

"The extinction of SLAVERY from the face of the earth is a problem, moral, political, religious, which at this moment rocks the foundations of human society throughout the regions of civilized man. It is indeed nothing more nor less than the consummation of the Christian religion. It is only as _immortal_ beings that all mankind can in any sense be said to be born equal; and when the Declaration of Independence affirms as a self-evident truth that all men are born equal, it is precisely the same as if the affirmation had been that all men are born with immortal souls; for, take away from man his soul, the immortal spirit that is within him, and he would be a mere tamable beast of the field, and, like others of his kind, would become the property of his tamer.

Hence it is, too, that, by the law of nature and of G.o.d, man can never be made the property of man. And herein consists the fallacy with which the holders of slaves often delude themselves, by a.s.suming that the test of property is human law. The soul of one man cannot by human law be made the property of another. The owner of a slave is the owner of a living corpse; but he is not the owner of a man."

In ill.u.s.tration of this principle he observes that "the natural equality of mankind, affirmed by the signers of the Declaration of Independence to be _held up_ by them as self-evident truth, was not so held by their enemies. Great Britain held that sovereign power was unlimitable, and the natural equality of mankind was a fable. France and Spain had no sympathies for the rights of human nature. Vergennes plotted with Gustavus of Sweden the revolution in Sweden from liberty to despotism. Turgot, shortly after our Declaration of Independence, advised Louis Sixteenth that it was for _the interest_ of France and Spain that the insurrection of the Anglo-American colonies _should be suppressed_. But none of them foresaw or imagined what would be the consequence of the triumphant establishment in the continent of North America of an Anglo-Saxon American nation on the foundation of the natural equality of mankind, and the inalienable rights of man."

Mr. Adams then states and reasons upon these consequences in Europe and the United States: the abolition of slavery by the judicial decision of the Supreme Court of Ma.s.sachusetts, three years after the Declaration of Independence. Since that day there has not been a slave within that state. The same principle is corroborated by the fact that the Declaration of Independence imputes slavery in Virginia to George the Third, as one of the crimes which proved him to be a tyrant, unfit to rule a free people; and that at least twenty slaveholders, if not thirty, among whom were George Was.h.i.+ngton and Thomas Jefferson, avowed abolitionists, were signers of that Declaration.

He next states that "the result of the North American revolutionary war had prepared the minds of the people of the British nation to contemplate with calm composure the new principle engrafted upon the a.s.sociation of the civilized race of man, the self-evident truth, the natural equality of mankind and the rights of man." He then introduces Anthony Benezet, a member of the society of Friends, and Granville Sharp, an English philanthropist, "blowing the single horn of human liberty and the natural equality of mankind against the inst.i.tution of slavery, practised from time immemorial by all nations, ancient and modern; supported by the denunciation of the traffic in slaves by the popular writers both in France and England,--by Locke, Addison, and Sterne, as well as by Raynal, Rousseau, Montesquieu, and Voltaire; succeeded by the a.s.sociation of Thomas Clarkson and two or three Englishmen together, for the purpose of arraying the power of the British empire for the total abolition of slavery throughout the earth."

The success of that a.s.sociation he next ill.u.s.trates,--until this "emanation of the Christian faith is now, under the cross of St. George, overflowing from the white cliffs of Albion, and sweeping the slave-trade and slavery from the face of the terraqueous globe." He proceeds:

"People of that renowned island!--children of the land of our forefathers!--proceed, proceed in this glorious career, till the whole earth shall be redeemed from the greatest curse that ever has afflicted the human race. Proceed until millions upon millions of your brethren of the human race, restored to the rights with which they were endowed by your and their Creator, but of which they have been robbed by ruffians of their own race, shall send their choral shouts of redemption to the skies in blessings upon your names. O, with what pungent mortification and shame must I confess that in the transcendent glories of that day our names will not be a.s.sociated with yours! May Heaven in mercy grant that we may be spared the deeper d.a.m.nation of seeing our names recorded, not among the liberators, but with the oppressors of mankind!"

After inquiring what we have done in the United States to support "the principle proclaimed to the world as that which was to be the vital spark of our existence as a community among the nations of the earth,"

and declaring that we have done nothing, he thus enumerates the proceedings which disqualify us from presuming to share in the festivities and unite in the songs of triumph of the 1st of August, and shows how little we have concurred with Great Britain in her attempts to break the chain of slavery. He inquires into what we are doing:

"Are we not suffering our own hands to be manacled, and our own feet to be fettered, with the chains of slavery? Is it not enough to be told that, by a fraudulent perversion of language in the const.i.tution of the United States, we have falsified the const.i.tution itself, by admitting into both the legislative and executive departments of the government an overwhelming representation of one species of _property_, to the exclusion of all others, and that the odious property in slaves?

"Is it not enough that, by this exclusive privilege of property representation, confined to one section of the country, an irresistible ascendency in the action of the general government has been secured, not indeed to that section, but to an oligarchy of slaveholders in that section--to the cruel oppression of the poor in that same section itself? Is it not enough that, by the operation of this radical iniquity in the organization of the government, an immense disproportion of all offices, from the highest to the lowest, civil, military, naval, executive, and judicial, are held by slaveholders? Have we not seen the sacred right of pet.i.tion totally suppressed for the people of the free states during a succession of years, and is it not yet inexorably suppressed? Have we not seen, for the last twenty years, the const.i.tution and solemn treaties with foreign nations trampled on by cruel oppression and lawless imprisonment of colored mariners in the Southern States, in cold-blooded defiance of a solemn adjudication by a Southern judge in the Circuit Court of the Union?

And is not this enough? Have not the people of the free states been required to renounce for their citizens the right of habeas corpus and trial by jury; and, to coerce that base surrender of the only practical security to all personal rights, have not the slave-breeders, by state legislation, subjected to fine and imprisonment the colored citizens of the free states, for merely coming within their jurisdiction? Have we not tamely submitted for years to the daily violation of the freedom of the post-office and of the press by a committee of seal-breakers? And have we not seen a sworn Postmaster-general formally avow that, though he could not license this cut-purse protection of the peculiar inst.i.tution, the perpetrators of this highway robbery must justify themselves by the plea of necessity? And has the pillory or the penitentiary been the reward of that Postmaster-general? Have we not seen printing-presses destroyed; halls erected for the promotion of human freedom levelled with the dust, and consumed by fire; and wanton, unprovoked murder perpetrated with impunity, by slave-mongers? Have we not seen human beings, made in the likeness of G.o.d, and endowed with immortal souls, burnt at the stake, not for their offences, but for their color? Are not the journals of our Senate disgraced by resolutions calling for _war_, to indemnify the slave-pirates of the Enterprise and the Creole for the self-emanc.i.p.ation of their slaves; and to inflict vengeance, by a death of torture, upon the heroic self-deliverance of Madison Was.h.i.+ngton? Have we not been fifteen years plotting rebellion against our neighbor republic of Mexico, for abolis.h.i.+ng slavery throughout all her provinces? Have we not aided and abetted one of her provinces in insurrection against her for that cause? And have we not invaded openly, and sword in hand, another of her provinces, and all to effect her dismemberment, and to add ten more slave states to our confederacy? Has not the cry of war for the conquest of Mexico, for the expansion of renst.i.tuted slavery, for the robbery of priests, and the plunder of religious establishments, yet subsided? Have the pettifogging, hair-splitting, nonsensical, and yet inflammatory bickerings about the right of search, pandering to the thirst for revenge in France, panting for war to prostrate the disputed t.i.tle of her king--has the sound of this war-trumpet yet faded away upon our ears? Has the supreme and unparalleled absurdity of stipulating by treaty to keep a squadron of eighty guns for five years without intermission upon the coast of Africa, to suppress the African slave-trade, and at the same time denying, at the point of the bayonet, the right of that squadron to board or examine any slaver all but sinking under a cargo of victims, if she but hoist a foreign flag--has this diplomatic bone been yet picked clean? Or is our _indirect_ partic.i.p.ation in the African slave-trade to be protected, at whatever expense of blood and treasure? Is the supreme Executive Chief of this commonwealth yet to speak not for himself, but for her whole people, and pledge _them_ to shoulder their muskets, and to endorse their knapsacks, against the fanatical, non-resistant abolitionists, whenever the overseers may please to raise the b.l.o.o.d.y flag with the swindling watch-word of 'Union'?

O, my friends, I have not the heart to join in the festivity on the First of August--the British anniversary of disenthralled humanity--while all this, and infinitely more that I could tell, but that I would spare the blushes of my country, weigh down my spirits with the uncertainty, sinking into my grave as I am, whether she is doomed to be numbered among the first liberators or the last oppressors of the race of immortal man!

"Let the long-trodden-down African, restored by the cheering voice and Christian hand of Britain to his primitive right and condition of manhood, clap his hands and shout for joy on the anniversary of the First of August. Let the lordly Briton strip off much of his pride on other days of the year, and reserve it all for the pride of conscious beneficence on this day. What lover of cla.s.sical learning can read the account in Livy, or in Plutarch, of the restoration to freedom of the Grecian cities by the Roman consul Flaminius, without feeling his bosom heave, and his blood flow cheerily in his veins?

The heart leaps with sympathy when we read that, on the first proclamation by the herald, the immense a.s.sembled mult.i.tude, in the tumult of astonishment and joy, could scarcely believe their own ears, and made him repeat the proclamation, and then '_Tum ab certo jam gaudio, tantus c.u.m clamore, plausus est ortus, totiesque repet.i.tus, ut facile appararet nihil omnium bonorum mult.i.tudini gratius quam libertatem esse_.--Then rang the welkin with long and redoubled shouts of exultation, clearly proving that, of all the enjoyments accessible to the hearts of men, nothing is so delightful to them as liberty.' Upwards of two thousand years have revolved since that day, and the First of August is to the Briton of this age what the day of the proclamation of Flaminius was to the ancient Roman. Yes! let them celebrate the First of August as the day to them of deliverance and glory; and leave to us the pleasant employment of commenting upon their motives, of devising means to shelter the African slaver from their search, and of squandering millions to support, on a pestilential coast, a squadron of the stripes and stars, with instructions sooner to scuttle their s.h.i.+ps than to molest the pirate slaver who shall make his flagstaff the herald of a lie!"

In July, 1843, the Cincinnati Astronomical Society earnestly solicited Mr. Adams to lay the corner-stone of their Observatory. No invitation could have been more concident with the prevailing interest of his heart, and he immediately accepted it, notwithstanding his advanced age, and the great distance which the performance of the duty required him to travel. Some of his const.i.tuents having questioned the propriety of this acceptance, and expressed doubts whether the duties it imposed were compatible with his other public obligations, Mr. Adams, in an address to them, at Dedham, on the 4th of July, took occasion to state that the encouragement of the arts and sciences, and of all good literature, is expressly enjoined by the const.i.tution of Ma.s.sachusetts. The patronage and encouragement of them is therefore one of the most sacred duties of the people of that state, and enjoined upon them and their children as a part of their duty to G.o.d. "The voices of your forefathers, founders of your social compact, calling from their graves, command you to this duty; and I deem it, as your representative, a tacit and standing instruction from you to perform, as far as may be my ability, that part of your const.i.tutional duty for you. It is in this sense that, in accepting the earnest invitation from a respectable and learned society, in a far distant state and city of the Union, to unite with them in the act of erecting an edifice for the observation of the heavens, and thereby encouraging the science of astronomy, I am fulfilling an obligation of duty to you, and in your service." The nature of this duty he thus ill.u.s.trates:

"From the Ptolemies of Egypt and Alexander of Macedon, from Julius Caesar to the Arabian Caliphs Haroun al Raschid, Almamon, and Almansor, from Alphonso of Castile to Nicholas, the present Emperor of all the Russias,--who, at the expense of one million of rubles, has erected at Pulkova the most perfect and best-appointed observatory in the world,--royal and imperial power has never been exercised with more glory, never more remembered with the applause and grat.i.tude of mankind, than when extending the hand of patronage and encouragement to the science of astronomy. You have neither Caesar nor Czar, Caliph, Emperor, nor King, to monopolize this glory by largesses extracted from the fruits of your industry. The founders of your const.i.tution have left it as their dying commandment to you, to achieve, as the lawful sovereigns of the land, this resplendent glory to yourselves--to patronize and encourage the arts and sciences, and all good literature."

Mr. Adams left Quincy for Cincinnati on the 25th of October, and returned to Was.h.i.+ngton on the 24th of November. At Saratoga, Rochester, Buffalo, he was received with marked attention; and in every place where he rested a.s.semblages of the inhabitants took occasion to evidence their respect and interest in his character by congratulatory addresses, and welcomed his presence by every token of civility and regard. At Columbus he was met by a deputation from Cincinnati, and, in approaching that city, he was escorted into it by a procession and cavalcade. No demonstration of honor and grat.i.tude for the exertion he had made, and the fatigues he had undergone, for their gratification, was omitted. His whole progress was an ovation.

In the presence of a large concourse of the citizens of Cincinnati, Mr.

Adams was introduced to the Astronomical Society by its president, Judge Burnet, who gave, in an appropriate address, a rapid sketch of the history of his life and his public services, touching with delicacy and judgment on the trials to which his political course had been subjected.

The following tributes, from their truth, justice, and appropriateness, are ent.i.tled to distinct remembrance:

"Being a son of one of the framers and defenders of the Declaration of Independence, his political principles were formed in the school of the sages of the Revolution, from whom he imbibed the spirit of liberty while he was yet a boy.

"Having been brought up among the immediate descendants of the Puritan fathers, whose landing in Ma.s.sachusetts in the winter of 1620 gave immortality to the rock of Plymouth, his moral and religious impressions were derived from a source of the most rigid purity; and his manners and habits were formed in a community where ostentation and extravagance had no place. In this fact we see why it is that he has always been distinguished for his purity of motive, simplicity of manners, and republican plainness in his style of living and in his intercourse with society. To the same causes may be ascribed his firmness, his directness of purpose, and his unyielding adherence to personal as well as political liberty. You have recently seen him stand as unmoved as the rock of Gibraltar, defending the right of pet.i.tion, and the const.i.tutional privileges of the representatives of the people, a.s.sembled in Congress, though fiercely a.s.sailed by friends and by foes.

"It is a remarkable fact that during the whole of his public life, which has already continued more than half a century, he never connected himself with a political party, or held himself bound to support or oppose any measure for the purpose of advancing or r.e.t.a.r.ding the views of a party; but he has held himself free at all times to pursue the course which duty pointed out, however he may have been considered by some as adhering to a party. This fact discloses the reason why he has been applauded at times, and at other times censured, by every party which has existed under the government. The truth is that, while the American people have been divided into two great political sections, each contending for its own aggrandizement, Mr. Adams has stood between them, uninfluenced by either, contending for the aggrandizement of the nation. His life has been in some respects _sui generis_; and I venture the opinion that, generally, when his course has differed most from the politicians opposed to him, it has tended most to the advancement of the public good.

"As a proof of the desire Mr. Adams has always cherished for the advancement of science, I might refer to his annual message to Congress in December, 1825, in which he recommended the establishment of a National University, and an Astronomical Observatory, and referred to the hundred and thirty of those 'light-houses of the skies' existing in Europe, as casting a reproach on our country for its unpardonable negligence on that important subject. The manner in which that recommendation was received and treated can never be forgotten. It must at this day be a source of great comfort to that devoted friend of science that those who yet survive of the highly-excited party which attempted to cast on him reproach and ridicule for that proposition, and especially for a.s.similating those establishments to light-houses of the skies, have recently admitted the wisdom of his advice by making ample appropriations to accomplish the very object he then proposed."

The oration Mr. Adams delivered on that occasion is, perhaps, the most extraordinary of his literary efforts, evidencing his comprehensive grasp of the subject, and the intensity of his interest in it. It embraces an outline of the history of astronomy, ill.u.s.trated by an elevated and excited spirit of philosophy. Those who cultivated, those who patronized, and those who advanced it, are celebrated, and the events of their lives and the nature of their services are briefly related. The operations of the mind which are essential to its progress are touched upon. The intense labor and peculiar intellectual qualifications incident to and required for its successful pursuit are intimated. Nor are the inventors of those optical instruments, who had contributed to the advancement of this science beyond all previous antic.i.p.ation, omitted in this extensive survey of its nature, progress, and history.

After celebrating "the gigantic energies and more than heroic labors of Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, Kepler, and Galileo," he p.r.o.nounced Newton "the consummation of them all."

"It was his good fortune," observed Mr. Adams, "to be born and to live in a country where there was no college of cardinals to cast him into prison, and doom him to spend his days in repeating the seven penitential psalms, for shedding light upon the world, and publis.h.i.+ng mathematical truths. Newton was not persecuted by the dull and ignorant instruments of political or ecclesiastical power. He lived in honor among his countrymen; was a member of one Parliament, received the dignity of knighthood, held for many years a lucrative office, and at his decease was interred in solemn state in Westminster Abbey, where a monument records his services to mankind, among the sepulchres of the British kings.

"From the days of Newton down to the present hour, the science of astronomy has been cultivated, with daily deepening interest, by all the civilized nations of Europe--by England, France, Prussia, Sweden, several of the German and Italian states, and, above all, by Russia, whose present sovereign has made the pursuit of knowledge a truly imperial virtue."

After speaking of the patronage extended to this science by the nations and sovereigns of Europe, he terminates his developments with this stirring appeal to his own countrymen:

"But what, in the mean time, have we been doing? While our fathers were colonists of England we had no distinctive political or literary character. The white cliffs of Albion covered the soil of our nativity, though another hemisphere first opened our eyes on the light of day, and oceans rolled between us and them. We were Britons born, and we claimed to be the countrymen of Chaucer and Shakspeare, Milton and Newton, Sidney and Locke, Arthur and Alfred, as well as of Edward the Black Prince, Harry of Monmouth, and Elizabeth. But when our fathers abjured the name of Britons, and 'a.s.sumed among the nations of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's G.o.d ent.i.tled them,' they tacitly contracted the engagement for themselves, and above all for their posterity, to contribute, in their corporate and national capacity, their full share, ay, and more than their full share, of the virtues that elevate and of the graces that adorn the character of civilized man. They announced themselves as _reformers_ of the inst.i.tution of civil society. They spoke of the laws of nature, and in the name of nature's G.o.d; and by that sacred adjuration they pledged us, their children, to labor with united and concerted energy, from the cradle to the grave, to purge the earth of all slavery; to restore the race of man to the full enjoyment of those rights which the G.o.d of nature had bestowed upon him at his birth; to disenthrall his limbs from chains, to break the fetters from his feet and the manacles from his hands, and set him free for the use of all his physical powers for the improvement of his own condition. The G.o.d in whose name they spoke had taught them, in the revelation of the Gospel, that the only way in which man can discharge his duty to Him is by loving his neighbor as himself, and doing with him as he would be done by; respecting his rights while enjoying his own, and applying all his emanc.i.p.ated powers of body and of mind to self-improvement and the improvement of his race."

CHAPTER XIV.

REPORT ON THE RESOLVES OF THE LEGISLATURE OF Ma.s.sACHUSETTS PROPOSING AN AMENDMENT OF THE CONSt.i.tUTION OF THE UNITED STATES IN EFFECT TO ABOLISH A REPRESENTATION FOR SLAVES.--FOURTH REPORT ON JAMES SMITHSON'S BEQUEST.

--INFLUENCE OF MR. ADAMS ON THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE NATIONAL OBSERVATORY AND THE SMITHSONIAN INSt.i.tUTION.--GENERAL JACKSON'S CHARGE THAT THE RIO GRANDE MIGHT HAVE BEEN OBTAINED, UNDER THE SPANISH TREATY, AS A BOUNDARY FOR THE UNITED STATES, REFUTED.--ADDRESS TO HIS CONSt.i.tUENTS AT WEYMOUTH.

--REMARKS ON THE RETROCESSION OF ALEXANDRIA TO VIRGINIA.--HIS PARALYSIS.

--RECEPTION BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.--HIS DEATH.--FUNERAL HONORS.

--TRIBUTE TO HIS MEMORY.

In April, 1844, certain resolves of the Legislature of Ma.s.sachusetts, proposing to Congress to recommend, according to the provisions of the fifth article of the const.i.tution of the United States, an amendment to the said const.i.tution, in effect abolis.h.i.+ng the representation for slaves, being under consideration, and a report adverse to such amendment having been made by a majority of the committee, Mr. Adams, and Mr. Giddings, of Ohio, being a minority, united in a report, in which, concurring in the opinion of the majority so far as to believe that it was not, at that time, expedient to recommend the amendment proposed by the Legislature of Ma.s.sachusetts, they were compelled to dissent from the views and the reasons which had actuated them in coming to that conclusion.

"The subscribers are under a deep and solemn conviction that the provision in the const.i.tution of the United States, as it has been and yet is construed, and which the resolves of the Legislature of Ma.s.sachusetts propose to discard and erase therefrom, is repugnant to the first and vital principles of republican popular representation; to the self-evident truths proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence; to the letter and spirit of the const.i.tution of the United States itself; to the letter and spirit of the const.i.tutions of almost all the states in the Union; to the liberties of the whole people of all the free states, and of all that portion of the people of the states where domestic slavery is established, other than owners of the slaves themselves; that this is its essential and unextinguishable character in principle, and that its fruits, in its practical operation upon the government of the land, as felt with daily increasing aggravation by the people, correspond with that character. To place these truths in the clearest light of demonstration, and beyond the reach of contradiction, the subscribers proceed, in the order of these averments, to adduce the facts and the arguments by which they will be maintained."

The report then proceeds, in reply to the reasoning of the majority of the committee, to maintain that "the principle of republican popular representation is that the terms of representative and const.i.tuent are correlative;" that "democracy admits no representation of property;"

that "the slave representation is repugnant to the self-evident truths proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence." The truths in that Declaration the report ill.u.s.trates from history, from Scripture, and from the teachings of Jesus Christ; who was aware that wars, and their attendant, slavery, would continue among men, and that the destiny of his Gospel itself was often to be indebted for its progressive advancement to war.

"'I came not,' said he, 'to send peace upon earth, but a sword;'

meaning, not that this was the object of his mission, but that, in the purposes of the Divine nature, war itself should be made instrumental to promote the final consummation of universal peace.

Slavery has not ceased upon the earth; but the impression upon the human heart and mind that slavery is a wrong,--a crime against the laws of nature and of nature's G.o.d,--has been deepening and widening, till it may now be p.r.o.nounced universal upon every soul in Christendom not warped by personal interest, or tainted with disbelief in Christianity. The owner of ten slaves believes that slavery is not an evil. The owner of a hundred believes it a blessing. The philosophical infidel has no faith in Hebrew prophecies, or in the Gospel of Jesus. He says in his heart, though he will not tell you to your face, that the proclamation of the natural equality of mankind, in the Declaration of Independence, is untrue; that the African race are physically, morally, and intellectually, _inferior_ to the white European man; that they are not of one blood, nor descendants of the same stock; that the African is born to be a slave, and the white man to be his master.

The wors.h.i.+pper of mammon and the philosophical atheist hold no communion with the signers of the declaration that all men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights. But, with these exceptions, poll the whole ma.s.s of Christian men, of every name, sect, or denomination, throughout the globe, and you will not hear a solitary voice deny that slavery is a wrong, a crime, and a curse."

This report then proceeds to maintain that the representation of slaves as persons, conferred not upon themselves but their owners, is repugnant to the self-evident truth proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence, and equally repugnant both to the spirit and letter of the const.i.tution of the United States, and to the const.i.tution of almost every state of the Union; that it is deceptive, and inconsistent with the principle of popular representation;--all which is supported by reference to the writings of Thomas Jefferson, a slaveholder, concerning the relations of master and slave. It is shown how, by the effect of that article in the const.i.tution, all political power in the states is absorbed and engrossed by the owners of slaves, and the cunning by which this has been effected is explained. The report then enters into the history of slavery, declaring that "the resolves of the Legislature of Ma.s.sachusetts speak the unanimous opinions and sentiments of the people--unanimous, with the exception of the sordid souls linked to the cause of slavery by the hopes and expectations of patronage."

In June, 1844, Mr. Adams, as chairman of a select committee on the Smithsonian fund, reported a bill, in which he referred to its actual state, and proposed measures tending to give immediate operation to that bequest. In support of its provisions, he stated that, on the first day of September, 1838, there had been deposited in the mint of the United States, in gold, half a million of dollars,--the full amount of the bequest of Mr. Smithson,--which, on the same day, under the authority of an act of Congress, and with the approbation of the President, had been vested by the Secretary of the Treasury in bonds of the States of Arkansas, Michigan, and Illinois; that the payment of the interest on these bonds had been almost entirely neglected; that the princ.i.p.al and arrears of interest then acc.u.mulating amounted to upwards of six hundred and ninety-nine thousand dollars; that the payment of these bonds was remote, and unavailable by Congress for application to the objects of this bequest.

In accepting this legacy, the faith of the United States had been pledged that all money received from it should be applied to the humane and generous purpose prescribed by the testator; and he contended that, for the redemption of this pledge, it was indispensably requisite that the funds thus locked up in the treasury, in bonds of these states, with the accruing and suspended interest thereon, should be made available for the disposal of Congress, to enable them to execute the sacred trust they had a.s.sumed.

The committee then reported a bill providing, in effect, for the a.s.sumption by Congress of the whole sum and interest, as a loan to the United States, invested in their stock, bearing an annual interest of six per cent., payable half-yearly, and redeemable at the pleasure of Congress by the subst.i.tution of other funds of equal value. In connection with this purpose they reported a bill making appropriations to enable Congress to proceed immediately to the execution of the trust committed to them by the testator, and for the fulfilment of which the faith of the nation had been pledged.

In specifying the objects to which it should be applied, that of the establishment of an Astronomical Observatory was not omitted. This recommendation decided the fate of the bill; for there was no purpose on which the predominating party were more fixed than to prevent the gratification of Mr. Adams in this well-known cherished wish of his heart.

In October, 1823, Mr. Adams, being then Secretary of State, had addressed a letter to a member of the corporation of Harvard University, urging the erection of an Astronomical Observatory in connection with that inst.i.tution, and tendering a subscription, on his own account, of one thousand dollars, on condition a requisite sum should be raised, for that purpose, within two years. His proposal not meeting correspondent spirit among the friends of science at that time, in October, 1825, he renewed the offer, on the same condition and limitation. In both cases a concealment of his name was made imperative.[1]

[1] Quincy's History of Harvard University, vol. II., p. 567.

The establishment of an Astronomical Observatory was recommended in his first message to Congress, as President of the United States; but the proposition fell on a political soil glowing with a red heat, enkindled by disappointed ambition. Opposition to the design became identified with party spirit, and to defeat it no language of contempt or of ridicule was omitted by the partisans of General Jackson. In every appropriation which it was apprehended might be converted to its accomplishment, the restriction "_and to no other_" was carefully inserted. In the second section of an act pa.s.sed on the 10th of July, 1832, providing for the survey of the coasts of the United States, the following limitation was inserted: "_Provided that nothing in this act, or in the act hereby revived, shall be construed to authorize the construction or maintenance of a permanent Astronomical Observatory_."

Yet, at the time of pa.s.sing this act, it was well understood that the appropriation it contained was to be applied to that object; and subsequently, in direct defiance of this prohibition, Congress permitted that and other appropriations to be applied to the erection of an Astronomical Observatory in the city of Was.h.i.+ngton, to which annual appropriations were successively granted in the bill providing for the navy department; the authors of the proviso being aware of the uses to which the fund would be applied, but causing its insertion for the purpose of preventing its erection from being attributed to the influence of Mr. Adams. To such disreputable subterfuges party spirit can condescend, to gratify malignity, or to obscure merit from the knowledge of the world, to the power of which it is itself compelled to yield.

Nothing was effectually done, on the subject of the Smithsonian fund, until the 22d of April, 1846, when a bill to carry into effect that bequest was reported by Mr. Owen, of Indiana, and earnestly supported by him and others. In its important general features it concided with the views of Mr. Adams, except only that it made no provision for an Astronomical Observatory. After various amendments, it received the sanction of both houses of Congress, Mr. Adams voting in its favor. On the 10th of August, 1846, it received the signature of the President of the United States.

During the debate upon this bill, its supporters acknowledged "that Mr.