Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams Part 8

Cambreling made me a visit, last April, I authorized them, upon every proper occasion, to make these opinions known. The vote of the State of Georgia will, as certainly as that of Tennessee, be given to General Jackson, in opposition to Mr. Adams. The only difficulty that this state has upon that subject is, that, if Jackson should be elected, Calhoun will come into power. I confess I am not apprehensive of such a result. For ---- ---- writes to me, Jackson ought to know, and if he does not he shall know, that, at the Calhoun caucus in Columbia, the term _military chieftain_ was bandied about even more flippantly than it had been by Henry Clay, and that the family friends of Mr. Calhoun were most active in giving it currency; and I know, personally, that Calhoun favored Mr. Adams' pretensions until Mr. Clay declared for him.

He well knew that Clay would not have declared for Adams without it was well understood that he, Calhoun, was to be put down if Adams could effect it. If he was not friendly to his election, why did he suffer his paper to be purchased up by Adams' printers, without making some stipulation in favor of Jackson? If you can ascertain that Calhoun will not be benefited by Jackson's election, you will do him a service by communicating the information to me. Make what use you please of this letter, and show it to whom you please."[2]

[2] See, for Crawford's letter and Calhoun's address, _Niles'

Weekly Register_, vol. XL., p. 12.

That these opinions of Crawford concerning Calhoun were communicated to Van Buren and Cambreling when they visited him, as he states, on their electioneering tour, in April, 1827, cannot be reasonably questioned: and that Crawford's letter to Balch was also communicated to Jackson can as little be doubted. That at this period Calhoun's want of political sympathy with Jackson was publicly known and talked about at Nashville, is apparent from Calhoun's address to the people of the United States in his controversy with Jackson, in which he bitterly complains: "I remained ignorant and unsuspicious of these secret movements against me till the spring of 1828, when vague rumors reached me that some attempts were making at Nashville to injure me."

Why statements made by such a high authority as Crawford, so well adapted to kindle the inflammatory temperament of Jackson, and at once so auspicious to the hopes of Van Buren and so ominous to those of Calhoun, were not immediately made the subject of action, can only be accounted for by the fact that Calhoun was at that time too strong in the affections of the South for them then to commence hostilities; for, in that case he would, as Crawford intimated, have "favored the pretensions of Adams," and possibly have defeated the plans of the alliance. Jackson, therefore, yielded, and allowed Calhoun to be run as a candidate for the Vice-Presidency on the same ticket with himself, and postponed any attempt to deprive him of his chance of succession until a more convenient opportunity. To this arrangement Van Buren also was compelled to submit, and, after Adams was superseded, and Jackson inaugurated President, he was appointed Secretary of State.[3]

[3] Jackson's cabinet were, Martin Van Buren, Secretary of State; Samuel D. Ingham, Secretary of the Treasury; John H. Eaton, Secretary of War; John Branch, Secretary of the Navy; John M'P.

Berrien, Attorney-General; William T. Barry, Postmaster-General.

In April, 1830, when the Legislatures of New York and Pennsylvania took incipient measures to nominate Jackson for a second term of office, the favorable moment arrived to bring his artillery to bear upon Calhoun.

At this time two letters of Crawford were brought to the mind of General Jackson,--the one to Alfred Balch, already referred to; the other to John Forsyth, dated the 30th of April, 1830,[4]--in which Crawford expressly stated that "Mr. Calhoun had made a proposition to the cabinet of Monroe for _punis.h.i.+ng_ him for his conduct in the Seminole war." Jackson, greatly excited, immediately, on the 12th of May, 1830, addressed a letter to Mr. Calhoun, declaring his great surprise at the information those letters contained, and inquiring whether he had moved or sustained any attempt seriously to affect him in Monroe's cabinet council. Calhoun replied, that he "could not recognize the right of General Jackson to call in question his conduct in the discharge of a high official duty, and under responsibility to his conscience and his country only." The anger of Jackson was not in the least a.s.suaged by this reply, nor by the explanations which accompanied it. A correspondence ensued, which, with collateral and doc.u.mentary evidence, occupied fifty-two pages of an octavo pamphlet; resulting in Jackson's declaration of his poignant mortification to see in Calhoun's letter, instead of a negative, an admission of the truth of Crawford's allegations. An irreconcilable alienation between Jackson and Calhoun was evinced in this correspondence; a state of feeling which for the time was concealed from the public, but was well known to their respective partisans, who understood that at the approaching election the influence of the former would be thrown into the scale of Van Buren. Jackson's intention of standing for the Presidency a second time was kept a profound secret until January, 1831. Under the supposition that he might decline, the partisans of Calhoun, Clay, and Van Buren, engaged in active measures to put them respectively into the field.

[4] For which see _Niles' Weekly Register_, vol. XL., pp. 12, 13.

From the party movements during this uncertainty it was clearly perceived that, if Jackson was not again a candidate, a contest between Van Buren and Calhoun for the Presidency was unavoidable. Calhoun's chance of success was preeminent, for he would unite in his favor all the votes and influence of the South,--Van Buren not having then had an opportunity to evince his entire subserviency to the slaveholding power.

Jackson, into whose heart Van Buren had wound himself, looked with little complacency on the probable success of Calhoun. Under these circ.u.mstances, he resolved to enter the lists himself as a candidate for the Presidency, and, by taking Van Buren with him for the Vice-Presidency, put him at once in the best position to become his successor. Van Buren concided in these views, and acquiesced in, if he did not originate, this measure. He foresaw that the popularity of Jackson would throw Calhoun out of the field, whether he was a candidate at the next ensuing election for the Presidency or Vice-Presidency. The time had now come to put an end to the hopes of Calhoun for the attainment of either of those high stations, by making public the animosity of Jackson; but this could not be done without a struggle.

Branch, Ingham, and Berrien, all members of Jackson's cabinet, were known friends to Calhoun, and far from being well disposed to Van Buren.

Under these circ.u.mstances, Jackson resolved to dissolve his cabinet, in which Van Buren himself held a place, and form another, better adapted to their united views. As a violent contest with the friends of Calhoun was antic.i.p.ated, Van Buren, if he should continue Secretary of State, would be considered responsible for all Jackson's proceedings to frustrate Calhoun's aspirations for the Presidency, which might injuriously affect his popularity in the Southern States. Van Buren therefore retired upon a mission to England.

Such were the general views and policy of these allied aspirants to the two highest offices of state, which public doc.u.ments now make apparent, when, in April, 1831, say the newspapers of the period, "an explosion took place in the cabinet at Was.h.i.+ngton, the announcement of which came upon the public like a clap of thunder in a cloudless day."[5] On the 7th of April, the Secretary of War, General Eaton, resigned, without giving any other reason than his own inclination, and that he deemed the moment favorable, as General Jackson's "course of policy had been advantageously commenced." On the 11th of April, Van Buren resigned the office of Secretary of State. So far as his motive could be discerned through the haze of ambiguous and diplomatic language, it was that his name had been connected with that distracting topic, the question of successors.h.i.+p, which rendered his continuance in the cabinet embarra.s.sing, and might be injurious to the public service. The two other secretaries, Ingham and Branch, were kept in ignorance of these resignations until the 19th of April, when Jackson informed them that, to command public confidence and satisfy public opinion, he deemed it proper to select a cabinet of entirely new materials,[6] and therefore requested them to resign their respective offices. They accordingly tendered their resignations, which were accepted by the President, in a letter to each, couched in language perfectly identical, in which he admits that the dismissed officers had faithfully performed their respective official duties, but intimates that the want of harmony in the cabinet "made its entire renovation requisite."[7] Branch and Ingham both denied any want of harmony in the cabinet, and the latter declared that "it had never been interrupted for a moment, nor been divided in a single instance by difference of opinion as to the measures of the government."[8] These contradictions, thus openly made, created intense curiosity, and public clamor for a full development of facts. Branch, in a letter dated May 31st, 1831, addressed to certain citizens of Bertie County, North Carolina, declared that "discord had been introduced into the ranks of the administration by the intrigues of selfish politicians."[9]

[5] See _Niles' Weekly Register_, vol. XL., pp. 129-145.

[6] Ibid., pp. 152-3.

[7] _Niles' Register_, vol. XL., p. 201.

[8] Ibid., p. 220.

[9] Ibid., p. 253.

The Attorney-General, Mr. Berrien, did not resign until the 15th of June ensuing, nor until he also had been invited to do so by Jackson. He then declared that he resigned "simply on account of the President's will,"

and that he knew of no want of harmony in the cabinet which either had or ought to have impeded the operations of the administration.[10] In July, Mr. Ingham, on returning home, was received by a great cavalcade of his fellow-citizens, and was called upon for an explanation of "the extraordinary measure, the dissolution of the cabinet, which had shocked the public mind." He replied, that it was exclusively the act of the President, who alone could perfectly explain his own motives, and he deemed it improper for him to antic.i.p.ate the explanation which the President must deem it his duty to make.[11] As Jackson made no explanation, Mr. Branch, after being repeatedly called upon in the public papers, authorized the publication of a letter he had addressed to Edmund B. Freeman, dated the 22d of August, 1831,[12] in which he gave a full statement of the overbearing language and conduct of Jackson, and unequivocally declared that the contemporaneous resignation of Eaton and Van Buren was a measure adopted for the purpose of getting rid of the three offensive members of the cabinet; that "their dismission had been stipulated for, and the reason was that Van Buren, having discovered that the three members of the cabinet (afterwards ejected) disdained to become tools to subserve his ambitious aspirings, had determined to leave them as little power to defeat his machinations as possible; and that he had become latterly almost the sole confidant and adviser of the President."

[10] Ibid., p. 304.

[11] _Niles' Weekly Register_, vol. XL., p. 331.

[12] Ibid., vol. XLI., pp. 5, 6.

The details of this controversy belong to general history, and will be found in the doc.u.ments of the period. Enough has been given to indicate the great influence Van Buren had acquired, for his own political advancement, by an unscrupulous subserviency to the overbearing violence of the President.

On this subject Mr. Adams observed: "Van Buren outwits Calhoun in the favor of Jackson. He brought the administration into power, and now enjoys the reward of his intrigues. Jackson rides rough-shod over the Senate, in relation to appointments; but they dare not oppose him." It was impossible, in view of these scenes of discord and mutual crimination, for Mr. Adams not to feel self-congratulation when he recollected the uninterrupted harmony which, during four years, had prevailed in his own cabinet. From without it had been a.s.sailed with calumny and malignant pa.s.sions; but within was peace, quiet, mutual a.s.sistance and support. No jealousies disturbed the tranquillity of their meetings. No ambitious spirit had shaped measures to purposes of his own aggrandizement. Though silent, he could not fail, while contemplating the comparison, to realize the triumph history was preparing for himself and his administration. The contrast presented by its principles, when compared with those of his successor, must have been also a natural source of intense self-congratulation.

Notwithstanding the warning voice of Henry Clay, a military chieftain had been placed in the chair of state. He entered it with the spirit of a conqueror, and conducted in it in the spirit of the camp. The gratification of his feelings, and the reward of his partisans, were apparently his chief objects. He dismissed from office, without trial, without charge, and without fault, faithful and able men. During the whole period of Mr. Adams' administration not an officer of the government, from Maine to Louisiana, was dismissed on account of his political opinions. Many well known to him as opposed to his reelection, and actively employed in behalf of his compet.i.tor, were permitted to hold their places, though subject to his power of dismission. Not one was discharged from that cause. In the early part of his administration appointments were promiscuously made from all the parties in the previous canva.s.s. This course was pursued until an opposition was organized which denounced all appointments from its ranks as being made for party purposes. Of _eighty_ newspapers employed in publis.h.i.+ng the laws during the four years of his Presidency, only _twelve_ or _fifteen_ were changed, some for geographical, others for local considerations. Some papers among the most influential in the opposition, but otherwise conducted with decorum, were retained. Of the entire number of changes, not more than four or five were made on account of their scurrilous character. During the same period _not more than five_ members of Congress received official appointments to any office. Even these shocked General Jackson's patriotism, from their mischievous bearing on the purity of the national legislature, and the permanency of our republican inst.i.tutions. Being then a candidate for the Presidency, in opposition to Mr. Adams, he deliberately declared to the Legislature of Tennessee his firm conviction that no member of Congress ought to be appointed to any office except a seat on the bench; and he added that he himself would conform to that rule.

Notwithstanding this pledge, he appointed _eight_ or _ten_ members of Congress to office in the first four weeks of his Presidency. Mr. Clay publicly a.s.serted his belief that within two months after Jackson had attained that high station more members of Congress had offices conferred on them "than were appointed by any one of his predecessors during their whole period of four or eight years." His proceedings evidenced that among this favorite cla.s.s no office is too high or too low for desire and acceptance, from the head of a department to the most subordinate office under a collector. On editors of newspapers he bestowed unexampled patronage. Fifteen or twenty of those who had been most active in his favor during the preceding canva.s.s,--the most abusive of his opponents, and the most fulsome in his own praise,--were immediately rewarded with place. Of all attempts, his were the boldest and the most successful ever made to render the press venal, and to corrupt this palladium of liberty.[13] Happily the times were not propitious to give immediate development to these principles of permanent power. But the degree of success of this first attempt of one man to const.i.tute "_himself the state_" contains a solemn foreboding as to the possible future fate of our republic. For, although at this time the ambition of the individual was not fully gratified, enough was effected to encourage the reckless and aspiring. The seeds of corruption were thickly scattered. In that Presidency the doctrine was first promulgated, "_To the victors belong the spoils_." From that day, subserviency to the chief of the prevailing party became the condition on which station and place were given or holden. In his hands was lodged the power of reward and punishment, to be exercised ruthlessly for party support and perpetuation; resulting, in the higher departments, in tame submission to the will of the chief, and, in the lower, in the adoption of the detestable maxim that _all is fair in politics_. The consequences are daily seen in the servility of office-holders and office-seekers; in forced contributions, during pending elections, for the continuance of the prevailing power, and afterwards in a heartless proscription of all not acceptable to the successful dynasty; in the excluding every one from office who has not the spirit to be a slave, and filling the heart of every true lover of his country with ominous conjectures concerning the fate of our inst.i.tutions.

[13] The facts above stated are chiefly derived from a speech of Henry Clay, delivered at Lexington, Kentucky, on the 16th of May, 1829, in which all the topics here touched are forcibly and eloquently ill.u.s.trated. It may be found at length in _Niles'

Weekly Register_, vol. x.x.xVI., pp. 399 to 405.

During the early periods of Jackson's administration, Mr. Adams, though in retirement, was neither un.o.bserving nor silent concerning its proceedings. In January, 1830, in the course of a conversation with a senator from Louisiana on the politics and the intrigues then going on at Was.h.i.+ngton in relation to the next presidential election, he said: "There are three divisions of the administration party: one for General Jackson, whose friends wish his reelection; one for Mr. Van Buren, and one for Calhoun. Van Buren sees he cannot eight years longer discharge the duties of the Department of State; and that he must succeed at the end of four years, or not at all. His friends insist that Jackson has given a pledge that he will not serve another term. Calhoun and his friends are equally impatient, and he is much disposed to declare himself against the leading measures of the present administration. But if Mr. Clay was brought forward by his friends as a candidate, it would close all the cracks of the administration party, and rivet them together."

In the beginning of February, Mr. Adams remarked: "All the members of Congress are full of rumors concerning the volcanic state of the administration. The President has determined to remove Branch, but was told that if he did the North Carolina senators would join the opposition, and all his nominations would be rejected. The administration is split up into a blue and green faction upon a point of morals; an explosion has been deferred, but is expected."

On the 26th of March, 1830, he again remarked: "There is a controversy between the _Telegraph_, Calhoun's paper here, and the _New York Courier_, Van Buren's paper, upon the question whether Jackson is or is not a candidate for reelection as President,--the _Courier_ insisting that he is, and the _Telegraph_ declaring that it is premature to ask the question. Mr. Van Buren has got the start of Calhoun, in the merit of convincing General Jackson that the salvation of the country depends on his reelection. This establishes his ascendency in the cabinet, and reduces Calhoun to the alternative of joining in the shout 'Hurra for Jackson!' or of being counted in opposition."

On the 28th of March, 1830, the question being still in agitation before the public whether Jackson, if a candidate, would be successful, Mr.

Adams said: "Jackson will be a candidate, and have a fair chance of success. His personal popularity, founded solely on the battle of New Orleans, will carry him through the next election, as it did through the last. The vices of his administration are not such as affect the popular feeling. He will lose none of his popularity unless he should do something to raise a blister upon public sentiment, and of that there is no prospect. If he lives, therefore, and nothing external should happen to rouse new parties, he may be reelected not only twice, but thrice."

In June, 1830, he again expressed his views on the policy and prospects of the administration. He said it was impossible to foresee what would be the fluctuations of popular opinion. Hitherto there were symptoms of changes of opinion among members of Congress, but none among the people.

These could be indicated only by the elections. He had great doubts whether the majorities in the Legislatures of the free states would be changed by the approaching elections, and was far from certain that the next Legislature of Kentucky would nominate Mr. Clay in opposition to the reelection of General Jackson. The whole strength of the present administration rested on Jackson's personal popularity, founded on his military services. He had surrendered the Indians to the states within the bounds of which they are located. This would confirm and strengthen his popularity in those states, especially as he had burdened the Union with the expense of removing and indemnifying the Indians. He had taken practical ground against internal improvements and domestic industry, which would strengthen him in all the Southern States. He had, as might have been expected, thrown all his weight into the slaveholding scale; and that interest is so compact, so consolidated, and so fervent in action, that there is every prospect it will overpower the discordant and loosely constructed interest of the free states. The cause of internal improvement will sink, and that of domestic industry will fall with or after it. There is at present a great probability that Jackson's policy will be supported by a majority of the people.

After a conversation with Oliver Wolcott, the successor of Alexander Hamilton as Secretary of the Treasury under Was.h.i.+ngton, who had been subsequently Governor of Connecticut, Mr. Adams remarked: "Mr. Wolcott views the prospects of the Union with great sagacity, and with hopes more sanguine than mine. He thinks the continuance of the Union will depend upon the heavy population of Pennsylvania, and that its gravitation will preserve the Union. He holds the South Carolina turbulence too much in contempt. The domineering spirit naturally springs from the inst.i.tution of slavery; and when, as in South Carolina, the slaves are more numerous than their masters, the domineering spirit is wrought up to its highest pitch of intenseness. The South Carolinians are attempting to govern the Union as they govern their slaves, and there are too many indications that, abetted as they are by all the slave-driving interest of the Union, the free portion will cower before them, and truckle to their insolence. This is my apprehension."

While Jackson's nominations were pending before the Senate, a senator from New Hamps.h.i.+re said to Mr. Adams that he hoped the whole tribe of editors of newspapers would be rejected; for he thought it the most dangerous precedent that could be established, and, if now sanctioned by the Senate, he despaired of its being controlled hereafter; and added that he was almost discouraged concerning the permanency of our inst.i.tutions. Mr. Adams replied, that his hopes were better, but that undoubtedly the giving offices to editors of newspapers was of all species of bribery the most dangerous.

From the time Mr. Adams took his seat in the House of Representatives, in December, 1831, till the period of his death, few of his contemporaries equalled and none exceeded him in punctuality of attendance. He was usually among the first members in his place in the morning, and the last to leave it. On every question of general interest he bestowed scrupulous attention, yielding to it the full strength of his mind, and his extensive knowledge of public affairs. A full history of the proceedings of Congress during this period alone can do justice to his devotion to the public service. In this memoir his views and course will no further be recorded than as they regard topics obviously nearest his heart, and in which his principles and character are developed with peculiar ability and power.

In December, 1831, on the distribution of the several parts of the President's message to committees, Mr. Adams was appointed chairman of that on manufactures. Against this position he immediately remonstrated, and solicited the Speaker to relieve him from it. He stated that the subject of manufactures was connected with details not familiar to him; that, during the long period of a life devoted to public service, his thoughts had been directed in a very different line. It was replied, that he could not be excused without a vote of the House; that the continuance of the Union might depend on the questions relative to the tariff; and that it was thought his influence would have great weight in reconciling the Eastern States to such modifications as he might sanction. He therefore yielded all personal considerations to the interests of his country, and accepted the appointment.

In the ensuing March, on being appointed on a committee to investigate the affairs of the United States Bank, Mr. Adams requested of the House to be excused from service on the Committee on Manufactures, giving the same reasons he had previously urged, and others resulting from the incompatibility of the two offices. An opposition was made by Cambreling, of New York, Barbour, of Virginia, and Drayton, of South Carolina, in speeches which were characterized by the newspapers of the times as "most extraordinary."[14] Cambreling said: "The present condition of the country and of the public mind demanded the intelligence, industry, and patriotism, for which Mr. Adams was distinguished. The authority of his name was of infinite importance."

Mr. Barbour followed in a like strain. "The member from Ma.s.sachusetts,"

said he, "with whom I have been a.s.sociated in the Committee on Manufactures, has not only fulfilled all his duties with eminent ability, in the committee, but in a spirit and temper that demanded grateful acknowledgments, and excited the highest admiration." He concluded with an appeal to Mr. Adams, "as a patriot, a statesman, and philanthropist, as well as an American, feeling the full force of his duties, and touched by all their incentives to lofty action, to forbear his request." Mr. Drayton also, in a voice of eulogy, declared that, "Amidst all the rancor of political parties with which our country has been distracted, and from which, unhappily, we are not now exempt, it has always been admitted that no individual was more eminently endowed with those intellectual and moral qualities which ent.i.tle their possessor to the respect of the community, and to entire confidence in the purity of his motives, than Mr. Adams."

[14] _Niles' Weekly Register_, vol. XLII., pp. 86-88.

These politicians were the active and influential members of a party which had raised General Jackson to the President's chair. When laboring to displace Mr. Adams from that high station, that party had represented him as "neither a statesman nor a patriot; without talents; as a mere professor of rhetoric, capable of making a corrupt bargain for the sake of power, and of condescending to intrigue for the attainment of place and office." To hear the leaders of such a party now extolling him for integrity, diligence, and intelligence, upon whose continuance in office the hopes of the country and the continuance of the Union might depend, was a change in opinions and language which might well be attributed to the awakening of conscience to a sense of justice, and a desire for reparation of wrong, were it not that leaders of factions have never any other criterion of truth, or rule in the use of language, than adaptation to selfish and party purposes.

Equally uninfluenced by adulation and undeterred by abuse, on the 23d of May, 1832, as chairman of the Committee on Manufactures, by order of a majority, Mr. Adams reported a bill, which, in presenting it, he declared was not concident with the views of that majority, and that for parts he alone was responsible. After lauding the antic.i.p.ated extinction of the public debt, he proceeded to show, by a laborious research into its history, that such extinction had always been contemplated, and that the policy of the government, from the earliest period of its existence, had concurred in the wisdom of this application of the revenue. He proceeded to expose and deprecate that Southern policy, which seized on this occasion "to reduce the revenues of the Union to the lowest point absolutely necessary to defray the ordinary charges and indispensable expenditures of the government;" a system which, by inevitable consequence and by avowed design, "left our sh.o.r.es to take care of themselves, our navy to perish by dry rot upon the stocks, our manufactures to wither under the blast of foreign compet.i.tion;" and he urged, in opposition to these destructive doctrines, the duty of levying revenue enough for "common defence," and also to "protect manufactures," and supported his argument by a great array of facts; severely animadverting upon those politicians who glorified themselves on the prosperous state of the country, and yet labored to break down that "system of protection for domestic manufactures by which this prosperity had been chiefly produced." The duty of "defensive preparation and internal improvements" he maintained to be unquestionable, obligations resulting from the language and spirit of the const.i.tution. The doctrine that the interests of the planter and the manufacturer were irreconcilable, and that duties for the protection of domestic industry operate to the injury of the Southern States, he a.n.a.lyzed, ill.u.s.trated, and showed to be fallacious, "striking directly at the heart of the Union, and leading inevitably to its dissolution;" a result to which more than one distinguished and influential statesman of the South had affirmed that "his mind was made up." The doctrine that the interest of the South is identified with the foreign compet.i.tor of the Northern manufacturer, he denounced as in conflict with the whole history of our Revolutionary War, and a satire on our inst.i.tutions. If it should prove true that these interests were so irreconcilable as to cause a separation, as some Southern statesmen contended, after such separation the same state of irreconcilable interests would continue, and "with redoubled aggravation," resulting in an inextinguishable or exterminating war between the brothers of this severed continent, which nothing but a foreign umpire could settle or adjust, and this not according to the interests of either of the parties, but his own. The consequences of such a state of things he displayed with great power and eloquence, and concluded with alluding "to that great, comprehensive, but peculiar Southern interest, which is now protected by the laws of the United States, but which, in case of severance of the Union, must produce consequences from which a statesman of either portion of it cannot but avert his eyes."

Contemporaneously with this report on manufactures, Mr. Adams, as one of the committee to examine and report on the books and proceedings of the Bank of the United States, submitted to the House of Representatives a report, signed only by himself and Mr. Watmough, of Pennsylvania, in which he declared his dissent from the report of the committee on that subject. After examining their proceedings with minuteness and searching severity, he a.s.serted that they were without authority, and in flagrant violation of the rights of the bank, and of the principles on which the freedom of this people had been founded.

In February, 1832, Mr. Adams delivered a speech on the ratio of representation--on the duty of making the const.i.tuent body small, and the representatives numerous; contending that a large representation and a small const.i.tuency was a truly republican principle, and ill.u.s.trating it from history, and from its tendency to give the distinguished men of the different states opportunities to become acquainted with each other.

In July ensuing, a vote censuring a member for words spoken in debate being on its pa.s.sage in the House, Mr. Adams, when the roll was called, and his name announced, rose with characteristic spirit, and delivered a paper to the clerk, which contained the following words: "I ask to be excused from voting on the resolution, believing it to be unconst.i.tutional, inasmuch as it a.s.sumes inferences of fact from words spoken by the member, without giving the words themselves, and the fact not being warranted, in my judgment, by the words he did use." A majority of the house, being disposed to put down, and, if possible, disgrace Mr.

Adams, refused to excuse him. On his name being called, he again declined voting, and stated that he did not refuse to vote from any contumacy or disrespect to the house, but because he had a right to decline from conscientious motives, and that he desired to place his reasons for declining upon the journals of the house. A member observed that, if they put those reasons on the journal, they would spread on it their own condemnation; adding that, by going out of the house, Mr.

Adams might easily have avoided voting. The latter replied, "I do not choose to shrink from my duty by such an expedient. It is not my right alone, but the rights of all the members, and of the people of the United States, which are concerned in this question, and I cannot evade it. I regret the state of things, but I must abide by the consequences, whatever they may be." A motion made to reconsider the vote refusing to excuse him was lost--yeas _fifty-nine_, nays _seventy-four_. The Speaker then read the rule by which every member is required to vote, and stated that it was the duty of every member to vote on one side or the other. The question then being repeated, when the clerk called the name of Mr. Adams, he gave no response, and remained in his seat. A member then rose, said it was an unprecedented case, and moved two resolutions. By the one, the facts being first stated, the course pursued by Mr. Adams was declared "a breach of one of the rules of the house." By the other, a committee was to be appointed for inquiring and reporting "what course ought to be adopted in a case so novel and important." The house then proceeded to pa.s.s the original vote of censure on the member, without repeating the name of Mr. Adams.

The next day the vote for a committee of inquiry on the subject caused a desultory and warm debate, during which Mr. Adams took occasion to say that the whole affair was a subject of great mortification to him. The proposed resolution, after naming him personally, and affirming that he had been guilty of a breach of the rules of the house, proposed that a committee of inquiry should be raised, to consider what was to be done in a case so novel and important. On this resolution, which the mover seemed to suppose would pa.s.s of course, Mr. Adams said, that he trusted opportunity would be given him to show the reasons which had prevented him from voting. Mr. Everett, of Ma.s.sachusetts, then remonstrated with the majority of the house for attempting thus to censure a man, such as they knew Mr. Adams to be, than whom he was confident the whole house would bear him witness that there was not an individual on that floor more regular, more a.s.siduous, or more laborious, in the discharge of his public duty. A motion was then made to lay the resolution on the table, which prevailed--yeas _eighty-nine_, nays _sixty-three_.

Thus ended a debate which severely tested the firmness of the spirit of Mr. Adams. Neither seduced by the number nor quailing under the threats and violence of his a.s.sailants, he maintained the rights of his public station, and with silent dignity set at defiance their overbearing attempts to terrify, until they abandoned their purpose in despair, awed by the majestic power of principle.

In December, 1832, when the South Carolina state convention was opposing the revenue laws with great violence, accompanied with threats of disunion, President Jackson, in his message to Congress, recommended a reduction of the revenue, and a qualified abandonment of the system of protection; and also that the public lands be no longer regarded as a source of revenue, and that they be sold to actual settlers at a price merely sufficient to remburse actual expenses and the costs arising under Indian compacts. "In this message," said Mr. Adams, "Jackson has cast away all the neutrality he heretofore maintained upon the conflicting opinions and interests of the different sections of the country, and surrenders the whole Union to the nullifiers of the South and the land speculators of the West. This I predicted nearly two years since, in a letter to Peter B. Porter."

In January, 1833, with regard to a member friendly to modifying the tariff according to the Southern policy, and who professed himself a radical, Mr. Adams remarked: "He has all the contracted prejudices of that political sect; his whole system of government is comprised in the maxim of leaving money in the pockets of the people. This is always the high road to popularity, and it is always travelled by those who have not resolution, intelligence, and energy, to attempt the exploration of any other."

On January 16th, 1833, President Jackson communicated, in a message, the ordinance of the convention of South Carolina nullifying the acts of Congress laying duties on the importation of foreign commodities, with the counteracting measures he proposed to pursue. On the 4th of February, on a bill for a modification of the tariff, Mr. Adams moved to strike out the enacting clause, thereby destroying the bill. In a speech characterized by the fearless spirit by which he was actuated, he declared his opinion that neither the bill then in discussion nor any other on the subject of the tariff ought to pa.s.s, until it was "known whether there was any measure by which a state could defeat the laws of the Union." The ordinance of South Carolina had been called a "pacific measure." It was just as much so as placing a pistol at the breast of a traveller and demanding his money was pacific. Until that weapon was removed there ought to be no modification of the tariff. Mr. Adams then entered at large into the duty of government to protect all the great interests of the citizens. But protection might be extended in different forms to different interests. The complaint was, that government took money out of the pockets of one portion of the community, to give it to another. In extending protection this must always be more or less the case. But, then, while the rights of one party were protected in this way, the rights of the other party were protected equally in another way. This he proceeded to ill.u.s.trate. In the southern and southwestern parts of this Union there existed a certain interest, which he need not more particularly designate, which enjoyed, under the const.i.tution and laws of the United States, an especial protection peculiar to itself. It was first protected by representation. There were on that floor upwards of twenty members who represented what in other states had no representation at all. It was not three days since a gentleman from Georgia said that the species of property now alluded to was "the machinery of the South." Now, that machinery had twenty odd representatives in that hall; representatives elected, not by that machinery, but by those who owned it. Was there such representation in any other portion of the Union? That machinery had ever been to the South, in fact, the ruling power of this government. Was this not protection? This very protection had taken millions and millions of money from the free laboring population of this country, and put it into the pockets of the owners of Southern machinery. He did not complain of this. He did not say that it was not all right. What he said was, that the South possessed a great interest protected by the const.i.tution of the United States. He was for adhering to the bargain; but he did not wish to be understood as saying that he would agree to it if the bargain was now to be made over again.