The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Preface.
• The Life of John Adams.
• Preliminary. Respecting the Family of Adams.
• Chapter I.: Education of Mr. Adams—school At Worcester—choice of a Profession.
• Chapter II.: Study and Practice of the Law Until March, 1770.
• Chapter III.: The Boston Massacre—defence of the Soldiers—relations to the Patriots Down to June, 1774.
• Chapter IV.: Entrance Into Public Life—the Congress of 1774—services From That Time Until the Declaration of Independence.
• Chapter V.: Conference With Lord Howe—origin of Parties—foreign and Domestic Policy—services In Congress, From July, 1776, Until November, 1777.
• Chapter VI.: Commission to France—services In Forming a Constitution For Massachusetts—commission to Negotiate Treaties With Great Britain—the Mediation of Russia and Austria—negotiations In Holland.
• Chapter VII.: The Negotiation and Signature of the Treaty of Peace With Great Britain.
• Chapter VIII.: Illness In Europe—commercial Treaties—mission to the Court of Great Britain.
• Chapter IX.: Organization of the New Government—election and Services As Vice-president of the United States.
• Chapter X.: The Presidency.
• Chapter XI.: Retirement From Public Life—occupations—relations With Jefferson—death.
• Appendix.
• To Samuel Quincy.
• A.
• B.: (page 320.) Extract From the Boston Patriot, 15 May, 1811.
• C.: (page 377.) From the Boston Patriot, 23 October, 1811.
• D.: (page 393.) From the Boston Patriot, 21 August, 1811.
• E.: (page 394.) Extracts From the “moniteur Universel.” No. 358. Dimanche, DÉcembre 23, 1792.
• F.: (page 398.)
• G.: (page 523.)

CHAPTER XI.

Retirement from Public Life—Occupations—Relations with Jefferson—Death.

On the 4th of March, 1801, the day upon which Mr. Jefferson was inaugurated President of the United States, Mr. Adams retired from public life, after an uninterrupted course of service of six and twenty years, in a greater variety of trusts than fell to the share of any other American of his time. He had gone through all of them with acknowledged credit to himself and honor to the country, excepting the last, and in that he felt that by a concurrence of adverse circumstances he was visited with censure which neither his motives nor his acts had merited. Sensitive and ardent in his temperament, he would not wait to be present at the installation of his successor, or to exchange the customary forms of civility in transferring the office. In this course, as not consistent with true dignity, or with the highest class of Christian virtue, he was perhaps wrong. It certainly would have been more politic to have made professions of confidence in Mr. Jefferson. But that was not his way, when he did not entertain them. He shared strongly in the distrust universal among the federalists, of that gentleman’s intentions, and he believed, not without color of reason, that he had acted somewhat disingenuously towards himself. This was a strong motive for declining to be present at the inauguration, but it was not by any means the only one. Had the party which elected him really made him its head; had it stood unitedly and cordially by him in the policy which he had felt it his duty to prefer, he believed that he should never have been exposed to the necessity of any such trial. But even if, in spite of every exertion, defeat had followed, with a united support, the exultation of the victors might have been easily endured, as an inevitable concomitant of the chances of the popular favor. Such had not been the case. He felt that his most bitter enemies had been of his own household, whom he had offended because he would not submit to be a mere instrument to execute a policy, which he could not approve. Although he did not even then suspect the extent to which he had been circumvented, he knew enough to convince him that he had been a victim of treachery, and that, as such, he must, if he remained, be shown up before both his opponents and his friends. Many of his own side, who had arraigned his policy and attributed to it their overthrow, would draw some consolation to themselves from seeing him pay any penalty, however severe, for having pursued it. Of these a considerable number were in the Senate, friends of the individual who had destroyed him. To them, then, as well as to Mr. Jefferson’s followers he was to be made a spectacle, if he should stay to be a part of the pageant. No. His proud spirit would not endure it. He would not consent to enact the captive chief in the triumphant procession of the victor to the capitol.

But in addition to this, there were other and better reasons for desiring to escape a burdensome ceremonial. The state of his feelings at home was not in harmony with such a scene. He had just passed through the first severe domestic affliction of his life. His second son, Charles, who had grown up to manhood, had been married, and settled in the city of New York with fair prospects of success, had but a few weeks before breathed his last, leaving a wife and two infant children as his only legacy to his father’s care. In a note, addressed to Mr. Jefferson, who had opened a letter relating to the matter, which had come by mistake to him after his accession, but which he transmitted unread, Mr. Adams feelingly alludes to this. “Had you read the papers inclosed,” he said, “they might have given you a moment of melancholy, or, at least, of sympathy with a mourning father. They related wholly to the funeral of a son, who was once the delight of my eyes, and a darling of my heart, cut off in the flower of his days, amidst very flattering prospects, by causes which have been the greatest grief of my heart, and the deepest affliction of my life.” In the state of mind here described, gloomy from the combined pressure of public and private evils, it surely cannot be matter for much wonder that he should resolve to avoid a situation in which his presence would be a severe trial to himself and of no compensating advantage to any one. Yet he was much censured for this act, at the time, by those who knew nothing of the circumstances, and who saw in it only a pettish sally of mortified ambition.

Upon his return to Massachusetts, the legislature, representing a large number of the people of his own State, who for more than twenty years had not swerved for a moment in their confidence in Mr. Adams, and who saw no reason to withdraw it now, adopted the following address, which was carried out and presented to him at his residence in Quincy by the presiding officers of the two Houses, attended by a numerous escort.

“TO JOHN ADAMS.

“At the moment, Sir, that you are descending from the exalted station of the first magistrate of the American nation, to mingle with the mass of your fellow-citizens, the Senate and House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, your native State, embrace the occasion to pour forth the free-will offering of their sincere thanks for the many important and arduous services you have rendered your country.

In the performance of this act, the legislature have but one heart, and that vibrates with affection, respect, and gratitude for your virtues, talents, and patriotism.

We conceive it unnecessary to detail the character of him, whose life from earliest manhood has been eminently devoted to the public good. This will be the delightful employment of the faithful and able historian.

Our posterity will critically compare the illustrious characters which have elevated the condition of man, and dignified civil society, through the various ages of the world, and will, with grateful effusions and conscious pride, point to that of their beloved countryman.

The period of the administration of our general government, under the auspices of Washington and Adams, will be considered as among the happiest eras of time. The example of their integrity possesses a moral and political value, which no calculation can reach, and will be justly estimated as a standard for future Presidents of the United States.

We receive you, Sir, with open arms, esteem and veneration; confidently hoping that you will possess undisturbed those blessings of domestic retirement, which great minds always appreciate and enjoy with dignity.

We devoutly supplicate the Father of the Universe, that you may realize, while you continue on earth, all the happiness of which human nature is susceptible; and when your course shall be finished here, that your spirit may receive the transcendent rewards of the just.”1

The next year, his fellow-citizens in his own town of Quincy seized the occasion of his birthday to pay their respects to him, and to offer the following affectionate address:—

“Sir,—The return of this anniversary cannot fail to awaken in our breasts the warmest sentiments of gratitude and esteem. It recalls to view the many important events of your public life, events intimately connected with those principles and proceedings which constitute the greatest glory of our country, and which will form some of the most valuable pages in the history of nations.

We hope the liberty we have taken in personally waiting upon you on this occasion will not be deemed an intrusion. And while we offer you our respectful congratulations, we must beg you to be assured that this visit is the result of feeling and not of ceremony.

The early and decided part which you took in support of the liberties of America; the series of patriotic and successful exertions, which distinguished you the firm, unwavering, and able friend of these States; the many stations of high responsibility which you filled so much to the advantage of your fellow-citizens throughout our Revolution, gave you an honorable title to their veneration and love.

But your services to your country did not end with the accomplishment of our Independence. Since that period, it has required, and you have devoted to its cause, the energies of your comprehensive mind. Your civil administration as President of the United States, at a crisis of peculiar difficulty and danger, warded off evils which seemed inevitable, and secured blessings that appeared unattainable. It vindicated the national honor, accommodated serious differences with two of the most powerful nations of Europe, and left the United States, with the means of a speedy extinction of the public debt, a full treasury, and a flourishing commerce, to cultivate the arts of peace.

May these things be ever held in suitable remembrance. May no untoward circumstances wholly take away the fair prospect we have had of national prosperity and greatness. For you, Sir, we offer our supplications to the Sovereign of the Universe, that your invaluable life may be long preserved. In any critical conjuncture of affairs, may your countrymen yet have the benefit of that foresight, wisdom, and experience which have so often availed and supported them. And when you shall finally be called to bid adieu to this world and its concerns, may the cheering words promised to the good and the faithful, hail you to the mansions of blessedness.”

October 30, 1802.

But with the exception of a few manifestations of this kind, the seclusion into which Mr. Adams was at once plunged, at his farm in Quincy, was profound in the extreme. No more striking proof of it remains than his correspondence. The letters addressed to him in the year prior to the 4th of March, 1801, may be counted by thousands. Those of the next year scarcely number a hundred, and he wrote even less than he received. A few old and tried friends sent kind expressions of their warm regard, which he acknowledged in the same spirit, but the crowd who had solicited favors, so long as there were any to grant, moved on according to immemorial usage, towards the newly-created fountain of supply. Such are the vicissitudes of statesmen, as well under the forms of republican America, as in the courts of kings. To Mr. Adams, however, this change was most trying as a transition from a state of the utmost intellectual activity to one of the most sluggish repose. For years before, he had looked forward to the event not without some misgivings as to the possible effect upon his health. But now that at last it was come, he addressed himself with such courage as he might to the resumption of the private occupations within his reach. And, first of all, he naturally looked back to the early fancy of his life, from which he had never been weaned by other avocations, abroad or at home, however numerous or important. All the fortune he had inherited or succeeded in acquiring, had been invested in the lands around him. These he set about cultivating and improving; and they furnished his main support for the remainder of his days. At first, under the stimulus of the attack of Mr. Hamilton, he devoted some time to the preparation of a reply; and the next year he entered upon a project of an extended autobiography; but neither of these schemes retained its attraction sufficiently to reach completion. Although invited, in many forms, by the authorities of the State and of the neighboring town of Boston to attend upon public occasions, he accepted them only when it would have been uncivil to do otherwise. His indisposition to take part in new political questions was so decided, that it is scarcely likely it would have been ever overcome, but for one accidental circumstance. He had a son, who had already entered upon a brilliant public career, and whose position was rapidly becoming a prominent one in the contentions of the times.

A detailed examination of the events of this period, as connected with the career of this son, is not within the scope of this work. They will be touched upon, therefore, only so far as may be necessary to explain their effect upon the situation of Mr. Adams during the remainder of his life. From the day of Mr. Jefferson’s accession, the federalists, disheartened by the division in their own ranks, and discredited by the failure of the attempt to elect Mr. Burr, gave up united exertion. Mr. Marshall, the representative of one form of opinion, had become chief justice of the supreme court. Mr. Jay, at the close of his term of service as Governor of New York, voluntarily retired into private life. Upon Mr. Adams the whole odium of the party defeat had been concentrated by the victors, with the new President at their head. No prominent man remained, excepting Alexander Hamilton, and he was considered rather as the type of one section than of the whole party. Yet under him rallied the only considerable fragment that kept together after the great defeat. It was composed, in the main, of persons in New England and New York, leaning to extremes in opinion, and with difficulty withheld from violent courses even by the dissuasive counsels1 of him in whom they placed most confidence. Yet even he appeared to be only counselling delay in order the more completely “to reserve himself for those crises in the public affairs which seemed likely to happen,” when the vindictive spirit of Aaron Burr, irritated by his haughty yet officious enmity, took advantage of an indiscreet remark made by him at a public meeting, to force him into the field of combat in which he fell. Thus it happened that in 1804 all those persons who could be regarded in any general sense as heads of opposition to the new administration were removed from the scene, at the same time that a treaty with France was negotiated, by which the splendid acquisition of Louisiana was secured to the Union. Neither did the attempt to stir up strife within the ranks of the victorious party avail to impair the authority of the new President. It fared no better in the hands of the disaffected Burr, meditating mysterious projects of a new empire in the west, than in those of John Randolph, discontented by the want of deference to his unreasonable demands. The consequence was a perfect consolidation of the power of the new government, the reëlection of Mr. Jefferson by the votes of all the electors excepting fourteen, and the ability to entail the succession to the Presidency at the end of his second term, upon the person of James Madison, his confidential friend and long-tried coadjutor.

Under this process the federalists crumbled away until few traces remained of the once powerful association, south or west of the Hudson. The moderate men, despairing of its revival, either withdrew from public action altogether or permitted themselves to sink into the ranks of the majority. Neither was this tendency altogether imperceptible in New England, where the federal ascendency had been the most marked, and where it yet maintained itself. But the withdrawal of Mr. Adams, which had thrown the direction of the party into the hands of that portion of it known to be particularly associated with Mr. Hamilton, threatened to deprive it of a considerable share of strength, obtained from the popular confidence reposed in his character and services. Mr. Hamilton, in his exploring journey before the election, had come to the conclusion that although the “strong-minded men” were generally in sympathy with himself, those of the second class and the body of the people were too much disposed to follow Mr. Adams.1 The consciousness of this had been the cause of the great reluctance manifested by Hamilton’s friends to the open hostility which he had thought it proper to declare.2 And after the election was decided, it still prompted an avoidance of any enlargement of the breach then made. The friends of the new government were too numerous to render it advisable to hazard the alienation of a single person who could be in any way induced to continue in opposition. Enmity to Mr. Jefferson was a common bond still to be relied on to keep together those who might entertain few other sentiments in unison. Hence, bitterly as they continued to feel towards the person who had rejected their advice, and whom, for that reason, they had sought in secret to destroy, the “strong-minded men” deemed it expedient to avoid every occasion for pushing further the differences that had already taken place.3

So far as John Adams was concerned, no motive remained to do so. He had determined upon absolute retirement from public life and all its concerns, and had declared this intention in his reply to the address of the Massachusetts legislature.4 But there yet remained a representative of him in the field whose position and influence it was not easy to disregard, or prudent to overlook. Mr. Adams’s eldest son, John Quincy Adams, the companion of his voyages, and of his European life, after eight years of creditable service in diplomatic stations abroad, which had removed him from all the scenes of contentious politics at home, had returned to Massachusetts, with a reputation for abilities, character, and learning exceeded by that of no one of his generation in the commonwealth. The claims of such a man upon the popular confidence, it was dangerous to neglect. Yet it is not possible to imagine that those persons who had been engaged in the clandestine movements to betray the father, even to the limited extent as yet laid open to the public eye, could be likely to entertain much cordiality in advancing the son. For they could scarcely fail to impute to him some share of filial indignation for the manner in which he knew that his father had been treated. Yet in the ardor of their hostility to Mr. Jefferson, they were ready to overlook a great deal. Besides, the alienation of Mr. Adams might be more dangerous to their ascendency than an attempt to conciliate him by a show of confidence. So they acquiesced in a policy of union, which, whilst it conceded a certain share of support to him, might secure in return a union of the more moderate men upon persons holding opinions like their own. It was in this spirit that Mr. Adams was brought forward in the autumn of 1802 as a candidate for a seat in the House of Representatives, in the Boston District, whilst Colonel Pickering, the most vehement of his father’s enemies, was presented in the same way to the county of Essex. Such coalitions are seldom hearty, especially at first. This one did not prove so. The people appeared indifferent, and neither candidate was chosen. Mr. Adams failed by less than sixty, Colonel Pickering by about a hundred votes.

But though defeated here, an opportunity very soon occurred when the same policy of equivalents could be carried out more successfully in another form. Two vacancies occurred at once in the Senate of the United States. The two branches of the Legislature which were to fill them contained a great number of intermediate men. An attempt to push Colonel Pickering through proved unsuccessful, and a perseverance in it threatened to be followed by the election of an opponent. Under these circumstances recourse was had to Mr. Adams,1 then himself a member of the State Senate, and understood not to be manageable, as a party man. By assenting to his election to one of the places, a way was made for the attainment of the other by Colonel Pickering. The consequence was the election of the two to sit as colleagues representing Massachusetts in the federal Senate. A more incongruous mixture could scarcely be conceived. It was plain that the smouldering fires had been covered for the moment, only to kindle into a fiercer conflagration upon occasion of the first conflict of opinion which might spring out of the disturbed condition of public affairs.

Neither was that occasion long wanting. So long as Mr. Jefferson’s domestic policy was in question, and the effort to break down the judiciary, first, by the repeal of the organic law of 1801, and afterwards by the successive impeachments of judges, was continued, there was no risk of a division. But when the country became involved in new difficulties from the warfare waged among the European powers, the course to be pursued was not so clear. The place in which the injury was most felt was upon the high seas, and those who suffered were the eastern commercial States carrying on a profitable neutral trade. The temper of the belligerents had not been softened by the peace of Amiens, and the resumption of arms became the signal for a course of retaliatory warfare unexampled in any former contest. To America this was hurtful, as a neutral power having rights of trade with each side which were too often disregarded by the other. But of the two the action of Great Britain was by far the most irritating, because her maritime supremacy came the most directly into collision with American commerce. Her revival of the rule of ’56, for the express object of cutting off a profitable neutral trade with the colonies of her enemy, occasioned the capture and condemnation of many vessels.

Yet unpleasant as were the relations made by these events they would scarcely have caused a breach, had they not been followed up by the claim of a right to search American national ships for deserters, and to seize any persons who might be designated as British-born subjects. It was the case of the frigate Chesapeake boarded by the officers of The Leopard, who took out of her, in a most arrogant and insulting manner, four of her men, which justly roused the indignation of the people of the United States. At this day, it is difficult to understand how there could have been a moment’s difference of opinion on the necessity of resenting so insolent an assumption. Yet the fact cannot be controverted that the disposition to do it was much less strong in the commercial region, the citizens of which were immediately liable to suffer from it, than in the purely agricultural sections of the interior. There were even found leading men disposed to excuse, if not to defend, the pretensions of Great Britain. The times were not favorable to the decision of any point of public policy solely upon its merits. The violent opponents of Mr. Jefferson were disposed to see in every act of his towards England a disposition to play into the hands of Napoleon, then believed by them to be meditating the subjection of the world; whilst, on the other hand, these suspicions were met with a counter belief that those who were willing to overlook such aggressions secretly meditated a betrayal of their country to the dominion of their ancient step-mother. In times of alarm, party passions thrive on extremes of opinion. The hatred thus engendered is never satisfied with less than the reciprocal imputation of crime. If Mr. Jefferson and his counsellors were on the one side said to be sold to France, on the other, Colonel Pickering and his coadjutors of the Essex junto, were set down as in secret conspiracy with the British ministry.

In the midst of the turmoil John Adams and his son occupied a difficult position. Although by no means satisfied with the general coldness of Mr. Jefferson towards the commercial States, they were not so far carried away by their feelings as to overlook the superciliousness of Great Britain. They had known it by personal experience in its most offensive shapes, and they felt that submission to it in any form was not the most likely way to put an end to it for the future. Hence it happened that upon the occurrence of the outrage on The Chesapeake both of them hesitated not a moment in expressing their indignation, and their earnest wishes for measures of redress. Finding the federalists with whom he was connected unprepared to listen to his suggestions of immediate action, John Quincy Adams determined to signify his own opinion at all events. He therefore attended the public meeting called in Boston to that end. It was not called as a party meeting; but his presence among those generally ranked as opponents who naturally constituted the greater part, was no sooner perceived, than by general acclamation he was summoned to take part in the deliberations. The resolutions were confined to the object for which the meeting was called; yet the act of Mr. Adams was construed among the federalists as ominous of the division which soon afterwards fell out.

It is not necessary to go into this history further than it may show the influence which it had over the action of the subject of this narrative. It is sufficient to this purpose to say that among other measures occasioned by the attack on The Chesapeake, was a proclamation issued by Mr. Jefferson, interdicting British armed vessels from entering the harbors of the United States. The British ministry on their part, conscious of the indignity which had been committed by the rashness of their officer, betrayed anxiety to atone for it rather as an exceptional act of incivility, than by disclaiming the right of search itself. In this spirit, whilst they determined upon sending a special minister to make negotiations and explanations confined to that single outrage, they accompanied the act by issuing the king’s proclamation, recalling all British seamen from service under the flags of foreign nations, which was followed by other measures of hostility to the neutral trade of America by no means calculated to promote reconciliation. Colonel Pickering, however, viewing the policy of the administration as one designed to precipitate a war with Great Britain, drew up a paper expressive of his views upon the questions in dispute between the two governments, in the course of which he was carried so far as to palliate, if not directly to defend, the claim made in the king’s proclamation. This paper roused the indignation of John Adams, and for the first time since his retirement, he broke silence by publishing an examination of the grounds of the pretension. This paper is inserted in the ninth volume of the present work. Thus, in conjunction with a more general reply to Pickering drawn up at the same time by his son, a new issue between the parties was formed, an issue which subsequent events widened into a perfect breach, presenting on the one side all of the federalists who had been dissatisfied with his administration driven to extremes in opposition, and on the other the whole weight of Mr. Adams’s authority thrown on the side of Mr. Jefferson and the most vehement of his ancient enemies.

Had Great Britain been actuated during this period by a tithe of the conciliatory temper which has been manifested in her relations with the United States of late years, it cannot admit of a doubt that the difficulties which led to the war of 1812 might have been removed; but her ministers and people yet smarting under the recollection of the failure to uphold her sovereignty in America, instinctively shrunk from every concession to men whom they still regarded too much in the light of successful rebels. Still impressed with the exclusive commercial notions of the preceding century, they saw with a jealousy little disguised, the plenteous returns flowing into the coffers of their old subjects from a fortunate neutrality in the wars which were bearing them down; and they lost no opportunity so to apply the harshest principles of national law as to seize as much as they could of this abundance for their own benefit. Negotiations carried on whilst such a spirit prevailed, could end in nothing valuable. Napoleon had, early in his career, learned the lesson how uncertain a science is that diplomacy which rests its expectations only upon the supposed interests of peoples or governments. The passions form the great elements of calculation, at the same time that they defy all human sagacity.1 This remark was never more true than during the long series of events, dating from the French revolution, in which he himself played the chief part. The evidences of it are thickly strewed along the course of these times, in the shape either of orders in council, paper blockades, and imperial decrees, or in the more bloody yet quite as profitless butcheries of the Nile, Trafalgar, and Copenhagen, of Austerlitz, Jena, Borodino, and Waterloo. A conciliatory spirit, guided by a benevolent regard for the welfare of millions of the race, would have saved all these horrors in a day; but the delirium of the sovereigns of these times proved the truth of the poet’s verses on a scale in comparison with which the sufferings of the Greeks which he lamented were but as solitary accidents.

And in this wanton strife Great Britain was not slow to take her part. Instead of forbearance and moderation, her tone was domineering and her temper savage; and nowhere was this more sensibly felt than in the bearing of her naval officers on the high seas, from the admiral of the red down to the cabin boy. Furthermore, among all the foreign nations with which they had to deal, none were so much exposed to this harsh treatment as Americans. The temper of the old king had engrafted itself upon the feelings of the aristocracy, and what is their temper will be sure to crop out in the official tone of the army and the navy. Under this trial the administration of Mr. Jefferson was doomed the more severely to suffer from the fact that the impression as to his leanings to France had become general in England. To reproach him at this day for resenting these manifestations of ill-will with too much violence, would be wide of the truth. The error, if any was committed, was of an opposite kind, in carrying forbearance to the point of timidity. If fault there was, it was in half-way contrivances which proved weak and inefficacious at a moment when helplessness injured Americans more than the power did which insulted them; but embargo and non-intercourse were, under the circumstances in which the people had chosen to put themselves, the only alternative. Mr. Adams, as well in his earliest labors in the revolutionary struggle, as in his later appeals to the pride of his countrymen during the difficulties with France, had ever urged the establishment of a naval force at least adequate to defend the seaboard and to protect the national commerce on the ocean; and, during his administration, the foundation of such a power had been so well laid, that, with a moderate and gradual development, it would by this time have been strong enough to do essential service. But this was one portion of his policy which had been the most severely denounced by his opponents. So that when Mr. Jefferson was elevated in his place, it was laid aside as having caused a wasteful expenditure of the public money. The statesmanship of self-protection was dwarfed into an economical array of Lilliputian gun-boats, and the commercial marine was left to shift for itself if pushed out to sea, or to rot at the wharves if kept at home. Confined to this alternative, it was certainly less mortifying to preserve the character of the country by a voluntary secession from the Ocean, than passively to suffer every thing calling itself American to become a prey to the raging passions of the European belligerents; and either was better than the suggestion, which was whispered in some quarters, if not openly favored, of submission to the British pretensions.

To the possibility of such a step as this last, J. Q. Adams, not less than his father, was most resolutely opposed. Their joint experience had produced no clearer lesson than this, that Great Britain seldom respected the rights of any nation on the sea, whose power did not make itself feared. The tone of George Canning had not been such as to inspire much confidence in any immediate change of her old habits. So they declared themselves on the side of the government in maintaining, at all events, the rights of America. From this moment they were no longer ranked among the remnants of the federal party. The consequences were soon important to them. The opposition to the federal government in Massachusetts, greatly fortified by the severe pressure upon the community of its anti-commercial measures, determined to anticipate the customary period of election of a new senator, in order the more significantly to mark the withdrawal of their confidence from the incumbent.

These particulars, which will find space for fuller development in the biography of the son, are here alluded to for the purpose only of tracing the progress of the irritations which ended in reviving the controversies of an earlier time. Some of the more violent federalists, not confining themselves to the topics before them, and provoked by the interposition of Mr. Adams in support of an administration which they abhorred, strove to impair whatever influence might remain to him, by a recurrence to the charges contained in Mr. Hamilton’s pamphlet. Such is party warfare, from the ferocity of which no man who seeks strongly to affect public opinion, in times of agitation in a free country, can ever hope to be exempt. In the day of it, Mr. Adams had collected the materials for a replication to that attack, but partly from his own indifference to perfecting any literary labor, partly in consequence of the fate of his assailant, and perhaps from the fruitless nature of the contest, he suffered them to lie unused, until they had ceased to attract his attention. The stimulus of this assault now roused him to look them up. It so happened that the columns of a newspaper in Boston, then seeking to extend its circulation, were freely offered to him by the proprietors. This informal mode of publication was peculiarly tempting to him, as it released him from the necessity, always burdensome, of methodizing and polishing his composition. At first he proposed to confine himself simply to a defence of the mission to France, which constituted the gravamen of Mr. Hamilton’s attack; but once engaged in the review of his past life, he enlarged his plan, until it extended itself to the publication of a large part of his most valuable papers. These labors were continued from time to time for the space of three years. A portion, embracing perhaps two thirds of the communications, was collected, and published in numbers, which make together an octavo volume, entitled, “Correspondence of the late President Adams, originally published in the Boston Patriot, in a series of Letters.” This book is now very rarely to be met with.

No more unfortunate time for the attainment of the object which the writer had in view could have been selected. He had borne with injustice and misrepresentation so long, without defending himself, that it would have been wise to let them take their course, at least for the remainder of his life, and to reserve himself, by a calm and careful preparation of his papers for a more impartial age, to establish the truth. There can be no question that the most unfavorable moment to gain proselytes, even to the most convincing arguments, is when the person attempting it, himself under great momentary irritation, is addressing persons who are listening under still more. Especially is this the case when the subject discussed has any bearing whatever upon immediate interests, on which the whole community has divided into parties. But Mr. Adams suffered himself to be so much censured, without reply, as to make him begin to doubt of any future reversal of the verdict, unless he should interfere at once and plead his own cause. To this opinion he was the more impelled by a fear that if he should prepare his papers for posthumous publication, some unlooked for accident or domestic vicissitude might, after all, intervene to disperse or to destroy them before they could ever reach the public. A singular mishap of this sort had occurred, under his immediate observation, in the case of Samuel Adams, and still another, of a different kind, in that of Dr. Franklin. He therefore determined, at all hazards, to proceed. The consequence was a perpetuation of his most important documents, it is true, but under circumstances most adverse to any beneficial effect, either to history or to his own reputation. Scattered through the pages of a newspaper of very limited circulation, during three years, without order in the arrangement, and with most unfortunate typography, the papers might, indeed, be described as safe, but it was the safety of a treasure which an individual buries in the ground in his lifetime, and leaves to some straggler of a distant age, perchance to hit the spot where it may with labor be brought to light.

It is owing to the defects enumerated that no attempt has been made to reproduce this publication in its original form in the present work. That part of it which relates to the nomination of Mr. Murray, although marked by too much asperity towards Mr. Hamilton and his other opponents, is yet in itself so complete an exposition of his own view of that measure, that it has been transferred entire. From the remainder, such extracts have been taken as help in any way to elucidate the documents to which they refer, whilst those documents themselves have been arranged on a more methodical and comprehensive plan. In this way it is believed that nearly, if not quite all of material importance in that publication has been incorporated into this. The form itself is of little value. The task of authorship was always irksome to Mr. Adams. He seldom assumed it excepting upon the spur of some immediate impulse, and he never carried his labors further than the preparation of the manuscript. The consequence is that he suffered even more than writers commonly do from the careless typography of the newspapers in that day.

The accession of Mr. Madison to the Presidency, a result which Mr. Jefferson much favored, was the signal of a division among the friends of government, and of a more conciliatory policy towards the moderate federalists. The latter had been already manifested in the appointment of William Pinkney, of Maryland, to a special duty, and afterwards to the permanent mission in Great Britain. The policy might have been carried even to the restoration of good feelings at home and of more friendly relations with England, but for the interference of a portion of the Senate in dictating to the new President the person he should make Secretary of State. It did, however, extend to the appointment of John Quincy Adams to be the first accredited minister of the country at the court of St. Petersburg. His father naturally viewed this act as a relaxation, the first he had experienced since the accession of Mr. Jefferson, of the harshness manifested towards himself by the party in power. The same event embittered the hostility of his federal opponents, who had now, for the first time, gained an exclusive ascendency in Massachusetts. This state of things opened the way to a restoration of friendly feelings with Mr. Jefferson, who was now out of power, like himself, with nothing left to overcome the natural dictates of his heart. The interposition through which it was reached, was that of a common friend, Dr. Benjamin Rush, of Philadelphia, whose voluntary services smoothed away all the obstacles formed by the long estrangement. Some explanation of their nature will not be out of place.

The character of Thomas Jefferson presents one of the most difficult studies to be met with by the historian of these times. At once an object of the most exalted eulogy among those who made him their political chief, and of the bitterest execrations of his opponents, it is not very easy, between the two, to trace the lines which truth and justice alike demand. As an original thinker, there can be little doubt of his claim to stand in the first rank among American statesmen. His, too, was the faculty, given to few, of leading the many, by impressing their minds with happily concentrated propositions. More ardent in his imagination than his affections, he did not always speak exactly as he felt towards either friends or enemies. As a consequence, he has left hanging over a part of his public life a vapor of duplicity, or, to say the least, of indirection, the presence of which is generally felt more than it is seen. Sometimes, indeed, when his passions become roused by personal rivalry, it shows itself darkly enough. Cautious, but not discreet, sagacious, though not always wise, impulsive, but not open, his letters, as printed since his death, have scarcely maintained for him the character he enjoyed among his followers whilst living. The most obvious deficiency is the absence of repose in mind, and of consistency in heart. The great lead he early took in the Revolution naturally brought him in frequent relations with Mr. Adams, generally friendly, though, considering the striking discordance of their characteristic traits, they could never have been intimate, but sometimes hostile. The first instance took place during the perilous days of 1775, when both were enlisted with ardor in the work of pushing the country forward to Independence. Here was a common opponent and a common interest. The fields of labor only were diverse. Mr. Adams, the eldest in public life as well as in years, careless of external fame as a writer, preferred the natural channel to his impetuosity supplied by the unrestrained freedom of debate within the walls of congress, whilst Mr. Jefferson, avoiding that arena of conflicting opinions, chose rather the course which gave full play to the happy facility of his written word. Never was there a more fortunate combination to advance a great object. Mr. Adams hewed out the road, vigorously but roughly, may be, for the pioneers, whilst Mr. Jefferson smoothed and widened it for the nation to follow; and each felt the value of the other in the common task. Here they separated, Mr. Jefferson to do other duty in his native State, Mr. Adams presently to cross the water. The next time they met was many years later, in Europe, when Mr. Adams had become the representative of his disenthralled countrymen at the court of their former sovereign, and Mr. Jefferson filled the same position in the presence of the monarch of France. The duty imposed upon the two by congress to open negotiations of commercial treaties with all the powers of Europe once more entailed an intimacy and frequent correspondence, which there was nothing to prevent from growing into friendship. Mr. Jefferson, in a letter to Mr. Madison, recorded the impression he had of Mr. Adams at this time, which gives him much less credit for penetration than he deserved, whilst it does full justice to his nobler qualities.1 Mr. Adams, on his side, measured Mr. Jefferson with even more friendly eyes, and, if he was aware of any qualifications, gave no utterance to them. An interchange of visits and frequent civilities, so long as they remained in Europe, continued to preserve their social relations upon the kindest footing.

During this period no incidents occurred to draw out the lurking contrasts of their characters. But scarcely was the constitution adopted, and the two were called to fill stations only one grade beneath the first, when events took place which had the effect of setting them in opposition to each other. They not only clashed in opinions, but became the types of opposing ones before the world. The great cause of this change was the breaking out of the French Revolution. Mr. Jefferson hailed it as the harbinger of a new day on earth, whilst Mr. Adams saw in it only the image of a ship in a tempest without helm or anchor. But this difference of sentiment would not of itself have sufficed to disturb the private feelings of the parties, had it not been for an instance of the duplicity already referred to, which gave a shock to Mr. Adams’s confidence such as he did not for a long time get over. The facts were these. During the spring of the year 1791, the United States Gazette of Philadelphia had been publishing, in numbers, a summary of Davila’s work on the Civil Wars of France, with commentaries, which were well understood, though not expressly acknowledged, to be from the pen of Mr. Adams. Not unaware of their imputed origin, and much disturbed at what he thought their pernicious tendency, Mr. Jefferson welcomed, with great satisfaction, the arrival, from the other side of the Atlantic, of Thomas Paine’s pamphlet on the Rights of Man, and approved the project of republishing it in America as an antidote to their poison. Wishing to express his thanks for the use of an English copy, which had been lent to him to read, he was impelled to add, in his note, the reasons why he rejoiced that the work was about to be reprinted. Prominent among these was an allusion to the heresies upon Davila. That Mr. Jefferson had not the remotest idea his note would ever be seen by the public, cannot admit of a doubt. Great, then, was his consternation, when he found it paraded at large, with his name attached, as a prefix to recommend the pamphlet publication.

This incident attracted much attention in Philadelphia, where it was regarded as an indecorous attack intentionally made by one high officer of the government against another. Pressed by this exposure, which imputed to him far more than he probably meant, he endeavored to escape from it by volunteering an explanation directly to Mr. Adams. This brought from the latter, then at home in Quincy, a frank reply, which, in its turn, elicited a rejoinder, explicitly disavowing any intention, by the terms of the unlucky note, to allude to Mr. Adams or any of his writings. With this explanation, Mr. Adams professed himself satisfied. Unfortunately, however, for Mr. Jefferson, a private letter of his, addressed to General Washington at the very time, has been published, in which he expressly says that he did mean, in his note, to allude to the Discourses on Davila. From this contradiction there seems no outlet of escape. It is not a pleasant task to allude to it, neither would it be necessary, were it not essential to show that if Mr. Adams did not easily relinquish the suspicions, which Mr. Jefferson describes him as too liable at all times to entertain, the facts prove that he was not without abundant justification.1

Indeed, it can scarcely be denied that the publication of Mr. Jefferson’s letters since his death, has fixed rather than relieved this shade upon his character. It is, however, much confined within the period between 1790 and 1801. Whilst, on the one side, he is professing a profound respect and attachment to General Washington, on the other, he is communicating privately to Philip Mazzei in Europe the most significant insinuations of the political apostasy of that chief. So his broader private charges made against Mr. Adams, implying danger to the republican institutions of the country from his devotion to the British theory of government, are not easily reconciled with his self-gratulation when assuming the Vice-President’s chair, that the reins of government had not fallen into his hands, but rested rather with Mr. Adams. If he conscientiously believed one half of what he has left on record, respecting the doctrines of the latter, then he should have regarded his own failure of an election and Mr. Adams’s success as serious public calamities. Neither was the earnest anxiety shown to suppress all publication of his private correspondence, much relieved by the accidental exposure, from time to time, of the pecuniary assistance he had rendered to the most profligate and unworthy calumniators of his opponents. It is no part of the design of this work unnecessarily to dwell on these unpleasant topics. But they are material to explain the motives of Mr. Adams’s course, and the causes of his withdrawal of confidence from Mr. Jefferson at the close of his administration. He then fully believed him to be a false and dangerous man; and, so believing, he acted up to his conviction. The refusal to give any assurances as to his future course, was what determined Mr. Adams to take the extraordinary step of filling all the vacant places under the revised judicial system before his accession. On the other hand, this proceeding very naturally offended Mr. Jefferson. Indeed, it was a stretch of authority of that sort which can be too easily twisted to the justification of the very abuses it is designed to prevent, ever to be a safe measure in popular governments. And the result of this example is not without use as an illustration.

But no sooner is the conflict over, and Mr. Jefferson fully established in power, without risk of further rivalry with his opponent, than the shades of his character begin to disappear, and his better nature again struggles for the mastery. He has left on record the fact that he desired to confer on Mr. Adams the most lucrative post in New England, a step the inconsistency of which with the professions on which they came into power, his friends in that quarter seem to have felt much more keenly than he. He further states that he was deterred from prosecuting his wish by the suggestion that the advance would not be well received. Perhaps in this he was right; but the public manifestation of any such confidence would have done no disservice to his own character for magnanimity, however coldly it might have been met, whilst it would have greatly served to shield Mr. Adams from the ferocious and unsparing denunciations which his partisans, during his administration, were in the habit of pouring out upon him. And all of them were carried on, so far as the public could see, without the smallest effort on his part at counteraction. So little was Mr. Adams in the way of suspecting the existence of any good-will, that a trifling incident which occurred in Massachusetts was well calculated to impress him with a notion of the prevalence of quite an opposite spirit. The number of commissioners of bankruptcy was diminished by the repeal of the judiciary law in such a manner as to render it necessary to deprive some of the incumbents of their places. John Quincy Adams had received his appointment from the district judge under the law. He was now selected for removal under the authority vested in the president, although others, not a whit more in political sympathy, were retained. In the absence of all explanations, and none were offered, but one construction could be put upon such a proceeding. Yet Mr. Jefferson was not probably intending any such petty hostility as this implied. The prejudices which he had succeeded in rousing among his followers, especially in New England, probably exceeded his power to control. But the act had its natural effect on Mr. Adams. Hence, when Mr. Jefferson endeavored to revive his ancient relations with him through an opening casually furnished by Mrs. Adams, his effort met with a colder reception than it deserved. The estrangement continued complete until after Mr. Jefferson’s retirement had released him from his obligations to his partisans. On the other hand, the same event rescued the motives of Mr. Adams from all liability of misapprehension. It then needed only the intervention of some common friend like Dr. Rush, to bring the two once more into kindly relations. The bitterness of party warfare, which had prompted them to be mutually unjust, gradually softened away, and during the remainder of their lives, though they never again met face to face, they kept up a correspondence by letters upon indifferent topics of literature, theology, and general politics, which will probably retain a permanent interest with posterity.

Thus passed the life of Mr. Adams in peaceful retirement, for many years. His correspondence began to grow upon him, and he divided his time between reading on a more extensive scale than ever, and writing to his numerous friends. He devoted himself to a very elaborate examination of the religion of all ages and nations, the results of which he committed to paper in a desultory manner. The issue of it was the formation of his theological opinions very much in the mould adopted by the Unitarians of New England. Rejecting, with the independent spirit which in early life had driven him from the ministry, the prominent doctrines of Calvinism, the trinity, the atonement, and election, he was content to settle down upon the Sermon on the Mount as a perfect code presented to man by a more than mortal teacher. Further he declined to analyze the mysterious nature of his mission. In this faith he lived with uninterrupted serenity, and in it he died with perfect resignation.

The termination of the war with Great Britain by the signature of the treaty of Ghent, closed the disputes connected with European politics, which had raged with greater or less fury for nearly a quarter of a century. Mr. Adams, as a leading actor, had shared largely in the bitterness of the strife. He had been made the object of the most fierce and unrelenting attacks from opposite quarters, and had in his turn been impelled to say and to write much of his opponents which a calm review would scarcely venture to defend. All this contention ceased with the return of peace. The fragment of the ultra-federal party, which had been revived into importance in New England and New York by the unpopularity of the war, and which with singular rashness had staked every thing upon the most intemperate opposition to the course of Mr. Madison, perished under the reaction that followed. Mr. Monroe was elevated to the Presidency without a struggle; and he immediately organized an administration which went into office upheld by the full confidence of the country. Of this administration, John Quincy Adams was the member to whom the department of foreign affairs was assigned; and the selection was ratified by a general expression of good-will in New England. This revolution was felt by his father in a greatly increased manifestation of the popular regard towards himself. From this time to the end of his life the traces of an ever-growing reaction are visible in the extension of his correspondence, which, in spite of his seclusion from public affairs, became almost as large as it had been when he had numerous offices to bestow. Not a shadow now remained on this score to disturb the natural serenity of his mind. It is highly honorable to Mr. Jefferson, that his active and unsolicited testimony, generously given to the value of the public services of his ancient opponent, and extensively spread among the large class over whose minds his authority was yet unbounded, had a great effect in accelerating this change. It was a cheering consolation to the declining days of the old statesman, whose integrity not even his most bitter enemies had ever really disputed, the prospect of losing which had at an earlier moment filled his mind with anxiety and gloom.

So entirely had party strife disappeared upon the second election of Mr. Monroe, that no division took place in the popular votes in the several States. In Massachusetts, Mr. Adams was placed on the list of electors and was chosen without opposition. He was made President of the College, and gave his vote for James Monroe as President and Daniel D. Tompkins, as Vice-President. With a single exception in New Hampshire, prompted by personal regard for John Quincy Adams, the electors were unanimous; the first instance since Washington went out of office, and not improbably the last that may occur in the American annals.

Shortly after the joyful event of the return of his son from his eight years’ absence in the diplomatic service of the country, Mr. Adams was destined to meet with the severest affliction that had ever yet befallen him. His wife, who had gone through the vicissitudes of more than half a century in his company; who had sympathized with him in all his highest aspirations, and had cheered him in his greatest trials; who had faithfully preserved his worldly interests, when he was unable to be present to guard them himself; who had enlivened his home and had shared his joys and his pains alike, was taken ill with a typhus fever, in the autumn of 1818, and died on the 28th of October. He was at this time eighty-three years of age, and of course had little reason to expect long to survive her; but to him her loss was a perpetually recurring evil; for she had been the stay of his household. Her character had adapted itself to his in such a manner as to improve the good qualities of both, so that her loss threw over his manner ever afterwards, a tinge of sadness not natural to him; and the sprightly humor, which made so agreeable a part of the letters addressed to her in her lifetime, as it did of his daily conversation, ceased in a degree to appear.

He now began to indulge in the latest privilege of old age. He recurred to the various events of his life, and sought to compare his remembrance of them with that of the few contemporaries who yet survived. Many facts of importance seemed to him in danger of being forgotten, and the services of some individuals entirely overlooked. What especially stirred him was the publication of Mr. Wirt’s Life of Patrick Henry, because it seemed to claim the merit of originating resistance to the pretensions of Great Britain too exclusively for the State of Virginia. This brought him forward in the explanation of the action of James Otis, concerning whom he supplied a great part of all the information that has been preserved. The series of letters, relating to this subject, written at a very advanced age to Judge Tudor, abound in details and anecdotes which would not otherwise have come down to us. Many of the facts have been substantially confirmed by the testimony of Governor Hutchinson, the last volume of whose history was not brought to light until after Mr. Adams’s death. The most remarkable feature of these late letters is the vigor of imagination and freshness of feeling with which they are written; they overflow with the desire to do honor to those over whose memory time was rapidly closing, and yet whose services had not been without their claim upon the public gratitude. In this way he did much to perpetuate the recollections of honorable events in the career of Otis, of Hawley, and of Samuel Adams, and the labor was to him a most grateful tribute to their worth.

He was now eighty-five years old, and his physical frame, strong as it had been, was slowly but surely giving way under the sap of the destroyer. But his mind still worked with vigor, when an occasion happened which fully developed the regard in which he was held by the people of his native State. The time had come when the District of Maine, which had been long attached to Massachusetts, though not an integral part of her territory, demanded an independent government, and an admission into the Union on an equal footing with the parent State. Massachusetts assented, and a separation was effected; but this event carried with it a necessity of adapting the forms of the Constitution of the State to the circumstances of her greatly abridged limits. This could be done only by calling a convention to amend it. Arrangements were made accordingly. Mr. Adams was unanimously elected a delegate by the people of his native town, just as he had been forty years before, when the instrument now to be amended had been originally framed. Great pains were everywhere taken to select for this body such citizens as had become most distinguished for abilities, learning, or weight of character. The absence of party divisions just then favored such an object remarkably. The result was, the convocation of a popular assembly such as was never gathered from so limited a territory before, and such as may not soon be seen again. The three learned professions, the commercial, the agricultural, and the mechanic interests, all were represented by an amount of intelligence, of culture, of social and of moral worth, such as any Commonwealth of far greater dimensions might well be proud to show.

The sessions of this Convention were opened on the 15th of November, 1820, and were continued until the 9th of January, 1821. When Mr. Adams, in his eighty-sixth year, with a form yet erect, though tremulous with age, made his appearance on the second day, he was received by the members of this brilliant assembly, all standing, with demonstrations of the utmost respect and regard. The dignified office of presiding over its deliberations had been unanimously tendered to him through a Committee, instructed to present to him the following resolutions adopted on the motion of Isaac Parker, then the respected Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Commonwealth:—

“Whereas, the Honorable John Adams, a member of this Convention, and elected the President thereof, has for more than half a century devoted the great powers of his mind, and his profound wisdom and learning, to the service of his country and mankind:

In fearlessly vindicating the rights of the North American provinces against the usurpation and encroachments of the superintendent government:

In diffusing a knowledge of the principles of civil liberty among his fellow-subjects, and exciting them to a firm and resolute defence of the privileges of freemen:

In early conceiving, asserting, and maintaining the justice and practicability of establishing the independence of the United States of America:

In giving the powerful aid of his political knowledge in the formation of the Constitution of his native State, which constitution became in a great measure the model of those which were subsequently formed:

In conciliating the favor of foreign powers, and obtaining their countenance and support in the arduous struggle for independence:

In negotiating the treaty of peace, which secured forever the sovereignty of the United States, and in defeating all attempts to prevent it; and especially in preserving in that treaty the vital interests of the New England States:

In demonstrating to the world, in his defence of the Constitutions of the several United States, the contested principle, since admitted as an axiom, that checks and balances in legislative power are essential to true liberty:

In devoting his time and talents to the service of the nation, in the high and important trusts of Vice-President and President of the United States:

And lastly, in passing an honorable old age in dignified retirement, in the practice of all the domestic virtues, thus exhibiting to his countrymen and to posterity an example of true greatness of mind and of genuine patriotism:—

Therefore, Resolved, That the members of this Convention, representing the people of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, do joyfully avail themselves of this opportunity to testify their respect and gratitude to this eminent patriot and statesman, for the great services rendered by him to his country, and their high gratification that, at this late period of life, he is permitted by Divine Providence to assist them with his counsel in revising the constitution which, forty years ago, his wisdom and prudence assisted to form.

Resolved, That a committee of twelve be appointed by the chair, to communicate this proceeding to the Honorable John Adams, to inform him of his election to preside in this body, and to introduce him to the chair of this Convention.”

Grateful for this honorable testimonial to the value of his past services, Mr. Adams was sufficiently sensible of his failing strength to reject all idea of assuming the arduous labors of the post thus offered. He therefore returned to the Committee the following answer:—

“Fellow-Citizens,—An election at my age and in my circumstances by the free suffrages of so ample a representation of the fortunes and talents, the experience and wisdom, the authority, the virtues, and the piety of the ancient and renowned State of Massachusetts, I esteem the purest and fairest honor of my life; and my gratitude is proportionally ardent and sincere. I pray you, gentlemen, to present to the Convention my most cordial thanks.

Your enumeration of services performed for this country recalls to my recollection the long services and succession of great and excellent characters with whom I have had the honor to act in the former part of my life, and to whose exertions I have endeavored to add my feeble aid; characters, who have been employed by Divine Providence as instruments in preserving and securing that unexampled liberty which this nation now possesses; that liberty, which is the source of all our happiness and prosperity; a prosperity which cannot be contemplated by any virtuous mind without gratitude, consolation, and delight. May it be perpetual!

Gentlemen,—As my age is generally known, it will readily be believed that my forces are too far exhausted to perform the arduous duties of the high office which the benevolence of the Convention has assigned to me. I am, therefore, under the necessity to request permission of the Convention to decline the appointment, and to pray that some other gentleman may be elected, whose vigorous age and superior talents may conduct their deliberations with more convenience to themselves, and with greater satisfaction to the people of the Commonwealth at large.”

In the proceedings Mr. Adams took great interest, but his bodily frame, now easily susceptible of derangement from any change of the long settled habits of a uniform life at home, refused the test of daily attendance during the severity of the winter season. Only once or twice did he venture upon any remarks. A report of what he said is given in the published volume of the debates. It is characteristic, and in perfect consistency with the views which he had steadily held through life. These views were singularly misrepresented so long as temporary objects were to be served by weakening his influence over the popular mind, but there is now no motive left to consider them as other than they are. They may be in brief described as the system of a whig of the Revolution, born of purely English stock, but transplanted to America; republican in its character, and popular, without being democratic, in its tendencies; conservative in its forms, with but a slight leaning to aristocracy. On this last point, nothing is more remarkable than the extent to which his character was misconceived. In the simplicity of his daily habits he would have stood the test of comparison even with Mr. Jefferson, whom the great body of the people had learned to regard as the embodiment of all republican ideas.

There was one change in the old Constitution which Mr. Adams labored, though ineffectually, to procure. It was a modification of the third article of the Bill of Rights, an article which he did not himself draw when he furnished the rest, in such form as would do away with the recognition of distinct modes of religious faith by the State. This amendment had been suggested by Dr. Price in his comments upon the Constitution, published soon after it was made, though it is not likely that Mr. Adams remembered it. Not able to make his voice clearly heard by the members, he had recourse to the agency of others to effect his object; but it was in vain. The old Puritan feeling which began with laboring to establish a Christian Commonwealth, was yet alive, and refused to recognize Jews or heathens as perfect equals with Christians before the law. The proposition was gently put aside; the spirit of it has, however, since found its way, by the operation of an amendment, into the system of government.

This appearance in the convention made a fitting close to the public career of Mr. Adams. His few remaining years were passed serenely at his residence in Quincy, where he kept up the habit of receiving strangers, who came from abroad, or visitors from other States, attracted by curiosity to see him. Once a year, his time was enlivened by the presence of his son, John Quincy Adams, now Secretary of State, and himself arrived at a position in the popular estimation, which seemed to open a prospect of his elevation to the Presidency, as the successor of Mr. Monroe. It was this circumstance which gave rise to the last attempt to disturb the peace of Mr. Adams’s declining years. Not long after his retirement in 1801, and whilst smarting under the irritation, caused by the sense of injustice done to him by members of both contending parties, the same which produced the papers in the “Boston Patriot,” a maternal relative of his, then bordering upon insanity, which at last ended in suicide, drew from him, by force of earnest expressions of sympathy, and under the seal of the strictest confidence, the most unreserved expression of his sentiments respecting the chief actors and events in the latter portion of his public life. Not until long after the catastrophe that befell the recipient of these letters, and the rise of John Quincy Adams to be a prominent candidate for the Presidency, did an inducement occur to betray confidence by bringing them to light. The heir of Mr. Cunningham then earned by the transfer of them to the political opponents of the son, a claim upon their gratitude in case of their attaining power, which was ultimately recognized by the gift of a subordinate place in the Boston custom-house. By this means the letters were published to the world. It may fairly be doubted whether the injury done by them to the prospects of John Quincy Adams was ever an equivalent even for the inconsiderable reward paid for the breach of trust.

At any rate, they appeared too late to disturb the equanimity of the father. Mr. Jefferson and Colonel Pickering, the two surviving individuals most harshly reflected upon in them, appear to have perused the papers with very opposite emotions. The former justly considered them as the relics of a conflict in which he had already given as well as taken blows enough not to seek to renew it in his last days. The latter felt it his duty to leave behind him a general replication to all the charges ever made against him, which might defend his memory from the revival of them after his death. At this day it would seem as if a less virulent production would have better answered to protect his fame. Bitter as it was, the perusal of it excited in Mr. Adams no disposition to protract the controversy. The day for such passions had gone by with him. The returning good-will of his countrymen was healing all his wounds. He regretted the publication of his own letters, not from any anxiety for himself, for his career was run, and by the substance of the opinions, already expressed in other forms, on public affairs he was ready to abide, but on account of the spirit which the betrayal of his most private feelings in a season of irritation might renew in others, after his own had subsided into peace. Even with Colonel Pickering, the last as he ever had been the most vindictive of his enemies, he had no further hostilities to wage.

With the public these pamphlets made little impression. The original motive for printing seemed so unworthy, that they excited little response and obtained but a limited currency. They have been rather more referred to in later times as authority for facts on one side or the other of public questions; but for obvious reasons they are entitled to but a moderate share of weight; and for the reason that they never were intended by the writer for the public eye, no part of the letters thus betrayed has been admitted to a place in the present work. Neither have they been relied upon to sustain the narrative in this biography.

Tranquil as Mr. Adams had become in his last days, and happy in his correspondence with the remnant of his old compeers, he was not indifferent to the struggle which was going on for the office of President of the United States. His son was now a mark for the same shafts which had been aimed at him thirty years before, and it was not unnatural that he should await with emotion the favorable or adverse issue that might attend it. From youth to age his son had been a faithful one to him, never varying in his efforts to promote his comfort and his happiness, always supplying abundance of material to gratify his highest pride. To have such a son rewarded by the people of the United States by an elevation to the highest station in their gift, was an aspiration which he could hardly be sanguine enough to indulge, though the conviction that he was fully worthy of it had been long cherished in his mind. It was reserved to him to live to see the fulfilment of his hopes.

By reason of the multiplication of candidates consequent upon the disintegration of the parties, no election of President was made at the usual period for the popular choice. As a consequence, the decision fell, for the second time since the formation of the government, upon the House of Representatives. The only formidable competitor of Mr. Adams was General Jackson; and between them the friends of the minor candidates were compelled to choose. The choice of Mr. Adams was effected by the adherents of Mr. Clay, who controlled the votes of four States. But, at that moment, the supporters of the fourth candidate, Mr. Crawford, were understood to be likewise disposed to prefer him, had circumstances made a decision on their part necessary. As a consequence, John Quincy Adams was declared to be elected. The event brought to his father numbers of congratulatory letters, some specimens of which merit insertion here:—

Washington, 12 February, 1825.

Receive the most cordial congratulations from an old friend of the father and the son, who on this occasion feels much for you, and for him; and who will be happy on the Bunker Hill anniversary to express in person the patriotic and individual sentiments which have been known to you for near half a century.

Most truly and affectionately,
Your old friend,

Lafayette.

The next is from an individual who had been active and efficient in his opposition to the father in former days, and who, as a member of the House of Representatives from Louisiana, had not contributed to this election; but his feeling at the time may be understood from the terms of his congratulation:—

I cannot avoid seizing this occasion of congratulating you on an event which gives you the rare felicity of seeing your son succeed to that high station in which you yourself were once placed by the suffrage of the nation. Although circumstances did not permit me to contribute to this event, I am not the less convinced that his administration will prove honorable to himself and advantageous to his country.

I have the honor, &c.

Edward Livingston.

The next is from one of the sufferers under the old Sedition Law, who as editor of the “Bee,” a newspaper in Connecticut, had been subjected to prosecution for his attacks on Mr. Adams’s administration:—

New York, 4 March, 1825.

Venerable Sir,—

As you may now have some respite from the respectful attentions of your immediate friends on the auspicious result of the recent Presidential election, I take the liberty of asking permission, also, to congratulate you upon an event so honorable to yourself, so creditable and beneficial to our country, and so fortunate for the distinguished subject of the popular choice.

We perceive, Sir, in the election of your son, a signal proof that republics are not forever insensible to personal merits, nor always ungrateful to faithful servants; and that the long wished time has at length arrived, when good sense has triumphed over party spirit, and patriotism prevailed over political hostility.

It is to your glory, Sir, that your son has proved himself worthy of your instructions, your wisdom, and your experience, and become confessedly the fittest and most deserving object to succeed, after time has restored the empire of reason, his father in the highest confidence and trust of a great and free people.

I remain, Sir, (changed with the times, tempora mutantur, since 1798, and notwithstanding my trial of the Sedition Law,) with the most sincere deference, esteem, and veneration, and desirous of contributing my mite to the consolations of a political Simeon,

Your very obed’t humble servant,

Charles Holt.

But the question will naturally arise, how did the individual most deeply interested in this result announce it to his father. The answer may be briefly given. Immediately after the decision in the House of Representatives, Rufus King, then one of the Senators of the State of New York, despatched from the capitol the following note to the son, apprising him of what had taken place:—

Senate Chamber, 9 February, 1825.

My dear Sir,—

We have this moment heard the issue of the election, and I send you and your venerable father my affectionate congratulations upon your choice as President of the United States on the first ballot of the House of Representatives. I include your father, as I consider your election as the best amends for the injustice of which he was made the victim.

To me and mine, the choice has been such as we have cordially hoped for and expected.

Rufus King.

This interesting note from one who had been himself a prominent actor in the times to which he alludes, the recipient immediately inclosed in another of his own, which he sent to his father. It ran thus:—

Washington, 9 February, 1825.

My dear and honored Father,—

The inclosed note from Mr. King will inform you of the event of this day, upon which I can only offer you my congratulations, and ask your blessings and prayers.

Your affectionate and dutiful son,

John Quincy Adams.1

Mr. Adams survived this event little more than a year. He was now at the age of ninety, infirm in body, but yet preserving a remarkable activity of mind. Unable to see clearly enough to read, or to guide a pen to write, he still retained so much interest in present objects as fully to employ the services of members of his immediate family, both in reading to him and in writing after his dictation. What he most disliked was the mere vegetation of extreme age; rather than to fall into which he would cheerfully listen to any book, however trifling, which might at the moment be attracting the fancy of younger generations. The brilliant fictions of Walter Scott, then in the height of their popularity, the sea stories of Cooper, and even the exaggerated, but vigorous poetry of Byron, were all welcome, in the intervals when he could not obtain what he better relished, the reminiscences of contemporaries, or the speculations of more profound writers in England and France. His avidity for new literature was so well understood that he seldom failed of a supply from the good-will of kind friends in the neighboring city. In this way he used to sit day after day, with his arms folded, one hand resting on a cane, exactly as he is represented by the painter, Gilbert Stuart, in the portrait, an engraving from which is to be found facing the title of the tenth volume of the present work. This condition was varied by a single ride daily taken in fine weather, around the vicinity, in the scenery of which he ever delighted, and by conversation with friends and visitors who chanced to call and see him. Such was his habit after exercise in walking had become too fatiguing to his yet heavy frame. Thus ebbed away the remnant of his being, gently and insensibly, as Cicero so happily describes: “Semper enim in his studiis laboribusque viventi non intelligitur quando obrepat senectus. Ita sensim sine sensu ætas senescit. Nec subito frangitur, sed diuturnitate extinguitur.”1

The relatives of Mr. Adams were not, however, unaware that the spring of 1826 opened upon him with enfeebled powers. This became so observable in the month of April as to warn them of what would ere long take place. He was stretching over his ninety-first year. The year was generally viewed with uncommon interest as marking the lapse of the first half century of the national history. The Fourth of July approached, and on every side sprung up a demand for a more than common celebration of that anniversary. The eyes of all involuntarily turned towards the few who yet lingered of the survivors of 1776, and especially to the two individuals most identified with the action which had made the day famous forever. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson yet lived. They were thought to be still able to come forward and crown with their presence the joyous festivities of the jubilee. With what interest would the younger generations view these time-honored servants of freedom, once more brought together in presence of the nation, after twenty-five years of separation, to shake hands for the last time with each other, to take note of the happiness and prosperity they had done so much to promote, and to receive the warmest expressions of gratitude from millions of grateful hearts. Stimulated by these ideas, invitations poured in from all quarters, to secure the desired meeting at some favorite and convenient place. Even the neighbors of Mr. Adams, though they well understood his strength to be unequal to a distant excursion, yet flattered themselves that he would be able at least to honor their comparatively small gathering with his presence. The sanguine hopes thus excited were all destined to be equally disappointed; for the objects of them were even then not wholly insensible to the nature of the far more imperative summons that was awaiting them. As the time drew nearer, the townsmen of Mr. Adams became more and more aware of the progress of his decline. But if they could not have him in person, they still desired to obtain from him some last word or sign of cheer to his friends and neighbors upon the interesting occasion. To this end the individual who had been selected to make the oration, was deputed to pay him a visit, and communicate their wishes. He did so; and he has briefly recorded the result in a diary, which he left behind him. It was on Friday, the 30th of June, at nine o’clock in the morning, that, according to his account, he walked down to see Mr. Adams. His record is as follows: “Spent a few minutes with him in conversation, and took from him a toast, to be presented on the Fourth of July as coming from him. I should have liked a longer one; but as it is, this will be acceptable. ‘I will give you,’ said he,

‘Independence forever!’ ”

He was asked if he would not add any thing to it, and he replied, “not a word.”

The visitor, evidently not one of the laconic school, in objecting to this toast as not long enough, may raise a smile in the present day. Looking back from this distance of time, it would seem as if the addition of another word must have spoiled it. In that brief sentiment Mr. Adams infused the essence of his whole character, and of his life-long labors for his country.

The visitor had not come too early, for the symptoms of debility became more and more alarming every moment. There was no suffering, except from the labor of respiration, but this increased so steadily, that early on the morning of the 4th Mr. Adams’s medical adviser, Dr. Holbrook, predicted his patient would not last beyond sunset. In the mean time the celebrations went on in Quincy, as everywhere else. No more interesting festival has ever occurred. From one end of the country to the other, the names of Adams and Jefferson were coupled, wherever Americans were gathered together, in accents of gratitude and praise. All remnants of party passions were completely drowned in the strong flood of national feeling which overspread the land. At Quincy, the exercises passed and the banquet began. The orator of the day here again records the following: “I presented the toast I obtained from the President, and it was received with unceasing shouts.”

As these shouts were rising to the skies, shouts which might have been caught by his ears, had they been longer sensitive to receive them, the spirit of Mr. Adams was passing away. The sands of a long, a varied, and a memorable life were run out. A noble and a pure heart, the aspirations of which had ever been for the advancement of his country and the welfare of his race, had ceased to beat. The record already quoted adds that “the intelligence of the President’s death was received as the company were beginning to leave the hall.”1 It was not a moment auspicious to further manifestations of noisy joy, although such a death could not convey with it any of the common feelings of sadness. It was a fitting close of a brilliant day. The setting sun spread its rays over even the dispersing vapors only to give a more serene majesty to the golden splendors of the sky. Could it be given to a man to choose the hour and moment of his exit most glorious to his name and most in harmony with his life, none within the wide range of mortal experience can be imagined more to be desired than this.

Yet, strange as it may seem, another incident was coming in to give a second and still more remarkable association with the occasion. It is stated of Mr. Adams that the last words he ever uttered, so far as they could be gathered from his failing articulation, were these: “Thomas Jefferson still survives.” Long as the two had been travelling in parallel lines to the common goal, ever observant of their relative position, such an idea might naturally occur to Mr. Adams, especially at a moment which brought them so freshly together in the minds of all other men. But he was mistaken. The fact was not as he supposed. Thomas Jefferson did not survive. He, too, had reached this anniversary, and he, too, had been summoned, but at an earlier hour, to immortality. Marvellous as it might seem, perhaps exceeding, in respect of its strange coincidences, many a wonder transmitted from a mythological age, yet the event was to be indelibly stamped on the memory of America, that John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, who had inaugurated the independence of the nation on the 4th of July, 1776, exactly fifty years afterwards, years not unmarked with other coincidences quite extraordinary, if this closing one had not thrown them all into the shade, were almost simultaneously translated, in the midst of the acclamations of millions of their race, to the judgment of their God. No greater sublunary blessing could have remained in store for them. For if the opinion ascribed to Solon be just, when asked by Crœsus, the rich Lydian monarch, whether he had ever seen a man more blessed than he, that he named two brothers, Cleobis and Bion, who once put themselves to the wagon and drew their mother to Juno’s temple; and then, after sacrificing and feasting, went to rest and died together in the height of their reputation of filial piety; how much more deserving to be called blessed is the life of these two, who drew their nursing-mother, against strong resistance, to the temple of liberty, and who, after a long period of services and labors devoted to her welfare, went to the same rest under auspices a thousand-fold more sublime. The moral of the story of Cleobis and Bion has, in the incidents which attended both the lives and the deaths of the two great men of America, an application by so much the wider as it expands the beautiful idea of completed duty from the narrow circle of a single household to the ever unfolding area of a nation’s home.

As the news of this singular coincidence spread over the land, it raised everywhere a thrill of emotion such as has never been caused by any other public event. It was not the wail of grief, such as is drawn forth by the sense of privation by the loss of valuable lives. The advanced age of these persons, if nothing else, neutralized that. It was the offspring of a mixture of feelings, the chief of which were surprise at the strangeness of the occurrence, veneration for the men themselves, and delight in the splendor which it would forever reflect upon a page of the national annals. Certainly, the fabulous passing away of the first Roman king, nearly on the same anniversary, in the midst of elementary chaos, does not compare with it in grandeur. Men loved to meet each other and to dwell on the most minute particulars, as they were sedulously laid before the public by the newspapers, and to read the comments raised to unusual eloquence by the tone of the general mind. The first feelings were followed by enthusiastic demonstrations of respect to the memory of the dead. The most distinguished orators and statesmen were summoned to prepare eulogies or memoirs, which were delivered at times set aside for the performance of appropriate services. In this way a large number of orations and addresses were produced, which are not without their value as a permanent contribution to the literature and history of the United States. Among them it is not inappropriate to make particular mention of that delivered by Daniel Webster, on account of the felicity with which he succeeded in weaving into the form of a speech in favor of Independence energetic passages scattered in Mr. Adams’s writings, and in animating the whole with somewhat of the ardor of the individual he sought to personate. So successful has this attempt been regarded by some, that to this day the belief is entertained that the speech is indeed that which Mr. Adams actually made. Other addresses are valuable for authentic particulars and curious anecdotes carefully collected at the time, which have thus been rescued from the oblivion which commonly overwhelms the personal reminiscences of contemporaries. As time goes on, it is by no means unlikely that these various productions will be regarded with ever growing interest, not simply for the facts, more or less correctly given, in which they abound, but also as marking an epoch in American history—the close of its heroic age.

Mr. Adams died, leaving many descendants, some of the fourth generation, among whom he distributed, by his will, the limited estate which he had inherited or acquired. The bulk of this consisted in farming lands round about him, the income of which barely sufficed to maintain him in his later days, even in the simple and frugal manner in which he lived. Indeed, so rapid was the decline in the returns of this sort of property, after the peace of 1814, that he was induced to propose a transfer of his largest and most burdensome estate of Mount Wollaston to his eldest son, in exchange for a fixed annuity for the rest of his life, a proposal which was at once acceded to, and faithfully executed. A portion of his lands, together with his library, he decided, in 1822, to convey to the inhabitants of Quincy, as a token of his good-will towards them. His main object in giving, among other things, the very spot memorable as the birthplace of John Hancock, and the residence, at one time, of Josiah Quincy, Jr., was to make upon it a foundation for a school of the highest class, and a library, forever to remain open for the encouragement of the highest and best aspirations of future generations of the youth in his native place. His purpose remains yet partially unexecuted, the property conveyed not having thus far yielded returns adequate to the fulfilment of the provisions of the grant. But there is no reason to doubt that the time is approaching when they will be sufficient; and when a public edifice will stand upon the spot he designated, which, whilst it shall associate itself with the memory of two other cherished names, will by its fruits remain, a beneficent monument of its founder, long after barren marble and brass shall have fallen into dust.

In Mr. Adams’s vocabulary, the word property meant land. He had no confidence in the permanence of any thing else, hence he left little else behind him.1 The opinion was inherited by his son, John Quincy Adams, who, in consequence, purchased, at the settlement of the estate agreeably to the will, the lands his father left. Fortunately for both, their simple habits created no need of straining the sources of an annual income to minister to the demands of luxury or to the vanities of an extraordinary state. They lived free from pecuniary obligations of every kind to others, a fate which has not always attached to the incumbents of the highest executive posts in America; and they died leaving the same estate greatly increased in nominal value, but little more productive than when they acquired it.

In figure John Adams was not tall, scarcely exceeding middle height, but of a stout, well-knit frame, denoting vigor and long life, yet as he grew old, inclining more and more to corpulence. His head was large and round, with a wide forehead and expanded brows. His eye was mild and benignant, perhaps even humorous, when he was free from emotion, but when excited, it fully expressed the vehemence of the spirit that stirred within. His presence was grave and imposing, on serious occasions, but not unbending. He delighted in social conversation, in which he was sometimes tempted to what he called rhodomontade. But he seldom fatigued those who heard him; for he mixed so much of natural vigor, of fancy, and of illustration with the stores of his acquired knowledge, as to keep alive their interest for a long time. His affections were warm, though not habitually demonstrated, towards his relatives. His anger, when thoroughly roused, was, for a time, extremely violent, but when it subsided, it left no trace of malevolence behind. Nobody could see him intimately without admiring the simplicity and truth which shone in his action and standing in some awe at the power and energy of his will. It was in these moments that he impressed those around him with a sense of his greatness. Even the men employed on his farm were in the habit of citing instances, some of which have been remembered down to the present day. At times his vehemence would become so great as to make him overbearing and unjust. This was most apt to happen in cases of pretension or any kind of wrongdoing. Mr. Adams was very impatient of cant, or of opposition to any of his deeply established convictions. Neither was his indignation at all graduated to the character of the individuals who might happen to excite it. It had little respect of persons, and would hold an illiterate man, or a raw boy to as heavy a responsibility for uttering a crude heresy as the strongest thinker or the most profound scholar. His nature was too susceptible to overtures of sympathy and kindness, for it tempted him to trust more than was prudent in the professions of some who proved unworthy of his confidence. Ambitious in one sense he certainly was; but it was not the mere aspiration for place or power. It was the desire to excel in the minds of men, by the development of high qualities, the love, in short, of an honorable fame, that stirred him to exult in the rewards of popular favor. Yet this passion never tempted him to change a course of action or to suppress a serious conviction; to bend to a prevailing error or to disavow an odious truth.

In two things he was favored above most men who have lived. He was happily married to a woman whose character was singularly fitted to develop every good point of his; a person with a mind capable of comprehending his, with affections strong enough to respond to his sensibility, with a sympathy equal to his highest aspirations, and yet with flexibility sufficient to yield to his stronger will without impairing her own dignity. In this blessed relation he was permitted to continue for fifty-four years, embracing far more than the whole period of his active life; and it is not too much to say that to it he was indebted not merely for the domestic happiness which ran so like a thread of silver through the most troubled currents of his days, but for the steady and unwavering support of all the highest purposes of his career. Upon the several occasions when his action placed him in the most critical and difficult positions, when the popular voice seemed loud in condemning the wisdom or the patriotism of his course, her confidence in his correctness seems never to have wavered for a moment. Not a trace of hesitation or doubt is to be seen in her most confidential communications; on the contrary, her voice in those cases came in to reinforce his determination, and to urge him to persevere. Often she is found to have drawn her conclusions in advance, for several of her letters bear on the outside the testimony of her husband’s admiration of her sagacity. The soothing effect this must have had upon him, when chafed, as his temper not unfrequently was, by the severe friction to which it was exposed in the great struggles of his life, may easily be conceived. An ignoble spirit would have thrown him into depression; a repining and dissatisfied one would have driven him frantic. Hers was lofty and yet cheerful, decided and yet gentle. Whilst she understood the foibles of his character and yielded to them enough to maintain her proper authority, she never swerved from her admiration of his abilities, her reliance upon the profoundness of his judgment, and her pride in the integrity of his life. And if this was her state of feeling, it was met on his part by a devotion which never wavered, and a confidence scarcely limited by a doubt of the possibility of error. A domestic relation like this compensated for all that was painful and afflictive in the vicissitudes of their career; and its continuance to so late a stage in their joint lives left to the survivor little further to wish for in this world beyond the hope of a reunion in the next.

The other extraordinary blessing was the possession of a son who fulfilled in his career all the most sanguine expectations of a father. From his earliest youth John Quincy Adams had given symptoms of uncommon promise, and contrary to what so frequently happens in such cases, every year as it passed over his head only tended the more to confirm the hopes that had been raised at the beginning. A kindly nature received from early opportunities of travel and instruction in foreign lands, not the noxious seeds which so often germinate only to spread corruption, but a generous and noble development as well of the intellect as of the affections. At twenty years of age his father saw in him the outline of a full-grown statesman, a judgment which time served only the more unequivocally to confirm. But it was not merely in the circumstances of his brilliant progress as a public man that his parent had reason to delight. As a son, affectionate, devoted, and pure, his parents never failed to find in him sources of the most unmingled satisfaction. In whatever situation he was placed, and however far removed from them in the performance of his duties, he never forgot the obligations which he owed, to soothe by every effort in his power the hours of their declining years. The voluminous correspondence that was the offspring of this relation, furnishes an affecting proof of the tenderness and the devotion of the son to his parents, and of their implicit trust and grateful pride in their child. And the pleasure was reserved to the father rarely enjoyed since time began, of seeing his son gradually forcing his way by his unaided abilities up the steps of the same ascent which he had trod before him, until he reached the last and highest which his country could supply. The case is unexampled in the history of popular governments. And when this event was fully accomplished, whilst the son was yet in the full enjoyment of his great dignity so honorably acquired, it was accorded to the old patriarch to go to his rest on the day above all other days in the year which was the most imperishably associated with his fame. Such things are not often read of even in the most gorgeous pictures of mortal felicity painted in Eastern story. They go far to relieve the darker shadows which fly over the ordinary paths of life, and to hold out the hope that, even under the present imperfect dispensation, it is not unreasonable to trust that virtue may meet with its just reward.

The mortal remains of John Adams and of his wife repose side by side in sarcophagi of stone, under a temple, in the town in which they resided in life, constructed since his decease, and consecrated to the worship of God. And a modest marble tablet, affixed to one of its walls within, surmounted by a bust of him from the chisel of Horatio Greenough, bears the following inscription prepared for the benefit of later generations, by his eldest son:—

LIBERTATEM, AMICITIAM, FIDEM, RETINEBIS

D. O. M.

Beneath these walls

Are deposited the mortal remains of

JOHN ADAMS.

Son of John and Susanna (Boylston) Adams,

Second President of the United States;

Born October, 1735.

On the Fourth of July, 1776,

He pledged his Life, Fortune, and sacred Honor

To the INDEPENDENCE OF HIS COUNTRY.

On the third of September, 1783,

He affixed his seal to the definitive treaty with Great Britain,

Which acknowledged that independence,

And consummated the redemption of his pledge.

On the Fourth of July, 1826,

He was summoned

To the Independence of Immortality,

And to the JUDGMENT OF HIS GOD.

This House will bear witness to his piety;

This Town, his birthplace, to his munificence;

History to his patriotism;

Posterity to the depth and compass of his mind.

At his side

Sleeps, till the trump shall sound,

ABIGAIL,

His beloved and only wife,

Daughter of William and Elizabeth (Quincy) Smith;

In every relation of life a pattern

Of filial, conjugal, maternal, and social virtue.

Born November , 1744,

Deceased 28 October, 1818,

Aged 74.

Married 25 October, 1764.

During an union of more than half a century

They survived, in harmony of sentiment, principle, and affection

The tempests of civil commotion;

Meeting undaunted and surmounting

The terrors and trials of that Revolution,

Which secured the Freedom of their Country;

Improved the condition of their times;

And brightened the prospects of Futurity

To the race of man upon Earth.

• PILGRIM.
• • From lives thus spent thy earthly duties learn;
  • From fancy’s dreams to active virtue turn:
  • Let Freedom, Friendship, Faith, thy soul engage,
  • And serve, like them, thy country and thy age.

APPENDIX.

Considering the circumstances by which Mr. Adams was surrounded, his early papers are much the most remarkable of his life. Since this volume was completed, a copy of the following letter taken at the time has been received from the hands of the Honorable Josiah Quincy, the nephew of the person to whom it was addressed.

[1 ]The answer to this address is printed in vol. ix. p. 236.

[1 ]See his letter to Theodore Sedgwick, Hamilton’s Works, vol. vi. p. 567. This was just before his death. Allusion is there made to a longer and more full exposition of his views, which may yet be in existence.

[1 ]A. Hamilton to Carroll. Works of A. Hamilton, vol. vi. p. 446.

[2 ]“There are three parties in the United States.” So said Mr. Ames, in 1800, and the observation is worth remembering throughout American history since 1789.

[3 ]“We must keep united, and keep the public with us.”

Fisher Ames’s Works, vol. i. p. 291.

[4 ]Some of the federalists appear to have apprehended a different intention. Ibid.

[1 ]Mr. Ames’s testimony on this point is decisive. “They say also Mr. Adams is too unmanageable. Yet he is chosen Senator to congress in consequence of a caucus compact, that if Colonel Pickering should not be elected on two trials, then the federalists would combine and vote for J. Q. Adams. This happened accordingly.” Works of Fisher Ames, vol. i. p. 321.

[1 ]Mémoires du Roi Joseph, tome 1, p. 68.

[1 ]Washington’s edition of Jefferson’s Writings, vol. ii. p. 107.

[1 ]See the Letters, as printed in this work, vol. viii. pp. 504-511.

[1 ]The answer to this note is printed in the tenth volume, p. 416.

[1 ]It is only during the five years prior to the last that the writer, whose knowledge of the French language brought him into frequent requisition in the manner above described, can speak from strong personal recollection of the subject of his biography. Often did he sit for days together, reading aloud, watching the noble image of a serene old age, or listening with unabated interest to the numerous anecdotes, the reminiscences of the past, and the speculations upon the questions of all times, in which he loved to indulge. Even then the idea occurred of making notes of these conversations for his own improvement. They might have been of great service in preparing the present work. But the author, at that time veryyoung, little imagined that such a task would ever devolve upon him.

[1 ]These extracts from the diary of George Whitney, afterwards pastor of the Unitarian parish at Jamaica Plain, in Roxbury, Massachusetts, and too early cut off in his sphere of usefulness, were furnished to me by the kindness of a surviving brother, the Reverend F. A. Whitney, of Brighton. The facts may be depended upon, which is not always the case with the last hours of distinguished men.

[1 ]The estate of Mr. Adams, including what he conveyed in his lifetime to his children, and to the town, could scarcely have fallen short of a hundred thousand dollars in value at the time of his decease.