John Quincy Adams — 12 - Chapter 2F

It could hardly have added to the meagre comforts of such a life to be threatened with assassination.

Yet this danger was thrust upon Mr. Adams's attention upon one occasion at least under circumstances which gave to it a very serious aspect.

The tranquillity with which he went through the affair showed that his physical courage was as imperturbable as his moral.

The risk was protracted throughout a considerable (p. 208) period, but he never let it disturb the even tenor of his daily behavior or warp his actions in the slightest degree, save only that when he was twice or thrice brought face to face with the intending assassin he treated the fellow with somewhat more curt brusqueness than was his wont.

But when the danger was over he bore his would-be murderer no malice, and long afterward actually did him a kindly service.

* * * * * Few men in public life have been subjected to trials of temper so severe as vexed Mr. Adams during his Presidential term.

To play an intensely exciting game strictly in accordance with rigid moral rules of the player's own arbitrary enforcement, and which are utterly repudiated by a less scrupulous antagonist, can hardly tend to promote contentment and amiability.

Neither are slanders and falsehoods mollifying applications to a statesman inspired with an upright and noble ambition.

Mr. Adams bore such assaults, ranging from the charge of having corruptly bought the Presidency down to that of being a Freemason with such grim stoicism as he could command.

The disappearance and probable assassination of Morgan at this time led to a strong feeling throughout the country against Freemasonry, and (p. 209) the Jackson men at once proclaimed abroad that Adams was one of the brotherhood, and offered, if he should deny it, to produce the records of the lodge to which he belonged.

The allegation was false; he was not a Mason, and his friends urged him to say so publicly; but he replied bitterly that his denial would probably at once be met by a complete set of forged records of a fictitious lodge, and the people would not know whom to believe.

Next he was said to have bargained for the support of Daniel Webster, by promising to distribute offices to Federalists.

This accusation was a cruel perversion of his very virtues; for its only foundation lay in the fact that in the venturesome but honorable attempt to be President of a nation rather than of a party, he had in some instances given offices to old Federalists, certainly with no hope or possibility of reconciling to himself the almost useless wreck of that now powerless and shrunken party, one of whose liveliest traditions was hatred of him.

Stories were even set afloat that some of his accounts, since he had been in the public service, were incorrect.

But the most extraordinary and ridiculous tale of all was that during his residence in Russia he had prostituted a beautiful American girl, whom he then had in his service, in order "to seduce the passions of the Emperor Alexander (p. 210) and sway him to political purposes."

These and other like provocations were not only discouraging but very irritating, and Mr. Adams was not of that careless disposition which is little affected by unjust accusation.

On the contrary he was greatly incensed by such treatment, and though he made the most stern and persistent effort to endure an inevitable trial with a patience born of philosophy, since indifference was not at his command, yet he could not refrain from the expression of his sentiments in his secret communings.

Occasionally he allowed his wrath to explode with harmless violence between the covers of the Diary, and doubtless he found relief while he discharged his fierce diatribes on these private sheets.

His vituperative power was great, and some specimens of it may not come amiss in a sketch of the man.

The senators who did not call upon him he regarded as of "rancorous spirit."

He spoke of the falsehoods and misrepresentations which "the skunks of party slander have been ...

squirting round the House of Representatives, thence to issue and perfume the atmosphere of the Union."

His most intense hatred and vehement denunciation were reserved for John Randolph, whom he thought an abomination too odious and despicable to be described in words, "the image and superscription of a great man stamped (p. 211) upon base metal."

"The besotted violence" of Randolph, he said, has deprived him of "all right to personal civility from me;" and certainly this excommunication from courtesy was made complete and effective.

He speaks again of the same victim as a "frequenter of gin lane and beer alley."

He indignantly charges that Calhoun, as Speaker, permitted Randolph "in speeches of ten hours long to drink himself drunk with bottled porter, and in raving balderdash of the meridian of Wapping to revile the absent and the present, the living and the dead."

This, he says, was "tolerated by Calhoun, because Randolph's ribaldry was all pointed against the Administration, especially against Mr. Clay and me."

Again he writes of Randolph: "The rancor of this man's soul against me is that which sustains his life: the agony of [his] envy and hatred of me, and the hope of effecting my downfall, are [his] chief remaining sources of vitality.

The issue of the Presidential election will kill [him] by the gratification of [his] revenge."

So it was also with W. B.

Giles, of Virginia.

But Giles's abuse was easier to bear since it had been poured in torrents upon every reputable man, from Washington downwards, who had been prominent in public affairs since the adoption of the Constitution, so that (p. 212) Giles's memory is now preserved from oblivion solely by the connection which he established with the great and honorable statesmen of the Republic by a course of ceaseless attacks upon them.

Some of the foregoing expressions of Mr. Adams may be open to objection on the score of good taste; but the provocation was extreme; public retaliation he would not practise, and wrath must sometimes burst forth in language which was not so unusual in that day as it is at present.

It is an unquestionable fact, of which the credit to Mr. Adams can hardly be exaggerated, that he never in any single instance found an excuse for an unworthy act on his own part in the fact that competitors or adversaries were resorting to such expedients.

* * * * * The election of 1828 gave 178 votes for Jackson and only 83 for Adams.

Calhoun was continued as Vice-President by 171 votes, showing plainly enough that even yet there were not two political parties, in any customary or proper sense of the phrase.

The victory of Jackson had been foreseen by every one.

What had been so generally anticipated could not take Mr. Adams by surprise; yet it was idle for him to seek to conceal his disappointment that an Administration which he (p. 213) had conducted with his best ability and with thorough conscientiousness should not have seemed to the people worthy of continuance for another term.

Little suspecting what the future had in store for him, he felt that his public career had culminated and probably had closed forever, and that if it had not closed exactly in disgrace, yet at least it could not be regarded as ending gloriously or even satisfactorily.

But he summoned all his philosophy and fortitude to his aid; he fell back upon his clear conscience and comported himself with dignity, showing all reasonable courtesy to his successor and only perhaps seeming a little deficient in filial piety in presenting so striking a contrast to the shameful conduct of his father in a like crucial hour.

His retirement brought to a close a list of Presidents who deserved to be called statesmen in the highest sense of that term, honorable men, pure patriots, and, with perhaps one exception, all of the first order of ability in public affairs.

It is necessary to come far down towards this day before a worthy successor of those great men is met with in the list.

Dr. Von Holst, by far the ablest writer who has yet dealt with American history, says: "In the person of Adams the last statesman who was to occupy it for a long time left the White House."

General Jackson, the candidate of the populace and the (p. 214) representative hero of the ignorant masses, instituted a new system of administering the Government in which personal interests became the most important element, and that organization and strategy were developed which have since become known and infamous under the name of the "political machine."

While Mr. Adams bore his defeat like a philosopher, he felt secretly very depressed and unhappy by reason of it.

He speaks of it as leaving his "character and reputation a wreck," and says that the "sun of his political life sets in the deepest gloom."

On January 1, 1829, he writes: "The year begins in gloom.

My wife had a sleepless and painful night.

The dawn was overcast, and as I began to write my shaded lamp went out, self-extinguished.

It was only for lack of oil, and the notice of so trivial an incident may serve but to mark the present temper of my mind."

It is painful to behold a man of his vigor, activity, and courage thus prostrated.

Again he writes:-- "Three days more and I shall be restored to private life, and left to an old age of retirement though certainly not of repose.

I go into it with a combination of parties and public men against my character and reputation, such as I believe never before was exhibited against any man since this Union existed.

Posterity will scarcely believe it, but so it is, that this combination against me has been formed and is now exulting in triumph (p. 215) over me, for the devotion of my life and of all the faculties of my soul to the Union, and to the improvement, physical, moral, and intellectual of my country."

Melancholy words these to be written by an old man who had worked so hard and been so honest, and whose ambition had been of the kind that ennobles him who feels it!

Could the curtain of the future have been lifted but for a moment what relief would the glimpse have brought to his crushed and wearied spirit.

But though coming events may cast shadows before them, they far less often send bright rays in advance.

So he now resolved "to go into the deepest retirement and withdraw from all connection with public affairs."

Yet it was with regret that he foretold this fate, and he looked forward with solicitude to the effect which such a mode of life, newly entered upon at his age, would have upon his mind and character.

He hopes rather than dares to predict that he will be provided "with useful and profitable occupation, engaging so much of his thoughts and feelings that his mind may not be left to corrode itself."

His return to Quincy held out the less promise of comfort, because the old chasm between him and the Federalist gentlemen of Boston had been lately reopened.

Certain malicious newspaper paragraphs, born of (p. 216) the mischievous spirit of the wretched Giles, had recently set afloat some stories designed seriously to injure Mr. Adams.

These were, substantially, that in 1808-9 he had been convinced that some among the leaders of the Federalist party in New England were entertaining a project for separation from the Union, that he had feared that this event would be promoted by the embargo, that he foresaw that the seceding portion would inevitably be compelled into some sort of alliance with Great Britain, that he suspected negotiations to this end to have been already set on foot, that he thereupon gave privately some more or less distinct intimations of these notions of his to sundry prominent Republicans, and even to President Jefferson.

These tales, much distorted from the truth and exaggerated as usual, led to the publication of an open letter, in November, 1828, addressed by thirteen Federalists of note in Massachusetts to John Quincy Adams, demanding names and specifications and the production of evidence.

Mr. Adams replied briefly, with dignity, and, considering the circumstances, with good temper, stating fairly the substantial import of what he had really said, declaring that he had never mentioned names, and refusing, for good reasons given, either to do so now (p. 217) or to publish the grounds of such opinions as he had entertained.

It was sufficiently clear that he had said nothing secretly which he had reason to regret; and that if he sought to shun the discussion opened by his adversaries, he was influenced by wise forbearance, and not at all by any fear of the consequences to himself.

A dispassionate observer could have seen that behind this moderate, rather deprecatory letter there was an abundant reserve of controversial material held for the moment in check.

But his adversaries were not dispassionate;

on the contrary they were greatly excited and were honestly convinced of the perfect goodness of their cause.

They were men of the highest character in public and private life, deservedly of the best repute in the community, of unimpeachable integrity in motives and dealings, influential and respected, men whom it was impossible in New England to treat with neglect or indifference.

For this reason it was only the harder to remain silent beneath their published reproach when a refutation was possible.

Hating Mr. Adams with an animosity not diminished by the lapse of years since his defection from their party, strong in a consciousness of their own standing before their fellow citizens, the thirteen notables responded with much acrimony to Mr. Adams's unsatisfactory letter.

Thus persistently challenged and (p. 218) assailed, at a time when his recent crushing political defeat made an attack upon him seem a little ungenerous, Mr. Adams at last went into the fight in earnest.

He had the good fortune to be thoroughly right, and also to have sufficient evidence to prove and justify at least as much as he had ever said.

All this evidence he brought together in a vindicatory pamphlet, which, however, by the time he had completed it he decided not to publish.

But fortunately he did not destroy it, and his grandson, in the exercise of a wise discretion, has lately given it to the world.

His foes never knew how deeply they were indebted to the self-restraint which induced him to keep this formidable missive harmless in his desk.

Full of deep feeling, yet free from ebullitions of temper, clear in statement, concise in style, conclusive in facts, unanswerable in argument, unrelentingly severe in dealing with opponents, it is as fine a specimen of political controversy as exists in the language.

Its historical value cannot be exaggerated, but apart from this as a mere literary production it is admirable.

Happy were the thirteen that they one and all went down to their graves complaisantly thinking that they had had the last word in the quarrel, little suspecting how great was their obligation to Mr. Adams for having granted them that privilege.

One would think (p. 219) that they might have writhed beneath their moss-grown headstones on the day when his last word at length found public utterance, albeit that the controversy had then become one of the dusty tales of history.

[8] [Footnote 8: It is with great reluctance that these comments are made, since some persons may think that they come with ill grace from one whose grandfather was one of the thirteen and was supposed to have drafted one or both of their letters.

But in spite of the prejudice naturally growing out of this fact, a thorough study of the whole subject has convinced me that Mr. Adams was unquestionably and completely right, and I have no escape from saying so.

His adversaries had the excuse of honesty in political error--an excuse which the greatest and wisest men must often fall back upon in times of hot party warfare.

] But this task of writing a demolishing pamphlet against the prominent gentlemen of the neighborhood to which he was about to return for his declining years could hardly have been a grateful task.

The passage from political disaster to social enmities could not but be painful;

and Mr. Adams was probably never more unhappy than at this period of his life.

The reward which virtue was tendering to him seemed unmixed bitterness.

* * * * * Thus at the age of sixty-two years, Mr. Adams found himself that melancholy product of the American governmental system--an ex-President.

At this stage it would seem that the fruit ought to drop from the (p. 220) bough, no further process of development being reasonably probable for it.

Yet Mr. Adams had by no means reached this measure of ripeness; he still enjoyed abundant vigor of mind and body, and to lapse into dignified decrepitude was not agreeable, indeed was hardly possible for him.

The prospect gave him profound anxiety; he dreaded idleness, apathy, and decay with a keen terror which perhaps constituted a sufficient guaranty against them.

Yet what could he do?

It would be absurd for him now to furbish up the rusty weapons of the law and enter again upon the tedious labor of collecting a clientage.

His property was barely sufficient to enable him to live respectably, even according to the simple standard of the time, and could open to him no occupation in the way of gratifying unremunerative tastes.

In March, 1828, he had been advised to use five thousand dollars in a way to promote his reëlection.

He refused at once, upon principle; but further set forth "candidly, the state of his affairs:"-- "All my real estate in Quincy and Boston is mortgaged for the payment of my debts; the income of my whole private estate is less than ,000 a year, and I am paying at least two thousand of that for interest on my debt.

Finally, upon going out of office in one year from this time, destitute of all means of (p. 221) acquiring property, it will only be by the sacrifice of that which I now possess that I shall be able to support my family."

At first he plunged desperately into the Latin classics.

He had a strong taste for such reading, and he made a firm resolve to compel this taste now to stand him in good stead in his hour of need.

He courageously demanded solace from a pursuit which had yielded him pleasure enough in hours of relaxation, but which was altogether inadequate to fill the huge vacuum now suddenly created in his time and thoughts.

There is much pathos in this spectacle of the old man setting himself with ever so feeble a weapon, yet with stern determination, to conquer the cruelty of circumstances.

But he knew, of course, that the Roman authors could only help him for a time, by way of distraction, in carrying him through a transition period.

He soon set more cheerfully at work upon a memoir of his father, and had also plans for writing a history of the United States.

Literature had always possessed strong charms for him, and he had cultivated it after his usual studious and conscientious fashion.

But his style was too often prolix, sententious, and turgid--faults which marked nearly all the writing done in this country in those days.

The world has (p. 222) probably not lost much by reason of the non-completion of the contemplated volumes.

He could have made no other contribution to the history of the country at all approaching in value or interest to the Diary, of which a most important part was still to be written.

For a brief time just now this loses its historic character, but makes up for the loss by depicting admirably some traits in the mental constitution of the diarist.

Tales of enchantment, he says, pleased his boyhood, but "the humors of Falstaff hardly affected me at all.

Bardolph and Pistol and Nym were personages quite unintelligible to me; and the lesson of Sir Hugh Evans to the boy Williams was quite too serious an affair."

In truth, no man can ever have been more utterly void of a sense of humor or an appreciation of wit than was Mr. Adams.

Not a single instance of an approach to either is to be found throughout the twelve volumes of his Diary.

Not even in the simple form of the "good story" could he find pleasure, and subtler delicacies were wasted on his well-regulated mind as dainty French dishes would be on the wholesome palate of a day-laborer.

The books which bore the stamp of well-established approval, the acknowledged classics of the English, Latin, and French languages he read with a mingled sense of duty and of pleasure, and evidently with cultivated appreciation, (p. 223) though whether he would have made an original discovery of their merits may be doubted.

Occasionally he failed to admire even those volumes which deserved admiration, and then with characteristic honesty he admitted the fact.

He tried Paradise Lost ten times before he could get through with it, and was nearly thirty years old when he first succeeded in reading it to the end.

Thereafter he became very fond of it, but plainly by an acquired taste.

He tried smoking and Milton, he says, at the same time, in the hope of discovering the "recondite charm" in them which so pleased his father.

He was more easily successful with the tobacco than with the poetry.

Many another has had the like experience, but the confession is not always so frankly forthcoming.

Fate, however, had in store for Mr. Adams labors to which he was better suited than those of literature, and tasks to be performed which the nation could ill afford to exchange for an apotheosis of our second President, or even for a respectable but probably not very readable history.

The most brilliant and glorious years of his career were yet to be lived.

He was to earn in his old age a noble fame and distinction far transcending any achievement of his youth and middle age, and was to attain the highest pinnacle of his fame after he (p. 224) had left the greatest office of the Government, and during a period for which presumably nothing better had been allotted than that he should tranquilly await the summons of death.

It is a striking circumstance that the fullness of greatness for one who had been Senator, Minister to England, Secretary of State, and President, remained to be won in the comparatively humble position of a Representative in Congress.

CHAPTER III (p. 225)