John Quincy Adams — 13 - Chapter 3A

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

In September, 1830, Mr. Adams notes in his Diary a suggestion made to him that he might if he wished be elected to the national House of Representatives from the Plymouth district.

The gentleman who threw out this tentative proposition remarked that in his opinion the acceptance of this position by an ex-President "instead of degrading the individual would elevate the representative character."

Mr. Adams replied, that he "had in that respect no scruple whatever.

No person could be degraded by serving the people as a Representative in Congress.

Nor in my opinion would an ex-President of the United States be degraded by serving as a selectman of his town, if elected thereto by the people."

A few weeks later his election was accomplished by a flattering vote, the poll showing for him 1817 votes out of 2565, with only 373 for the next candidate.

He continued thenceforth to represent this district until his death, a period of about sixteen years.

During this time he was occasionally suggested as a candidate for the (p. 226) governorship of the State, but was always reluctant to stand.

The feeling between the Freemasons and the anti-Masons ran very high for several years, and once he was prevailed upon to allow his name to be used by the latter party.

The result was that there was no election by the people; and as he had been very loath to enter the contest in the beginning, he insisted upon withdrawing from before the legislature.

We have now therefore only to pursue his career in the lower house of Congress.

Unfortunately, but of obvious necessity, it is possible to touch only upon the more salient points of this which was really by far the most striking and distinguished portion of his life.

To do more than this would involve an explanation of the politics of the country and the measures before Congress much more elaborate than would be possible in this volume.

It will be necessary, therefore, to confine ourselves to drawing a picture of him in his character as the great combatant of Southern slavery.

In the waging of this mighty conflict we shall see both his mind and his character developing in strength even in these years of his old age, and his traits standing forth in bolder relief than ever before.

In his place on the floor of the House of Representatives he was destined to appear a more impressive figure than in any of the higher positions which he had previously (p. 227) filled.

There he was to do his greatest work and to win a peculiar and distinctive glory which takes him out of the general throng even of famous statesmen, and entitles his name to be remembered with an especial reverence.

Adequately to sketch his achievements, and so to do his memory the honor which it deserves, would require a pen as eloquent as has been wielded by any writer of our language.

I can only attempt a brief and insufficient narrative.

* * * * * In his conscientious way he was faithful and industrious to a rare degree.

He was never absent and seldom late; he bore unflinchingly the burden of severe committee work, and shirked no toil on the plea of age or infirmity.

He attended closely to all the business of the House; carefully formed his opinions on every question; never failed to vote except for cause; and always had a sufficient reason independent of party allegiance to sustain his vote.

Living in the age of oratory, he earned the name of "the old man eloquent."

Yet he was not an orator in the sense in which Webster, Clay, and Calhoun were orators.

He was not a rhetorician; he had neither grace of manner nor a fine presence, neither an imposing delivery, nor even pleasing tones.

On the contrary, he was exceptionally lacking in all these (p. 228) qualities.

He was short, rotund, and bald; about the time when he entered Congress, complaints become frequent in his Diary of weak and inflamed eyes, and soon these organs became so rheumy that the water would trickle down his cheeks; a shaking of the hand grew upon him to such an extent that in time he had to use artificial assistance to steady it for writing; his voice was high, shrill, liable to break, piercing enough to make itself heard, but not agreeable.

This hardly seems the picture of an orator; nor was it to any charm of elocution that he owed his influence, but rather to the fact that men soon learned that what he said was always well worth hearing.

When he entered Congress he had been for much more than a third of a century zealously gathering knowledge in public affairs, and during his career in that body every year swelled the already vast accumulation.

Moreover, listeners were always sure to get a bold and an honest utterance and often pretty keen words from him, and he never spoke to an inattentive audience or to a thin house.

Whether pleased or incensed by what he said, the Representatives at least always listened to it.

He was by nature a hard fighter, and by the circumstances of his course in Congress this quality was stimulated to such a degree that parliamentary history does not show his equal as a gladiator.

(p. 229) His power of invective was extraordinary, and he was untiring and merciless in his use of it.

Theoretically he disapproved of sarcasm, but practically he could not refrain from it.

Men winced and cowered before his milder attacks, became sometimes dumb, sometimes furious with mad rage before his fiercer assaults.

Such struggles evidently gave him pleasure, and there was scarce a back in Congress that did not at one time or another feel the score of his cutting lash; though it was the Southerners and the Northern allies of Southerners whom chiefly he singled out for torture.

He was irritable and quick to wrath; he himself constantly speaks of the infirmity of his temper, and in his many conflicts his principal concern was to keep it in control.

His enemies often referred to it and twitted him with it.

Of alliances he was careless, and friendships he had almost none.

But in the creation of enmities he was terribly successful.

Not so much at first, but increasingly as years went on, a state of ceaseless, vigilant hostility became his normal condition.

From the time when he fairly entered upon the long struggle against slavery, he enjoyed few peaceful days in the House.

But he seemed to thrive upon the warfare, and to be never so well pleased as when he was bandying hot words with slave-holders and the Northern supporters of slave-holders.

When (p. 230) the air of the House was thick with crimination and abuse he seemed to suck in fresh vigor and spirit from the hate-laden atmosphere.

When invective fell around him in showers, he screamed back his retaliation with untiring rapidity and marvellous dexterity of aim.

No odds could appall him.

With his back set firm against a solid moral principle, it was his joy to strike out at a multitude of foes.

They lost their heads as well as their tempers, but in the extremest moments of excitement and anger Mr. Adams's brain seemed to work with machine-like coolness and accuracy.

With flushed face, streaming eyes, animated gesticulation, and cracking voice, he always retained perfect mastery of all his intellectual faculties.

He thus became a terrible antagonist, whom all feared, yet fearing could not refrain from attacking, so bitterly and incessantly did he choose to exert his wonderful power of exasperation.

Few men could throw an opponent into wild blind fury with such speed and certainty as he could; and he does not conceal the malicious gratification which such feats brought to him.

A leader of such fighting capacity, so courageous, with such a magazine of experience and information, and with a character so irreproachable, could have won brilliant victories in public life at the head of (p. 231) even a small band of devoted followers.

But Mr. Adams never had and apparently never wanted followers.

Other prominent public men were brought not only into collision but into comparison with their contemporaries.

But Mr. Adams's individuality was so strong that he can be compared with no one.

It was not an individuality of genius nor to any remarkable extent of mental qualities; but rather an individuality of character.

To this fact is probably to be attributed his peculiar solitariness.

Men touch each other for purposes of attachment through their characters much more than through their minds.

But few men, even in agreeing with Mr. Adams, felt themselves in sympathy with him.

Occasionally conscience, or invincible logic, or even policy and self-interest, might compel one or another politician to stand beside him in debate or in voting; but no current of fellow feeling ever passed between such temporary comrades and him.

It was the cold connection of duty or of business.

The first instinct of nearly every one was opposition towards him; coalition might be forced by circumstances but never came by volition.

For the purpose of winning immediate successes this was of course a most unfortunate condition of relationships.

Yet it had some compensations: it left such influence as Mr. Adams could exert by steadfastness and (p. 232) argument entirely unweakened by suspicion of hidden motives or personal ends.

He had the weight and enjoyed the respect which a sincerity beyond distrust must always command in the long run.

Of this we shall see some striking instances.

One important limitation, however, belongs to this statement of solitariness.

It was confined to his position in Congress.

Outside of the city of Washington great numbers of the people, especially in New England, lent him a hearty support and regarded him with friendship and admiration.

These men had strong convictions and deep feelings, and their adherence counted for much.

Moreover, their numbers steadily increased, and Mr. Adams saw that he was the leader in a cause which engaged the sound sense and the best feeling of the intelligent people of the country, and which was steadily gaining ground.

Without such encouragement it is doubtful whether even his persistence would have held out through so long and extreme a trial.

The sense of human fellowship was needful to him; he could go without it in Congress, but he could not have gone without it altogether.

Mr. Adams took his seat in the House as a member of the twenty-second Congress in December, 1831. He had been elected by the National Republican, afterward better known as the Whig party, but one of (p. 233) his first acts was to declare that he would be bound by no partisan connection, but would in every matter act independently.

This course he regarded as a "duty imposed upon him by his peculiar position," in that he "had spent the greatest portion of his life in the service of the whole nation and had been honored with their highest trust."

Many persons had predicted that he would find himself subjected to embarrassments and perhaps to humiliations by reason of his apparent descent in the scale of political dignities.

He notes, however, that he encountered no annoyance on this score, but on the contrary he was rather treated with an especial respect.

He was made chairman of the Committee on Manufactures, a laborious as well as an important and honorable position at all times, and especially so at this juncture when the rebellious mutterings of South Carolina against the protective tariff were already to be heard rolling and swelling like portentous thunder from the fiery Southern regions.

He would have preferred to exchange this post for a place upon the Committee on Foreign Affairs, for whose business he felt more fitted.

But he was told that in the impending crisis his ability, authority, and prestige were all likely to be needed in the place allotted to him to aid in the salvation of the country.

The nullification chapter of our history cannot here be entered (p. 234) upon at length, and Mr. Adams's connection with it must be very shortly stated.

At the first meeting of his committee he remarks: "A reduction of the duties upon many of the articles in the tariff was understood by all to be the object to be effected;" and a little later he said that he should be disposed to give such aid as he could to any plan for this reduction which the Treasury Department should devise.

"He should certainly not consent to sacrifice the manufacturing interest," he said, "but something of concession would be due from that interest to appease the discontents of the South."

He was in a reasonable frame of mind; but unfortunately other people were rapidly ceasing to be reasonable.

When Jackson's message of December 4, 1832, was promulgated, showing a disposition to do for South Carolina pretty much all that she demanded, Mr. Adams was bitterly indignant.

The message, he said, "recommends a total change in the policy of the Union with reference to the Bank, manufactures, internal improvement, and the public lands.

It goes to dissolve the Union into its original elements, and is in substance a complete surrender to the nullifiers of South Carolina."

When, somewhat later on, the President lost his temper and flamed out in his famous proclamation to meet the (p. 235) nullification ordinance, he spoke in tones more pleasing to Mr. Adams.

But the ultimate compromise which disposed of the temporary dissension without permanently settling the fundamental question of the constitutional right of nullification was extremely distasteful to him.

He was utterly opposed to the concessions which were made while South Carolina still remained contumacious.

He was for compelling her to retire altogether from her rebellious position and to repeal her unconstitutional enactments wholly and unconditionally, before one jot should be abated from the obnoxious duties.

When the bill for the modification of the tariff was under debate, he moved to strike out all but the enacting clause, and supported his motion in a long speech, insisting that no tariff ought to pass until it was known "whether there was any measure by which a State could defeat the laws of the Union."

In a minority report from his own committee he strongly censured the policy of the Administration.

He was for meeting, fighting out, and determining at this crisis the whole doctrine of state rights and secession.

"One particle of compromise," he said, with what truth events have since shown clearly enough, would "directly lead to the final and irretrievable dissolution of the Union."

In his usual strong and thorough-going fashion he was for (p. 236) persisting in the vigorous and spirited measures, the mere brief declaration of which, though so quickly receded from, won for Jackson a measure of credit greater than he deserved.

Jackson was thrown into a great rage by the threats of South Carolina, and replied to them with the same prompt wrath with which he had sometimes resented insults from individuals.

But in his cool inner mind he was in sympathy with the demands which that State preferred, and though undoubtedly he would have fought her, had the dispute been forced to that pass, yet he was quite willing to make concessions, which were in fact in consonance with his own views as well as with hers, in order to avoid that sad conclusion.

He was satisfied to have the instant emergency pass over in a manner rendered superficially creditable to himself by his outburst of temper, under cover of which he sacrificed the substantial matter of principle without a qualm.

He shook his fist and shouted defiance in the face of the nullifiers, while Mr. Clay smuggled a comfortable concession into their pockets.

Jackson, notwithstanding his belligerent attitude, did all he could to help Clay and was well pleased with the result.

Mr. Adams was not.

He watched the disingenuous game with disgust.

It is certain that if he had still been in the White House, the matter would have had a (p. 237) very different ending, bloodier, it may be, and more painful, but much more conclusive.

For the most part Mr. Adams found himself in opposition to President Jackson's Administration.

This was not attributable to any sense of personal hostility towards a successful rival, but to an inevitable antipathy towards the measures, methods, and ways adopted by the General so unfortunately transferred to civil life.

Few intelligent persons, and none having the statesman habit of mind, befriended the reckless, violent, eminently unstatesmanlike President.

His ultimate weakness in the nullification matter, his opposition to internal improvements, his policy of sacrificing the public lands to individual speculators, his warfare against the Bank of the United States conducted by methods the most unjustifiable, the transaction of the removal of the deposits so disreputable and injurious in all its details, the importation of Mrs. Eaton's visiting-list into the politics and government of the country, the dismissal of the oldest and best public servants as a part of the nefarious system of using public offices as rewards for political aid and personal adherence, the formation from base ingredients of the ignoble "Kitchen Cabinet,"--all these doings, together with much more of the like (p. 238) sort, constituted a career which could only seem blundering, undignified, and dishonorable in the eyes of a man like Mr. Adams, who regarded statesmanship with the reverence due to the noblest of human callings.

Right as Mr. Adams was generally in his opposition to Jackson, yet once he deserves credit for the contrary course.

This was in the matter of our relations with France.

The treaty of 1831 secured to this country an indemnity of ,000,000, which, however, it had never been possible to collect.

This procrastination raised Jackson's ever ready ire, and casting to the winds any further dunning, he resolved either to have the money or to fight for it.

He sent a message to Congress, recommending that if France should not promptly settle the account, letters of marque and reprisal against her commerce should be issued.

He ordered Edward Livingston, minister at Paris, to demand his passports and cross over to London.

These eminently proper and ultimately effectual measures alarmed the large party of the timid;

and the General found himself in danger of extensive desertions even on the part of his usual supporters.

But as once before in a season of his dire extremity his courage and vigor had brought the potent aid of Mr. Adams to his side, so now again he came under a heavy debt of (p. 239) gratitude to the same champion.

Mr. Adams stood by him with generous gallantry, and by a telling speech in the House probably saved him from serious humiliation and even disaster.

The President's style of dealing had roused Mr. Adams's spirit, and he spoke with a fire and vehemence which accomplished the unusual feat of changing the predisposed minds of men too familiar with speech-making to be often much influenced by it in the practical matter of voting.

He thought at the time that the success of this speech, brilliant as it appeared, was not unlikely to result in his political ruin.

Jackson would befriend and reward his thorough-going partisans at any cost to his own conscience or the public welfare; but the exceptional aid, tendered not from a sense of personal fealty to himself, but simply from the motive of aiding the right cause happening in the especial instance to have been espoused by him, never won from him any token of regard.

In November, 1837, Mr. Adams, speaking of his personal relations with the President, said:-- "Though I had served him more than any other living man ever did, and though I supported his Administration at the hazard of my own political destruction, and effected for him at a moment when his own friends were deserting him what no other member of Congress ever accomplished for him--an unanimous vote of the House of (p. 240) Representatives to support him in his quarrel with France; though I supported him in other very critical periods of his Administration, my return from him was insult, indignity, and slander."

Antipathy had at last become the definitive condition of these two men--antipathy both political and personal.

At one time a singular effort to reconcile them--probably though not certainly undertaken with the knowledge of Jackson--was made by Richard M. Johnson.

This occurred shortly before the inauguration of the war conducted by the President against the Bank of the United States; and judging by the rest of Jackson's behavior at this period, there was probably at least as much of calculation in his motives, if in fact he was cognizant of Johnson's approaches, as there was of any real desire to reëstablish the bygone relation of honorable friendship.

To the advances thus made Mr. Adams replied a little coldly, not quite repellently, that Jackson, having been responsible for the suspension of personal intercourse, must now be undisguisedly the active party in renewing it.

At the same time he professed himself "willing to receive in a spirit of conciliation any advance which in that spirit General Jackson might make."

But nothing came of this intrinsically hopeless attempt.

On the contrary the two drew rapidly and more widely apart, and (p. 241) entertained concerning each other opinions which grew steadily more unfavorable, and upon Adams's part more contemptuous, as time went on.

Fifteen months later General Jackson made his visit to Boston, and it was proposed that Harvard College should confer upon him the degree of Doctor of Laws.

The absurdity of the act, considered simply in itself, was admitted by all.

But the argument in its favor was based upon the established usage of the College as towards all other Presidents, so that its omission in this case might seem a personal slight.

Mr. Adams, being at the time a member of the Board of Overseers, strongly opposed the proposition, but of course in vain.

All that he could do was, for his own individual part, to refuse to be present at the conferring of the degree, giving as the minor reason for his absence, that he could hold no friendly intercourse with the President, but for the major reason that "independent of that, as myself an affectionate child of our Alma Mater, I would not be present to witness her disgrace in conferring her highest literary honors upon a barbarian who could not write a sentence of grammar and hardly could spell his own name."

"A Doctorate of Laws," he said, "for which an apology was necessary, was a cheap honor and ...

a sycophantic compliment."

After the deed (p. 242) was done, he used to amuse himself by speaking of "Doctor Andrew Jackson."

This same eastern tour of Jackson's called forth many other expressions of bitter sarcasm from Adams.

The President was ill and unable to carry out the programme of entertainment and exhibition prepared for him: whereupon Mr. Adams remarks:-- "I believe much of his debility is politic....

He is one of our tribe of great men who turn disease to commodity, like John Randolph, who for forty years was always dying.

Jackson, ever since he became a mark of public attention, has been doing the same thing....

He is now alternately giving out his chronic diarrhoea and making Warren bleed him for a pleurisy, and posting to Cambridge for a doctorate of laws; mounting the monument of Bunker's Hill to hear a fulsome address and receive two cannon balls from Edward Everett," etc. "Four fifths of his sickness is trickery, and the other fifth mere fatigue."