John Quincy Adams — 04 - Chapter 1D

[Footnote 1: Mr. John Lowell.

] His spirit was soon to be demonstrated.

Congress was convened in extra session on October 26, 1807. The administration brought forward the bill establishing an embargo.

The measure may now be pronounced a blunder, and its proposal created a howl of rage and anguish from the commercial states, who saw in it only their utter ruin.

Already a strong sectional feeling had been developed between the planters (p. 053) of the South and the merchants of the North and East, and the latter now united in the cry that their quarter was to be ruined by the ignorant policy of this Virginian President.

Terrible then was their wrath, when they actually saw a Massachusetts Senator boldly give his vote for what they deemed the most odious and wicked bill which had ever been presented in the halls of Congress.

Nay, more, they learned with horror that Mr. Adams had even been a member of the committee which reported the bill, and that he had joined in the report.

Henceforth the Federal party was to be like a hive of enraged hornets about the devoted renegade.

No abuse which they could heap upon him seemed nearly adequate to the occasion.

They despised him; they loathed him; they said and believed that he was false, selfish, designing, a traitor, an apostate, that he had run away from a failing cause, that he had sold himself.

The language of contumely was exhausted in vain efforts to describe his baseness.

Not even yet has the echo of the hard names which he was called quite died away in the land; and there are still families in New England with whom his dishonest tergiversation remains a traditional belief.

Never was any man more unjustly aspersed.

It is impossible to view all the evidence dispassionately without not only acquitting Mr. (p. 054) Adams but greatly admiring his courage, his constancy, his independence.

Whether the embargo was a wise and efficient or a futile and useless measure has little to do with the question of his conduct.

The emergency called for strong action.

The Federalists suggested only a temporizing submission, or that we should avert the terrible wrath of England by crawling beneath her lashes into political and commercial servitude.

Mr. Jefferson thought the embargo would do, that it would aid him in his negotiations with England sufficiently to enable him to bring her to terms; he had before thought the same of the Non-importation Act.

Mr. Adams felt, properly enough, concerning both these schemes, that they were insufficient and in many respects objectionable; but that to give the administration hearty support in the most vigorous measures which it was willing to undertake, was better than to aid an opposition utterly nerveless and servile and altogether devoid of so much as the desire for efficient action.

It was no time to stay with the party of weakness; it was right to strengthen rather than to hamper a man so pacific and spiritless as Mr. Jefferson; to show a readiness to forward even his imperfect expedients; to display a united and indignant, if not quite a hostile front to Great Britain, rather (p. 055) than to exhibit a tame and friendly feeling towards her.

It was for these reasons, which had already controlled his action concerning the non-importation bill, that Mr. Adams joined in reporting the embargo bill and voted for it.

He never pretended that he himself had any especial fancy for either of these measures, or that he regarded them as the best that could be devised under the circumstances.

On the contrary, he hoped that the passage of the embargo would allow of the repeal of its predecessor.

That he expected some good from it, and that it did some little good, cannot be denied.

It did save a great deal of American property, both shipping and merchandise, from seizure and condemnation; and if it cut off the income it at least saved much of the principal of our merchants.

If only the bill had been promptly repealed so soon as this protective purpose had been achieved, without awaiting further and altogether impossible benefits to accrue from it as an offensive measure, it might perhaps have left a better memory behind it.

Unfortunately no one can deny that it was continued much too long.

Mr. Adams saw this error and dreaded the consequences.

After he had left Congress and had gone back to private life, he exerted all the influence which he had with the Republican members of Congress to secure its repeal and the substitution of the Non-intercourse (p. 056) Act, an exchange which was in time accomplished, though much too tardily.

Nay, much more than this, Mr. Adams stands forth almost alone as the advocate of threatening if not of actually belligerent measures.

He expressed his belief that "our internal resources [were] competent to the establishment and maintenance of a naval force, public and private, if not fully adequate to the protection and defence of our commerce, at least sufficient to induce a retreat from hostilities, and to deter from a renewal of them by either of the warring parties;"

and he insisted that "a system to that effect might be formed, ultimately far more economical, and certainly more energetic," than the embargo.

But his "resolution met no encouragement."

He found that it was the embargo or nothing, and he thought the embargo was a little better than nothing, as probably it was.

All the arguments which Mr. Adams advanced were far from satisfying his constituents in those days of wild political excitement, and they quickly found the means of intimating their unappeasable displeasure in a way certainly not open to misapprehension.

Mr. Adams's term of service in the Senate was to expire on March 3, 1809. On June 2 and 3, 1808, anticipating by many months the customary time for filling (p. 057) the coming vacancy, the legislature of Massachusetts proceeded to choose James Lloyd, junior, his successor.

The votes were, in the Senate 21 for Mr. Lloyd, 17 for Mr. Adams; in the House 248 for Mr. Lloyd, and 213 for Mr. Adams.

A more insulting method of administering a rebuke could not have been devised.

At the same time, in further expression of disapprobation, resolutions strongly condemnatory of the embargo were passed.

Mr. Adams was not the man to stay where he was not wanted, and on June 8 he sent in his letter of resignation.

On the next day Mr. Lloyd was chosen to serve for the balance of his term.

Thus John Quincy Adams changed sides.

The son of John Adams lost the senatorship for persistently supporting the administration of Thomas Jefferson.

It was indeed a singular spectacle!

In 1803 he had been sent to the Senate of the United States by Federalists as a Federalist;

in 1808 he had abjured them and they had repudiated him; in 1809, as we are soon to see, he received a foreign appointment from the Republican President Madison, and was confirmed by a Republican Senate.

Many of Mr. Adams's acts, many of his traits, have been harshly criticised, but for no act that he ever did or ever was charged with doing has he been so harshly assailed as for this (p. 058) journey from one camp to the other.

The gentlemen of wealth, position, and influence in Eastern Massachusetts, almost to a man, turned against him with virulence; many of their descendants still cherish the ancestral prejudice; and it may yet be a long while before the last mutterings of this deep-rooted antipathy die away.

But that they will die away in time cannot be doubted.

Praise will succeed to blame.

Truth must prevail in a case where such abundant evidence is accessible; and the truth is that Mr. Adams's conduct was not ignoble, mean, and traitorous, but honorable, courageous, and disinterested.

Those who singled him out for assault, though deaf to his arguments, might even then have reflected that within a few years a large proportion of the whole nation had changed in their opinions as he had now at last changed in his, so that the party which under Washington hardly had an existence and under John Adams was not, until the last moment, seriously feared, now showed an enormous majority throughout the whole country.

Even in Massachusetts, the intrenched camp of the Federalists, one half of the population were now Republicans.

But that change of political sentiment which in the individual voter is often admired as evidence of independent thought is stigmatized in (p. 059) those more prominent in politics as tergiversation and apostasy.

It may be admitted that there are sound reasons for holding party leaders to a more rigid allegiance to party policy than is expected of the rank and file; yet certainly, at those periods when substantially new measures and new doctrines come to the front, the old party names lose whatever sacredness may at other times be in them, and the political fellowships of the past may properly be reformed.

Novel problems cannot always find old comrades still united in opinions.

Precisely such was the case with John Quincy Adams and the Federalists.

The earlier Federalist creed related to one set of issues, the later Federalist creed to quite another set; the earlier creed was sound and deserving of support; the later creed was not so.

It is easy to see, as one looks backward upon history, that every great and successful party has its mission, that it wins its success through the substantial righteousness of that mission, and that it owes its downfall to assuming an erroneous attitude towards some subsequent matter which becomes in turn of predominating importance.

Sometimes, though rarely, a party remains on the right side through two or even more successive issues of profound consequence to the nation.

The Federalist mission was to establish the Constitution of the United States as a (p. 060) vigorous, efficient, and practical system of government, to prove its soundness, safety, and efficacy, and to defend it from the undermining assaults of those who distrusted it and would have reduced it to imbecility.

Supplementary and cognate to this was the further task of giving the young nation and the new system a chance to get fairly started in life before being subjected to the strain of war and European entanglements.

To this end it was necessary to hold in check the Jeffersonian or French party, who sought to embroil us in a foreign quarrel.

These two functions of the Federalist party were quite in accord; they involved the organizing and domestic instinct against the disorganizing and meddlesome; the strengthening against the enfeebling process; practical thinking against fanciful theories.

Fortunately the able men had been generally of the sound persuasion, and by powerful exertions had carried the day and accomplished their allotted tasks so thoroughly that all subsequent generations of Americans have been reaping the benefit of their labors.

But by the time that John Adams had concluded his administration the great Federalist work had been sufficiently done.

Those who still believe that there is an overruling Providence in the affairs of men and nations may well point to the history of this period in support (p. 061) of their theory.

Republicanism was not able to triumph till Federalism had fulfilled all its proper duty and was on the point of going wrong.

During this earlier period John Quincy Adams had been a Federalist by conviction as well as by education.

Nor was there any obvious reason for him to change his political faith with the change of party success, brought about as that was before its necessity was apparent but by the sure and inscrutable wisdom so marvellously enclosed in the great popular instinct.

It was not patent, when Mr. Jefferson succeeded Mr. Adams, that Federalism was soon to become an unsound political creed--unsound, not because it had been defeated, but because it had done its work, and in the new emergency was destined to blunder.

During Mr. Jefferson's first administration no questions of novel import arose.

But they were not far distant, and soon were presented by the British aggressions.

A grave crisis was created by this system of organized destruction of property and wholesale stealing of citizens, now suddenly practised with such terrible energy.

What was to be done?

What had the two great parties to advise concerning the policy of the country in this hour of peril?

Unfortunately for the Federalists old predilections were allowed (p. 062) now to govern their present action.

Excusably Anglican in the bygone days of Genet's mission, they now remained still Anglican, when to be Anglican was to be emphatically un-American.

As one reads the history of 1807 and 1808 it is impossible not to feel almost a sense of personal gratitude to John Quincy Adams that he dared to step out from his meek-spirited party and do all that circumstances rendered possible to promote resistance to insults and wrongs intolerable.

In truth, he was always a man of high temper, and eminently a patriotic citizen of the United States.

Unlike too many even of the best among his countrymen in those early years of the Republic, he had no foreign sympathies whatsoever; he was neither French nor English, but wholly, exclusively, and warmly American.

He had no second love; the United States filled his public heart and monopolized his political affections.

When he was abroad he established neither affiliations nor antipathies, and when he was at home he drifted with no party whose course was governed by foreign magnets.

It needs only that this characteristic should be fully understood in order that his conduct in 1808 should be not alone vindicated but greatly admired.

At that time it was said, and it has been since repeated, that he (p. 063) was allured by the loaves and fishes which the Republicans could distribute, while the Federalists could cast to him only meagre and uncertain crusts.

Circumstances gave to the accusation such a superficial plausibility that it was believed by many honest men under the influence of political prejudice.

But such a charge, alleged concerning a single act in a long public career, is to be scanned with suspicion.

Disproof by demonstration is impossible; but it is fair to seek for the character of the act in a study of the character of the actor, as illustrated by the rest of his career.

Thus seeking we shall see that, if any traits can be surely predicated of any man, independence, courage, and honesty may be predicated of Mr. Adams.

His long public life had many periods of trial, yet this is the sole occasion when it is so much as possible seriously to question the purity of his motives--for the story of his intrigue with Mr. Clay to secure the Presidency was never really believed by any one except General Jackson, and the beliefs of General Jackson are of little consequence.

From the earliest to the latest day of his public life, he was never a party man.

He is entitled to the justification to be derived from this life-long habit, when, in 1807-8, he voted against the wishes of those who had hoped to hold him in the bonds of (p. 064) partisan alliance.

In point of fact, so far from these acts being a yielding to selfish and calculating temptation, they called for great courage and strength of mind; instead of being tergiversation, they were a triumph in a severe ordeal.

Mr. Adams was not so dull as to underrate, nor so void of good feeling as to be careless of, the storm of obloquy which he had to encounter, not only in such shape as is customary in like instances of a change of sides in politics, but, in his present case, of a peculiarly painful kind.

He was to seem unfaithful, not only to a party, but to the bitter feud of a father whom he dearly loved and greatly respected; he was to be reviled by the neighbors and friends who constituted his natural social circle in Boston; he was to alienate himself from the rich, the cultivated, the influential gentlemen of his neighborhood, his comrades, who would almost universally condemn his conduct.

He was to lose his position as Senator, and probably to destroy all hopes of further political success so far as it depended upon the good will of the people of his own State.

In this he was at least giving up a certainty in exchange for what even his enemies must admit to have been only an expectation.

But in fact it is now evident that there was not upon his part even an expectation.

At the first signs of the views which he was likely (p. 065) to hold, that contemptible but influential Republican, Giles, of Virginia, also one or two others of the same party, sought to approach him with insinuating suggestions.

But Mr. Adams met these advances in a manner frigid and repellent even beyond his wont, and far from seeking to conciliate these emissaries, and to make a bargain, or even establish a tacit understanding for his own benefit, he held them far aloof, and simply stated that he wished and expected nothing from the administration.

His mind was made up, his opinion was formed; no bribe was needed to secure his vote.

Not thus do men sell themselves in politics.

The Republicans were fairly notified that he was going to do just as he chose; and Mr. Jefferson, the arch-enemy of all Adamses, had no occasion to forego his feud to win this recruit from that family.

Mr. Adams's Diary shows unmistakably that he was acting rigidly upon principle, that he believed himself to be injuring or even destroying his political prospects, and that in so doing he taxed his moral courage severely.

The whole tone of the Diary, apart from those few distinct statements which hostile critics might view with distrust, is despondent, often bitter, but defiant and stubborn.

If in later life he ever anticipated the possible publication of these private (p. 066) pages, yet he could hardly have done so at this early day.

Among certain general reflections at the close of the year 1808, he writes: "On most of the great national questions now under discussion, my sense of duty leads me to support the Administration, and I find myself, of course, in opposition to the Federalists in general.

But I have no communication with the President, other than that in the regular order of business in the Senate.

In this state of things my situation calls in a peculiar manner for prudence; my political prospects are declining, and, as my term of service draws near its close, I am constantly approaching to the certainty of being restored to the situation of a private citizen.

For this event, however, I hope to have my mind sufficiently prepared."

In July, 1808, the Republicans of the Congressional District wished to send him to the House of Representatives, but to the gentleman who waited upon him with this proposal he returned a decided negative.

Other considerations apart, he would not interfere with the reëlection of his friend, Mr. Quincy.

Certain remarks, written when his senatorial term was far advanced, when he had lost the confidence of the Federalists without obtaining that of the Republicans, may be of interest at this point.

He wrote, October 30, 1807: "I employed the whole evening in looking over (p. 067) the Journal of the Senate, since I have been one of its members.

Of the very little business which I have commenced during the four sessions, at least three fourths has failed, with circumstances of peculiar mortification.

The very few instances in which I have succeeded, have been always after an opposition of great obstinacy, often ludicrously contrasting with the insignificance of the object in pursuit.

More than one instance has occurred where the same thing which I have assiduously labored in vain to effect has been afterwards accomplished by others, without the least resistance; more than once, where the pleasure of disappointing me has seemed to be the prominent principle of decision.

Of the preparatory business, matured in committees, I have had a share, gradually increasing through the four sessions, but always as a subordinate member.

The merely laborious duties have been readily assigned to me, and as readily undertaken and discharged.

My success has been more frequent in opposition than in carrying any proposition of my own, and I hope I have been instrumental in arresting many unadvised purposes and projects.

Though as to the general policy of the country I have been uniformly in a small, and constantly deceasing minority; my opinions and votes have been much oftener in unison with the Administration than with (p. 068) their opponents; I have met with at least as much opposition from my party friends as from their adversaries,--I believe more.

I know not that I have made any personal enemies now in Senate, nor can I flatter myself with having acquired any personal friends.

There have been hitherto two, Mr. Tracey and Mr. Plumer, upon whom I could rely, but it has pleased Providence to remove one by death, and the changes of political party have removed the other."

This is a striking paragraph, certainly not written by a man in a very cheerful or sanguine frame of mind, not by one who congratulates himself on having skilfully taken the initial steps in a brilliant political career;

but, it is fair to say, by one who has at least tried to do his duty, and who has not knowingly permitted himself to be warped either by passion, prejudice, party alliances, or selfish considerations.

As early as November, 1805, Mr. Adams, being still what may be described as an independent Federalist, was approached by Dr. Rush with tentative suggestions concerning a foreign mission.

Mr. Madison, then Secretary of State, and even President Jefferson were apparently not disinclined to give him such employment, provided he would be willing to accept it at their hands.

Mr. Adams simply replied, (p. 069) that he would not refuse a nomination merely because it came from Mr. Jefferson, though there was no office in the President's gift for which he had any wish.

Perhaps because of the unconciliatory coolness of this response, or perhaps for some better reason, the nomination did not follow at that time.

No sooner, however, had Mr. Madison fairly taken the oath of office as President than he bethought him of Mr. Adams, now no longer a Federalist, but, concerning the present issues, of the Republican persuasion.

On March 6, 1809, Mr. Adams was notified by the President personally of the intention to nominate him as Minister Plenipotentiary to Russia.

It was a new mission, the first minister ever nominated to Russia having been only a short time before rejected by the Senate.

But the Emperor had often expressed his wish to exchange ministers, and Mr. Madison was anxious to comply with the courteous request.

Mr. Adams's name was accordingly at once sent to the Senate.

But on the following day, March 7, that body resolved that "it is inexpedient at this time to appoint a minister from the United States to the Court of Russia."

The vote was seventeen to fifteen, and among the seventeen was Mr. Adams's old colleague, Timothy Pickering, who probably never in his life cast a vote which gave him so much (p. 070) pleasure.

Mr. Madison, however, did not readily desist from his purpose, and a few months later, June 26, he sent a message to the Senate, stating that the considerations previously leading him to nominate a minister to Russia had since been strengthened, and again naming Mr. Adams for the post.

This time the nomination was confirmed with readiness, by a vote of nineteen to seven, Mr. Pickering, of course, being one of the still hostile minority.