Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams.

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After inquiring what we have done in the United States to support "the
principle proclaimed to the world as that which was to be the vital
spark of our existence as a community among the nations of the earth,"
and declaring that we have done nothing, he thus enumerates the
proceedings which disqualify us from presuming to share in the
festivities and unite in the songs of triumph of the 1st of August, and
shows how little we have concurred with Great Britain in her attempts to
break the chain of slavery. He inquires into what we are doing:

"Are we not suffering our own hands to be manacled, and our
own feet to be fettered, with the chains of slavery? Is it not
enough to be told that, by a fraudulent perversion of language in
the constitution of the United States, we have falsified the
constitution itself, by admitting into both the legislative and
executive departments of the government an overwhelming
representation of one species of _property_, to the exclusion of
all others, and that the odious property in slaves?

"Is it not enough that, by this exclusive privilege of property
representation, confined to one section of the country, an
irresistible ascendency in the action of the general government has
been secured, not indeed to that section, but to an oligarchy of
slaveholders in that section--to the cruel oppression of the poor
in that same section itself? Is it not enough that, by the
operation of this radical iniquity in the organization of the
government, an immense disproportion of all offices, from the
highest to the lowest, civil, military, naval, executive, and
judicial, are held by slaveholders? Have we not seen the sacred
right of petition totally suppressed for the people of the free
states during a succession of years, and is it not yet inexorably
suppressed? Have we not seen, for the last twenty years, the
constitution and solemn treaties with foreign nations trampled on
by cruel oppression and lawless imprisonment of colored mariners
in the Southern States, in cold-blooded defiance of a solemn
adjudication by a Southern judge in the Circuit Court of the Union?
And is not this enough? Have not the people of the free states been
required to renounce for their citizens the right of habeas corpus
and trial by jury; and, to coerce that base surrender of the only
practical security to all personal rights, have not the
slave-breeders, by state legislation, subjected to fine and
imprisonment the colored citizens of the free states, for merely
coming within their jurisdiction? Have we not tamely submitted for
years to the daily violation of the freedom of the post-office and
of the press by a committee of seal-breakers? And have we not seen
a sworn Postmaster-general formally avow that, though he could not
license this cut-purse protection of the peculiar institution, the
perpetrators of this highway robbery must justify themselves by the
plea of necessity? And has the pillory or the penitentiary been the
reward of that Postmaster-general? Have we not seen
printing-presses destroyed; halls erected for the promotion of
human freedom levelled with the dust, and consumed by fire; and
wanton, unprovoked murder perpetrated with impunity, by
slave-mongers? Have we not seen human beings, made in the likeness
of God, and endowed with immortal souls, burnt at the stake, not
for their offences, but for their color? Are not the journals of
our Senate disgraced by resolutions calling for _war_, to indemnify
the slave-pirates of the Enterprise and the Creole for the
self-emancipation of their slaves; and to inflict vengeance, by a
death of torture, upon the heroic self-deliverance of Madison
Washington? Have we not been fifteen years plotting rebellion
against our neighbor republic of Mexico, for abolishing slavery
throughout all her provinces? Have we not aided and abetted one of
her provinces in insurrection against her for that cause? And have
we not invaded openly, and sword in hand, another of her provinces,
and all to effect her dismemberment, and to add ten more slave
states to our confederacy? Has not the cry of war for the conquest
of Mexico, for the expansion of reinstituted slavery, for the
robbery of priests, and the plunder of religious establishments,
yet subsided? Have the pettifogging, hair-splitting, nonsensical,
and yet inflammatory bickerings about the right of search,
pandering to the thirst for revenge in France, panting for war to
prostrate the disputed title of her king--has the sound of this
war-trumpet yet faded away upon our ears? Has the supreme and
unparalleled absurdity of stipulating by treaty to keep a squadron
of eighty guns for five years without intermission upon the coast
of Africa, to suppress the African slave-trade, and at the same
time denying, at the point of the bayonet, the right of that
squadron to board or examine any slaver all but sinking under a
cargo of victims, if she but hoist a foreign flag--has this
diplomatic bone been yet picked clean? Or is our _indirect_
participation in the African slave-trade to be protected, at
whatever expense of blood and treasure? Is the supreme Executive
Chief of this commonwealth yet to speak not for himself, but
for her whole people, and pledge _them_ to shoulder their
muskets, and to endorse their knapsacks, against the fanatical,
non-resistant abolitionists, whenever the overseers may please to
raise the bloody flag with the swindling watch-word of 'Union'?
O, my friends, I have not the heart to join in the festivity on
the First of August--the British anniversary of disenthralled
humanity--while all this, and infinitely more that I could tell,
but that I would spare the blushes of my country, weigh down my
spirits with the uncertainty, sinking into my grave as I am,
whether she is doomed to be numbered among the first liberators
or the last oppressors of the race of immortal man!

"Let the long-trodden-down African, restored by the cheering voice
and Christian hand of Britain to his primitive right and condition
of manhood, clap his hands and shout for joy on the anniversary of
the First of August. Let the lordly Briton strip off much of his
pride on other days of the year, and reserve it all for the pride of
conscious beneficence on this day. What lover of classical learning
can read the account in Livy, or in Plutarch, of the restoration to
freedom of the Grecian cities by the Roman consul Flaminius, without
feeling his bosom heave, and his blood flow cheerily in his veins?
The heart leaps with sympathy when we read that, on the first
proclamation by the herald, the immense assembled multitude, in the
tumult of astonishment and joy, could scarcely believe their own
ears, and made him repeat the proclamation, and then '_Tum ab
certo jam gaudio, tantus cum clamore, plausus est ortus, totiesque
repetitus, ut facile appararet nihil omnium bonorum multitudini
gratius quam libertatem esse_.--Then rang the welkin with long
and redoubled shouts of exultation, clearly proving that, of all the
enjoyments accessible to the hearts of men, nothing is so delightful
to them as liberty.' Upwards of two thousand years have revolved
since that day, and the First of August is to the Briton of this age
what the day of the proclamation of Flaminius was to the ancient
Roman. Yes! let them celebrate the First of August as the day to
them of deliverance and glory; and leave to us the pleasant
employment of commenting upon their motives, of devising means to
shelter the African slaver from their search, and of squandering
millions to support, on a pestilential coast, a squadron of the
stripes and stars, with instructions sooner to scuttle their ships
than to molest the pirate slaver who shall make his flagstaff the
herald of a lie!"

In July, 1843, the Cincinnati Astronomical Society earnestly solicited
Mr. Adams to lay the corner-stone of their Observatory. No invitation
could have been more coincident with the prevailing interest of his
heart, and he immediately accepted it, notwithstanding his advanced age,
and the great distance which the performance of the duty required him to
travel. Some of his constituents having questioned the propriety of this
acceptance, and expressed doubts whether the duties it imposed were
compatible with his other public obligations, Mr. Adams, in an address
to them, at Dedham, on the 4th of July, took occasion to state that the
encouragement of the arts and sciences, and of all good literature, is
expressly enjoined by the constitution of Massachusetts. The patronage
and encouragement of them is therefore one of the most sacred duties of
the people of that state, and enjoined upon them and their children as a
part of their duty to God. "The voices of your forefathers, founders of
your social compact, calling from their graves, command you to this
duty; and I deem it, as your representative, a tacit and standing
instruction from you to perform, as far as may be my ability, that part
of your constitutional duty for you. It is in this sense that, in
accepting the earnest invitation from a respectable and learned society,
in a far distant state and city of the Union, to unite with them in the
act of erecting an edifice for the observation of the heavens, and
thereby encouraging the science of astronomy, I am fulfilling an
obligation of duty to you, and in your service." The nature of this duty
he thus illustrates:

"From the Ptolemies of Egypt and Alexander of Macedon, from Julius
Caesar to the Arabian Caliphs Haroun al Raschid, Almamon, and
Almansor, from Alphonso of Castile to Nicholas, the present Emperor
of all the Russias,--who, at the expense of one million of rubles,
has erected at Pulkova the most perfect and best-appointed
observatory in the world,--royal and imperial power has never been
exercised with more glory, never more remembered with the applause
and gratitude of mankind, than when extending the hand of patronage
and encouragement to the science of astronomy. You have neither
Caesar nor Czar, Caliph, Emperor, nor King, to monopolize this glory
by largesses extracted from the fruits of your industry. The
founders of your constitution have left it as their dying
commandment to you, to achieve, as the lawful sovereigns of the
land, this resplendent glory to yourselves--to patronize and
encourage the arts and sciences, and all good literature."

Mr. Adams left Quincy for Cincinnati on the 25th of October, and
returned to Washington on the 24th of November. At Saratoga, Rochester,
Buffalo, he was received with marked attention; and in every place where
he rested assemblages of the inhabitants took occasion to evidence their
respect and interest in his character by congratulatory addresses, and
welcomed his presence by every token of civility and regard. At Columbus
he was met by a deputation from Cincinnati, and, in approaching that
city, he was escorted into it by a procession and cavalcade. No
demonstration of honor and gratitude for the exertion he had made, and
the fatigues he had undergone, for their gratification, was omitted. His
whole progress was an ovation.

In the presence of a large concourse of the citizens of Cincinnati, Mr.
Adams was introduced to the Astronomical Society by its president, Judge
Burnet, who gave, in an appropriate address, a rapid sketch of the
history of his life and his public services, touching with delicacy and
judgment on the trials to which his political course had been subjected.
The following tributes, from their truth, justice, and appropriateness,
are entitled to distinct remembrance:

"Being a son of one of the framers and defenders of the Declaration
of Independence, his political principles were formed in the school
of the sages of the Revolution, from whom he imbibed the spirit of
liberty while he was yet a boy.

"Having been brought up among the immediate descendants of the
Puritan fathers, whose landing in Massachusetts in the winter of
1620 gave immortality to the rock of Plymouth, his moral and
religious impressions were derived from a source of the most rigid
purity; and his manners and habits were formed in a community where
ostentation and extravagance had no place. In this fact we see why
it is that he has always been distinguished for his purity of
motive, simplicity of manners, and republican plainness in his style
of living and in his intercourse with society. To the same causes
may be ascribed his firmness, his directness of purpose, and his
unyielding adherence to personal as well as political liberty. You
have recently seen him stand as unmoved as the rock of Gibraltar,
defending the right of petition, and the constitutional privileges
of the representatives of the people, assembled in Congress, though
fiercely assailed by friends and by foes.

"It is a remarkable fact that during the whole of his public life,
which has already continued more than half a century, he never
connected himself with a political party, or held himself bound to
support or oppose any measure for the purpose of advancing or
retarding the views of a party; but he has held himself free at all
times to pursue the course which duty pointed out, however he may
have been considered by some as adhering to a party. This fact
discloses the reason why he has been applauded at times, and at
other times censured, by every party which has existed under the
government. The truth is that, while the American people have been
divided into two great political sections, each contending for its
own aggrandizement, Mr. Adams has stood between them, uninfluenced
by either, contending for the aggrandizement of the nation. His
life has been in some respects _sui generis_; and I venture the
opinion that, generally, when his course has differed most from the
politicians opposed to him, it has tended most to the advancement
of the public good.

"As a proof of the desire Mr. Adams has always cherished for the
advancement of science, I might refer to his annual message to
Congress in December, 1825, in which he recommended the
establishment of a National University, and an Astronomical
Observatory, and referred to the hundred and thirty of those
'light-houses of the skies' existing in Europe, as casting a
reproach on our country for its unpardonable negligence on that
important subject. The manner in which that recommendation was
received and treated can never be forgotten. It must at this day be
a source of great comfort to that devoted friend of science that
those who yet survive of the highly-excited party which attempted to
cast on him reproach and ridicule for that proposition, and
especially for assimilating those establishments to light-houses of
the skies, have recently admitted the wisdom of his advice by making
ample appropriations to accomplish the very object he then proposed."

The oration Mr. Adams delivered on that occasion is, perhaps, the most
extraordinary of his literary efforts, evidencing his comprehensive
grasp of the subject, and the intensity of his interest in it. It
embraces an outline of the history of astronomy, illustrated by an
elevated and excited spirit of philosophy. Those who cultivated, those
who patronized, and those who advanced it, are celebrated, and the
events of their lives and the nature of their services are briefly
related. The operations of the mind which are essential to its progress
are touched upon. The intense labor and peculiar intellectual
qualifications incident to and required for its successful pursuit are
intimated. Nor are the inventors of those optical instruments, who had
contributed to the advancement of this science beyond all previous
anticipation, omitted in this extensive survey of its nature, progress,
and history.

After celebrating "the gigantic energies and more than heroic labors of
Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, Kepler, and Galileo," he pronounced Newton "the
consummation of them all."

"It was his good fortune," observed Mr. Adams, "to be born and to live
in a country where there was no college of cardinals to cast him into
prison, and doom him to spend his days in repeating the seven
penitential psalms, for shedding light upon the world, and publishing
mathematical truths. Newton was not persecuted by the dull and ignorant
instruments of political or ecclesiastical power. He lived in honor
among his countrymen; was a member of one Parliament, received the
dignity of knighthood, held for many years a lucrative office, and at
his decease was interred in solemn state in Westminster Abbey, where a
monument records his services to mankind, among the sepulchres of the
British kings.

"From the days of Newton down to the present hour, the science of
astronomy has been cultivated, with daily deepening interest, by all the
civilized nations of Europe--by England, France, Prussia, Sweden,
several of the German and Italian states, and, above all, by Russia,
whose present sovereign has made the pursuit of knowledge a truly
imperial virtue."

After speaking of the patronage extended to this science by the nations
and sovereigns of Europe, he terminates his developments with this
stirring appeal to his own countrymen:

"But what, in the mean time, have we been doing? While our fathers
were colonists of England we had no distinctive political or
literary character. The white cliffs of Albion covered the soil of
our nativity, though another hemisphere first opened our eyes on
the light of day, and oceans rolled between us and them. We were
Britons born, and we claimed to be the countrymen of Chaucer and
Shakspeare, Milton and Newton, Sidney and Locke, Arthur and Alfred,
as well as of Edward the Black Prince, Harry of Monmouth, and
Elizabeth. But when our fathers abjured the name of Britons, and
'assumed among the nations of the earth the separate and equal
station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitled
them,' they tacitly contracted the engagement for themselves, and
above all for their posterity, to contribute, in their corporate
and national capacity, their full share, ay, and more than their
full share, of the virtues that elevate and of the graces that
adorn the character of civilized man. They announced themselves as
_reformers_ of the institution of civil society. They spoke of the
laws of nature, and in the name of nature's God; and by that sacred
adjuration they pledged us, their children, to labor with united
and concerted energy, from the cradle to the grave, to purge the
earth of all slavery; to restore the race of man to the full
enjoyment of those rights which the God of nature had bestowed upon
him at his birth; to disenthrall his limbs from chains, to break
the fetters from his feet and the manacles from his hands, and set
him free for the use of all his physical powers for the improvement
of his own condition. The God in whose name they spoke had taught
them, in the revelation of the Gospel, that the only way in which
man can discharge his duty to Him is by loving his neighbor as
himself, and doing with him as he would be done by; respecting his
rights while enjoying his own, and applying all his emancipated
powers of body and of mind to self-improvement and the improvement
of his race."

CHAPTER XIV.

REPORT ON THE RESOLVES OF THE LEGISLATURE OF MASSACHUSETTS PROPOSING AN
AMENDMENT OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES IN EFFECT TO ABOLISH
A REPRESENTATION FOR SLAVES.--FOURTH REPORT ON JAMES SMITHSON'S BEQUEST.
--INFLUENCE OF MR. ADAMS ON THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE NATIONAL OBSERVATORY
AND THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION.--GENERAL JACKSON'S CHARGE THAT THE RIO
GRANDE MIGHT HAVE BEEN OBTAINED, UNDER THE SPANISH TREATY, AS A BOUNDARY
FOR THE UNITED STATES, REFUTED.--ADDRESS TO HIS CONSTITUENTS AT WEYMOUTH.
--REMARKS ON THE RETROCESSION OF ALEXANDRIA TO VIRGINIA.--HIS PARALYSIS.
--RECEPTION BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.--HIS DEATH.--FUNERAL HONORS.
--TRIBUTE TO HIS MEMORY.

In April, 1844, certain resolves of the Legislature of Massachusetts,
proposing to Congress to recommend, according to the provisions of the
fifth article of the constitution of the United States, an amendment to
the said constitution, in effect abolishing the representation for
slaves, being under consideration, and a report adverse to such
amendment having been made by a majority of the committee, Mr. Adams,
and Mr. Giddings, of Ohio, being a minority, united in a report, in
which, concurring in the opinion of the majority so far as to believe
that it was not, at that time, expedient to recommend the amendment
proposed by the Legislature of Massachusetts, they were compelled to
dissent from the views and the reasons which had actuated them in coming
to that conclusion.

"The subscribers are under a deep and solemn conviction that the
provision in the constitution of the United States, as it has been
and yet is construed, and which the resolves of the Legislature of
Massachusetts propose to discard and erase therefrom, is repugnant
to the first and vital principles of republican popular
representation; to the self-evident truths proclaimed in the
Declaration of Independence; to the letter and spirit of the
constitution of the United States itself; to the letter and spirit
of the constitutions of almost all the states in the Union; to the
liberties of the whole people of all the free states, and of all
that portion of the people of the states where domestic slavery is
established, other than owners of the slaves themselves; that this
is its essential and unextinguishable character in principle, and
that its fruits, in its practical operation upon the government of
the land, as felt with daily increasing aggravation by the people,
correspond with that character. To place these truths in the
clearest light of demonstration, and beyond the reach of
contradiction, the subscribers proceed, in the order of these
averments, to adduce the facts and the arguments by which they will
be maintained."

The report then proceeds, in reply to the reasoning of the majority of
the committee, to maintain that "the principle of republican popular
representation is that the terms of representative and constituent are
correlative;" that "democracy admits no representation of property;"
that "the slave representation is repugnant to the self-evident truths
proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence." The truths in that
Declaration the report illustrates from history, from Scripture, and
from the teachings of Jesus Christ; who was aware that wars, and their
attendant, slavery, would continue among men, and that the destiny of
his Gospel itself was often to be indebted for its progressive
advancement to war.

"'I came not,' said he, 'to send peace upon earth, but a sword;'
meaning, not that this was the object of his mission, but that, in
the purposes of the Divine nature, war itself should be made
instrumental to promote the final consummation of universal peace.
Slavery has not ceased upon the earth; but the impression upon the
human heart and mind that slavery is a wrong,--a crime against the
laws of nature and of nature's God,--has been deepening and
widening, till it may now be pronounced universal upon every soul
in Christendom not warped by personal interest, or tainted with
disbelief in Christianity. The owner of ten slaves believes that
slavery is not an evil. The owner of a hundred believes it a
blessing. The philosophical infidel has no faith in Hebrew
prophecies, or in the Gospel of Jesus. He says in his heart, though
he will not tell you to your face, that the proclamation of the
natural equality of mankind, in the Declaration of Independence, is
untrue; that the African race are physically, morally, and
intellectually, _inferior_ to the white European man; that they are
not of one blood, nor descendants of the same stock; that the
African is born to be a slave, and the white man to be his master.
The worshipper of mammon and the philosophical atheist hold no
communion with the signers of the declaration that all men are
created equal, and endowed by their Creator with unalienable
rights. But, with these exceptions, poll the whole mass of
Christian men, of every name, sect, or denomination, throughout the
globe, and you will not hear a solitary voice deny that slavery is
a wrong, a crime, and a curse."

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