Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams.

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The whole of this controversy was published immediately in an octavo
pamphlet, including important documents relative to the subject and to
the transactions of the commissioners at Ghent, by means of which Mr.
Adams vindicates himself and his colleagues from the charges brought
against them. This elaborate and powerful defence, on which the strength
and character of his mind are deeply impressed, was regarded as
triumphant.[1]

[1] This publication is contained in _Niles' Weekly Register_,
vol. XXII., pp. 198, 209, 220, 296, 327, and continued in vol.
XXIII., pp. 6 and 9.

Mr. Gallatin also published a pamphlet, generally corroborative of the
statements of Mr. Adams; an example which Mr. Clay, another of the Ghent
commissioners, being at that time a prominent competitor with Mr. Adams
for the Presidency, did not see fit to follow. But, as total silence on
his part might be construed to his disadvantage, he published in the
newspapers a letter, dated the 15th of November, 1822, in which he
intimated that there were some errors, both as to matter of fact and
opinion, in the letter of Mr. Adams, as well as in that of Mr. Gallatin;
and declared that he would at some future period, more propitious to
calm and dispassionate consideration, and when there could be no
misrepresentation of motives, lay before the public his own narrative of
these transactions.

Mr. Adams, on the 18th of the ensuing December, in a communication to
the _National Intelligencer_, expressed the pleasure it would have
given him, had Mr. Clay thought it advisable to have specified the
errors he had intimated, to have rectified them by acknowledgment. He
added, that whenever Mr. Clay's accepted time to publish his promised
narrative should come, he would be ready, if living, to acknowledge
indicated errors, and vindicate contested truth. But, lest it might be
postponed until both should be summoned to account for all their errors
before a higher tribunal than that of their country, he felt called
upon to say that what he had written and published concerning this
controversy would, in every particular essential or important to the
interest of the nation, or to the character of Mr. Clay, be found to
abide unshaken the test of human scrutiny, of talents, and of time.

In July, 1822, a plan for an independent newspaper was proposed to Mr.
Adams by some members of Congress, and the necessity of such a paper was
urged upon him with great earnestness. He replied: "An independent
newspaper is very necessary to make truth known to the people; but an
editor really independent must have a heart of oak, nerves of iron, and
a soul of adamant, to carry it through. His first attempt will bring a
hornet's nest about his head; and, if they do not sting him to death or
to blindness, he will have to pursue his march with them continually
swarming over him, and be beset on all sides with obloquy and slander."

In August, 1822, paragraphs from newspapers, laudatory of other
candidates, and depreciatory of Mr. Adams, were shown to him, on which
he remarked, "The thing is not new. From the nature of our institutions,
competitors for public favor and their respective partisans seek success
by slander of each other. I disdain the ignoble warfare, and neither
wage it myself or encourage it in my friends. But, from appearances,
they will decide the election to the Presidency."

In December, 1822, Alexander Smyth, also a representative of one of the
districts of Virginia, followed the example of Mr. Floyd, and, in an
address to his constituents, took occasion to introduce malign
imputations upon the political course of Mr. Adams. To this end, having
ransacked the journals of the Senate of the United States at the time
when Mr. Adams was a member, he undertook to attribute to him base
motives for the votes he had given, particularly such as would be likely
most to affect his popularity in Virginia. Mr. Adams immediately caused
to be printed and published an address to the freeholders of Smyth's
district; the nature and spirit of which reply will be shown by the
following extracts:

"Friends and Fellow-Citizens: By these titles I presume to address
you, though personally known to few of you, because my character has
been arraigned before you by your representative in Congress, in a
printed handbill, soliciting your suffrages for reelection, who
seems to have considered his first claim to the continuance of your
favor to consist in the bitterness with which he could censure me. I
shall never solicit your suffrages, nor those of your
representatives, for anything. But I value your good opinion, and
wish to show you that I do not deserve to lose it."--"I come to
repel the charges of General Smyth, but neither for the purpose of
moving you to withhold your suffrages from him, nor induce the
General himself to reconsider his opinion concerning me."--"As to
his opinions, you will permit me to be indifferent to the opinions
of a man capable of forming his judgment of character from such
premises as he has alleged in support of his estimate of
mine."--"His mode of proof is this: He has ransacked the journals of
the Senate during the five years I had the honor of a seat in that
body,--a period the expiration of which is nearly fifteen years
distant,--and wherever he has found in the list of yeas and nays my
name recorded to a vote which he disapproves, he has imputed it,
without knowing any of the grounds on which it was given, to the
worst of motives, for the purpose of ascribing them to me. Is this
fair? Is this candid? Is this just? Where is the man who ever served
in a legislative capacity in your councils whose character could
stand a test like this?"

Mr. Adams then proceeds to reply to all the charges brought against him
by Alexander Smyth, analyzing and explaining every vote which he had
made the subject of animadversion fully and successfully. The close of
his defence is as follows:

"Fellow-Citizens: I have explained to you the reasons and real
motives of all the votes which your representative, General
Alexander Smyth, has laid to my charge, in a printed address to you,
and to which unusual publicity has been given in the newspapers. I
am aware that, in presenting myself before you to give this
explanation, my conduct may again be attributed to unworthy motives.
The best actions may be, and have been, and will be, traced to
impure sources, by those to whom troubled waters are a delight. If,
in many cases, when the characters of public men are canvassed,
however severely, it is their duty to suffer and be silent, there
are others, in my belief many others, wherein their duty to their
country, as well as to themselves and their children, is to stand
forth the guardians and protectors of their own honest fame. Had
your representative, in asking again for your votes, contented
himself with declaring to you his intentions concerning me, you
never would have heard from me in answer to him. But when he imputes
to me a character and disposition unworthy of any public man, and
adduces in proof mere naked votes upon questions of great public
interest, all given under the solemn sense of duty, impressed by an
oath to support the constitution, and by the sacred obligations of a
public trust, to defend myself against charges so groundless and
unprovoked is, in my judgment, a duty of respect to you, no less
than a duty of self-vindication to me. I declare to you that not one
of the votes which General Smyth has culled from an arduous service
of five years in the Senate of the Union, to stigmatize them in the
face of the country, was given from any of the passions or motives
to which he ascribes them; that I never gave a vote either in
hostility to the administration of Mr. Jefferson, or in disregard to
republican principles, or in aversion to republican patriots, or in
favor of the slave-trade, or in denial of due protection to
commerce. I will add, that, having often differed in judgment upon
particular measures with many of the best and wisest men of this
Union of all parties, I have never lost sight either of the candor
due to them in the estimate of their motives, or of the diffidence
with which it was my duty to maintain the result of my own opinions
in opposition to theirs."

In 1823, as the Presidential election approached, the influences to
control and secure the interests predominating in the different
sections of the country became more active. Crawford, of Georgia,
Calhoun, of South Carolina, Adams, of Massachusetts, and Clay, of
Kentucky, were the most prominent candidates. In December, Barbour, of
Virginia, was superseded, as Speaker of the House of Representatives,
by Clay, of Kentucky; an event ominous to the hopes of Crawford, and to
that resistance to the tariff, and to internal improvements, which was
regarded as dependent on his success. The question whether a
Congressional caucus, by the instrumentality of which Jefferson,
Madison, and Monroe, had obtained the Presidency, should be again held
to nominate a candidate for that office, was the next cause of
political excitement. The Southern party, whose hopes rested on the
success of Crawford, were clamorous for a caucus. The friends of the
other candidates were either lukewarm or hostile to that expedient.
Pennsylvania, whose general policy favored a protective tariff and
public improvements, hesitated. In 1816 she had manifested an
opposition to that plan of Congressional influence, and in 1823 a
majority of her representatives declined attending any partial meeting
of members of Congress that might attempt a nomination. But the
Democracy of that state, ever subservient to the views of the Southern
aristocracy, held meetings at Philadelphia, and elsewhere, recommending
a Congressional caucus. This motion would have been probably adopted,
had not the Legislature of Alabama, about this time, nominated Andrew
Jackson for the Presidency, and accompanied their resolutions in his
favor with a recommendation to their representatives to use their best
exertions to prevent a Congressional nomination of a President. The
popularity of Jackson, and the obvious importance to his success of the
policy recommended by Alabama, fixed the wavering counsels of
Pennsylvania, so that only three representatives from that state
attended the Congressional caucus, which was soon after called, and
which consisted of _only sixty members_, out of _two hundred and
sixty-one_, the whole number of the House of Representatives; of which
Virginia and New York, under the lead of Mr. Van Buren, constituted
nearly one half. Notwithstanding this meagre assemblage, Mr. Crawford
was nominated for the Presidency, under a confident expectation that
the influence of the caucus would be conclusive with the people, and
the candidate and policy of Virginia would be confirmed in ascendency.
But the days of Congressional caucuses were now numbered. The people
took the nomination of President into their own hands, and the insolent
assumption of members of Congress to dictate their choice in respect of
this office was henceforth rebuked.

While these intrigues were progressing, Mr. Adams was zealously and
laboriously fulfilling his duties as Secretary of State, neither
endeavoring himself, nor exciting his friends, to counteract these
political movements, one of the chief objects of which was to defeat his
chance for the Presidency.

The course of Mr. Adams relative to the application of the Greeks, then
struggling for independence, for the aid and countenance of the United
States, next brought him into opposition to the prevailing tendency of
the popular feeling of the time. A letter was addressed to him, as
Secretary of State, by Andrew Luriottis, envoy of the provisional
government of the Greeks, at London, entreating that political and
commercial relations might be established between the United States and
Greece, and proposing to enter upon discussions which might lead to
advantageous treaties between the two countries. Mr. Rush, the American
minister in London, enclosed this letter to Mr. Adams, and recommended
the subject to the favorable attention of our government. Mr. Adams,
after expressing the sympathy of the American administration in the
cause of Greek freedom and independence, and their best wishes for its
success, proceeded to state that their duties precluded their taking
part in the war, peace with all the world being the settled policy of
the United States; but that if, in the progress of events, the Greeks
should establish and organize an independent government, the United
States would welcome them, and form with them such diplomatic and
commercial relations as were suitable to their respective relations. Mr.
Adams also wrote a letter to Mr. Rush, requesting him to explain to Mr.
Luriottis that the executive of the United States sympathized with the
Greek cause, and would render the Greeks any service consistent with
neutrality; but that assistance given by the application of the public
force or revenue would involve them in a war with the Sublime Porte, or
perhaps with the Barbary powers; that such aid could not be given
without an act of Congress, and that the policy of the United States was
essentially pacific.

The popular feeling in favor of granting aid to the Greeks soon began to
be general and intense. Balls were held and benefits given to raise
funds for their relief, and sermons and orations delivered in their
behalf, in many parts of the United States. "On this subject," Mr. Adams
remarked, "there are two sources of eloquence: the one, with reference
to sentiment and enthusiasm; the other, to action. For the Greeks all is
enthusiasm. As for action, there is seldom an agreement, and after
discussion the subject is apt to be left precisely where it was. Nothing
definite, nothing practical, is proposed." The United States were at
peace with the Sublime Porte, and he did not think slightly of a war
with Turkey. He had not much esteem for that enthusiasm for the Greeks
which evaporated in words.

In the ensuing session, on the 9th of January, 1824, Mr. Webster, in the
Senate of the United States, proposed a resolve "that provision ought to
be made by law for defraying the expense incident to the appointment of
an agent or commissioner to Greece, whenever the President shall deem it
expedient to make such appointment;" supporting it by a speech adapted
to catch the popular tide, then at the full, and, in fact, doing nothing
with the appearance of doing something. A member of Congress consulted
Mr. Adams on an amendment he proposed to make to the project of Mr.
Webster, as specified in his resolve, it being then under consideration
in the House of Representatives. Mr. Adams replied, it was immaterial
what form the resolution might assume; the objection to it would be the
same in every form. It was, in his opinion, the intermeddling of the
legislature with the duties of the executive; it was the adoption of
Clay's South American system; seizing upon the popular feeling of the
moment to embarrass the administration. A few days afterwards, Mr. Adams
took occasion to state his reasons to Mr. Webster for being averse to
his resolution.

Notwithstanding the Virginia doctrine, that the constitution does not
authorize the application of public moneys to internal improvement, was
one of the hinges on which the selection of candidates in the Southern
States turned, Mr. Adams did not refrain from openly expressing his own
opinion. In a letter to a gentleman in Maryland, dated January, 1824, he
stated that "Congress does possess the power of appropriating money for
public improvements. Roads and canals are among the most essential means
of improving the condition of nations; and a people which should
deliberately, by the organization of its authorized power, deprive
itself of the faculty of multiplying its own blessings, would be as wise
as a Creator who should undertake to constitute a human being without a
heart."[2]

[2] _Niles' Register_, vol. XXVI., pp. 251-328.

While the election of President was pending, and the event uncertain, a
member of Congress from Ohio told Mr. Adams there were sanguine hopes of
his success; on which he remarked: "We know so little of that in
futurity which is best for ourselves, that whether I ought to wish for
success is among the greatest uncertainties of the election. Were it
possible to look with philosophical indifference to the event, that is
the temper of mind to which I should aspire. But who can hold a
firebrand in his hand by thinking of the frosty Caucasus? To suffer
without feeling is not in human nature; and when I consider that to me
alone, of all the candidates before the nation, failure of success would
be equivalent to a vote of censure by the nation upon my past services,
I cannot dissemble to myself that I have more at stake in the result
than any other individual. Yet a man qualified for the duties of chief
magistrate of ten millions of people should be a man proof alike to
prosperous and adverse fortune. If I am able to bear success, I must be
tempered to endure defeat. He who is equal to the task of serving a
nation as her chief ruler must possess resources of a power to serve
her, even against her own will. This I would impress indelibly on my own
mind; and for a practical realization of which, in its proper result, I
look for wisdom and strength from above."

At the close of the year 1824, Mr. Adams responded to a like intimation:
"You will be disappointed. To me both alternatives are distressing in
prospect. The most formidable is that of success. All the danger is on
the pinnacle. The humiliation of failure will be so much more than
compensated by the safety in which it will leave me, that I ought to
regard it as a consummation devoutly to be wished."

At this period an apprehension being expressed to him that if he was
elected Federalists would be excluded from office, he said, he should
exclude no person for political opinion, or on account of personal
opposition to him; but that his great object would be to break up the
remnant of all party distinctions, and to bring the whole people
together, in point of sentiment, as much as possible; and that he should
turn no one out of office on account of his conduct or opinions in the
approaching election.

The result of this electioneering conflict was, that, by the returns of
the electoral colleges of the several states, it appeared that none of
the candidates had the requisite constitutional majority; the whole
number of votes being two hundred and sixty-one--of which Andrew Jackson
had ninety-nine, John Quincy Adams eighty-four, William H. Crawford
forty-one, and Henry Clay thirty-seven. For the office of Vice-President,
John C. Calhoun had one hundred and eighty votes, and was elected.

This result had not been generally anticipated by the friends of Mr.
Adams. His political course had been, for sixteen years, identified
with the policy of the leading statesmen of the Southern States, and
had been acceptable to that section of the Union. It had therefore been
hoped that, with regard to him, the general and inherent antipathy to a
Northern President, which there existed, would have been weakened, if
not subdued. His diplomatic talents had been successfully exercised in
carrying into effect Mr. Madison's views during the whole of that
statesman's administration. He had been the pillar on which Mr. Monroe
had, during both terms of his Presidency, leaned for support, if not
for direction. It was, therefore, not without reason anticipated that
at least a partial support would have been given to him in the region
where the influences of Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, were
predominant. But, of the _eighty-four_ votes cast for Mr. Adams, not
one was given by either of the three great Southern slaveholding
states. _Seventy-seven_ were given to him by New England and New York.
The other _seven_ were cast by the Middle or recently admitted states.

The selection of President from the candidates now devolved on the
House of Representatives, under the provisions of the constitution.
But, again, Mr. Adams had the support of none of those slaveholding
states, with the exception of Kentucky, and her delegates were equally
divided between him and General Jackson. The decisive vote was, in
effect, in the hands of Mr. Clay, then Speaker of the House, who cast
it for Mr. Adams;[3] a responsibility he did not hesitate to assume,
notwithstanding the equal division of the Kentucky delegation, and in
defiance of a resolution passed by the Legislature of that state,
declaring their preference for General Jackson.[4] On the final vote
Andrew Jackson had _seven_ votes, William H. Crawford _four_, and John
Quincy Adams _thirteen_; who was, therefore, forthwith declared
President of the United States for four years ensuing the 4th of March,
1825.

[3] _Niles' Register_, vol. XXVII., p. 387.

[4] Ibid., vol. XXVII., p. 321.

In the answer of Mr. Adams to the official notice of his election by the
House of Representatives, after paying tribute to the talents and public
services of his competitors, he declared that if, by refusal to accept
the trust thus delegated to him, he could give immediate opportunity to
the people to express, with a nearer approach to unanimity, the object
of their preference, he would not hesitate to decline the momentous
charge. But the constitution having, in case of such refusal, otherwise
disposed of the resulting contingency, he declared his acceptance of the
trust assigned to him by his country through her constitutional organs,
confiding in the wisdom of the legislative councils for his guide, and
relying above all on the direction of a superintending Providence.

CHAPTER VII.

ADMINISTRATION AS PRESIDENT.--POLICY.--RECOMMENDATIONS TO CONGRESS.--
PRINCIPLES RELATIVE TO OFFICIAL APPOINTMENTS AND REMOVALS.--COURSE IN
ELECTION CONTESTS.--TERMINATION OF HIS PRESIDENCY.

Those sectional, party, and personal influences, which at all times tend
to throw a republic out of the path of duty and safety, were singularly
active and powerful during the Presidency of Mr. Adams. They were
peculiar and unavoidable. His administration, beyond all others, was
assailed by an unprincipled and audacious rivalry. Its course and
consequences belong to the history of the United States, and will be
here no further stated, or made the subject of comment, than as they
affect or throw light on his policy and character.

Immediately after his inauguration, Mr. Adams appointed Henry Clay, of
Kentucky, Secretary of State; Richard Rush, of Pennsylvania, Secretary
of the Treasury; James Barbour, of Virginia, Secretary of War; Samuel L.
Southard, of New Jersey, Secretary of the Navy; John McLean, of Ohio,
Postmaster-General; and William Wirt, of Virginia, Attorney-General. The
election of Mr. Adams to the Presidency depended on the vote of Henry
Clay, who recognized and voluntarily assumed the responsibility. By
voting for General Jackson, he would have coincided with the majority of
popular voices; but, actuated, as he declared, by an irrepressible sense
of public duty, in open disregard of instructions from the dominant
party in Kentucky, he dared to expose himself to the coming storm, the
violence of which he anticipated, and soon experienced. In a letter to
Mr. F. Brooke, dated 28th of January, 1825, which was soon published,[1]
he thus expressed his views: "As a friend to liberty and the permanence
of our institutions, I cannot consent, in this early stage of their
existence, by contributing to the election of a military chieftain, to
give the strongest guaranty that this republic will march in the fatal
road which has conducted every other republic to ruin." In a letter
dated the 26th of March, 1825, addressed to the people of his
Congressional district, in Kentucky, Mr. Clay more fully illustrated the
motives for his vote: "I did not believe General Jackson so competent to
discharge the various intricate and complex duties of the office of
chief magistrate as his competitor. If he has exhibited, either in the
councils of the Union, or in those of his own state or territory, the
qualities of a statesman, the evidence of the fact has escaped my
observation."--"It would be as painful as it is unnecessary to
recapitulate some of the incidents, which must be fresh in your
recollection, of his public life, but I was greatly deceived in my
judgment if they proved him to be endowed with that prudence, temper,
and discretion, which are necessary for civil administration."--"In his
elevation, too, I thought I perceived the establishment of a fearful
precedent."--"Undoubtedly there are other and many dangers to public
liberty, besides that which proceeds from military idolatry; but I have
yet to acquire the knowledge of it, if there be one more pernicious or
more frequent. Of Mr. Adams it is but truth and justice to say that he
is highly gifted, profoundly learned, and long and greatly experienced
in public affairs, at home and abroad. Intimately conversant with the
rise and progress of every negotiation with foreign powers, pending or
concluded; personally acquainted with the capacity and attainments of
most of the public men of this country whom it might be proper to employ
in the public service; extensively possessed of much of that valuable
kind of information which is to be acquired neither from books nor
tradition, but which is the fruit of largely participating in public
affairs; discreet and sagacious, he will enter upon the duties of the
office with great advantages."[2]

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