Page images
PDF
EPUB

solemn debate, make its option to be faithless; can dare to act what despots dare not avow, what our own example evinces the states of Barbary are unsuspected of. No, let me rather make the supposition, that Great Britain refuses to execute the treaty, after we have done everything to carry it into effect. Is there any language of reproach pungent enough to express your commentary on the fact? What would you say, or, rather, what would you not say? Would you not tell them, wherever an Englishman might travel, shame would stick to him: he would disown his country. You would exclaim, England, proud of your wealth, and arrogant in the possession of power, blush for these distinctions, which become the vehicles of your dishonour. Such a nation might truly say to corruption, thou art my father, and to the worm, thou art my mother and my sister. We should say of such a race of men, their name is a heavier burden than their debt.

I can scarcely persuade myself to believe, that the consideration I have suggested requires the aid of any auxiliary; but, unfortunately, auxiliary arguments are at hand.....

The

The refusal of the posts-inevitable if we reject the treaty-is a measure too decisive in its nature to be neutral in its consequences. From great causes we are to look for great effects..... Will the tendency to Indian hostilities be contested by any one? Experience gives the answer. frontiers were scourged with war, until the negotiation with Great Britain was far advanced; and then the state of hostility ceased. Perhaps the public agents of both nations are innocent of fomenting the Indian war, and perhaps they are not. We ought not, however, to expect that neighbouring nations, highly irritated against each other, will neglect the friendship of the savages. The traders will gain an influence, and will abuse it; and who is ignorant that their passions are easily raised and hardly restrained from violence? Their situation will oblige them to choose between this country and Great Britain, in case the treaty should be rejected: they will not be our friends, and at the same time the friends of our enemies.....

any proportion to my zeal, I would swell my voice to such a note of remonstrance, it should reach every log house beyond the mountains. I would say to the inhabitants, wake from your false security your cruel dangers, your more cruel apprehensions are soon to be renewed: the wounds, yet unhealed, are to be torn open again; in the day time, your path through the woods will be ambushed; the darkness of midnight will glitter with the blaze of your dwellings. You are a fatherthe blood of your sons shall fatten your corn-field: you are a mother-the warhoop shall wake the sleep of the cradle.

On this subject you need not suspect any deception on your feelings: it is a spectacle of horror, which cannot be overdrawn. If you have nature in your hearts, they will speak a language, compared with which all I have said or can say will be poor and frigid.....

Will any one deny, that we are bound, and I would hope to good purpose, by the most solemn sanctions of duty for the vote we give? Are despots alone to be reproached for unfeeling indifference to the tears and blood of their subjects? Are republicans unresponsible? Have the principles, on which you ground the reproach upon cabinets and kings, no practical influence, no binding force? Are they merely themes of idle declamation, introduced to decorate the morality of a newspaper essay, or to furnish pretty topics of harangue from the windows of that state-house? I trust it is neither too presumptuous nor too late to ask: Can you put the dearest interest of society at risk, without guilt, and without remorse?....

There is no mistake in this case: there can be none experience has already been the prophet of events, and the cries of our future victims have already reached us. The western inhabitants are not a silent and uncomplaining secrifice. The voice of humanity issues from the shade of the wilderness: it exclaims, that, while one hand is held up to reject this treaty, the other grasps a tomahawk. It summons our imagination to the scenes that will open. It is no great effort of the imagination to conceive that events so near are already begun. I can fancy that I listen to the yells of savage vengeance and the shrieks of torture: already they seem to sigh in the western wind: already they mingle with every echo from the mountains.....

If any, against all these proofs, should maintain, that the peace with the Indians will be stable without the posts, to them I will urge another reply. From arguments calculated to procure conviction, I will appeal directly to the hearts of those who hear me, and ask whether it is not already planted there? I resort especially to the convic-spond on this prospect, by presenting another

tions of the Western gentlemen, whether, supposing no posts and no treaty, the settlers will remain in security? Can they take it upon them to say, that an Indian peace, under these circumstances, will prove firm? No, sir, it will not be peace, but a sword; it will be no better than a lure to draw victims within the reach of the tomahawk.

On this theme, my emotions are unutterable. If I could find words for them, if my powers bore

By the treaty, certain western posts, necessary to the protection of the frontier, were to be surrendered by the British.-Editor.

Let me cheer the mind, weary and ready to de

which it is yet in our power to realize. Is it possible for a real American to look at the prosperity of this country, without some desire for its continuance, without some respect for the measures which many will say produced, and all will confess have preserved it? Will he not feel some dread, that a change of system will reverse the scene? The well grounded fears of our citizens, in 1794, were removed by the treaty, but are not. forgotten. Then they deemed war nearly inevitable, and would not this adjustment have been considered at that day as a happy escape from the calamity? The great interest and the general de

sire of our people was to enjoy the advantages of neutrality. This instrument, however misrepresented, affords America that inestimable security. The causes of our disputes are either cut up by the roots, or referred to a new negotiation, after the end of the European war. This was gaining every thing, because it confirmed our neutrality, by which our citizens are gaining every thing. This alone would justify the engagements of the government. For, when the fiery vapours of the war lowered in the skirts of our horizon, all our wishes were concentrated in this one, that we might escape the desolation of the storm. This treaty, like a rainbow on the edge of the cloud, marked to our eyes the space where it was raging, and afforded at the same time the sure prognostic of fair weather. If we reject it, the vivid colours will grow pale, it will be a baleful meteor portending tempest and war.....

I rose to speak under impressions that I would have resisted if I could. Those who see me will believe, that the reduced state of my health has unfitted me, almost equally, for much exertion of body or mind. Unprepared for debate by careful reflection in my retirement, or by long attention here, I thought the resolution I had taken, to sit silent, was imposed by necessity, and would cost me no effort to maintain. With a mind thus vacant of ideas, and sinking, as I really am, under a sense of weakness, I imagined the very desire of speaking was extinguished by the persuasion that I had nothing to say. Yet when I come to the moment of deciding the vote, I start back with dread from the edge of the pit into which we are plunging. In my view, even the minutes I have spent in expostulation have their value, because they protract the crisis, and the short period in which alone we may resolve to escape it.

I have thus been led by my feelings to speak more at length than I had intended. Yet I have perhaps as little personal interest in the event as any one here. There is, I believe, no member, who will not think his chance to be a witness of the consequences greater than mine. If, however, the vote should pass to reject, and a spirit should rise, as it will, with the public disorders to make "confusion worse confounded," even I, slender and almost broken as my hold upon life is, may outlive the government and constitution of my country.

INTELLECT IN A DEMOCRACY.

FROM AN ESSAY ON AMERICAN LITERATURE.

INTELLECTUAL superiority is so far from conciliating confidence, that it is the very spirit of a democracy, as in France, to proscribe the aristocracy of talents. To be the favourite of an ignorant multitude, a man must descend to their level; he must desire what they desire, and detest all they do not approve: he must yield to their prejudices, and substitute them for principles. Instead of enlightening their errors, he must adopt them; he must furnish the sophistry that will propagate and defend them.

FREEDOM OF THE PRESS AND LIBERTY.

FROM REVIEW OF THE PRESENT STATE OF THE BRITISH CONSTITUTION,

WE are, heart and soul, friends to the freedom of the press. It is however, the prostituted companion of liberty, and somehow or other, we know not how, its efficient auxiliary. It follows the substance like its shade; but while a man walks erect, he may observe, that his shadow is almost always in the dirt. It corrupts, it deceives, it inflames. It strips virtue of her honours, and lends to faction its wildfire and its poisoned arms, and in the end is its own enemy and the usurper's ally. It would be easy to enlarge on its evils. They are in England, they are here, they are everywhere. It is a precious pest and a necessary mischief, and there would be no liberty without it.

LIBERTY NOT SECURED BY THE DEATH OF TYRANTS.

FROM AN ESSAY ON THE CHARACTER OF BRUTUS.

Ir is not by destroying tyrants, that we are to extinguish tyranny: nature is not thus to be exhausted of her power to produce them. The soil of a republic sprouts with the rankest fertility: it has been sown with dragon's teeth. To lessen the hopes of usurping demagogues, we must enlighten, animate, and combine the spirit of freemen; we must fortify and guard the constitutional ramparts about liberty. When its friends become indolent or disheartened, it is no longer of any importance how long-lived are its enemies: they will prove immortal.

GREAT MEN THE GLORY OF THEIR COUNTRY.

FROM A SKETCH OF THE CHARACTER OF ALEXANDER

HAMILTON.

THE most substantial glory of a country is in its virtuous great men: its prosperity will depend on its docility to learn from their example. That nation is fated to ignominy and servitude, for which such men have lived in vain. Power may be seized by a nation, that is yet barbarous; and wealth may be enjoyed by one, that it finds, or renders sordid: the one is the gift and the sport of accident, and the other is the sport of power. Both are mutable, and have passed away without leaving behind them any other memorial than ruins that offend taste, and traditions that baffle conjecture. But the glory of Greece is imperishable, or will last as long as learning itself, which is its monument: it strikes an everlasting root, and leaves perennial blossoms on its grave.

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.

[Born 1767. Died 1848.]

COLONEL JOHN QUINCY, who was born in 1687, and in his long life had shared largely in the civil and military distinctions of the colonies, was dying, on Saturday evening, the eleventh of July, 1767, when word was brought that a great-grandson was born to him in the house of John Adams. In honour of the departed veteran that part of the town of Braintree in which he resided was afterward called Quincy, and the boy was named JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. These two lives have extended over nearly one hundred and sixty years.

A large portion of the youth of Mr. Adams was spent in travel, in the company of his eminent father, and perhaps no statesman was ever in all respects more fortunate in the circumstances of his education. In 1778 and the following year he was at school in Paris, and in this period he received the paternal care of Franklin, who was a joint commissioner with his father to the court of Versailles. In 1780 he was placed in the public school of Amsterdam, and subsequently in the University of Leyden. In July, 1781, Francis Dana, -father of our admirable author of that name, and afterward chief justice of Massachusetts, was appointed minister to Russia; and having accompanied John Adams to Holland, and observed the abilities and accomplishments of his son, then but fourteen years of age, he selected him to be his private secretary. He remained in St. Petersburgh with Mr. Dana until October, 1782, and passed the following winter in travelling through Sweden, Denmark, Hamburg and Bremen, to the Hague, where he rejoined his father, whom he accompanied to Paris, where he was present at the signing of the definitive treaty of peace, and to London, where he listened to the eloquence of Burke, Pitt, Fox, Sheridan, and the other great orators then in Parliament. In his eighteenth year he returned to the United States to complete his education; entered Harvard University, at an advanced standing; and in 1787 received the degree of Bachelor of Arts.

When Mr. George M. Dallas, soon after returning from his mission to Russia, was looking over the manuscript papers of his father, in Philadelphia, he discovered a package so carefully sealed as evidently to have been deemed of some consequence, and opening it discovered that it was the autograph copy of an oration on banking and currency delivered by Mr. Adams on the day of his graduation. It had been listened to by Dr. Belknap, the historian, and Mr. Alexander J. Dallas, who were so pleased with its original and profound views that they addressed a note to the young author requesting a copy for publication. It was the first of his printed writings.

After leaving Cambridge Mr. Adams entered on the study of the law with the celebrated Theophilus Parsons at Newburyport, and on being admitted to the bar removed to Boston, where he was four years engaged in the business of his profession, and in the discussion of various questions of politics through the gazettes. Under the signature of Publicola he replied to the first part of Paine's Rights of Man, and under that of Marcellus, anticipating Washington's proclamation of neutrality, urged the foreign policy which was subsequently adopted by the first administration. In the same period he also published a series of papers vindicating the conduct of the president in regard to Genet, the French minister. Thus commended by his writings, as well as by his known acquaintance with international law and with our foreign relations, he was selected by Washington to be the American minister to the Netherlands; and in the seven years from 1794 to 1801 he was employed in diplomatic services. One of the last official acts of Washington was to appoint him minister to Portugal; but while on his way to Lisbon his destination was changed to Berlin, by his father, who had just succeeded to the presidency, and to whom Washington wrote on the subject that it was his "decided opinion that John Quincy

Adams was the most valuable public character we had abroad," and that there was no doubt in his mind that he would "prove himself to be the ablest of all our diplomatic corps."

During the four years which Mr. Adams passed in Berlin he devoted much attention to the study of the German literature, of which he became an enthusiastic admirer. "At this time," he says, "Wieland was there the most popular of the German poets, and although there was in his genius neither the originality nor the deep pathos of Goethe, or Klopstock, or Schiller, there was something in the playfulness of his imagination, in the tenderness of his sensibility, in the sunny cheerfulness of his philosophy, and in the harmony of his versification," which delighted him; and he made a complete translation of his Oberon, which he would have published, but that Mr. Sotheby got the start of him. Wieland read the first canto of Mr. Adams's version, in manuscript, and compared it with Sotheby's, which he thought more poetical, though less accurate.

In the same period he made an excursion into Silesia, and spent several weeks in collecting information respecting the industrial and social state of the country, which he communicated in a series of letters to a younger brother in Philadelphia. These letters were printed in the Port Folio, a weekly miscellany edited by Mr. Dennie,† and subsequently were published in an octavo volume in London. They contain a pleasing view of a people who in condition and character, more than any others in Europe, resemble the inhabitants of New England; and at that time were particularly interesting on account of the facts they embraced in regard to manufacturing establishments with small capitals.

Letter to Dr. Follen.

At the close of his father's administration Mr. Adams returned to the United States, and soon after became a member of the Massachusetts legislature, by which he was elected to the national senate, and he took his seat in that body on the fourth of March, 1803.

In June, 1805, he was chosen professor of rhetoric and oratory in Harvard University, and he accepted the office on condition that he should be allowed to attend to his duties in Congress. He delivered his inaugural discourse on the twelfth of June, 1806, and proceeded with his public lectures weekly in term time, except when his presence was required in the senate, for two years, at the end of which period he resigned to accept the mission to Russia, offered him by President Madison. His lectures had been attended by crowds, from the adjacent country and the neighbouring city of Boston, in addition to his academical hearers, and soon after his resignation were published, in two octavo volumes. They appear to have been treated with undeserved neglect. Certain sins, real or supposed, of the politician, have been visited upon the professor. They are copious in diction and illustration, full of learned allusion and reflection, and point out "the right path of a virtuous and noble education."

From Russia, where his services were in many ways important, Mr. Adams was transferred to Ghent, with Mr. Gallatin, Mr. Clay, and Mr. Bayard, to negotiate a peace between the United States and Great Britain, and upon the conclusion of the labours of the commission, was appointed minister to the court of St. James, where he remained until Mr. Monroe's accession to the presidency, when he was recalled to be secretary of state. In his long, varied and brilliant career as a diplomatist he had perfectly justified the favourable auguries of Washington.

After being eight years at the head of the cabinet, under Mr. Monroe, Mr. Adams was

↑ Joseph Dennie was born in Boston in 1768, and graduated at Harvard University in 1790, After being admitted to the bar in Charleston, New Hampshire, he removed to Walpole in that state, where he afterward pub-elected President of the United States. His lished The Farmer's Museum, a weekly paper, which his writings, particularly a series of essays entitled the The Lay Preacher, made very popular. He subsequently came to Philadelphia to accept a clerkship offered him by Mr. Pickering, then Secretary of State, and on the dismissal of his patron from the cabinet, in 1801, he established The Port Folio, which he conducted until his death, in 1812. Dennie was a great favourite in society, and his brilliant social qualities gave him a factitious reputation as a man of letters. There is nothing in his writings deserving of preservation.

administration ended on the third of March, 1829, and he retired to his native town of Quincy, where for a brief period he was without the cares of office. In 1831 however, by the nearly unanimous suffrages of his congressional district, he was elected to the House of Representatives, of which body he continued to be a member until his death.

[ocr errors]

He had been more than half a century in public offices of the greatest dignity and importance, which he filled with honour to himself and advantage to the country. For sixteen years the "old man eloquent" had not been absent a single day from his seat in the national legislature, where his extraordinary experience, various and profound knowledge, and courageous independence, secured for him the highest consideration and influence. Never modifying principles or language to please a man or a party, he invariably maintained what he has deemed the truth, and contended for the perfect freedom of others to do so. Though denounced as a madman and a factionist by every section in its turn, it is hardly doubtful that he was for many years second to no man of the Union in the confidence and veneration of the great body of the people.

The state papers of Mr. Adams are of course very numerous. They are generally distinguished for minuteness, accuracy and extent of information, and comprehensive and statesmanlike views; and some of them, as the report on the history and philosophy of weights and measures, prepared in obedience to a resolution of the senate, in 1817, are exhibitions of great research and learning. His speeches, on nearly all the important questions that have engaged the attention of the government since its formation, would fill many volumes, and are repositories of the richest materials of history and political philosophy.

The largest class of his published writings consists of orations and miscellaneous discourses pronounced before various societies and on anniversary and other occasions, many of which are of great value as historical essays. His eulogy on the life and services of Lafayette is the best memoir of that celebrated person that has been published in this country, and his sketches of Madison and Monroe, in the same form, are the only ones worthy of the subjects. His discourse before the New York Historical Society, on the fiftieth anniversary of the inauguration of Washington, is full of important information and reflection, but is perhaps in some degree unjust in regard to one illustrious person against whom Mr. Adams may be supposed to have inherited prejudices.

He had been all his life a student of Shakspeare. His admiration commenced "ere the

down had darkened on his lip, and continued through five of the seven ages of the drama of life, gaining upon the judgment as it lost to the imagination;" and among his writings is a series of criticisms upon some of his principal characters, in which original and striking views are maintained with great ingenuity.

I have already alluded to his translation of the Oberon of Wieland. In 1832 he published Dermot Mac Morrogh, a Tale of the Twelfth Century, in four cantos, and he has given to the public many shorter poems, chiefly lyrical, which are generally marked by fancy, feeling, and harmonious versification. His hymns have the simplicity, unity and completeness which belong to that sort of compositions, and his satires are neat and pointed. His poetical writings are the unpretending pastimes of a statesman. They would have been much more read and praised if written by a less eminent person.

For more than sixty years Mr. Adams is understood to have kept a diary in which every thing connected with his eventful life is presented with careful minuteness. Such a work will have something of the interest and value of the finest old chronicles. It must be a sort of "autobiography of the country." It has been stated also that he had written a memoir of his father; but I believe he found time to complete only a single volume, of four or five which the plan embraced. John Adams left abundant materials for his later history, but it is doubtful whether any other person will finish as well as the son, the work thus commenced.

The distinguishing characteristics of the writings and speeches of Mr. Adams are an universality of knowledge which they display, and a certain undauntedness, greater as they are more unpopular, with which he maintains his opinions. His taste is not always correct or chaste, and his style and argument are frequently diffuse; but there are in some of his speeches passages of close reasoning and great eloquence, and of fiery denunciation which has carried terror to the hearts of his adversaries.

-These paragraphs were written while Mr. Adams was alive. He died in the capitol, at Washington-in the scene of his chief triumphs suddenly, on the twenty-third of February, 1848. His writings are soon to be published by his son, Charles Francis Adams.

« EelmineJätka »