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ADAMS, John, second president of
the United States, born in that part of the town of Braintree, Massachusetts,
which has since been set off as the town of Quincy, 31 October 1735; died there,
4 July 1826. His great-grandfather, Henry Adams, received a grant of about 40
Acres of land in Braintree in 1636, and soon afterward immigrated from Devon
shire, England, with his eight sons. John Adams, the subject of this sketch, was
the eldest son of John Adams and Susanna Boylston, daughter of Peter Boylston,
of Brookline. His father, one of the selectmen of Braintree and a deacon of the
Church, was a thrifty farmer, and at his death in 1760 his estate was appraised
at £1,330 9s. 6d., which in those days might have been regarded as a moderate
competence. It was the custom of the family to send the eldest son to College,
and accordingly John was graduated at Harvard in 1755. Previous to 1773 the
graduates of Harvard were arranged in lists, not alphabetically or in order of
merit, but according to the social standing of their parents. In a class of
twenty-four members John thus stood fourteenth. One of his classmates was John
Wentworth, afterward royal governor of New Hampshire, and then of Nova Scotia.
After taking his degree and while waiting to make his choice of a profession,
Adams took charge of the grammar school at Worcester. It was the year of
Braddock's defeat, when the smoldering fires of a century of rivalry between
France and England broke out in a blaze of war, which was forever to settle the
question of the primacy of the English race in the modern world. Adams took an
intense interest in the struggle, and predicted that if we could only drive out
"these turbulent Gallits," our numbers would in another century
exceed those of the British, and all Europe would be unable to subdue us. In
sending him to College his family seem to have hoped that he would become a
clergyman; but he soon found himself too much of a free thinker to feel at home
in the pulpit of that day. When accused of Arminiamsm, he cheerfully admitted
the charge. Later in life he was sometimes called a Unitarian, but of dogmatic
Christianity he seems to have had as little as Franklin or Jefferson. "Where
do we find," he asks, "a precept in the gospel requiring
ecclesiastical synods, convocations, councils, decrees, creeds, confessions,
oaths, subscriptions, and whole cartloads of other trumpery that we find
religion encumbered with in these days." In this mood he turned from
the ministry and began the study of law at Worcester. There was then a strong
prejudice against lawyers in New England, but the profession throve lustily
nevertheless, so litigious were the people. In 1758 Adams began the practice of
his profession in Suffolk County, having his residence in Braintree.
In 1764 he was married to Abigail
Smith, of Weymouth, a lady of social position higher than his own and
endowed with most rare and admirable qualities of head and heart. In this same
year the agitation over the proposed stamp act was begun, and on the burning
questions raised by this ill-considered measure Adams had already taken sides.
When James Otis in 1761 delivered his memorable argument against writs of
assistance, John Adams was present in the courtroom, and the fiery eloquence of
Otis wrought a wonderful effect upon him. As his son afterward said, "it
was like the oath of Hamilcar administered to Hannibal."
In his old age John Adams wrote, with reference to this scene, "Every man
of an immense crowded audience appeared to me to go away, as I did, ready to
take arms against writs of assistance. Then and there was the first scene of the
first act of opposition to the arbitrary claims of Great Britain. Then and there
the child Independence was born." When the stamp act was passed, in 1765,
Adams took a prominent part in a town meeting at Braintree, where he presented
resolutions, which were adopted word for word by more than forty towns in
Massachusetts. The people refused to make use of stamps, and the business of the
inferior courts was carried on without them, judges and lawyers agreeing to
connive at the absence of the stamps. In the Supreme Court, however, where
Thomas Hutchinson was chief justice, the judges refused to transact any business
without stamps. This threatened serious interruption to business, and the town
of Boston addressed a memorial to the governor and council, praying that the
Supreme Court might overlook the absence of stamps. John Adams was unexpectedly
chosen, along with Jeremiah Gridley and James Otis, as counsel for the town, to
argue the case in favor of the memorial. Adams delivered the opening argument,
and took the decisive ground that the stamp act was so facto null and void,
since it was a measure of taxation which the people of the colony had taken no
share in passing. No such measure, he declared, could be held as binding in
America, and parliament had no right to tax the colonies. The governor and
council refused to act in the matter, but presently the repeal of the stamp act
put an end to the disturbance for a while.
About this time Mr. Adams began writing articles for the Boston "Gazette."
Four of these articles, dealing with the constitutional rights of the people of
New England, were afterward republished under the somewhat curious title of
"An Essay on the Canon and Feudal Law." After ten years of practice,
Mr. Adams's business had become quite extensive, and in 1768 he moved into
Boston. The attorney- general of Massachusetts, Jonathan Sewall, now offered him
the lucrative office of advocate-general in the court of admiralty. This was
intended to operate as an indirect bribe by putting Mr. Adams into a position in
which he could not feel free to oppose the policy of the crown ; such insidious
methods were systematically pursued by Governor Bernard, and after him by
Hutchinson. But Mr. Adams was too wary to swallow the bait, and he stubbornly
refused the pressing offer.
In 1770 came the first in the series of great acts that made Mr. Adams's
career illustrious. In the midst of the terrible excitement aroused by the "Boston
Massachusetts Acre " he served as counsel for Captain Preston and his
seven soldiers when they were tried for murder. His friend and kinsman, Josiah
Quincy, assisted him in this invidious task. The trial was judiciously postponed
for seven months until the popular fury had abated. Preston and five soldiers
were acquitted; the other two soldiers were found guilty of manslaughter, and
were barbarously branded on the hand with a hot iron. The verdict seems to have
been strictly just according to the evidence presented. For his services to his
eight clients Mr. Adams received a fee of nineteen guineas, but never got so
much as a word of thanks from the churlish Preston. An ordinary American
politician would have shrunk from the task of defending these men, for fear of
losing favor with the people. The course pursued by Mr. Adams showed great moral
courage; and the people of Boston proved themselves able to appreciate true
manliness by electing him as representative to the legislature. This was in June
1770, after he had undertaken the case of the soldiers, but before the trial.
Mr. Adams now speedily became the principal legal adviser of the patriot party,
and among its foremost leaders was only less conspicuous than Samuel Adams, Hancock,
and Warren. In all
matters of legal controversy between these leaders and Governor Hutchinson his
advice proved invaluable. During the next two years there was something of a
lull in the political excitement; Mr. Adams resigned his place in the
legislature and moved his residence to Braintree, still keeping his office in
Boston.In the summer of 1772 the British government ventured upon an act
that went further than anything which had yet occurred toward driving the
colonies into rebellion. It was ordered that all the Massachusetts judges
holding their places during the king's pleasure should henceforth have their
salaries paid by the crown and not by the colony. This act, which aimed directly
at the independence of the judiciary, aroused intense indignation, not only in
Massachusetts, but in the other colonies, which felt their liberties threatened
by such a measure. It called forth from MS. Adams a series of powerful articles,
which have been republished in the 3d volume of his collected works. About this
time he was chosen a member of the council, but Governor Hutchinson negated the
choice.
The five acts of parliament in April 1774, including the regulating act and
the Boston port bill, led to the calling of the first continental congress, to
which Mr. Adams was chosen as one of the five delegates from Massachusetts. He
drafted the resolutions passed by this congress on the subject of colonial
rights, and his diary and letters contain a vivid account of some of the
proceedings. On his return to Braintree he was chosen a member of the
revolutionary provincial congress of Massachusetts, then assembled at Concord.
This revolutionary body had already seized the revenues of the colony, appointed
a committee of safety, and begun to organize an army and collect arms and
ammunition. During the following winter the views of the loyalist party were set
forth with great ability and eloquence in a series of newspaper articles by
Daniel Leonard, under the signature of "Massachusetts" He was answered
most effectively by Mr. Adams, whose articles, signed "Novanglus,"
appeared weekly in the Boston "Gazette" until the battle of
Lexington. The last of these articles, which was actually in type in that wild
week, was not published. The series, which has been reprinted in the 4th volume
of Mr. Adams's works, contains a valuable review of the policy of Bernard and
Hutchinson, and a powerful statement of the rights of the colonies.
In the second continental congress, which assembled on May 10, Mr. Adams
played a very important part. Of all the delegates present he was probably the
only one, except his cousin, Samuel Adams, who was convinced that matters had
gone too far for any reconciliation with the mother country, and that there was
no use in sending any more petitions to the king. As there was a strong
prejudice against Massachusetts on the part of the middle and southern colonies,
it was desirable that her delegates should avoid all appearance of undue haste
in precipitating an armed conflict. Nevertheless, the circumstances under which
an army of 16,000 New England men had been gathered to besiege the British in
Boston were such as to make it seem advisable for the congress to adopt it as a
continental army; and here John Adams did the second notable deed of his career.
He proposed Washington for the chief command of this army, and thus, by putting
Virginia in the foreground, succeeded in committing that great colony to a
course of action calculated to end in independence. This move not only put the
army in charge of the only commander capable of winning independence for the
American people in the field, but its political importance was great and
obvious. Afterward in some dark moments of the revolutionary war, Mr. Adams
seems almost to have regretted his part in this selection of a commander. He
understood little or nothing of military affairs, and was incapable of
appreciating Washington's transcendent ability. The results of the war, however,
justified in every respect his action in the second continental congress.
During the summer recess taken by congress Mr. Adams sat as a member of the
Massachusetts council, which declared the office of governor vacant and assumed
executive authority. Under the new provisional government of Massachusetts, Mr.
Adams was made chief justice, but never took his seat, as continental affairs
more pressingly demanded his attention. He was always loquacious, often too
ready to express his opinions, whether with tongue or pen, and this trait got
him more than once into trouble, especially as he was inclined to be sharp and
censorious. For John Dickinson, the leader of the moderate and temporizing party
in congress, who had just prevailed upon that body to send another petition to
the king, he seems to have entertained at this time no very high regard, and he
gave vent to some contemptuous expressions in a confidential letter, which was
captured by the British and published. This led to a quarrel with Dickinson, and
made Mr. Adams very unpopular in Philadelphia. When congress reassembled in the
autumn, Mr. Adams, as member of a committee for fitting out cruisers, drew up a
body of regulations, which came to form the basis of the American naval code.
The royal governor, Sir John Wentworth, fled from New Hampshire about this time,
and the people sought the advice of congress as to the form of government which
it should seem most advisable to adopt. Similar applications presently came from
South Carolina and Virginia.
Mr. Adams prevailed upon congress to recommend to these colonies to form for
them new governments based entirely upon popular suffrage; and about the same
time he published a pamphlet entitled "Thoughts on Government,
Applicable to the Present State of the American Colonies." By the
spring of 1776 the popular feeling had become so strongly inclined toward
independence that, on the 15th of May Mr. Adams was able to carry through
congress a resolution that all the colonies should be invited to form
independent governments. In the preamble to this resolution it was declared that
the American people could no longer conscientiously take oath to support any
government deriving its authority from the crown; all such governments must now
be suppressed, since the king had withdrawn his protection from the inhabitants
of the united colonies. Like the famous preamble to Townsend's act of 1767, this
Adams preamble contained within itself the gist of the whole matter. To adopt it
was to cross the Rubicon, and it gave rise to a hot debate in congress. Against
the opposition of most of the delegates from the middle states the resolution
was finally carried; "and now," exclaimed Mr. Adams, "the
Gordian knot is cut." Events came quickly to maturity. On the 7th of
June the declaration of independence was moved by Richard Henry Lee, of
Virginia, and seconded by John Adams. The motion was allowed to lie on the table
for three weeks, in order to hear from the colonies of Connecticut, New
Hampshire, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and New York, which had
not yet declared their position with regard to independence. Meanwhile three
committees were appointed, one on a declaration of independence, a second on
confederation, and a third on foreign relations; and Mr. Adams was a member of
the first and third of these committees. On the 1st of July Mr. Lee's motion was
taken up by congress sitting as a committee of the whole; and as Mr. Lee was
absent, the task of defending it devolved upon Mr. Adams, who, as usual, was
opposed by Dickinson. Adams's speech on that occasion was probably the finest he
ever delivered. Jefferson called him "the colossus of that debate "and
indeed his labors in bringing about the declaration of independence must be
considered as the third signal event of his career.
On the 12th of June congress established a board of war and ordnance, with
Mr. Adams for its chairman, and he discharged the arduous duties of this office
until after the surrender of Burgoyne. After the battle of Long Island, Lord
Howe sent the captured General Sullivan to Philadelphia, soliciting a conference
with some of the members of the congress. Adams opposed the conference, and with
characteristic petulance alluded to the unfortunate Sullivan as a decoy duck who
had much better have been shot in the battle than sent on such a business.
Congress, however', consented to the conference, and Adams was chosen as a
commissioner, along with Franklin and Rutledge. Toward the end of the year 1777
Mr. Adams was appointed to supersede Silas Deane as commissioner to France. He
sailed 12 February 1778, in the frigate "Boston," and after a
stormy passage, in which he ran no little risk of capture by British cruisers,
he landed at Bordeaux, and reached Paris on the 8th of April. Long before his
arrival the alliance with France had been consummated. He found a wretched state
of things in Paris, our three commissioners there at loggerheads, one of them
dabbling in the British funds and making a fortune by privateering, while the
public accounts were kept in the laxest manner. All sorts of agents were drawing
bills upon the United States, and commanders of war vessels were setting up
their claims for expenses and supplies that had never been ordered.
Mr. Adams, whose habits of business were extremely strict and methodical, was
shocked at this confusion, and he took hold of the matter with such vigor as to
put an end to it. He also recommended that the representation of the United
States at the French court should be entrusted to a single minister instead of
three commissioners. As a result of this advice, Franklin was retained at Paris,
Arthur Lee was sent to Madrid, and Adams, being left without any instructions,
returned to America, reaching Boston 2 August 1779. He came home with a curious
theory of the decadence of Great Britain, which he had learned in France, and
which serves well to illustrate the mood in which France had undertaken to
assist the United States. England, he said, "loses every day her
consideration, and runs toward her ruin. Her riches, in which her power
consisted, she has lost with us and never can regain. She resembles the
melancholy spectacle of a great, wide spreading tree that has been girdled at
the root." Such absurd notions were quite commonly entertained at that time
on the continent of Europe, and many Englishman in the event of the success of
the Americans seriously dreaded such calamities.
Immediately on reaching home Mr. Adams was chosen delegate from Braintree to
the convention for framing a new constitution for Massachusetts; but before the
work of the convention was finished he was appointed commissioner to treat for
peace with Great Britain, and sailed for France in the same French frigate in
which he had come home. But Lord North's government was not ready to make peace,
and, moreover, Count Vergennes contrived to prevent Adams from making any
official communication to Great Britain of the extent of his powers. During
Adams's stay in Paris a mutual dislike and distrust grew up between himself and
Vergennes. The latter feared that if negotiations were to begin between the
British government and the United States, they might lead to a reconciliation
and reunion of the two branches of the English race, and thus ward off that
decadence of England for which France was so eagerly hoping° On the other hand,
Adams quite correctly believed that it was the intention of Vergennes to
sacrifice the interests of the Americans, especially as concerned with the
Newfoundland fisheries and the territory between the Alleghenies and the
Mississippi, in favor of Spain, with which country France was then in close
alliance. Americans must always owe a debt of gratitude to Mr. Adams for the
clear-sightedness with which he thus read the designs of Vergennes and estimated
at its true value the entirely selfish intervention of France in behalf of the
United States. This clearness of insight was soon to bear good fruit in the
management of the treaty of 1783. For the present, Adams found himself
uncomfortable in Paris, as his too ready tongue wrought unpleasantness both with
Vergennes and with Franklin, who was too much under the French minister's
influence. On his first arrival in Paris, society there had been greatly excited
about him, as it was supposed that he was "the famous Mr. Adams"
who had ordered the British troops out of Boston in March 1770, and had thrown
down the glove of defiance to George III on the great day of the Boston tea
party. When he explained that he was only a cousin of that grand and picturesque
personage, he found that fashionable society thenceforth took less interest in
him.
In the summer of 1780 Mr. Adams was charged by congress with the business of
negotiating a Dutch loan. In order to give the good people of Holland some
correct ideas as to American affairs, He published a number of articles in the
Leyden "Gazette" and in a magazine entitled "La
politique hollandaisc"; also" Twenty-six Letters upon
Interesting Subjects respecting the Revolution in America," now
reprinted in the 7th volume of his works. Soon after Adams's arrival in Holland,
England declared war against the Dutch, ostensibly because of a proposed treaty
of commerce with the United States in which the burgomaster of Amsterdam was
implicated with Henry Laurens, but really because Holland had joined the league
headed by the empress Catharine of Russia, designed to protect the commerce of
neutral nations and known as the armed neutrality. Laurens had been sent out by
congress as minister to Holland; but, as he had been captured by a British
cruiser and taken to the tower of London, Mr. Adams was appointed minister in
his place. His first duty was to sign, as representing the United States, the
articles of the armed neutrality. Before he had got any further, indeed before
he had been recognized as minister by the Dutch government, he was called back
to Paris, in July 1781, in order to be ready to enter upon negotiations for
peace with the British government.
Russia and Austria had volunteered their services as mediators between George
III and the Americans; but Lord North's government rejected the offer, so that
Mr. Adams had his journey for nothing, and presently went back to Holland. His
first and most arduous task was to persuade the Dutch government to recognize
him as minister from the independent United States. In this Vergennes, who
wished the Americans to feel exclusively dependent upon France, and to have no
other friendships or alliances, covertly opposed him. From first to last the aid
extended by France to the Americans in the revolutionary war was purely selfish.
That despotic government wished no good to a people struggling to preserve the
immemorial principles of English liberty, and the policy of Vergennes was to
extend just enough aid to us to enable us to prolong the war so that colonies
and mother country might alike be weakened. When he pretended to be the
disinterested friend of the Americans, he professed to be under the influence of
sentiments that he did not really feel; and he thus succeeded in winning from
congress a confidence to which he was in no wise entitled. But he could not
hoodwink John Adams, who wrote home that the duke de la Vauguyon, the French
ambassador at The Hague, was doing everything in his power to obstruct the
progress of the negotiations; and in this, Adams correctly inferred, he was
acting under secret instructions from Vergennes. As a diplomatist Adams was in a
certain sense Napoleonic; he introduced new and strange methods of warfare,
which disconcerted the perfidious intriguers of the old school, of which
Vergennes and Talleyrand were typical examples. Instead of beating about the
bush and seeking to foil trickery by trickery (a business in which the wily
Frenchman would doubtless have proved more than his match), he went straight to
the duke de la Vauguyon and bluntly told him that he saw plainly what he was up
to, and that it was of no use, since "no advice of his or of the count de
Vergennes, nor even a requisition from the king, should restrain me." The
duke saw that Adams meant exactly what he said, and, finding that it was useless
to oppose the negotiations, "fell in with me, in order to give the air of
French influence" to them. Events worked steadily and rapidly in Adams's
favor. The plunder of St. Eustatius early in 1781 had raised the wrath of the
Dutch against Great Britain to fever heat. In November came tidings of the
surrender of Lord Cornwallis. By this time Adams had published so many articles
as to give the Dutch some idea as to what sort of people the Americans were. He
had some months before presented a petition to the states general, asking them
to recognize him as minister from an independent nation. With his wonted
boldness he now demanded a plain and unambiguous answer to this petition, and
followed up the demand by visiting the representatives of the several cities in
person and arguing his case. As the reward of this persistent energy, Mr. Adams
had the pleasure of seeing the independence of the United States formally
recognized by Holland on the 19th of April 1782. This success was vigorously
followed up. A Dutch loan of $2,000,000 was soon negotiated, and on the 7th of
October a treaty of amity and commerce, the second, which was ratified with the
United States as an independent nation, was signed at The Hague.
This work in Holland was the fourth signal event in John Adams's career, and,
in view of the many obstacles overcome, he was himself in the habit of referring
to it as the greatest triumph of his life. "One thing, thank God is
certain," he wrote;" I have planted the American standard at the
Hague. There let it wave and fly in triumph over Sir Joseph Yorke and British
pride. I shall look down upon the flagstaff with pleasure from the other
world." Mr. Adams had hardly time to finish this work when his presence was
required in Paris. Negotiations for peace with Great Britain had begun some time
before in conversations between Franklin and Richard Oswald, a gentleman whom
Lord Shelburne had sent to Paris for the purpose. One British ministry had
already been wrecked through these negotiations, and affairs had dragged along
slowly amid endless difficulties. The situation was one of the most complicated
in the history of diplomacy. France was in alliance at once with Spain and with
the United States, and her treaty obligations to the one were in some respects
inconsistent with her treaty obligations to the other. The feeling of Spain
toward the United States was intensely hostile, and the French government was
much more in sympathy with the former than with the latter. On the other hand,
the new British government was not indisposed toward the Americans, and was
extremely ready to make liberal concessions to them for the sake of thwarting
the schemes of France. In the background stood George III, surly and
irreconcilable, hoping that the negotiations would fail; and amid these
difficulties they doubtless would have failed had not all the parties by this
time had a surfeit of bloodshed.
John Jay first
suspected the designs of the French government, soon after his arrival in Paris.
He found that Vergennes was sending a secret emissary to Lord Shelburne under an
assumed name; he ascertained that the right of the United States to the
Mississippi Valley was to be denied; and he got hold of a dispatch from Marbols,
the French secretary of legation at Philadelphia, to Vergennes, opposing the
American claim to the Newfoundland fisheries. As soon as Jay learned these facts
he proceeded, without the knowledge of Franklin, to take steps toward a separate
negotiation between Great Britain and the United States. When Adams arrived in
Paris, October 26, he coincided with Jay's views, and the two together overruled
Franklin.
Mr. Adams's behavior at this time was quite characteristic. It is said that
he left Vergennes to learn of his arrival through the newspapers. It was
certainly some time before he called upon him, and he took occasion, besides, to
express his opinions about republics and monarchies in terms that courtly
Frenchman thought very rude. Adams agreed with Jay that Vergennes should be kept
as far as possible in the dark until everything was completed, and so the
negotiation with Great Britain went on separately. The annals of modern
diplomacy have afforded few stranger spectacles. With the indispensable aid of
France we had just got the better of England in fight, and now we proceeded
amicably to divide territory and commercial privileges with the enemy, and to
make arrangements in which our not too friendly ally was virtually ignored. In
this way the United States secured the Mississippi valley, and a share in the
Newfoundland fisheries, not as a privilege but as a right, the latter result
being mainly due to the persistence of Mr. Adams. The point upon which the
British commissioners most strongly insisted was the compensation of the
American loyalists for the hardships they had suffered during the war; but these
American commissioners resolutely refused. The most they could be prevailed upon
to allow was the insertion in the treaty of a clause to the effect that congress
should recommend to the several state governments to reconsider their laws
against the Tories and to give these unfortunate persons a chance to recover
their property.
In the treaty, as finally arranged, all the disputed points were settled in
favor of the Americans; and, the United States being thus virtually detached
from the alliance, the British government was enabled to turn a deaf ear to the
demands of France and Spain for the surrender of Gibraltar. Vergennes was
outgeneraled at every turn. On the part of the Americans the treaty of 1783
deserves to be ranked as one of the most brilliant triumphs of modern diplomacy.
Its success was about equally due to Adams and to Jay, whose courage in the
affair was equal to their skill, for they took it upon themselves to disregard
the explicit instructions of congress. Ever since March 1781, Vergennes had been
intriguing with congress through his minister at Philadelphia, the chevalier de
la Luzerne. First he had tried to get Mr. Adams recalled to America. Failing in
this, he had played his part with such dexteroffs persistence as to prevail upon
congress to send most pusillanimous instructions to its peace commissioners.
They were instructed to undertake nothing whatever in the negotiations without
the knowledge and concurrence of "the ministers of our generous ally,
the king of France," that is to say, of the count de Vergennes; and
they were to govern themselves entirely by his advice and opinion. Franklin
would have followed these instructions; Adams and Jay deliberately disobeyed
them, and earned the gratitude of their countrymen for all coming time. For
Adams's share this grand achievement it must certainly be cited as the fifth
signal event in his career.
By this time he had become excessively homesick, and as soon as the treaty
was arranged he asked leave to resign his commissions and return to America. He
declared he would rather be "carting street dust and marsh mud"
than waiting where he was. But business would not let him go. In September 1783,
he was commissioned, along with Franklin and Jay, to negotiate a commercial
treaty with Great Britain. A sudden and violent fever prostrated him for several
weeks after which he visited London and Bath. Before he had fully recovered his
health he learned that his presence was required in Holland. In those days, when
we lived under the articles of confederation, and congress found it impossible
to raise money enough to meet its current expenses, it was by no means unusual
for the superintendent of finance to draw upon our foreign ministers and then
sell the drafts for cash. This was done again and again, when there was not the
smallest ground for supposing that the minister upon whom the draft was made
would have any funds wherewith to meet it. It was part of his duty as envoy to
go and beg the money. Early in the winter Mr. Adams learned that drafts upon him
had been presented to his bankers in Amsterdam to the amount of more than a
million florins. Less than half a million florins were on hand to meet these
demands, and, unless something was done at once, the greater part of this paper
would go back to America protested.
Mr. Adams lost not a moment in starting for Holland, but he was delayed by a
succession of terrible storms on the German ocean, and it was only after
fifty-four days of difficulty and danger that he reached Amsterdam. The bankers
had contrived to keep the drafts from going to protest, but news of the
bickering between the thirteen states had reached Holland. It was believed that
the new nation was going to pieces, and the regency of Amsterdam had no money to
lend it. The promise of the American government was not regarded as valid
security for a sum equivalent to about $300,000. Adams was obliged to apply to
professional usurers, from whom, after more humiliating perplexity, he succeeded
in obtaining a loan at exorbitant interest. In the meantime he had been
appointed commissioner, along with Franklin
and Jefferson, for
the general purpose of negotiating commercial treaties with foreign powers. As
his return to America was thus indefinitely postponed, he sent for his wife,
with their only daughter and youngest son, to come and join him in France, where
the two elder sons were already with him. In the summer of 1784 the family was
thus reunited, and began house-keeping at Auteuil, near Paris. A treaty was
successfully negotiated with Prussia, but, before it was ready to be signed, Mr.
Adams was appointed minister to the court of St. James, and arrived in London in
May 1785. He was at first politely received by George
III., upon whom his bluff and fearless dignity of manner made a considerable
impression. His stay in England was, however, far from pleasant. The king came
to treat him with coldness, sometimes with rudeness, and the royal example was
followed by fashionable society. The American government was losing credit at
home and abroad. It was unable to fulfill its treaty engagements as to the
payment of private debts due to British creditors, and as to the protection of
the loyalists. The British government, in retaliation, refused to surrender the
western posts of Ogdensburg, Oswego, Niagara, Erie, Sandusky, Detroit, and
Mackinaw, which by the treaty were to be promptly given up to the United States.
Still more, it refused to make any treaty of commerce with the United States and
neglected to send any minister to represent Great Britain in this country, it
was generally supposed in Europe that the American government would presently
come to an end in general anarchy and bloodshed; and it was believed by George
III and the narrow minded politicians, such as Lord Sheffield, upon whose
cooperation he relied, that, if sufficient obstacles could be thrown in the way
of American commerce to cause serious distress in this country, the United
States would repent of their independence and come straggling back, one after
another, to their old allegiance.
Under such circumstances it was impossible for Mr. Adams to accomplish much
as minister in England. During his stay there he wrote his "Defense of
the American Constitutions," a work which afterward subjected him at
home to ridiculous charges of monarchical and anti-republican sympathies. The
object of the book was to set forth the advantages of a division of the powers
of government, and especially of the legislative body, as opposed to the scheme
of a single legislative chamber, which was advocated by many writers on the
continent of Europe. The argument is encumbered by needlessly long and sometimes
hardly relevant discussions on the history of the Italian republics. Finding the
British government utterly stubborn and impracticable, Mr. Adams asked to be
recalled, and his request was granted in February 1788. For the "patriotism,
perseverance, integrity, and diligence" displayed in his ten years of
service abroad he received the public thanks of congress.
He had no sooner reached home than he was elected a delegate from
Massachusetts to the moribund continental congress, but that body expired before
he had taken his seat in it. During the summer the ratification of the new
constitution was so far completed that it could be put into operation, and
public attention was absorbed in the work of organizing the new government. As
Washington was unanimously selected for the office of president, it was natural
that the vice-president should be taken from Massachusetts. The candidates for
the presidency and vice-presidency were voted for without any separate
specification, the second office falling to the candidate who obtained the
second highest number of votes in the Electoral College. Of the 69 electoral
votes, all were registered for Washington, 34 for John Adams, who stood second
on the list; the other 35 votes were scattered among a number of candidates.
Adams was somewhat chagrined at this marked preference shown for Washington.
His chief foible was enormous personal vanity, besides which he was much better
fitted by temperament and training to appreciate the kind of work that he had
himself done than the military work by which Washington had won independence for
the United States. He never could quite understand how or why the services
rendered by Washington were so much more important than his own. The office of
vice-president was then more highly esteemed than it afterward came to be, but
it was hardly suited to a man of Mr. Adams's vigorous and aggressive temper. In
one respect, however, he performed a more important part while holding that
office than any of his successors. In the earlier sessions of the senate there
was hot debate over the vigorous measures by which Washington's administration
was seeking to reestablish American credit and enlist the conservative interests
of the wealthier citizens in behalf of the stability of the government. These
measures were for the most part opposed by the persons who were rapidly becoming
organized under Jefferson's leadership into the republican party, the opposition
being mainly due to dread of the possible evil consequences that might flow from
too great an increase of power in the federal government.
In these debates the senate was very evenly divided, and Mr. Adams, as
presiding officer of that body, was often enabled to decide the question by his
casting vote. In the first congress he gave as many as twenty casting votes upon
questions of most vital importance to the whole subsequent history of the
American people, and on all these occasions he supported Washington's policy.
During Washington's
administration grew up the division into the two great parties which have
remained to this day in American politics the one known as federalist, afterward
as Whig, then as republican; the other known at first as republican and
afterward as democratic.
John Adams was by his mental and moral constitution a federalist. He believed
in strong government. To the opposite party he seemed much less a democrat than
an aristocrat. In one of his essays he provoked great popular wrath by using the
phrase "the well-born." he knew very well that in point of
hereditary capacity and advantages men are not equal and never will be. His
notion of democratic equality meant that all men should have equal rights in the
eye of the law. There was nothing of the communist or leveler about him. He
believed in the rightful existence of a governing class, which ought to be kept
at the head of affairs; and he was supposed, probably with some truth, to have a
predilection for etiquette, titles, gentlemen-in-waiting, and such things. Such
views did not make him an aristocrat in the true sense of the word, for in
nowise did he believe that the right to a place in the governing class should be
heritable; it was something to be won by personal merit, and should not be
withheld by any artificial enactments from the lowliest of men, to whom the
chance of an illustrious career ought to be just as much open as to "the
well-born."
At the same time John Adams differed from Jefferson and from his cousin, Samuel
Adams, in distrusting the Massachusetts. All the federalist leaders shared
this feeling more or less, and it presently became the chief source of weakness
to the party. The disagreement between John Adams and Jefferson was first
brought into prominence by the breaking out of the French revolution. Mr. Adams
expected little or no good from this movement, which was like the American
movement in no respect whatever except in being called a revolution. He set
forth his views on this subject in his "Discourses on Davila,"
which were published in a Philadelphia newspaper. Taking as his text Davila's
history of the civil wars in France in the 16th century. he argued powerfully
that a pure democracy was not the best form of government, but that a certain
mixture of the aristocratic and monarchical elements was necessary to the
permanent maintenance of free government. Such a mixture really exists in the
constitution of the United States, and, in the opinion of many able thinkers,
constitutes its peculiar excellence and the best guarantee of its stability.
These views gave great umbrage to the extreme democrats, and in the election of
1792 they set up George
Clinton, of New York, as a rival candidate for the vice-presidency; but when
the votes were counted Adams had 77, Clinton 50, Jefferson 4, and Aaron
Burr 1.
During this administration Adams, by his casting vote, defeated the attempt
of the republicans to balk Jay's mission to England in advance by a resolution
entirely prohibiting trade with that country. For a time Adams quite forgot his
jealousy of Washington in admiration for the heroic strength of purpose with
which he pursued his policy of neutrality amid the furious efforts of political
partisans to drag the United States into a rash and desperate armed struggle in
support either of France or of England.
In 1796, as Washington refused to serve for a third term, John Adams seemed
clearly marked out as federalist candidate for the succession. Hamilton
and Jay were in a certain sense his rivals; but Jay was for the moment unpopular
because of the famous treaty that he had lately negotiated with England, and
Hamilton, although the ablest man in the federalist party, was still not so
conspicuous in the eyes of the Massachusetts's voters as Adams, who besides was
surer than any one else of the indispensable New England vote. Having decided
upon Adams as first candidate, it seemed desirable to take the other from a
southern state, and the choice fell upon Thomas Pinckney, of South Carolina, a
younger brother of Charles
Cotesworth Pinckney.
Hamilton now began to scheme against Mr. Adams in a manner not at all to his
credit. He had always been jealous of Adams because of his stubborn and
independent character, which made it impossible for him to be subservient to a
leader. There was not room enough in one political party for two such positive
and aggressive characters. Already in the election of 1788 Hamilton had
contrived to diminish Adams's vote by persuading some electors of the possible
danger of a unanimous and therefore equal vote for him and Washington. Such
advice could not have been candid, for there was never the smallest possibility
of a unanimous vote for Mr. Adams. Now in 1796 he resorted to a similar
stratagem. The federalists were likely to win the election, but had not many
votes to spare; the contest was evidently going to be close. Hamilton
accordingly urged the federalist electors, especially in New England, to cast
all their votes alike for Adams and Pinckney, lest the loss of a single vote by
either one should give the victory to Jefferson, upon whom the opposite party
was clearly united. Should Adams and Pinckney receive an exactly equal number of
votes, it would remain for a federalist congress to decide which should be
president.
The result of the election showed 71 votes for John Adams, 68 for Jefferson,
59 for Pinckney, 30 for Burr, 15 for Samuel Adams, and the rest scattering. Two
electors obstinately persisted in voting for Washington. When it appeared that
Adams had only three more votes than Jefferson, who secured the second place
instead of Pinckney, it seemed on the surface as if Hamilton's advice had been
sound. But from the outset it had been clear (and no one knew it better than
Hamilton) that several southern federalists would withhold their votes from
Adams in order to give the presidency to Pinckney, always supposing that the New
England electors could be depended upon to vote equally for both. The purpose of
Hamilton's advice was to make Pinckney president and Adams vice-president, in
opposition to the wishes of their party. This purpose was suspected in New
England, and while some of the southern federalists voted for Pinckney and
Jefferson, eighteen New Englanders, in voting for Adams, withheld their votes
from Pinckney. The result was the election of a federalist president with a
republican vice-president.
In case of the death, disability, or removal of the president, the
administration would fall into the hands of the opposite party. Clearly a mode
of election that presented such temptations to intrigue, and left so much to
accident, was vicious and could not last long. These proceedings gave rise to a
violent feud between John Adams and Alexander Hamilton, which ended in breaking
up the Federalist Party, and has left a legacy of bitter feelings to the
descendants of those illustrious men.
The presidency of John Adams was stormy. We were entering upon that period
when our party strife was determined rather by foreign than by American
political issues, when England and France, engaged in a warfare of Titans, took
every occasion to browbeat and insult us because we were supposed to be too
feeble to resent such treatment. The revolutionary government of France had
claimed that, in accordance with our treaty with that country, we were bound to
support her against Great Britain, at least so far as concerned the defense of
the French West Indies. The Republican Party went almost far enough in their
sympathy with the French to concede these claims, which, if admitted by our
government, would immediately have got us into war with England. On the other
hand, the hatred felt toward France by the extreme federalists was so bitter
that any insult from that power was enough to incline them to advocate war
against her and in behalf of England. Washington, in defiance of all popular
clamor, adhered to a policy of strict neutrality, and in this Adams resolutely
followed him. The American government was thus obliged carefully and with
infinite difficulty to steer between Scylla and Charybdis until the overthrow of
Napoleon and our naval victories over England in 1812-'14 put an end to this
humiliating state of things. Under Washington's administration Gouverneur
Morris had been for some time minister to France, but he was greatly
disliked by the anarchical group that then misruled that country. To avoid
giving offence to the French republic, Washington had recalled Morris and sent
James Monroe in his place, with instructions to try to reconcile the French to
Jay's mission to England. Instead of doing this, Monroe encouraged the French to
hope that Jay's treaty would not be ratified, and Washington accordingly
recalled him and sent Cotesworth Pinckney in his place.
Enraged at the ratification of Jay's treaty, the French government not only
gave a brilliant ovation to Monroe, but refused to receive Pinckney, and would
not even allow him to stay in Paris. At the same time, decrees were passed
discriminating against American commerce. Mr. Adams was no sooner inaugurated as
president than he called an extra session of congress, to consider how war with
France should be avoided. It was decided to send a special commission to France,
consisting of Cotes-worth Pinckney, John Marshall, and Elbridge Gerry. The
directory would not acknowledge these commissioners and treat with them openly;
but Talleyrand, who was then secretary for foreign affairs, sent some of his
creatures to intrigue with them behind the scenes. It was proposed that the
envoys should pay large sums of money to Talleyrand and two or three of the
directors, as bribes, for dealing politely with the United States and refraining
from locking up American ships and stealing American goods. When the envoys
scornfully rejected this proposal, a new decree was forthwith issued against
American commerce. The envoys drew up an indignant remonstrance, which Gerry
hesitated to sign. Wearied with their fruitless efforts, Marshall and Pinckney
left Paris. But, as Gerry was a republican, Talleyrand thought it worthwhile to
persuade him to stay, hoping that he might prove more compliant than his
colleagues.
In March 1798, Mr. Adams announced to congress the failure of the mission,
and advised that the preparations already begun should be kept up in view of the
war that now seemed almost inevitable. A furious debate ensued, which was
interrupted by a motion from the federalist side, calling on the president for
full copies of the dispatches. Nothing could have suited Mr. Adams better. He
immediately sent in copies complete in everything except that the letters X.,
Y., and Z. were substituted for the names of Talleyrand's emissaries. Hence
these papers have ever since been known as the "X. Y. Z. dispatches."
On the 8th of April the senate voted to publish these dispatches, and they
aroused great excitement both in Europe and in America. The British government
scattered them broadcast over Europe, to stir up indignation against France.
In America a great storm of wrath seemed for the moment to have wrecked the
Republican Party. Those who were not converted to federalism were for the moment
silenced. From all quarters came up the war cry, "Millions for
defense" not one cent for tribute." A few excellent frigates were
built, the nucleus of the gallant little navy that was by and by to win such
triumphs over England. An army was raised, and Washington was placed in command,
with the rank of Lieutenant-General. Gerry was recalled from France, and the
press roundly berated him for showing less firmness than his colleagues, though
indeed he had not done anything dishonorable. During this excitement the song of
"Hail, Columbia" was published and became popular.
On the 4th of July the effigy of Talleyrand, who had once been Bishop of
Autun, was arrayed in a surplice and burned at the stake. The president was
authorized to issue letters of marquee and reprisal, and for a time war with
France actually existed, though it was never declared. In February 1799, Captain
Truxtun, in the frigate " Constellation," defeated and captured
the French frigate "L'Insurgente" near the island of St.
Christopher. In February 1800, the same gallant officer in a desperate battle
destroyed the frigate "La Vengeance," which was much his
superior in strength of armament. When the directory found that their silly and
infamous policy was likely to drive the United States into alliance with Great
Britain, they began to change their tactics. Talleyrand tried to crawl out by
disavowing his emissaries X. Y. Z., and pretending that irresponsible
adventurers had imposed upon the American envoys. He made overtures to Vans
Murray, the American minister at The Hague, tending toward reconciliation. Mr.
Adams, while sharing the federalist indignation at the behavior of France, was
too clear-headed not to see that the only safe policy for the United States was
one of strict neutrality. He was resolutely determined to avoid war if possible,
and to meet France halfway the moment she should show symptoms of a return to
reason. His cabinet was so far under Hamilton's influence that he could not rely
upon them indeed, he had good reason to suspect them of working against him.
Accordingly, without consulting his cabinet, on 18 February 1799, he sent to
the senate the nomination of Vans Murray as minister to France. This bold step
precipitated the quarrel between Mr. Adams and his party, and during the year it
grew fiercer and fiercer. He joined Ellsworth, of Connecticut, and Davie, of
North Carolina, to Vans Murray as commissioners, and awaited the assurance of
Talleyrand that they would be properly received at Paris. On receiving this
assurance, though the baffled Frenchman couched it in rather insolent language,
the commissioners sailed November 5. On reaching Paris, they found the directory
overturned by Napoleon,
with whom as first consul they succeeded in adjusting the difficulties. This
French mission completed the split in the Federalist Party, and made Mr. Adams's
reelection impossible. The quarrel with the Hamiltonians had been further
embittered by Adams's foolish attempt to prevent Hamilton's obtaining the rank
of senior Major-General, for which Washington had designated him, and it rose to
fever-heat in the spring of 1800, when Mr. Adams dismissed his cabinet and
selected a new one. Another affair contributed largely to the downfall of the
Federalist Party.
In 1798, during the height of the popular fury against France, the
federalists in congress presumed too much upon their strength, and passed the
famous alien and sedition acts. By the first of these acts, aliens were rendered
liable to summary banishment from the United States at the sole discretion of
the president; and any alien who should venture to return from such banishment
was liable to imprisonment at hard labor for life. By the sedition act any
scandalous or malicious writing against the president or either house of
congress was liable to be dealt with in the United States courts and punished by
fine and imprisonment. This act contravened the constitutional amendment that
forbids all infringement of freedom of speech and of the press, and both acts
aroused more widespread indignation than any others that have ever passed in
congress. They called forth from the southern republicans the famous Kentucky
and Virginia resolutions of 1798-'99, which assert, though in language open to
some latitude of interpretation, the right of a state to "nullify" or
impede the execution of a law deemed unconstitutional.
In the election of 1800 the federalist votes were given to John Adams and
Cotesworth Pinckney, and the republican votes to Jefferson and Burr. The count
showed 65 votes for Adams, 64 for Pinckney, and 1 for Jay, while Jefferson and
Burr had each 73, and the election was thus thrown into the House of
Representatives.
Mr. Adams took no part in the intrigues that followed. His last considerable
public act, in appointing John
Marshall as the chief justice of the United States, turned out to be of
inestimable value to the country, and was a worthy end to a great public career.
Very different, and quite unworthy of such a man as John Adams, was the silly
and puerile fit of rage in which he got up before daybreak of the 4th of March
and started in his coach for Massachusetts, instead of waiting to see the
inauguration of his successful rival. On several occasions John Adams's career
shows us striking examples of the demoralizing effects of stupendous personal
vanity, but on no occasion more strikingly than this. He went home with a
feeling that he had been disgraced by his failure to secure a reelection. Yet in
estimating his character we must not forget that in his resolute insistence upon
the French mission of 1799 he did not stop for a moment to weigh the probable
effect of his action upon his chances for reelection. He acted, as a true
patriot, ready to sacrifice himself for the welfare of his country, never
regretted the act, and always maintained that it was the most meritorious of his
life. "I desire," he said, "no other inscription over
my gravestone than this: Here lies John Adams, who took upon himself the
responsibility of the peace with France in the year 1800."
He was entirely right, as all disinterested writers now agree. After so long
and brilliant a career, he now passed a quarter of a century in his home at
Quincy (as that part of Braintree was now called) in peaceful and happy
seclusion, devoting himself to literary work relating to the history of his
times. In 1820 the aged statesman was chosen delegate to the convention for
revising the constitution of Massachusetts, and labored unsuccessfully to obtain
an acknowledgment of the equal rights, political and religious, of others than
so-called Christians. His friendship with Jefferson, which had been broken off
by their political differences, was resumed in his old age, and an interesting
correspondence was kept up between the two.
As a writer of English, John Adams in many respects surpassed all his
American contemporaries; his style was crisp, pungent, and vivacious. In person
he was of middle height, vigorous, florid, and somewhat corpulent, quite like
the typical John Bull. He was always truthful and outspoken, often vehement and
brusque. Vanity and loquacity, as he freely admitted, were his chief foibles.
Without being quarrelsome, he had little or none of the tact that avoids
quarrels; but he harbored no malice, and his anger, though violent, was
short-lived. Among American public men there has been none more upright and
honorable. He lived to see his son president of the United States, and died on
the fiftieth anniversary of the declaration of independence and in the
ninety-first year of his age. His last words were, "Thomas Jefferson
still survives." But by a remarkable coincidence, Jefferson had died a
few hours earlier the same day. See "Life and Works of John Adams," by
C. F. Adams (10 vols., Boston, 1850-'56); "Life of John Adams," by J.
Q. and C. F. Adams (2 vols., Philadelphia, 1871) ; and "John Adams,"
by J. T. Morse, Jr. (Boston, 1885). The portrait that forms the frontispiece of
this volume is from a painting by Gilbert Stuart, which was executed while Mr.
Adams was president.
ADAMS
CERTIFIES RECEIPT OF CONNECTICUT ELECTORAL VOTES
FOR PRESIDENT WASHINGTON AND VICE PRESIDENT ADAMS
An
official acknowledgement that Adams himself, a candidate for Vice President, has
received a tally of Connecticut's votes in the second Presidential elections
held under the Constitution: a vote which resulted in the re-election of Washington
and Adams. Washington's popularity had diminished little since 1789: Adams, on
the other hand, had alienated many of the Jeffersonians and there was a
concerted behind-the-scenes campaign to replace him with George
Clinton of New York. Even Adams good friend Benjamin
Rush "had so seem under the influence of Jefferson and his adherents
that he joined the movement to replace Adams"-2 (P. Smith, John
Adams.2:830). Unaware
that the sealed envelope containing the electoral votes from Connecticut were
unanimous in supporting his re-election Adams writes in his own hand:
Philadelphia
- Dec. 14, 1792
Received
from the hand of Enoch Parsons, Esq. a Packet certified by the Electors of
Connecticut to contain a List of their Votes for President and Vice President of
the United States.
John
Adams President
of
the Senate of the United States
In
early November 1792, electors were chosen from the fifteen states; some
appointed by their state legislatures, others elected by popular vote. On 5
December the electors cast their ballots, which were formally transmitted to the
President of the US Senate. In February of the following year the electoral vote
was tabulated by Congress and Washington
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