Chapter VII: Part 2: , 1896 (4)

As a writer, Mr. Adams's powers show best in the work which can hardly be classed as literature,--his forcible and bitter political letters, diatribes, and polemics. As in his life, his merits and defects not only lie side by side, but spring from the same source,--his vehemence, self-confidence, and impatience of obstruction. He writes impetuously because he feels impetuously. With little literary grace, he possesses the charm that belongs to clear and energetic thought and sense transfused with hot emotion. John Fiske goes so far as to say that "as a writer of English, John Adams in many respects surpassed all his American contemporaries." He was by no means without humor,--a characteristic which shows in some of his portraits,--and sometimes realized the humorous aspects of his own intense and exaggerative temperament. His remark about Timothy Pickering, that "under the simple appearance of a bald head and straight hair, he conceals the most ambitious designs," is perfectly self-conscious in its quaint naiveté.

His 'Life and Works,' edited by his grandson, Charles Francis Adams, Sr., in ten volumes, is the great storehouse of his writings. The best popular account of his life is by John T. Morse, Jr., in the 'American Statesmen' series.

AT THE FRENCH COURT

From his Diary, June 7th, 1778, with his later comments in brackets.

Went to Versailles, in company with Mr. Lee, Mr. Izard and his lady, Mr. Lloyd and his lady, and Mr. François. Saw the grand procession of the Knights _du Saint-Esprit_, or _du Cordon Bleu_. At nine o'clock at night, went to the _grand convert_, and saw the king, queen, and royal family, at supper; had a fine seat and situation close by the royal family, and had a distinct and full view of the royal pair.

[Our objects were to see the ceremonies of the knights, and in the evening the public supper of the royal family. The kneelings, the bows, and the courtesies of the knights, the dresses and decorations, the king seated on his throne, his investiture of a new created knight with the badges and ornaments of the order, and his majesty's profound and reverential bow before the altar as he retired, were novelties and curiosities to me, but surprised me much less than the patience and perseverance with which they all kneeled, for two hours together, upon the hard marble of which the floor of the chapel was made. The distinction of the blue ribbon was very dearly purchased at the price of enduring this painful operation four times in a year, The Count de Vergennes confessed to me that he was almost dead with the pain of it. And the only insinuation I ever heard, that the king was in any degree touched by the philosophy of the age, was, that he never discovered so much impatience, under any of the occurrences of his life, as in going through those tedious ceremonies of religion, to which so many hours of his life were condemned by the catholic church.

The queen was attended by her ladies to the gallery opposite to the altar, placed in the centre of the seat, and there left alone by the other ladies, who all retired. She was an object too sublime and beautiful for my dull pen to describe. I leave this enterprise to Mr. Burke. But in his description, there is more of the orator than of the philosopher. Her dress was everything that art and wealth could make it. One of the maids of honor told me she had diamonds upon her person to the value of eighteen millions of livres; and I always thought her majesty much beholden to her dress. Mr. Burke saw her probably but once. I have seen her fifty times perhaps, and in all the varieties of her dresses. She had a fine complexion, indicating perfect health, and was a handsome woman in her face and figure. But I have seen beauties much superior, both in countenance and form, in France, England, and America.

After the ceremonies of this institution are over, there is a collection for the poor; and that this closing scene may be as elegant as any of the former, a young lady of some of the first families in France is appointed to present the box to the knights. Her dress must be as rich and elegant, in proportion, as the Queen's, and her hair, motions, and curtsies must have as much dignity and grace as those of the knights. It was a curious entertainment to observe the easy air, the graceful bow, and the conscious dignity of the knight, in presenting his contribution; and the corresponding ease, grace, and dignity of the lady, in receiving it, were not less charming. Every muscle, nerve, and fibre of both seemed perfectly disciplined to perform its functions. The elevation of the arm, the bend of the elbow, and every finger in the hand of the knight, in putting his louis d'ors into the box appeared to be perfectly studied, because it was perfectly natural. How much devotion there was in all this I know not, but it was a consummate school to teach the rising generation the perfection of the French air, and external politeness and good-breeding. I have seen nothing to be compared to it in any other country....

At nine o'clock we went and saw the king, queen, and royal family, at the _grand couvert_. Whether M. François, a gentleman who undertook upon this occasion to conduct us, had contrived a plot to gratify the curiosity of the spectators, or whether the royal family had a fancy to see the raw American at their leisure, or whether they were willing to gratify him with a convenient seat, in which he might see all the royal family, and all the splendors of the place, I know not; but the scheme could not have been carried into execution, certainly, without the orders of the king. I was selected, and summoned indeed, from all my company, and ordered to a seat close beside the royal family. The seats on both sides of the hall, arranged like the seats in a theatre, were all full of ladies of the first rank and fashion in the kingdom, and there was no room or place for me but in the midst of them. It was not easy to make room for one more person. However, room was made, and I was situated between two ladies, with rows and ranks of ladies above and below me, and on the right hand and on the left, and ladies only. My dress was a decent French dress, becoming the station I held, but not to be compared with the gold, and diamonds, and embroidery, about me. I could neither speak nor understand the language in a manner to support a conversation, but I had soon the satisfaction to find it was a silent meeting, and that nobody spoke a word but the royal family to each other, and they said very little. The eyes of all the assembly were turned upon me, and I felt sufficiently humble and mortified, for I was not a proper object for the criticisms of such a company. I found myself gazed at, as we in America used to gaze at the sachems who came to make speeches to us in Congress; but I thought it very hard if I could not command as much power of face as one of the chiefs of the Six Nations, and therefore determined that I would assume a cheerful countenance, enjoy the scene around me, and observe it as coolly as an astronomer contemplates the stars. Inscriptions of _Fructus Belli_ were seen on the ceiling and all about the walls of the room, among paintings of the trophies of war; probably done by the order of Louis XIV., who confessed in his dying hour, as his successor and exemplar Napoleon will probably do, that he had been too fond of war. The king was the royal carver for himself and all his family. His majesty ate like a king, and made a royal supper of solid beef, and other things in proportion. The queen took a large spoonful of soup, and displayed her fine person and graceful manners, in alternately looking at the company in various parts of the hall, and ordering several kinds of seasoning to be brought to her, by which she fitted her supper to her taste.]

THE CHARACTER OF FRANKLIN

From Letter to the Boston Patriot, May 15th, 1811

Franklin had a great genius, original, sagacious, and inventive, capable of discoveries in science no less than of improvements in the fine arts and the mechanic arts. He had a vast imagination, equal to the comprehension of the greatest objects, and capable of a cool and steady comprehension of them. He had wit at will. He had humor that when he pleased was delicate and delightful. He had a satire that was good-natured or caustic, Horace or Juvenal, Swift or Rabelais, at his pleasure. He had talents for irony, allegory, and fable, that he could adapt with great skill to the promotion of moral and political truth. He was master of that infantine simplicity which the French call _naiveté_ which never fails to charm in Phaedrus and La Fontaine, from the cradle to the grave. Had he been blessed with the same advantages of scholastic education in his early youth, and pursued a course of studies as unembarrassed with occupations of public and private life as Sir Isaac Newton, he might have emulated the first philosopher. Although I am not ignorant that most of his positions and hypotheses have been controverted, I cannot but think he has added much to the mass of natural knowledge, and contributed largely to the progress of the human mind, both by his own writings and by the controversies and experiments he has excited in all parts of Europe. He had abilities for investigating statistical questions, and in some parts of his life has written pamphlets and essays upon public topics with great ingenuity and success; but after my acquaintance with him, which commenced in Congress in 1775, his excellence as a legislator, a politician, or a negotiator most certainly never appeared. No sentiment more weak and superficial was ever avowed by the most absurd philosopher than some of his, particularly one that he procured to be inserted in the first constitution of Pennsylvania, and for which he had such a fondness as to insert it in his will. I call it weak, for so it must have been, or hypocritical; unless he meant by one satiric touch to ridicule his own republic, or throw it into everlasting contempt.

I must acknowledge, after all, that nothing in life has mortified or grieved me more than the necessity which compelled me to oppose him so often as I have. He was a man with whom I always wished to live in friendship, and for that purpose omitted no demonstration of respect, esteem, and veneration in my power, until I had unequivocal proofs of his hatred, for no other reason under the sun but because I gave my judgment in opposition to his in many points which materially affected the interests of our country, and in many more which essentially concerned our happiness, safety, and well-being. I could not and would not sacrifice the clearest dictates of my understanding and the purest principles of morals and policy in compliance to Dr. Franklin.

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS

(1767-1848)

The chief distinction in character between John Adams and his son is the strangest one imaginable, when one remembers that to the fiery, combative, bristling Adams blood was added an equal strain from the gay, genial, affectionate Abigail Smith. The son, though of deep inner affections, and even hungering for good-will if it would come without his help, was on the surface incomparably colder, harsher, and thornier than his father, with all the socially repellent traits of the race and none of the softer ones. The father could never control his tongue or his temper, and not always his head; the son never lost the bridle of either, and much of his terrible power in debate came from his ability to make others lose theirs while perfectly keeping his own. The father had plenty of warm friends and allies,--at the worst he worked with half a party; the son in the most superb part of his career had no friends, no allies, no party except the group of constituents who kept him in Congress. The father's self-confidence deepened in the son to a solitary and even contemptuous gladiatorship against the entire government of the country, for long years of hate and peril. The father's irritable though generous vanity changed in the son to an icy contempt or white-hot scorn of nearly all around him. The father's spasms of acrimonious judgment steadied in the son to a constant rancor always finding new objects. But only John Quincy Adams could have done the work awaiting John Quincy Adams, and each of his unamiable qualities strengthened his fibre to do it. And if a man is to be judged by his fruits, Mr. Morse is justified in saying that he was "not only pre-eminent in ability and acquirements, but even more to be honored for profound, immutable honesty of purpose, and broad, noble humanity of aims."

It might almost be said that the sixth President of the United States was cradled in statesmanship. Born July 11th, 1767, he was a little lad of ten when he accompanied his father on the French mission. Eighteen months elapsed before he returned, and three months later he was again upon the water, bound once more for the French capital. There were school days in Paris, and other school days in Amsterdam and in Leyden; but the boy was only fourteen,--the mature old child!--when he went to St. Petersburg as private secretary and interpreter to Francis Dana, just appointed minister plenipotentiary to the court of the Empress Catherine. Such was his apprenticeship to a public career which began in earnest in 1794, and lasted, with slight interruptions, for fifty-four years. Minister to the United Netherlands, to Russia, to Prussia, and to England; commissioner to frame the Treaty of Ghent which ended the war of 1812; State Senator, United States Senator; Secretary of State, a position in which he made the treaty with Spain which conceded Florida, and enunciated the Monroe Doctrine before Monroe and far more thoroughly than he; President, and then for many years Member of the National House of Representatives,--it is strange to find this man writing in his later years, "My whole life has been a succession of disappointments. I can scarcely recollect a single instance of success to anything that I ever undertook."

It is true, however, that his successes and even his glories always had some bitter ingredient to spoil their flavor. As United States Senator he was practically "boycotted" for years, even by his own party members, because he was an Adams. In 1807 he definitely broke with the Federalist party--for what he regarded as its slavish crouching under English outrages, conduct which had been for years estranging him--by supporting Jefferson's Embargo, as better than no show of resistance at all; and was for a generation denounced by the New England Federalists as a renegade for the sake of office and a traitor to New England. The Massachusetts Legislature practically censured him in 1808, and he resigned.

His winning of the Presidency brought pain instead of pleasure: he valued it only as a token of national confidence, got it only as a minority candidate in a divided party, and was denounced by the Jacksonians as a corrupt political bargainer. And his later Congressional career, though his chief title to glory, was one long martyrdom (even though its worst pains were self-inflicted), and he never knew the immense victory he had actually won. The "old man eloquent," after ceasing to be President, was elected in 1830 by his home district a Representative in Congress, and regularly re-elected till his death. For a long time he bore the anti-slavery standard almost alone in the halls of Congress, a unique and picturesque figure, rousing every demon of hatred in his fellow-members, in constant and envenomed battle with them, and more than a match for them all. He fought single-handed for the right of petition as an indefeasible right, not hesitating to submit a petition from citizens of Virginia praying for his own expulsion from Congress as a nuisance. In 1836 he presented a petition from one hundred and fifty-eight ladies, citizens of Massachusetts, "for, I said, I had not yet brought myself to doubt whether females were citizens." After eight years of persistent struggle against the "Atherton gag law," which practically denied the right of petition in matters relating to slavery, he carried a vote rescinding it, and nothing of the kind was again enacted. He had a fatal stroke of paralysis on the floor of Congress February 21st, 1848, and died two days later.

As a writer he was perspicuous, vigorous, and straightforward. He had entered Harvard in the middle of the college course, and been graduated with honors. He had then studied and practiced law. He was Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory at Harvard from 1806 to 1809, and was well drilled in the use of language, but was too downright in his temper and purposes to spend much labor upon artistic effects. He kept an elaborate diary during the greater part of his life,--since published in twelve volumes of "Memoirs" by his son Charles Francis Adams; a vast storehouse of material relating to the political history of the country, but, as published, largely restricted to public affairs. He delivered orations on Lafayette, on Madison, on Monroe, on Independence, and on the Constitution; published essays on the Masonic Institution and various other matters; a report on weights and measures, of enormous labor and permanent value; Lectures on Rhetoric and Oratory; a tale in verse on the Conquest of Ireland, with the title 'Dermot MacMorrogh'; an account of Travels in Silesia; and a volume of 'Poems of Religion and Society.' He had some facility in rhyme, but his judgment was not at fault in informing him that he was not a poet. Mr. Morse says that "No man can have been more utterly void of a sense of humor or an appreciation of wit"; and yet he very fairly anticipated Holmes in his poem on 'The Wants of Man,' and hits rather neatly a familiar foible in the verse with which he begins 'Dermot MacMorrogh':--

"'Tis strange how often readers will indulge
Their wits a mystic meaning to discover;
Secrets ne'er dreamt of by the bard divulge,
And where he shoots a cluck, will find a plover;
Satiric shafts from every line promulge,
Detect a tyrant where he draws a lover:
Nay, so intent his hidden thoughts to see,
Cry, if he paint a scoundrel--'That means me.'"

Selections from Letters and Memoirs used by permission of J.B. Lippincott Company.

LETTER TO HIS FATHER

(At the Age of Ten)

DEAR SIR,--I love to receive letters very well; much better than I love to write them. I make but a poor figure at composition, my head is too fickle, my thoughts are running after birds eggs play and trifles, till I get vexed with myself. Mamma has a troublesome task to keep me steady, and I own I am ashamed of myself. I have but just entered the third volume of Smollett, tho' I had designed to have got it half through by this time. I have determined this week to be more diligent, as Mr. Thaxter will be absent at Court, and I cannot pursue my other studies. I have Set myself a Stent and determine to read the 3rd volume Half out. If I can but keep my resolution, I will write again at the end of the week and give a better account of myself. I wish, Sir, you would give me some instructions, with regard to my time, and advise me how to proportion my Studies and my Play, in writing, and I will keep them by me, and endeavor to follow them. I am, dear Sir, with a present determination of growing better, yours.

P.S.--Sir, if you will be so good as to favor me with a Blank Book, I will transcribe the most remarkable occurances I meet with in my reading, which will serve to fix them upon my mind.

FROM THE MEMOIRS

(At the Age of Eighteen)

April 26th, 1785.--A letter from Mr. Gerry of Feb. 25th Says that Mr. Adams is appointed Minister to the Court of London.

I believe he will promote the interests of the United States, as much as any man, but I fear his duty will induce him to make exertions which may be detrimental to his health. I wish however it may be otherwise. Were I now to go with him, probably my immediate satisfaction might be greater than it will be in returning to America. After having been traveling for these seven years almost all over Europe, and having been in the World, and among company, for three; to return to spend one or two years in the pale of a College, subjected to all the rules which I have so long been freed from; then to plunge into the dry and tedious study of the Law for three years; and afterwards not expect (however good an opinion I may have of myself) to bring myself into notice under three or four years more; if ever! It is really a prospect somewhat discouraging for a youth of my ambition (for I have ambition, though I hope its object is laudable). But still

"Oh! how wretched
Is that poor Man, that hangs on Princes' favors"

or on those of anybody else. I am determined that so long as I shall be able to get my own living in an honorable manner, I will depend upon no one. My Father has been so much taken up all his lifetime with the interests of the public, that his own fortune has suffered by it; so that his children will have to provide for themselves, which I shall never be able to do, if I loiter away my precious time in Europe and shun going home until I am forced to it. With an ordinary share of Common sense which I hope I enjoy, at least in America I can live _independent_ and _free_; and rather than live otherwise I would wish to die before the time when I shall be left at my own discretion. I have before me a striking example of the distressing and humiliating situation a person is reduced to by adopting a different line of conduct, and I am determined not to fall into the same error.

FROM THE MEMOIRS

JANUARY 14TH, 1831.--I received a letter from John C. Calhoun, now Vice-President of the United States, relating to his present controversy with President Jackson and William H. Crawford. He questions me concerning the letter of General Jackson to Mr. Monroe which Crawford alleges to have been produced at the Cabinet meetings on the Seminole War, and asks for copies, if I think proper to give them, of Crawford's letter to me which I received last summer, and of my answer. I answered Mr. Calhoun's letter immediately, rigorously confining myself to the direct object of his inquiries. This is a new bursting out of the old and rancorous feud between Crawford and Calhoun, both parties to which, after suspending their animosities and combining together to effect my ruin, are appealing to me for testimony to sustain themselves each against the other. This is one of the occasions upon which I shall eminently need the direction of a higher power to guide me in every step of my conduct. I see my duty to discard all consideration of their treatment of me; to adhere, in everything that I shall say or write, to the truth; to assert nothing positively of which I am not absolutely certain; to deny nothing upon which there remains a scruple of doubt upon my memory; to conceal nothing which it may be lawful to divulge, and which may promote truth and justice between the parties. With these principles, I see further the necessity for caution and prudence in the course I shall take. The bitter enmity of all three of the parties--Jackson, Calhoun, and Crawford--against me, an enmity the more virulent because kindled by their own ingratitude and injustice to me; the interest which every one of them, and all their partisans, have in keeping up that load of obloquy and public odium which their foul calumnies have brought down upon me; and the disfavor in which I stand before a majority of the people, excited against me by their artifices;--their demerits to me are proportioned to the obligations to me--Jackson's the greatest, Crawford's the next, Calhoun's the least of positive obligation, but darkened by his double-faced setting himself up as a candidate for the Presidency against me in 1821, his prevarications between Jackson and me in 1824, and his icy-hearted dereliction of all the decencies of social intercourse with me, solely from the terror of Jackson, since the 4th of March, 1829. I walk between burning ploughshares; let me be mindful where I place my foot.

FROM THE MEMOIRS

JUNE 7TH, 1833.--The first seedling apple-tree that I had observed on my return here just out of the ground was on the 22d of April. It had grown slowly but constantly since, and had put out five or six leaves. Last evening, after my return from Boston, I saw it perfectly sound. This morning I found it broken off, leaving one lobe of the seed-leaves, and one leaf over it. This may have been the work of a bug, or perhaps of a caterpillar. It would not be imaginable to any person free from hobby-horse or fanciful attachments, how much mortification such an incident occasions. St. Evremond, after removing into the country, returned to a city life because he found himself in despair for the loss of a pigeon. His conclusion was, that rural life induced exorbitant attachment to insignificant objects. My experience is conformable to this. My natural propensity was to raise trees, fruit and forest, from the seed. I had it in early youth, but the course of my life deprived me of the means of pursuing the bent of my inclination. One shellbark-walnut-tree in my garden, the root of which I planted 8th October, 1804, and one Mazzard cherry-tree in the grounds north of the house, the stone of which I planted about the same time, are the only remains of my experiments of so ancient a date. Had my life been spent in the country, and my experiments commenced while I was at College, I should now have a large fruit garden, flourishing orchards of native fruit, and very valuable forests; instead of which I have a nursery of about half an acre of ground, half full of seedlings, from five years to five days old, bearing for the first time perhaps twenty peaches, and a few blossoms of apricots and cherries; and hundreds of seedlings of the present year perishing from day to day before my eyes.

FROM THE MEMOIRS

SEPTEMBER 9TH, 1833.--Cold and cloudy day, clearing off toward evening. In the multitudinous whimseys of a disabled mind and body, the thick-coming fancies often come to me that the events which affect my life and adventures are specially shaped to disappoint my purposes. My whole life has been a succession of disappointments. I can scarcely recollect a single instance of success to anything that I ever undertook. Yet, with fervent gratitude to God, I confess that my life has been equally marked by great and signal successes which I neither aimed at nor anticipated. Fortune, by which I understand Providence, has showered blessings upon me profusely. But they have been blessings unforeseen and unsought. "Non nobis Domine, non nobis, sed nomini tuo da gloriam!" I ought to have been taught by it three lessons:--1. Of implicit reliance upon Providence. 2. Of humility and humiliation; the thorough conviction of my own impotence to accomplish anything. 3. Of resignation; and not to set my heart upon anything which can be taken from me or denied.

THE MISSION OF AMERICA

From his Fourth of July Oration at Washington, 1821

And now, friends and countrymen, if the wise and learned philosophers of the older world, the first observers of nutation and aberration, the discoverers of maddening ether and invisible planets, the inventors of Congreve rockets and shrapnel shells, should find their hearts disposed to inquire, What has America done for mankind? let our answer be this:--America, with the same voice which spoke herself into existence as a nation, proclaimed to mankind the inextinguishable rights of human nature, and the only lawful foundations of government. America, in the assembly of nations, since her admission among them, has invariably, though often fruitlessly, held forth to them the hand of honest friendship, of equal freedom, of generous reciprocity. She has uniformly spoken among them, though often to heedless and often to disdainful ears, the language of equal liberty, equal justice, and equal rights. She has, in the lapse of nearly half a century, without a single exception, respected the independence of other nations, while asserting and maintaining her own. She has abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when the conflict has been for principles to which she clings, as to the last vital drop that visits the heart. She has seen that probably for centuries to come, all the contests of that Aceldama, the European World, will be contests between inveterate power and emerging right. Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions, and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will recommend the general cause, by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself, beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force. The frontlet upon her brows would no longer beam with the ineffable splendor of freedom and independence; but in its stead would soon be substituted an imperial diadem, flashing in false and tarnished lustre the murky radiance of dominion and power. She might become the dictatress of the world; she would no longer be the ruler of her own spirit.

THE RIGHT OF PETITION

Quoted in Memoir by Josiah Quincy.

Sir, it is ... well known that, from the time I entered this house, down to the present day, I have felt it a sacred duty to present any petition, couched in respectful language, from any citizen of the United States, be its object what it may,--be the prayer of it that in which I could concur, or that to which I was utterly opposed. I adhere to the right of petition; and let me say here that, let the petition be, as the gentleman from Virginia has stated, from free negroes, prostitutes, as he supposes,--for he says there is one put on this paper, and he infers that the rest are of the same description,--_that_ has not altered my opinion at all. Where is your law that says that the mean, the low, and the degraded, shall be deprived of the right of petition, if their moral character is not good? Where, in the land of free-men, was the right of petition ever placed on the exclusive basis of morality and virtue? Petition is supplication--it is entreaty--it is prayer! And where is the degree of vice or immorality which shall deprive the citizen of the right to supplicate for a boon, or to pray for mercy? Where is such a law to be found? It does not belong to the most abject despotism. There is no absolute monarch on earth who is not compelled, by the constitution of his country, to receive the petitions of his people, whosoever they may be. The Sultan of Constantinople cannot walk the streets and refuse to receive petitions from the meanest and vilest in the land. This is the law even of despotism; and what does your law say? Does it say, that, before presenting a petition, you shall look into it and see whether it comes from the virtuous, and the great, and the mighty? No, sir; it says no such thing. The right of petition belongs to all; and so far from refusing to present a petition because it might come from those low in the estimation of the world, it would be an additional incentive, if such an incentive were wanting.

NULLIFICATION

From his Fourth of July Oration at Quincy, 1831

Nullification is the provocation to that brutal and foul contest of force, which has hitherto baffled all the efforts of the European and Southern American nations, to introduce among them constitutional governments of liberty and order. It strips us of that peculiar and unimitated characteristic of all our legislation--free debate; it makes the bayonet the arbiter of law; it has no argument but the thunderbolt. It were senseless to imagine that twenty-three States of the Union would suffer their laws to be trampled upon by the despotic mandate of one. The act of nullification would itself be null and void. Force must be called in to execute the law of the Union. Force must be applied by the nullifying State to resist its execution--

"Ate, hot from Hell,
Cries Havoc! and lets slip the dogs of war."

The blood of brethren is shed by each other. The citizen of the nullifying State is a traitor to his country, by obedience to the law of his State; a traitor to his State, by obedience to the law of his country. The scaffold and the battle-field stream alternately with the blood of their victims. Let this agent but once intrude upon your deliberations, and Freedom will take her flight for heaven. The Declaration of Independence will become a philosophical dream, and uncontrolled, despotic sovereignties will trample with impunity, through a long career of after ages, at interminable or exterminating war with one another, upon the indefeasible and unalienable rights of man.

The event of a conflict of arms, between the Union and one of its members, whether terminating in victory or defeat, would be but an alternative of calamity to all. In the holy records of antiquity, we have two examples of a confederation ruptured by the severance of its members; one of which resulted, after three desperate battles, in the extermination of the seceding tribe. And the victorious people, instead of exulting in shouts of triumph, "came to the House of God, and abode there till even before God; and lifted up their voices, and wept sore, and said,--O Lord God of Israel, _why_ is this come to pass in Israel, that there should be to-day one tribe lacking in Israel?" The other was a successful example of resistance against tyrannical taxation, and severed forever the confederacy, the fragments forming separate kingdoms; and from that day, their history presents an unbroken series of disastrous alliances and exterminating wars--of assassinations, conspiracies, revolts, and rebellions, until both parts of the confederacy sunk in tributary servitude to the nations around them; till the countrymen of David and Solomon hung their harps upon the willows of Babylon, and were totally lost among the multitudes of the Chaldean and Assyrian monarchies, "the most despised portion of their slaves."

In these mournful memorials of their fate, we may behold the sure, too sure prognostication of our own, from the hour when force shall be substituted for deliberation in the settlement of our Constitutional questions. This is the deplorable alternative--the extirpation of the seceding member, or the never-ceasing struggle of two rival confederacies, ultimately bending the neck of both under the yoke of foreign domination, or the despotic sovereignty of a conqueror at home. May Heaven avert the omen! The destinies of not only our posterity, but of the human race, are at stake.

Let no such melancholy forebodings intrude upon the festivities of this anniversary. Serene skies and balmy breezes are not congenial to the climate of freedom. Progressive improvement in the condition of man is apparently the purpose of a superintending Providence. That purpose will not be disappointed. In no delusion of national vanity, but with a feeling of profound gratitude to the God of our Fathers, let us indulge the cheering hope and belief, that our country and her people have been selected as instruments for preparing and maturing much of the good yet in reserve for the welfare and happiness of the human race. Much good has already been effected by the solemn proclamation of our principles, much more by the illustration of our example. The tempest which threatens desolation, may be destined only to purify the atmosphere. It is not in tranquil ease and enjoyment that the active energies of mankind are displayed. Toils and dangers are the trials of the soul. Doomed to the first by his sentence at the fall, man, by his submission, converts them into pleasures. The last are since the fall the condition of his existence. To see them in advance, to guard against them by all the suggestions of prudence, to meet them with the composure of unyielding resistance, and to abide with firm resignation the final dispensation of Him who rules the ball,--these are the dictates of philosophy--these are the precepts of religion--these are the principles and consolations of patriotism; these remain when all is lost--and of these is composed the spirit of independence--the spirit embodied in that beautiful personification of the poet, which may each of you, my countrymen, to the last hour of his life, apply to himself:--

"Thy spirit, Independence, let me share,
Lord of the lion heart and eagle eye!
Thy steps I follow, with my bosom bare,
Nor heed the storm that howls along the sky."

In the course of nature, the voice which now addresses you must soon cease to be heard upon earth. Life and all which it inherits, lose of their value as it draws toward its close. But for most of you, my friends and neighbors, long and many years of futurity are yet in store. May they be years of freedom--years of prosperity--years of happiness, ripening for immortality! But, were the breath which now gives utterance to my feelings, the last vital air I should draw, my expiring words to you and your children should be, INDEPENDENCE AND UNION FOREVER!

SARAH FLOWER ADAMS

(1805--1848)

This English poet, whose hymn, 'Nearer, my God, to Thee,' is known wherever the English language is spoken, was born at Great Harlow, Essex, England, in 1805. She was the daughter of Benjamin Flower, who in 1799 was prosecuted for plain speaking in his paper, the Cambridge Intelligencer. From the outcome of his trial is to be dated the liberty of political discussion in England. Her mother was Eliza Gould, who first met her future husband in jail, whither she had gone on a visit to assure him of her sympathy. She also had suffered for liberal opinions. From their parents two daughters inherited a distinguished nobility and purity of character. Eliza excelled in the composition of music for congregational worship, and arranged a musical service for the Unitarian South Place Chapel, London. Sarah contributed first to the Monthly Repository, conducted by W.J. Fox, her Unitarian pastor, in whose family she lived after her father's death. In 1834 she married William Bridges Adams. Her delicate health gave way under the shock of her sister's death in 1846, and she died of decline in 1848.

Her poetic genius found expression both in the drama and in hymns. Her play, 'Vivia Perpetua' (1841), tells of the author's rapt aspiration after an ideal, symbolized in a pagan's conversion to Christianity. She published also 'The Royal Progress,' a ballad (1845), on the giving tip of the feudal privileges of the Isle of Wight to Edward I.; and poems upon the humanitarian interests which the Anti-Corn-Law League endeavored to further. Her hymns are the happiest expressions of the religious trust, resignation, and sweetness of her nature.

'Nearer, my God, to Thee,' was written for the South Place Chapel service. There are stories of its echoes having been heard from a dilapidated log cabin in Arkansas, from a remote corner of the north of England, and from the Heights of Benjamin in the Holy Land. But even its devotion and humility have not escaped censure--arising, perhaps, from denominational bias. The fault found with it is the fault of Addison's 'How are thy servants blessed, O Lord,' and the fault of the Psalmody begun by Sternhold and Hopkins, which, published in Geneva in 1556, electrified the congregation of six thousand souls in Elizabeth's reign,--it has no direct reference to Jesus. Compilers of hymn-books have sought to rectify what they deem a lapse in Christian spirit by the substitution of a verse begining "Christ alone beareth me." But the quality of the interpolated verse is so inferior to the lyric itself that it has not found general acceptance. Others, again, with an excess of zeal, have endeavored to substitute "the Cross" for "a cross" in the first stanza.

An even share of its extraordinary vogue must in bare justice be credited to the tune which Dr. Lowell Mason has made an inseparable part of it; though this does not detract in the least from its own high merit, or its capacity to satisfy the feelings of a devout soul. A taking melody is the first condition of even the loveliest song's obtaining popularity; and this hymn was sung for many years to various tunes, including chants, with no general recognition of its quality. It was Dr. Mason's tune, written about 1860, which sent it at once into the hearts of the people.

HE SENDETH SUN, HE SENDETH SHOWER

He sendeth sun, he sendeth shower,
Alike they're needful to the flower;
And joys and tears alike are sent
To give the soul fit nourishment.
As comes to me or cloud or sun,
Father! thy will, not mine, be done.

Can loving children e'er reprove
With murmurs, whom they trust and love?
Creator, I would ever be
A trusting, loving child to thee:
As comes to me or cloud or sun,
Father! thy will, not mine, be done.

Oh, ne'er will I at life repine,--
Enough that thou hast made it mine.
When falls the shadow cold of death,
I yet will sing with parting breath,
As comes to me or cloud or sun,
Father! thy will, not mine, be done.

NEARER, MY GOD, TO THEE

Nearer, my God, to thee,
Nearer to thee!
E'en though it be a cross
That raiseth me;
Still all my song shall be,--
Nearer, my God, to thee,
Nearer to thee!

Though, like a wanderer,
The sun gone down,
Darkness be over me,
My rest a stone;
Yet in my dreams I'd be
Nearer, my God, to thee,
Nearer to thee!

There let the way appear
Steps unto heaven;
All that thou sendest me
In mercy given;
Angels to beckon me
Nearer, my God, to thee,
Nearer to thee!

Then with my waking thoughts
Bright with thy praise,
Out of my stony griefs
Bethel I'll raise;
So by my woes to be
Nearer, my God, to thee,
Nearer to thee!

Or if on joyful wing,
Cleaving the sky,
Sun, moon, and stars forgot,
Upward I fly;
Still all my song shall be,--
Nearer, my God, to thee,
Nearer to thee!

From 'Adoration, Aspiration, and Belief.'

JOSEPH ADDISON

(1672-1719)

BY HAMILTON WRIGHT MABIE

There are few figures in literary history more dignified and attractive than Joseph Addison; few men more eminently representative, not only of literature as a profession, but of literature as an art. It has happened more than once that literary gifts of a high order have been lodged in very frail moral tenements; that taste, feeling, and felicity of expression have been divorced from general intellectual power, from intimate acquaintance with the best in thought and art, from grace of manner and dignity of life. There have been writers of force and originality who failed to attain a representative eminence, to identify themselves with their art in the memory of the world. There have been other writers without claim to the possession of gifts of the highest order, who have secured this distinction by virtue of harmony of character and work, of breadth of interest, and of that fine intelligence which instinctively allies itself with the best in its time. Of this class Addison is an illustrious example. His gifts are not of the highest order; there was none of the spontaneity, abandon, or fertility of genius in him; his thought made no lasting contribution to the highest intellectual life; he set no pulses beating by his eloquence of style, and fired no imagination by the insight and emotion of his verse; he was not a scholar in the technical sense: and yet, in an age which was stirred and stung by the immense satiric force of Swift, charmed by the wit and elegance of Pope, moved by the tenderness of Steele, and enchanted by the fresh realism of De Foe, Addison holds the most representative place. He is, above all others, the Man of Letters of his time; his name instantly evokes the literature of his period.

Born in the rectory at Milston, Wiltshire, on May Day, 1672, it was Addison's fortune to take up the profession of Letters at the very moment when it was becoming a recognized profession, with a field of its own, and with emoluments sufficient in kind to make decency of living possible, and so related to a man's work that their acceptance involved loss neither of dignity nor of independence. He was contemporary with the first English publisher, Jacob Tonson. He was also contemporary with the notable reorganization of English prose which freed it from exaggeration, complexity, and obscurity; and he contributed not a little to the flexibility, charm, balance, and ease which have since characterized its best examples. He saw the rise of polite society in its modern sense; the development of the social resources of the city; the enlargement of what is called "the reading class" to embrace all classes in the community and all orders in the nation. And he was one of the first, following the logic of a free press, an organized business for the sale of books, and the appearance of popular interest in literature, to undertake that work of translating the best thought, feeling, sentiment, and knowledge of his time, and of all times, into the language of the drawing-room, the club, and the street, which has done so much to humanize and civilize the modern world.

To recognize these various opportunities, to feel intuitively the drift of sentiment and conviction, and so to adjust the uses of art to life as to exalt the one, and enrich and refine the other, involved not only the possession of gifts of a high order, but that training which puts a man in command of himself and of his materials. Addison was fortunate in that incomparably important education which assails a child through every sense, and above all through the imagination--in the atmosphere of a home, frugal in its service to the body, but prodigal in its ministry to the spirit. His father was a man of generous culture: an Oxford scholar, who had stood frankly for the Monarchy and Episcopacy in Puritan times; a voluminous and agreeable writer; of whom Steele says that he bred his five children "with all the care imaginable in a liberal and generous way." From this most influential of schools Addison passed on to other masters: from the Grammar School at Lichfield, to the well-known Charter House; and thence to Oxford, where he first entered Queen's College, and later, became a member of Magdalen, to the beauty of whose architecture and natural situation the tradition of his walks and personality adds no small charm. He was a close student, shy in manner, given to late hours of work. His literary tastes and appetite were early disclosed, and in his twenty-second year he was already known in London, had written an 'Account of the Greatest English Poets,' and had addressed some complimentary verses to Dryden, then the recognized head of English Letters.

While Addison was hesitating what profession to follow, the leaders of the political parties were casting about for men of literary power. A new force had appeared in English politics--the force of public opinion; and in their experiments to control and direct this novel force, politicians were eager to secure the aid of men of Letters. The shifting of power to the House of Commons involved a radical readjustment, not only of the mechanism of political action, but of the attitude of public men to the nation. They felt the need of trained and persuasive interpreters and advocates; of the resources of wit, satire, and humor. It was this very practical service which literature was in the way of rendering to political parties, rather than any deep regard for literature itself, which brought about a brief but brilliant alliance between groups of men who have not often worked together to mutual advantage. It must be said, however, that there was among the great Whig and Tory leaders of the time a certain liberality of taste, and a care for those things which give public life dignity and elegance, which were entirely absent from Robert Walpole and the leaders of the two succeeding reigns, when literature and politics were completely divorced, and the government knew little and cared less for the welfare of the arts. Addison came on the stage at the very moment when the government was not only ready but eager to foster such talents as his. He was a Whig of pronounced although modern type, and the Whigs were in power.

Lord Somers and Charles Montagu, better known later as Lord Halifax, were the heads of the ministry, and his personal friends as well. They were men of culture, lovers of Letters, and not unappreciative of the personal distinction which already stamped the studious and dignified Magdalen scholar. A Latin poem on the Peace of Ryswick, dedicated to Montagu, happily combined Virgilian elegance and felicity with Whig sentiment and achievement. It confirmed the judgment already formed of Addison's ability; and, setting aside with friendly insistence the plan of putting that ability into the service of the Church, Montagu secured a pension of £300 for the purpose of enabling Addison to fit himself for public employment abroad by thorough study of the French language, and of manners, methods, and institutions on the Continent. With eight Latin poems, published in the second volume of the 'Musae Anglicanae,' as an introduction to foreign scholars, and armed with letters of introduction from Montagu to many distinguished personages, Addison left Oxford in the summer of 1699, and, after a prolonged stay at Blois for purposes of study, visited many cities and interesting localities in France, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, and Holland. The shy, reticent, but observing young traveler was everywhere received with the courtesy which early in the century had made so deep an impression on the young Milton. He studied hard, saw much, and meditated more. He was not only fitting himself for public service, but for that delicate portraiture of manners which was later to become his distinctive work. Clarendon had already drawn a series of lifelike portraits of men of action in the stormy period of the Revolution: Addison was to sketch the society of his time with a touch at once delicate and firm; to exhibit its life in those aspects which emphasize individual humor and personal quality, against a carefully wrought background of habit, manners, usage, and social condition. The habit of observation and the wide acquaintance with cultivated and elegant social life which was a necessary part of the training for the work which was later to appear in the pages of the Spectator, were perhaps the richest educational results of these years of travel and study; for Addison the official is a comparatively obscure figure, but Addison the writer is one of the most admirable and attractive figures in English history.