Читать книгу Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams - Josiah Quincy - Страница 9

Table of Contents

FIRST TERM OF MR. MONROE'S ADMINISTRATION.—STATE OF PARTIES.—SEMINOLE WAR.—TAKING OF PENSACOLA.—NEGOTIATION WITH SPAIN.—PURCHASE OF THE FLORIDAS.—COLONIZATION SOCIETY.—THE ADMISSION OF MISSOURI INTO THE UNION.

A tedious voyage of seven weeks was beguiled by Mr. Adams with Bacon's Novum Organum, the novels of Scott, and the game of chess, which last, in his estimate, surpassed all other resources when at sea. On the 7th of August he arrived at New York, with mingled emotions of gratitude for the past, and anxious forecast of the cares and perils of the scene on which he was about to enter. After a detention in that city by official business, on the 18th of August he reached Quincy, Massachusetts, and enjoyed the inexpressible happiness of again meeting his venerable father and mother in perfect health, after an absence of eight eventful years. In September, at Washington, he entered upon the duties of Secretary of State.

The foreign relations of the United States were, at this period, peaceful, except that questions concerning spoliations on American commerce and settlement of boundaries were depending with Spain, and the sympathy of the United States for her revolted colonies excited her jealousy and fear, which the seizure of Amelia Island, under the real or pretended authority of one of them, had tended greatly to increase.

Internally, the political relations of the country were in a transition state. The chief power, which Virginia had held during three presidencies, was now about to pass from her hands; there being no statesman among her sons who could compete, as a candidate for the successorship to Monroe, with the talents and popularity of rising aspirants in other states. Her policy therefore was directed to secure, for the next term of the presidency, a candidate friendly to the political dogmas she cherished, and to the interests and projects of the Southern States. The character and principles of Mr. Adams were not adapted to become subservient to her views, and she saw with little complacency his elevation to the office of Secretary of State, which was in popular opinion a proximate step to the President's chair. Yet it could not be doubted that his appointment had the assent, if not the approbation, of Jefferson and Madison, without whose concurrence Monroe would scarcely have ventured to raise a citizen of Massachusetts to that station.

The prospective change, in the principles and influences of public affairs, which the close of Mr. Monroe's term of office would effect, elevated the hopes and awakened the activity of the partisans of Crawford, of Georgia, Clay, of Kentucky, and De Witt Clinton, of New York. Crawford, who had been Secretary of the Treasury under Madison, and who was again placed in that office by Monroe, was understood to be the favorite candidate of Virginia. Clay, one of the most talented and popular politicians of the period, had been an active supporter of Monroe for the presidency. His friends did not conceal their disappointment that he was not invited to take the office of Secretary of State; nor did he disguise his dissatisfaction at the appointment of Mr. Adams. In New York, De Witt Clinton, in his struggles with Van Buren for ascendency in that state, by one of those mysterious changes to which political tempests are subject, had been at one moment cast out of the mayoralty of the city, and at the next into the governor's chair. His partisans, deeming his position and popularity now favorable to his elevation to the presidency, which he had long desired and once attempted to attain, placed him in nomination for that office.

Each of these candidates possessed great personal and local popularity, spirit and power adapted to success, and adherents watchful and efficient. To cope with all these rival influences, Mr. Adams had talents, integrity, fidelity to his country, and devotion to the fulfilment of official duty, in which he had no superior. Having been absent eight years in foreign countries in public service, he had no Southern or Western current in his favor; and that which set from the North, though generally favorable, being divided, was comparatively feeble, and rather acquiescent in his elevation than active in promoting it.

On his appointment as Secretary of State, Mr. Adams remarked: "Whether it is for my own good is known only to God. As yet I have far more reason to lament than rejoice at the event; yet I feel not less my obligation to Mr. Monroe for his confidence in me, and the duty of personal devotion to the success of his administration which it imposes." Before the lapse of a year that administration was assailed in Congress and in the newspapers, and the attacks were concentrated on Mr. Adams. The calumnies by which his father's administration had been prostrated five-and-twenty years before were revived, and poured out with renewed malignity. Duane, in his Aurora, published in Philadelphia, and his coädjutors in other parts of the Union, represented him as "a royalist," "an enemy to the rights of man;" as a "friend of oligarchy;" as a "misanthrope, educated in contempt of his fellow-men;" as "unfit to be the minister of a free and virtuous people." Privately, and through the press, Mr. Monroe was warned that he "was full of duplicity;" "an incubus on his prospects for the next presidency, and on his popularity." When these calumnies were uttered, as some of them were, in the House of Representatives, they naturally excited the indignation of Mr. Adams, and the anxiety of his friends. Being asked by one of them whether it would not be advisable to expose the conduct and motives of rival statesmen, in the newspapers, he answered explicitly in the negative, saying: "The execution of my duties is the only answer I can give to censure. I will do absolutely nothing to promote any pretensions my friends may think I have to the presidency." On being told that his rivals would not be so scrupulous, and that he would not stand on an equal footing with them, he replied: "That is not my fault. My business is to serve the public to the best of my abilities in the station assigned to me, and not to intrigue for my own advancement. I never, by the most distant hint to any one, expressed a wish for any public office, and I shall not now begin to ask for that which, of all others, ought to be most freely and spontaneously bestowed."

Among the difficulties incident to the office of Secretary of State, that of making appointments was the most annoying and thankless. They were sought with a bold and rabid pertinacity. Success was attributed to the favor of the President; ill success, to the influence of the Secretary. When the applicant was a relative his patronage was naturally expected; but, with every expression of good-will, he avoided all recommendation in such cases, saying that such claims must be presented through other channels.