John Quincy Adams | Page 2

esteem
which ought to be accorded to the highest moral qualities, to very high,
if a little short of the highest, intellectual endowment, and to immense
acquirements. His political integrity was of a grade rarely seen; and, in
unison with his extraordinary courage and independence, it seemed to
the average politician actually irritating and offensive. He was in the
same difficulty in which Aristides the Just found himself. But neither (p.
viii) assaults nor political solitude daunted or discouraged him. His
career in the House of Representatives is a tale which has not a rival in
congressional history. I regret that it could not be told here at greater
length. Stubbornly fighting for freedom of speech and against the
slaveholders, fierce and unwearied in old age, falling literally out of the
midst of the conflict into his grave, Mr. Adams, during the closing
years of his life, is one of the most striking figures of modern times. I
beg the reader of this volume to put into its pages more warmth of
praise than he will find therein, and so do a more correct justice to an
honest statesman and a gallant friend of the oppressed. Doing this, he
will improve my book in the particular wherein I think that it chiefly
needs improvement. JOHN T. MORSE, JR. July, 1898.

CONTENTS
CHAPTER I.
Page Youth and Diplomacy 1

CHAPTER II.
Secretary of State and President 101
CHAPTER III.
In the House of Representatives 225
Index 309

ILLUSTRATIONS
John Quincy Adams Frontispiece
From the original painting by John Singleton Copley, in the Museum of
Fine Arts, Boston.
Autograph from the Chamberlain collection, Boston Public Library.
The vignette of Mr. Adams's home in Quincy is from a photograph.
Page William H. Crawford 107
From the painting by Henry Ulke, in the Treasury Department at
Washington.
Autograph from the Chamberlain collection, Boston Public Library.
Stratford Canning 149
After a drawing (1853) by George Richmond. Autograph from "Life of
Stratford Canning."
Henry A. Wise 291
From a photograph by Brady, in the Library of the State Department at
Washington.

Autograph from the Chamberlain collection, Boston Public Library.

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS (p. 001)
CHAPTER I
YOUTH AND DIPLOMACY
On July 11, 1767, in the North Parish of Braintree, since set off as the
town of Quincy, in Massachusetts, was born John Quincy Adams. Two
streams of as good blood as flowed in the colony mingled in the veins
of the infant. If heredity counts for anything he began life with an
excellent chance of becoming famous--non sine dîs animosus infans.
He was called after his great-grandfather on the mother's side, John
Quincy, a man of local note who had borne in his day a distinguished
part in provincial affairs. Such a naming was a simple and natural
occurrence enough, but Mr. Adams afterward moralized upon it in his
characteristic way:--
"The incident which gave rise to this circumstance is not without its
moral to my heart. He was dying when I was baptized; and his daughter,
my grandmother, present at my birth, requested that I might receive his
name. The fact, recorded by my father at (p. 002) the time, has
connected with that portion of my name a charm of mingled sensibility
and devotion. It was filial tenderness that gave the name. It was the
name of one passing from earth to immortality. These have been among
the strongest links of my attachment to the name of Quincy, and have
been to me through life a perpetual admonition to do nothing unworthy
of it."
Fate, which had made such good preparation for him before his birth,
was not less kind in arranging the circumstances of his early training
and development. His father was deeply engaged in the patriot cause,
and the first matters borne in upon his opening intelligence concerned
the public discontent and resistance to tyranny. He was but seven years
old when he clambered with his mother to the top of one of the high

hills in the neighborhood of his home to listen to the sounds of conflict
upon Bunker's Hill, and to watch the flaming ruin of Charlestown.
Profound was the impression made upon him by the spectacle, and it
was intensified by many an hour spent afterward upon the same spot
during the siege and bombardment of Boston. Then John Adams went
as a delegate to the Continental Congress at Philadelphia, and his wife
and children were left for twelve months, as John Quincy Adams
says,--it is to be hoped with a little exaggeration of the barbarity of (p.
003) British troops toward women and babes,--"liable every hour of the
day and of the night to be butchered in cold blood, or taken and carried
into Boston as hostages, by any foraging or marauding detachment."
Later, when the British