These domestic feuds were aggravated by pernicious influences from Europe.
In the progress of western civilization, the nations of the earth had become social. The new Republic could not, like the Celestial Empire, or that of Japan, confine itself within its own boundaries, and exist without national intercourse. It had entered the family of nations. But the position it was to assume, and the advantages it was to be allowed to enjoy, were yet to be ascertained and fixed. Its independence, confessed to be only a doubtful experiment at home, was naturally thought ephemeral in Europe. Its example was ominous, and the European Powers willingly believed that, if discountenanced and baffled, America would soon relapse into colonial subjugation. Such prejudices were founded in the fixed habits of society. Not only the thirteen colonies, but the whole American hemisphere, had been governed by European States from the period of its discovery. The very soil belonged to the trans-atlantic monarchs by discovery, or by ecclesiastical gift. Dominion over it attached by divine right to their persons, and drew after it obligations of inalienable allegiance upon those who became the inhabitants of the new world. The new world was indeed divided between different powers, but the system of government was the same. It was administered for the benefit of the parental State alone. Each power prohibited all foreign trade with its Colonies, and all intercourse between them and other plantations, supplied its Colonies with what they needed from abroad, interdicted their manufactures, and monopolized their trade. The prevalence of this system over the whole continent of America and the adjacent islands prevented all enterprize in the colonies, discouraged all improvement, and retarded their progress to independence.
The American Revolution sundered these bonds only so far as they confined thirteen of the British Colonies, and left the remaining British dominions, and the continent, from Georgia around Cape Horn to the Northern Ocean, under the same thraldom as before. Even the United States had attained only physical independence. The moral influences of the colonial system oppressed them still. Their trade, their laws, their science, their literature, their social connections, their ecclesiastical relations, their manners and their habits, were still colonial; and their thoughts continually clung around the ancient and majestic States of the Eastern Continent.
The American Revolution, so happily concluded here, broke out in France simultaneously with the beginning of Washington's administration. The French nation passed in fifteen years from absolute despotism under Louis XVI., through all the phases of democracy to a military despotism under Napoleon Bonaparte; and retained through all these changes, only two characteristics--unceasing ferocity of faction, and increasing violence of aggression against foreign States. The scandal of the French Revolution fell back upon the United States of America, who were regarded as the first disturbers of the ancient social system. The principal European monarchs combined, under the guidance of England, to arrest the presumptuous career of France and extirpate democracy by the sword.
Nevertheless, the republican cause, however odious in Europe, was our national cause. The sympathies of a large portion of the American people could not be withdrawn from the French nation, which always claimed, even when marshalled into legions under the Corsican conqueror, to be fighting the battles of freedom; while, on the other side, the citizens who regarded innovation as worse than tyranny, considered England and her allies as engaged in sustaining the cause of order, of government, and of society itself.
The line already drawn between the American people in regard to their organic law, naturally became the dividing line of the popular sympathies in the great European conflict. Thus deeply furrowed, that line became "a great gulf fixed." The Federal party unconsciously became an English party, although it indignantly disowned the epithet; and the Republican party became a French party, although with equal sincerity it denied the gross impeachment. Each belligerent was thus encouraged to hope some aid from the United States, through the ever-expected triumph of its friends; while both conceived contemptuous opinions of a people who, from too eager interest in a foreign fray, suffered their own national rights to be trampled upon with impunity by the contending States.
Washington set the new machine of government in motion. He formed his cabinet of recognized leaders of the adverse parties. Hamilton and Knox of the Federal party were balanced by Jefferson and Randolph of the adverse party. "Washington took part with neither, but held the balance between them with the scrupulous justice which marked his lofty nature." On the 25th of April, 1793, he announced the neutrality of the United States between the belligerents, and his decision, without winning the respect of either, exasperated both. Each invaded our national rights more flagrantly than before, and excused the injustice by the plea of necessary retaliation against its adversary, and each found willing apologists in a sympathizing faction in our own country.
Commercial and political relations were to be established between the United States and the European Powers in this season of conflict.
Ministers were needed who could maintain and vindicate abroad the same impartiality practised by Washington at home. There was one citizen eminently qualified for such a trust in such a conjuncture. Need I say that citizen was the younger Adams, and that Washington had the sagacity to discover him?
John Quincy Adams successively completed missions at the Hague and at Berlin, in the period intervening between 1794 and 1801, with such advantage and success, that in 1802 he was honored by his native commonwealth with a seat as her representative in the Senate of the United States. The insults offered to our country by the belligerents increased in aggravation as the contest between them became more violent and convulsive. France, in 1804, laid aside even the name and forms of a Republic, and the first consul, dropping the emblems of popular power, placed the long-coveted diadem upon his brow, where its jewels sparkled among the laurels he had won in the conquest of Italy. Washington's administration had passed away, leaving the American people in sullen discontent. John Adams had succeeded, and had atoned by the loss of power for the offence he had given by causing a just but unavailing war to be declared against France. Jefferson was at the head of the Government; he thought the belligerents might be reduced to forbearance by depriving them of our commercial contributions of supplies, and recommended, first an embargo, and then non-intercourse. Britain was an insular and France a continental power. The effects of these measures would therefore be more severe on the former than on the latter, and, unhappily, they were more severe on our own country than on either of the offenders.
Massachusetts was the chief commercial State in the Union. She saw the ruin of her commerce involved in the policy of Jefferson, and regarded it as an unworthy concession to the usurper of the French throne. In this emergency John Quincy Adams turned his back on Massachusetts, and threw into the uprising scale of the administration, the weight of his talents and of his already eminent fame. Massachusetts instructed the recusant to recant. He refused to obey, and resigned his place. His change of political relations astounded the country, and, with the customary charity of partisan zeal, was attributed to venality. It is now seen by us in the light reflected upon it by the habitual independence, unquestioned purity, and lofty patriotism of his whole life; and thus seen, constitutes only the first marked one of many instances wherein he broke the green withes which party fastened upon him, and maintained the cause of his country, referring the care of his fame to God and to an impartial posterity. Like Decimus Brutus, whom Julius Caesar saluted among his executioners with the exclamation "Et tu, Brute!" John Quincy Adams was not unfaithful, but he could not be obliged where he was not left free.
Jefferson retired in 1809, leaving to his successor, the scholastic and peace-loving Madison, the perilous legacy of perplexed foreign relations, and embittered domestic feuds. Great Britain now filled the measure of exasperations, by insolently searching our vessels on the high seas, and impressing into her marine all whom she chose to suspect of having been born in her allegiance, even though they had renounced it and had assumed the relations of American citizens. War was therefore imminent and inevitable. Russia was then coming forward to a position of commanding influence in Europe, and her youthful Emperor Alexander had won, by his chivalrous bearing, the respect of mankind. John Quincy Adams was wisely sent by the United States, to establish relations of amity with the great power of the North; and while he was thus engaged, the flames of European war, which had been so long averted, involved his own country. War was declared against Great Britain.
It was just. It was necessary. Yet it was a war that dared Great Britain to re-assert her ancient sovereignty. It was a war with a power whose wealth and credit were practically inexhaustible, a power whose navy rode unchecked over all the seas, and whose impregnable garrisons encircled the globe.
Against such a power the war was waged by a nation that had not yet accumulated wealth, nor established credit, nor even opened avenues suitable for transporting munitions of war through its extended territories--that had only the germ of a navy, an inconsiderable army, and not one substantial fortress. Yet such a war, under such circumstances, was denounced as unnecessary and unjust, though for no better reason than because greater contumelies had been endured at the hands of France. Thus a domestic feud, based on the very question of the war itself, enervated the national strength, and encouraged the mighty adversary.
The desperate valor displayed at Chippewa and Lundy's Lane, at Fort Erie and Plattsburgh, and the brilliant victories won in contests between single ships of war on the ocean and armed fleets on the lakes, vindicated the military prowess of the United States, but brought us no decisive advantage. A suspension of the conflict in Europe followed Napoleon's disastrous invasion of Russia, and left America alone opposed to her great adversary. Peace was necessary, because the national credit was exhausted--because the fortunes of the war were inclining against us--and because the opposition to it was ripening into disorganizing councils.
Adams had prepared the way by securing the mediation of Alexander. Then, in that critical period, associated with Russell, Bayard, the learned and versatile Gallatin, and the eloquent and chivalric Clay, he negotiated with firmness, with assiduity, with patience, and with consummate ability, a definitive treaty of peace--a treaty of peace which, although it omitted the causes of the war already obsolete, saved and established and confirmed in its whole integrity the independence of the Republic--a treaty of peace that yet endures, and, we willingly hope, may endure forever.
After fulfilling a subsequent mission at the Court of St. James, the pacificator entered the domestic service of the country as Secretary of State in the administration of James Monroe; and at the expiration of that administration became President of the United States. He attained the honors of the Republic at the age of fifty-seven, in the forty-ninth year of independence. He was sixth in the succession, and with him closed the line of Chief Magistrates who had rendered to their country some tribute of their talents in civil or military service in the war of independence.
John Quincy Adams, on entering civil life, had found the Republic unstable. He retired in 1829, leaving it firmly established. It was thus his happy fortune to preside at the completion of that work of consolidation, the beginning of which was the end of the labors of Washington.
John Quincy Adams engaged in this great work while yet in private life, in 1793. He showed to his fellow-citizens, in a series of essays, the inability of the French people to maintain free institutions at that time, and the consequent necessity of American neutrality in the European war.
These publications aided Washington so much the more because they anticipated his own decision. Adams sustained the same great cause when he strengthened the administration of Jefferson against the preponderating influence of Great Britain. His diplomatic services in Holland and Russia secured, at a critical period, a favorable consideration in the Courts of those countries, which conduced to the same end; and his brilliant success in restoring peace to the country so sorely pressed, relieved her from her enemies, reassured her, and gave to sceptical Europe conclusive proof that her republican institutions were destined to endure.
The administration of John Quincy Adams blends so intimately with that of Monroe, in which he was chief Minister, that no dividing line can be drawn between them. Adams may be said, without derogation from the fame of Monroe, to have swayed the Government during his presidency; and with equal truth, Monroe may be admitted to have continued his administration through that of his successor.
The consolidation of the Republic required that faction should be extinguished. Monroe began this difficult task cautiously, and pursued it with good effect. John Quincy Adams completed the achievement. The dignity and moderation which marked his acceptance of the highest trust which a free people could confer, beautifully foreshadowed the magnanimity with which it was to be discharged. He confessed himself deeply sensible of the circumstances under which it had been conferred:--
All my predecessors (he said) have been honored with majorities of the electoral voices, in the primary colleges. It has been my fortune to be placed, by the divisions of sentiment prevailing among our countrymen, on this occasion, in competition, friendly and honorable, with three of my fellow-citizens, all justly enjoying, in eminent degrees, the public favor; and of whose worth, talents and services, no one entertains a higher and more respectful sense than myself. The names of two of them were, in the fulfilment of the provisions of the constitution, presented to the selection of the House of Representatives, in concurrence with my own, names closely associated with the glory of the nation, and one of them farther recommended by a larger majority of the primary electoral suffrages than mine. In this state of things, could my refusal to accept the trust thus delegated to me give an opportunity to the people to form and to express, with a nearer approach to unanimity, the object of their preference, I should not hesitate to decline the acceptance of this eminent charge, and to submit the decision of this momentous question again to their determination.
It argued a noble consciousness of virtue to express, on such an occasion, so ingenuously, the emotions of a generous ambition.
He displayed the same great quality no less when he called to the post of chief Minister, in spite of clamors of corruption, Henry Clay, that one of his late rivals who alone among his countrymen had the talents and generosity which the responsibilities of the period exacted.
John Quincy Adams signalized his accession to the post of dangerous elevation by avowing the sentiments concerning parties by which he was inflexibly governed throughout his administration:--
Of the two great political parties [he said] which have divided the opinions and feelings of our country, the candid and the just will now admit, that both have contributed splendid talents, spotless integrity, ardent patriotism, and disinterested sacrifices, to the formation and administration of the Government, and that both have required a liberal indulgence for a portion of human infirmity and error. The revolutionary wars of Europe, commencing precisely at the moment when the Government of the United States first went into operation under the constitution, excited collisions of sentiments, and of sympathies, which kindled all the passions and embittered the conflict of parties, till the nation was involved in war, and the Union was shaken to its centre. This time of trial embraced a period of five-and-twenty years, during which the policy of the Union in its relations with Europe constituted the principal basis of our own political divisions, and the most arduous part of action of the Federal Government. With the catastrophe in which the wars of the French Revolution terminated, and our own subsequent peace with Great Britain, this baneful weed of party strife was uprooted. From that time no difference of principle, connected with the theory of government, or with our intercourse with foreign nations, has existed or been called forth in force sufficient to sustain a continued combination of parties, or given more than wholesome animation to public sentiment or legislative debate.
Our political creed, without a dissenting voice that can be heard, is that the will of the people is the source, and the happiness of the people is the end, of all legitimate government upon earth--that the best security for the beneficence, and the best guaranty against the abuse of power, consists in the freedom, the purity, and the frequency of popular elections. That the General Government of the Union, and the separate Governments of the States, are all sovereignties of legitimate powers; fellow servants of the same masters, uncontrolled within their respective spheres--uncontrollable by encroachments on each other. If there have been those who doubted whether a confederated representative democracy was a government competent to the wise and orderly management of the common concerns of a mighty nation, those doubts have been dispelled. If there have been projects of partial confederacies to be erected upon the ruins of the Union, they have been scattered to the winds. If there have been dangerous attachments to one foreign nation, and antipathies against another, they have been extinguished. Ten years of peace at home and abroad have assuaged the animosities of political contention and blended into harmony the most discordant elements of public opinion. There still remains one effort of magnanimity, one sacrifice of prejudice and passion, to be made by the individuals throughout the nation who have heretofore followed the standards of political party. It is that of discarding every remnant of rancor against each other, of embracing, as countrymen and friends, and of yielding to talents and virtue alone that confidence which, in times of contention for principle, was bestowed only upon those who bore the badge of party communion.
During the administration of John Quincy Adams, he was really the Chief Magistrate. He submitted neither his reason nor his conscience to the control of any partisan cabal. No man was appointed to office in obedience to political dictation, and no faithful public servant was proscribed. The result rewarded his magnanimity. Faction ceased to exist. When South Carolina, a few years afterward, assumed the very ground that the ancient republican party had indicated as lawful and constitutional, and claimed the right and power to set aside, within her own limits, acts of Congress which she pronounced void, because they transcended the Federal authority, she called on the republican party throughout the Union in vain. The dangerous heresy had been renounced forever. Since that time there has been no serious project of a combination to resist the laws of the Union, much less of a conspiracy to subvert the Union itself.
What though the elements of political strife remain? They are necessary for the life of free States. What though there still are parties, and the din and turmoil of their contests are ceaselessly heard? They are founded now on questions of mere administration, or on the more ephemeral questions of personal merit. Such parties are dangerous only in the decline, not in the vigor of Republics. Rome was no longer fit for freedom, and needed a Dictator and a Sovereign, when Pompey and Caesar divided the citizens. What though the magnanimity of Adams was not appreciated, and his contemporaries preferred his military competitor in the subsequent election? The sword gathers none but ripe fruits, and the masses of any people will sometimes prefer them to the long maturing harvest, which the statesmen of the living generations sow, to be reaped by their successors. For all this Adams cared not. He had extinguished the factions which for forty years had endangered the State. He had left on the records of history instructions and an example teaching how faction could be overthrown, and his country might resort to them when danger should recur. For himself he knew well, none knew better, that
"He who ascends to mountain-tops shall find The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow.
He who surpasses or subdues mankind, Must look down on the hate of those below.
Though high above the sun of glory glow, And far beneath the earth and ocean spread, Round him are icy rocks, and loudly blow Contending tempests on his naked head, And thus reward the toils which to their summits led."
The federal authority had so long been factiously opposed, that the popular respect for its laws needed to be renewed. The State of Georgia presented the fit occasion. She insisted on expelling, forcibly, remnants of Indian tribes, within her limits, in virtue of a treaty which was impeached for fraud, and came for revision before the Supreme Court and the Senate. The President met the emergency with boldness and decision.
The demonstration thus given that good faith should be practised, and the law have its way, no matter how unequal the litigating parties, operated favorably toward restoring the moral influence of the Government. That influence, although sometimes checked, has recently increased in strength, until the federal authority is universally regarded as final, and liberty again walks confidently hand in hand with law.
John Quincy Adams "loved peace and ensued it." He loved peace as a Christian, because war was at enmity with the spirit and precepts of a religion which he held to be divine. As a statesman and magistrate, he loved peace, because war was not merely injurious to national prosperity, but because, whether successful or adverse, it was subversive of liberty.
Democracies are prone to war, and war consumes them. He favored, therefore, all the philanthropic efforts of the age to cultivate the spirit of peace, and looked forward with benevolent hope to the ultimate institution of a General Congress of nations for the adjustment of their controversies. But he was no visionary and no enthusiast. He knew that as yet war was often inevitable--that pusillanimity provoked it, and that national honor was national property of the highest value; because it was the best national defence. He admitted only defensive war--but he did not narrowly define it. He held that to be a defensive war, which was waged to sustain what could not be surrendered or relinquished without compromising the independence, the just influence, or even the proper dignity of the State. Thus he had supported the war with Great Britain--thus in later years he sustained President Jackson in his bold demonstration against France, when that power wantonly refused to perform the stipulations it had made in a treaty of indemnity; and thus he yielded his support to what was thought a warlike measure of the present administration in the diplomatic controversy with Great Britain concerning the Territory of Oregon. The living and the dead have mutual rights, and therefore it must be added that he considered the present war with Mexico as unnecessary, unjust, and criminal. His opinion on this exciting question is among those on which he referred himself to that future age which he so often constituted the umpire between himself and his contemporaries.
With such principles on the subject of war, he regarded the establishment of a system of national defence as a necessary policy for consolidating the Republic. He prosecuted, therefore, on a large scale, the work of fortification, and defended against popular opposition the institution for the cultivation of military science, which has so recently vindicated that early favor through the learning, valor, patriotism and humanity exhibited by its pupils on the fields of Mexico. But with that jealousy of the military spirit which never forsakes the wise republican statesman, he cooperated in reducing the army to the lowest scale commensurate with its necessary efficiency:
It was a vain and dangerous delusion (he said) to believe that in the present or any probable condition of the world, a commerce so extensive as ours could exist without the continual support of a military marine--the only arm by which the power of a confederacy could be estimated or felt by foreign nations, and the only standing force which could never be dangerous to our own liberties.
The enlargement of our navy, under the influence of these opinions, is among the measures of national consolidation we owe to him; and the institution for naval education we enjoy, is a recent result of his early suggestions.
But John Quincy Adams relied for national security and peace mainly on an enlightened and broad system of civil policy. He looked through the future combinations of States, and studied the accidents to which they were exposed, that he might seasonably remove causes of future conflict. His genius, when exercised in this lofty duty, played in its native element.
He had cordially approved the measures by which Washington had secured the free navigation of the Mississippi. He approved the acquisition of Louisiana, although with Jefferson he insisted on a preliminary amendment of the constitution for that purpose. He had no narrow bigotry, concerning the soil to which the institutions of our fathers should be confined, and no local prejudice against their extension in any direction required by the public security, if the extension should be made with justice, honor, and humanity.
The acquisition of Louisiana had only given us additional territory, fruitful in new commerce, to be exposed to dangers which remain to be overcome. Spain still possessed, beside the Island of Cuba, the Peninsula of the Floridas, and thus held the keys of the Mississippi. The real independence, the commercial and the moral independence, of the United States, remained to be effected at the close of the European wars, and of our own war with England. Our political independence had been confirmed, and that was all. John Quincy Adams addressed himself, as Secretary of State, to the subversion of what remained of the colonial system. He commenced by an auspicious purchase of the Floridas, which gave us important maritime advantages on the Gulf of Mexico, while it continued our Atlantic sea-board unbroken from the Bay of Fundy to the Sabine.
The ever-advancing American Revolution was at the same time opening the way to complete disinthralment. The Spanish-American Provinces revolted, and seven new Republics, with constitutions not widely differing from our own--Buenos Ayres, Guatamala, Colombia, Mexico, Chili, Central America, and Peru--suddenly claimed audience and admission among the nations of the earth. The people of those countries were but doubtfully prepared to maintain their contest for independence, or to support republican institutions. But on the other side Spain was enervated and declining. She applied to the Holy League of Europe for their aid, and the new Republics applied to the United States for that recognition which could not fail to impart strength. The question was momentous. The ancient colonial system was at stake. All Europe was interested in maintaining it. The Holy League held Europe fast bound to the rock of despotism, and were at liberty to engage the United States in a war for the subversion of their independence, if they should dare to extend their aid or protection to the rebellious Colonies in South America.
Such a war would be a war of the two continents--an universal war. Who could foretell its termination, or its dread results? But the emancipation of Spanish America was necessary for our own larger freedom, and our own complete security. That freedom and that security required that the nations of Europe should relax their grasp on the American Continent. The question was long and anxiously debated. The American people hesitated to hazard, for speculative advantages, the measures of independence already obtained. Monroe and Adams waited calmly and firmly. The impassioned voice of Henry Clay rose from the Chamber of Representatives. It rang through the continent like the notes of the clarion, inspiring South America with new resolution, and North America with the confidence the critical occasion demanded. That noble appeal was answered. South America stood firm, and North America was ready. Then it was that John Quincy Adams, with those generous impulses which the impatient blood of his revolutionary sire always prompted, and with that enlightened sagacity which never misapprehended the interests of his country, nor mistook the time nor the means to secure them, obtained from the administration and from Congress the acknowledgment of the independence of the young American nations. To give decisive effect to this great measure, Monroe, in 1823, solemnly declared to the world, that thenceforth any attempt by any foreign power to establish the colonial system in any part of this continent, already emancipated, would be resisted as an aggression against the independence of the United States. On the accession of Adams to the administration of the Government, the vast American continental possessions of Brazil separated themselves from the crown of Portugal and became an independent State. Adams improved these propitious and sublime events by negotiating treaties of reciprocal trade with the youthful nations; and, concurring with Monroe, accepted, in behalf of the United States, their invitation to a General Congress of American States to be held at Panama, to cement relations of amity among themselves, and to consider, if it should become necessary, the proper means to repel the apprehended interference of the Holy League of Europe.
The last measure transcended the confidence of a large and respectable portion of the American people. But its moral effect was needed to secure the stability of the South American Republics. Adams persevered, and, in defending his course, gave notice to the powers of Europe, by this bold declaration, that the determination of the United States was inflexible:--
"If it be asked, whether this meeting, and the principles which may be adjusted and settled by it, as rules of intercourse between American nations, may not give umbrage to European powers, or offence to Spain, it is deemed a sufficient answer, that our attendance at Panama can give no just cause of umbrage or offence to either, and that the United States will stipulate nothing there, which can give such cause. Here the right of inquiry into our purposes and measures must stop. The Holy League of Europe, itself, was formed without inquiring of the United States, whether it would or would not give umbrage to them. The fear of giving umbrage to the Holy League of Europe was urged as a motive for denying to the American nations the acknowledgment of their independence. The Congress and the administration of that day consulted their rights and their duties, not their fears. The United States must still, as heretofore, take counsel from their duties, rather than their fears."
Contrast, fellow-citizens, this declaration of John Quincy Adams, President of the United States in 1825, with the proclamation of neutrality, between the belligerents of Europe, made by Washington in 1793, with the querrulous complaints of your Ministers against the French Directory and the British Ministry at the close of the last century, and with the acts of embargo and non-intercourse at the beginning of the present century, destroying our own commerce to conquer forbearance from the intolerant European powers. Learn from this contrast, the epoch of the consolidation of the Republic. Thus instructed, do honor to the statesman and magistrate by whom, not forgetting the meed due to his illustrious compeers, the colonial system was overthrown throughout Spanish America, and the independence of the United States was completely and finally consummated.
The intrepid and unwearied statesman now directed his attention to the remnants of the colonial system still preserved in the Canadas and West Indies. Great Britain, by parliamentary measures, had undermined our manufactures, and, receiving only our raw materials, repaid us with fabrics manufactured from them, while she excluded us altogether from the carrying trade with her colonial possessions. John Quincy Adams sought to counteract this injurious legislation, by a revenue system, which should restore the manufacturing industry of the country, while he offered reciprocal trade as a compromise. His administration ended during a beneficial trial of this vigorous policy. But it taxed too severely the patriotism of some of the States, and was relinquished by his successors.
Indolence begets degeneracy, and immobility is the first stage of dissolution. John Quincy Adams sought not merely to consolidate the Republic, but to perpetuate it. For this purpose he bent vast efforts, with success, to such a policy of internal improvement as would increase the facilities of communication and intercourse between the States, and bring into being that great internal trade which must ever constitute the strongest bond of federal union. Wherever a lighthouse has been erected, on our sea-coast, on our lakes, or on our rivers--wherever a mole or pier has been constructed or begun--wherever a channel obstructed by shoals or sawyers has been opened, or begun to be opened--wherever a canal or railroad, adapted to national uses, has been made or projected--there the engineers of the United States, during the administration of John Quincy Adams, made explorations, and opened the way for a diligent prosecution of his designs by his successors. This policy, apparently so stupendous, was connected with a system of fiscal economy so rigorous, that the treasury augmented its stores, while the work of improvement went on; the public debt, contracted in past wars, dissolved away, and the nation flourished in unexampled prosperity. John Quincy Adams administered the Federal Government, while De Witt Clinton was presiding in the State of New York.
It is refreshing to recall the noble emulation of these illustrious benefactors--an emulation that shows how inseparable sound philosophy is from true patriotism.
If [said Adams, in his first annual message to the Congress of the United States,] the powers enumerated may be effectually brought into action by laws promoting the improvement of agriculture, commerce and manufactures, the cultivation and encouragement of the mechanic arts, and of the elegant arts, the advancement of literature, and the progress of the sciences, ornamental and profound, to refrain from exercising them for the benefit of the people would be to hide in the earth the talent committed to our charge, would be treachery to the most sacred of trusts. The spirit of improvement is abroad upon the earth. It stimulates the hearts, and sharpens the faculties, not of our fellow-citizens alone, but of the nations of Europe, and of their rulers. While dwelling with pleasing satisfaction upon the superior excellence of our political institutions, let us not be unmindful that liberty is power, that the nation blessed with the largest portion of liberty, must in proportion to its numbers be the most powerful nation upon earth, and that the tenure of power by man is, in the moral purposes of his Creator, upon condition that it shall be exercised to ends of beneficence, to improve the condition of himself, and his fellow men. While foreign nations, less blessed with that freedom which is power than ourselves, are advancing with gigantic strides in the career of public improvement, were we to slumber in indolence, or fold our arms and proclaim to the world that we are palsied by the will of our constituents, would it not be to cast away the bounties of Providence and doom ourselves to perpetual inferiority? In the course of the year now drawing to its close, we have beheld, under the auspices, and at the expense of one State of this Union, a new university unfolding its portals to the sons of science, and holding up the torch of human improvement to eyes that seek the light.[Footnote: The University of Virginia.] We have seen, under the persevering and enlightened enterprise of another State, the waters of our Western lakes mingle with those of the ocean. If undertakings like these have been accomplished in the compass of a few years, by the authority of single members of our confederacy, can we, the representative authorities of the whole Union, fall behind our fellow servants in the exercise of the trust committed to us for the benefit of our common sovereign, by the accomplishment of works important to the whole and to which neither the authority nor the resources of anyone State can be adequate?
The disastrous career of many of the States, and the absolute inaction of others, since the responsibilities of internal improvement have been cast off by the federal authorities, and developed upon the States, without other sources of revenue than direct taxation, and with no other motives to stimulate them than their own local interests, are a fitting commentary on the error of that departure from the policy of John Quincy Adams. If other comment were necessary, it would be found in the fact that States have revised and amended their constitutions, so as to abridge the power of their Legislatures to prosecute the beneficent enterprises which the Federal Government has devolved upon them. The Smithsonian Institute, at the seat of Government, founded by the liberality of a cosmopolite, is that same university so earnestly recommended by Adams for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men. The exploration of the globe, for purposes of geographical and political knowledge, which has so recently been made under the authority of the Union, and with such noble results, was an enterprize conceived and suggested by the same statesman. The National Observatory at the capital, which is piercing the regions nearest to the throne of the eternal Author of the universe, is an emanation of the same comprehensive wisdom.
Such was the administration of John Quincy Adams. Surely it exhibits enough done for duty and for fame--if the ancient philosopher said truly, that the duty of a statesman was to make the citizens happy, to make them firm in power, rich in wealth, splendid in glory, and eminent in virtue, and that such achievements were the greatest and best of all works among men.
But the measure of duty was not yet fulfilled. The Republic thought it no longer had need of the services of Adams, and he bowed to its command. Two years elapsed, and lo! the priest was seen again beside the deserted altar, and a brighter, purer, and more lasting flame arose out of the extinguished embers.
"He looked in years. But in his years were seen A youthful vigor, an autumnal green."