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Historic Americans

BY

THEODORE PARKER

EDITED WITH NOTES
BY
SAMUEL A. ELIOT

BOSTON
AMERICAN UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION
25 Beacon Street

cofyhight, 1908
American Unitarian Association

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Pbebsvobk bt The TJnivebsity Peess, Cambridge, TJ. S. A.

EDITOR'S PREFACE
" Historic Americans," a book containing the first
four lectures printed in the present volume, was pub
lished in 1870. Later in the same year it appeared as
Volume XIII of Miss Cobbe's English edition of Par
ker's works. The manuscripts were prepared for the
press by the devoted labor of Parker's literary execu
tor, Mr. Joseph Lyman, and an introduction was fur
nished by Mr. 0. B. Frothingham.
The lectures on Franklin, Washington, Adams and
Jefferson were written in the latter part of the sum
mer of 1858, the last productive season of Parker's
hard-working life. Owing to his increasing ill-health
his society had requested him to extend his usual sum
mer vacation to six months. This he would not do, but
he did not return to his duties until later than usual.
He preached his last sermon on January 2d, 1859.
Only two of the four lectures were delivered. Mr.
Chadwick [Theodore Parker, page 349] intimates that
the Washington lecture was also given, but he was de
ceived by the statement in Mr. Frothingham's intro
duction to the original edition of " Historic Ameri
cans " that " three of them were delivered." Four
years later, however, Mr. Frothingham in his Life of
Parker [page 502] wrote that only the Franklin and
the Adams were publicly given.
Parker's themes were well chosen. It is interesting
to note the testimony of Sir George Trevelyan in his
" History of the American Revolution " [Vol. II, page
121] that " the four men who, in the earlier sessions of
Congress had most share in guiding its deliberations
v

vi EDITOR'S PREFACE
and molding its actions, were Washington and Frank
lin, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams." Sir George
points out the curious fact that three of the four sel
dom or never spoke in public and adds that " the power
of these men lay in what they knew and did."
As in all of Parker's work the lectures on the " His
toric Americans " had a didactic purpose and were in
tended to convey something more than information.
They were designed not only to portray the characters
of the great men delineated but also to instruct people
in the principles upon which the American Republic is
founded. By the virtues of the heroes, the writer
wished to inspire his countrymen and by their faults to
warn them. When Parker selected these themes, " his
object," said Mr. Frothingham in his introduction,
" was not to amuse an audience for an hour ; it was
not to convey biographical information in a popular
form; it was not to do good in a general sense; much
less was it, in a specific sense, to do evil by affronting
the reverence of his contemporaries or diminishing the
reputation of eminent men whom people far and near
had lifted to a pedestal of honor. His design was to
trace back to their sources, in the creative minds of the
nation, the principles that have exerted a controlling
influence in the nation's history and are still active in
the institutions and politics of the hour."
This purpose was amply accomplished. Had Parker
been able to add equally conscientious studies of the
three remaining statesmen who were the founders of the
republic, Hamilton, Madison and Marshall, he would
have completed in biographical form a real history of
the origin and principles of the American common
wealth. In the absence of such studies there have been
added to this volume the sermons preached by Parker

EDITOR'S PREFACE vii
on the deaths of two of the great statesmen of the
middle period of our national history. These addresses,
because they dealt with contemporary events and char
acters, are less impartial than the studies of the heroes
of a past generation, but the sermons on John Quincy
Adams and Daniel Webster were among the most fa
mous and most widely circulated of Parker's public
utterances. The lectures on the " Historic Americans " were
prepared at a time when the agitation over slavery was
at its height. The two sermons here added dealt with
the careers of men actively engaged in the discussion
of the great issue of the hour. The slavery question
entered into Parker's every estimate of all these public
leaders. A failure to assent to his opinion on that
absorbing issue was to Parker nothing less than moral
delinquency. George William Curtis once told of
Charles Sumner a story which might have been true of
.Parker. " Once," he said, " when I argued with him
that his opponents might be sincere and that there was
some reason on the other side, he thundered, ' Upon
such a question there is no other side.' " Parker saw
so clearly the immediate and dreadful evil of slavery
that he was sometimes led into unjust condemnation of
men, quite as patriotic and as tender-hearted as himself,
who felt that national disruption might be even
a greater evil or who proposed other solutions of the
problem than that championed by the Abolitionists.
Parker was much given to italicizing and capitaliz
ing important words in his books and manuscripts. His
points did not really need such emphasis and in this
edition the italics are omitted. By ample learning, by
lucid speech, by intense moral earnestness, he both
shaped and expressed the public opinion of those of his

viii EDITOR'S PREFACE
fellow-citizens who were inclined to agree with him.
The lectures and sermons contained in this volume
illustrate the prodigious labor, the honesty of purpose,
the brilliancy of style, and the uncompromising zeal
for truth and righteousness which gave to Theodore
Parker a great influence over the minds and hearts of
his own generation and which make these biographical
studies a permanent contribution to American literature.
Samuel A. Eliot.

CONTENTS Page
I. Benjamin Franklin  1
II. George Washington  41
III. John Adams  97
IV. Thomas Jefferson  158
V. John Quincy Adams  204
VI. Daniel Webster  266
Notes  385

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
At the beginning of the last century a hardy man,
Josiah Franklin by name, born in England, the son of
a blacksmith, himself a tallow-chandler, was living in a
small house, in an obscure way, in Boston, then a colon
ial town of eight or ten thousand inhabitants, in the
colony of Massachusetts Bay.
On the 17th of January, at the Blue Ball, in Han
over street, 1706,1 his tenth son was born into this
world, and, it being Sunday, he was taken to the meet
ing-house and publicly baptized the same day, accord
ing to the common custom of those times ; for then it
was taught by the ministers that the devil watched
about every cradle, ready to seize the souls of all
babies dying before they got ecclesiastically sprinkled
with water, and that the ceremony of baptism would
save them from his clutches until they could discern
good from evil. The minister had a wig on his head,
and Geneva bands about his neck. There was no
Bible upon the desk of the pulpit, and he thought it
a sin to repeat the Lord's Prayer. When he said,
" This child's name is Benjamin," how all those grim
puritanic Bostonians looked on the tenth boy, the fif
teenth child of the tallow-chandler ! And prudent aunts
doubtless wondered what he would do with such a fam
ily in those hard times. That little baby, humbly
cradled, has turned out to be the greatest man that
America ever bore in her bosom or set eyes upon. Be
yond all question, as I think, Benjamin Franklin had
1

2 HISTORIC AMERICANS
N the largest mind that has shone this side of the sea, —
widest in its comprehension, most deep-looking,
thoughtful, far-seeing, of course the most original and
creative child of the New World.
For the last four generations no man has shed such
copious good influence on America; none added so
much new truth to the popular knowledge ; none has so
skilfully organized its ideas into institutions ; none has
so powerfully and wisely directed the nation's conduct,
and advanced its welfare in so many respects. No man
now has so strong a hold on the habits and manners
of the people. Franklin comes home to the individual
business of practical men in their daily life. His
homely sayings are the proverbs of the people now.
Much of our social machinery, academic, literary,
philosophic, is of his device.
Let us now look this extraordinary Benjamin Frank
lin in the face, and see what he was.2
He was born in Boston, on the 17th of January,
1706. Thence he ran away in the autumn of 1723,
and in October found himself a new home in Phila
delphia, where he made his first meal in the street one
Sunday morning from a draught of Delaware river
water and a pennyworth of bread, giving twopence
worth to a poor woman.3 Such was his first breakfast
and his earliest charity in his adopted state. Here he
worked as a journeyman printer. Deceived by Sir
William Keith, the Governor of Pennsylvania, he went
to England, landing there the 24th of December, 1724.
He followed his trade in London for about two years.
He returned to Philadelphia on the 11th of October,
1726, and resumed his business as printer, entering
also into politics; or, rather, I should say, he became

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 3
a statesman, for he was never a politician, but a states
man from the beginning, who never solicited an office,
nor used any indirection to retain one when it was in
his possession. As agent for Pennsylvania, he again
went to England in October, 1757, and returned to
Philadelphia in November, 1762. But he went back
to England in December, 1764, as agent for several
colonies, and returned thence, 5th of May, 1775. He
was sent as minister to France by the revolted colonies
in 1776, whence, on September 14, 1785, he returned
to Philadelphia, which he never left again. He was
President, or what we should now call Governor, of
Pennsylvania, from October, 1785, to October, 1788,
and was also a member of the Federal Convention, which
made the Constitution of the United States. He died
on the 17th April, 1790, aged eighty-four years and
three months, and his body lies buried at Philadelphia,
in the corner of the churchyard, close to the Quaker
meeting-house. Franklin spent a little more than twenty-six years
in Europe, more than twenty-three of them in various
diplomatic services. He lived in Boston nearly eight
een years, was a citizen of Philadelphia more than
sixty-six years, held his first public office in 1736, and
left office altogether in 1788, serving his state and na
tion in many public trusts something about fifty-two
years. He was married in 1730, at the age of twenty-
four. His wife died in 1774. He was forty-four
years a husband, though for twenty-three years he
was in Europe for the most part, while she remained
wholly in Pennsylvania. He left two children, — an
illegitimate son, William Temple Franklin, who after
wards became governor of the colony of New Jersey,
and was a Tory, — and a legitimate daughter, Sarah.4

4 HISTORIC AMERICANS
Both of them married, and became parents long be
fore his death. A few of his descendants are still
living, though none, I think, bear the name of Franklin.
Such is the material basis of facts and of dates.
To understand the man, look at the most important
scenes in his public life.
I. A stout, hardy-looking boy, with a great head,
twelve or fourteen years old, clad in knee breeches, with
buckles in his shoes, is selling ballads in the streets of
Boston, broadsides printed on a single sheet, containing
what were called " varses " in those times. One is
" The Lighthouse Tragedy," giving an account of the
shipwreck of Captain Worthylake and his two daugh
ters, and the other, " The Capture of Blackbeard the
Pirate." He wrote the " varses " himself, and printed
them also. " Wretched stuff," he says, they were : no
doubt of it. From eight to nine he has been in the
grammar school, but less than a year; then in another
public school for reading and writing for less than
another year — a short time, truly ; but he made rapid
progress, yet " failed entirely in arithmetic." In
school he studied hard. Out-of-doors he was a wild
boy, — " a leader among the boys," — and sometimes
" led them into scrapes." After the age of ten he
never saw the inside of a school-house as a pupil.
Harvard College was near at home, and the Boston
Latin School close by, its little bell tinkling to him in
his father's shop ; but poverty shut the door in his face.
Yet he would learn. He might be born poor, he could
not be kept ignorant. His birth to genius more than
made up for want of academic breeding.
He had educational helps at home. His father, a
man of middle stature, well set, and very strong, was

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 5
not only handy with tools, but " could draw prettily."
He played on the violin, and sang withal. Rather an
austere Calvinist, a man of " sound understanding."
Careless about food at table, he talked of what was
" good, just, and prudent in the conduct of life," and
not of the baked beans, the corned beef, or the rye and
Indian bread. The father had a few books: Plu
tarch's " Lives," " Essays to do Good," by Cotton
Mather, and besides, volumes of theological contro
versy and of New England divinity. Benjamin added
some books of his own: Bunyan, Burton's Historical
Collection; in all forty little volumes. He was fond
of reading, and early took to writing poetry. Two
children were born after him, making the family of
the patriarchal number of seventeen. The father and
mother 5 were never sick. They died of old age, as
we ought; he at eighty-nine, she at eighty-five. The
apple mellowed or shriveled up, and then fell off.
There was an uncle Benjamin, like the nephew in
many things, who lived the other side of the water for
a long time, and subsequently came here. Now and
then he shot a letter to the hopeful Benjamin this side
the sea, poetical sometimes, whereof some fragments
still remain; one addressed to him when he was four
years old, the other when he was seventeen ; one warn
ing him against military propensities, which the baby
in long clothes was thought to have displayed, the
other encouraging the poetic aspiration. In fact, the
uncle Benjamin, like the nephew, had an inclination
for " varses," and the specimens of his which are ex
tant are not so bad as some " varses " that have been
written since his time. When the nephew was seven
years old, the uncle, hearing of his poetic fervor,
wrote —

6 HISTORIC AMERICANS
" Tis time for me to throw aside my pen
When hanging sleeves read, write, and rhyme like men.
This forward spring foretells a plenteous crop,
For if the bud bear grain, what will the top ! "
Benjamin had glimpses of academic culture, for the
father wished to make him a minister, thus consecrating
" the tithe of his sons." But poverty forbade. The
boy must work. So, when he was ten years old, the
tallow-chandler tried him with the dips and molds of his
own shop at the sign of the Blue Ball, then with the
cutlery of his cousin Samuel, " bred to that trade in
London ; " but neither business suited him. These ex
periments continued for two years. Then, at the age
of twelve, he was apprenticed to his brother James, a
printer, afterwards an editor of the " New England
Courant," the fourth newspaper published in America.
James Franklin was a man not altogether respectable.
During this apprenticeship Mr. Matthew Adams, a
merchant, often lent Benjamin books, which he sat up
the greater part of the night to read.
This is the boy who is hawking his own ballads
about the streets of the little colonial town of Boston.
This is the first scene in his public life. There is noth
ing remarkable in it, nothing very promising. He
makes no public appearance in Boston again.
II. Next, in 1727, Franklin is a master printer on
his own account, in his own hired house or shop in
Market street, Philadelphia. A white board over the
door tells the world that "Benjamin Franklin,
Printer," may be found there. He has just printed his
first job for five shillings. Since he left Massachusetts
his life has been quite eventful. In Boston he wrote
for his brother's newspaper, secretly at first, and after-

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 7
wards openly. He was nominally its editor, and per
haps also its poet. He quarreled with his brother
James, ran away to Philadelphia, and has had a hard
and tempestuous time of it. He did well as a journey
man printer in Philadelphia during his nineteenth and
twentieth years. But the Governor took notice of him,
swindled him, and sent him to England on a fool's
errand. Wherever he fell he touched ground with his
feet. In London he followed his craft nearly two
' years, making friends and foes. He was a wild young
man, and led himself into dissipations and difficulties.
He kept low company sometimes, not only of bad men,
but of evil women also, spending a good deal of his
earnings at plays and at public amusements. But
even now, at twenty-one, he is industrious, temperate,
frugal, forecasting, punctual, and that to an extra
ordinary degree. He works late and early, not dis
daining to wheel home in a barrow the paper he bought
for his trade. " He that would thrive, must rise at
five : " he knew it before he was twenty. He had read
many books, nay, studied them; the Spectator, the
memorable things of Xenophoh, Cocker's Arithmetic,
books on navigation, which helped him to a little
geometry, Locke on the Understanding, Shaftesbury,
Collins, with the ecclesiastical replies to the free-think
ers ; and in London he read many works not elsewhere
accessible. He wrote, also, with simplicity, strength,
and beauty, having taken great pains to acquire a
neat and easy style. There is a diary of his, written
when he was only twenty. He was now twenty-one.
He soon became editor of the Pennsylvania Gazette,
then bookseller, then almanac maker, then postmaster
of Philadelphia, continuing always his printing trade.
He had many irons in the fire, yet not one loo many,

8 HISTORIC AMERICANS
for he was careful that none burned. The change
from the boy of fourteen, selling ballads in Boston,
to the youth of twenty-one, printing Quaker books, or
to the mature man, printer and bookseller, is only a
natural development.
III. Now he is forty-six years old. In June, 1752,
attended by his son twenty-one years old, he is in the
fields near Philadelphia as a thunder-cloud comes up.
He hoists a kite, covered with a silk handkerchief, an
iron point at its head. He lets it fly towards the cloud.
He holds by a short end of non-conducting silk the long
string of hemp, a conductor of electricity. An iron
key hangs at the jointing of the silk with the hemp.
He touches the key. The lightning of heaven sparkles
in his hand. The mystery is solved. The lightning
of the heavens and the electricity of the chemist's shop
are the same thing. The difference is only in quantity ;
in kind they are the same. An iron point will attract
the lightning. A string of hemp or wire will conduct
it to the ground. Thunder has lost its destructive
terror. The greatest discovery of the century is made,
the parent of many more not dreamed of then or yet.
Truly this is a great picture.
Between Franklin, the young printer of twenty-one,
and Franklin, the philosopher, at forty-six, many
events have taken place. The obscure printer of 1727
is now a famous man, inclining towards riches. He
has had many social and civil honors. He has been
justice of the peace (the title then meant something),
afterwards alderman, clerk of the General Assembly,
then member of the Assembly, then speaker, then post
master of Philadelphia, then Postmaster-General of all
the colonies. His Almanac has made him more widely

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 9
known than any man in America ; known to the rising
democracy, respected and followed, too, by the mass
of the people. There are hundreds of families, nay,
thousands, with only two books; one the Bible, which
they read Sundays, and the other his " Poor Richard's
Almanac," which they read the other six days of the
week; and as its daily lessons are short, they are re
membered for ever. The Almanac seems to have per
ished in our time. So the leaves which grew on the
Charter Oak, in Connecticut, a hundred years since,
have all perished ; but every crop of leaves left its ring
all round the trunk. The Almanac has perished, but
the wisdom of Franklin still lives in the conscious
ness and conduct of the people.
He has put his thought into Philadelphia, and in
twenty-five years organized its municipal affairs, its
education and charity, more wisely than any city in
the world. He is in correspondence with the most
eminent men of science in America, and has a name
also with scientific men in England, France, Germany,
and Italy. After the age of twenty-one he studied
and learned Latin, French, Italian, Spanish, German,
and very soon became able to read all these languages,
which, at a later day, the scholars of so many nations
used in bestowing praises on this printer-philosopher,
who had snatched the lightning out of the sky, and had
undertaken yet greater and more difficult works. The
wonderful discovery is known all over Europe, and the
two colleges of New England, Yale leading the way,
honor themselves by calling him Master of Arts. They
adopt this runaway apprentice, this heretical tamer of
lightning, into the company of their academic children.
Soon the splendid colleges of all Europe confer their
honors, transmit to him their medals, give him their

10 HISTORIC AMERICANS
diplomas, and hereafter it is " Dr. Franklin," and no
longer plain " Mr. Benjamin." From the sale of the
ballads to the rope of the lightning some thirty years
have passed, — a long step of time, but one by which
he mounted very high.
IV. In 1776, in a small room at Philadelphia, there
are five men draughting the Declaration of Independ
ence, — Livingston from New York, Jefferson from
Virginia, Franklin, Sherman, and John Adams, New
England born, all three of them, Massachusetts boys,
poor men's sons, who had fought their way to emi
nence; their birth to talent better than their breeding
to academic culture. Behind them all stands Samuel
Adams, another great man of Massachusetts, tall and
valiant, also a poor man's son. Active and noiseless,
he inspires the five companions for this great work, with
his thought and courage and trust in God. These
are the men who are making the Declaration of Inde
pendence. Virginia furnished the popular pen of Jef
ferson. Massachusetts the great ideas, the " self-evi
dent truths," of the Declaration itself. New to the
rest of the world, they have been " Resolved " in the
meetings of Boston, and in other obscure little New
England towns. Household words they were to her,
which our forefathers' pious care had handed down.
This is a wide prospect. A whole continent now
opens before us. The curtain is lifted high. You
see the young nation in its infancy. " Hercules in
his cradle," said Franklin; but with a legion of the
mystic serpents about him. If the rising sun shines
auspicious, yet the clouds threaten a storm, long and
terrible. In the interval from 1752 to 1776, between the act

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 11
of "the thunderbolt of heaven," and that of "the
scepter of the tyrant," much has taken place. Frank
lin has been chosen member of the first Colonial Con
gress, which met at Albany in 1754, to protect the
provinces from the French and Indians. His far-
reaching mind there planned the scheme of the Union
for common defense among all the colonies. This the
British Government disliked ; for if the colonies should
form a Union, and the people become aware of their
strength, they would soon want independence. Also
Franklin has set military expeditions on foot; he and
another young buckskin furnishing most of the little
wisdom which went with General Braddock and his
luckless troop. He has been a colonel in actual serv
ice, and done actual work, too. He it was who erected
the fortresses all along the frontier between the Eng
lish and French possessions west of Pennsylvania. He
had been sent to England as a colonial agent to re
monstrate against the despotism of the proprietaries.
He was also appointed agent for Georgia, New Jersey,
and Massachusetts, and was commissioned to look after
their rights, and protect them from the despotism of
the King and Parliament. He was examined before
the House of Commons in 1766, and gave admirable
testimony as to the condition and character of the
colonies, and as to the disposition and temper of Amer
ica towards the Stamp Act. His cool, profound, and
admirable statements, for the most part made without
premeditation or anticipation of the questions proposed
to him, astonished the English Parliament. " What
used to be the pride of the Americans ? " asked a ques
tioner. " To indulge in the fashions and manufac
tures of Great Britain." " What is now their pride? "
" To wear their old clothes over again till they can
make new ones."

12 HISTORIC AMERICANS
He found that some of the first men of Boston, Gov
ernor Hutchinson, Lieutenant-Governor Oliver, and
other Boston Tories, " citizens of eminent gravity " in
those times, had written official and private letters to a
conspicuous member of Parliament, infamously traduc
ing the colony of Massachusetts, and pointing out
means for destroying the liberties of all the colonies and
provinces, so as to establish a despotism here in Amer
ica. He obtained these letters, private yet official, and
sent them to a friend in Boston, Mr. Cushing, a timid
man, speaker of the Massachusetts House of Represen
tatives.6 They were laid before the House and
printed. Massachusetts, in consequence, sent a peti
tion to the king, asking that these treacherous officers
be removed from office. This righteous act,7 exposing
the secret villany of officials, drew on Franklin the
wrath of the New England Tories, and of the rulers of
Old England. For this he was brought before the
privy council of the king of England on January 29,
1774. A great array of famous men were in attend
ance, five and thirty lords and others. There Mr.
Wedderburn, the king's solicitor-general, insulted him
with such abuse as only such a man could know how to
invent. Before this audience of five and thirty lords,
who were seated, did Franklin stand for ten hours and
listen to this purchased sycophant. " He has for
feited all the respect of societies and of men," said the
courtier. " It is impossible to read his account, express
ing the cruelest and most deliberate malice, without
horror." The councillors of England cheered this tin
peddler of malignant rhetoric. But Franklin " stood
conspicuously erect, without the smallest movement of
any part of his body," and kept his countenance as
immovable as if his features had been made of wood.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 18
He appeared on this day in a suit of Manchester velvet,
which it was noticed he did not again wear in Eng
land.8 He was turned out of his office of Postmaster-
General of the American colonies that very night.
This was the philosopher whom the learned academies
of England, and of all Europe, had honored for tak
ing the thunderbolt out of the sky; now in that little
room he is wrenching the scepter from tyrants, making
the Declaration of Independence, for which alone
Britain would give him a halter. More than twenty
years before, he had sought to establish a Union be
tween the colonies; now he seeks independence. He
would build up the new government on self-evident
truths, — that all men are created equal, each endowed
by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, among
which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
He is an old man now, more than seventy years of age ;
an old man, lame with the gout, but active, as the sun
is active with light. He is the most popular man in
America, the most influential man in the American
Congress, — save only the far-seeing and unflinching
Samuel Adams, — the greatest, the most celebrated, the
most conciliating. It is a grand act, this molding
the progress of permanent and eternal principles, to
form the American government. The world saw none
grander in that century. There, for the first time in
history, a nation laid the foundation of its state on
the natural law that all governments shall uphold all
men's right, not a few men's privilege.
V. Franklin, at Paris, is negotiating the treaty of
peace between America and Great Britain in 1783, in
connection with John Adams, Jefferson, Laurens, and
Jay. He accomplished the work, put an end to all hos-

14 HISTORIC AMERICANS
tility with England, and secured the acknowledgment
of our independence. The war of eight sad years
(1775-1783) was now over. They had been to him
years of intense activity at the court of France, where
he was not only American Minister, but Judge in Ad
miralty and Consul-General, charged with many and
very discordant duties. Seventy-seven years old, he
now sets the seal of triumph on the act of the American
people. What was only a Declaration in 1776, is now
a fact fixed in the history of mankind. Washington
was the Franklin of camps, but Franklin was the
Washington of courts; and the masterly skill of the
great diplomatist, the patience which might tire but
which never gave out; the extraordinary shrewdness,
dexterity, patience, moderation, and silence with which
he conducted the most difficult of negotiations, are not
less admirable than the coolness, intrepidity, and cau
tion of the great general in his most disastrous cam
paign. Now these troubles are all over. America is
free, Britain is pacific, and Franklin congratulates his
friends." " There never was a good war or a bad
peace ; " and yet he, the brave, wise man that he was,
sought to make the treaty better, endeavoring to per
suade England to agree" that there should be no more
temptation to privateering, and that all private prop
erty on sea and land should be perfectly safe from
the ravages of war. Franklin wished to do in 1783
what the wisest negotiators tried to accomplish in April,
1856, in the treaty of Paris.
VI. Franklin, an old man of eighty-four, is making
ready to die. The great' philosopher, the great states
man, he has done with philosophy and state-craft, not
yet ended his philanthropy. He is satisfied with hav-

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 15
ing taken the thunderbolt from the sky, bringing it
noiseless and harmless to the ground; he has not yet
done with taking the scepter from tyrants. True, he
has, by the foundation of the American state on the
natural and inalienable rights of all, helped to set
America free from the despotism of the British king
and Parliament. None has done more for that. He
has made the treaty with Prussia, which forbids pri
vateering and the warlike plunder of individual prop
erty on land or sea. But now he remembers that there
are some six hundred thousand African slaves in
America, whose bodies are taken from their control,
even in time of peace — peace to other men, to them a
period of perpetual war. So, in 1787, he founds a so
ciety for the abolition of slavery. He is its first pres
ident, and in that capacity signed a petition to Con
gress, asking " the restitution of liberty to those un
happy men, who alone in this land of freedom are de
graded into perpetual bondage ; " asks Congress " that
you will step to the very verge of the power vested in
you for discouraging every species of traffic in the per
sons of our fellow-men." This petition was the last
public act of Franklin, the last public document he
ever signed. He had put his hand to the Declaration
of Independence ; to the treaties of alliance with Frapce
and Prussia; to the treaty of peace with Great Brit
ain; now he signs the first petition for the abolition
of slavery.9
Between 1783 and 1790 what important events had
taken place ! For three years he had been President of
Pennsylvania, unanimously elected by the Assembly
every time save the first, when one vote out of seventy-
seven was cast against him. He had been a member
of the Federal Convention, which made the Constitu-

16 HISTORIC AMERICANS
tion, and, spite of what he considered to be its errors,
put his name to it. Neither he, nor Washington, nor
indeed any of the great men who helped to make that
instrument, thought it perfect, or worshipped it as an
idol. In the Constitutional Convention Franklin consented
to the continuance of slavery in the Union. I do not
find that he publicly opposed the African slave-trade.
At that time he was the greatest man on the Continent
of America, possessing and enjoying great respect,
great popularity and influence throughout the coun
try. Had he said, " There must be no slavery in the
United States. It is unprofitable ; it conflicts with our
interests, social, educational, commercial, moral. It
is unphilosophical, at variance with the very objects of
the Constitution, and incompatible with the political
existence of a republic. Moreover, it is wicked, utterly
at war with the eternal law which God has written in
the constitution of man and of matter. It must, by all
means, be put down : " — had he said these things, what
would have happened? Washington would have been
at his side, and Madison and Sherman, with the States
of New England and New York, New Jersey, Penn
sylvania and Maryland. On the other hand, Virginia
and North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia,
might have gone and been annexed to England or
Spain. But, instead of four millions of negro slaves,
and instead of slave ships fitting out in New York
and Baltimore, and the Federal Government at Boston
playing genteel comedy at the slave-trader's trial, what
a spectacle of domestic government should we have
had ! What national prosperity ! But Franklin spoke
no such word. Did he not think? Did he fear?
Judge ye who can. To me, his silence there is the
great fault of his life.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 17
But now, as his last act, he seeks to correct the great
fault and blot and vice of the American govern
ment — the only one which has given us much trouble.
The petition was presented on the 12th of February,
1790. It asked for the abolition of the slave trade,
and for the emancipation of slaves. A storm followed ;
the South was in a rage, which lasted till near the end
of March. Mr. Jackson, of Georgia, defended the
" peculiar institution." The ancient republics had
slaves ; the whole current of the Bible, from Genesis to
Revelation, proved that religion was not hostile to
slavery. On the 23rd of March, 1790, Franklin wrote
for the " National Gazette " the speech in favor of the
enslavement of Christians. He put it into the mouth
of a member of the Divan of Algiers. It was a parody
of the actual words of Mr. Jackson, of Georgia, as
delivered in Congress a few days before; the text,
however, being taken out of the Koran. It was one
of the most witty, brilliant, and ingenious things that
came from his mind.
This was the last public writing of Dr. Franklin;
and, with the exception of a letter to his sister and one
to Mr. Jefferson, it was the last line which ran out from
his fertile pen, — written only twenty-four days before
his death. What a farewell it was! This old man,
" the most rational, perhaps, of all philosophers," the
most famous man in America, now in private life, wait
ing for the last angel to unbind his spirit and set him
free from a perishing body, makes his last appearance
before the American people as president of an abolition
society, protesting against American slavery in the last
public line he writes ! One of his wittiest and most in
genious works is a plea for the bondman, adroit, mas
terly, short, and not to be answered. It was fit to be
VI— 2

18 HISTORIC AMERICANS
the last scene of such a life. Drop down the curtain
before the sick old man, and let his healthy soul ascend
unseen and growing.
Look, now, at the character of Dr. Franklin. All
the materials for judging him are not yet before the
public, for historians and biographers, like other at
torneys, sometimes withhold the evidence, and keep im
portant facts out of sight, so as to secure a verdict
which does not cover the whole case. There are writ
ings of Franklin which neither the public nor myself
have ever seen. Enough, however, is known of this
great man to enable us to form a- just opinion. Addi
tional things would alter the quantity, not the kind.
The human faculties, not pertaining to the body, may
be divided into these four: the intellectual, the moral,
the affectional, and the religious. Look at Franklin in
respect to each of the four.
I. He had an intellect of a very high order, — in
ventive, capacious, many-sided, retentive. His life
covers nearly the whole of the eighteenth century. Ten
years he was the contemporary of Leibnitz, twenty-one
of Sir Isaac Newton. He was sixty-three years old
when Alexander Humboldt and Cuvier were born. He
embraced Voltaire. His orbit was intersected by that
of Berkeley, Montesquieu, Hume, Kant, Priestley,
Adam Smith. But in the eighty-four years to which
his life extended, I find no mind, which, on the whole,
seems so great. I mean so generally able, various,
original, and strong. Others were quite superior to
-ihim in specialties of intellect, — metaphysical, mathe
matical, and poetical. Many surpassed him in wide
learning, of literature, or science, and in careful and
exact culture; but none equaled him in general large-

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 19
ness of power, and great variety and strength of mind.
In an age of encyclopedias, his was the most encyclo
pedic head in all Christendom. In the century of revo
lution, his was the most revolutionary and construct
ive intellect.10
Franklin had a great understanding, a moderate
imagination, and a great reason. He could never have
become an eminent poet or orator. With such, the
means is half the end. He does not seem to have at-,
tended to any of the fine arts, with the single exception
of music. He was not fond of works of imagination,
and in his boyhood he sold Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress
to buy Burton's Historical Collections. Perhaps he
underrated the beautiful and the sublime. I do not re
member, in the ten volumes of his writings, a line con
taining a single reference to either. This defect in
his mental structure continually appears in his works
and in his life. Hence, there is a certain homeliness
and lack of elegance in his writings, and sometimes a
little coarseness and rudeness. Hence, also, comes the
popular judgment that he was not a high-minded man.
Kant, Kepler, Descartes, Leibnitz, Schelling, were men
of great imagination, which gives a particular poetic
charm to their works that you do not find in the Saxon
philosophers. Bacon, Locke, Newton, Adam Smith,
were men of vast ability, but not imaginative or poetic.
Franklin thinks, investigates, theorizes, invents, but
never does he dream. No haze hangs on the sharp out
line of his exact idea to lend it an added charm.
Besides this immense understanding, Franklin had
an immense reason, which gave him great insight and
power in all practical, philosophic, and speculative
matters. He was a man of the most uncommon com
mon sense. He saw clearly into the- remote causes of

20 HISTORIC AMERICANS
things, and had great power of generalization to dis
cuss the universal laws, the one eternal principle, or
the manifold and floating facts. He did not come to
his philosophic conclusions and discoveries by that
poetic imagination which creates hypothesis after
hypothesis, until some one fits the case ; nor did he seem
to reach them by that logical process which is called
induction. But he rather perfected his wonderful in
ventions by his own simple greatness of understand
ing and of reason, a spontaneous instinct of causality,
which led him to the point at once. He announced his
discoveries with no parade. He does the thing, and
says nothing about it, as if it were the commonest thing
in the world.
His simplicity appears not only in his manners and
in his life, but also in his intellectual method. Accord
ingly, he was a great inventor of new ideas in science,
the philosophy of matter, and in politics, the phi
losophy of states ; in both running before the experience
of the world. If only his philosophic writings had
come down to us, we should say, " Here was a mind
of the first order, — a brother of Leibnitz, Newton,
Cuvier, Humboldt." If nought but his political writ
ings were preserved, his thoughts on agriculture, manu
factures, commerce, finance, the condition and prospect
of the colonies, the effect of certain taxes on them, the
historical development of America and her ultimate
relation to England, then we should say, " Here was
one of the greatest political thinkers of the age or of
the world." For while he anticipated the scientific
discoveries of future philosophers, he does the same in
the departments of the politician and the statesman.
He understood easily the complicated affairs of a na
tion, and saw clearly the great general laws which

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 21
determine the welfare of the individual or of the state.
Yet he made occasional mistakes; for the swift fore
thought of genius, on the whole, is not so wise as the
slow experience of the human race. Nobody is as great
as everybody.
Constructive as well as inventive, Franklin was a
great organizer. He knew how to make his thought a
thing, to put his scientific idea into matter — making
a machine, his social idea into men — creating an in
stitution. He could produce the maximum of result
with the minimum outlay of means. His contrivances,
mechanical and social, are many and surprising. He
improved the printing press, invented stereotyping, and
manifold letter-writers. He cured smoky chimneys of
their bad habits. He amended the shape and the rig
of ships. He showed the sailors how they might take
advantage of the Gulf -stream to shorten their eastward
transit of the Atlantic, and how to steer so as to avoid
it on the westward passage. He told them how a few
men might haul a heavy boat, and how they might
keep fresh provisions at sea. He suggested improve
ments in the soup-dishes of sailors, and in the water-
troughs of horses. He introduced new kinds of seeds,
grass, turnips, broom-corn, curious beans from Eng
land, vines from France, and many other vegetables
and plants. He drained lands skilfully, and gathered
great crops from them. He reformed fireplaces, and
invented the Franklin stove. First of all men he
warmed public buildings. He had a fan on his chair,
moved by a treadle, so as to drive away the flies. He
made him spectacles, with two sets of glasses, for far
and near sight. He invented a musical instrument,
and improved the electrical machine. He discovered
that lightning and electricity are the same, proving it

22 HISTORIC AMERICANS
in the simplest and deepest and most satisfactory man
ner, by catching the actual lightning. He first dis
cerned the difference between positive and negative
electricity. He taught men to protect buildings from lightning,
and would use electricity to kill animals without pain,
and to make tough meat tender and digestible. " There
are no bounds," says he, in 1751, " to the force men
may raise and use in the electrical way ; for little may
be added to little, ad infinitum, and so accumulated,
and then, afterwards, discharged " together at once."
He invented a phonographic alphabet, which does not
now look so strange as in 1768. He improved the
wheels of carriages, the form of wind-mills and water-
mills, and the covering of roofs. First of all men, he
induced the citizens of Philadelphia to construct foot
pavements (which we call sidewalks), and to place
crossing-stones in their most frequented streets. In
London, he first proved that streets could be swept in
dry weather as well as hoed and scraped in wet
weather. He demonstrated this fact, by hiring an old
woman to sweep the street in front of his house. Thus
this Yankee printer taught the Londoners a useful
lesson, now universally known.
At the age of twenty-two, in 1728, Franklin founded
the first American Club for mutual improvement. It
was called a " Junto." In 1744 he was the founder
of the "American Philosophical Society," the first
scientific association on this continent. He established,
in 1751, the first American free school outside of New
England, and he originated the first social library in
the world. He organized the first fire company in
America, and the first night-watch in Philadelphia. In
1741 he started the first magazine in America, — the

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 23
" General Magazine," — the forerunner of the " North
American," " Examiner," " New England Review," and
a great host more. In the Quaker State of Pennsyl
vania, in 1744, he first organized the military force,
getting ten thousand subscribers to maintain a volun
teer militia. The women provided silken banners,
which Franklin supplied with appropriate mottoes.
He was himself colonel of the Philadelphia regiment.
He first enrolled men for the military defense of the
Quaker city, in 1744, when Spanish pirates came up
the river, and threatened to burn the town. He
planned the admirable military organization for the
whole colony of Pennsylvania, in 1754, for defense
against the French and Indians, and in 1755 fur
nished the commissariat trains of General Braddock.
He first proposed the union of all the provinces in
1754, and in 1775 he first made the plan of a confed
eracy of them all, which could not be adopted till 1778,
though then with improvements. Such was the dis
tracted condition of all things in America at that time,
that this organizing skill seemed most of all things
needful; and Franklin's great power was not only in
invention, but in organization quite as much. He had
a genius for creation and administration. He easily
saw what things belonged together, and found the true
principle which would make many coalesce and become
an association, affording freedom to each individual,
and social unity to all.
Yet his plan for the Constitution of the State of
Pennsylvania did not work well;11 nor would his
scheme that the Federal officers should serve without
salary 12 have proved to be desirable or practicable.
His design for the excitement of the ambition of chil
dren at school I think was a great mistake.13 He

24 HISTORIC AMERICANS
founded many societies, which still continue, and his
schemes have been extended far and wide. The people
understood this genius for all kinds of practical and
social arrangement, and put his name to many institu
tions of which he was but remotely the founder.
Churches are called after Paul, Peter, James, John, but
fire companies, debating societies, book clubs, libraries,
hospitals, and the like, are named for Franklin. In
stitutions for theology have the name of theologic apos
tles, but institutions for humanity bear the name of
this great apostle of benevolence.
Administrative as well as constructive, he was a most
able manager. He knew how to deal with men, lead
ing them to accept his conclusions, and accomplish his
purposes. Here he was helped by his great shrewd
ness and knowledge of the world, and also by his ad
mirable geniality and kindness of manner, good-humor,
mirth, and reserve. He did not drive men, but led
them, and that often with a thread so delicate that they
did not see it. He did not affect to lead, but only to
follow. So the wise mother conducts her refractory
boy to school for the first time, not dragging him by
the hand or by the ear, and hauling him there, school-
mother fashion, but by throwing something forward,
and letting little Master Wilful run and pick it up;
then varying the experiment, and so conquering with
out a battle. He knew
" Men should be taught as if you taught them not,
And things unknown proposed as things forgot."
He took care not to wound the vanity of men, or hurt
their self-esteem, by exhibiting his own immense supe
riority of knowledge, insight, and skill. He had tact,
— that admirable art of hitting the nail on the head at

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 25
the first strike, and not bruising the fingers while it is
driven home. He was one of the most adroit of diplo
matists, fully equal to the European practitioners,
whose fathers, from generation to generation, had been
accustomed " to lie abroad for the advantage of their
country." Candid and open with the honest, none
knew better than he how to manage a cunning man.
He knew how to conciliate. When others made a
speech, he told a story, or invented a parable, and so
cheaply drew the thunder out of the hostile cloud. If
he could not help knowing the faults of the men he was
obliged to work with, he forbore from letting them see
what he knew.14 He could speak at the right time,
none more silvery ; but he knew when silence was golden,
and had a wise reserve. Hence he was often thought
to dissemble and feign, because he said nothing. He
knew how to work, and when to wait. When his iron
was cold he heated it, and only struck it when it was
hot; and he could make his chimney burn its own
smoke. Singularly modest, he claimed very little for himself
of merit, honor, or originality. He let others, when
it helped the common cause, use his political or philo
sophical thought as if it were common property, or
the private estate of any claimant; knowing, as he
said, that it would all come right in the end, without
his wasting any words now. With abundance of pri
vate enemies, he had no private quarrels, which it al
ways takes two to make. Calumnies against him he left
time to answer. Where are they now? Assaulted by
some of the wiliest, craftiest, and most insidious, he
never broke a private friendship. Some he convinced,
some he wooed, others he gently drew, and some he took
up in his great fatherly arms, and carried, and kissed,

26 HISTORIC AMERICANS
and set them down just where he would. He quarreled
only with the public enemies of his country, but took
the mildest ways of allaying trouble. When the Con
stitutional Convention was excited and inharmonious,
Frankhn suggested that their meetings should be
opened with prayers. And so he shed oil on the
troubled waters, and all tumult ceased. He knew how
to use the auspicious moment, and to make hay while
the sun shone. All men have fits of easy benevolence.
He could take advantage of them.
Thus he procured the cannon from Governor Clin
ton, of New York, for the armament of the fort below
Philadelphia, against a threatened invasion of French
and Spaniards. Franklin, Colonel Lawrence, Messrs.
Allen and Taylor, were sent to New York to borrow
cannon of Governor Clinton. At first the Governor
met them with a flat refusal. But after a dinner,
where there was great drinking of Madeira wine, he
softened by degrees, and said he would lend six. After
a few more bumpers he advanced ten, and at length
he very good-naturedly granted eighteen. They were
fine cannon, eighteen pounders, with their proper car
riages, and were soon transported, and mounted on the
fort. In like manner, seizing the opportunity when the
news of General Burgoyne's surrender at Saratoga
reached Paris, he at once made the treaty of alliance
between the United States of America and France. It
could not have been done a moment sooner.
II. Franklin's moral powers were certainly great;
his moral perceptions quick, distinct, and strong. His
moral character was high, though by no means without
defects. He uniformly sought justice in the relation
between nation and nation, government and people,

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 27
man and man, and did not stop at the letter of treaties
and statutes, or at habits and customs never so old,
but went back to the natural rights of man. He loved
peace, public and private, and hated all that was sec
tional and personal. He was the enemy of all slavery,
called by whatever political or ecclesiastical name.
Yet his moral sense does not appear to have been so
active as were his affections and intellect in his early
days. This is not uncommon. The faculty of con
science which sees the eternal right, is often dormant
at the beginning of life. Hence he made " errata," as
he technically calls them, which he afterwards pointed
out himself, that he might warn others. He stumbled
many times in learning to walk, and, as he was a tall
youth, and moved fast, so he fell hard. At the last
there is a little lack of that nice womanly delicacy
which you find in a moral character of the very highest
elevation. His was the morality of a strong, ex
perienced person, who had seen the folly of wise men,
the meanness of proud men, the baseness of honorable
men, and the littleness of great men, and made liberal
allowances for the failures of all men. If the final
end to be reached were just, he did not always inquire
about the provisional means which led thither. He
knew that the right line is the shortest distance between
two points, in morals as in mathematics, but yet did not
quarrel with such as attained the point by a crooked
line. Such is the habit of politicians, diplomatists,
statesmen, who look on all men as a commander looks
on his soldiers, and does not ask them to join the church
or keep their hands clean, but to stand to their guns
and win the battle.
Thus, in the Legislature of Pennsylvania, Franklin
found great difficulty in carrying on the necessary

28 HISTORIC AMERICANS
measures for military defense because a majority of the
Assembly were Quakers, who, though friendly to the
success of the revolution, founded contrary to their
principles, refused to vote the supplies of war. So he
caused them to vote appropriations to purchase bread,
flour, wheat, or other grain. The Governor said, " I
shall take the money," for " I understand very well
their meaning, — other grain is gunpowder." He
afterwards moved the purchase of a fire-engine, saying
to a friend, " Nominate me on the committee, and I
will nominate you; we will buy a great gun, which is
certainly a fire-engine; the Quakers can have no objec
tion to that."
Such was the course of policy that Franklin took, as
I think, to excess ; but yet I believe that no statesman
of that whole century did so much to embody the eter
nal rules of right in the customs of the people, and to
make the constitution of the universe the common law
of all mankind; and I cannot bestow higher praise
than that on any man whose name I can recall. He
mitigated the ferocities of war. He built new hospitals
and improved old ones. He first introduced this hu
mane principle into the law of nations, that in
time of war private property on land shall be unmo
lested, and peaceful commerce continued, and captive
soldiers treated as well as the soldiers of the captors.15
Generous during his lifetime, his dead hand still gathers
and distributes blessings to the mechanics of Boston
and their children.16 True it is that
" Him only pleasure leads and peace attends,
Whose means are pure and spotless as his ends."
But it is a great thing in this stage of the world to
find a man whose ends are pure and spotless. Let us
thank him for that.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 29
In his private morals there were doubtless great de
fects, and especially in his early life much that was
wrong and low. His temperament inclined him to
vices of passion. He fell the way he leaned, and
caught an abiding stain from his intrigues with low
women. His desertion of his betrothed, Deborah Read,
who afterwards became his wife, was unjustifiable and
mean. At the age of twenty-four he sought to nego
tiate a matrimonial engagement with a very deserving
young woman. He demanded with her a portion of
one hundred pounds, and required her father to mort
gage his house to raise the money. The bargain was
broken off, though the woman in question soon became
the mother of his only son.17 He then made overtures
of marriage in other quarters, but soon found that
" the business of a printer being generally thought
to be a poor one," he was not to expect money with a
wife that was worth taking without. At length he
married his former love, Deborah Read,18 whom he
had deserted more than six years before.
I make no excuse for these things, and shall not call
twelve a score when it is only a dozen. His conduct in
these respects was mean and low. But it is Franklin
who tells us these things against himself, and gives a
conscientious list of " errata." What other American
ever thus volunteered evidence to condemn himself?
He diligently corrected his " errata " at a later day,
and if the Sun of Righteousness did not shine bright in
his morning hours, it yet made for him a long clear
day. True, he was set free from the youthful bias of
passion; but of the worser vices of ambition, vanity,
covetousness, self-esteem, envy, revenge, malice, I find
no trace in all his writings, or in those of his many
enemies. Though he was terribly tried by Dr. Arthur

30 HISTORIC AMERICANS
Lee, and by John Adams, I cannot remember a single
revengeful or envious word that he ever wrote in all his
numerous writings, public and private. He hated
George III ; and it must be confessed that, if that were
a failing in an American, it yet " leaned to virtue's
side." One of the wittiest of men, his feathered shaft
was never pointed with malice, not a word has come
from his laughter or scorn at the expense of his private
foes. Yet Franklin had his little inconsistencies. In his
" Poor Richard's Almanac " he said, " Lying rides on
debt's back," and " Pay as you go." But it must be
told, " Benjamin Frankhn, Printer," ran in debt at
the grocer's, and the debt accumulated from year to
year. It was two pounds in 1731 ; nine pounds in
1736; and twenty-six pounds in 1750. Some of the
items are curious. " A fan for Debby," his wife, two
shillings ; a " beaver hat " for himself, two pounds ;
" dressing an old hat " for his son, two shillings. He
talked against luxury; but in 1758 he sent home six
teen yards of floweret tissue, which cost nine guineas,
or about fifty dollars, for a dress for his wife. And
for his daughter he sends a pair of buckles, which cost
three guineas. Also he purchased a " pair of silk
blankets, very fine," taken by a privateer, and also a
" fine jug for beer." Said he, " I fell in love with it at
first sight, for I thought it looked like a fat, jolly
dame, clean and tidy, dressed in a neat blue and white
calico gown, good-natured and lovely; and it put me
in mind of — somebody." But he was wealthy then,
and the country prospered. In different times he had
sterner practices.
I find in him no inordinate love of power, or of office,
or of money. He laughed at his own vanity. None

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 31
else could find it to laugh at. At the period of his ear
ly life, men in Boston and Philadelphia, whose only
distinction was that they were worth five or six thou
sand pounds, and were residents in provincial towns of
ten or twenty thousand inhabitants, mocked at this
printer, the son of a tallow-chandler, and spoke of his
" mechanic rust." " Contempt pierces the hide of the
rhinoceros," says the proverb. Franklin remembered
this, and thus began his last will and testament : " I,
Benjamin Franklin, printer, late Minister Plenipoten
tiary from the United States of America to the court
of France, now President of the State of Pennsylvania,
do make and declare this my last will and testament,"
etc. He had no little resentments ; he forgave his
enemies, as few statesmen and few Christians do, ex
cept in formal prayers, where it costs nothing and
leads to nothing. He was publicly generous, even to
his country's foes. Mr. John Dickinson was Franklin's
bitterest enemy in Pennsylvania.19 He had written a
special book against British grievances, the " Farmer's
Letters," while Franklin was agent in London. Frank
lin reprinted the book, introducing it by an excellent
preface written by himself, thus overcoming evil with
good, and doing good to those who persecuted him.
Franklin had a strong will ; all great men have ; but
it was not invasive or aggressive. It cut not other
wills asunder. His large stream, swift and deep, kept
its own banks, and did not overslaugh another's land.
He would go to his purpose by your road. He was
inflexible for principles and for ends, but very con
ciliating and accommodating as to means and methods ;
never obstinate. He could bend his own will, but not
suffer it to be broken. Moderate, just, persistent, now
open, now reserved, he accomplished the liberation of
his country.

32 HISTORIC AMERICANS
III. Franklin was eminently an Affectionate man.
He had a wonderful benevolence, and was even greater
in this than in philosophy or politics. He was full of
loving-kindness and tender mercy. This affectionate
benevolence was not merely a principle, it was quite
as much the instinct of a kindly nature. You find it
in his earliest writings, those written before he was
twenty-one years old. He was continually doing good
in the most practical way. He took care of his poor
relations, some of whom, of course, repaid him not
with gratitude, but with perpetual grumblings and
complainings. Franklin, like all men, found that
gratitude was no common virtue. He attempted to
improve the condition of sailors, soldiers, prisoners of
war, servants, housekeepers, farmers, and the rest of
mankind. He had many friends, making them easily,
and retaining them long. His correspondence with
them is full of beautiful and tender love. Witness his
letters to Priestley, Vaughan, Bishop Shipley, Hart
ley, Whately, Jared Eliot, and the numerous ladies to
whom he delighted to talk with pen or lip. Flowers
of endearment bloom in his private letters — wild, nat
ural, and attractive. Even in his public documents
wayside blossoms of affection will spring up. Litera
ture records the writings of few men that were so
genial. I think no man in the world ever set on foot so
many good works of practical benevolence. He sowed
the seed in Philadelphia, and thence the plants spread
over all the northern states. In his private capacity
he looked after the aged, the sick, and the poor. He
tried to protect the Indians. He would have liberated
the slaves. In his high diplomatic office he sought to
confine the ravages of war to public property, and to

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 33
the actual soldiers in the field. Franklin was the uni
versal " good Samaritan." When he first set. his foot in
Philadelphia he gave twopence worth of bread to a poor
woman, and his last act was of the same character.
IV. It has often been said that Franklin had no
religion. Even the liberal Mr. Sparks thinks it is to
be regretted that he did not bestow more attention to
the evidences of Christianity.20 Mr. Sparks did not
mean that he neglected the evidences of God's exist
ence or of man's duty, or that Franklin required to be
convinced of the need of honesty, truth, piety, morality,
reverence, love to God, and the keeping of His laws.
Many have called him not only negatively irreligious,
but positively anti-religious and atheistic. Here all
rests on a definition.
First, if religion be a compliance with the popular
ecclesiastical ceremonies, then Franklin had little reli
gion, for in his boyhood he did not frequent the meet
ing-houses or churches much, but spent his only leisure
day in reading and writing; in his manhood he had
little to do with church forms.
Second, if religion be a belief in the standard doc
trines of the ecclesiastical theology, — the trinity, the
fall, total depravity, the atonement, the invincible
wrath of God, eternal hell, the damnation of men or of
babies, the miraculous revelation of the Old Testament
and the New, the miracles of famous men, Jews, Gen
tiles, or Christians, — then Franklin had no religion
at all; and it would be an insult to say that he be
lieved in the popular theology of his time, or of ours,
for I find not a line from his pen indicating any such
belief. Third, if religion be fear, whining, creeping through
VI— 3

34 HISTORIC AMERICANS
the world, afraid to use the natural faculties in the
natural way ; if it be hatred of such as think differently
from the mass of those who do not think at all, but
only hear and believe; if it be to damn men because
they say there is no damnation; then Franklin had no
religion at all, but was positively anti-religious and
atheistic. For he stood up straight, like a man on his
own feet, and walked manfully forward, daring to
think and to tell what he thought himself, leaving
others to think also for themselves, having a manly
contempt for all bigotry, all narrowness, yet not hating
the bigot.
But if religion be to do justly, to love mercy, and
to walk humbly with God; if it be to love God with all
the mind, and heart, and soul, and one's neighbor as
one's self; if it be to forgive injuries, to do good to all
men, to protect the needy, clothe the naked, instruct the
ignorant, feed the hungry, to visit the fatherless and
widows in their affliction, to lift up the fallen, to break
the rod of the oppressor and let the oppressed go free,
and at heart to endeavor to keep one's self unspotted
from the world; then what statesman, what man, what
bishop of that time, was his equal? Nay, bating the
errors he has himself pointed out in his life, in what
was he behind the very chief est of the apostles? If
such things as he practised make a man a Christian,
then Franklin must stand high on the list. If they do
not, then it is of no consequence who is called Chris
tian, or Pagan, or Turk.
In boyhood he published some opinions, which he
afterwards thought foolish. He had the manhood to
be sorry for it, to say so, and to recall the little tract,
the only printed thing of his that I have not seen. For
a philosopher in that age he had a singularly devout

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 35
spirit, and took pains to improve the form of worship,
making a new translation of the Lord's Prayer, and
publishing a modified edition of the Book of Common
Prayer of the English Church ; there is a little volume
of prayers still in manuscript, which Franklin made
for his own use. He was on intimate terms with
Priestley, one of the most able men of that age; with
Shipley, an English bishop ; with Dr. Price, a Scotch
dissenter; with Jared Eliot, a Connecticut Calvinist;
with Ezra Stiles, another of the same stamp, who calls
himself " the most unworthy of all the works of God ; "
and with Whitefieldj the great Methodist orator. He
had no asceticism, no cant ; he did not undertake to pat
ronize the Deity. He was benevolent, cheerful, honest,
reverential, full of trust in God.21
I do not mean to say that I like, in a religious point
of view, everything that I find in his writings. Now
and then there is a tone of levity which sounds ill. I
do not think he meant it ill. Franklin has a bad repu
tation among ministers and in churches. You see why.
Because he had natural religion ; because he reverenced
that, and trusted God more than he feared man. If
he had sent for a minister on his death-bed, and de
clared that all his righteousness was as filthy rags;
that he had not any faith in human nature, but through
means of miracles and atonement, — then Franklin's
praise would have been sounded from one end of the
land to the other. Instead of these things, Franklin
said, " If I should escape shipwreck, I should not build
a church, but a lighthouse."
Franklin had the substance of religion, such as Jesus
said should be rewarded in the kingdom of heaven
with a " Well done, good and faithful servant," and
" Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of
these, ye have done it unto me." 22

36 HISTORIC AMERICANS
No man ever rendered so great services to American
education. They began forty years before the Revo
lution, and are not ended yet. His newspapers and
pamphlets were of immense value to the cause of hu
manity ; for he was able, wise, just, and benevolent. At
twenty years of age he wrote as well as Addison or
Goldsmith. His English is fresh, idiomatic, vigorous,
and strong, like the language of Dean Swift. His
style is direct and often beautiful as a fringed gentian
in the meadows of September. He had great skill in
making an abstract style popular. He reduced many
things to a common denominator, that is to say, to
their lowest terms, and so he made them easy for all
to handle and comprehend, having in this respect the
rare excellence of Socrates and Bacon. Believing sin
cerity to be the last part of eloquence, he has not left
a line of sophistry in his ten volumes. For twenty-
five years he published, annually, ten thousand copies
of " Poor Richard's Almanac," full of thrifty maxims
and virtuous counsel. It was one of the most valuable
allies of the nation. For it made popular throughout
the nation that thrift which enabled Congress to keep
the Revolutionary army together for nearly seven
years. I have often thought that the battles of the
Revolution could not have been fought between 1775
and 1783 had not the Almanac been published from
1730 to 1755. It was the people's classic volume,
hanging in the kitchens from the Penobscot to the Alle
ghany Mountains, and from Buffalo Creek to the mouth
of the Savannah River. It was the Bible of the shop
and of the barn. Poor Richard became the American
saint, especially the saint of New England — a saint
devoted to the almighty dollar.
His scientific labors were for the human race. Yet

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 37
science was only an incident in his life, which was de
voted intensely to practical studies. In his early days
he had no training in school or college, but he had a
nature that was more college than the university that
could not let him in. He had no acquaintance with
the higher mathematics, nor any companionship with
learned men until his great discoveries were all made.
The magnificent works of Newton, Leibnitz, Haller,
Blumenbach, Priestley, Cuvier, Von Humholdt, fill me
with less surprise than the grand generahzations of
Franklin, made with no help from society or from any
intellectual atmosphere about him, and in the midst of
laborious duties. He pursued science under the great
est of difficulties, and how magnificent were the prizes
that he won !
Franklin's diplomatic labors in England before the
Revolution, and during its period at Paris, were of im
mense value. Whenever the Revolutionary Picture
shall be composed, Franklin and Samuel Adams will
stand as the central figures. He is the great man
of the epoch. He, of all other men, made the American
cause popular in England, and so secured troops of
friends in the heart of the enemy's camp. He, at an
early day, obtained the efficient aid of France, supplies
of money and military stores ; and in 1778 he induced
Louis XVI. to acknowledge the independence of the
United States of America. It seems to me he was the
only American that could have accomplished that work ;
and without the aid of France, it now seems that the
Revolution would have failed, and would have been
called a " Rebellion ; " Hancock and -the Adamses had
been "traitors," and the rhetoricians would have made
political capital by discoursing on the cowardice, the

38 HISTORIC AMERICANS
treachery, and the wickedness of that infamous rebel,
General George Washington!
But the services by which he is best known were
doubtless rendered in his more common and ordinary
life ; in his powers of molding matter into machines, of
organizing men into companies and institutions. It
is amazing how much he accomplished in that way.
Nothing was too small for him ; nothing too large. He
could teach a sea-cook to put a two-pound shot into his
kettle of hard peas so that the roll of the ship should
grind them to powder; and he could organize a state,
a nation, or a household of nations. He was a Uni
versal Yankee, for he filled all the space between the
discoveries of a scientific or political truth and the
operations of a mechanic who files a screw in a gun-
lock. Remarkable for special gifts of the highest kind,
Franklin was yet more extraordinary for the admirable
balance of all his faculties, intellectual, moral, affec-
tional, and religious. He was not extravagant in con
duct or in opinion, or even in feelings. I do not re
member a single exaggeration in all his works. Among
all the many schemes he was busy with, there were but
two which could be called visionary. One was, that
the legislature should be but a single body, and not
two, as in England and America. The other was,
that the Executive of the nation should have no pecun
iary emolument. These were his only political or phil
osophic whimseys. He was seldom hurried away by
his feelings. But here is one instance, as reported by
himself. The famous preacher Whitefield was preach
ing in Philadelphia, to raise money to build an Orphan
House at Savannah, in Georgia. There were then no
materials, tools, or workmen in Georgia suitable to con-

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 39
struct such an asylum; and Franklin advised White-
field to build the house at Philadelphia, and send the
Georgia orphans to it. " But," says he, " he rejected
my counsel, and I therefore refused to contribute. I
happened soon after to attend one of his sermons, in
the course of which I perceived he intended to finish
with a collection, and I silently resolved that he should
get nothing from me. I had in my pocket a handful
of copper money, three or four silver dollars, and five
pistoles in gold. As he proceeded I began to soften,
and concluded to give the coppers. Another stroke of
his oratory made me ashamed of that, and determined
me to give the silver. And he finished so admirably
that I emptied my pocket wholly into the collector's
dish, gold and all." 23
His character was singularly simple and healthy.
He used the homage of France, and of all Europe,
and utilized his praises that were in the lips of men, so
as to serve the great purposes of his country. His
life shows the necessity of time to make a great char
acter, a great reputation, or a great estate. You
want a long summer to produce a great crop. His old
age was beautiful. Honored and admired as no other
man, he went to the house he had built a quarter of a
century before, with his friends and descendants
around him. He continued in public office till within
six months of his death, and in the public service till
within twenty-four days of it.
The warning he gives is plain — to beware of ex
cess in early youth, of trifling with the most delicate
sensibilities of woman, and of ever neglecting the most
sacred duties of domestic life. Few men understood
the art of life so well as he. He took great pains to

40 HISTORIC AMERICANS
correct his faults. All remember the day-book, in
which he kept an account of his virtues, arranging
them under thirteen heads, until he had put under his
feet those lusts that war against the soul. The guid
ance he gives is also plain. He shows the power of
industry, by which he obtained a large estate of money,
and still more a manly endowment of learning. At
twenty-one he has had two years' schooling, and no
more ; at forty he is master of Enghsh, Latin,, French,
Italian, Spanish, and German; at sixty, the greatest
universities in the world, and whole nations, agree in
calling him the greatest philosopher then living. He
was not ashamed of the humblest industry whereby he
made his fortune, his reputation, and his character.
What a life it was ! Begun with hawking ballads in
the streets of a little colonial town, continued by or
ganizing education, benevolence, industry; by conquer
ing the thunders of the sky, making the lightning the
servant of mankind; by establishing Independence;
by mitigating the ferocity of war, and brought down
to its very last day by his manliest effort, an attempt
to break the last chain from the feeblest of all op
pressed men. What a life! What a character!
Well said a- French poet, —
" Legislator of one world ! Benefactor of two !
All mankind owes to you a debt of gratitude."

II
GEORGE WASHINGTON
In the beginning of the eighteenth century, in the
colony of Virginia, Westmoreland County, between
the Potomac and Rappahannock Rivers, at a spot called
Bridge's Creek, there was living an obscure farmer,
named Augustine Washington. He was born in 1694,
and came of a short-lived family, which had emigrated
to America in the year 1657. He inherited but little,
and by his own diligence and thrift acquired a consid
erable property, which chiefly consisted of wild land,
negro slaves, and cattle. In the rude husbandry of the
time and place, he raised corn, horned beasts, swine, and
tobacco. Augustine Washington was first married at
the age of twenty-one, to Jane Butler, who became
the mother of four children. But she died, 4th Novem
ber, 1728, only two of her children, her sons Lawrence
and Augustine, surviving. Fifteen months later, 6th
March, 1730, the elder Augustine, for a second wife,
married Mary Ball, said to be beautiful, and the belle
of the neighboring country. She became the mother
of six children.
George Washington was the eldest, the fifth child of
his father, and the first of his mother. He was born
on Saturday, February 22nd, 1732, a day famous in
the political annals of America. At his birth, his
father was thirty-eight years of age; his mother
twenty-eight. He first saw the light in a rude farm
house, steep-roofed, with low eaves, one story high,
having four rooms on the ground floor, and others in
the attic. There were huge chimneys at each end,
41

42 HISTORIC AMERICANS
which were built up outside the house. It was old and
rickety then; not a trace now remains; only a plain
stone marks the spot as " The Birthplace of Wash
ington." George Washington was descended from the common
class of Virginia farmers. No ruler of the Anglo-
Saxon stock has obtained so great a reputation for the
higher qualities of human virtue. For more than one
thousand years no statesman or soldier has left a name
so much to be coveted. None ever became so dear to
the thoughtful of mankind. In the long line of gen
erals, kings, and emperors, from the first monarch to
the last president or pope, none ranks so .high for the
prime excellence of heroic virtue. His name is a
watchword of liberty. His example and character are
held up as the model for all men in authority.
This is the ground-plan of Washington's life — the
map of facts and dates, the headlands only being
sketched in.
Born, on Saturday morning, February 22, 1732, he
was baptized on April 3rd, of the same year, in the
authorized Episcopal Church of the parish. His
father soon after removed to Stafford County, on the
left bank of the Rappahannock, opposite to the town
of Fredericton. There George attended a poor private
school, — there was no other, — kept by the parish sex
ton. At sixteen years of age, in 1748, Washington
became a public surveyor of land, and found it a
profitable business, earning a pistole each day (about
$3.60), and sometimes more than that. He continued
in this work for about three years, but had always a
turn for military affairs.
There were continual troubles with the French, who

GEORGE WASHINGTON 43
were advancing their frontier outposts from their set
tlements in the Mississippi Valley towards the western
Virginia borders. Also the Indians, who dwelt and
wandered through the valley of the Ohio River, and
along the great lakes, took part in the expeditions and
forages thence arising. Hence it became necessary to
enroll a militia, which might, from time to time, be
called to active duty. In this militia Washington, at
the age of nineteen, in 1751, was commissioned by the
Governor of Virginia, as adjutant-general, with the
rank of major — an office about equal to that of a
militia captain in New England. In 1752, he went to
the West Indies with his consumptive brother Law
rence, rather a distinguished person in the eastern parts
of Virginia, who died in 1752, leaving a large estate
for George to settle, of which a considerable portion
fell to him. In this way he became possessed of the
handsome property of Mount Vernon, which the
brother had named for the gallant British Admiral
Vernon, under whom he had served in early life.
Washington continued to hold his commission in the
Virginia Army until the peace in 1758, in which year,
about the end of December, he returned to private life
as a farmer at Mount Vernon.
On the 6th day of January, 1759, he married Mrs.
Martha Custis, the widow of John Parke Custis, a
woman distinguished for beauty, accomplishments,
and riches. He thus added about one hundred thou
sand dollars to his estate, which was already consid
erable. By her previous marriage she had a son of
six, and a daughter of four years of age. From 1759
to 1775 he attended to the details of a country gen
tleman's life in Virginia, improving his land and add
ing to his property. He managed his large estate with

44 HISTORIC AMERICANS
much skill for the time and place. He became a mem
ber of the House of Burgesses (the legislature of the
colony of Virginia), and in 1774 he was elected a dele
gate to represent Virginia in the first general Congress
of all the British provinces and colonies. This Con
gress was called and assembled through the influence
of Dr. Franklin and Samuel Adams. They had de
vised means, and designed the objects of the assembly,
and had laid out the work for it to do.
On the 15th June, 1775, he was appointed Com
mander-in-Chief of the American Forces. No longer
men called him Colonel or Esquire. He laid down
that high military office on the 23rd December, 1783,
and retired to private life at Mount Vernon. In 1787
he was appointed a member of the Federal Convention,
which formed the Constitution of the United States of
America, and, when that Convention was organized,
General Washington was elected, by a unanimous vote,
to preside over its deliberations.
He was President of the United States from 1789
to 1797.
He retired to private life again in March, 1797;
but, on the following January, was elected Commander-
in-Chief of the Armies then about to be called into
service on account of the troubles threatening with the
government of France.
He died at Mount Vernon on Saturday, 14th Decem
ber, 1799, aged sixty-seven years, nine months, and
twenty-two days, leaving an estate of about half a
million of dollars, and no child. He was in the mili
tary service of Virginia about seven years, and of the
United States of America a little more than eight
years. He was President of the United States eight
years. He was forty years a husband.

GEORGE WASHINGTON 45
For convenience, divide his life into six periods.
I. His boyhood and youth, — his school time from
birth to his nineteenth year, 1732-1751.
II. His service in the French and Indian War, from
his nineteenth to his twenty-seventh year, 1751-1759.
III. His life as a citizen of Virginia, farmer, mem
ber of Assembly, member of the Central Congress, from
his twenty-seventh to his forty-third year, 1759-1775.
IV. His service in the Revolutionary War, from his
forty-third to his fifty-first year, 1775-1783.
V. His service as President, from his fifty-seventh
to his sixty-fifth year, 1789-1797.
VI. The close of all, 1799.
I. In his boyhood and youth, his opportunities for
education were exceedingly poor; not equal to those
afforded by the public district free schools at that
period maintained in every New England village.
During the life of his father, while he lived in Stafford
County, and until he was eleven or twelve years old,
he had the help of Mr. Hobby, a tenant of one of his
father's houses, and also schoolmaster and parish sex
ton. With him, the lad was taught only reading,
writing, and arithmetic. He never studied grammar.
That seems to have been one of the lost arts, neglected
both in conversation and in writing; and even the art
of spelling was in a sad condition. His father died
soon after George was eleven years old. He then
lived, for a time, with his brother Augustine, at
Bridge's Creek, and attended the " superior school " of
Mr. Williams, where he seems to have learned the rudi
ments of geometry.
Some of his early manuscript books are still pre-

46 HISTORIC AMERICANS
served. One has the autograph, " George Washing
ton, aged thirteen." These writing-books are hand
some monuments of neatness and boyish diligence.
" The child is father to the man." In one of these
he copied " Forms of Writing," copies of mercantile
and legal papers, notes of hand, wills, leases, deeds, and
the like. In the same book he also shut up for safe
keeping some specimens of " poetry," or what passed
for such, — hard-trotting verses, adorned with the
jingling bells of rhyme. He copied, likewise, " Rules
for Behavior in Company and in Conversation," which
have rather a cold, conventional, and worldly air, show
ing the greatest deference to men of superior social
rank, and implying, in general, that more respect
should be paid to the condition than to the real quality
of men. These " Rules " seem to have had much in
fluence upon his manly life. His actual manners re
flected them.
His fondness for the military profession began early,
and was stimulated by the condition of the country,
though the tastes of the leading men of Virginia could
never be made soldierly. Virginia was always an un-
military state.1 His elder brother, Major Lawrence
Washington, a powerful man in those parts, was of a
soldierly turn. So at fourteen, George procured a
midshipman's warrant, and left school. It is said his
luggage was put on board the ship. But at the last
moment his mother refused her consent: he must not
be a British naval officer. On how small a hinge turns
the destiny of how great a man! He lived with his
brother Lawrence for about two years more, and studied
geometry and trigonometry enough to become a prac
tical surveyor of land. His early field-books, while a
learner, are said to be models of neat accuracy. They

GEORGE WASHINGTON 47
contain plottings of the fields about his home or school-
house. In the autumn of 1747, before he was quite six
teen, he left school, yet residing with his brother Law
rence at Mount Vernon, and continued his humble
mathematical studies. He was a public land surveyor
at the age of seventeen. His manuscript " Book of
Surveys " begins the 22nd January, 1749, and is still
extant. When he was about sixteen,2 it seems he fan
cied himself in love with a maiden whose name has per
ished, but who gave his boyish heart no little puerile
unhappiness. He complains that she " is pitiless of my
griefs and woes." The course of his true love not run
ning smooth, but being crossed as usual, like other
bashful young men he sought to improve its flow by
stringing such rhymes as could be had or made, and
he talks of his " Poor, restless heart,
Wounded by Cupid's dart."
But he survived this affliction, and only his melancholy
verses remain to tell the tale. He calls his flame his
" Lowland Beauty." It is said she was a Miss Grimes,
subsequently wife of Mr. Lee, and the mother of Gen
eral Henry Lee, who was a favorite with Washington.
A little later another maiden, Miss Carey, created mis
chief in his heart, to which some drafts of letters, still
to be read in his journal, bear fruitful witness. He
complains that her presence " revives my former pas
sion for your 'Lowland Beauty.' Were I to live
more retired from young women, I might, in some
measure, alleviate my sorrows by burying that chaste
and troublesome passion in the grave of oblivion." It
seems he never told his love, but absence, business and

48 HISTORIC AMERICANS
fox-hunting at length cured him, and maidens and
whining verses for ever disappeared from his jour
nal, which, instead, is filled up with details of survey
ing. His early life afforded slender means for acquiring
knowledge of books, literature, science, or any enlarged
ideas. Yet it gave him a good opportunity for learn
ing, practical details of American life, and for the de
velopment of character. He was much in the fields,
fond of athletic sports, riding, hunting, leaping,
fencing, and the like. His mother was a woman of
rather a severe and hard character, with a high temper,
and a spirit of command, which her son inherited.
She was a good manager, a practical housekeeper, pru
dent and thrifty, an exact disciplinarian, reserved and
formal in her manners. When Lafayette visited her
in 1777, he found the thrifty farmer's widow at work
in her garden, with an old sunbonnet on her head ; and
she had the good sense not to change her working dress
when she came to receive the courtly friend of Amer
ican liberty. She was a woman of few books, — per
haps of only one, — Sir Matthew Hale's " Contempla
tions, Divine and Moral," which her son reverently kept
till his own death. She plainly had a great influence
upon Washington.
He continued in his business of land-surveying for
about three years, till he was nineteen years old, and
thus passed his youth. He was not brought up on
books, but on the breast of things. Great duties came
on him early. He learned self-command and self-re
liance. His education was not costly but precious.
It is doubtful whether any king in all Christendom, in
the eighteen century, had so good a preparation for the
great art to rule a state as this farmer's son picked

GEORGE WASHINGTON 49
up in the rough life on the frontier of civilization in
Virginia. II. His early military life began at the age of nine
teen (1751), and lasted about seven years, with vari
ous interruptions, till 1758. He was occupied in rais
ing and drilling the soldiers, and commanding them in
their rude warfare against the Indians and the French.
He was sent across the Alleghanies to the Ohio River on
business of great importance. But as the British Gov
ernment treated the officers of the local militia with
contempt, upon the formal declaration of the war he
resigned his post, and became a volunteer in General
Braddock's army in 1754. In this he held the rank
of colonel, and was stationed on the frontier of Mary
land. Here, for the first time, he saw regular soldiers,
well disciplined and accustomed to a soldier's life.
His previous exposure had made him familiar with the
wild country in western Virginia and in Pennsylvania,
and also with the Indian mode of fighting. The
" frontier colonel " of twenty-three had a military
knowledge which, in this expedition, was worth more
than all Braddock had gathered from the splendid
strategic parades of England and Holland. Had
Washington's counsel been followed, the expedition
would have been successful.
After Braddock's disastrous defeat, Washington was
appointed Commander-in-Chief of the forces of Vir
ginia, with the rank of colonel, and held the office till
the return of peace in 1758. His position was singu
larly difficult. First, because the Enghsh Governor
Dinwiddie, his chief, was ignorant and ostentatious, at
once capricious and obstinate, domineering, now com
manding and then countermanding, with no reason in
VI— 4

50 HISTORIC AMERICANS
either case. He both despised and hated the Amer
ican colonies, and, with gross insolence, trampled on
the young men of eminent talents. He vexed, thwarted
and outraged Washington continually. Second,
the Virginia Legislature, who voted the money
and the men, was by no means high-minded, but par
simonious, and short-sighted, and -had besides a weak
and inefficient military system. Third, the Virginians
did not make either good soldiers or good officers. It
was difficult to obtain recruits for the rank and file
of his little army. When found, they were idle, waste
ful, impatient of discipline, and continually deserting,
which the civil authorities encouraged them to do.
Many of the officers were ignorant, idle, jealous, dis
obedient, and tyrannical. Washington must create
both the body and the soul of his army, and even the
legislative disposition to support it. It is hard to con
ceive a more trying position.3 He stood in a cowardly
army, and had on one side an imbecile administration,
an obstinate executive, and a miserly legislature; on
the other, a people parsimonious, and seemingly indif
ferent to their own welfare. While the Indians were
ravaging the border, and driving whole towns of peo
ple away from their homes, he was obliged to impress
soldiers, and to seize provinces by force. He dared
not venture to part with any of his white men for any
distance, says the Governor, as he must have a watch
ful eye on the negro slaves. His army was always ill
fed and ill clad. He complains continually of a per
petual lack of provisions, clothing, and even shoes.
" Scarcely a man has shoes or stockings, or a hat."
He finds fault with his " whooping, halloing gentlemen-
soldiers." Dinwiddie treated him ill, because he com
plained, and sometimes answered him with capricious

GEORGE WASHINGTON 51
cruelty. Amid all these difficulties, the youth of
twenty-two to twenty-six went on with coolness,
bravery, and moderation, and rarely overstepped his
duty. Sometimes his discipline was a little severe. If
a soldier swore, he had twenty-five lashes ; five hundred
for quarreling and fighting; one hundred for drunk
enness. Desertion was punished with death. His
authority was great. From natural disposition he
loved the exercise of power. He complains, " No order
is obeyed but such as a party of soldiers, or my own
drawn sword, enforces. Without this, not a single
horse, for the most earnest occasion, can be had." To
such a pitch was the insolence of the people carried by
having every point conceded to them. But he was
singularly careful to defer to the civil authority when
possible. If the right was doubtful, the conscien
tious young soldier left it to be exercised by the magis
trate, not by the military arm. This is to be noted,
because it is so rare for military men to abstain from
tyranny, especially for young soldiers. And, in fact,
it is hard for such, since naturally they incline to
quick methods and severe measures.
His seven years' apprenticeship in that terrible war,
from 1751 to 1758, was an admirable discipline to fit
him for greater trials, in a wider and more conspicu
ous field. The French War was the school for the
American Revolution. Here this great scholar took
his first lessons. He learned caution, reserve, moder
ation, and that steady perseverance which so marked
his later life.
III. From the last week in December, 1758, till the
15th June, 1775, Washington had no direct part in
military affairs. On January 6, 1759, he married the

52 HISTORIC AMERICANS
rich and handsome widow of Mr. Custis, and three
months after went to live on his large farm at Mount
Vernon, where he continued mainly busy with the com
mon affairs of a Virginia gentleman of large estate.
He attended to his farming, raising crops there, and
disposing of them in London. He bought and sold
land, of which he owned large tracts, chiefly in the un
settled parts of the province. He visited the wealthy
people of Virginia a good deal ; was often at Williams
burg, the capital of the colony, a town of about fifteen
hundred or two thousand inhabitants. He received
much company at his own house. Most of the dis
tinguished men of Virginia and Maryland, including
the royal governor, were there in these fifteen or six
teen years. His wife's relations he seldom saw more
than once a year, they lived so far away.
We usually conceive of Washington as a public man,
sternly occupied with most important concerns; but
from 1759 to 1774 he was mainly free from all great
public duties or cares. He could employ his time as
he liked. His diary, kept on the blank leaves of an
almanac, and still preserved, shows how almost every
day was spent. From this and his letters, then not
very numerous, we see how he passed that period. He
was active in parish affairs, — a vestryman in two
churches; one at Pohick, seven miles off, the other at
Alexandria, ten miles off. He attended at one of them
every Sunday, when the weather and the Virginia roads
permitted. He kept a four-horse coach, with a driver,
postilion, and footman, — all negro slaves, all in Wash
ington livery, — and lived after the old style of Vir
ginia elegance, in a great, but rather uncomfortable
house, surrounded by negro slaves.4
At first, his dress was plain and cheap. Thus, in

GEORGE WASHINGTON 53
October, 1747, he records in his diary that he delivered
to. the washerwoman "two shirts, the one marked G.
W., the other not marked; one pair of hose and one
band, to be washed against the November courts in
Frederic County." In his backwoods fighting, he was
often dressed in the Indian style, as were also many of
his soldiers. He found it most convenient. But he
afterwards acquired a taste for fine dress from his
intercourse with British officers. So, in 1756, he or
ders from England " two complete livery suits for ser
vants (that is, for his slaves), with a Spanish cloak, the
trimmings and faces of scarlet, and a scarlet waistcoat,
and two silverlaced hats; one set of horse furniture,
with livery lace, with the Washington coat on the hous
ings; three gold and scarlet sword knots; three silver
and blue of the same ; one fashionable gold-laced hat."
The next year, his book records an order on Mr. Rich
ard Washington, a London trader, for " one piece of
finest cambric; two pair of fine worked ruffles, at
twenty shillings a pair; half-a-dozen pair of thread
hose, at five shillings. If worked ruffles should be out
of fashion, send such as are not worked; as much of
the best superfine blue cotton velvet as will make a coat,
waistcoat, and breeches for a tall man, with fine silk
buttons to suit it, and all other necessary trimmings
and linings, together with gaiters for the breeches;
six pair of the very neatest shoes ; six pair of gloves,
three pair of which to be proper for riding, and to
have slit tops, the whole larger than the middle size." 5
These little good-for-nothing straws show that for
a while the great Washington's stream turned off from
its straight course, and spread out into broad shallows,
trifling with its flowery shores. He was a rich farmer,
a country gentleman, raising tobacco, and sending it to

54 HISTORIC AMERICANS
England for sale; managing his own affairs with dili
gence and shrewdness; keeping his own accounts with
great neatness of detail. His family seems to have
been rather fond of dress, with a great desire to be
" fashionable," and made a considerable show in their
little provincial world, where life was dull and monot
onous to a terrible degree, being relieved only by vis
itors and visiting.
How did he pass his time? His diary shows.
" January 1st, 1770. At home alone.
" 2nd January. At home all day. Mr. Peake
dined here.
" 3rd. At home all day alone.
" 4th. Went a hunting with John Custis and Lund
Washington. Started a deer, and then a fox, but got
neither. " 5th. Went to Muddy Hole and Dogue Run.
Carried the dogs with me, but found nothing. Mr.
Warner Washington and Mr. Thurston came in the
evening. " 6th. The two Colonel Fairfaxes dined here, and
Mr. R. Alexander, and the two gentlemen that came
the day before. The Belvoir family (Fairfaxes) re
turned after dinner.
" 7th. Mr. Washington and Mr. Thurston went to
Belvoir. " 8th. Went a hunting with Mr. Alexander, J. Cus
tis, and Lund Washington. Killed a fox (a dog one),
after three hours' chase. Mr. Alexander went away,
and Mr. Thurston came in the afternoon.
" 9th. Went a ducking, but got nothing, the creek
and rivers being froze. Robert Adam dined here and
returned. " 10th. Mr. Washington and Mr. Thurston set off

ii

GEORGE WASHINGTON 55
home. I went hunting on the Neck, and visited the
plantation there, and killed a fox, after treeing it
three times, and chasing it about three hours.
11th. At home all day alone.
12th. Ditto, ditto.
" 13th. Dined at Belvoir, with Mrs. Washington
and Mr. and Miss Custis, and returned afterwards.
" 14th. At home all day alone.6 Bottled thirty-
five dozen cider. Fitted a two-eyed plough, eyed in
stead of a duck-bill plough, and with much difficulty
made my chariot wheel-horses plough. Put the pole-
end horses into the plough in the morning, and put in
the postilion and hind horse in the afternoon ; but, the
ground being well swarded over, and very heavy
ploughing, I repented putting them in at all, for fear
it should give them a habit of stopping in the chariot.
Peter (my smith) and I, after several efforts to make
a plough upon a new model, partly of my own con
trivance, were fain to give it over, at least for the
present." A week later we find, " Spent the greater part of
the day in making a new plough of my own inven
tion." 7 His household books contain the names of his
horses and his dogs. He does not seem to have busied
himself with any intellectual pursuits. Books seldom
appear in his orders for supplies from England. His
diary contains no philosophic thought, — nothing
which indicates an inquiring mind, only a mind at
tentive to the facts of every-day life, and scrupulously
diligent in recording things of no great consequence.
From this it appears that it took his grist-mill fifty-
five minutes to grind four pecks of corn, but he was
surprised to find that it made five pecks of Indian meal.

56 HISTORIC AMERICANS
This is the only scientific observation I have heard of
in his diary. His account of the way his slaves did
their work is amusing as well as instructive.
While still in active military service, in 1758, he
was chosen member of the Virginia House of Bur
gesses for the next year. The poll cost him thirty-
nine pounds six shillings. Among the articles neces
sary for the election, his book reads, a hogshead and
a barrel of punch, thirty-five gallons of wine, forty-
three of strong beer and cider.8 In the Virginia As
sembly he was punctual in his attendance, modest in
his deportment, but seldom spoke, and never made a
set speech. He was distinguished for sound judg
ment and undeviating sincerity. When troubles
came, and the British Government sought to oppress
the colonies, Puritan New England began the com
plaint, and Virginia did not tamely submit. A man
of details and habits, more than of ideas or of
philosophic principles, Washington was not one of
the first to move, but at length joined readily and
firmly in all the heroic acts to which the wild and
eloquent Patrick Henry stirred the Virginia Legis
lature. He took a prominent part in opposing the
Stamp Act, and other oppressive measures of the
British king, after the Boston Port Bill. In the
extraordinary Convention, it is said Washington made
the most eloquent speech that was ever made, and
said, " I will raise one thousand men, subsist them
at my own expense, and march myself at their head
for the relief of Boston." 9 In 1769 he was thinking
of the possibility of a fight between the Mother and
Daughter.10 The first Continental Congress met at Philadelphia,
on September 5, 1774. Washington was one of the

GEORGE WASHINGTON 57
six delegates from Virginia, but does not appear to
have been much distinguished. Yet Mr. Wirt relates
that Patrick Henry said, " In respect to solid informa
tion and sound judgment, Colonel Washington is un
questionably the greatest man on that floor." u
He was a member of the second Congress, which
met 10th May, 1775. This was after the battle of
Lexington; and he appeared there every day dressed
in his military uniform. Like the war paint of an
Indian, his soldierly dress was a figure of speech, to
tell that the time of compromise had passed by, and
the question must be settled, not by words, but by
blows. IV. On June 15, 1775, at the suggestion of John
Adams, Washington was chosen Commander-in-Chief
of the American Army. Political motives determined
the choice, fixing it on a Virginian. This was to
conciliate the South, and make it friendly to the war.
His personal character, his wealth, his knowledge,
moderation, skill, and integrity drew to him the far-
reaching, honest eyes of John Adams. New England
sagacity and self-denial alike suggested the choice.
But New England ambition was not content. In the
French War New England had done much service,
and had won laurels. The southern states did noth
ing. Washington was the only officer who had ac
quired any distinction; and he less than several men
from the eastern states. They naturally found
fault. Hancock wanted the post. Certainly he had
done more than Colonel Washington to promote the
Revolution ; and he long cherished a grudge, I think,
against Adams for his nomination of Washington.
The choice was a thoughtful compromise. New Eng-

58 HISTORIC AMERICANS
land overcame her prejudices against a southern man.
The modest Virginian declared to Congress, " I beg
it may be remembered by every gentleman in the room
that I declare, with the utmost sincerity, I do not
think myself equal to the command I am honored
with." He declined the compensation of five hundred
dollars a month, and said, " As no pecuniary con
siderations would have tempted me to accept this ar
duous employment, ... I do not wish to make
any profit from it. I will keep an exact account of
my expenses, which I doubt not the nation will dis
charge, and that is all I desire." He wrote a letter
to his wife — >the only one that he wrote which is pre
served — concerning his election, and his acceptance
of the office, and enclosing his will, just made. " As
it has been a kind of destiny," says the modest man,
" that has thrown me upon this service, I shall hope
that my undertaking is designed to answer some good
purpose." He left Mount Vernon in May, 1775.
He did not enter his own doors again till January,
1784. The new Commander-in-Chief left Philadelphia
June 21, and reached Cambridge on the 2nd July,
and took command of the army the next day. He
found a motley collection of troops; about seventeen
thousand men, more than three thousand sick, all ill-
dressed, ill-armed, ill-disciplined, and some with no
muskets. The line extended fifteen or sixteen miles,
by the then existing roads, from Charlestown Neck
to Roxbury. Most of the soldiers had enlisted for a
short time. Few were willing to submit to the self-
denial and stern discipline of actual war. The officers
were ignorant of their duty. General Ward, the
previous Commander-in-Chief, was old, and almost im-

GEORGE WASHINGTON 59
becile; another general kept his chamber, talking
" learnedly of cathartics and emetics." 12 The camp
was full of jealousies, rivalries, resentments, petty am
bitions; men thinking much for themselves, little for
their imperiled nation. We greatly misunderstand
the difficulties of the time. About one third of the
people in the colonies were openly or secretly Tories.
Self-denial is never easy, and then much of it was
needful. The patriot's trials were often borne grudg
ingly, and with many attempts to shift the burdens.
Had such a spirit prevailed as our rhetoricians and
orators of the Fourth of July tell us of, then the
Revolution had all been over in a twelve-month, and
every red-coat had been driven into the sea. But
people were as mean and selfish in 1775 as they have
been ever since. The battle of Lexington did not
change human nature. Washington must create an
army, create even the raw material of it. Congress
had no adequate conception of the cost of war, and
dealt out money with a stingy hand. It had little
enough to give, and a war is of guineas. The peo
ple trusted in a volunteer militia serving but a few
months, and were afraid of a standing army and a
military tyrant. Nothing was ready, no clothes,
tents, cannon; even powder was scarce, and at one
time there were not seven cartridges to a man. The
sentinels returning from duty were not allowed to
fire their pieces, but drew the charge.
In Boston lay the British army, superior in num
bers, well drilled, armed well, and provided with all
that wealth could buy or knowledge could devise. We
talk of the heroism of 1776. We do not exaggerate.
No nation was ever more valiant and self-denying.
But Washington complains of " an egregious want

60 HISTORIC AMERICANS t
of public spirit," of "fertility in the low arts of
obtaining advantages." There were noble men, who
would give up all their own property for the public
good ; but there were others mean and base, who would
take all from the public for their own advantage.
Then, as now, times of trouble produced a Hancock,
an Adams; but how seldom! The superior property,
the superior education, was on the Tory side. Very
cool, very cautious and reserved, Washington had yet
the zeal of an enthusiast, and hated the petty selfish
ness he met. He was not always quite just to the
New Englanders. From the beginning of July,
1775, till the end of February, 1776, the army did
nothing. How could it? Often reduced to ten thou
sand men! Washington improved the intrenchments,
drilled the soldiers, gave unity of action to the whole
army. Feeble in men, and supplied only with poor
and inefficient arms, he acted on the defensive. But
in one night he clinched the industrial New England
palm with a mighty fist, and on the sixth anniversary
of the Boston Massacre, smote the British army a
deadly blow. The enemy soon left New England,
and took twelve hundred Tories along with them.
A hostile troop has appeared in Massachusetts but
once since, — when it filed through the streets of Bos
ton, and did its wicked work, with none to lift an
arm, slashing the citizens with coward swords, — a
wickedness not atoned for yet, but remembered against
the day of reckoning.13
In New England, the people dwelt more compactly
together than elsewhere in the northern states. They
were comparatively rich, educated, and very indus
trious, with that disposition- for military affairs be
longing to men familiar with the French and Indian

GEORGE WASHINGTON 61
Wars. But, after driving the British from Boston,
Washington drew his army to New York, and, not
having such support as he found in Massachusetts,
there followed a whole year of disasters. The Ameri
cans were driven from Long Island. Two New Eng
land brigades of militia ran disgracefully from be
fore the British guns.14 Washington abandoned New
York. Fort Washington surrendered to the enemy
nearly three thousand soldiers. The flower of the
army, with a great quantity of artillery, ammunition,
and stores, were lost. The British ships sailed far
up the Hudson River, once thought to be impregnably
defended. Washington retreated through the Jer
seys, his little army dwindling at every step; without
intrenching tools, without tents, and with few blankets.
Many of the soldiers were barefoot. He flew over
the Passaic, over the Raritan, over the Delaware
Rivers. At Christmas, the army made one desperate
step back again, crossed the Delaware, captured many
soldiers at Trenton ; then withdrew into the mountains,
and into the darkness of night and the snows of win
ter. So ended the first campaign. The very Janu
ary after the Declaration of Independence, with
three thousand or four thousand men, Washington
crept into his winter quarters at' Morristown. What
an army for such work! The difficulties seemed im
mense. The midland states were full of Tories, —
cruel, revengeful, and malignant. Some of the
American generals were of doubtful faith. General
Lee had purposely suffered himself to be taken pris
oner, that he might concert a treason worse than
Arnold's.15 Congress, discouraged, left Philadelphia
and fled to Baltimore. Rhode Island was in the hands
of the enemy. Many respectable citizens in the mid-

62 HISTORIC AMERICANS
land states went over to the British. The Quakers
hindered the American cause. The time of most of
the soldiers expired. Recruits came in but slowly, and
a new army must be created. Still Washington did
not despair!
The next spring he regained the Jerseys, but was
soon forced to retire. Pennsylvania then, as now, the
most ignorant of the northern states, with its Quakers,
did little for independence. The principal citizens
were not friendly to the war, or to its object.16
Philadelphia was almost a Tory town. Washington
had no New England energy close at hand to furnish
him provisions or men. He lost the battle of Brandy-
wine, failed at Germantown. Philadelphia fell into
the hands of the enemy. During the winter of 1777-
78 he went into winter quarters at Valley Forge.
What a terrible winter it was for the hopes of
America! In 1776 he had an army of forty-seven
thousand men, and the nation was exhausted by the
great effort. In 1777 it was less than twenty thousand
men. Women, who had once melted their pewter
plates into bullets, could not do it a second time.
At Valley Forge, within a day's march of the enemy's
headquarters, there were not twelve thousand soldiers.
That winter they lay on the ground. So scarce were
blankets, that many were forced to sit up all night by
their fires. At one time, more than a thousand soldiers
had not a shoe to their feet. You could trace their
march by the blood which their naked feet left in the
ice. At one time, more than one fourth of all the
troops there are reported as " unfit for duty, because
barefoot or otherwise naked." Washington offered a
prize for the best substitute for shoes made of un-
tanned hides! Even provisions failed. Once there

GEORGE WASHINGTON 63
was a famine in the camp, and Washington must seize
provisions by violence, or the army would die. He
ordered the Pennsylvania farmers to thresh out the
wheat and sell it to him, or he would take it, and
pay them only for the straw! Congress was dis
heartened. The men of ability stayed at home, and
weaklings took their place. For some time there were
only twenty-one members, and it was difficult to as
semble a quorum of states for business. Tories
abounded. There were cabals against Washington in
the army. Mifflin, Conway, Gates, Pickering, Schuy
ler, were hostile ; 17 and they found abundant support
in Congress. Samuel Adams distrusted Washington.
So, too, did John Adams. James Lovell, of Massa
chusetts, and Richard Henry Lee, of Virginia, were not
more friendly, and far less honorable.
It is not wholly to be wondered at. Within a year
Washington had lost New York and its neighborhood,
— 'lost Philadelphia, and all the strongholds around
it. He had gained but one victory worth naming,
that at Trenton. In the mean time Burgoyne, an
able soldier, with an admirable army, had walked into
a trap on the North River, and had been taken by
Gates and the Northern army, who were most of them
militia of New England. It is not wonderful that
men doubted, and thought that the selfish, mean-
spirited, and loud-talking General Conway would do
better than the modest Washington to command the
army. Samuel Adams wanted democratic rotation in
office, that the general should be hired by the year!
If he had not been possessed of great wealth, and
cared for nothing, I think Washington's command had
come to an end before 1778. But Dr. Franklin was
on the other side of the sea, and, with consummate

64 HISTORIC AMERICANS
art, he had induced the French Court to favor America
with contributions of money and of arms, and after
the surrender of Burgoyne, to acknowledge the inde
pendence of the United States, and to make an open
treaty of alliance, furnishing America with money and
men, artillery and stores. Then, first, America be
gan to uplift her drooping head. But it must be con
fessed that when she found that a foreign nation was
ready to assist her, she was the less willing to raise
money or men, or otherwise to help herself. She was
fatigued, and wanted to rest.
Within our moderate limits there is not time to tell
the story of the war — the mingled tale of nobleness,
cowardice, and treachery. Peace came at last; and
was proclaimed in camp on the 19th of April, 1783,
eight years after the battle of Lexington. On the
23rd of December Washington returned his commis
sion to Congress, and presented his account of personal
expenses from January 15, 1775, to that date. They
were, in all, sixty-four thousand, three hundred and
fifteen dollars. He then went home to Mount Vernon,
and attended to the duties- of private life. During
the whole war the nobleness of the man stood out great
and clear. But when the war was over the soldiers
were not at once dismissed. The nation did not seem
inclined to compensate them for their sufferings, losses,
or even for their expenses. They naturally became
irritated because the money was thus withheld, which
they had earned by such toil in the grim trials of bat
tle. Then it was that they thought of seeking redress
by their own armed hand. And then it was that Wash
ington's nobility stood out grander than ever before.
He placed himself between the nation and the army,
and sought and found justice to both.

GEORGE WASHINGTON 65
V. The beginning of 1784 beheld Washington at
Mount Vernon with no public office. For almost eight
years his shadow had not fallen on his own threshold.
His affairs had lapsed into some decay, spite of the
prompt and vigilant care he took at a distance. " The
horse is fatted by its master's eye," and letters, once
a week for eight years, are not like the daily presence
of the owner. The active habits of public office were
on him still; and when he woke at daybreak, or be
fore, it was his first impression to forecast the work
of the day, till he remembered that he had no public
work. But public cares still lay heavy on his mighty
soul. The soldiers were his children; and still ill fed
by the nation, and scattered abroad, they looked to
him for help. He could give sympathy, if nothing
more. He had his eye on the whole nation personally,
not officially; anxious for the universal welfare. His
correspondence was immense. He attended to agricul
ture, always his favorite pursuit ; improved his lands,
introduced better seeds and breeds of cattle. He ex
ercised a great hospitality, and visitors of distinction
crowded about his mansion. He sought to improve the
whole State of Virginia, and had a scheme for uniting,
by a canal, the Potomac and James Rivers with the
waters beyond the Alleghany Mountains. He took
a deep and hearty interest in the public education of
the people, giving both money and time for that
purpose. America was then in a sad condition. The states
were free from England, but not firmly united.
"Thirteen staves, and ne'er a hoop, do not make a
barrel." The destructive work of liberation had been
once achieved by the sword. Next must come the con
structive work of union. Franklin's plan of conf edera-
VI— 5

66 HISTORIC AMERICANS
tion, first proposed in 1754, afterwards offered in
1775, and at last accepted, with many variations, in
1778, was hardly adequate to unite the nation, even
when war pressed these thirteen dissimilar members
together. In peace they soon fell asunder. The old
government was utterly inadequate. Congress was a
single body, composed of a single House, not of two
Houses, as now. The vote was by states. Rhode
Island, with sixty thousand, counted as much as Vir
ginia, with six hundred thousand inhabitants. There
was no executive head. Congress, was to administer its
own laws. There were no judiciary, no organized de
partments for war, for foreign affairs, or for interior
administration. There were only administrative com
mittees of Congress.
The general government could not raise money —
could not pay a debt. The states were intensely
jealous of each other. Men called Virginia, or Caro
lina, " my country," and did not recognize America as
such. It was a great work to organize the nation,
and form a national union of America, while, at the
same time, the rights of the states, and the personal
freedom of individuals, were also to be sacredly pre
served. How could the nation found a firm central
power, which was indispensable, and yet keep intact
the local self-government which each state required, and
to which it had become accustomed? Unless this
theorem could be demonstrated in America, " Liberty "
would become a mere Latin word, borrowed from the
French. Tories said, " It is impossible ! " An in
surrection had already broken out in Massachusetts,
which frightened the best men in the nation, making
John Adams and Washington tremble, and doubt demo
cratic institutions. " Would it not be better to have

GEORGE WASHINGTON 67
a limited monarchy, an hereditary senate? " So men
talked. The Federal Convention of all the states was to meet
at Philadelphia, May 14, 1787. Many able men were
chosen as delegates, Washington among them, and
some very weak ones. But so little zeal was then felt,
that on that day only two states — Virginia and Penn
sylvania — appeared to be represented at all. It was
not until the 25th of May that seven states, the re
quired quorum for business, appeared by their dele
gates in the Convention, and then Massachusetts was
represented by only a single man. Washington was
president of the Convention, but it does not appear that
he took any prominent part in making the Constitu
tion. On the 17th of September the work was finished
and signed — " done by consent of the states." I think
no member of the Convention was satisfied with it.
Nobody thought it perfect. Franklin and Washing
ton disliked much of it, for opposite reasons perhaps.
Democratic Mr. Gerry opposed it, and refused to sign
it. Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and many more,
not members of the Convention, were also hostile. At
this day we are not likely to do full justice to its au
thors, representing such diverse local interests, and
animated by such hostile political principles. To
some the Constitution is a finality, an idol, and its
authors inspired men. To others it is " a cove
nant with death," and its authors proportionately evil.18
I know its faults, at least some of them. Time will
no doubt develop others, perhaps yet more fatal. I
see its victims. There are four millions of them in
the United States. I blame its great men, especially
Franklin, the greatest man then or since on the Ameri
can continent. But I see their difficulties, and remem-

68 HISTORIC AMERICANS
ber that nobody is so wise as everybody, and that
now is a fool to the ages which are to come. There
was a monarchic party, who wanted a strong central
government. Alexander Hamilton was the ablest re
presentative of that tendency.19 And there was a
Democratic party, which contended vigorously for
state rights, and wished to keep all popular power,
undelegated, in the hands of the people. Jefferson was
the typical man of the Democrats. But he was out
of the country, on his mission to France. There really
was a danger that the thirteen states should not find
a hoop to bind them all into a well-proportioned tub,
which might stand on its own bottom. But the states
accepted the Constitution, one by one, adding invalu
able amendments. Seventy years is a short time in
the life of a great people, and the day for the final
judgment of the Constitution has not yet come.
VI. Washington was chosen President. With him
there could be no competitor for that office. For the
Vice-Presidency there might be many; for, while it
was plain who was the first man in popular esteem, it
was not equally clear who was the second. But John
Adams was chosen. In the beginning of the Revolu
tion, Massachusetts and Virginia went side by side.
So in the beginning of the independent United States
must they be joined in the administration of public
affairs. It was very difficult to construct the new gov
ernment. All must be made anew. There were two
great parties in the nation. The Federalists, who
were friendly to the Constitution, and inclined to a
strong central government, some of them perhaps fa
voring a monarchy and an hereditary Senate. The
Anti-Federalists, first called " Republicans," and after-

GEORGE WASHINGTON 69
wards " Democrats," who had opposed the Constitu
tion, disliked a strong central power, and relied more
upon the local self-government of the states, or upon
the individual man. With his usual sagacity, Wash
ington selected the best political talent of the country
to help the great work, and with characteristic fair
ness he chose men from both parties. Jefferson was
Secretary of State, Hamilton of the Treasury, Gen
eral Henry Knox of War, and Edmund Randolph,
Attorney-General. These composed the Cabinet. The
Supreme Court were to be appointed. He put John
Jay at its head. He would not be President of a
party, but sought to reconcile differences, and to fuse all
parties into one. The attempt could not succeed.
There were quarrels in his own Cabinet, especially be
tween Jefferson, who was an ideal Democrat, with
great confidence in the mass of the people, and Hamil
ton, who inclined towards monarchy, and had but
small confidence in the people. In the eight years of
Washington's two Presidencies the country was full
of strife and contentions between these parties. No
President has since had such difficulties to contend with
— all was to be made anew ; the departments of govern
ment to be constructed, treaties to be negotiated with
foreign powers, the revenue to be settled, the public
debt to be paid, the continental paper money to be
provided for, or the question disposed of, the limits
of the constitutional power of the general government
to be fixed, the forms of procedure in the Federal
courts to be settled. The Union itself was so new,
the elements were so diverse, the interests of North
and South so hostile, it was to be feared the whole
would soon fall to pieces. But quickly the govern
ment was organized, an admirable plan of administra-

70 HISTORIC AMERICANS
tion was devised, and the eight years brought increased
stability to the American institutions, greater confi
dence in them, greater welfare to the whole people,
and additional renown to Washington.
I will not here recapitulate the chief acts of his
administration. They are to be found in historical
and biographical works. His leading principle was
simply to be just to all, and demand justice from
all. This was especially difficult in a time of such
trouble; for while the constructive work of American
democracy was going on here, in Europe the great de
structive forces of humanity made the earth to quake,
and to swallow down the most ancient monarchy in the
Christian world. Both countries felt the shock of the
French Revolution. The Federalists generally took
sides against France, and with England, who feared
the revolutionary contagion. The Democrats favored
the French, and were hostile to England, as being will
ing to arrest the progress of mankind. Both parties
were a little crazy.
VII. On the 3rd of March, 1797, Washington with
drew from public life, and in a few days again sat
down at Mount Vernon, devoted himself to agriculture,
and hoped to enjoy the pleasing leisure of a country
life. But his farewell address could not save him from
public duties. He was to die with his harness on.
Fear of war with France called him again to the
head of the American army, which must be recon
structed in the midst of new and endless difficulties.
But soon a peaceful trumpet called him to another
field. On the 14th December, 1799, Washington
ceased to be mortal ; and he who had been " first in
war, and first in peace," became also " first in the
hearts of his countrymen," where he still lives.

GEORGE WASHINGTON 71
It is not difficult to understand a character which
is so plain, the features so distinct and strongly
marked. 1. Look at his intellect.
He had not a great reason — that philosophic
principle which seeks the universal law and the scien
tific truths, resting in them as ends. He was not a
speculative, but a practical man; not at all devoted
to ideas. He had no tendency to science. He did
not look after causes, ultimate reasons, general laws;
only after facts. He was concerned with measures, not
with principles. He seldom, if ever, made a philoso
phic remark on matter or on man. His diary is full
of facts. It has no ideas, no hints or studies of a
thoughtful character. He had little curiosity to learn
the great generalizations of nature. It does not ap
pear that he ever read a single philosophic book. His
letters contain no ideas, and refer to no great prinj
ciples. 2. He had not much imagination — that poetic
power which rests in ideal beauty as its end. There
was little of the ideal element in him. He takes no
notice of the handsome things in nature, art, or litera
ture. I remember but one reference to anything of
the kind. That is to be found in the "Lowland
Beauty," who so charmed him in boyhood. He looked
at use, not at beauty. Handsome dress he prized for
the dignity and consequence it gave him. This unideal
character marks his style of writing, which is com
monly formal, stiff, and rather prim,20 without orna
ment, or any of the little wayside beauties which
spring up between the stones even of a military road.

72 HISTORIC AMERICANS
He seems to have had as little fondness for literature
as for science. The books he read were practical
works, which contained only information, and were
quite destitute of the beauty, the inspiration, and the
charm of letters. In the great mass of documents which
bear his name it is not always easy to see what is his.
Some of his greatest state papers were the work of
other hands. The Farewell Address must be adjudged
to Madison,21 who made the original draft in 1792,
and to Hamilton, who wrought it over in 1797.
Washington wrote it out anew with his own hand,
making some alterations. It required four months
to get it ready, so important did Washington deem
the occasion. The greater part of the letters which
fill eighty manuscript volumes are written by his
secretaries, who must think for him as well as write.
Still, there are enough which came unaltered from
his pen to show us what power of writing he possessed.
It is refreshing to find that he sometimes departed
from the solemn, dull, conventional language of state
papers, and calls the British soldiers " Red Coats,"
and General Putnam " Old Put ; " talks of " kicking
up some dust," " making a rumpus," of nominating
" men not fit to be shoe-blacks ;" speaks of " the rascally
Puritanism of New England," and " the rascally
Tories ; " "a scoundrel from Marblehead — a man of
property." But in general his style is plain and
business-like, without fancy or figure of speech, and
without wrath. His writings are not grass which
grows in the fields ; they are hay which is pitched down
from the mow in a barn.
3. Washington had a great understanding. He
had that admirable balance of faculties which we call

GEORGE WASHINGTON 73
good judgment; the power of seeing the most ex
pedient way of doing what must be done, — a quality
more rare, perhaps, than what men call genius. Yet
his understanding was not of a wide range, but was
Hmited to a few particulars, all pertaining to practical
affairs. Thus gifted, Washington was not an originator.
I think he discovered nothing, invented nothing —
in war, in politics, or in agriculture. The " new
plough of my own invention " came to nothing. He
was a soldier nearly sixteen years. I do not find that
he discovered anything new in military affairs. He
sat in the Virginia Assembly of Burgesses ; was a dele
gate to the Continental Congress, and was a member
of the Federal Convention, at the time when those
bodies were busy with the most important matters ;
but I do not learn that he brought forward any new
idea, any original view of affairs, or ever proposed
any new measure. He was eight years President, and
left behind him no marks of originality, of inventive
talent, or of power of deep insight into causes, into
their modes of operation, or even into their remote
effects. Here he stood on the common level of man
kind, and saw no deeper or farther than ordinary men.
But he was a good organizer. Naturally sys
tematic, industrious, and regular by early habit, he
had the art to make things take an orderly shape, and
to serve the purpose he had in view. Thus his large
farm at Mount Vernon was managed with masterly
skill; the routine of crops was adjusted as well as
was then known to the art of agriculture. In the
French and Indian War he took the raw human ma
terial, arrayed it into companies and regiments, and
made a serviceable little army. In the War of the

74 HISTORIC AMERICANS
Revolution he did the same thing on a larger scale,
and with, perhaps, yet greater difficulties in his way.
He took the rude, undisciplined mass of New England
valor at Cambridge, in 1775, and in a few months
made it quite an effective army, able to strike a power
ful blow. He was called on to do the same many
times in that war, and almost always accomplished
such tasks with consummate skill. He laid out his
plans of battle or campaign with great good sense.
But I think he had no originality in his plans, or in
his mode either of arranging his grounds or of mar
shalling his soldiers. He followed the old schemes,
and always took abundant counsel. As President,
he had much of this work of organization to attend to.
With the help of the able heads of Adams, Jefferson,
Hamilton, Jay, and others, it was successfully done.
His great talent was that of administration. He
had that rare combination of judgment, courage, and
capacity for action which enabled him to manage all
things well. He was fond of detail — no little thing
was too minute for his delicate eye. He administered
his farm with severe and nice economy ; yet the system
of slavery did not allow it to be very productive.
His day-books show what all the men are doing. At
home he remembered the value of the master's eye.
While absent from Virginia eight years in the army,
he had accounts continually remitted from his chief
overseer, telling him of all the minute details of the
ploughing, planting, reaping, threshing, raising to
bacco, and selling it; the birth of cattle and slaves,
the health of his animal and of his human stock. Al
ways, once a week, Washington wrote to his overseer,
even in the most troublous times. I think that he

GEORGE WASHINGTON 75
never failed of this in all the period of storms, from
January, 1776, to December, 1784. With the same
skill he administered the affairs of the little miserable
Virginia army in the French and Indian War, and
the greater cares of the Revolutionary army. The
nearer we come to the facts, the more are we astonished
at the great difficulties he surmounted — want of
powder, want of guns, want of clothes, want of tents,
want of shoes, and above all, want of money, which is
want of everything. We are amazed at the jealousy
of Congress, the bickerings and petty rivalries of
little and mean men ambitious of his military renown,
at the coldness of the people of Pennsylvania, of Mary
land, of the Carolinas, of Georgia, and their indiffer
ence even to their own success. But we are still
more amazed at the high ability with which he ad
ministered his humble supplies of means and of men,
and at the grand result he brought to pass. He was
not a swift thinker; he never fought a brilliant cam
paign, or more than a single brilliant battle — that at
Trenton ; 22 but I doubt that Alexander, that Caesar,
that Napoleon, or even Hannibal, had more admin
istrative military skill, save in this, that he had not the
power to make rapid combinations on the field of
battle; he must think it all out beforehand, draw on
paper the plan of movement, and fix the place of the
troops. Hence he was skilful in attack, but not
equally able when the assault was made upon him.
He had slow, far-sighted judgment. In much time
he prepared and wrought for much time. He had
a real military talent, not a genius for war.
As President, he administered the political affairs of
the nation with the same skill, the same patience in de
tails, the same comprehensive diligence. A man of

76 HISTORIC AMERICANS
judgment, not of genius, in all important military
matters he required each colonel and officer to furnish
a written report of what ought to be done, compared
them all carefully, and made up his mind after a thor
ough knowledge of the facts, and a careful examina
tion of the opinions of able men.
I do not find that Washington had any new ideas
about government, or about political affairs. He op
posed the British despotism in 1768; but all New
England had gone that way before him, and he fol
lowed after in the train of the ablest and some of the
richest men in Virginia. He favored the union of
the colonies; but Franklin had suggested that in 1754,
and Massachusetts, in 1770, appointed a committee to
confer with all the colonial legislatures. He attended
the Continental Congress in 1774; but Franklin, then
in England, had really originated it. He sought for
independence ; but, long before him, the great souls of
Samuel Adams and Joseph Hawley had shown that it
was indispensable; and the fiery tongue of Patrick
Henry had proclaimed it. I think the Constitution
does not owe a thought to him. The original plan of
the details of the Federal Government does not seem
to have come from him, but from Jefferson, Hamilton,
Jay. Let us be reverent of great names, also just.
Washington's superiority to others was not intellectual.
He was continually surrounded by abler minds in the
Virginia Legislature and in the Continental Congress,
in the army and in the Cabinet. Compare him with
Franklin, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Jefferson,
Hamilton, Jay, Madison, with Greene, Pickering, arid
many more. But he pretended to no intellectual great
ness, and was one of the most modest of men. This
appeared in all his life, from the day the Virginia

GEORGE WASHINGTON 77
Assembly presented the blushing colonel with their
thanks, until he gave the people of the United States
of America his Farewell Address.
II. His excellence was moral. He had that constitu
tion and quality of moral power which is to virtue
what good sense is to intellect. One of the most con
scientious of men, he was not morally romantic, en
thusiastic, or transcendental. There was no more
moonshine in his moral than in his intellectual char
acter. His virtue was not
" too bright and good
For human nature's daily food."
1. His natural temperament did not much incline
him to the vices of passion in youth, for he was of
that stern and austere make which leans to strictness
rather than to self-indulgence. He wrote in his copy
book, " Labor to keep alive in your breast that little
spark of celestial fire called conscience." In few hearts
did it ever burn with a steadier and more constant
flame. Yet there was no unusual rigidity in his rules
of life. He was man, and not an ascetic.
He had a nice love of order, and a quick instinct
for decorum. This appears in the neatness of his
writing-books at the age of thirteen; in the accuracy
of his diagrams made when he was a surveyor, farmer,
or soldier; in the clear round hand and lucid style of
his writings; in the regularity of his habits; the
stately deportment which marked him, whether in the
forest, the camp, or in the Senate of the nation.
Yet, if you look carefully, you find he was not so
fastidious as to order in thoughts as in things. He
was fond of form and parade, and when President,

78 HISTORIC AMERICANS
adopted the stately customs of monarchic courts, not
unjustly complained of at the time as savoring of
aristocracy, and looking toward kingly institutions.
It may be that Hamilton, Adams, and others had more
to do with this foolish parade than Washington him
self. Yet he loved splendor, and rode in a coach with
four and sometimes six horses. Other Virginia gentle
men did the same. Men could not forget the old
nonsense all at once. " Nihil saltatim, omne grada-
tim," is nature's rule of conduct. He was accurate
in his accounts, omitting no little detail, punctual in
regard to time, orderly in all things.
2. He had great power of wrath, inheriting the
high, hasty temper of his mother. In youth he was
" sudden and quick in quarrel." In middle life his
passion was tremendous, sometimes getting vent in
words, sometimes in blows. He never overcame this
excess of heat, this congenital distemper of the blood.
Jefferson tells of a great " occasion when the President
was much inflamed, got into one of those passions
when he cannot command himself," called Freneau
a rascal, and did not miscall him, and said that,
by God, he would rather be in his grave than in his
present situation.23 In the latter years of the Revo
lution his temper greatly offended the officers.
In 1775, at Cambridge, the army was destitute of
powder. Washington sent Colonel Glover to Marble-
head for a supply of that article, which was said to be
there. At night the Colonel returned, found Wash
ington in front of his headquarters, pacing up and
down. Glover saluted. The General, without return
ing his salute, asked, roughly, " Have you got the
powder? " " No, sir." Washington swore out the

GEORGE WASHINGTON 79
great, terrible Saxon oath, with all its three specifica
tions. "Why did you come back, sir, without it?"
" Sir, there is not a kernel of powder in Marblehead."
Washington walked up and down a minute or two, in
great agitation, and then said, " Colonel Glover, here
is my hand, if you will take it, and forgive me. The
greatness of our danger made me forget what is due
to you and to myself."
Tobias Lear, his intimate friend, and private sec
retary, says, that in the winter of 1791, an officer
brought a letter telling of General St. Clair's disas
trous defeat by the Indians. It must be delivered to
the President himself. He left his family and guests
at table, glanced over the contents, and when he re
joined them, seemed calm as usual. But afterwards,
when he and Lear were alone, he walked the room
silent a while, and then broke out in great agitation.
" It is all over. St. Clair is defeated, routed ; the
officers nearly all killed, the men by wholesale; the
disaster complete, too shocking to think of, and a sur
prise into the bargain ! " He walked about, much
agitated, and his wrath became terrible. " Yes," he
burst forth, " here, on this very spot, I took leave
of him. I wished him success and honor. ' You
have your instructions,' I said, ' from the Secretary
of War. I had myself a strict eye to them, and will
add but one word, beware of a surprise ! I repeat it,
beware of a surprise! You know how the Indians
fight ! ' He went off with this, as my last solemn
warning, thrown into his ears ; and yet, to suffer that
army to be cut to pieces, hacked, butchered, toma
hawked, by a surprise, the very thing I guarded him
against ! 0 God ! 0 God ! he is worse than a murderer !
How can he answer for it to his country? The blood

80 HISTORIC AMERICANS
of the slain is upon him, the curse of widows and
orphans, the curse of Heaven ! " His emotions
were awful. After which he cooled a little, and sat
down, and said, " This must not go beyond this room.
General St. Clair shall have justice. I looked through
the despatches, saw the whole disaster, but not all the
particulars. I will receive him without displeasure;
I will hear him without prejudice. He shall have full
justice." 24
3. By nature and education he had a strong love of
approbation, and seemed greedy of applause. This
appears in his somewhat worldly " Rules of Conduct,"
which he copied out in his youth; in his fondness for
dress, which did not come from a nice artistic sense
of beauty, but rather from a desire to win the respect
and esteem of other men; and from that sensitiveness
to public opinion which appears at all periods of his
life, especially at the period when he was criticized
with such cruel injustice and wanton insult. In early
life he loved honor, and was ambitious for distinction,
and so obtained a commission in the forces of Virginia.
I think he never had that mean passion of love of
approbation which is called vanity, and is to honor
what the foam is to the sea. The scum it genders
drives before the wind, and unsubstantial melts away.
Yet in all his manly public life as legislator, general,
President, I cannot find an instance in which he courted
popularity. Office always sought him ; he never sought
it. In no instance did he stoop his majestic head to
avoid calumny, or to pick up the applause which
might be tainted with the least uncleanness. Admirers
there were about him; there was no place for a flat
terer.25 In all his public addresses, in all his official

GEORGE WASHINGTON 81
or private letters, and in the reports of his familiar
talk, there is no evidence that he referred to himself,
or alluded to any great or good deed he had ever
done! In the eleven thick volumes of his works, and
in the many other manuscripts which are still pre
served, I find not a line which was written with the
peacock feather of vanity, not a word which asks ap
plause. After 1790, the eyes of the nation — yes,
of the world — were on the sublimest man in it. His
eye was on the nation, and on the eternal right, not
on George Washington, or on his great deeds. Popu
larity is a boy's bonfire in the street. Merit is the
heavenly light of sun and moon and star.
4. Washington was a courageous man. He had
that vigorous animal bravery, which laughs at dan
ger and despises fear. But this was tempered with
caution. It was discreet valor, which did not waste
its strength. In his report of the little battle of
Jumonville, in 1754, when he was twenty-two years
of age, it is related that he said, " I heard the bullets
whistle, and, believe me, there is something charming
in the sound ! " King George the Second added, " He
would not say so if he had been used to hearing many."
When Washington was once questioned about the story,
he answered, " If I ever said so, it was when I was
young." 26
But he had that high moral courage, which
dares affront perils greater than the whistling of bul
lets. He chose the right cause, though it were un
popular, and held to it, fearful of nothing but to
do wrong. When defeated, he still bore up amid the
greatest difficulties. The Americans were beaten in
every attack made upon them, from the battle of
VI— 6

82 HISTORIC AMERICANS
Bunker Hill, June 17, 1775, till the battle of Fort
Mifflin, October 22, 1777: they were victorious only
when they made the charge. Yet Washington did not
despair. At Cambridge he had no powder, yet his
courage and perseverance held out. He lost Long
Island, New York Island, Fort Washington, and some
three thousand men. This was the greatest disaster of
the whole war. He fled through the Jerseys, his army
dwindling and shrinking till he had hardly seven thou
sand men, ill armed, unpaid, ill clad, ill fed. Yet
his heart did not fail him. He wrote his brother,
" If every nerve is not strained to recruit the new army
with all possible expedition, I think the game is pretty
nearly up." On the 20th December, 1776, he tells
the President of Congress, Mr. Hancock, " Ten days
more will put an end to the existence of our army ! "
The recruits came in slowly, and the enemy, in full
force, lay at New York, within two days' march of
him. But Washington's courage did not fail him,
nor his hope. Many of the early officers of the Revo
lution left the army in disgust. The nation did not
pay their expenses, and made no promise of future
indemnity. This discouraged the men, and they could
not enlist again after their favorite commanders were
gone. But Washington still held on, and sought to
cheer the fainting souls of both officers and men. In
1777, when the British held Philadelphia, and Wash
ington went into winter quarters at Valley Forge, only
a day's march off, at a time of the greatest peril, the
cowardly State of Pennsylvania had but twelve hun
dred militia in the field to defend their own firesides.
Tories abounded, full of insolence. Congress was
thinly attended. There were whole weeks with no
quorum of states. Many of the members were hostile

GEORGE WASHINGTON 83
to him. But his great heart did not give up. There
was a cabal in the army against him. Conway, Gates,
Mifflin, coveted his place, and attempted his ruin.
Reed, his confidential secretary, was party to the in
trigue. Members of Congress distrusted him, and
openly or secretly opposed him, and wished to remove
him from office. Had he not served them for nothing,
they would have done so ; and yet this great soul bore
up against it all, and never quailed before so manifold
a storm of evil.
5. Washington had a will of mighty strength,- —
firm, resolute, tenacious. When his mind was made up,
nothing turned him aside. But he had such admirable
self-command that he was not at all invasive of the
opinions of others. He respected the personality of
men, and did not impose his will upon them; neither
did he allow others to intrude upon him; but he kept
himself apart, austerely as the northern star. He held
the military power in exact subordination to the civil.
Where he was present, the laws spoke with clear voice.
In the midst of arms, he did not abuse power.
Yet he sometimes proposed harsh measures. He
wished, in 1776, to arrest and confine all who refused
to receive the Continental paper money at par, and
to report them for trial to the states to which they
belonged. He wanted speculators and forestallers
brought to condign punishment. " I would to God,"
said he, in 1779, " that some one of the more atrocious
in each state were hung in chains upon a gallows five
times as high as the one prepared for Haman." a7
6. The highest moral quality is integrity, faith
fulness to conviction and to all delegated trust. This

84 HISTORIC AMERICANS
was his crowning virtue. He had it in the heroic
degree. It appears in all his life, — from the boy
of thirteen, diligently copying his tasks, to the famous
man, well nigh three-score and ten. Here I know
not who was his superior. I cannot put my finger
on a deliberate act of his public or private life which
would detract from this high praise. He had no
subtilty of character, no cunning; he hated duplicity,
lying, and liars. He withdrew his confidence from
Jefferson when he found him fraudulent ; from his sec
retary, Reed, when he was found false in a small par
ticular. He would not appoint Aaron Burr to any
office, because he knew him to be an intriguer. He
could be silent, he could not feign ; simulation and dis
simulation formed no part of his character. Reserved,
cautious, thinking before he spoke, I can find no act
of his civil life which implies the least insincerity, the
least want of ingenuousness in the man.
In war, he used fraud to spare force, and won the
greatest triumph of the Revolution by a military lie.
In 1781, the British General Clinton had an army
at New York, Cornwallis another in Virginia. Wash
ington lay along on the North River and the Jerseys.
He meant to strike Cornwallis. To render the blow sure
and effective, he must make it appear that he intended
to attack New York. He did so more than a year
beforehand. He deceived the highest civil officers, the
highest military officers, and all the middle and east
ern states. To mislead the enemy, he collected forage
and boats in the neighborhood of New York, built
ovens, as if he intended to remain there and attack the
city. He wrote letters to the American and French
officers, ordering them to that place, for he should be
siege the town, and sent them so that they were sure

GEORGE WASHINGTON 85
to fall into the enemy's hands. He deceived friend
and foe. Then at the right moment he broke up his
camp, marched hastily to Virginia, and dealt the fatal
blow at Cornwallis at Yorktown. All this deception
was as necessary to his military plan as powder to his
cannon. It implies no deceitfulness of character in
the deceiver.
He had no meanness, no little resentments. If he
wronged a man in his hasty temper, he sought to re
pair the wrong. There was nothing selfish in his am
bition. He rises above the most of men about him,
— in the camp, in the Congress, or the Cabinet, —
as a tall pine above the brushwood at its feet. He
did nothing little. After the fighting was over, the
army was not paid, and there was no certainty of
payment. The nation might leave it to the states,
and the states might refer it back again to the nation.
The government was weak from its center, and not
efficient or respectable from the character of some of
its members. A portion of the officers of the army,
aided by monarchical men in all the states, wished to
make Washington king. He needed only to say
" Yes," and the deed was done. He pushed the crown
away with conscientious horror.
How admirable was all his conduct after the cessa
tion of hostilities ! He was faithful to the army, faith
ful to the nation, because he was faithful to himself.
How grand was his address to the army, — his letter to
the governors of the states, — his address to Congress
when he returned his commission! In all the history
of mankind, can one find such another example of
forbearance — a triumphant soldier refusing power,
and preferring to go back and till his farm ?
" His means were pure and spotless as his ends."

86 HISTORIC' AMERICANS
III. Washington was not what would be called
an affectionate man, or one rich in tender emotions
of love. Neither his nature nor his breeding tended
that way. His nature seems more stern than kindly;
exact and moral, but not loving. He was a soldier at
nineteen. Great cares lay on him in his early youth,
and chilled the growth of the gentler emotions. His
marriage was not very propitious. Mrs. Washington
appears as a dressy, fashionable woman, without much
head or heart. The One letter of her husband, and his
occasional references to her, do not give us a very
pleasing picture of the woman. It is said " she took
the forward end of the matrimonial yoke." To com
mand and obey is a soldier's duty. The great gen
eral practised the first in the army, and the last at
Mount Vernon. He had no children, and so lost the
best part of his affectional education. There was
nothing in his circumstances to supply the original
defect of nature. And so, upright in his principles
before God, and downright before man, he was not
affectionate and loving.28 Few flowers of that ten
der quality spring up along his military, official, or
domestic paths. He was a just guardian, rather than
an affectionate uncle. He was bashful and silent
among women. Yet he was a benevolent man, and
charitable. He was attached to his relations. He
seems to have loved Lafayette. He had confidence in
Generals Knox, Lincoln, Greene, Governor Jonathan
Trumbull, Joseph Reed, Madison, Tobias Lear, per
haps Harrison, and at one time Jefferson. I think of
none besides; but beyond this confidence he had little
affection for them. Yet he had no tendency to
cruelty, and mitigated, as far as possible, the horrors
of war. He had delicate feelings towards prisoners,

GEORGE WASHINGTON 87
but no pity for the " rascally Tories," as he calls
them. He wore his wife's miniature all his life. It
lay on his bosom when he died. But at his death
there were no tender partings for her. He took leave
of no one, but died like a soldier.
Nobody was familiar with Washington; scarcely
any one intimate. Men felt admiration, reverence,
awe, devotion for this collection of grand qualities,
but not love. They would lay down their hves for
him, but they could not take him to their heart. He
would not suffer it.
IV. In Washington's religious character there
appears the same peculiarity which distinguished his
intellectual, moral, and affectional relations. He had
much of the principle, little of the sentiment of re
ligion. He was more moral than pious. In earlier
life a certain respect for ecclesiastical laws made him
a vestryman of two Episcopal Churches, and kept him
attentive to those externals, which, with ministers and
reporters for the newspapers, pass for the substance
of religion. It does not appear that he took a deep
and spiritual delight in religious emotions, still less in
poetry, works of art, or in the beauty of nature. His
disposition did not incline that way. But he had a
devout reverence for the first cause of all things, and
a sublime, never-failing trust in that Providence which
watches over the affairs alike of nations and of men.
He had a strong, unalterable determination to do his
duty to his God, with an habitual dread of aught un
worthy of that holy name. I do not think he always
forgave his enemies, like Dr. Franklin; but he took
no revenge on others, and never, save in momentary
wrath, spoke ill words of men who hated and sought
to ruin him.

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In the later years of his life, from 1778 till death,
he partook of what is called the Lord's Supper but
once. Ministers have taken their revenge for the
omission, and have denied or doubted his religious
character. It is not easy to ascertain in detail his theological
opinions, for on that matter he held his peace. Min
isters often sought to learn his creed. It was in vain.
Once only he spoke of " the pure and benign light of
Revelation," and " the Divine Author of our blessed
Religion." Silence is a figure of speech. In his lat
ter years he had no more belief in the popular theology
than John Adams or Benjamin Franklin, though, un
like them, he was not a speculative man. He was en
tirely free from all cant, bigotry, and intolerance.
Ministers, anxious to claim so noble a man for the
Christian Church, find proof of his religious practices
in the fact that he punished swearing in the army,
had prayers in the camp at Fort Necessity in 1754,
attended meeting, referred to Divine Providence,
spoke with praise of Christianity, and once, during
the Revolution, took bread and wine in a Presbyterian
meeting-house. I find his religion rather in the gen
eral devoutness of the man, and in his continual trust
in God; in the manly self-command which triumphed
over such a wild tempest of wrath as he sometimes held
chained within him, and which kept within bounds
that natural love of power, of all evil tendencies the
most difficult, perhaps, to overcome. I find it in that
he sought duty always, and never glory. I find it in
the heroic integrity of the man, which so illustrated
his whole life. Above all do I find it in his relation
to the nation's greatest crime. He was born a slave
holder, and so bred. Slaves fell to him by his mar-

GEORGE WASHINGTON 89
riage, which were the entailed property of his wife,
and could not be got rid of till her death. The Afri
can slave-trade was then thought as legitimate and
honorable a trade as dealing in cattle, in land, in
wheat, or in oil. Washington disliked slavery,
thought it wrong and wicked. In June, 1774, he was
chairman of the committee which drafted the resolu
tions of Fairfax County, and was the moderator of
the meeting which passed them. " No slaves ought
to be imported into any of the British colonies on this
continent." They express the " most earnest wishes
to have an entire stop put for ever to such a wicked,
cruel, and unnatural traffic." In 1783, he writes to
Lafayette, who had bought an estate in Cayenne, with
a view to emancipate the slaves, " I shall be happy to
join you in so laudable a work. It is a generous and
noble proof of your humanity. Would to God a like
spirit might diffuse itself into the heart of the people
of this country. But I despair of seeing it. By de
grees it certainly might, and assuredly ought, to be
effected, and that, too, by legislative authority."
In his famous farewell to the army, he congratu
lated the soldiers of the Revolution on their " helping
out this stupendous fabric of freedom and empire, on
protecting the rights of human nature, and establish
ing an asylum for the poor and oppressed of all na
tions and religions." He sought to promote the
emancipation of all the slaves in Virginia. That could
not be done. At last, by his will, he set free all his
own bondmen. Their delivery was to take place at
the death of his wife. He wished it before, but it
could not be brought to pass. He provided for the
feeble and the old. The young ones were to be free
at twenty-five, and be taught to read and write. He

90 HISTORIC AMERICANS
says, " I do hereby expressly forbid the sale, or trans
portation out of the said Commonwealth, of any slave
I may die possessed of, under any pretence whatso
ever. I do moreover most pointedly and most sol
emnly enjoin it upon my executors to see that this
clause respecting slaves, and every part hereof, be
religiously fulfilled, without evasion, neglect, or de
lay." Here Washington rose superior to his age;
here I find proof of the religious character of the man.
If Christianity be more than one of the many de
lusions imposed on a groaning world, it is because it
is that religion which consists in natural piety, the
love of God, and in natural morality, the keeping of
His laws. And if morality and piety be religion, then
who shall dare charge Washington with lack of
Christianity? But great man as he was, — conscientious, moral,
religious, in the high sense of that abused word, " re
ligion," — he was not without his errors and great
offenses in the matter of slavery. A negro fell in
the Boston Massacre. One of the seventy at Lexing
ton, " who fired the shot heard round the world," 29
was a negro, and died for liberty on the 19th April,
1775. There were many Africans in the battle of
Bunker Hill ; 30 the Rhode Island troops, in the Revo
lution, were full of black men.31 In the terrible fight
in defense of Red Bank, on the Delaware, in 1777,
a negro regiment from New England stood in the
thickest of the battle.32 Washington was a leading
member of the Federal Convention. He and Frank
lin were the greatest men in the nation. Had Wash
ington, the great and successful general, the presi
dent of the convention, with the nation's eyes fixed
upon him, said to that body, " Let there be no slaves

GEORGE WASHINGTON 91
in the United States," there had been none to-day.
We might have lost the termagant and noisy Tory
sister Carolina; we should have gained millions of
freemen. But Washington sat, and said nothing. I
doubt not his conscientiousness.
When he was chosen President in 1789, numer
ous public bodies sent him their congratulations;
most of the states adding their hearty testimonials of
personal respect. The Legislature of Georgia sent
the address of that State, and complained of " the
facility of our black people crossing the Spanish
line, from whence we have never been able to recover
them." This was the beginning of the Florida War.
Washington promises to attend to that matter, and
in 1791 attempts to recover those poor exiles of
Florida, who had sought refuge from bondage among
Christians, by fleeing to the Creek Indians in Spanish
America. Thus Washington appears in the second
year of his Presidency as a national stealer of men,
no doubt sorely against his will.33 He seized the first
fugitive slave in June 7, 1793, — one of the early in
vasions of the Federal Government upon the rights
of the states. One of the favorite slaves of his wife
ran away. He heard she was living at Portsmouth, in
the State of New Hampshire, and he wrote to some
government officer there, asking if she could be ar
rested and brought back without riot and public scan
dal. The answer was, " No ! The arrest of a fugi
tive woman as the slave of General Washington would
not be tolerated in New Hampshire." The President
gave up the pursuit. I make no doubt with inward
delight. You will say, " He did little for the freedom of the
slaves." He did more than all Presidents, with the

92 HISTORIC AMERICANS
exception of Jefferson and Madison. Think of any
President for forty years daring to call slavery
" wicked," " unnatural," to commend emancipation,
or liberate his slaves at his death. Some ministers
would say, " He hath denied the faith, and is worse
than an infidel ! " Judge men by their own acts, and
by their own light, not by yours or mine. Before he
left the earth, he wrenched the fetters from off each
bondman's foot, and, as he began his flight to heaven,
dropped them down into the bottomless pit of hell,
where they may find who seek.
In his person, Washington was six feet high, and
rather slender. His limbs were long; his hands were
uncommonly large, his chest broad and full, his head
was exactly round, and the hair brown in manhood,
but gray at fifty; his forehead rather low and re
treating, the nose large and massy, the mouth wide and
firm, the chin square and heavy, the cheeks full and
ruddy in early life. His eyes were blue and hand
some, but not quick or nervous. He required spec
tacles to read with at fifty. He was one of the best
riders in the United States, but like some other good
riders, awkward and shambling in his walk. He was
stately in his bearing, reserved, distant, and appar
ently haughty. Shy among women, he was not a
great talker in any company, but a careful observer
and listener. He read the natural temper of men,
but not always aright. He seldom smiled. He did
not laugh with his face, but in his body, and while
calm above, below the diaphragm his laughter was
copious and earnest. Like many grave persons, he was
fond of jokes and loved humorous stories. He had
negro story-tellers to regale him with fun and anec
dotes at Mount Vernon. He was not critical about

GEORGE WASHINGTON 93
his food, but fond of tea. He took beer or cider at
dinner, and occasionally wine. He hated drunken
ness, gaming, and tobacco. He had a hearty love of
farming, and of private life. There was nothing of
the politician in him, no particle of cunning. He was
one of the most industrious of men. Not an elegant
or accurate writer, he yet took great pains with style,
and, after the Revolution, carefully corrected the let
ters he had written in the time of the French War,
more than thirty years before. He was no orator, like
Jefferson, Frankhn, Madison, and others, who had
great influence in American affairs. He never made a
speech. The public papers were drafted for him, and
he read them when the occasion came.
Washington was no democrat. Like the Federal
party he belonged to, he had little confidence in the
people. He thought more of the judicial and execu
tive departments than of the legislative body. He
loved a strong central power, not local self-government.
A little tumult, like Shays' insurrection in Massachu
setts, or the rebellion in Pennsylvania, made him and
his Federal associates tremble for the safety of the
nation. He did not know that " something must be
forgiven to the spirit of Liberty." In his admin
istration as President, he attempted to unite the two
parties, — the Federal party, with its tendency to
monarchy, and perhaps desire for it, and the Demo
cratic party, which thought that the government was
already too strong. But there was a quarrel between
Hamilton and Jefferson, who unavoidably hated each
other. The Democrats would not serve in Washing
ton's Cabinet. The violent, arbitrary, and invasive
will of Hamilton acquired an undue influence over
Washington, who was beginning, at sixty-four, to

94 HISTORIC AMERICANS
feel the effects of age; and he inclined more and more
to severe laws and consolidated power, while on the
other part the nation became more and more demo
cratic. Washington went on his own way, and yet
filled his Cabinet with men less tolerant of Repub
licanism than himself.
Of all the great men whom Virginia has produced,
Washington was least like the state that bore him.
He is not southern in many particulars.34 In char
acter he is as much a New Englander as either Adams.
Yet, wonderful to tell, he never understood New Eng
land. The slaveholder, bred in Virginia, could not
comprehend a state of society where the captain or
the colonel came from the same class as the common
soldier, and that off duty they should be equals. He
thought common soldiers should only be provided with
food and clothes, and have no pay. Their families
should not be provided for by the state. He wanted
the officers to be " gentlemen," and, as much as pos
sible, separate from the soldier. He asked the Massa
chusetts Legislature, of 1775, to impress men into the
revolutionary army, and to force them to fight for the
liberty of not being forced to fight. He finds more
fault with New England in one year than with all the
other nine states in seven years. He complains of
the egregious want of public spirit in New England;
but little Massachusetts provided more men and more
money than all the wide states south of Mason and
Dixon's line, and drove her Tories down to Halifax,
while the southern states kept theirs at home ! While
he was uttering his murmurs, the httle State of Rhode
Island had more than four thousand soldiers and sail
ors in actual service; yet her whole population was
not sixty thousand souls. Thus one fifteenth of her

GEORGE WASHINGTON 95
entire population, counting men, women, and children,
was in active service at one time. In like ratio, Vir
ginia should have had forty thousand soldiers in the
field. Yet in 1779-80 General Arnold, the traitor,
with less than two thousand men, ravaged the whole
State of Virginia for two years. Jefferson did noth
ing against him. Washington does not complain of
Virginia's egregious want of public spirit. He never
understood New England; never loved it, never did it
full justice.
It has been said Washington was not a great sol
dier; but certainly he created an army out of the
roughest materials, outgeneraled all that Britain could
send against him, and in the midst of poverty and dis
tress organized victory. He was not brilliant and
rapid. He was slow, defensive and victorious. He
made " an empty bag stand upright," which Frank
lin says is " hard." Some men command the world,
or hold its admiration, by their ideas or by their in
tellect. Washington had neither original ideas, nor a
deeply cultured mind. He commands by his integ
rity, by his justice. He loved power by instinct,
and strong government by reflective choice. Twice he
was made dictator, with absolute power, and never
abused the awful and despotic trust. The monarchic
soldiers and civilians would make him king. He
trampled on their offer, and went back to his fields of
corn and tobacco at Mount Vernon. The grandest
act of his public life was to give up his power; the
most magnanimous deed of his private life was to liber
ate his slaves.
Washington is the first man of his type ; when will
there be another? As yet the American rhetoricians
do not dare tell half his excellence; but the people
should not complain.

96 HISTORIC AMERICANS
Cromwell is the greatest Anglo-Saxon who was ever
a ruler on a large scale. In intellect he was im
mensely superior to Washington ; in integrity, immeas
urably below him. For one thousand years no king
in Christendom has shown such greatness, or gives us
so high a type of manly virtue.35 He never dis
sembled. He sought nothing for himself. In him
there was no unsound spot; nothing little or mean in
his character. The whole was clean and presentable.
We think better of mankind because he lived, adorn
ing the earth with a life so noble. Shall we make an
idol of him, and worship it with huzzas on the Fourth
of July, and with stupid rhetoric on other days?
Shall we build him a great monument, founding it in
a slave pen? His glory already covers the continent.
More than two hundred places bear his name. He is
revered as " The Father of his Country." The peo
ple are his memorial. The New York Indians hold
this tradition of him : " Alone of all white men," say
they, " he has been admitted to the Indian heaven, be
cause of his justice to the red men. He lives in a
great palace, built like a fort. All the Indians, as they
go to heaven, pass by, and he himself is in his uni
form, a sword at his side, walking to and fro. They
bow reverently, with great humility. He returns the
salute, but says nothing." 36 Such is the reward of
his justice to the red men. God be thanked for such a

" A soul supreme, in each hard instance tried,
Above all pain, all passion, and all pride,
The rage of power, the blast of public breath,
The lust of lucre, and the dread of death."

Ill
JOHN ADAMS
In 1634 the General Court of the Colony of Mas
sachusetts Bay made a grant of lands at Mount Wol-
laston (now in the town of Quincy) to enlarge the
town of Boston. In 1636 the inhabitants of Boston
granted some of those lands in lots to individual set
tlers, and even to new residents, who presently formed
a church, and settled their ministers. In 1640 they
were incorporated as a town, which bore the name of
Braintree. I find forty acres of land granted to one
Henry Adams. He died in 1646, and left an estate
appraised at seventy-five pounds thirteen shillings. It
consisted of the land, a barn, and a house, which had
one kitchen, one parlor, and one chamber in the attic,
where dwelt the eleven persons who made up the fam
ily. The inventory of his estate, taken after his
death, catalogues " three beds," which must have con
tained them all at night. He left also one cow, one
heifer, swine, some old books, and a silver spoon. He
was grandfather's grandfather to the second President
of the United States. It was not a conspicuous family
in those times, though it has since borne two Presidents,
and is still vigorous and flourishing, promising I know
not how great future glories. On the other side of the
water antiquaries and genealogists find that the family
was old and baronial.
Indeed, the name would justify a larger genealogical
claim. The Adamses ought to be an old family and a
great. According to the received accounts, it is the
VI-7 97

98 HISTORIC AMERICANS
first in the world. Look at the far-famed descendant of
this Puritanic Henry of Braintree, and see what he
did and suffered, and what extraordinary events he
thereby brought to pass.
To understand his life, divide it into six parts : —
I. His childhood and youth, from birth till twenty-
three. 1735 to 1758.
II. His doings as a lawyer in Suffolk County, from
twenty-three till about forty. 1758 to 1775.
III. His work as a politician in Congress and at
home, from forty till forty-three. 1775 to 1778.
IV. Diplomatic services in Europe, from forty-three
till fifty-two. 1778 to 1787.
V. His conduct in the Executive of the United States
as Vice-President and President, from fifty-two to
sixty-five. 1787 to 1800.
VI. His demeanor in private life, from sixty-five till
nearly ninety-one, the close of all. 1800 to 1826.
I. John Adams was born October 19, 1735. His
father, John Adams, then forty-four years old, and
married but the year before, was a farmer, with small
means, living in that part of Braintree now called
Quincy; a farmer and a shoemaker at the same time,
says the local tradition. When he died, in 1760, he
left an estate of thirteen hundred and thirty pounds
nine shillings and eightpence — about four or five thou
sand dollars in our money. He was an officer in the
mihtia, and for several years one of the selectmen of
the town, and also for many years a deacon of the
church. He seems to have been a well-educated man,
thoughtful, thrifty, careful, with considerable capacity,
genuine piety, and great uprightness of character.

JOHN ADAMS 99
Integrity is a virtue his son could inherit if virtue runs
in families.
John was the eldest child of this household, which
at length counted twelve, — a number then not uncom
mon. Of his childhood and early youth I find nothing
on record. In his sixteenth year he entered Harvard
College. He had studied with two tutors — • Mr. Clev
erly, the Congregational minister of the town, and
Mr. Marsh, the reader at the Episcopal Church.
Slender help it was that he got from them. He was
graduated at Harvard College in 1755, ranking as
fourteenth in a class of twenty-four. In the classes
the precedence was dependent upon the social condi
tion of the parents ; and as to that, his mother, a Boyls-
ton from Brookline, seems to have been considered of
higher family than that of the deacon, his father.
The learning he brought out of college would not now
qualify a boy to enter there. But it appears that he
stood well in his scholarship. Certainly he had " small
Latin, and less Greek." A year after his graduation
I find him studying Virgil, mastering thirty lines in one
day, and " about forty " the next, in the precious spare
time left to him by his more serious work. Three years
later he is reading Horace. In 1760 he writes in his
diary, " In consequence of the ignorance of parents,
masters Cleverly, Marsh, Waters, May hew, etc., and by
reason of the ignorance of my instructors in the more
advanced years of my life, my mind has kin uncultured,
so that at twenty-five I am obliged to study Homer
and Horace." Certainly -he got little classic culture
from Harvard then. Yet his class contained men after
wards distinguished, who, perhaps, got less even than
he. The standard of what was called education was
then exceeding low. But then, as now, scholarship

100 HISTORIC AMERICANS
and manhood were different things, and did not always
ride in the same panniers.
Presently, after graduating, he went to Worcester to
keep a common school, which was kept continuously
throughout the year, in a town of perhaps fifteen hun
dred inhabitants, where he seems to have taught all
disciples, from A, B, C, upwards to Latin and Greek,
or as far as his pupils could go. He thought his labor
was great, and his pay small. He " boards round," as
the phrase was then; a little while here, a little while
there. It was the custom of the times. I do not find ex
actly what his salary was, but the town had several dis
trict schools, each keeping part of the year, and raised
but seventy pounds, or two hundred and thirty-three
dollars forty-four cents, for the support of them all.
Adams's share could not have been more than one hun
dred and twenty-five dollars, or perhaps one hundred
and fifty dollars, in addition to his board. He does
not like the business, and now and then grumbles about
it. " The mischievous tricks, the perpetual invincible
prate, and the stupid dullness of my scholars, roused my
passions." His situation was extremely irksome. He
says, " The school is indeed a school of affliction. A
large number of little nurslings, just capable of lisping
A, B, C, and troubling the master." Some one tells
him he may make those little creatures " plants of re
nown," and " cedars of Lebanon." But Mr. Adams
tells him " that keeping this school any length of time
would make a base weed and ignoble shrub of me."
He kept it nearly three years, however, and yet grew up
to a pretty respectable tree, not yet done blossoming
in the politics of America, but still fresh and vigorous
as a hundred years ago. It came of good seed that
tree. The people of the town pleased him no better.

JOHN ADAMS 101
" All the conversation was dry disputes upon politics
and rural obscene wit." Yet there were intelligent and
reading men in the Httle viUage. Mr. Adams's procliv
ity to grumble appears early. How he kept school I
know not. But as he went for two years, and staid
more than three, it would appear he surpassed other
teachers. He must choose a profession, this young Hercules.
His father intended him for the Christian ministry.
His uncle Joseph, the eldest of his grandfather's twelve
children, had before him entered that profession. The
pulpit then absorbed most of the best talent of New
Engknd, which now runs away from it with swift ac
celeration. His nature inclined him to become a min
ister, for he was a devout man, severe in his morality,
warring against all the sins of passion, austere, fond of
theological books and of ecclesiastical ceremonies. But
he had a profound need of looking all important things
in the face, and taking nothing on hearsay, or at second
hand. He was possessed with a love of freedom, and a
contempt for all bigots and haters of mankind. It
soon appeared clearly that a New England pulpit was
no place for him. He became acquainted with a noble,
generous young man, of fine genius, admirable cul
ture, who aspired to the best parish in the province.
But he was suspected of Arminianism, and accordingly
" despised by some, ridiculed by others, and detested
by most." " People are not disposed to inquire for
piety, integrity, good sense, or learning in a young
preacher, but for stupidity (for so I must call the pre
tended sanctity of some absolute dunces), irresistible
grace, and original sin." So he wrote on his twenty-
first birthday : " The pulpit is no place for you,
young man ! And the sooner you give up all thoughts

102 HISTORIC AMERICANS
of it the better for you, though the worse for it, and
for all such as look up to it." His attention was called
to the profession of medicine, boarding as he did with
Dr. Willard, who " had a large practice, a good repu
tation for skill, and a pretty Hbrary." He read a
good deal in Cheyne, Sydenham, Van Swieten, but
turned away his eyes from the healing art. Nay, he
seriously thought of the opposite art — that of killing.
" Nothing but want of interest and patronage prevented
me from enlisting in the army. Could I have obtained
a troop of horse or a company of foot, I should in
fallibly have been a soldier." x It was in 1756, the
time of the French War, and aU New England blazed
with military ardor. Trade and farming attracted his
attention, but he finally fixed his eyes upon the law, and
determined on that for his calling. On his twenty-first
birthday, in the same letter before quoted, he writes:
" If I can gain the honor of treading in the rear, and
silently admiring the noble air and gallant achieve
ments of the foremost rank, I shall think myself worthy
of a louder triumph than if I had headed the whole
army of orthodox preachers. The study and practice
of law, I am sure, does not dissolve the obligations of
morality or of religion."
So he agrees to study with a Mr. Putnam, a thriving
lawyer of Worcester, for two years, and to pay him one
hundred dollars for the instruction when he may become
able to pay the debt. Here he continued till October,
1758, keeping school six hours a day, and studying law
most of the spare time, as his health and temper allowed.
His educational helps at Worcester were not to be de
spised. There were several educated and thoughtful
men there, who had broken away from the ecclesiastical
chains which yet bound so many. The war forced men

JOHN ADAMS 103
to think and discuss great matters, the result of which
is reflected in one of his earliest letters. He read the
works of some thoughtful men, — Lord Bacon, Boling-
broke, Morgan, Bishop Butler, not less than Tillotson
and Baxter. The influence of the freethinkers, Boling-
broke and Morgan, is obvious and decisive.
He studied laboriously the law books deemed essen
tial in those days, some of which look rather frightful
to young lawyers now that the legal road is straight
ened, smoothed, and made easy. He loves to go to the
original source of things. This appears in his early
habits of study. But he had great difficulties to con
tend with, whereof poverty was the least. His diary
teHs us what he thought of himself. He affected wit
and humor. His attention was unsteady and irregular.
" He had a remarkable absence of mind, a morose and
unsocial disposition." He complains of his own idle
ness, late rising, waste of time in day-dreams, and gal
livanting the girls. This latter annoyed him for a
long time, tiU he remedied that mischief in the most
natural way. He charges himself with " rash and
profane swearing," with " virulence " against divers
people. But his intense vanity was his greatest foe in
early life. " Vanity," writes the candid youth of
twenty, " is my cardinal vice and cardinal folly."
Envy, likewise, gnawed at the heart of the poor lad;
but he keeps free from the vices of passion.
II. After his two years of study at Worcester, he
returns to Braintree, is admitted to practice in the Su
perior Court of Massachusetts, October 5, 1758, and
establishes himself as a lawyer in his native village.
But his legal education is only begun. In the midst
of internal difficulties, he toils away at his work, not

104 HISTORIC AMERICANS
without sighing for his old school at Worcester, which
he so much disliked while there. His plan of legal
study was quite comprehensive. He wished to under
stand natural law, which is justice, and so would study
the great writers on ethics, the common law of Eng
land, and the statutes, and also the civil law of Rome,
which has had such influence on the administration of
justice throughout all Christendom. Such study de
manded the reading of many books — a weariness to
his flesh ; for he was lazy and impetuous by turns, and
unfit for the scholar's slow, silent work. But his am
bition was intense and persistent, though he grumbled
at the difficulty of studying law while practising it
during " a rambling, roving, vagrant, vagabond life,"
" of here and everywhere." His townsmen were dis
posed to honor their young lawyer a little. They
therefore elected him one of the highway surveyors,
and he willingly undertook the business of mending the
roads of Braintree — his first official work. His first
cause in court was a failure. His writ was ill drawn.
He feared it would be so, and did not wish to under
take it ; but the " cruel reproaches of my mother," and
other considerations, misled him. However, he over
came his own defeat, and after some years had a con
siderable business. Still his reputation grew slowly.
On the 25th of October, 1764, he married Miss Abi
gail Smith, daughter of Rev. Mr. Smith, minister of
Weymouth, a town adjoining Braintree, and then he
commenced housekeeping on his own account. The
course of true love, it seems, had its troubles in his, as
in many cases. Mr. Smith held his daughter in high
consideration. He had married the daughter of Col
onel John Quincy,2 who was of an aristocratic Braintree
family, having some property, and being a good deal

JOHN ADAMS 105
engrossed in the public affairs of the colony. Her
grandmother was named Norton, and came from the
town of Hingham, Massachusetts, and was of the same
family as the famous John Norton, a dreadful minister
of Ipswich, and afterwards of Boston, who helped to
hang the Quakers.3 John Norton was a man very
pious, it was said, but in his case, it was " grace grafted
on a crab stock." She was also a daughter of the min
ister at Hingham, and descended from the famous
Thomas Shepard, first minister of Newtown, now Cam
bridge. These were the aristocracy and " first fam
ilies " of that day. The minister and his daughters be
longed to the West End of Weymouth, for even Wey
mouth had its West End at that time. But poor John
Adams, a man of obscure descent, did not belong to the
West End of anything. Should he be allowed to carry
off such a prize? Tradition says the reverend father
thought not. He had three daughters, Mary, or, as
she was then called, Polly, the elder, Abby, the middle
one, and Betsey, the younger. Mr. Richard Cranch,
also of Braintree, but born in England, was a man of
some talents, with great mechanical skill, wherewith he
had fought his own way to education, and had acquired
reputation and some wealth as a lawyer. He also came
a wooing at the same mansion, addressing himself to
Miss Polly, while Mr. Adams made similar visits on be
half of Miss Abby. Mr. Cranch was warmly welcomed
by the reverend father. He treated him with great
consideration. On Sunday nights, which were even
then, as now, consecrated to the pious uses of the reli
gion of young hearts, Mr. Cranch's horse was well cared
for at the parochial barn, and he was himself treated
with great kindness and consideration in the parochial
house. But John Adams was thought a disloyal sub-

106 HISTORIC AMERICANS
ject by the minister; hot, impetuous, impatient, uncer
tain, with nothing on hand, and no decided future. So,
while the daughter smiled, the father frowned on the
poor, obscure lover. He treated him rudely, neglected
him, overlooked and annoyed him not a little. His
horse ate hay on Sunday night. Of course all the Httle
country parish knew how his affairs were going on in
the minister's family, and the story soon spread to the
regions round about.
Mr. Smith had told each of his daughters that the
Sunday before their marriage he would preach them a
sermon, from whatever text they should choose. When
Mr. Cranch was ready, Miss Polly selected " Mary hath
chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away
from her." John and Abby were both present to hear
the discourse, and all the parish sat and Hstened with
greedy wonder. The old gentleman expatiated upon
the " good part." It was obedience. He dwelt with
great unction on the necessity of obedience on the part
of children to their parents. It was especiaHy import
ant that daughters should obey in all things ; and more
particularly in the matter of selecting a husband.
" And Mary hath chosen that good part." But, in
due time, Mr. Adams also had a cage ready for the
minister's second bird. Abby must choose her text, the
bright girl. She took, " John came neither eating nor
drinking, and they say, He hath a devil." The old
man objected, but the daughter would not be entreated,
and he preached on the text in the case of the aforesaid
John and Abby, and to no little delight of the parish.4
Miss Abby was an admirable woman, religious with
out fanaticism or bigotry, affectionate as wife and
mother, conscientious to the last degree, but not at all
austere; thrifty, wise, prudent, and forecasting, and

JOHN ADAMS 107
with calm, cool judgment, which saw the right propor
tion of all things. If Adams was not blessed in his
courtship, he was in his marriage. Few men had ever a
nobler mate. He long afterwards writes of his mar
riage, that it was " the source of all " his " felicity."
Her education was quite scanty and irregular ; she was
never sent to school, but picked up a little here and
there. She read a few books, chiefly poetical, it seems ;
but the Spectator was among them. So were the his
toric plays of Shakespeare, and perhaps the others.
These were faithfully read, judiciously pondered over,
and abundantly quoted during all her life, in her let
ters. She said herself, —
" The little knowledge I have gained
Was all from simple nature drained."
The education of women was greatly neglected in
New England by the Puritans. Mrs. Hutchinson had
made them afraid of her strong and subtle mind, ac
complished with conscientious culture. In Adams's
youth it was fashionable to ridicule " female learning."
After his marriage to the minister's daughter of
Weymouth, the descendant from such reverend ances
tors, his profession and business received a considerable
increase. A year or two later his townsmen honored
him by making him one of the selectmen of Braintree.
He entered upon his office the 4th of March, 1766. He
mentions the fact with hearty exultation, not thinking
of another fourth of March, thirty-one years later,
General Washington and fifteen states in the back
ground. For four generations some of his family had
been members of the board of selectmen. Before long
he became well known in the county. He took lively
interest in opposing the Stamp Act, and got a town

108 HISTORIC AMERICANS
meeting called at Braintree, to instruct her representa
tive in the General Court to oppose this wicked measure,
and resist its execution. He drafted the resolutions,
and the town meeting passed them unanimously.
Forty other towns soon accepted them without alter
ation. They contain brave words, thoughtfully spoken
at the right time.5 His celebrated revolutionary kins
man, Samuel Adams, adopted some of his paragraphs,
and the town of Boston, in Faneuil Hall, then said
" Aye." In the midst of the Stamp Act trouble, 22nd
December, 1765, Forefathers' Day, Sunday, he writes
in his journal, " At home with my family, thinking; "
and again, Christmas Day, " At home, thinking, read
ing, searching concerning taxation without consent;
concerning the great pause and rest in business."
There was great matter for him to think of. New
England stood at the threshold of Revolution, and only
Samuel Adams and a few more saw where the next
step would be. As the people would not accept the
stamps, the courts of justice were all closed. Boston
asked the Governor and Council to open the courts, and
chose Mr. Gridley, James Otis, and John Adams to de
fend their position. It was a great honor for the
young men, Otis and Adams, to be employed in such a
cause, and to be associated with such counsel as Gridley,
the ablest lawyer and the most elegant speaker in New
England. This was " the matter " he was " think
ing " about. He believes the people showed cowardice
by this inactivity, and too much respect for the Act.
He says the lawyers, most of them, became Tories and
went down to Halifax. " The bar seem to behave like
a flock of shot pigeons ! " " The net seems to be
thrown over them, and they have scarcely courage left
to flounce and to flutter." The " Sons of Liberty "

JOHN ADAMS 109
were made of other stuff, and so was John Adams.
But the Stamp Act troubles got ended by the repeal
of the law in 1766. " It was founded on a mistaken
principle." But the Massachusetts Legislature had al
ready taken the first needful step of revolution, and
had called a convention of delegates. All the colonial
legislatures had been summoned to meet at New York
on the first Tuesday of October, 1765.
In the spring of 1768 Mr. Adams removed his family
to Boston, living in Brattle Square. Governor Ber
nard offered him a considerable place in the govern
ment, — the office of Advocate-General. Adams at once
refused it. He was poor : this offered him money. He
was ambitious: this assured him respect and high con
sideration, and opened the road to all honor. But he
was just, and said, " Get thee behind me, Satan." Nay,
he would not ask to be appointed justice of the peace,
so cautious was he of receiving favors which might bias
his judgment. Yet he took no active part in politics,
would not speak at the Boston town meetings, then so
frequent and important. He would not even attend
them. He devoted himself to his profession and to
the support of his family. Yet he was popular with
the patriotic party. The Sons of Liberty came at
night and serenaded him in his house, close to the main
guard of the British soldiers, who had then been quar
tered upon the suspected and rebellious town. He was
placed on the committee to prepare instructions for
James Otis, Thomas Cushing, Samuel Adams, and
John Hancock, the Boston representatives.
On March 5, 1770, the Boston Massacre, so called,
occurred. Captain Preston, who commanded, and the
six soldiers who fired the fatal shot, were arrested and
held in jail, to be tried for murder. They applied to

110 HISTORIC AMERICANS
Mr. Adams to defend them. He consented, against the
advice of all his friends. He induced Mr. Josiah
Quincy, Jr., to aid in the defense.6 Distinguished law
yers had declined to help the soldiers, for they feared
the popular opinion, which demanded their blood. His
acceptance of this duty was a most unpopular act,
making him suspected of favoring the government
whose soldiers he was called upon to defend. It was
considered " ruinous " for him. A great clamor was
raised against him. He managed the case skilfully.
All were acquitted of the charge of murder, two only
found guilty of manslaughter. Thus far this was the
most valiant deed of his life. It cost him fourteen or
fifteen days of most arduous work, and the sum re
ceived in payment of all his labor and success was nine
teen guineas, say, ninety-five dollars !
While the case was still pending, he was chosen one
of the representatives of the town of Boston to the
great convention, 16th of June, 1770. I believe Sam
uel Adams brought this to pass. Now, for the first
time, is he really committed to the politics of the peo
ple. " I consider the step as a devotion of my family
to ruin, and of myself to death," said he. " At this
time I had more business at the bar than any man in the
province. My health was feeble, and I was throwing
away as bright prospects as any man ever had before
him. I had devoted myself to endless labor and
anxiety, if not to infamy and to death, and that for
nothing, except what indeed was, and ought to be, all in
all, a sense of duty." He told his wife; she saw the
peril, burst into tears, and said, the noble woman, " You
have done as you ought, and I am willing to share in
all that is to come, and to place my trust in Provi
dence."

JOHN ADAMS 111
Soon after, the Boston representatives, or, as they
were then called, " the Boston Seat," raised some con
troversy with the Governor. Governor Shirley, then
living in retirement at Roxbury, hearing of it,, asked,
"Who are the Boston Seat?" He was told, "Mr.
Cushing, Mr. Hancock, Mr. Samuel Adams, and Mr.
John Adams." The old Governor replied, " Mr. Cush
ing I know, and Mr. Hancock I know, but where the
devil this brace of Adamses comes from I know not."
Had he lived a Httle longer, he might have found out
where they went to, taking the nation with them.7
In the General Court, John Adams was of great serv
ice to the patriots. They needed an able and ready
lawyer. Thatcher was dead ; Otis was worse than dead,
the victim of his own intemperance and of the malig
nant blows of an assassin. Mr. Hawley, one of the
ablest and most farsighted men in the province, lived
at Northampton, and was, moreover, too melancholy
for a principal leader in the General Court. John
Adams seemed made for the vacant place — a skilful
lawyer on the people's side. You find his name on
most of the important committees, and the marks of his
pen, his thought and technical skill, in the chief papers
of that session. But his health failing, he declined re
election, and retired to his farm at Braintree, still keep
ing his office in Boston, determined to avoid politics al
together. But his profession, nature, and the circum
stances of the times, were too strong for him. He must
take sides with the people, and against the officers of
the crown ; and I find his busy pen writing articles for
the newspapers in the great controversy of the day.
Though no longer in the General Court, it seems that
he drafted the most important paper on the great ques
tion of those times, and was called upon to defend it.

112 HISTORIC AMERICANS
This he promptly and ably did; and Hutchinson was
foiled in his attempt to prove the legal right of Parlia
ment to tax the colonies, or to rule them against their
consent. Then came (1773) Dr. Franklin's exposure
of the letters of Hutchinson and OHver, who had sug
gested to the British Government that in New Eng
land " there must be an abridgment of what we call
British liberties." The wrath of the people was fairly
stirred by this adroit movement of Franklin reaching
across the sea.8
May 25, 1773, was election day in Massachusetts.
The House of Representatives chose John Adams as
one of the Council. Governor Hutchinson put his
negative on the choice, because of " the very conspicu
ous part he had taken in opposition to the Government."
But soon the General Court addressed the king, asking
him to remove Governor Hutchinson and Lieutenant-
Governor Oliver, both Massachusetts men, both traitors.
Hutchinson went to London to confer with the British
Government, but he never saw his native land again.
No patriotic eye drops a tear on the neglected grave
of the New Engknd man whose splendid talents and
popular eloquence were devoted to the ruin of his na
tive land, and who struggled violently to put a chain on
the neck of his fellow-countrymen. Hutchinson had
prevented Adams from being one of the Council; but,
before the eye of the world, he himself soon became
unknown, and trampled in the dust.9
The British Government wished to control the judges.
It is an old trick. " Let me interpret the laws, I care
not who makes them," is the motto of tyrants to this
very day. Of course, the judges were willing; when
were they otherwise? But the people of that day re
fused to have a chain of gold put round the court-

JOHN ADAMS 113
house by the king, under which all his creature judges
must crawl as they went in. One Chief-Justice, with
out performing any of the duties of his office, actually
took the royal salary for eighteen months afterwards.
Three of the puisne judges could not be relied upon.
The House adjourned the General Court, and asked
the Governor to remove the Chief -Justice. The Gov
ernor forbade the adjournment, and refused the re
moval. What should be done? Should such a judge,
who himself is the king's slave, hold a court, and deter
mine the law for freemen? In 1773 wise men thought
that such folly would be ruin! John Adams said,
" Impeach the Chief -Justice. The Charter of WilHam
and Mary gives the House of Representatives the
power." Other lawyers — lawyers are always a timid
class of men, their maxim being " stare decisis " — hesi
tated. They did " not know ; " there was " no Ameri
can precedent." John Adams was not only careful to
follow the old precedents that were good, but also to
make the good precedents that we use now. The Chief-
Justice was impeached; ninety-two to eight in the
House of Representatives. When jurors came into the
courts of Suffolk County they would not be sworn.
Said they, " We shall not sit under a judge impeached
of high crimes and misdemeanors." Jurors did the
same all over the state. The Royal Court never sat
again. Nay, there were no courts till after April 19,
1775, when the Provincial Government set things on
their feet again. Here was a deadlock for the Govern
ment. Hutchinson and Oliver, and their gang of
Tories, were routed in the House, routed in the courts,
and routed before the people.
It was the beginning of the end ; but, generally, men
did not see it, only such men as Samuel Adams, Joseph
VI— 8

114 HISTORIC AMERICANS
Hawley, and the far-sighted Franklin, already advising
a general Congress. Adams, then thirty-eight years
old, was the ablest lawyer in New England, perhaps
in America. He had the right thought at the right
time, and the courage to make that thought a thing.
Shall such a man be left " to live on potatoes and In
dian meal " at Braintree, with nothing to do?
Massachusetts thought otherwise.
III. The Boston Port Bill, and other revengeful
acts, were passed through the Parliament of Great
Britain in March, 1774. In the following 13th May,
General Gage, the military Governor of Massachusetts,
came to Boston with his army, to dragoon the people
into submission. As the judges were impeached, the
courts were all closed, business was at an end, and grass
growing on the Long Wharf. Adams did not receive a
shilling a week from his profession.
The 17th of June is a marked epoch in American
History. On that day, 1774, the General Court, in
session at Salem, sat with its doors bolted fast. " No
man must go out to tell what they are doing, nor come
in to interrupt them." They chose, by a vote of one
hundred and seventeen ayes to twelve nays, James Bow-
doin, Thomas Cushing, Robert Treat Paine, Samuel
Adams, and John Adams, as delegates to the Continen
tal Congress, to meet at Philadelphia on the first of
the next September. Adams doubted his own abiHty,
doubted the nation's genius.10 Mr. Bowdoin did not
attend. He had too much money to risk in such an
enterprise, too much respectability to be a member of a
Revolutionary Congress.
The four delegates rode to Philadelphia in a coach
— " four poor pilgrims." Their journey through New

JOHN ADAMS 115
England was a triumphal procession. At New Haven
they visited the grave of Dixwell the Regicide. A sig
nificant visit that was to the tomb of one of the fifty-
two, who said, " Off with the head of Charles Stuart.
He is not fit to live, and enslave Englishmen." Until
he reached New York at this time, Adams had never
been out of New England.
In Congress the New England delegates had a very
difficult part to perform. They were regarded with
great distrust. First, they were Puritan people; sec
ond, they were thought desirous of breaking with the
British Government, and aiming at independence. Vir
ginia alone stood with New England. All the other
states looked on with suspicion, especially New York
and Pennsylvania. This was the problem: To have
New England ideas prevail without putting forward
New England men. Samuel Adams was the most far-
sighted and revolutionary man then in the nation.
None surpassed him in the great art of organizing men,
of leading the unwilling, while he seemed only to follow.
At first the two Adamses did not seem to have much in
fluence. They were looked on with great suspicion.
At length it turned out that they put their ideas into
all the rest. But, at the beginning, Virginia was
nearly as far advanced as New England. Richard
Henry Lee stood side by side with Samuel Adams.
" The grave, stern figure " of George Washington was
not far off. There he was, at the second session, after
the battle of Lexington, symbolically clad in his mili
tary uniform, a sword at his side, the thoughtful
colonel, who spoke in deeds, not words.
John Adams continued as a member of Congress
from September, 1774, till November, 1777. The first
session lasted but eight weeks — consulting, making a

116 HISTORIC AMERICANS
Declaration of Rights and Grievances, and preparing
petitions and memorials to the British Government and
people. On the 10th of May it assembled again. Dur
ing his service in that body Mr. Adams tried to induce
Congress to adopt the Massachusetts army, — which
had been gathered after the battle of Lexington, — to
make the fight national, and to put that galknt
son of Virginia, George Washington, at its head;
thus to gain that great State of Virginia, and all
the southern states, so that they should make com
mon cause with New England; to advise the indi
vidual states to annihilate their old Provincial gov
ernments and dependence on Great Britain, and
to make a new Constitutional government of their own ;
to declare independence; to unite the states into one
confederation; to make alliances with foreign nations,
and to establish a navy.
It was a difficult matter to accomplish all this, but it
was done ; partly by John Adams's ardent vigor ; partly
by the admirable resource and persuasive talent of
Samuel Adams, so ably helped by Richard Henry Lee,
Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and others; partly by the
quiet diligence and immense intellect of Dr. Franklin.
But at this day it is impossible to tell in detail what
each man did. Congress sat with closed doors. The
journals gave nothing but reports, and these in the
most official and meager form. Mr. Adams's diary, his
own letters, and those of others, help to eke out the
scanty record.
The Declaration of Rights and Grievances, October
18, 1774, was one of the most important documents of
the Revolutionary Congress. Mr. Adams drafted it,
and was the author of its most important parts. He
seems to have had something to do with composing the

JOHN ADAMS 117
Declaration of Independence. A copy of the original
draft is still extant in his handwriting, and in England
another copy in Franklin's, it is said. John Adams
was the chief orator in defense of the Declaration, and
of independence itself (" the Colossus of that debate "),
but no vestige of his speech remains. He drew up the
rules and regulations for the navy, the foundation of
the present naval code ; also he drafted the articles of
war. We must thank him for selecting George Wash
ington to be the Commander-in-Chief of the army.
Mr. Hancock, it seems, wanted the office, and never for
gave Adams for placing Colonel Washington in it.
But afterwards John Adams, like Samuel Adams, and
many others, had at times some distrust of Washing
ton. It was not to be wondered at ; not surprising that
such should have been the case.
In several things Adams ran before the mass of the
leaders in Congress. He did not wish the vote to be by
states, for this gave to Delaware and Rhode Isknd as
much power as to Virginia and Massachusetts. He did
not hope much good from the short-sighted agreement
not to import from Great Britain, and not to export to
her shores. He saw the importance of a navy, perhaps
before any other member of Congress, and he decidedly
favored a mihtary academy.
He labored hard in three years of his service. He
was chairman of twenty-five committees, and served like
wise on sixty-five more. This does not include a num
ber of committees as to which the names of the mem
bers are not recorded in the journals of Congress. For
a long time he was chairman of the Board of War, per
forming the work of the Secretary of War under the
revolutionary government. Yet he was never a recog
nized leader in Congress. His rapid, impatient mind

118 HISTORIC AMERICANS
disdained the intermediate steps in the slow process of
attaining great ends. But he really led men, the course
of events greatly aiding him. Still, in the march of
independence, he never shot so far before the rest as
his deep-hearted and more silent kinsman, Samuel
Adams, nor had he such insight into the rights of the
people as Jefferson, nor yet had he such confidence in
them. Besides, Adams was capricious, and in the most
critical period of the Revolution, while chairman of the
Board of War, he absented himself from Congress
nearly four months, from October 13, 1776, to Feb
ruary 9, 1777 — a period full of terrible defeats,
though enlightened by the brilliant actions at Trenton
and Princeton. He was not conciliatory in word or
deed. He left Congress on the 11th of November, 1777, and
returned home. While a member of Congress, he was
at the same time one of the selectmen of the town of
Braintree, and successively a member of the General
Court and of a Council of his native state, and was ap
pointed Chief -Justice of the Supreme Court of Massa
chusetts, October 28, 1775. He accepted the office
though he never entered on its duties or received any
salary.11 He wrote an admirable proclamation to the
people of his state, full of sound principles of govern
ment, and addressing itself to the nobler emotions of
humanity. In the newspapers of Boston he also wrote
some able papers in defense of the rights of the colon
ists. But the most valuable document he wrote in this
period of his life was his " Thoughts on Government,"
published in 1776 — a work which seems to have had
much influence upon the forms of government which
the colonies adopted.

JOHN ADAMS 119
IV. In November, 1777, while Mr. Adams, a member
of Congress, but absent on leave, was arguing a cause
in the Admiralty Court at Portsmouth, New Hamp
shire, he was told by a friend that he (Mr. Adams)
was appointed one of the Commissioners to France, in
place of Silas Deane, whose conduct forced Congress to
recall him. James Lovell, one of the Committee on
Foreign Affairs, wrote him, " We want one man of in
flexible integrity on the embassy." To accept the office
was to risk great difficulty and danger. The chance
of capture in crossing the ocean, and of living for a
long time shut up in the Tower as a rebel, was great.
The payment was little for a poor man with a krge
family. But it opened a wide field for his ambition,
and what was still more with him, duty said, " Go," and
he went. He left home 13th of February, 1778, and
reached Paris, April 8. But the commercial treaty
and alliance between France and America had been
skilfully made before he reached there. He found
American affairs in no little confusion, and a great deal
of quarreling among the agents — Deane, Franklin,
Izard, and the two Lees. He hastened to bring mat
ters to better order, and partly succeeded. A new dis
position of diplomatic offices was made. Franklin be
came sole Minister to France, and Adams, thus left
without place or duty, soon returned home. He
reached Boston, August 2, 1779; the next week was
elected a delegate for Braintree to the Convention pres
ently to assemble, and to form the Constitution of
Massachusetts. It met at Cambridge, September 1,
1779, and immediately resolved that they would pro
ceed " to establish a free republic," and that the prin
ciple of it should be, " The government of a people by
fixed laws of their own making." A committee of

120 HISTORIC AMERICANS
thirty-one was chosen to draft a Constitution. They
chose a sub-committee of five to do the work, and these
five delegated it to Mr. Adams. There were already
two parties in the new state — a party of property,
represented by James Bowdoin, who could not go to
Congress because he had great riches ; and a party of
persons, represented by Samuel Adams, who had done
more than any one man to consummate the ideas of
the New England leaders, and to advance the progress
of the Revolution. John Adams stood between these
two parties, desiring to give a due share both to money
and to numbers. He drafted the first Constitution of
Massachusetts. It was not greatly altered in the large
committee, or in the Convention. He also took the most
prominent part in forming the political institutions of
Massachusetts, and so he influenced the forms of gov
ernment of all the many states which have since copied
its provisions. I think this was one of the most import
ant acts of his life.
But he never sat in the Convention ; for before it re
assembled, in October, he had been appointed one of
the Ministers to treat with Great Britain, and to nego
tiate, first, a treaty of peace, and, second, a treaty
of commerce. Attended by his oldest son, — John
Quincy Adams, then only promising what he afterwards
so successfully performed, — he sailed for Europe,
November 13, 1779, and reached Paris (via Spain),
February 5, 1780. He had a disagreement with Dr.
Franklin, then Minister at Paris, and with the Comte
de Vergennes, the actual Chief of the French Govern
ment under Louis the Sixteenth. He could not pro
ceed to England, and Vergennes advised him not to an
nounce the fact of his approach to the British Court
till a more favorable opportunity should occur. He

JOHN ADAMS 121
was greatly irritated at this, and seems to have dis
turbed the affairs that he was sent to compose. He
wrote important articles on America, and had them
published in the semi-official journal — the "Mercure
de France." A mutual animosity between Adams and
Vergennes continued during all his residence in France,
not well founded on either side.
July 27, 1780, he went to Holland, to ascertain if he
could borrow money for the United States. His hope
ful mind made things look more promising than he
afterwards found them to be. He had important
articles published in the Dutch journals, giving infor
mation respecting American affairs, artfully getting
some of them first published in London. He wrote a
work, then published for the first time, but often after
wards, entitled " Twenty-six Letters upon interesting
Subjects respecting the Revolution of America."
They were admirably suited to the time and place, and
greatly helped the cause of America. He informed the
Dutch Government, January 1, 1781, of his appoint
ment as Minister Plenipotentiary to their Court, and
presented them a memorial, asking to be recognized as
such. As they were slow to respond to his claim, he
appealed to the Dutch people, and had his memorial
widely circukted among them. Strange as it may
seem, this extraordinary appeal succeeded. The In
dependent Provinces, one by one, demanded his recep
tion, and on the 19th of April, 1782, the authorities
voted that he be recognized as Minister Plenipotentiary
from the United States of America. The Government
at first was hostile to him, for Holland was under Eng
lish influence, and Adams frankly acknowledged this
as the greatest success of his life. Soon after he pro
cured a loan of about two millions of dollars, and sub-

122 HISTORIC AMERICANS
sequently yet others, which were of the greatest service
at a time when the United States could get no more
credits from France. Still further, he negotiated a
treaty of amity and commerce between the United
States and Holland, October 7, 1782. In the mean
time, July 1781, at Paris, he had taken part in the
negotiations for peace with Great Britain, under the
mediation of Austria and Russia, but it all came to
nothing. After finishing his admirable successes in
HoUand, October 26, 1782, he is again at Paris, with
Franklin and Jay, to negotiate a definitive treaty of
peace between Great Britain and the United States.
It was a long and difficult matter, full of complication
and confusion. Both Franklin and Jay had great tal
ents — Franklin a genius for diplomacy, furnished with
more than twenty years of experience at European
Courts during times of the greatest trial. But it
must be confessed that the quick, wide-seeing intelli
gence of John Adams — his energy, his boldness, and
his irresistible will — were of great service in securing
the rights of America in that negotiation. On 30th
November, 1782, the treaty was signed without the
knowledge of the French Court. The French Gov
ernment had been so treacherous, that the American
Commissioners departed from their instructions from
Congress, and finished the treaty without the knowl
edge of the Comte de Vergennes. June 21, 1783, it
was signed by the authorities of France, England, and
America, and peace was definitively restored. Mr.
Adams resigned his offices, hoping to return home;
but Congress appointed him, with Franklin and Jay,
Commissioner to negotiate a treaty of commerce with
Great Britain.
Exhausted by labor and racked by a fever, Adams

JOHN ADAMS 123
went to England in a private capacity, and was ad
mitted to the House of Lords as the " friend of Lord
Mansfield." The next day some one said to him, " How
short a time since I heard that same Lord Mansfield
say, in that same House of Lords, ' My Lords, if you
do not kill him (Mr. Adams), he will kill you? ' " Mr.
West, the American painter, said " this scene would
make one of the finest paintings in the progress of
American Independence." In the winter, he hurried
over to Holland, to negotiate a new loan, and suc
ceeded in the midst of difficulties, caused by the rash
ness or dishonesty of the American Government in reck
lessly overdrawing their credits on Holland.
He assisted in making other treaties, with Sweden
and with Prussia, the latter being the celebrated one
which does such honor to Dr. Franklin. Adams con
tinued to live in the neighborhood of Paris, where his
wife and family joined him in the summer of 1784.
Here he passed, perhaps, the happiest period of his life.
John Quincy Adams, a promising lad of seventeen, now
and then shows himself in the formal letters of his
father and mother. But halcyon days are few. Feb
ruary 25, 1785, he was appointed Envoy to Great
Britain. Vergennes said to him, " It is a great thing
to be an ambassador from your country to the country
you sprang from. It is a mark ! " The Duke of Dor
set said, " You will be much stared at." In May he
went to London as Minister. He was presented to the
King in his closet ; only Lord Caermarthen was present.
Adams made the three reverences, and said, " I think
myself more fortunate than all my fellow-citizens, in
having the distinguished honor to be the first to stand
in your Majesty's royal presence in a diplomatic char
acter." The King said, " I was the last to consent to

124 HISTORIC AMERICANS
separation, but I will be the first to meet the friendship
of the United States as an independent power." Both
were greatly moved, the King the most. In conver
sation afterwards, the King told him he understood he
was not much attached to the manners of France.
Adams smartly answered, " I have no attachment but
to my country ; " whereto the King replied, as quick as
lightning, " An honest man will never have any other ! "
But this interview did not prevent the King from pub
licly turning his back on the American Commissioners,
Adams and Jefferson! Whereupon all respectability
turned its pliant back.
Adams's condition in England was unhappy. Amer
ica was treated as rebellious, and despised for her weak
ness ; shall I not also say, for the dishonorable manner
in which the Americans refused to pay their debts. He
met with cold and formal civility, " such as only the
English know how, in perfection, to make offensive."
" No marked offense, but supercilious indifference ! "
No treaty of commerce could then be made. The
King was cold, his family cold, the courtiers cold, all
respectability cold : only a few dissenters and democrats
were on his side. The British appointed no Minister
to America. Adams resigned his office, and came home
in 1788. But before he left England, he published an
important work, — his " Defense of the American Con
stitution," — which had a good deal of influence
throughout the United States.
V. Mr. Adams left America in the dark hours of
1779. All was then uncertain. America might fail in
contending with her gigantic foe. He came back in a
cloudy day of 1788 ; it might turn out to be a stormy
one. For though the foreign foe was overcome, the

JOHN ADAMS 125
domestic trouble from ourselves was by no means so
easily disposed of. Property and persons were less
safe in the states after the peace, than in the
five years before the outbreak of the Revolution.
The states were not so prosperous as the colonies.
The provisional government which had carried the
country through the Revolution was falling to pieces.
The new federal government was not yet established.
One by one the states, led by reluctant Massachusetts,
tardily gave in their consent to a form of national gov
ernment. The federal constitution then offered to the
people of America for their adoption was the work of
the merchants in the seaports, of the southern planters,
of the officers of the Revolution, of the government
officials, of the men of superior education, and of the
prosperous classes in general. Shays' rebellion in
Massachusetts frightened men who had the most intense
democratic hostility to centralized power. So some
of them assented to the new constitution. Madison,
Jefferson, Hancock and Samuel Adams were types of
this class. But many were hostile to it. Had it been
put to a popular vote six months after the convention
adjourned, not a state, I think, had adopted the consti
tution. Great events march through gates which turn on
Httle hinges. Upon Mr. Adams's return, the Consti
tution was adopted ; a new government organized. The
great officers were first to be chosen, President and Vice-
President. There could be but one candidate for the
highest place. Washington had all the sixty-nine elec
toral votes. No doubt he should be the first man in the
nation. But the second would be a long way behind
him. There were ten competitors in the field. Mr.
Adams had thirty-four votes; thirty-five were against

126 HISTORIC AMERICANS
him. He was elected Vice-President by a minority of
votes. His most conspicuous rivals were Samuel
Adams and John Hancock. But Alexander Hamilton
was his chief opponent, and worked against him in his
astute and secret way. The motives of Hamilton's
conduct at this election are not yet quite apparent.12
When John Adams took his oath of office, 21st April,
1789, it was not a bright sky that hung over him. He
was not a member of the Cabinet. It was his office to
preside in the Senate. That consisted of twenty-two
members, though only twenty were usually present.
When that body was equally divided, which happened
twenty times during the two years of the first Congress,
he gave the casting vote. It was always then in favor
of Washington's administration, and the measures sup
ported by the Federal party. He took sides with Eng
land and not with France. But in the dull life of a
Vice-President he found no scope for his special talents,
which were power in debate and firmness in execution.
Eight years this unhappy Theseus sat in the chair of
the Senate, deciding points of order, and now and then
giving a casting vote. Silence, calmness, impartiality,
were chiefly required for that office. They were not his
shining talents. He called his " the most insignificant
office that ever the invention of man contrived, or his
imagination conceived." In a period of great excite
ment, 1789, he wrote the " Davila " papers, once read
with intense wrath, and with unlimited delight, now
dead, cold, neglected, and forgotten. Yet these writ
ings were his most important contributions to the pub
lic service between 1789 and 1797.13
He disHked two men, the most powerful in Washing
ton's Cabinet; nay, he hated them! Jefferson, the
Democrat, and Hamilton, the Federalist. But while he

JOHN ADAMS 127
was Vice-President, he secured the friendly regards of
both parties in the Senate notwithstanding those stormy
times. When Washington withdrew from pubhc office,
Adams was the only man deemed by the Federal party
fit to be elected President. But some of the Federal
ists, who were leading men in their party, thought that
the British government, with all its complicated estab-
Hshments, was the best government that there was in the
world, or that there ever would be. These men did not
trust Mr. Adams, because his most transcendental
theories of government displeased them. Hamilton, his
old enemy, now worked in secret, and attempted to
thrust him aside, while his great and more magnanimous
opponent, Jefferson, appeared in open day — as a rival
rather than as a foe. Adams had seventy-one votes,
Jefferson had sixty-eight. So Adams was President
and Jefferson Vice-President. Adams was much cha
grined at his meager majority, only one vote more than
the bare number which the law required. He called
himself a " President of three votes." He was sworn
into the office on the 4th of March, 1797. Thirty-one
years before, on that day, he entered on his duty as one
of the honorable selectmen of Braintree! There was
now a less pleasant prospect before him. The retire
ment of Washington took away the last check which
had curbed the frenzy of Federalists and Democrats.
On the day when he became Vice-President, and so,
as chairman of the Senate, was obliged to declare his
own election to the great office, his wife characteristic
ally wrote him from her New England home, —
" ' The sun is dressed in brightest beams,
To give thy honors to the day.'

128 HISTORIC AMERICANS
" My thoughts and meditations are with you, and
my petitions to Heaven are that ' the things which make
for peace may not be hidden from your eyes.' My
feelings are not those of pride or ostentation upon the
occasion. They are solemnized by a sense of the obli
gations, the important trusts, and numerous duties
connected with it. That you may be enabled to dis
charge them with honor to yourself, with justice and im
partiality to your country, and with satisfaction to this
great people, shall be the daily prayer of your " A. A."
The great strife between FederaHsts and Democrats
was then at its height, while at the same time the wars
in Europe roused the passions of all Americans, who
fiercely took sides and embraced opposite opinions.
The Democrats, however, were to triumph in the end.
Nothing but reverence for Washington sustained the
Federal party during the first four years, under the
new Constitution. But Washington had now with
drawn, and to weaken yet more the conservative cause,
the Federalists had not entire confidence in Adams.
By his relation to his party, he felt bound to accept
the feeble Cabinet which Washington had left in power ;
Pickering and Wolcott from New England, McHenry
from New Jersey, and Charles Lee from Virginia.
They had no hold on the country. By great services
or great talent, they could give Adams no moral or
political support. They were only qualified to con
duct the routine of office, and to superintend official
work. These old officials felt no obligation to Adams, and
bore no allegiance to him. Three of them were Ham
ilton's men, by him selected for General Washington,
who had a misplaced confidence in Hamilton.14

JOHN ADAMS 129
Adams's Cabinet originally looked to Hamilton as their
master and chief, not to the actual President. Their
writings prove this. Adams wished to be President of
the nation. He found it impossible, because his Cabi
net insisted that he should be President only of the
Federal party.
The chief acts of Adams's administration are briefly
told. The French, in the fury of the Revolution, be
came hostile to America ; treated our ministers with con
tempt, ordering them out of their territory, plundering
our ships, and through their agents violating the sover
eignty of our soil. There was danger of a war with
France, and so it became necessary that the nation
should be put in a state of defense. The ultra-Feder
alists wanted a war with France, and to compromise
their differences with England. But the chief Demo
crats favored France, and hated England to an extraor
dinary degree. Adams, who was now the slave of a
party, wished to act purely on the defensive. He broke
with his Cabinet on the question of the command of the
new army. All were agreed that Washington should
be General-in-Chief. The Cabinet desired that Hamil
ton should be second in rank. Such was the ambitious
claim of Hamilton himself; and Washington quietly
favored it.15 Adams wished to commission Knox or
Pickering. After much contention, Adams yielded to
Washington, but not graciously.
The French Court had rejected the American Min
ister. A most respectable commission, Mr. Marshall,
Mr. Pickering, and Mr. Gerry, were sent out to settle
affairs. They, too, were treated with equal disdain.
In a message to Congress, 21st of June, 1798, Mr.
Adams said, " I will never send another Minister to
France without assurance that he will be received, re-
VI— 9

130 HISTORIC AMERICANS
spected, and honored as the representative of a great,
free, powerful, and independent nation." War seemed
unavoidable. The nation armed itself, and made
ready for fight. The Dutch offered to mediate. The
French agent advised Mr. Murray, our Minister at the
Hague, that if the Americans should send a new envoy,
he would be " received as the representative of a great,
free, powerful, and independent nation." Should
Adams refuse the offer? That were indeed madness.
Should he consult his Cabinet ? They were all in favor
of war, and would betray the measure to other Feder
alists. They might, and probably would, defeat the
peaceful policy he had determined to pursue. He took
the responsibility upon himself, and on the 18th of
February, 1799, he sent a message to the Senate, nomi
nating Mr. William Vans Murray Minister to France,
at the same time transmitting the despatch of Talley
rand, promising that France would receive an envoy
from America. " Is Mr. Adams mad? " asked a Fed
eral senator of Mr. Pickering. The Federalists were
indignant. The Senate committee on the nomination
sought an interview; but they found the President as
inflexible as the granite of his own native hills. He
added Mr. Ellsworth and Patrick Henry to the com
mission. The Senate confirmed the nominations, but
as Henry declined, George Davie, of North Carolina,
was put in his place.
This was one of the great acts of his life ; no pubhc
deed cost him more courage. It saved the nation from
a war, but it purchased for Adams the hatred of his
party, at least of its controlling and most ambitious
men. Though wisdom may ride in one pannier, the
other is often heavy with folly. After this great deed,
on March 10, 1799, Adams retired to his home at

JOHN ADAMS 131
Quincy for more than seven months, abandoning the
Government to his faithless Cabinet ; only occasionally
corresponding with his Secretaries upon such matters
as were submitted to him. He had afterwards much
cause to repent that he had not during this period re
mained at the seat of government, and in the control of
its executive affairs.
The Alien and Sedition Laws, so deservedly hateful
to Americans, were the measures not of himself, but
of his party. He assented to them, and so his was
the blame; but he never liked them, and pardoned
John Fries, the first man ever tried for treason against
the United States, if indeed he could be said to have
been tried at all. This again brought on Adams the
wrath of his Cabinet and of the leading men of his
party. Such, at last, became the discrepancy between him
and his Cabinet, that he removed the chief men from
office, filhng their places with others of a different
stamp. He settled some complicated difficulties with
both England and France. But his party was dis
pleased with him. Some of them — Hamilton and oth
ers — sought to destroy him.
He was beaten at the next election. Jefferson was
chosen President in his place. This was the great grief
and sorrow of his life. He took what vengeance he
could on his triumphant rival — once his intimate
friend. Just as he was leaving office he filled up many
new judicial appointments, then recently created by
act of Congress. These were called the appoint
ments of "the Midnight Judges," from the commis
sions of some of them having been made at nine o'clock
on the evening of the 3rd of March, 1801, while, as
it was then considered, his Presidency was to cease at

132 HISTORIC AMERICANS
midnight of that date. On the 4th March before
sunrise, he left the seat of Government, his feelings
not suffering him to attend the inauguration of his
Democratic successor! Private grief, also, for the
recent death of a son, lay heavy on his heart, with his
great political defeat.
VI. Crushed with shame, and filled aHke with grief
and indignation, Mr. Adams went home to his farm at
Quincy, passing at once from the most intense activity
of mind to the dull existence of a country gentleman
in a little town. On the kst year of his office his let
ters came to him by thousands. The next, out of of
fice, there were hardly a hundred. His franking
privilege seemed to be all his visible record for five
and twenty years of earnest public toil. He who so
proudly "Once trod the ways of glory,
And sounded all the depths and shoals of honor,"
now finds all men desert him when the mantle of Presi
dential power feU off.
"Love ends with hope; the sinking Statesman's door
Lets in the crowd of worshippers no more."
But dear old Massachusetts would not desert her
son, faithful and yet dishonored. The Legiskture
sent him, for his past services, their thanks, in an
address sincere, beautiful, and affectionate. It was a
noble act of his native state, which he had done so
much to illustrate and to protect. It touched the sad
old man's always thankful heart, and he found the
final applauses of his state " more grateful than any
which had preceded them." The farmers and me
chanics of the town of Quincy honored his next birth-

JOHN ADAMS 133
day, cheering him with words of endearment, where
words of consolation might not have availed.
The remaining twenty-five years of his life he de
voted to farming, always his favorite employment; to
pohtical writing upon his own conduct, or upon the
topics of the day ; to literature, and to corresponding
with his friends, who really prized him in power or in
disgrace. With the exception of his letters, — his
torical, literary, and philosophic, — his writings at this
period do him no honor. They are marked by par
tisan rage and by personal hatred. The world has
forgotten them. Let us not call them from their ap
propriate tomb.
His wife died on the 28th of October, 1818. Fifty-
four years and three days had they lived together, a
blameless and beautiful wedlock, blessed with three sons
and a daughter. He was eighty-three, and ever after
wore a tinge of unaffected sadness. The sprightly
humor vanished from his letters and his talk. How
could he be cheerful when the sun of his early being
shone on him only from another home, so near and yet
so far and separate!
In 1820 Massachusetts found it needful to revise the
Constitution which he had chiefly drafted in 1779.
Eighty-five years old, his native town sent him a dele
gate to this Convention, as they had done to the other
one, forty years before. He was chosen its Presi
dent, — a fit honor, which the feeble old man as fit
tingly declined. What a change from the time when
it seemed radical to demand that writs, title-deeds, and
commissions should run in the name of the state ; that
is, of the people, and not in that of the king ! In the
Convention of 1820 Adams appeared a little more
conservative than in that of 1779. The man at eighty-

134 HISTORIC AMERICANS
five is more timid than at five and forty. But in one
thing he was more venturesome, younger, and more
progressive than his fellows. He demanded perfect
religious freedom, not only for Christians, but for
non-Christians and anti-Christians. All men should
be equal before the law. The state should not be
Christian, but human, as Jesus himself was. Pur
itanic bigotry was then too strong for the old man.
The time came, and Massachusetts did what he had
wished, thirty or forty years afterwards.
Able-bodied, able-minded, Mr. Adams graduaUy
faded away. His hearing decayed, his eyes failed
him, his hands were tremulous; but still the brave old
soul held on, making the most of the wreck of life,
now drifting along to the islands of the blessed. In
dependence Day, the great day of his Hfe, drew near.
It was its fiftieth anniversary. The nation was to
keep its solemn jubilee, grateful alike to God and to
His servants here below, for the blessings of the smil
ing and happy land. A few days before the time the
town orator asked him for a " sentiment " to suit the
approaching occasion. The old man, in his ninety-
first year, infirm, feeble, and mortally sick in his bed,
answered, " Independence for ever ! " The day came,
and found him living, but fast losing his hold upon
earth. " Thomas Jefferson still survives," said the
old man — his coadjutor and his rival, yet his friend.
These were his last words. Soon after, while the land
rang with cannons jubilant over his great deed, he
passed onward, and ceased to be mortal. Jefferson
had gone an hour or two before. How fortunate the
occasion of his death ! His son was then the President
of this mighty nation; and on its fiftieth birthday,
calmly, quietly, he shook off the worn-out body, and,

JOHN ADAMS 135
f oHowing his sentiment, went forth to " Independence
forever ! "
Look next at his character, and consider its four
elements — the intellectual, moral, affectional, and re
ligious. I. Mr. Adams had a great mind, quick, compre
hensive, analytical, not easily satisfied save with ulti
mate causes, tenacious also of its treasures. His mem
ory did not fail until he was old. With the excep
tion of Dr. Franklin, I think of no American poli
tician in the eighteenth century that was his intel
lectual superior. For though Hamilton and Jeffer
son, nay, Jay and Madison and Marshall surpassed
him in some high qualities, yet no one of them seems
to have been quite his equal on the whole. He was
eminent in all the three departments of the intellect —
the understanding, the practical power; the imagina
tion, the poetic power ; and the reason, the philosophic
power. First. His understanding was ample. Though he
was constitutionally averse to regular, severe, and
long-continued attention, he yet easily mastered what
lay before him, and reproduced it fluently when oc
casion required. He gathered a great amount of
worldly knowledge, for he was a sharp observer of
human affairs, if not a nice one. Yet he attended lit
tle to the world of matter, except for the economic
purposes of agriculture, or the enjoyment of its visi
ble beauty. It is only when he is stimulated by the
great mind of Franklin that he gives any attention to
the investigations of science.
At the age of forty he was the ablest lawyer in New
England, perhaps the ablest kwyer in America. He

136 HISTORIC AMERICANS
was the most learned in historic legal lore, the most
profound in the study of first principles. He went
to the fountains of English law, and did not disdain
to follow the stream in all its crooked and self -con
tradictory course. He had a more complete coHection
of law books than any man in New England, and so
both puzzled and defeated the officers of the crown
with whom he contended. He was exceedingly well
read, for that time and place, in the Roman law, the
law of nature, and the law of nations; and also weU
versed in politics and in morals. He had read much
in the histories of Greece and Rome, and had some
acquaintance with a few of their great writers, though
never an accomplished classic scholar. He was quite
familiar with the practical affairs of New England
life. His first opinion was often faulty, not seldom ut
terly wrong; but his final thought was commonly deep
and just respecting the true nature of things. Hence,
in spite of great defects, he was a man not only of
instinctive sagacity, but also of sound judgment. In
respect to this he has not received justice. All the
great acts of his life, — the defense of Captain Pres
ton, the denial that the British Parliament had any
right by English law to rule these colonies, the ap
pointment of Washington as General, Commander-
in-Chief, the Declaration of Independence, the send
ing of a commission to France in 1798, — all these
things indicate the soundest of human judgment. But
he lacked method in his intellectual processes. He
had not the genius which is its own method, nor yet
that sober, systematic habit of work, which, though
seemingly slow, is, in the long run, so swift and sure.
He did things helter-skelter. In his administration as
President he had no rule for anything.

JOHN ADAMS 137
Second. He had a good, fair imagination, above
the average of educated men. Yet his imagination
was not equal to his understanding. Besides it had
small opportunity for early culture, or even for acci
dental education in later life. He had more fondness
for the beauty of nature, and even of art, than I find
in his eminent political contemporaries. He was fond
of music, of sculpture, and painting, and took delight
in the grand works of European architecture, which so
astonish an American. His larger works — his con
troversial writings, his political papers — are plain to
dire homeHness; but his letters to his few intimates,
and especially to his wife, are charged with wild flow
ers of wit, humor, and fancy, which spread a cheer
ing Hght on the grim landscape which expands all
around. Third. He had a great reason, though its culture
was greatly defective, and its method capricious and
uncertain. He had not calmness enough to be a great
philosopher, yet always looked for the actual causes
of things, and studied carefully their modes of opera
tion. This philosophic, metaphysical tendency ap
pears in most of his dehberate writings, which always
relate to political affairs. He is bold in his abstract
specuktion, always founding his work on the ultimate
principles of nature. He is often profound in his re
marks. Thus, in 1765, he speaks of " rights derived
from the great Legislator of the, universe, — rights
that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws ;
they are antecedent to aU earthly government."
" Rulers are no more than attorneys, agents, and trus
tees for the people; the people have a right to revoke
the authority that they themselves have delegated, and
to constitute abler and better agents, attorneys, and

138 HISTORIC AMERICANS
trustees. The preservation of the means of knowl
edge among the lowest ranks is of more importance to
the public than aU the property of all the rich men in
the country."
The Declaration of Grievances, which he wrote in
1774, contains many profound thoughts, partly his
own, partly the work of James Otis and Samuel
Adams. His " Thoughts on Government " is the
finest specimen of his political writing. As it should
be, his " plan " was borrowed from existing institu
tions; but it proves a careful observation of their ef
fects, and a profound investigation of the causes of
political welfare. His " Defense " of the American
Constitution is less valuable, and contains many hasty
generalizations, which experience has not confirmed,
nor did history warrant them. He appeals from hu
man history to human nature; from the actual of
establishment to the ideal right of humanity.
Adams certainly had not a mind of the highest
class". If he were the first American of that age after
Franklin, he was second to him by a long interval,
and several competitors stood nearly as high as he
did. Unlike Franklin and Washington, he was not a
man of well-balanced intellect or of self-controlled
temper. Thus constituted, he was an inventor; but he was
not a great inventor. He was often in advance of his
times, especiaUy in his plan of government, his scheme
of universal toleration, making a Christian humanity
to constitute all men as equals before the state. His
Christian commonwealth, like the kingdom of heaven,
was to grant no privilege to Christians, but to secure
justice to all mankind.
He ran before the foremost of his time in seeing

JOHN ADAMS 139
the nation's necessity of a navy and of a military
academy. He required them in 1779, he founded
them in 1799.
As an organizer, he could deal with political ideas,
constructing them into a constitution. He could plan
a government with masterly skill. But he had only
the smallest talent for organizing men. He was al
ways a lawyer, who could shape his principles into a
measure. Here he had few equals ; but he was never a
practical politician, who could organize men about his
idea, so that they should defend his measures and
adopt his thoughts and conclusions. Thus many ran
before him, and hence came the great failure of his
political life. He could construct institutions, but he
.. could not govern men.
He was not a good administrator, except in his own
private affairs where perhaps his wife was the presid
ing spirit. He had no system, but was governed by
the enthusiasm of the moment. In the most important
matter he went to work fluently, often with haste and
without good heed. In diplomacy, at Paris, 1780, he
ran violently down steep places, careless whom he ran
over or what he ran against. In 1798 he took the
lead in appointing Washington Commander-in-Chief
of the army without consulting him beforehand, and
quarreled with him about the appointment of officers.
He acted often from personal whim and caprice,
and in a time of great political crisis, in 1799, left the
seat of Government, and went home to Quincy to stay
for many months.
Hence he was not a skilful diplomatist abroad.
When Vice-President, Washington doubted if he was
fit for a foreign mission. His administration as
President was not peaceful or prosperous. He could

140 HISTORIC AMERICANS
not administer the nation well, nor even manage his
own party. Yet it must be confessed that he won a
great diplomatic victory in Holland, and was called
the "Washington of Negotiation," and, while Presi
dent, successfully settled difficult questions with France
and Engknd. I give the rule and the exceptions.
II. Mr. Adams had great moral virtues, also great
vices. Able-bodied, compact, and vigorous, though
not always healthy, he had abundant physical courage.
In scholarly men this is a great and a rare virtue. He
says he meant to have been a soldier, and always had
doubted whether he should have been a hero or a cow
ard. He needed not to doubt. No drop of coward
blood ran in his impetuous veins. He inherited
" spunk," and transmitted it too.
He had moral courage in the heroic degree. He
could not only face the bullets of a British man-of-
war, but face the Royal Government of Massachusetts
in 1765, all through the ante-revolutionary period.
Nay, he could front the wrath of his own friends and
the whole town, and defend Captain Preston in 1770.
He could face the indignation of the leaders of the
Federal party in 1799. Let him be sure he was right,
and he feared nothing but to be false to right. When
the Massachusetts judges went under the golden chain
of Britain in 1773, and the Government held it low
to make them stoop the more lowly; when the prece
dent-loving lawyers knew not what to do, Adams said,
" Impeach the Judges ;" and the court did no more
business. Conscious of great integrity, he did not
hesitate to take great risks, and also to accept great
responsibility. He says he had four great trials in his life.

JOHN ADAMS 141
The first came from Captain Preston s case in 1770.
The popular voice said, " Hang the authors of the
Boston Massacre ! " Adams's conscience said, " De
fend them ; give them a free trial ! " His friends said,
" If you save them, you ruin yourself ! " But Adams
was John Adams, and he did his duty, saving the lives
of the soldiers, and the virtuous reputation of Massa
chusetts. On the 24th July, 1775, he wrote two private let
ters for Congress, which fell into the hands of the
British, and were published. In one of these he rec
ommends disunion, independence, concentration of the
legislative, executive, and judicial powers of the whole
continent, a navy, and seizure of the Tories. Hate
ful doctrines these to all but a minority of the Con
gress. Besides, he spoke of John Dickinson of
Pennsylvania, then a chief political favorite, in terms
of exquisite contempt. The doubtful members of
Congress looked at him with wrath. Mr. Dickinson
passed him without recognition in the street. He bore
it patiently, and waited for his time.
In 1781, while Minister to Holland, the Government
delayed to acknowledge him as Minister. Others said,
" Wait." He appealed to the Dutch people, who com
pelled their High Mightinesses to receive him, and so
this bold and unprecedented diplomacy turned out to
be a great success.
In 1798, his Cabinet, the Federal party, and even
Washington, said, " Send no Minister to France."
Adams took the responsibility on himself; did not con
sult his hostile and treacherous Cabinet, but sent the
Minister, and so broke the cloud of war which hung
dark and fearful over the land and sea. These four
great trials — he came out of them all, clean and pure
as he went in.

142 HISTORIC AMERICANS
He was a conscientious man, and sought counsel of
that still small voice, which tells the law of the mind,
the eternal right, to whoso listens. He could not un
derstand that the king's will was to govern the con
science of a subject. He had clear perception of jus
tice, was veracious and outspoken, had an utter hatred
of lies, of dissembling, and generally of hypocrisy in
any form. He was terribly open, earnest, and direct,
and could not keep his mouth shut. He knew this.
Once he went with others to see the picture of Wash
ington in Faneuil Hall. Some one remarked on the
firm mouth, and said, " It looks as if he could keep it
shut." " So he did," said Adams ; but tapping with
his cane his own bust, which the town of Boston had
also placed in Faneuil Hall, he added, " that d — d fool
never could." He hated all stratagems and tricks, and
growled about the slow, noiseless way in which old, ex
perienced Dr. Franklin threw out his lines, and drew
in the treasures of the treacherous poHtical deep.
" Diplomacy is a silent art," and Adams was a talker.
A man of deepest integrity, he could not dissemble,
but wore his heart upon his sleeve. He had no re
serve. His early rule was never to deceive the people,
nor to conceal from them any truth essential to their
welfare. He observed this as a maxim all his life.
He had great moral delicacy, and, being President,
doubted if he ought to retain his son John Quincy
Adams in the diplomatic office to which Washington
had appointed him. To his letter, asking advice upon
this, Washington replied, " It is right for you to keep
him there, not to put him there." 16 Yet Adams after
wards made his wife's nephew, William Cranch, Judge
of the United States District Court at Washington,
and his son-in-law, Colonel Smith, he put in a high

JOHN ADAMS 143
office. All our Presidents, except Washington and
John Quincy Adams, have put their relations in office.
It is a dangerous and unjust practice.
John Adams had a strong temptation to the indulg
ence of animal passions, but he kept all the appetites
in their place ; and in his old age could proudly write,
" No virgin or matron ever had cause to blush at the
sight of me, or to regret her acquaintance with me.
No father, brother, son, or friend ever had cause of
grief or resentment for any intercourse between me
and any daughter, sister, mother, or any other rektion
of the female sex." Here he was greatly the superior
of Franklin, Jefferson, Hamilton, nay, of Washington
himself.17 These are great virtues. Few politicians can boast
such. But he was ill-tempered, " sudden and quick in
quarrel," and madly impetuous. He was not a good
judge of character. He often suspected the noblest
of men, and put credulous faith in mean and deceitful
persons, and so was unjust while he meant it not. In
tensely ambitious of place and of power he yet sought
always to rule his desire by his duty. But if he
sought only excellent things, the spirit of the search
was not in all cases commendable. The motive was
often selfish, the method wrong, and the manner harsh.
His temper was not magnanimous or noble. He was
suspicious, and jealous, and envious of men before him
in social rank, or above him in power. He attributes
mean motives to aU men, often to the noblest in the
land. His early writings prove this abundantly, and
his later also. He was envious of Dr. Franklin in
France ; and the frog stretched himself to resemble the
ox. He hated a superior.
I think he rarely forgave a foe, or one he fancied

144 HISTORIC AMERICANS
such. Reverence he had for God; little for noblest
men. Witness his harsh words about Samuel Adams
and John Hancock; his unrelenting enmity to Hamil
ton and Pickering.
But his wrath against Dr. Franklin was of the most
needless, wanton, and malignant character. I think
he bore it with him to his grave. Sound-headed by
nature as he was, he was constitutionally a fighting
man. This appears in his diary, and in the newspaper
articles written by him before the Revolution and after
it. It also became manifest when he was Vice-Presi
dent, and in the higher office of President, and it may
be observed in the autobiography which he wrote in
his old age. His letters to Mr. Cunningham, in
1804-1809, seem to me not less than wicked.18 He
was intensely violent in his wrath, which a trifle could
rouse, and nothing could stay. He was indiscriminate
as to the object of it. It might be a member of his
Cabinet who opposed a measure, or a butcher in
Quincy who brought in his bill. But shortly after the
passion of his wrath he cooled down, and did with de
light what he had at first refused with vehement anger.
Impatient of process^ and greedy of result, he was
most intensely desirous of honor and applause. His
early diary is full of examples; so, too, is the later.
At Paris, in 1782, he was highly complimented for the
success of his negotiation in Holland. He writes in
his journal, " A few of these compliments would kill
Franklin, if they should come to his ears." He reads
all the compHmentary nothings which the French said
to him. Yet, great as his vanity was, I think it never
bent him aside from his duty. Loving the praise of
man, he never once stooped for it; never hesitated to
do the most unpopular act if sure it was right; never

JOHN ADAMS 145
bowed that great, manly head to escape abuse which
his imprudence or his temper brought upon him. He
was excessively arrogant. "I always consider the
whole nation as my children," he writes in 1809 ; " but
they have almost all been undutiful to me. You two
gentlemen," Mr. Wright and Mr. Lyman, "are al
most the only ones, out of my own house, who have
expressed a fiHal affection for John Adams."
He claims that he is the author of the chief things
in the Declaration of Independence. " Jefferson has
acquired such glory by his Declaration of Independ
ence, in 1776, that I think I may boast of my declar
ation of independence in 1755, twenty-one years older
than his." He refers to a letter of his written when
he was a boy of twenty at Worcester. Some one
ascribed to Samuel Adams " the honor of the first idea
and project of independence." John Adams claims
that it was his thunder, let off when he was twenty
years old. " In 1755, when my letter to Dr. Webb
was written, I had never seen the face of Samuel
Adams. I heartily wished the two countries were sep
arated for ever." " The Declaration of Independence
of 4th of July, 1776, contained nothing but the Boston
Declaration of 1772, and the Congressional Declar
ation of 1724. Such are the caprices of fortune!
The Declaration of Rights [of 1774] was drawn by
the little John Adams. The mighty Jefferson, by the
Declaration of Independence of 4th July, 1776, car
ried away the glory of the great and the little."
Claiming so much for himself, he abused his rivals.
Samuel Adams and John Hancock are the " Stone
House faction, and will be sure of all the loaves and
fishes in the National Government, and the State Gov
ernment as they hope." He speaks sneeringly of
VI— 10

146 HISTORIC AMERICANS
Hancock. " Yes, this is the place where the great
Governor Hancock was born. John Hancock! a man
without head and without heart ; the mere shadow of a
man ; and yet a governor of old Massachusetts ! " He
did not like to hear the praises of Washington. One
day he dined with a company in a neighboring town.
After dinner, when he rose to depart, a clergyman at
tended him to the hall, and offered to wait upon him
with his cloak, and said, " Sir, the country owes so
much to Washington and you." Mr. Adams snapped
him up. " Washington and me ! Do not let me hear
you say that again! Sir, Washington was a dolt."
It was a momentary spasm of envy and of wrath, com
ing from " that weak humor that his mother," or some
one else, " gave him." At other times he did justice
to Washington, though always a little coldly, for
neither liked the other.
Constitutionally, Adams was a grumbler. He hated
things present, and longed for the absent or the past.
Thus, while a schoolmaster at Worcester, he often com
plains of his irksome task; but at Braintree, studying
law, he sighs for the mental activity which school-keep
ing forced out of him. His Hfe as a country lawyer,
riding his circuit, pleases him no more. It is a life of
" here and there and anywhere," and wiU lead him to
neither fame, fortune, power, nor to the service of his
friends, cHents, or country. In 1765, in the Stamp
Act times, the courts were shut. Adam writes in his
journal, " Thirty years of my life are passed in prep
aration for business. I have had poverty to struggle
with, envy and jealousy and malice of enemies to en
counter; no friends, or but few, to assist me, so that
I have groped in dark obscurity till of late, and had
but just become known, and gained a small degree of

JOHN ADAMS 147
reputation, when this execrable project (the Stamp
Act) was set on foot for my ruin, as well as that of
America in general, and of Great Britain." The
very next day he finds that Boston has chosen
him for her attorney, to appear before the Council
on this very matter of closing the courts! What
he thought was his ruin became the highway to for
tune and to fame. By-and-by he complains of his
public life, that he has done so much for the peo
ple. " I reap nothing but insult, ridicule, and con
tempt for it, even from many of the people them
selves." " I have stood by the people much longer
than they would stand by themselves. But I have
learned wisdom by experience. I shaU certainly be
come more retired and cautious. I shall certainly
mind my own farm and my own office." But here he
complains he is out of politics. " I believe there is no
man in so curious a situation as I am. I am, for what
I can see, quite left alone in the world."
He travels for his health along the beautiful valley
of the Connecticut River, but gets " weary of this idle,
romantic jaunt." " I believe it would have been as
weU to have stayed in my own country, and amused
myself with my farm, and rode to Boston every day.
I shall not certainly take such a ramble again merely
for my health." " I want to see my wife, my children,
my farm, my horse, oxen, cows, walls, fences, work
men, office, books, and clerks. I want to hear the news
and politics of the day. But here I am at Bissell's, in
Windsor, hearing my landlord read a chapter in the
kitchen, and go to prayers with his family in the
genuine tone of a Puritan." When in Congress he
wants to resign. Ten days before the Declaration of
Independence he writes, " When a few mighty matters

i48 HISTORIC AMERICANS
are accomplished here, I retreat, like Cincinnatus, to
my plough, and, like Sir William Temple, to my gar
den, and farewell poHtics! I am wearied to death.
Some of you younger folks must take your trick, and
let me go to sleep." (He is then about forty-one.)
" My children wiU scarcely thank me for neglecting
their education and interest so long. They will be
worse off than ordinary beggars, because I shall teach
them, as a first principle, not to beg. Pride and want,
though they may be accompanied with Hberty, or at
least may live under a free Constitution, are not a very
pleasant mixture nor a very desirable legacy, yet this
is all that I shall leave them." In the grand letter
which tells of the Declaration of Independence itself,
while his own magnificent defense of it is still echoing
in his ears, and composing music at the end of his pen,
he tells his wife he cannot accept the office of Chief-
Justice of Massachusetts. He has not " fortune
enough to support my family, and what is of more im
portance, to support the dignity of that exalted sta
tion. It is too high and lifted up for me, who delight
in nothing so much as retreat, sohtude, silence, and ob
scurity." " In private life no one has a right to cen
sure me for following my own inclinations in retire
ment, simplicity, and frugality. In public life every
man has a right to remark as he pleases. At least he
thinks so." " I had rather build stone walls on Penn's
Hill (part of his farm), than be the first Prince in
Europe, or the first general, or the first senator in
America." So he wrote on the 18th of August, 1776.
When Vice-President, he does not like the office; it is
the most insignificant in the world. " I wish very
heartily that a change of Vice-President could be made
to-morrow. I have been too ill used in the office to be

JOHN ADAMS 149
fond of it, if I had not been introduced into it in a
manner that made it a disgrace. I will never serve in
it again upon such terms." President Jefferson ap
pointed John Quincy Adams Minister to Russia. The
father was not pleased. " Aristides is banished be
cause he is too just." " He wiU not leave an honester
or abler man behind him. He was sent away, as a
dangerous rival too near the throne."
Certainly these are great vices ; but John Adams pos
sessed such virtues that he can afford to have them told,
and subtracted from his real merit. He was so per
fectly open that it is himself who furnishes all the evi
dence against himself. If he exaggerates the faults
of other men, he treats his own quite as seriously. He
defended Hancock, whom he sometimes abused, and
said, " If he had vanity and caprice, so had I. And if
his vanity and caprice made me sometimes sputter, as
you know they often did, mine, I well know, had often
a similar effect upon him. But these little flickerings
of little passions determine nothing concerning essen
tial characters."
IH. Adams was not very rich in his affectional na
ture; the objects of his love were few. Out of the
family circle, I think he had no intimates or confi
dants. There were no friendships between him and
the leading patriots of the Revolution. His diary
represents him as a man " intensely soHtary," who con
fided little in any one, and quarreled often with many.
He liked the Lees of Virgink; Hked Ralph Izard, —
a quite unworthy man; but made friendships with
none of them, not even with Washington, Samuel
Adams, John Hancock, and other famous chiefs of the
Revolution. But in the later years of his life a friend-

150 HISTORIC AMERICANS
ship quite beautiful sprang up with Jefferson, his old
rival and former foe. The letters which passed be
tween them are an honor to both of them, and form
one of the pleasantest episodes in the later Hves of
these two great men. The rage of ambition is aU
over, and a tone of friendship enlivens the themes of
the letters which occasionally passed between them, and
in which both much delighted. His correspondence
with Mr. Van der Kemp, a learned and schokrly
Dutchman,19 whom the French Revolution drove to
America, shows his affection in its most pleasing light.
He was a charitable man, and did his alms in secret.
While President, in a time of great distress, he sub
scribed five hundred dollars for the poor at Philadel
phia; but he did it in private, and kept his name out
of sight. He was lenient towards offenders. Thus,
against the vehement advice of his Cabinet, he par
doned Mr. Fries, condemned for treason. The lead
ing Federalists hated him for this act of righteous
clemency. But he sometimes writes truculent letters
about men who used what he called seditious language.
He was violent in his hasty speech, never cruel in his
deliberate acts.
IV. Mr. Adams had strong religious emotions —
reverence for God, conscientious desire to keep his
natural laws, a deep remorse when he violated the in
tegrity of his own conscience, and a devout, unfailing
trust in the goodness of God, which is alike the pro
tection of nations and of individual men. He, by his
nature, inclined to the ministerial profession; and but
for the bigotry of that age, and for his own spon
taneous enlightenment, would probably have been one
of the most powerful in that class which has enrolled so

JOHN ADAMS 151
much of the talent and virtue of New England, and
made so profound a mark on the character of the peo
ple. All his Hfe long Mr. Adams had a profound re
ligious sense. Though hating formality, he was yet
an ecclesiastical man as well as a religious man. But
he hated hypocrisy, hated bigotry, hated intolerance.
Not a word of cant deforms his writings. In his early
life he learned to hate Calvinism. That hatred con
tinued all his days. He was an Arminian at twenty.
He read BoHngbroke, Morgan, and other free-think
ing writers, in his youth. Their influence is obvious.
They helped to emancipate him from the thraldom of
New England theology. But they did not weaken his
religious sense, nor impair his virtue. When an old
man, he read the great French writers on reHgious
matters, not without enhghtenment and profit; but he
did not show that audacious immorality which de
lighted to pull down, with mockery, the sacred instruc
tion which they neither could nor would replace, nor
even attempt to supply. His theological opinions
seem to have been much like those of Franklin, though
in his case they do not seem to have had the same
genial influence.
In framing the Constitution of Massachusetts, in
1779, he wished religion to be left free. AH sects,
Christian and non-Christian, were to be equal before
the law, and alike eligible to all offices. He could not
carry that point. He labored for the same end in the
convention which revised the Constitution of Massa
chusetts in 1820 ; but still without success. In respect
to reHgious toleration in 1779, he was far in advance
of the convention which sat forty years later, and in
deed he was far in advance of the courts of Massachu
setts of this present day. He introduced a remarkable

152 HISTORIC AMERICANS
section into that Constitution for the encouragement of
literature, science, and morals. He had a lively indig
nation against " that system of holy Hes and pious
frauds that has raged and triumphed for fifteen hun
dred years." He detested the cruelties practised in
the name of religion. " Remember the Index Expur-
gatorius, the Inquisition, the stake, the axe, the hal
ter, and the guillotine, and oh ! horrible, the rack ! "
He writes to Jefferson, in 1817, " Twenty times in the
course of my late reading have I been on the point of
breaking out, ' This would be the best of aU possible
worlds if there were no religion in it ! ' But in this
exclamation I should have been as fanatical as Bry
ant or Cleverly. Without religion, this world would
be something not fit to be mentioned in poHte com
pany, — I mean hell. So far from believing in the
total and universal depravity of human nature, I be
lieve there is no individual totally depraved. The
most abandoned scoundrel that ever existed never yet
wholly extinguished his conscience; and while con
science remains, there is some religion. Popes, Jesuits,
Sorbonnists, and Inquisitors have some conscience and
some religion. Fears and terrors appear to have pro
duced a universal credulity. . . . But fears of
pain and death here do not seem to have been so un
conquerable as fears of what is to come hereafter."
He sympathized with all sects in their desire for piety
and morality, and thought Jefferson as " good a
Christian as Priestley and Lindsey, who had called
Jefferson an unbeliever." " The human understand
ing is a revelation from its Maker, which can never be
disputed or doubted." " No prophecies, no miracles
are necessary to prove this celestial communication."
He scorns the doctrine of eternal damnation. " I be-

JOHN ADAMS 153
Heve no such things. My adoration of the Author of
the Universe is too profound and too sincere. The love
of God and of His creation — delight, joy, triumph,
exultation in my own existence, — though but an atom,
a molecule organique, in the universe, — these are my
religion." " Howl, snarl, bite, ye Calvinistic, ye Athanasian
divines, if you will. Ye will say I am no Christian.
I say ye are no Christians, and there the account is
balanced. Yet I believe all the honest men among you
are Christians in my sense of the word." He finds
Christianity before Christ, Christian piety in the sa
cred writers before Jesus of Nazareth. He does not
believe in demoniacal possessions; even if the evangel
ists beHeved it, he does not.
Of course the charge of infidelity was brought
against him, as against all thoughtful and outspoken
men, who seek to understand the causes of things, and
to trample fear beneath their feet.
I find his lack of religion in his bad temper, in envy,
jealousy, hate, wrath; but not in his disbelief of ma
lignant devils and eternal heH. The proof of his real
reHgion I find in his veracity, his justice, philan
thropy, and in that integrity which, I think, never
failed him.
Mr. Adams's personal appearance was not imposing
or dignified. He was less than the average height of
New England men, though with much more than an
average of weight and width. He was, in fact, a
stout, corpulent man. His head was large, wide at the
base, nearly round, but not high. His forehead was
full and ample, though low for its width; the mouth
well cut, the nose sufficiently massive. The general

154 HISTORIC AMERICANS
appearance of the face indicated power and repose,
not that terrible vehemence of wrathful emotions with
which it was sometimes animated. His bust and fea
tures seem to afford a good likeness of the man.
Mr. Adams wrote much, but he only wrote books
designed to meet the need of the hour. His most im
portant writings are: a Discourse on the Canon and
Feudal Law, 1765; the State papers in the quarrel
between the Colony of Massachusetts and Governor
Hutchinson; the Rights and Grievances of the Amer
ican Colonies, 1774; his Plans of Government of the
Independent States, 1776; the Constitution of Massa
chusetts, 1779; the Defense of the American Consti
tution, 1786; and the papers on Davila, written while
he was Vice-President, and published in the Philadel
phia newspapers. These were applications of his po
litical principles to the actual affairs of America. In
all these the style is poor, inelegant, and yet artificial.
He is often inaccurate in his statement of facts, and
sometimes hasty in his generalizations. His first ad
dress as President contains a sentence which I think
was then the longest in what is known of the English
language. It since has been but once surpassed, and
that by another citizen of Massachusetts who is yet
more distinguished than Mr. Adams for literary cul
ture.20 His letters are the most pleasing part of his works,
the only part now readable. Here the best are found
in the beautiful correspondence with Jefferson, full of
wit and wisdom, and above all, enriched with a gentle
ness and affection that you vainly seek in so many
other works of the great man. But the most charm
ing of all his many writings are the letters to his wife.
I think more than three hundred of them have been

JOHN ADAMS 155
printed, and I know not where in the English lan
guage to find so delightful a collection. He had but
one confidant, his wife; but one intimate friend, the
mother of his children. To her he told all — his loves
and his hates, his anger and his gratitude, his hopes
and his fears. She was able to comprehend his great
mind, to sympathize in all his excellence. Her judg
ment seems to have been as sound as his own. If not
original Hke his, like Washington's it was cool, critical,
and accurate. She poured oil on the troubled waters
of his life, and called him to behold the heavenly bow
of beauty and of hope in the cloud which brooded over
them. The cloud dropped down, and the sunshine fol
lowed in the footsteps of the storm.
He was not what is now called an eloquent man. He
had no oratorical tricks, no stops for applause, no
poetic images, nothing of what the editors and report
ers and half -educated ministers name " fine writing,"
and what school-girls call " perfectly splendid." But
everywhere strong sense, mastery of his matter, philos
ophic knowledge of causes, vehemence of emotion,
and condensed richness of thought. The form is often
faulty and misshapen, but the substance strong and
sound. He moved other persons, for he was moved
himself, and the great natural force which stirred him
he brought to bear on other men. So he was always
powerful as a speaker and writer. Yet, July 2, 1776,
I think men did not say, " What a fine speech John
Adams made ! " but only, " Down with the kingly
government." He abounded in ivipyaa, which De
mosthenes said was the first, second, and third requi
site in oratory. Scarce any specimens of his speeches
are left ; only the fame of their power survives. You
often find profound thought in his writings. No

156 HISTORIC AMERICANS
American writer upon poHtics more abounds in it.
He had not much confidence in the people, no in
stinct of democracy. He leaned to aristocratic forms
of government. So, in the Constitution of the State
of Massachusetts, he would give the Governor an abso
lute negative to all acts of the Legislature, and em
power him to appoint aH the officers in the militia, the
generals, colonels, majors, captains, and so on down
to the sergeants and corporals.
He insisted on four things in his plan of govern
ment. (1.) A separation of the legislative, judicial,
and executive powers. (2.) The legislature must
have two bodies, a house and a senate. (3.) The
judiciary must be appointed during good behavior.
(4.) The executive must be single; one man, not a
council of men. It was a wise man who devised such
a scheme in 1776. He was often accused of favoring
monarchy, and wishing to establish in America a king
and a house of lords. The charge is utterly false.
I think Jefferson is not blameless for his representation
of Adams's opinions. He foresaw the greatness of
America, and in 1786 said, " We are now employed in
making establishments which will affect the happiness
of a hundred millions of inhabitants at a time, in a
period not very distant." He wrote a book on all the
liberal governments of the world, to show their virtues
and their vices. He dared tell the faults of our own
institutions. Who ventures on that now? Even then
he was, for doing so, much abused.
In 1780 Dr. Franklin wrote from France home to
his Government, that " Adams means well for his coun
try, is always an honest man, often a wise one, some
times, and in some things, is absolutely out of his
senses ; " and adds also, " I know that by telling it I

JOHN ADAMS 157
hazard a mortal enmity." The criticism was just,
and also the forecast of its consequence. But weigh
the man in an even baknce. His faults were chiefly
of ill-temper and haste ; his virtues — patriotism,
truthfulness, moral courage, integrity — have seldom
been surpassed, nay, rarely equaled, in pubHc men.
He had no prejudice against any section of the coun
try. Here he was superior to both Jefferson and
Washington, who ever denied justice to New England.
He was an intense patriot, and did not hestitate to
sacrifice his dearest personal wishes for the good of his
country. In his later days some distinguished for
eigners came to visit him at Quincy. He met them by
appointment, and sat in a great chair in the shade
close by his house. " In the beginning of the fight
did you think you should succeed? " asked one of the
visitors. " Yes," said the old man ; " I never doubted
that the country would succeed, but I expected nothing
but certain ruin for myself."
The hate against him has not died away. Still, for
old FederaHst and for old Democratic families, detrac
tion is busy at its work. But after all just deduction
is made from his conduct, it must be confessed that no
man has had so wide, so deep, and so lasting an influ
ence on the great constructive work of framing the
best institutions of America. And the judgment of
posterity wiU be, that he was a brave man, deep-
sighted, conscientious, patriotic, and possessed of in
tegrity which nothing ever shook, but which stood firm
as the granite of his Quincy hills. While American
institutions continue, the people will honor brave, hon
est old John Adams, who never failed his country in
her hour of need, and who, in his life of more than
ninety years, though both passionate and ambitious,
wronged no man nor any woman!

IV
THOMAS JEFFERSON
New England was settled by real colonists ; men full
of ideas which were far in advance of their times.
These ideas could not be carried out in England, and
therefore they emigrated to what was afterwards called
the " New England." Here democratic institutions at
once sprung up among them. Their antecedents and
their principles could not have produced any different
growth. The distinction between rich and poor, edu
cated and ignorant soon became the chief differences
in their social scale. There was but one sort of men,
though many conditions. The government was by the
people, and it favored the distribution of wealth, not
its accumulation in special families. Education was
open to all, at public cost. The form of religion was
Congregational. The Congregational Church had
more individual members than any Christian sect.
The theology was Calvinistic, and that always stimu
lates men to metaphysical speculation and to liberal
study. In Virginia it was quite different. Religion had
nothing to do with its settlement. Partly, the emi
grants were younger sons of younger brothers, de
scendants from wealthy houses, who either had some
moderate property, or had got manorial grants of land
from the crown; partly, they were the servants and
vassals of these nominal lords of manors ; and partly,
they were the scourings of the British jails. They
158

THOMAS JEFFERSON 159
brought no superior ideas along with them. They
did not found democratic institutions; for all their
care was to keep their institutions aristocratic. The
government was in the hands of a few, and it favored
the entailment of property on a few, not its distribu
tion among many. It kept up the division of castes,
so that there should be as many sorts of men as there
were conditions of society. Social distinction was
founded on the acknowledged differences in birth,
property, and powerful connection, and to appearance
not at all dependent upon knowledge, virtue, or true
nobiHty of character. No pains were taken to provide
for pubHc education.
The printing press had come early to New Eng
land, where it had printed Eliot's translation of the
Bible into the Indian language, and had published two
editions of it long before Virginia had produced a
printed Hne.
The form of religion in Virginia was Episcopal.
None other was tolerated. It encouraged neither
metaphysical thought nor biblical study. This tended
to repress individuality of religion.
In New England wealth was diffused; education,
political power, all were diffused widely. In 1764,
James Otis said, " The colonists are men ; the colonists
are therefore free born; for, by the law of nature, all
men are free born, white or black. No good reason
can be given for enslaving them of any color. Is
it right to enslave a man because his color is black,
or his hair short and curled like wool, instead of Chris
tian hair? Can any logical inference or form of slav
ery be drawn from a flat nose, or a long or short
face? The riches of the West Indies, or the luxury
of the metropolis, should not have weight to swerve

160 HISTORIC AMERICANS
the balance of truth and justice. Liberty is the gift
of God, and cannot be annihilated."
In a word, in Virginia everything was condensed
upon a few, while in New England aU was thoroughly
democratic. Still it might be seen, that in Virginia,
while her institutions were framed, and intended to be
thoroughly aristocratic, yet in spite of them the excel
lent men in that new country could not be kept down.
They would rise, and by the natural high pressure
of their qualities they would, like water, seek their
natural level, because a downward tendency is impossi
ble to human nature. And so, too, in New England
it happened that, although all her institutions had
been from the beginning most eminently liberal and
popular, yet many things there hindered the immediate
and free development of the people.
In the beginning of the last century in Virginia
there were three classes of free white men.
First. The great proprietors, who owned large
tracts of land. These were the " first families " of
Virginia, who, though dwelling in " abodes compara
tively mean," affected to live in the style of British
nobles. They had rude wealth, land, cattle, fine horses,
slaves, white servants, " bought for a time," and
abundance of maize, wheat, and especiaUy of tobacco
— the great article of export.
Second. The small proprietors, men with moderate
landed estates, cultivated under their own eye. Some
of these became rich men, but never acquired that so
cial rank to which the first were born. Yet the primal
vigor of this population, its ready talent, and all its
instinct of progress, lay in this second class, whence
have arisen, I think, all the distinguished men of Vir
ginia.

THOMAS JEFFERSON 161
Third. Below these was the class of poor whites,
indispensable to such a scheme of society. These were
laborers, without landed property more than a patch
of ground and a little hovel, which added the deformity
of a low humanity to the original beauty of nature.
These men had no literary or scientific education, and
could obtain none.
Underneath aU were the negro slaves, who gave a
pecuHar character to the entire colony, affecting its in
dustry, its thought, and its morals.
In the second class, of small proprietors, was born
Peter Jefferson, on the 29th of February, 1708, at Os-
bornes, on James River, in Chesterfield County. The
famUy had come from Wales. Peter seems to have in
herited no property ; the Jefferson family, I think, was
poorer than the average of the class, just above the
poor whites. Peter had no education in early life, but
was able-minded as well as able-bodied, with a thought
ful turn. He became a surveyor of land, mainly self-
taught, I fancy. He got a little property together,
and in 1735 " patented " one thousand acres of land ;
that is, had it granted him by the Legislature of the
colony of Virginia. He bought four hundred acres
more, the consideration paid being " Henry Weather-
bourne's biggest bowl of arrack punch " ! He made a
little clearing in the primeval forest, and began his
career as a planter. In 1738 he married Jane Ran
dolph, she being in her twentieth, he in his thirtieth
year. She was the daughter of Isham Randolph, a
wealthy man, who Hved in rough splendor, and had
great pretensions to family dignity, weU educated for
a man of that time; he was, moreover, intelligent and
generous. Peter took his wife, delicately bred as she
had been, to his rough farm, which he called Shad-
VI— 11

162 HISTORIC AMERICANS
well. Here he planted his family tree, and subse
quently became a prosperous man. He was appointed
by the Legislature, in connection with Professor Fry,
to make a map of Virginia. The work was done well
for the time. He was commissioned justice of the
peace, and appointed colonel, and afterwards elected
member of the House of Burgesses of the colony of
Virginia. He died August 17, 1757.
At Shadwell, on the 13th of April, 1743, his first son
and third child was born, and christened Thomas.
His lineage was humble, as Virginians count geneal
ogy ; his destination was not humble, as Virginia's his
tory may certify. After the great men I have before
sketched, none has had so much influence on the destiny
of America. Let us look this boy carefully in the
face, and consider his deeds throughout all periods of
his Hfe, the character therein developed, and the ex
traordinary eminence he thereby acquired.
I. Look at his boyhood and youth. 1743-1764.
At the age of five he was sent to a common school at
Tuckahoe, where the f amUy moved when he was two
years old. At nine years of age he studies under the
Rev. Mr. Douglass, a Scotchman, a scholar, and an
Episcopal minister at ShadweU. With him the boy
begins Latin, Greek, and French. He lived with the
minister, and found good instruction and moldy pies.
At fourteen he goes to Rev. Mr. Maury's school, four
teen miles off, at Peter's Mountain. Mr. Maury, also
a Scotchman, was a good scholar and a good teacher.
In his spare time Thomas hunts on Peter's Mountain,
and acquires an intimate knowledge of the animals and
the plants, and some general knowledge of natural his
tory. These two gentlemen kept schools at their par-

THOMAS JEFFERSON 163
sonages. When company came the schools broke up,
and thus Thomas got less Latin and more hunting.
The pay for his board and instruction was sixteen
pounds a year at the one place, and twenty pounds
at the other. He was a bright boy, courteous and
quick. In 1760, aged seventeen, he entered William and
Mary's College, at Williamsburg, the capital of the
province, a town of fifteen hundred or two thousand in
habitants. Here he found another Scotchman, Pro
fessor Small, a good scholar, who still further helped
and stimulated the intelligent youth. Jefferson was a
friend of Dr. Small, and was devoted to study, often
working fifteen hours a day. The Greek and Latin
languages, and the mathematics, were his favorite pur
suits. Metaphysics and ethics he greatly disliked.
He did not incHne to works of fiction, commonly so
attractive to young minds. He was highly moral, it
is said, but fond of horses, which fondness continued
aU his Hfe. He was also inclined to music, and learned
to play skilfuUy on the vioHn.
Thus he did not forget his sport in his toil. He
stayed at college but two years, and then, at nineteen, at
the same place, began the study of law with Mr.
George Wythe, thought to be a profound kwyer at
that time. He continued this preparation for his pro
fession five years, often studying fourteen or fifteen
hours a day. He had a natural fondness for profound
investigation, yet he found Coke " a dull old scoun
drel." He learned the Anglo-Saxon, the Italian, and
the Spanish languages, and, it seems, read many books
very indirectly connected with his profession. Here
he became intimate with Mr. Fauquier, the royal Gov
ernor of Virginia, a distinguished man, with quite ele-

164 HISTORIC AMERICANS
gant manners. Living famiHarly in the best society
of the provincial capital, it was here and at this period
that Jefferson acquired the easy carriage, gentle
manly deportment, and courteous manners which dis
tinguished him all his life, and which greatly helped
his success. Governor Fauquier was a gambler, and
contaminated the province with this vice. Jefferson
kept clear from this detestable wickedness, shunning
and hating it all his life. Fauquier was also a free
thinker in religion, and the effect was visible on the
young man.
He fell in love at this early period, like other young
men, and, like them, wrote silly letters, such as are still
penned. Indeed, all his letters of this period are
rather frivolous. He talks about " Becca " and " Su-
key," " Judy " and " Belinda," finding those names
more attractive than that " dull old scoundrel," Lord
Coke. " How did Nancy look at you when you danced
with her at Southall's?"
" Handsome in his old age, in his youth Jefferson
was no beauty. Then he was tall, thin, and raw-
boned; had red hair, a freckled face, and pointed fea
tures ; " but his face was intelligent and kindly, he
talked with ease and grace, and in spite of exterior dis
advantages, was a favorite with all the young women.
At the age of twenty-four, 1767, he was admitted
to practice at the bar. Thus far his life had been an
easy one, and singularly prosperous. How different
from the youth of Franklin, or of Washington, or of
Adams ! He kept himself free from the common vices
of Virginia young men, such as gaming, drunkenness,
debauchery ; he never swore or used tobacco. His let
ters begin in his twentieth year, and, though some
what frivolous, are written in a natural style at once

THOMAS JEFFERSON 165
easy and elegant. Here was a dawn to promise the
great man.
II. 1764—1768. A lawyer and politician, engaged
in the affairs of Virginia and of the nation, Jeffer
son had his office at Williamsburg, the capital of that
colony. It seems he " had Httle taste for the techni
calities and chicanery of that profession," and
never thought very highly of lawyers as a class.
" Their business is to talk," said he. For the seven
or eight years he followed this profession he gradually
rose to some eminence. His style was clear, but his
voice poor and feeble, and, after speaking a few mo
ments, it " would sink in his throat." He was not
meant for a speaker. Yet, it appears, he had a con
siderable business for a young man. I find him em
ployed in about five hundred causes previous to the
year 1771, and in about four hundred and fifty causes
in the next three and a half years, when he finally gave
up business. His total fees of 1771 were about two
thousand dollars for the year; and that, probably,
shows the average of his professional receipts.
In 1772, January 1, in the twenty-ninth year of his
age, Mr. Jefferson married Mrs. Martha Skelton, the
childless widow of Bathurst Skelton, and the daughter
of John Wayles. She is said to have been handsome
and accomplished, and she certainly was rich. Jeffer
son then owned one thousand nine hundred acres of
land and forty or fifty slaves, bringing him an income
of two thousand dollars a year. Mr. Skelton's widow
brought him forty thousand acres of land and one
hundred and thirty-five slaves, which she had inherited
from her father. The marriage was happy, and both
parties seem to have been greatly fond of each other.

166 HISTORIC AMERICANS
Many tender little passages occur in his life showing
how deep was their mutual affection. There is no more
talk about " Becca " and " Sukey " in the letters.
In 1769, three years before his marriage, at about
the age of twenty-six, he had been chosen member of
the House of Burgesses for Albemarle County. He
was on the side of America, and against the oppressive
measures of George III. Still more, in favor of lib
erty, he urged the Legislature to allow individuals to
emancipate their slaves. No ; it could not be granted.
Not until 1782 could he persuade that body to aUow
manumission in Virginia. In 1774 the Governor dis
solved the House. Some of the most patriotic men
met in a tavern to consider the matter. Thomas Jef
ferson was one of them.
In May, 1774, there was a People's Convention in
Virginia, the first ever held there without express form
of law. This Convention was to choose delegates to the
Continental Congress, which had been called to meet
at Philadelphia, in September. Jefferson did not at
tend the Convention, being prevented by illness; but
he drew up a form of instruction for the delegates to
Congress, that it might be offered to the Convention,
and adopted therein. This was a very remarkable
paper, and revolutionary enough for New England.
His draft was not adopted ; but it was read, and after
wards printed as " A Summary View of the Rights of
British America." The leap was too long, as yet, for
the mass of the citizens. The " instructions " de
clared that the king " has no right to land a single
armed man on our shores." " The God who gave us
life, gave us liberty at the same time."
On May 17, 1775, he was chosen member of Con
gress, to supply the place of Peyton Randolph. He

THOMAS JEFFERSON 167
took his seat, June 21, 1775, rather an obscure man
then, with only a Virginia reputation. He had no
national fame save what the " Summary View " of
1774 had given him. He was a silent member, but
John Adams calls him " powerful, frank, explicit, and
decisive." His most important services in Congress were, —
(1) his draft of an address on the " Causes of taking
up arms against England; " (2) the answer which he
wrote to Lord North's " Conciliatory proposition ; "
and (3) his report of the far-famed Declaration of
Independence, to me the most remarkable and im
portant state paper in the world. Some of his de
scendants in Boston, I am told, still keep the little desk
he wrote it upon. I hope the spirit of democracy,
which is freedom to all men, still animates and inspires
all who write or look thereon.
In 1776, September 1, Jefferson returned from Con
gress, and devoted himself to reconstructing the con
stitution of his native State. He drafted a sketch or
outline of a constitution, which was not accepted, and
is now lost ; but he wrote the preamble to the constitu
tion which was adopted. This came from the same
inspiration which had animated the Declaration of In
dependence. He took his seat in the Virginia House
of Delegates, October 7, 1776, and there began the
other great work of his life, the thorough reformation
of the state institutions.
1. He proposed to abolish all entails of landed es
tates. The actual possessors of entailed estates might
dispose of them like other property. This was a revo
lution. Jefferson laid the democratic axe at the root
of that evil tree which poisoned the people. You may
guess at the opposition to the measure, and the wrath

168 HISTORIC AMERICANS
against its author. But it prevailed. Males and the
first-born were to have no special privilege. Primo
geniture was done away with. All the children might
share alike in the inheritance of their father's land and
goods. 2. He advised that foreigners should be allowed to
become naturalized, and to attain aU the rights of citi
zens. 3. He recommended the revision of the laws in three
important matters.
The penal laws must be mitigated. The penalty of
death ought to be limited to murder and treason.
There should be no imprisonment for honest debt.
There must be complete religious freedom. No one
should be forced to pay-for opinions which he disliked,
or for the support of any form of religion against his
will. The Church must rest on the voluntary contribu
tions of the people. The law may judge no man's
opinions. The Commonwealth of Virginia, like the
kingdom of heaven, is to show no special favor to
Christians, but Jews, Mohammedans, Deists, and Athe
ists are all to be equal before the law, and alike eligible
to all offices. The Church Establishment should be
abolished, and all religious sects put on an equal foot
ing. He would provide for the public education of the
people, promote the culture of the great mass of men in
free common schools, and improve the colleges for the
superior education of the few.
Some of these things he accomplished at once.
Others were so far in advance of the times, that years
must elapse before his ideas could be realized. He
wished to abolish slavery, but he had tried in vain to
procure an act to enable a master to emancipate his

THOMAS JEFFERSON 169
slaves. So in the revision of the laws he made no new
attempt. In these great works other men labored with Jef
ferson, but his was the leading mind, and shot before
all others in the slaveholding states.
Next he was chosen Governor of Virginia, June I,
1779. He was reelected the following year. Here he
had a difficult work to perform. Virginia contained
about two hundred and ninety thousand free whites,
and two hundred and seventy thousand slaves. They
were scattered over sixty-one thousand square miles.
The mihtia included all the free white men between
sixteen and sixty ; but so scattered was the population,
that in most of the settled parts of the state there was
not one militia-man to a square mile. And so ill-
armed were the people, that there was not more than
one gun that could fire a bullet, to five militia-men.
Not a gun to five square miles of land! In an aver
age tract of ten miles square, containing a hundred
square miles, there would not be twenty guns. When
recruits were drafted into the militia, many came with
out hats or caps, and were, moreover, barefoot! Be
sides all that, the State of Virginia had no shipping.
There were two hundred and seventy thousand men,
black enemies in the midst of the people, ready to side
with an invader when he should appear.1 The coast of
Virginia is intersected with bays and navigable rivers.
In 1779—80 the British attacked the state with a nu
merous fleet and well-appointed armies; what defense
could be made? With the most able governor she could
not have done much. But Jefferson had little admin
istrative skill, and not the least military talent or dis
position. The British did what they would in his
state, — burnt the houses, pillaged the people, and in

170 HISTORIC AMERICANS
two years did damage to the amount of fifteen million
hard dollars. Thirty thousand slaves were carried off.
The British did not arm them and set them against
their masters, else the state had been lost beyond re
covery. Jefferson's own estates were plundered. He
barely escaped being taken prisoner, for the militia
made scarce any defense. Only two hundred men
could be found to defend Richmond, one of the largest
towns in the state.
Jefferson resigned his office, declining a reelection in
1781. He found he was unfit for the station, and left
it for braver and more military men. An attempt
was made to impeach him, but it failed ; and, instead of
impeaching him, the legislature subsequently passed a
vote of thanks to him.
In 1781 I find him a member of the House of Dele
gates, working nobly for the great enterprises that have
been previously mentioned. He went back to Congress
in 1783, and there he, the author of the Declaration of
Independence, helped to ratify the treaty of peace. In
1784, June 1, the delegates of Virginia ceded the por
tion claimed by her of the Northwest Territory to the
United States. Congress then passed the famous
" Ordinance of the Northwest Territory." Jefferson
drafted the bill, and provided that the governments to
be constituted therein, " shaU be in republican forms,
and shall admit no person to be a citizen who holds
any hereditary title ; " " that after the year 1800 of
the Christian era, there shall be neither slavery nor
involuntary servitude in any of the said states, other
wise than in punishment of crimes, whereof the party
shall have been duly convicted to have been personaUy
guilty." 2 A motion was made on the 19th of April,
1794, and afterwards carried, to strike out this clause.

THOMAS JEFFERSON 171
The New England members gave a unanimous vote to
strike out that clause which would have estabHshed
slavery in what is now Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illi
nois, and Wisconsin.
Mr. Jefferson was the recognized leader of Congress
in 1783-4, though he had able men for rivals. On the
10th of March, 1785, Congress appointed him Minister
to France, to succeed Dr. Franklin. Indeed, he had
three times before been offered the same office, and had
declined it, sometimes in consequence of the feeble
health of his wife : now she had become loosed from her
frail body.
III. As diplomatist in Europe. 1784-1789.
I shall not discourse at any length on his services
abroad. He was a skilful diplomatist. His great
knowledge, his admirable sagacity, his conciliatory
spirit, and his good manners, helped to accomplish
what he sought. He attended to the usual routine of
a Minister's duties, but no great services were to be
accompHshed. He returned to his country, on leave
of absence, in 1789. A singukr reception awaited him
at home. When he came to Monticello his slaves took
him from his coach, and bore him in their arms to the
house. A singular mode of riding for the author of
the Declaration of Independence! But it proved that
if a master, he was kind and beloved ! Jefferson was
pleased with a diplomatic position, but President Wash
ington had destined him to higher services.
IV. In the Executive of the United States. 1790
-1809. When Jefferson returned from France the Constitu
tion was adopted, the new officers chosen, the Gov-

172 HISTORIC AMERICANS
ernment organized. At first he did not like the Consti
tution. It made the central government too strong,
excessively curtailing the power of the individual states.
It would allow the same man to be chosen President
again and again, to the end of his life. It contained
no Bill of Rights, declaring what powers the states
and the individual citizens did not delegate to the gen
eral government. Jefferson was a Democrat, and the
Constitution was not the work of Democrats ; in fact,
Franklin and Madison were the only men of consider
able ability who represented the Democracy in forming
the Constitution.3 But after it was adopted he came
earnestly to its defense, and held three several execu
tive offices under it.
1. He was Secretary of State from March 21, 1790,
to December 31, 1793.
He did not wish to accept the office, preferring his
diplomatic mission at Paris. But Washington solicited
him to accept, and he entered on the duties of the
Secretaryship. Hamilton was Secretary of Treasury,
Knox of War — both Federalists, whom Jefferson ac
cuses of leaning towards monarchy. Edmund Ran
dolph was Attorney-General, and Jefferson Secretary
of State — both Democrats. Jefferson and Hamilton
were commonly on opposite sides. They contended on
measures and on principles, then quarreled, and finally
hated one another with all their might.
Jefferson opposed the great measures of Washing
ton's administration; the funding bill, the assumption
of state debts, and the establishment of the United
States bank. Here, I think, he was right; but the
measures prevailed, and were popular with the wealthy
and educated classes in all the northern states. But
he opposed the military academy, the coast fortifica-

THOMAS JEFFERSON 173
tion, and the navy. He especially disliked the navy,
and opposed the measures of the President to raise it to
any footing efficient for war. He took sides with
France, and favored her encroachments. He was will
ing to allow Mr. Genet, the Minister of France, to
violate the neutrality of our soil, to enlist soldiers in
our towns, and to fit out and commission privateers in
our harbors. He disliked England, and, in fact, had
a distrust and fear of that nation, which were only too
well founded. Thus he inclined to a war with Eng
land, and resolutely resisted some of her pretensions
with manly spirit. He supported men who abused
Washington and the Government, of which Jefferson
himself was a part.
Washington became more and more anti-democratic
in his administration, put more and more confidence
in Hamilton, whose active mind, invasive will, and skill
in organizing men had an undue influence over the
President, then waxing feeble, and becoming averse to
business.4 Jefferson found his power diminishing in
the Cabinet, and not growing in the country. At the
end of 1793 he withdrew from his post, and sat down
on his estate at Monticello to repair his private fortunes,
already somewhat shattered.
Out of office he was the head of the Democratic party
even more than while in it, and the center of the oppo
sition to Washington and his administration. His
house was the headquarters of the opposition. His
letters show that his heart was not at Monticello, nor
his mind busy with maize, tobacco, and breeding slaves.
He professed to desire no office. He would live in pri
vate and arrange his plantations and his books.
But when Washington was about to withdraw from
office, in 1796, Jefferson was the Democratic candidate

174 HISTORIC AMERICANS
for the Presidency. He was defeated. John Adams
had seventy-one votes, — one more than a maj ority :
Jefferson, sixty-eight, — two less than enough. John
Adams represented the constitutional party, which in
cluded the wealth, the education, the farming and the
mercantile interests, and the inventive skill of the na
tion. Jefferson was the champion of the progressive
party, which was composed of a few men of genius, of
ideas and strength, but chiefly made up of the lower
masses of men, with whom the instincts are stronger
than reflection, and the rich Slaveholders of the South,
who liked not the constraints of law.
2. While Jefferson was Vice-President, his only
function was to preside in the Senate, where the Fed
eralists had a decided majority. President Adams
disliked him, shunned him, did not consult him about
public affairs. Indeed, the political difference between
them was immense. Their systems were antagonistic.
Jefferson looked with the eyes of a partisan on some
of the measures of Adams's administration, and with
righteous contempt on the " Alien and Sedition " Law,
and other despotic measures. But in these he must
have read the prophecy that his opponents would soon
fall, to rise nevermore. He contended vehemently
against the party in power.
In 1798 he said, " Our general Government, in nine
or ten years, has become more arbitrary than even
that of England, and has swallowed up more of the
public Hberty." He drew up the celebrated Kentucky
Resolutions of 1798, which declared several acts of
Congress " null and void ; " " not law, but altogether
void, and of no force ; " and called on the other states,
within their bounds, to nullify them, and all such un
constitutional acts. Such resolutions looked revolu-

THOMAS JEFFERSON 175
tionary. Alas, they were only too just! But Ken
tucky was not quite ready for such strong measures,
and modified the resolutions. Presently Madison pre
sented the same doctrine in the Virginia Resolutions of
1798. Both papers came from the democratic spirit
of Jefferson, and the seeming dangers were yet un
avoidable. For the acts they opposed were about as
unjust as the Fugitive Slave Bill of 1850. Jefferson
feared centrahzed power, which always degenerates into
despotism. He loved local self-government, and did
not apprehend that it would run to Hcense, as it yet
often has done, and now does in South Carolina, Geor
gia, and Alabama. He was afraid only of the con
centrated despotism of the few, not knowing that the
many may also become tyrants.
He watched with a keen eye the increasing troubles
of the Federal party, the hostility of its leaders to the
President, for whose office he was the chief candidate
of the democracy. He grew more and more bold, and
confident of success. Indeed, the ultimate victory of
his partisans was never doubtful. They embodied the
nation's instinct of progress, though in no high moral
form. The Federal party deserted the ablest and the most
honest of their great men. John Adams was defeated.
Jefferson and Burr had the same number of electoral
votes. It came to the House of Representatives to de
cide who should be President. They voted by states.
The Democracy voted for Jefferson, the Federalists
preferred Aaron Burr. Thirty-five times they balloted
without choice. On the 17th of February (1801), —
on the seventh day of the ballot, and at the thirty-sixth
trial, — Jefferson was chosen. Burr was Vice-Presi
dent, and the Federal party dead. Rich in great men,

176 HISTORIC AMERICANS
who did noble service in their day, it had done its work,
and it died when it was needed no longer. Let you and
me do justice to its great merits and to its great
men, but never share in its distrust of the people and
of the dearest instincts of humanity.
3. Jefferson became President on the 4th of March,
1801, and held the office eight years.
It was a fortunate time for the chief of the Dem
ocratic party to enter upon his power. The Federal
ists had taken the responsibihty of organizing the gov
ernment, providing for the payment of debts, levying
taxes, making treaties of alliance and commerce with
foreign states. The Democracy had only to criticize
the faults of their rivals ; they were not obliged to share
the blame of what was unpopular. Besides, the storm
of war which had threatened between the United States
and either England or France, had been blown off by
the powerful breath of Adams. The nation was at
peace, the revenue abundant, industry more various
and successful than ever before. Jefferson was the
most popular man in his party ; perhaps, also, himself
the ablest. Certainly no Democrat was endowed with
such versatile skill. There was no longer any hope
of reconciling the two parties as such, or of reconciling
the Federal leaders. John Adams had gone down.
Washington himself could not have breasted the flood
of waters for a week longer; the great swollen sea of
the Democracy would have overwhelmed him, and, with
its irresistible surge, would have borne some more for
tunate rival far up the strand.
The Federal party was swallowed up. Jefferson's
policy was not to array the hostile parties, but, break
ing up all parties, to gather to himself the mass of
the people. His inaugural address, very handsomely

THOMAS JEFFERSON 177
written, was a proclamation of peace. " We are all
Republicans, we are all Federalists," said he. Nothing
could be more timely.
He selected a good Cabinet. The mates were all
Democrats. He was master, not to be overcome by his
councillors, as Adams, and even as Washington, had
often been. He did not change them in eight years:
they were a unit. He removed the Federal leaders from
aU the most important offices. How else could he get
rid of them ? " Few die," said he, " and none resign."
But he intended not more than twenty removals in all.
Of course those who went out looked grim at those who
came in, lean with expectation. Jefferson would have
rotation in office.
Here are the six chief acts of his administration.
1. He abandoned the defenses of the country. Upon
the ground of expediency, he opposed the fortification
of principal harbors, and he considered the establish
ment of a mihtary academy not within the specific
powers assigned to Congress. While he was Vice-
President, he and his Republican party had vehemently
opposed a navy, as being altogether unsuited to the
means of the United States, and as being likely to in
volve the country in war. In this he opposed and ob
structed the policy very much favored by Mr. Adams.
And, consistently with these principles, when he him
self came into power, he neglected the army and navy,
and insisted upon building two hundred and fifty gun
boats, which should cost but five thousand dollars each,
instead of constructing large and more efficient vessels,
which would require the permanent employment of
naval officers and seamen. It was Mr. Jefferson's plan,
that in time of peace these gunboats should be hauled
VI— 12

178 HISTORIC AMERICANS
up under sheds, erected for the purpose on the sea
shore; and that in war time they should be fitted for
service, and manned with a maritime militia, enlisted
temporarily for the purpose. This scheme was vio
lently attacked, and in fact proved a failure. Mr.
Jefferson employed Thomas Paine to write in defense
of it. He certainly wrote very ingeniously, but, in
spite of his logic, the public and the men of experience
remained incredulous, and " when, soon afterwards,
many of the gunboats were driven ashore in a tempest,
or were otherwise destroyed, no one seemed to regard
their loss as a misfortune, nor has any attempt been
since made to replace them." In these things he made
great mistakes, partly because he limited his views from
ill-conceived motives of economy, and partly because of
a wise fear of laying the foundations of great and per
manent military and naval establishments. And thus
it was that he left his country's commerce and seamen
defenseless on the ocean.
2. He promoted the repeal of the Judiciary Act.
This swept off for ever Mr. Adams's " Midnight
Judges," 5 and established an admirable precedent,
which will have its due weight at some future day.
From his earliest days of public life he had always
known that judges were but men, and that they were
affected with weakness and infirmity, with prejudice
and party spirit, like as other men are.6 In 1778 he
had attempted to provide, that in the Chancery Court
of Virginia all matters of fact should be tried by a
jury, in the same manner as in the courts of law. But
here he was defeated by an adroit amendment proposed
by Mr. Pendleton. It was one of his objections to
the Constitution of the United States, that the decisions
of the judges of the national courts were not sub-

THOMAS JEFFERSON 179
ject to the same qualified negative of the executive
power as are all the acts of Congress. In his autobiog
raphy he writes, " Nothing could be more salutary
there [in England] than a change to the tenure [of
the judges] of good behavior, and the question of good
behavior left to the vote of a simple majority in the
two Houses of Parliament." In his first annual mes
sage, as President, to Congress, he says that the papers
he lays before them wiU enable them " to judge of the
proportion which the institution [United States Su
preme Court] bears to the business it has to perform."
In a letter to Mr. Kerchival he objects to the inde
pendence of the judiciary, and affirms that they ought
to have been elected. " The judges of Connecticut,"
says he, " have been chosen by the people for nearly
two centuries, and I believe that there has never hardly
been an instance of change." He proceeds, and re
marks that " if prejudice is stiU to prevail . .
against the vital principle of periodical election of
judges by the people, ... let us retain the power
of removal on the concurrence of the executive and
legislative branches, and nomination by the Executive
alone. Nomination to office is an executive function.
To leave it to the legislature, as we do, is a violation
of the principle of the separation of powers." Also,
in 1799, he writes, " The judiciary is alone and single-
handed in its assaults upon the Constitution, but its
assaults are more sure and deadly, as from an agent
seemingly passive and unassuming ; " and to Judge
Johnson, " This practice [of the Supreme Court of
the United States] of traveling out of the case to
prescribe what the law would be in a moot case not
before the court, is very irregular and very censurable.
. . . In the Marbury Case, the Chief -Justice went

180 HISTORIC AMERICANS
on to lay down what the law would have been had the
court jurisdiction of the case. . . . The object
was clearly to instruct any other court, having the
jurisdiction, what they should do if Marbury should
apply to them." And to Mr. Barry, in 1822, he
writes, " We already see the power installed for Hfe,
responsible to no authority (for impeachment is not
even a scarecrow), advancing with a noiseless and
steady pace to the great object of consolidation."
To Edward Livingston, in 1852, " One single object,
if your provision attains it, will entitle you to the end
less gratitude of society, — that of restraining judges
from usurping legislation. With no body of men is
this restraint more wanting than with the judges of
what is called our general government, but what I call
our foreign department. They are practising on the
constitution by inferences. . . . This member of
the government was at first considered the most harm
less and helpless of all it's organs. But it has proved
that the power of declaring what the law is, ad libitum,
by sapping and mining, slowly and without alarm, the
foundations of the Constitution, can do what open force
would not dare to attempt." There are many other
better known and more frequently quoted passages to
the same purpose. And to show that Mr. Jefferson's
fear of the despotism of the Judiciary was by no means
unfounded, read a letter from a distinguished Feder
alist, Oliver Wolcott (then Secretary of the United
States Treasury), to his friend Fisher Ames, which
bears date 29th of December, 1799 : " There is no
way [for the general government] to combat the state
opposition but by an efficient and extended organiza
tion of judges, magistrates, and other civil officers."
Thus it seems that Mr. Jefferson was, during his

THOMAS JEFFERSON 181
whole political life, well aware of those tendencies
which would make the Judiciary, to use his own lan
guage, " a despotic branch." 7
3. He caused to be abolished all the internal and di
rect taxes which had, before his administration, been
levied by the Government of the United States. They
consisted of taxes, or excise, on stills, domestic spirits,
refined sugars, licenses to keep shops, sales at auction,
and on carriages, stamped vellum, parchment, etc.
They were abohshed after the first day of June, 1802.
Meantime, and during their collection, they had ex
cited such opinions and feelings as were expressed in
Mr. Jefferson's letter to Mr. Madison, dated Decem
ber 28, 1794 : " The excise law is an infernal one.
The first error was to admit it by the Constitution;
the second, to act on that admission; the third, and
last, will be to make it the instrument of dismembering
the Union, and setting us all afloat to choose what
part of it we will adhere to. . . . The detestation
of the excise law is universal, and has now associated to
it a detestation of the Government, and [the informa
tion] that a separation which, perhaps, was a very dis
tant and problematical event, is now near and certain,
and determined in the mind of every man." These
taxes had afterwards caused the famous Whiskey In
surrection in Pennsylvania in 1794, which at that time
seemed as seriously to threaten the stability of our
Union as any political disturbances that have sfnce
taken place. The entire amount which these excise and
direct taxes brought into the treasury of the United
States was but six hundred thousand dollars per an
num; that is to say, the gross revenue was one million
of dollars, and the cost of its collection was four hun
dred thousand dollars. As Mr. Jefferson said, " By

182 HISTORIC AMERICANS
suppressing at once the whole internal taxes, we abol
ish three-fourths of the offices now existing and spread
over the land." It was certainly a wise measure of ad
ministration and pacification.
4. He pardoned all persons in jail for offenses
against the Alien and Sedition Laws, and discontinued
all process against men who were waiting trial on
charges of breaking those laws. He was clearly of
opinion that these wicked laws were unconstitutional,
and he went forward promptly and boldly to remedy
the injustice which they had so uselessly occasioned.
5. He secured the acquisition of the territory of
Louisiana by negotiation and purchase.
This was a success of the greatest importance to
the security and to the prosperity of this country.
And by no one could it have been attained with more
foresight and skill, or by more wise use of fortunate
opportunities, than were exhibited by Mr. Jefferson be
fore and during the events of the negotiation.
April 18, 1802, President Jefferson writes to Rob
ert R. Livingston, " The cession of Louisiana and the
Floridas by Spain to France works most sorely on the
United States. ... It reverses our political rela
tions, and will form a new epoch in our political course.
We have ever looked to her [France] as our
natural friend. . . . There is on the globe one
single spot, the possessor of which is our natural and
habitual enemy. It is New Orleans, through which the
produce of three-eights of our territory must pass.
. . . France, placing herself in that door, at once
assumes to us the attitude of defiance. Spain might
have retained it quietly for years. Her pacific dis
position, her feeble state, would induce her to increase
our facilities there. . . . Not so can it ever be in

THOMAS JEFFERSON 183
the hands of France. The impetuosity of her temper,
the energy and restlessness of her character, .
render it impossible that France and the United States
can continue long friends when they meet in so irritable
a position. The day that France takes possession of
New Orleans, . . . from that moment we must
marry ourselves to the British fleet and nation. We
must turn aU our attention to a maritime force, for
which our resources place us on very high ground."
Such was his statement of the position of affairs at
the time when he so wisely initiated the measures which
were to secure the vast territories of the West to the
United States. On his part everything was ready and
prepared to receive the gift of what was then for the
most part a wilderness, but which he knew would soon
become of inestimable importance to the peace and wel
fare of his country. Very quickly, sooner than he
could have hoped or dreamed, the situation changed.
First Consul Bonaparte suddenly decided to break the
Peace of Amiens with England. As a preparation for
so doing, and to raise means for his immense projects,
it became necessary for him to make sale of Louisiana
to the party who would pay him the most for it ; for he
weU knew that such property as France had in Louis
iana would not be worth two months' purchase after his
war should be declared. Therefore it was that, in the
early summer of 1803 (the treaty having been con
cluded 30th of April of that year), President Jeffer
son was able to accept the congratulations of his
friends on the acquisition of Louisiana. " The terri
tory acquired," says he, " as it includes all the waters
of the Missouri and Mississippi, has more than doubled
the area of the United States."
In this connection Mr. Jefferson has been much

184 HISTORIC AMERICANS
blamed for the addition of Louisiana to the territories
of the United States without any constitutional au
thority. It was his own opinion, never concealed by
him, that an amendment of the Constitution was neces
sary to consummate the effect of his negotiations.
The same idea frequently appeared in his correspon
dence, and even the forms of the amendments to the
Constitution proposed by him, to authorize the acquisi
tions of Louisiana and Florida, were more than once re
corded. The importance of promptly concluding this
valuable purchase, or the overruling influence of po
litical friends, seems to have extinguished these consti
tutional scruples, which were really and earnestly en
tertained by him. It is the more to be regretted that
he who had boasted, " I never had an opinion in poli
tics which I was afraid to own," should not, on this
important occasion, and when President of the United
States, have required the respect which he himself
thought due to the Constitution, to have been observed.
It would have given the weight of his great name to
an honest precedent, and it might have made impossi
ble the juggling tricks of diplomacy whereby Texas
afterwards became annexed to the United States.8
6. He imposed the Embargo in 1807.
This measure also is to be considered the act of Mr.
Jefferson, in a particular manner, and was initiated by
him in his special message of December 18, 1807.
England, predominant at sea, had destroyed the French
naval power, and to aggravate the French commercial
embarrassments to the utmost, had resorted to extreme
and odious pretensions, claiming the penalties of block
ade against neutral vessels proceeding to or from sea
ports where no actual blockade was maintained by her.
In the end, a contention of Decrees, issued by the Em-

THOMAS JEFFERSON 185
peror of France, and of Orders in Council, proclaimed
by the Government of England, had brought things to
such a pass that the neutral vessels of the United
States could not continue their estabHshed commerce
in any direction without being subject to capture either
by the naval powers and privateers of England or of
France. If they made any voyage to England or to
English possessions, or allowed themselves to be
searched or visited by any English vessel of war, the
Emperor of France claimed the right to capture and
confiscate them. If they made any voyage to any
part of the continent of Europe, the whole of which
was then under the domination of France, in that case
the innumerable cruisers of England intervened, and
made what they called lawful prizes of American ships.
The situation was such that it seemed to force a war
upon the country, for which it was by no means pre
pared, and which it could in no way afford. And,
moreover, even had America decided to declare a war,
the dilemma was serious, whether it ought to be de
clared against France or against England. The ac
tion of each Government had been towards us equally
aggressive in principle and almost equally ruinous in
practice. . But France had been to us, during our Rev
olutionary struggles of thirty years before, our staunch
and profitable friend, and neither the ill treatment of
her more recent Governments, nor the haughty injus
tice of some of their powerful ministers in promoting
the unjust confiscation of our ships, nor the venal cor
ruption of others in holding out their hands to our en
voys for secret bribes, could make our country forget
how great was our debt of gratitude to France. Yet,
on the other part, the temptation was great to uphold
the policy of England. By so doing, a very consider-

186 HISTORIC AMERICANS
able part of our commerce would have been preserved
with England, and we should have enjoyed a consider
able share of the English carrying trade. And this
was the view taken by the eastern and northern states,
by leading Federalists, and by all those who had great
sympathy with England as the champion of liberty,
and the efficient leader of the combination which she
alone could maintain against the enlarging tyranny of
Bonaparte. Thus it was, our commerce extended, our
vessels captured, both on seas and in port, by author
ities both English and French, under pretenses which
had no support from the law of nations, or any mari
time law.
Mr. Jefferson found the solution of all these difficul
ties in the Embargo, which forbade to American ships
and merchants all foreign commerce whatever. Under
the circumstances it may be justified as a wise meas
ure of temporary relief and preparation. But the
hurried manner in which it was forced upon the coun
try, and the unnecessary long period of its continu
ance, until their distresses had nearly compelled the
commercial states to rebellion and secession, is not eas
ily to be justified, nor would in any recent times have
been considered as otherwise than degrading to our
national honor.
On the 10th of November, 1807, the ship Horizon,
which had been stranded on the French coast by stress
of weather, was condemned as a prize by the French
courts, because she had English produce on board, and
this decree was upheld and justified by the French
Government. The day after, November 11, the Order
in Council was passed, by which Great Britain pro
hibited all trade whatever with France, or with her
allies ; that is to say, with the whole continent of Eu-

THOMAS JEFFERSON 187
rope. Immediately on receipt of intelligence of these
facts, on the 18th of December, 1807, Mr. Jefferson
sent to Congress his message recommending the Em
bargo. The bill was passed through the Senate, with
closed doors, only after four hours' debate. It was
also forced through the House of Representatives in
like manner, though not with equal speed, and became
a law on the 22nd of December. No notice was given,
nor was any opportunity for consultation or explana
tion afforded to the numerous merchants and ship
owners who were so deeply interested in the measure,
and who were thus deprived of their lawful business
and property. It seemed as if the despotic and arbi
trary decrees dictated by the French Emperor and
by the British Council, were to be imitated by the first
President of the United States, who was by eminence
entitled a " Republican ; " with this difference only,
that whereas the Decrees of Berlin and Milan, and the
British Orders, were aimed as measures of retaliation
against enemies, our Embargo was so directed as to
invade the rights, oppress the commerce, and destroy
the fortunes and subsistence of our own citizens.
Mr. Jefferson's own explanation and justification
may be found in several passages of his writings. In
his reply to an address of Tammany Society, February
29, 1808, less than ten weeks after the passage of the
bill : " There can be no question in a mind truly
American whether it is best to send our citizens and
property into certain captivity, and then wage war
for their recovery, or to keep them at home, and to
turn seriously to that policy which plants the manufac
turer and the husbandman side by side, and establishes
at the door of every one that exchange of mutual labors
and comforts which we have hitherto sought in distant

188 HISTORIC AMERICANS
regions, and under perpetual risk of broils with them."
November 21, of the same year, he writes, " By with
drawing a while from the ocean we have suffered some
loss, but we have gathered home our immense capital.
. . . We have saved our seamen from the jails of
Europe, and gained time to prepare for defense.
. . Submission and tribute, if that be our choice,
are no baser now than at the date of the Embargo."
As time went on the Embargo became exceedingly
oppressive to all the commercial interests of the coun
try, and they were the less patient of its effects because
of the sudden manner in which it had been forced
upon them. And in the winter of 1809, after an inter
view with John Quincy Adams, which convinced him of
an extreme dissatisfaction in the eastern states, bor
dering upon rebellion, he was obliged to submit to its
repeal, which took effect on the 4th of March in that
year. As to its repeal, which was carried sorely
against his own personal opinion, he writes to Gen
eral Armstrong, on the 5th of March, " After fifteen
months' continuance, it is now discontinued, because,
losing fifty millions of dollars of exports annually by
it, it costs more than war, which might be carried
on for a third of that, besides what might be got by
reprisal. War, therefore, must follow if the Edicts
are not repealed before the meeting of Congress in
May." And also to Mr. Short, three days later, he
says, " Our Embargo has worked hard. It has, in
fact, federalized three of the New England states.
We have substituted for it a non-intercourse with
France and England and their dependencies, and a
trade to all other places. It is probable that the bel
ligerents will take our vessels under their Edicts, in
which case we shall probably declare war against
them."

THOMAS JEFFERSON 189
On the 4th of March, 1809, the last day of Mr. Jef
ferson's Presidency, the Embargo ceased to exist.
Originally it may have been a measure of reasonable
discretion, but it had been protracted so as to have
produced great distress to those who were engaged in
commerce and in shipping, and through large districts
of country it had cooled the friends and heated the
enemies of the Democratic party. Mr. Jefferson him
self could never have realized the importance of com
merce and navigation to his country. In October 13,
1785, he writes to Count Hogendorp, " You ask what
I think on the expediency of encouraging our states
to be commercial. Were I to indulge my own theory,
I should wish them to practise neither commerce nor
navigation, but to stand, with respect to Europe, pre
cisely on the footing of China. We should thus avoid
wars, and all our citizens would be husbandmen." Such
ideas he seems to have entertained, at least until the close
of his poHtical life; nor does he ever appear to have
been convinced until his interview with John Quincy
Adams, before alluded to, of the extreme and intolerable
pressure with which his Embargo weighed down some
of the greatest and most important interests of his
country. Mr. Jefferson's public life was now brought to a
close. He had attended the inauguration of his friend,
James Madison, his successor in the Presidency, and
still a vigorous man of sixty-six years of age. He re
tired to Monticello about the middle of March, able
to accomplish the last three days of his journey there
on horseback. Here he resided during the remaining
seventeen years of his life.
Mr. Jefferson cannot be reproached with any fond
ness for money, or for any disposition unduly to hoard

190 HISTORIC AMERICANS
or to accumulate it. His expenditures were always
those of a generous and Hberal mind. In his youth,
when it could not have been the custom for young men
to collect a library, we find that he lost, by the burning
of his house at ShadweU, books which cost him about
a thousand dollars. Not discouraged by this, during
all his active life he had purchased books in literature,
science, history, diplomacy, the ckssics, belles-lettres,
such as were important to his mental culture. The
hospitalities of his mansion, too, had always been with
out stint or bound, according to the custom of the
country in which he lived, and this the attraction of his
distinguished and agreeable social qualities, and of his
important poHtical position, had rendered very burden
some to a fortune of an amount which could never have
been considered very large, and of a nature which could
only have been made to yield any considerable income
by a degree of care and attention which he was never
in a position to afford. In his public Hfe he had always
considered it due to the dignity of his high political
positions to apportion his expenses in a liberal man
ner for hospitality, service, and equipage. And, in
fact, during his time, in memory of the aristocratic
institutions which had existed, and of the circumstances
of forms and dignities with which Washington had re
cently surrounded himself, it would have hardly been
possible for him to make any savings, either from the
allowances of his official employments or from the in
come of his private fortune.
He returned, then, to Monticello in declining Hfe,
with a moderate income, and with great demands upon
it. The principal occupations of his remaining years
were the education of his grandchildren, who lived with
him, the management of his own estates, hospitalities

THOMAS JEFFERSON 191
to numerous guests, and, most of all, the writing of re
plies to the multitude of letters with which he was quite
overburdened and almost overwhelmed. Thus for six
teen years he passed his time, for the most part in the
daily duties and the daily pleasures of the life of a
country gentleman. The order of his life was at times
shaded and darkened by serious anxieties as to his pe
cuniary affairs. These severely pressed upon him dur
ing his later years, not so much by reason of his own
improvidence, as of failure on the part of friends whom
he had trusted. Yet, notwithstanding these things, he
still preserved his philosophy and serenity of mind, and
made such arrangements as were possible to meet his
obHgations and to preserve his independence.
During the period from 1817 to 1826, he found very
serious and continued occupation in founding the es-
tabhshment of the University of Virginia. He had re
sumed the projects of his youth, which were for the ed
ucation of all classes of white people. By his in
fluence, constantly and unremittingly exhibited, the
Legislature of his State had made grants, not indeed so
krge as he demanded, but still in large and liberal
measure, for the purpose of education, generally for
the founding of the University of Virginia. The
control and superintendence of this establishment in its
earlier years, indeed its initiation and foundation, were
confided by the State to a Board of Visitors, upon
which were glad to serve the most distinguished men of
Virginia, with Mr. Jefferson as their chief. To Mr.
Jefferson it was mainly due that the most able and
learned men were induced to serve as professors in this
institution, and that its constitution was of the most
liberal character.
The year 1826 found him at the crisis of his for-

192 HISTORIC AMERICANS
tunes and of his Hfe. Eighty-three years old, infirm
of body, the vigor of his mind failing, the embarrass
ments of his pecuniary affairs increasing, and suddenly
much aggravated by an unexpected loss of a consider
able amount, he found himself obliged to consider how
he could so dispose of his remaining property as to pay
his debts and supply the necessities of living. While
he was engaged in proposing such arrangements as
occurred to him, and while his private and pubHc
friends and the legislatures of some of the states were
occupied in devising measures for the pecuniary relief
of one to whom they were so much indebted, worn with
age ajid with cares and disorders, he quietly expired,
a little after noon, on the 4th of July, 1826 ; about four
hours before the death of his compatriot and friend,
John Adams, and just fifty years after himself and the
same John Adams had signed that Declaration which,
on the 4th of July, 1776, announced to the world the
independence of America.
Mr. Jefferson had intellectual talents greatly supe
rior to the common mass of men, and for the times his
opportunities of culture in youth were admirable. It
was a special advantage to him to have begun with ex
cellent academic learning in early life, and at college to
have felt the quickening influence of an able man like
Professor Small, well trained in scholarship, and cher
ishing a taste for science and literature. Mr. Jeffer
son early learned the Latin, Greek, French, Spanish
and Italian languages, and showed a fondness for read
ing and study not common in Virginia, and quite un
common in any part of America, for a young man who
had such independent control of time and means as he
had.

THOMAS JEFFERSON 193
All his life he associated, by preference, with able
men and educated men. His inherited property en
abled him to buy books, which, to the value of one
thousand dollars, were burned with his house at Shad
weU, when he was twenty-two years old. He could in
dulge his taste for music. He was not forced by the
humble circumstances of his younger days to print
books, like Franklin, to survey lands, like Washington,
or to keep school, like Adams. But I cannot think his
mind a great one. I cannot point out any name of those
times which may stand in the long interval between the
names of Franklin and John Adams. In the shorter
space between Adams and Jefferson there were many.
Some of them in power and force nearly approached,
and almost equaled, Adams. There was a certain lack
of soHdity: his intellect was not very profound, not
very comprehensive. Intelligent, able, adroit as he
was, his success as an intellectual man was far from
being entire or complete. He exhibited no spark of
genius, nor any remarkable degree of original natural
talent. His strength lay in his understanding, the practical
power. He learned affairs quickly. He remembered
well. He was fond of details in aU things. He kept
a diary, in which he noted systematically all sorts of
facts. He was a nice observer of nature, and as well
as his opportunities permitted he cultivated the sciences
of botany, zoology, geology.
Ardent in his feelings, quick in his apprehension,
and rapid in his conclusions, his judgment does not ap
pear to have been altogether sound and reliable.
As to his imagination, he seems to have had less than
the average of educated men; and though fond of
beauty and simplicity in all forms, there yet seemed to
VI— 13

194 HISTORIC AMERICANS
be little of the creative power of poetry in him. In his
youth he loved to read poetry, but in his old age he
laid it aside for the most part, retaining only his fond
ness for Homer, Hesiod, Sophocles, Euripides, and the
Greek and Latin classics generally. In answer to a
letter making inquiries as to a proper course for edu
cation for females, he writes, in 1818, " Too much
poetry should not be indulged. Homer is useful for
forming style and taste. Pope, Dryden, Thomson, and
Shakespeare, and of the French, Moliere, Racine, the
Corneilles, may be read with pleasure and improve
ment." In literature he disliked fiction generaUy. Don
Quixote was a favorite in his youth; so were a few
pastoral and lyric writers ; but he never learned to ad
mire Byron, Campbell, Southey, or Coleridge. Yet I
find no American, during the revolutionary period,
whose intellectual Hfe was so marked with good taste
and aesthetic culture. His was a fine nature finely ed
ucated. He hated all coarseness, and iii that respect
was as modest as a maiden, any indelicacy in his pres
ence causing him to blush even in old age.
He had not great power of reason. In matters of
science he was rather a dabbler than a philosopher, yet
he had considerable love for science. He knew some
thing of mathematics, and read thoughtful books. He
disliked ethics and metaphysics, and had no talent for
either. He had no understanding of abstract and uni
versal truth. He thought Plato a writer of nonsense,
speaks of the " whimseys, the puerilities, and unintelli
gible jargon " of Plato's Republic, and says he often
asks himself how the world could have so long consented
to give reputation to such nonsense.
As an inventor he had some pretensions. But he

THOMAS JEFFERSON 195
was an inventor, not of new ideas, but of forms only.
He had great skiU in organizing ideas into institutions,
and in influencing and marshalling men into parties.
His administrative powers were neither great nor
good. Though he always gave a certain degree of at
tention to his private affairs, yet they were never well
managed. His own property and that brought him by
his wife, would have seemed sufficient to maintain an
honorable independence; and yet this estate, notwith
standing its large receipts from official salaries for
many years, seems to have been contantly diminishing,
as well during his absence from home as after his re
turn to it. So, too, his capacity for administration,
both as Governor of Virginia and as President of the
United States, can by no means be considered eminent.
His conduct of the affairs of Virginia during the Brit
ish invasion, when a British army of fifteen hundred
strong held his state for a year, however difficult may
have been the circumstances, by no means adds to his
reputation. In the Presidency, it is now quite cer
tain that his administrative ideas respecting the army
and the military academy, the navy and the gunboats,
and the continuance of the Embargo, as an honorable
measure less oppressive and more economical than war,
were aU great mistakes to have been made by the head
of the government at that time.
Let us now consider his moral character.
He had a good deal of moral courage, though this
was somewhat Hmited by his sensitiveness to public
opinion. He had not great physical courage, else the
charge against him as Governor of Virginia could
never have been made, and would have been more de
cisively repelled. His natural delicacy of nature gave

196 HISTORIC AMERICANS
him quick intuitions and rapid perceptions of the
right. These induced him even to avoid the theatre, to
hate drunkenness, though he was by no means an as
cetic, and to shun tobacco, swearing, gaming, and all
indecency. But I think the charge that he was father
of some of his own slaves is but too well founded.9
There is no instance of his having been engaged in any
duel. His faults were vices of calculation, and not of
passion. He was quick-tempered, earnest, and excit
able, but at the same time he was free and outspoken,
good-humored, and cheerful. Always hopeful, he for
a long time thought the war of 1812 not likely to take
place; and after 1816 was quite sanguine that he
could redeem his own private fortunes by successes in
farming. In his earlier years he was confident that
the American Revolution would turn out well; and in
his later life thought he should live to see the Virginia
University attract five hundred or a thousand- students.
He was not vindictive. It is true he was not tolerant
to ideas, but he was tolerant to persons. He never
made a poHtical division into a personal difference.10
He was not always quite sincere. He made great
professions of love and respect to Washington, while
he at the same time sustained Freneau and Callender,
Washington's vilest and most unscrupulous libelers.
In the matters also of Thomas Paine's pamphlet, and
of his having given Mr. Paine a passage to America in
a public ship, his desire for popularity seems to have
betrayed him into making undue apologies.11 The
affair of his letter to Mazzei, which came to the public
knowledge, and at which Washington was justly
offended, affords another instance of explanations,
which could not have been quite sincere.12 He some
times used harsh language. He caUs Marshall's Life

THOMAS JEFFERSON 197
of Washington " a five-volume libel " on the Democ
racy. Hamilton's Life is to be written by one " who
to the bitterness of the President adds the rancor of the
fiercest Federalism." It seems of him, as of Frank
lin, that he had lived in a bad moral atmosphere, though
born with a good and exact moral nature. He was
of an earnest character, though he did not always seem
to be so. He was not reverential of great men, and
his temper was quite emancipated from the authority
of great names. He had great powers of pleasing all
that were about him, or that came near to him. He
was never quarrelsome, or inclined to dispute. " Never
had an enemy in Congress," says Mr. Randall. He
had many friends, and he kept their friendships, and
always addressed himself to conduct affairs in the
smoothest and pleasantest manner. His perfectly
good temper consistently manifested itself in every
way. He was fond of young children. All the mem
bers of his family and his household were exceedingly
attached to him, and his letters to his daughters and
grandchildren, and even to Mr. and Mrs. Adams, ex
hibit his affectionate nature. Yet he was not a loving
man, Hke Franklin or Madison; rather he had great
love of approbation, and great fear of censure, to
gether with a mild, amiable, affectionate temper.
Of Mr. Jefferson's relation to slavery we have al
ready seen something. His family biographer, Mr.
RandaU, sums up the whole by saying, " He was whoUy
opposed to slavery on all grounds, and desired its
abolition." And, indeed, it is true that not many Re
publicans of the present day have principles more de
cided, or more thoroughly considered, as to the abstract
right of the negro to freedom, than were uttered and
written by Mr. Jefferson, from his earHest to his latest

198 HISTORIC AMERICANS
year. At his first entrance into the Legislature of
Virginia, he attempted, but failed, to carry a bill giv
ing to owners the right to free their slaves. Soon
afterwards he writes of the slave trade that " the rights
of human nature are deeply wounded by this prac
tice." On many occasions he suggested the abolition
of slavery in Virginia, by an act providing for the
freedom of all the children of slaves born after a cer
tain day. The provision which he proposed, exclud
ing slavery from aU the territory of the United States
north of the thirty-first parallel of latitude, has al
ready been cited. In his annual message to Congress,
December 2, 1806, he declares, " I congratulate you,
f eUow-citizens, on the approach of the period at which
you may constitutionally interpose your authority
to withdraw the citizens of the United States from all
further participation in those violations of human
rights which have been so long continued on the un
offending inhabitants of Africa." And in a letter
written only seven weeks before his death (dated May
20, 1826), he says, "My sentiments [on the subject
of slavery] have been forty years before the public.
Although I shall not live to see them con
summated, they will not die with me; but, living or
dying, they will always be in my most fervent prayer."
In 1781, Tarleton, in his raid through Virginia,
captured Monticello, compelled Mr. Jefferson to fly,
committed much waste upon his property, and carried
off about thirty of his skves. Seven years later, at
Paris, Mr. Jefferson, writing to Dr. Gordon, says, as
to the carrying off of his slaves, " Had this been to give
them freedom he [Tarleton] would have done right."
There is no distinguished writer of his time from
whom the Abolitionists can more effectively quote.

THOMAS JEFFERSON 199
" You know that no one wishes more ardently to see
an abolition, not only of the trade, but of the condi
tion of slavery." He earnestly desires " to see a good
system commenced for raising the condition both of
their [the negroes] body and mind to what it ought to
be." And he believed the race capable of improve
ment and enhghtenment, and very possibly of self-
government. " What an incomprehensible machine is man — who
can endure toil, famine, stripes, imprisonment, and
death itself, in vindication of his own liberty, and the
next moment be deaf to all those motives whose power
supported him through his trial, and inflict on his fel
low-man a bondage, one hour of which is fraught with
more misery than ages of that which he rose in rebel
lion to oppose! But we must wait with patience the
workings of an overruling Providence. I hope that
that is preparing deliverance of these our suffering
brethren. When the measure of their tears shall be
full, when their groans shaU have involved heaven itself
in darkness, doubtless a God of Justice will awaken to
their distress, and by diffusing light and HberaHty
among their oppressors, or, at length, by His exter
minating thunder, manifest His attention to the things
of this world, and [show] that they are not left to the
guidance of a blind fatality." And what can be more
graphic than the often-cited passage from his works,
on Virginia, respecting slavery. " The parent storms,
the child looks on, catches the lineaments of wrath,
puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller slaves,
gives a loose to the worst of passions, and thus nursed,
educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be
stamped by it with odious peculiarities. . . . In
deed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God

200 HISTORIC AMERICANS
is just. . . . The Almighty has no attribute
which can take side with us in such a contest."
Some person asked Mr. Jefferson whether he had
made any change in his religion. He replied, " Say
nothing of my religion. It is known to my God and
myself alone. Its evidence before the world is to be
sought in my life; if that has been honest and beauti
ful to society, the religion which has regulated it can
not be a bad one." We have seen that Mr. Jefferson
was a profound and independent thinker; he called no
man master, and among the various sectarians of his
day, who would not allow the name of Christian to each
other, it cannot be expected that it should have been
commonly allowed to him. Yet surely there was a cer
tain piety, and some depth of religious feeling in the
man. The book most frequently chosen for reading
before he went to bed was a coUection of extracts from
the Bible. In 1803, when President of the United
States, and overwhelmed with business, he extracted
from the New Testament such passages as he believed
to have come from the lips of Jesus Christ, and ar
ranged them in a small volume. Of this he says, " A
more beautiful or more precious morsel of ethics I have
never seen. It is a document in proof that I am a real
Christian ; that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of
Jesus ; very different from the Platonists, who caU me
infidel and themselves Christians and teachers of the
gospel, while they draw all their characteristic dogmas
from what its author never said or saw."
He said of himself that he had never meditated a
specific creed; and this is confirmed by what he in an
other place refers to as his religious creed on paper,
which was contained in a writing to Dr. Benjamin
Rush, dated April 21, 1803.13 It was not the state-

THOMAS JEFFERSON 201
ment of any creed, but a very general criticism of the
progress of mankind. He well knew that his religious
ideas were unpopular, and probably considered them,
however suitable to his own inteUectual power and in
dependence, not necessarily to be adopted by others.
Therefore, though he wrote to his daughter, Mrs.
Randolph, saying, " I have placed my religious creed
on paper, that my family should be enabled to estimate
the Hbels published against me on this subject," yet he
never made any attack on the reHgious faith of any
sect, nor ever attempted to make any proselyte to his
own. He never communicated his religious belief to
more than half-a-dozen persons. His oldest grand
son writes, " Of his peculiar religious views his fam
ily know no more than the world. He said it was
a subject each was religiously bound to study assidu
ously for himself, unbiased by the opinions of others.
It was a matter solely of conscience. After thorough
investigation, they were responsible for the righteous
ness, but not for the rightfulness, of their opinions.
That the expression of his opinion might influence
theirs, and that therefore he would not give it." 14
An anecdote is told of his once passing the evening
at Ford's Tavern, as he was traveling in the interior of
Virginia, with a clergyman who had no acquaintance
with him. While the topic of conversation was me
chanical, the stranger thought him to be an engineer;
when agricultural, he believed him to be a farmer; but
when the topic of religion was broached, the clergy
man considered that his companion must be another
clergyman, though without making up his mind of
what particular persuasion. Afterwards the clergy
man inquired of the landlord the name of his fellow-
guest. " What ! don't you know the squire ? That

202 HISTORIC AMERICANS
was Mr. Jefferson," was the reply. " Not President
Jefferson ! " " Yes, President Jefferson ! " " Why ! "
exclaimed the clergyman, " I tell you that was neither
an atheist nor an irreligious man. One of juster sen
timents I never met with." 15 And so rt is ; if we would
form an opinion as to his reHgion (and would it not
be well in the case of others as well as of himself?),
we must seek its evidence in his life. If that was
honest and beautiful to society, the religion which
regulated it cannot have been a bad one.
Of aU those who controlled the helm of affairs dur-£
ing the time of the Revolution, and while the constitu
tion and the forms of our national and state institutions
were carefuUy organized, there is none who has been
more generally popular, more commonly beloved, more
usually believed to be necessary to the legislation and
administration of his country, than Thomas Jefferson.
It may not be said of him that of aU those famous men
he could least have been spared; for in the rare and
great qualities for patiently and wisely conducting the
vast affairs of state and nation in pressing emer
gencies, he seems to have been wanting. But his
grand merit was this — that while powerful op
ponents favored a strong government, and be
lieved it necessary thereby to repress what they called
the lower classes, he, Jefferson, beHeved in hu
manity; believed in a true democracy. He respected
labor and education, and upheld the right to education
of all men. These were the ideas in which he was far
in advance of all the considerable men, whether of his
state or of his nation — ideas which he illustrated
through long years of his life and conduct. The great
debt that the nation owes to him is this — that he so
ably and consistently advocated these needful opinions,

THOMAS JEFFERSON 203
that he made himself the head and the hand of the great
party that carried these ideas into power, that put an
end to all possibiHty of class government, made natur
alization easy, extended the suffrage and applied it to
judicial office, opened a still wider and better education
to aU, and quietly inaugurated reforms, yet incom
plete, of which we have the benefit to this day, and
which, but for him, we might not have won against the
party of strong government, except by a difficult and
painful revolution.

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS
Within a few days one of the most distinguished
statesmen of the age has passed away; a man who
has long been before the public, f amilkrly known in
the new world and the old. He was one of the promi
nent monuments of the age. It becomes us to look
at his Hfe, works, and public character, with an im
partial eye; to try him by the Christian standard.
Let me extenuate nothing, add nothing, and set down
naught from any partial love or partial hate. His in
dividuality has been so marked in a long life, his good
and evil so sharply defined, that one can scarcely fail
to delineate its most important features.
God has made some men great and others Httle. The
use of great men is to serve the little men ; to take care
of the human race, and act as practical interpreters of
justice and truth. This is not the Hebrew rule, nor
the heathen, nor the common rule, only the Christian.
The great man is to be the servant of mankind, not
they of him. Perhaps greatness is always the same
thing in kind, differing only in mode and in form, as
well as degree. The great man has more of human
nature than other men, organized in him. So far as
that goes, therefore, he is more me than I am myself.
We feel that superiority in all our intercourse with
great men, whether kings, philosophers, poets, or
saints. In kind we are the same ; different in- degree.
In nature we find individuals, not orders and genera ;
but for our own convenience in understanding and
204

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 205
recollecting, we do a little violence to nature, and put
the individuals into classes. In this way we under
stand better both the whole and each of its parts. Hu
man nature furnishes us with individual great men;
for convenience we put them into several classes, cor
responding to their several modes or forms of great
ness. It is weU to look at these classes before we ex
amine any one great man; this will render it easier to
see where he belongs and what he is worth. Actual
service is the test of actual greatness; he who renders,
of himself, the greatest actual service to mankind, is
actuaUy the greatest man. There may be other tests
for determining the potential greatness of men, or the
essential; this is the Christian rule for determining the
actual greatness. Let us arrange these men in the
natural order of their work.
First of all, there are great men who discover gen
eral truths, great ideas, universal laws, or invent
methods of thought and action. In this class the vast-
ness of a man's genius may be measured, and his rela
tive rank ascertained by the transcendency of his ideas,
by the newness of his truth, by its practical value, and
the difficulty of attaining it in his time, and under his
pecuhar circumstances. In literature it is such men
who originate thoughts, and put them into original
forms; they are the great men of letters. In phi
losophy we meet with such ; and they are the great men
of science. Thus Socrates discovered the philosophical
method of minute analysis that distinguished his school,
and led to the rapid advance of knowledge in the
various and even conflicting academies, which held this
method in common, but applied it in various ways, well
or iU, and to various departments of human inquiry;
thus Newton discovered the law of gravitation, uni-

206 HISTORIC AMERICANS
versal in nature, and by the discovery did immense
service to mankind. In politics we find similar, or
analogous men, who discover yet other laws of God,
which bear the same relation to men in society that
gravitation bears to the orbs in heaven, or to the dust
and stones in the street; men that discover the first
truths of politics, and teach the true method of human
society. Such are the great men in politics.
We find corresponding men in religion; men who
discover an idea so central that all sectarianism of
parties or of nations seems little in its light; who dis
cover and teach the universal law which unifies the race,
binding man to man, and men to God ; who discover the
true method of religion conducting to natural worship
without limitation, to free piety, free goodness, free
thought. To my mind such are the greatest of great
men, when measured by the transcendency of their doc
trine and the service they render to aU. By the in
fluence of their idea, letters, philosophy, and politics
become nobler and more beautiful, both in their forms
and their substance.
Such is the class of discoverers; men who get truth
at first hand, truth pertaining either especially to liter
ature, philosophy, politics, rehgion, or at the same time
to each and all of them.
The next class consists of such as organize these
ideas, methods, truths, and laws ; they concretize the ab
stract, particularize the general ; they apply philosophy
to practical purposes, organizing the discoveries of
science into a railroad, a mill, a steamship, and by
their work an idea becomes fact. They organize love
into families, justice into a state, piety into a church.
Wealth is power, knowledge is power, reHgion power;

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 207
they organize aU these powers, wealth, knowledge, re
ligion, into common life.
This organizing genius is a very great one, and ap
pears in various forms. One man spreads his thought
out on the soil, whitening the land with bread-corn;
another applies his mind to the rivers of New England,
making them spin and weave for the human race ; this
man wiU organize his thought into a machine with one
idea, joining together fire and water, iron and wood,
animating them into a new creature, ready to do man's
bidding; while that with audacious hand steals the
lightning of heaven, organizes his plastic thought
within that pliant fire, and sends it of his errands to
fetch and carry tidings between the ends of the earth.
Another form of this mode of greatness is seen in
politics, in organizing men. The man spreads his
thought out on mankind, puts men into true relations
with one another and with God ; he organizes strength,
wisdom, justice, love, piety; balances the conflicting
forces of a nation, so that each man has his natural
liberty as complete as if the only man, yet living in
society, gathers advantages from all the rest. The
highest degree of this organizing power is the genius
for legislation, which can enact justice and eternal
right into treaties and statutes, codifying the divine
thought into human laws, making absolute religion
common life and daily custom, and balancing the cen
tripetal power of the mass, with the centrifugal power
of the individual, into a well-proportioned state, as
God has balanced these two conflicting forces into the
rhythmic ellipses above our heads. It need not be
disguised, that politics are the highest business for men
of this class, nor that a great statesman or legislator
is the greatest example of constructive skill. It re-

208 HISTORIC AMERICANS
quires some ability to manage the brute forces of na
ture, or to combine profitably nine-and-thirty clerks in
a shop ; how much more to arrange twenty millions of
intelligent, free men, not for a special purpose, but
for all the ends of universal life !
Such is the second class of great men; the organ
izers, men of constructive heads, who form the insti
tutions of the world, the Httle and the great.
The next class consists of men who administer the
institutions after they are founded. To do this
effectually and even eminently, it requires no genius for
original organization of truths freshly discovered, none
for the discovery of truths outright. It requires only
a perception of those truths, and an acquaintance with
the institutions wherein they have become incarnate; a
knowledge of details, of formulas, and practical
methods, united with a strong will and a practised un
derstanding — what is called a turn for affairs, tact, or
address; a knowledge of routine and an acquaintance
with men. The success of such men will depend on
these quaHties ; they " know the ropes " and the sound
ings, the signs of the times ; can take advantage of the
winds and the tides.
In a shop, farm, ship, factory, or army, in a church
or a state, such men are valuable; they cannot be dis
pensed with; they are wheels to the carriage; without
them cannot a city be inhabited. They are always
more numerous than both the other cksses ; more such
are needed, and therefore born. The American mind,
just now, runs eminently in this direction. These are
not men of theories, or of new modes of thought or
action, but what are called practical men, men of a
few good rules, men of facts and figures, not so full

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 209
of ideas as of precedents. They are called common-
sense men; not having too much common-sense to be
understood. They are not likely to be fallen in with
far off at sea ; quite as seldom out of their reckoning in
ordinary weather. Such men are excellent statesmen
in common times, but in times of trouble, when old
precedents will not suit the new case, and men must be
guided by the nature of man, not his history, they are
not strong enough for the place, and get pushed off
by more constructive heads.
These men are the administrators, or managers. If
they have a little less of practical sense, such men fall
a Httle below, and turn out only critics, of whom I will
not now stop to discourse.
To have a railroad, there must have been first the
discoverers, who found out the properties of wood and
iron, fire and water, and their latent power to carry men
over the earth; next the organizers, who put these ele
ments together, surveyed the route, planned the struc
ture, set men to grade the hiU, to fiU the valley, and
pave the road with iron bars ; and then the administra
tors, who after all that is done, procure the engines,
engineers, conductors, ticket-distributors, and the rest
of the " hands ; " they buy the coal and see it is not
wasted, fix the rates of fare, calculate the savings, and
distribute the dividends. The discoverers and organ
izers often fare hard in the world, lean men, ill-clad
and suspected, often laughed at, while the administra
tor is thought the greater man, because he rides over
their graves and pays the dividends, where the organ
izer only called for the assessments, and the discoverer
told what men caUed a dream. What happens in a
railroad happens also in a church, or a state.
Let us for a moment compare these three classes of
VI— 14

210 HISTORIC AMERICANS
great men. Measured by the test referred to, the dis
coverers are the greatest of all. They anticipate the
human race, with long steps, striding before their kind.
They learn not only from the history of man, but
man's nature; not by empirical experience alone, but
by a transcendent intuition of truth, now seen as a
law, now as an idea. They are wiser than experience,
and by divination through their nobler nature, know
at once what the human race has not learned in its
thousands of years, kindling their lamp at the central
fire now streaming from the sky, now rushing broad-
sheeted and terrible as ground-lightning from the
earth. Of such men there are but few, especially in
the highest mode of this greatness. A single One
makes a new world, and men date ages after him.
Next in order of greatness comes the organizer. He,
also, must have great intellect, and character. It is
no light work to make thoughts things. It requires
mind to make a mill out of a river, bricks, iron, and
stone, and set all the Connecticut to spinning cotton.
But to construct a state, to harness fittingly twenty
million men, animated by such divergent motives,
possessing interests so unlike — this is the greatest
work of constructive skill. To transkte the ideas of
the discoverer into institutions, to yoke men together
by mere " abstractions," universal laws, and by such
yoking save the liberty of all and secure the welfare
of each — • that is the most creative of poetry, the most
constructive of sciences. In modern times, it is said,
Napoleon is the greatest example of this faculty ; not
a discoverer, but an organizer of the highest power and
on the largest scale. In human history he seems to
have had no superior, perhaps no equal.
Some callings in life afford little opportunity to de-

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 211
velop the great qualities above alluded to. How much
genius lies latent no man can know; but he that walks
familiarly with humble men often stumbles over masses
of unsunned gold, where men proud in emptiness looked
only for common dust. How many a Milton sits mute
and inglorious in his shop ; how many a Cromwell rears
only corn and oxen for the world's use, no man can
know. Some calhngs help to light, some hide and
hinder. But there is none which demands more abil
ity than politics; they develop greatness, if the man
have the germ thereof within him. True, in pohtics,
a man may get along with a very Httle abihty, without
being a discoverer or an organizer; were it otherwise,
we should not be blessed with a very large House, or a
crowded Senate. Nay, experience shows that in ordi
nary times one not even a great administrator may
creep up to a high place and hang on there awhile.
Few able administrators sit on the thrones of Europe at
this day. But if power be in the man, the hand of
politics wUl draw out the spark.
In America, politics more than elsewhere demand
greatness, for ours is, in theory, the government of all,
for all, and by all.1 It requires greater range of
thought to discover the law for aU than for a few ; after
the discovery thereof it is more difficult to construct a
democracy than a monarchy, or an aristocracy, and
after that is organized, it is more difficult to administer.
It requires more manhood to wield at will " the fierce
democratic " of America than to rule England or
France; yet the American institutions are germane to
human nature, and by that fact are rendered more
easy, complicated as they are.
In politics, when the institutions are established, men
often think there is no room for discoverers and organ-

212 HISTORIC AMERICANS
izers; that administrators alone are needed, and choose
accordingly. But there are ideas well known, not yet
organized into institutions ; that of free trade, of peace,
of universal freedom, universal education, universal
comfort, in a word, the idea of human brotherhood.
These wait to be constructed into a state without in
justice, without war, without slavery, ignorance, or
want. It is hardly true that infinity is dry of truths,
unseen as yet; there are truths enough waiting to be
discovered ; all the space betwixt us and God is fuU of
ideas, waiting for some Columbus to disclose new
worlds. Men are always saying there is no new thing
under the sun, but when the discoverer comes, they see
their mistake. We want the new eye.
Now, it is quite plain where we are to place the dis
tinguished person of whom I speak. Mr. Adams was
not a discoverer ; not an organizer. He added no truth
to mankind, not known before, and even well known;
he made no known truth a fact. He was an adminis
trator of political institutions. Taking the whole land
into consideration, comparing him with his competi
tors, measuring him by his apparent works, at first
sight he does not seem very highly eminent in this class
of political administrators. Nay, some would set him
down, not an administrator so much as a political
critic. Here there is danger of doing him injustice, by neg
lecting a fact so obvious that it is seldom seen. Mr.
Adams was a northern man, with northern habits,
methods, and opinions. By the North, I mean the free
states. The chief business of the North is to get em
pire over nature ; all tends to that. Young men of tal
ents become merchants, merchant-manufacturers, mer-

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 213
chant-traders. The object directly aimed at, is wealth ;
not wealth by plunder, but by productive work. Now,
to get dominion over nature, there must be education,
universal education, otherwise there is not enough
intelligent industry, which alone insures that dominion.
With wide-spread inteUigence, property will be widely
distributed, and, of course, suffrage and civil power
will get distributed. All is incomplete without reli
gion. I deny not that these peculiarities of the North
come also from other sources, but they all are neces
sary to attain the chief object thereof — dominion over
the material world. The North subdues nature by
thought, and holds her powers in thrall. As results of
this, see the increase in wealth which is signified by
northern railroads, ships, mills, and shops; in the col
leges, schools, churches, which arise; see the skill de
veloped in this struggle with nature, the great enter
prises which come of that, the movements of commerce,
manufactures, the efforts — and successful, too — for
the promotion of education, of religion. All is demo
cratic, and becomes more so continually, each descend
ant founding institutions more liberal than those of the
parent state. Men designedly, and as their business,
become merchants, mechanics, and the like; they are
politicians by exception, by accident, from the necessity
of the case. Few northern men are politicians by pro
fession; they commonly think it better to be a col
lector or a postmaster, than a Senator, estimating place
by money, not power. Northern politicians are bred
as lawyers, clergymen, mechanics, farmers, merchants.
Political life is an accident, not an end.
In the South the aim is to get dominion over men;
so, the whole working population must be in subjection,
in slavery. While the North makes brute nature half

214 HISTORIC AMERICANS
inteUigent, the South makes human nature half brutal,
the man becoming a thing. Talent tends to politics,
not trade. Young men of ability go to the army or
navy, to the pubHc offices, to diplomatic posts, in a
word, to politics. They learn to manage men. To do
this, they not only learn what men think, but why they
think it. The young man of the North seeks a for
tune; of the South, a reputation and political power.
The politician of the South makes politics the study
and work of his whole life; all else is accidental and
subordinate. He begins low, but ends high ; he mingles
with men; has bland and agreeable manners; is frank,
honorable, manly, and knows how to persuade.
See the different results of causes so unlike. The
North manages the commercial affairs of the land, the
ships, mills, farms, and shops; the spiritual affairs,
literature, science, morals, education, religion ; —
writes, calculates, instructs, and preaches. But the
South manages the political affairs, and has free trade
or tariff, war or peace, just as she will. Of the eight
Presidents who were elected in fifty years, only three
were northern men. Each of them has retired from
office, at the end of a single term, in possession of a
fortune, but with little political influence.2 Each of
the five southern Presidents has been twice elected ; only
one of them was rich. There is no accident in all this.
The State of Rhode Island has men that can administer
the Connecticut or the Mississippi; that can organize
Niagara into a cotton factory ; yes, that can get domin
ion over the ocean and the land : but the State of South
Carolina has men that can manage the Congress, can
rule the North and South, and make the nation do
their bidding.
So the South succeeds in politics, but grows poor,

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 215
and the North fails in politics, but thrives in commerce
and the arts. There great men turn to politics, here
to trade. It is so in time of peace, but, in the day of
trouble, of storms, of revolution like the old one, men
of tall heads will come up from the ships and the shops,
the farms and the coUeges of the North, born discov
erers and organizers, the aristocracy of God, and sit
down in the nation's councils to control the state. The
North made the Revolution, furnished the men, the
money, the ideas, and the occasion for putting them
into form. At the making of the Constitution, the
South out-talked the North; put in such claims as it
saw fitting, making the best bargain it could, violating
the ideas of the Revolution, and getting the North, not
only to consent to slavery, but to allow it to be repre
sented in Congress itself. Now, the South breaks the
Constitution just when it will, puts northern sailors in
its jails, and the North dares not complain, but bears
it " with a patient shrug." An eastern merchant is
great on a southern exchange, makes cotton rise or
f aU, but no northern politician has much weight at the
South, none has ever been twice elected President. The
North thinks it is a great thing to get an inoffensive
northern man as Speaker in the House of Representa
tives. The South is an aristocracy, which the democ
racy of the North would not tolerate a year, were it at
the North itself. Now it rules the land, has the north
ern masses, Democrats and Whigs, completely under its
thumb. Does the South say, " Go," they hasten ;
" Come," they say, " Here we are; " " Do this," they
obey in a moment ; " Whist," there is not a mouse stir
ring in all the North. Does the South say " Annex,"
it is done ; " Fight," men of the North put on the
coUar, lie lies, issue their proclamations, enroll their

216 HISTORIC AMERICANS
soldiers, and declare it is moral treason for the most
insignificant clergyman to preach against the war.
All this needs to be remembered in judging of Mr.
Adams. True he was regularly bred to pohtics, and
" to the manner born ; " but he was a New England
man, with northern notions, northern habits, and
though more than fifty years in public life, yet he seems
to have sought the object of New England far more
than the object of the South. Measure his greatness
by his service; but that is not to be measured by im
mediate and apparent success.
In a notice so brief as this I can say but little of the
details of Mr. Adams's life, and purposely pass over
many things, dwelling mainly on such as are significant
of his character. He was born at Quincy, the 11th
of July, 1767; in 1777 he went to Europe with his
father, then Minister to France. He remained in
Europe most of the time, his powers developing with
rapidity and promise of future greatness, till 1785,
when he returned and entered the junior class in Har
vard College. In 1787 he graduated with distin
guished honors. He studied law at Newburyport, with
Judge Parsons, till 1790, and was a lawyer in Boston,
till 1794.
That may be called the period of his education. He
enjoyed the advantages of a residence abroad, which
enabled him to acquire a knowledge of foreign lan
guages, modes of life, and habits of thought. His
father's position brought the son in contact with the
ablest men of the age. He was Secretary of the Amer
ican Minister to Russia at the age of fourteen. He
early became acquainted with Franklin and Jefferson,
men who had a powerful influence on his youthful mind.

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 217
For three years he was a student with Judge Parsons,
a very remarkable man. These years, from 1767 to
1794, form a period marked by intense mental activity
in America and in Europe. The greatest subjects
which ckim human attention, the laws that lie at the
foundation of society, the State, the Church, and the
family, were discussed as never before. Mr. Adams
drew in Hberty and religion from his mother's breast.
His cradle rocked with the Revolution. When eight
years old, from a hiU-top hard by his house he saw the
smoke of Charlestown, burning at the command of the
oppressor. The lulkby of his childhood was the roar
of cannon at Lexington and Bunker Hill. He was
born in the gathering of the storm, of a family that
felt the blast, but never bent thereto; he grew up in
its tumult. Circumstances like these make their marks
on the character.
His attention was early turned to the most import
ant matters. In 1793 he wrote several papers in the
" Centinel," at Boston, on neutral rights, advising the
American Government to remain neutral in the quarrel
between France, our aHy, and others; the papers at
tracted the attention of Washington, who appointed
the author Minister to Holland. He remained abroad
in various diplomatic services in that country, in Rus
sia and England, till 1801, when he was recalled by his
father, and returned home. It was an important cir
cumstance that he was abroad during that time when
the nation divided into two great parties. He was not
called on to take sides with either; he had a vantage
ground whence he could overlook both, approve their
good and shun their evil. The effect of this is abun
dantly evident in all his life. He was not dyed in the
wool by either political party, — the moral sense of the

218 HISTORIC AMERICANS
man drowned in the process of becoming a Federalist
or a Democrat.
In 1802, he was elected to the Senate of Massachu
setts, yet not whoUy by the votes of one party. In
1803 he was chosen to the Senate of the United States.
In the Massachusetts Legislature he was not a strict'
party man; he was not elected to the Senate by a
strictly party vote. In 1806 he was inaugurated as
professor of rhetoric and oratory at Harvard Uni
versity, and continued in that office about three years.
In 1808 he resigned his place in the Senate. In 1809
he was sent by Mr. Madison as Minister to Russia, and
remained abroad in various ministries and commissions
till 1817, when he returned, and became Secretary of
State under Mr. Monroe. This office he fiUed tiU he
became President in 1825. In 1829, failing of re
election, he retired to private life. In 1831 he was
elected as one of the representatives to Congress from
Massachusetts, and continued there till his death, the
first President that ever sat in an American Congress.
It wiU be fifty-four years the thirtieth of next May,
since he began his public career. What did he aim at
in that long period? At first sight, it is easy to see
the aim of some of the conspicuous men of America.
It has obviously been the aim of Mr. Clay to build up
the " American System," by the establishment of protec
tive duties ; that of Mr. Calhoun to establish free trade,
leaving a man to buy where he can buy cheapest, and
seU where he can sell dearest. In respect to these mat
ters the two are exactly opposite to one another —
antithetic as the poles. But each has also, and ob
viously, another aim, — to build up the institution of
slavery in the South. In this they agree, and if I un
derstand them aright, this is the most important polit-

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 219
ical design of each; for which Mr. Calhoun would
forego even free trade, and Mr. Clay would " compro
mise " even a tariff. Looked at in reference to their
aims, there is a certain continuity of action in both
these gentlemen. I speak not now of another object
which both have equally and obviously aimed at; not
of the personal, but the political object.
At first sight, it does not appear that Mr. Adams
had any definite scheme of measures which he aimed to
establish; there is no obvious unity of idea, or con
tinuity of action, that forces itself upon the spectator.
He does not seem to have studied the two great sub
jects of our political economy, finance and trade, very
deeply, or even with any considerable width of obser
vation or inquiry; he had no financial or commercial
hobby. He has worked with every party, and against
every party ; aU have claimed, none held him. Now he
sides with the Federalists, then with the Democrats ;
now he opposes France, showing that her policy is that
of pirates ; now he contends against England ; now he
works in favor of General Jackson, who put down the
nullification of South Carolina with a rough hand ; then
he opposes the General in his action against the bank;
now he contends for the Indians, then for the negroes ;
now attacks masonry, and then free trade. He
speaks in favor of claiming and holding " the whole of
Oregon ; " then against annexing Texas.
But there is one sentiment which runs through all
his life: an intense love of freedom for all men; one
idea, the idea that each man has unalienable rights.
These are what may be called the American sentiment,
and the American idea; for they lie at the basis of
American institutions, except the " patriarchal," and
shine out in all our history — I should say, our early

220 HISTORIC AMERICANS
history. These two form the golden thread on which
Mr. Adams's jewels are strung. Love of human free
dom in its widest sense is the most marked and promi
nent thing in his character. This explains most of his
actions. Studied with this in mind, his life is pretty
consistent. This explains his love of the Constitution.
He early saw the peculiarity of the American govern
ment; that it rested in theory on the natural rights of
man, not on a compact, not on tradition, but on some
what anterior to both, on the unalienable rights univer
sal in man, and equal in each. He looked on the Amer
ican Constitution as an attempt to organize these
rights; resting, therefore, not on force, but natural
law ; not on power, but right. But with him the Con
stitution was not an idol; it was a means, not an end.
He did more than expound it ; he went back of the Con
stitution, to the Declaration of Independence, for the
ideas of the Constitution ; yes, back of the Declaration
to human nature and the laws of God, to legitimate
these ideas. The Constitution is a compromise between
those ideas and institutions and prejudices existing
when it was made ; not an idol, but a servant. He saw
that the Constitution is " not the work of eternal jus
tice, ruling through the people," but the work " of
man; frail, fallen, imperfect man, following the dic
tates of his nature, and aspiring to be perfect."
Though a " constitutionalist," he did not worship the
Constitution. He was much more than a " defender
of the Constitution," — a defender of human rights.
Mr. Adams had this American sentiment and idea in
an heroic degree. Perhaps no political man now living
has expressed them so fully. With a man Hke him,
not very genial or creative, having no great construc
tive skiU, and not without a certain pugnacity in his

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 221
character, this sentiment and idea would naturally de
velop themselves in a negative form, that of opposition
to wrong, more often than in the positive form of direct
organization of the right; would lead to criticism
oftener than to creation. Especially would this be the
case if other men were building up institutions in oppo
sition to this idea. In him they actually take the form
of what he called " The unalienable right of resistance
to oppression." His life furnishes abundant instances
of this. He thought the Indians were unjustly
treated, cried out against the wrong; when President,
endeavored to secure justice to the Creeks in Georgia,
and got into colHsion with Governor Troup. He saw,
or thought he saw, that England opposed the American
idea, both in the new world and the old. In his zeal
for freedom he sometimes forgot the great services of
England in that same cause, and hated England, hated
her with great intensity of hatred, hated her political
poHcy, her monarchy, and her aristocracy, mocked at
the madness of her king, for he thought England stood
in the way of freedom.3 Yet he loved the English
name and the EngHsh blood, was " proud of being
descended from that stock," thinking it worth not
ing that Chatham's language was his mother tongue,
and Wolfe's great name compatriot with his own.
He confessed no nation had done more for the cause
of human improvement. He loved the common law
of England, putting it far above the Roman law,
perhaps not without doing a Httle injustice to the
latter.4 The common law was a rude and barbarous
code. But human Hberty was there; a trial by jury
was there; the habeas corpus was there. It was the
law of men " regardful of human rights."
This sentiment led him to defend the right of peti-

222 HISTORIC AMERICANS
tion in the House of Representatives, as no other man
had dared to do. He cared not whether it was the peti
tion of a majority, or a minority; of men or women,
free men or slaves. It might be a petition to remove
him from a committee, to expel him from the House,
a petition to dissolve the Union — he presented it none
the less. To him there was but one nature in all, man
or woman, bond or free, and that was human nature,
the most sacred thing on earth. Each human child
had unalienable rights, and though that child was a
beggar or slave, had rights, which all the power in the
world, bent into a single arm, could not destroy nor
abate, though it might ravish away. This induced him
to attempt to procure the right of suffrage for the
colored citizens of the District of Columbia.
This sentiment led him to oppose tyranny in the
House of Representatives, the tyranny of the majority.
In one of his juvenile essays, published in 1791, con
tending against a highly popular work, he opposed the
theory that a state has the right to do what it pleases,
declaring it had no right to do wrong.5 In his old
age he had not again to encounter the empty hypothesis
of Thomas Paine, but the substantial enactment of the
" representatives " of the people of the United States.
The hypothesis was trying to become a fact. The
South had passed the infamous Gag Law, which a
symbolical man from New Hampshire had presented,
though it originated with others.6 By that law the
mouth of the North was completely stopped in Con
gress, so that not one word could be said about the
matter of slavery.
The North was quite willing to have it stopped, for
it did not care to speak against slavery, and the gag
did not stop the mouth of the Northern purse. You

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 223
may take away from the North its honor, if you can
find it; may take away its rights; may imprison its
free citizens in the jails of Louisiana and the Carolinas ;
yes, may invade the " sacred soil of the North," and
kidnap a man out of Boston itself, within sight of
Faneuil Hall, and the North will not complain; will
bear it with that patient shrug, waiting for yet further
indignities. Only when the Northern purse is touched
is there an uproar. If the postmaster demands silver
for letters, there is instant alarm ; the repeal of a tariff
rouses the feelings, and an embargo once drove the in
dignant North to the perilous edge of rebellion ! Mr.
Adams loved his dollars as well as most New England
men; he looked out for their income as well; guarded
as carefully against their outgo ; though conscien
tiously upright in all his dealings, kind and hospitable,
he has never been proved generous, and generosity is
the commonest virtue of the North; is said to have
been " close," if not mean. He loved his dollars as
well as most men, but he loved justice more; honor
more; freedom more; the unaHenable rights of man
far more.
He looked on the Constitution as an instrument for
the defense of the rights of man. The government
was to act as the people had told how. The Federal
government was not sovereign; the state government
was not sovereign ; 7 neither was a court of ultimate
appeal ; — ¦ but the people were sovereign ; had the right
of eminent domain over Congress and the Constitution,
and making that, had set limits to the government.
He guarded therefore against all violation of the Con
stitution, as a wrong done to the people; he would not
overstep its Hmits in a bad cause; not even in a good
one. Did Mr. Jefferson obtain Louisiana by a con-

224 HISTORIC AMERICANS
fessed violation of the Constitution, Mr. Adams would
oppose the purchase of Louisiana, and was one of the
six senators who voted against it. Making laws for
that territory, he wished to extend the trial by jury to
all criminal prosecutions, while the law limited that
form of trial to capital offenses. Before that territory
had a representative in Congress, the American gov
ernment wished to collect a revenue there. Mr. Adams
opposed that too. It was "assuming a dangerous
power ; " it was government without the consent of the
governed, and therefore an unjust government. " All
exercise of human authority must be under the limita
tion of right and wrong." All other power is despotic,
and " in defiance of the laws of nature and of God."
This love of freedom led him to hate and oppose the
tyranny of the strong over the weak, to hate it most
in its worst form ; to hate American slavery, doubtless
the most infamous form of that tyranny now known
amongst the nations of Christendom, and perhaps the
most disgraceful thing on earth. Mr. Adams called
slavery a vessel of dishonor so base that it could not be
named in the Constitution with decency. In 1805 he
wished to lay a duty on the importation of slaves, and
was one of five senators who voted to that effect. He
saw the power of this institution — the power of money
and the power of votes which it gives to a few men.
He saw how dangerous it was to the Union, to Amer
ican liberty, to the cause of man. He saw that it trod
three miUions of men down to the dust, counting souls
but as cattle. He hated nothing as he hated this;
fought against nothing so manfully. It was the lion
in the pathway of freedom, which frightened almost
all the politicians of the North and the East and the
West, so that they forsook that path ; a Hon whose roar

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 225
could wellnigh silence the forum and the bar, the pulpit
and the press; a lion who rent the Constitution,
trampled under foot the Deckration of Independence,
and tore the Bible to pieces. Mr. Adams was ready
to rouse up this lion, and then to beard him in his
den. Hating slavery, of course he opposed whatever
went to strengthen its power ; opposed Mr. Atherton's
Gag Law ; opposed the annexation of Texas ; opposed
the Mexican War; and, wonderful to tell, actually
voted against it, and never took back his vote.
When Secretary of State, this same feeling led him
to oppose conceding to the British the right of search
ing American vessels supposed to be concerned in the
slave-trade, and when Representative to oppose the re
peal of the law giving " protection " to American
saUors. It appeared also in private intercourse with
men. No matter what was a man's condition, Mr.
Adams treated him as an equal.
This devotion to freedom and the unalienable rights
of man, was the most important work of his life.
Compared with some other political men, he seems in
consistent, because he now opposes one evil, then its
opposite evil. But his general course is in this direc
tion, and, when viewed in respect to this idea, seems
more consistent than that of Mr. Webster, or Calhoun,
or Clay, when measured by any great principle. This
appears in his earlier Hfe. In 1802 he became a mem
ber of the Massachusetts Senate. The majority of the
General Court were Federalists. It was a time of in
tense political excitement, the second year of Mr. Jef
ferson's administration. The custom is well known
— <to take the whole of the Governor's Council from
the party which has a majority in the General Court.
VI— 15

226 HISTORIC AMERICANS
On the 27th of May, 1802, Mr. Adams stood up for
the rights of the minority. He wanted some anti-
Federalists in the Council of Governor Strong, and as
Senator threw his first vote to secure that object. Such
was the first legislative action of John Quincy Adams.
In the House of Representatives, in 1831, the first
thing he did was to present fifteen petitions for the
abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, though,
from constitutional scruples, opposed to granting the
petitions. The last public act of his life was this : —
the question was before the House on giving medals
to the men distinguished in the Mexican War; the
minority opposing it wanted more time for debate ; the
previous question was moved, Mr. Adams voted for the
last time, — voted " No," with unusual emphasis ; the
great loud No of a man going home to God full of
" the unalienable right of resistance to oppression,"
its emphatic word on his dying lips. There were the
beginning, the middle, and the end, all three in the
same spirit, all in favor of mankind; a remarkable
unity of action in his political drama.
Somebody once asked him, " What are the recog
nized principles of politics ? " Mr. Adams answered
that there were none : " the recognized precepts are bad
ones, and so not principles." " But," continued the
inquirer, " is not this a good one, — ' to seek the great
est good of the greatest number? ' " " No," said he,
" that is the worst of all, for it looks specious while it
is ruinous. What shall become of the minority, in
that case? This is the only principle, — 'to seek the
greatest good of all.' "
I do not say there were no exceptions to this devotion
to freedom in a long life; there are some passages in
his history which it is impossible to justify, and hard

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 227
to excuse. In early life he was evidently ambitious of
place, and rank, and political power. I must confess,
it seems to me, at some times, he was not scrupulous
enough about the means of attaining that pkce and
power. He has been much censured for his vote in
favor of the Embargo, in 1807. His vote, howsoever
unwise, may easily have been an honest vote.8 To an
impartial spectator at this day, perhaps it will be evi
dently so. His defense of it I cannot think an honest
defense, for in that he mentions arguments as im
pelling him to his vote which could scarcely have been
present to his mind at the time, and, if they were his
arguments then, were certainly kept in silence — they
did not appear in the debate,9 they were not referred
to in the President's message.10
I am not to praise Mr. Adams simply because he is
dead; what is wrong before is wrong after death. It
is no merit to die; shall we tell lies about him because
he is dead? No, the Egyptian people scrutinized and
judged their kings after death — much more should
we our feUow-citizens, intrusted with power to serve
the state. " A lavish and undistinguishing eulogium
is not praise." I know what coals of terrible fire lie
under my feet, as I speak of this matter, and how thin
and light is the coat of ashes deposited there in forty
years ; how easily they are blown away at the slightest
breath of " Hartford Convention," or the " Em
bargo," and the old flame of political animosity blazes
forth anew, while the hostile forms of " Federalists "
and " Democrats " come back to Hght. I would not
disquiet those awful shades, nor bring them up again.11
But a word must be said. The story of the Embargo
is weU known : the President sent his message to the Sen
ate recommending it, and accompanied with several

228 HISTORIC AMERICANS
documents. The message was read and assigned to a
committee ; the ordinary rule of business was suspended ;
the bill was reported by the committee; drafted, de
bated, engrossed, and completely passed through all its
stages, the whole on the same day, in secret session, and
in about four hours ! Yet it was a bill that involved
the whole commerce of the country, and prostrated
that commerce, seriously affecting the welfare of hun
dreds of thousands of men. Eight hundred thousand
tons of shipping were doomed to lie idle and rot in
port. The message came on Friday. Some of the
Senators wanted yet further information and more
time for debate, at least for consideration, — tiU Mon
day. It could not be! Till Saturday, then. No;
the biU must pass now, no man sleeping on that ques
tion. Mr. Adams was the most zealous for passing
the bill. In that " debate," if such it can be called,
while opposing a postponement for further informa
tion and reflection, he said, " The President has recom
mended the measure on his high responsibility ; I would
not consider, I would not deliberate; I would act.
Doubtless the President possesses such further infor
mation as will justify the measure! " 12 To my mind,
that is the worst act of his public life; I cannot justify
it. I wish I could find some reasonable excuse for it.
What had become of the " sovereignty of the people,"
the " unalienable right of resistance to oppression ? "
Would not consider; would not deliberate; would act
without doing either ; leave it all to the " high respon
sibility " of the President, with a " doubtless " he has
" further information " to justify the measure ! It
was a shame to say so ; it would have disgraced a Sen
ator in St. Petersburg. Why not have the " further
information" laid before the Senate? What would

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 229
Mr. Adams have said, if President Jackson, Tyler, or
Polk, had sent such a message, and some Senator or
Representative had counselled submissive action, with
out considering, without deliberation? With what ap
palling metaphors would he describe such a departure
from the first duty of a statesman; how would the
tempestuous eloquence of that old patriot shake the
hall of Congress till it rung again, and the nation
looked up with indignation in its face! It is weU
known what Mr. Adams said in 1834, when Mr. Polk,
in the House of Representatives, seemed over-lauda
tory of the President : " I shall never be disposed to
interfere with any member who shall rise on this floor
and pronounce a panegyric upon the chief magistrate.
' No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp,
And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee
Where thrift may follow fawning.' "
Yet the future of Mr. Polk was not so obvious in 1834
as the reward of Mr. Adams in 1808.
This act is particularly glaring in Mr. Adams. The
North often sends men to Washington who might have
done it without any great inconsistency ; men, too, not
so remarkable for infirmity in the head, as for that
less pardonable weakness in the knees and the neck;
men that bend to power "right or wrong." Mr.
Adams was not afflicted with that weakness, and so the
more to be censured for this palpable betrayal of a
trust so important. I wish I could find some excuse
for it. He was forty years old ; not very old, but old
enough to know better. His defense made the matter
worse. The Massachusetts Legislature disapproved of
his conduct; chose another man to succeed him in the
Senate. Then Mr. Adams resigned his seat, and soon

230 HISTORIC AMERICANS
after was sent minister to Russia, as he himself subse
quently deckred,13 " in consequence of the support he
had for years given to the measures of Mr. Jefferson's
administration against Great Britain." But his father
said of that mission of his son, " Aristides is banished
because he is too just." 14 It is easy to judge of the
temper of the times, when such words as those of the
father could be said on such an occasion, and that by a
man who had been President of the United States!
When a famine occurs, disease appears in the most
hideous forms; men go back to temporary barbarism.
In times of political strife, such diseases appear of the
intellectual and moral powers. No man who did not
live in those times can fully understand the obliquity of
mind and moral depravity which then displayed them
selves amongst those otherwise without reproach. Says
Mr. Adams himself, referring to that period, " Imag
ination in her wildest vagaries can scarcely conceive
the transformation of temper, the obliquities of intel
lect, the perversions of moral principle, effected by
junctures of high and general excitement." However,
it must be confessed that this, though not the only in
stance of injustice, is the only case of servile compliance
with the Executive to be found in the whole life of the
man. It was a grievous fault, but grievously did he
answer it; and if a long life of unfaltering resistance
to every attempt at the assumption of power is fit atone
ment, then the expiation was abundantly made.
About the same time, Mr. Adams was chairman of
a committee of the Senate, appointed to consider the
case of a Senator from Ohio.15 His conduct, on that
occasion, has been the theme of violent attack, and de
fense as violent. To the calm spectator, at this day,
his conduct seems unjustifiable, inconsistent with the

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 231
counsels of justice, which, though moving with her
" pace of snails," looks always towards the right, and
will not move out of her track, though the heavens
fall. While Mr. Adams was President, Hayti became free ;
but he did not express any desire that the United
States should acknowledge her independence, and re
ceive her minister at Washington, — an African pleni
potentiary. In his message,16 he says, " There are
circumstances that have hitherto forbidden the acknowl
edgment," and mentions " additional reasons for with
holding that acknowledgment." In the instructions to
the American functionary, sent to the celebrated Con
gress of Panama, it is said, the President " is not pre
pared now to say that Hayti ought to be recognized as
an independent sovereign power ; " he " does not think
it would be proper at this time to recognize it as a new
state." He was unwilling to consent to the independ
ence of Cuba, for fear of an insurrection of her slaves,
and the effect at home. The duty of the United States
would be " To defend themselves against the contagion
of such near and dangerous examples," that would
" constrain them ... to employ all means neces
sary to their security." That is, the President would
be constrained to put down the blacks in Cuba, who were
exercising " the unalienable right of resistance to op
pression," for fear the blacks in the United States
would discover that they also were men, and had " un-
ahenable rights ! " Had he forgotten the famous
words, " Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God? "
The defense of such language on such an occasion is,
that Mr. Adams's eyes were not yet open to the evil
of slavery. That is a good defense, if true. To me it
seems a true defense. Even great men do not see

HISTORIC AMERICANS
everything. In 1800 Fisher Ames, while delivering
the eulogy on General Washington, censured even the
British government, because, " in the wilds of Africa it
obstructed the commerce in skves ! " No man is so
wise as mankind.
It must be confessed that Mr. Adams, while Secre
tary of State, and again, while President, showed no
hostility to the institution of slavery. His influence
all went the other way. He would repress the freedom
of the blacks in the West Indies, lest American slavery
should be disturbed, and its fetters broke ; he would not
acknowledge the independence of Hayti, he would urge
Spain to make peace with her descendants, for the same
reason — " not for those new repubHcs," but lest the
negroes in Cuba and Porto Rico should secure their
freedom. He negotiated with England, and she paid
the United States more than a million of dollars 17 for
the fugitive slaves who took refuge under her flag dur
ing the late war. Mr. Adams had no scruples about
receiving the money during his administration. An
attempt was repeatedly made by his secretary, Mr.
Clay, through Mr. Gallatin, and then through Mr.
Barbour, to induce England to restore the " fugitive
slaves who had taken refuge in the Canadian
provinces," who, escaping from the area of freedom,
seek the shelter of the British crown.18 Nay, he nego
tiated a treaty with Mexico, which bound her to de
liver up fugitive slaves, escaping from the United
States — a treaty which the Mexican Congress re
fused to ratify ! Should a great man have known bet
ter? Great men are not always wise. Afterwards,
public attention was called to the matter; humble men
gave lofty counsel; Mr. Adams used different kn-
guage, and recommended different measures. But long

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 233
before that, on the 7th of December, 1804, Mr. Picker
ing, his coUeague in the Senate of the United States,
offered a resolution, for the purpose of amending the
Constitution, so as to apportion representatives, and
direct taxes among the states, according to their free
inhabitants. But there are other things in Mr. Adams's course
and conduct, which deserve the censure of a good man.
One was, the attempt to justify the conduct of Eng
land, in her late war with China, when she forced her
opium upon the barbarians with the bayonet. To
make out his case, he contended that " in the celestial
empire . . . the patriarchal system of Sir Robert
Filmer flourished in aU its glory," and the Chinese
claimed superior dignity over all others; they refused
to hold equal and reciprocal commercial intercourse
with other nations, and " it is time this enormous out
rage upon the rights of human nature, and the first
principles of the laws of nations, should cease." 19 It
is true, the Chinese were " barbarians ; " true, the Eng
lish carried thither the Bible and Christianity, at least
their own Christianity. But, even by the kw of na
tions, letting alone the law of nature, the barbarians
had a right to repel both Bible and Christianity, when
they came in a contraband shape — that of opium
and cannon balls. To justify this outrage of the
strong against the weak, he quite forgets his old an
tipathy to England, his devotion to human freedom,
and the sovereignty of the people, calling the cause of
England " a righteous cause."
He defended the American claim to the whole of Ore
gon, up to 54° 40'. He did not so much undertake to
make out a title to either, by the law of nature or of na
tions, but cut the matter short, and claimed the whole

234 HISTORIC AMERICANS
of Oregon, on the strength of the first chapter of
Genesis. This was the argument: God gave man
kind dominion over all the earth ; between Christian na
tions, the command of the Creator lays the foundation
of all titles to land, of titles to territory, of titles to
jurisdiction. Then in the Psalms, God gives the " ut
termost part of the earth for a possession " to the
Messiah, as the representative of all mankind, who held
the uttermost parts of the earth in chief. But the
Pope, as head of the visible Church, was the representa
tive of Christ, and so, holding under him, had the right
to give to any king or prelate, authority to subdue bar
barous nations, possess their territory, and convert
them to Christianity. In 1493, the Pope, in virtue of
the above right, gave the American continent to the
Spanish monarchs, who, in time, sold their title to the
people of the United States. That title may be de
fective, as the Pope may not be the representative of
Christ, and so the passage in the Psalms will not help
the American claim, but then the United States wiU
hold under the first clause in the Testament of God,
that is, in Genesis. The claim of Great Britain is not
valid, for she does not want the land for the purpose
specified in that clause of the Testament, to " replen
ish the earth and subdue it." She wants it, " that she
may keep it open as a hunting-ground," while the
United States want it, that it may grow into a great
nation, and become a free and sovereign republic.20
This strange hypothesis, it seems, lay at the bottom
of his defense of the British in their invasion of China.
It would have led him, if consistent, to claim also the
greater part of Mexico. But, as he did not publicly
declare his opinion on that matter, no more need be said
concerning it.

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 235
Such was the most prominent idea in his history;
such the departures from it. Let us look at other
events in his life. While President, the most important
object of his administration was the promotion of in
ternal improvements, especially the internal communi
cation between the states. For this purpose the gov
ernment lent its aid in the construction of roads and
canals, and a little more than four millions of dollars
were devoted to this work in his administration. On
the 4th of July, 1828, he helped break ground for the
Chesapeake and Ohio canal, thinking it an important
event in his Hfe. He then said there were three great
steps in the progress of America. The first was the
Declaration of Independence and the achievement
thereof; the second, the union of the whole country
under the Constitution ; but the third was more arduous
than both of the others : " It is," said he, " the adap
tation of the powers, physical, moral, and intellectual,
of the whole Union, to the improvement of its own con
dition ; of its moral and political condition, by wise and
liberal institutions; by the cultivation of the under
standing and the heart; by academies, schools, and
learned institutions; by the pursuit and patronage of
learning and the arts; of its physical condition, by
associated labor to improve the bounties and supply the
deficiencies of nature ; to stem the torrent in its course ;
to level the mountain with the plain ; to disarm and fet
ter the raging surge of the ocean." 21 He faithfully
adhered to these words in his administration.
He was careful never to exceed the powers which the
Constitution prescribed for him. He thought the
acquisition of Louisiana was " accomplished by a
flagrant violation of the Constitution," and himself
guarded against such violations. He revered the God

236 HISTORIC AMERICANS
of Limits, who, in the Roman mythology, refused to
give way or remove, even for Jupiter himself. No
man was ever more conscientious on that ground. To
him the Constitution meant something ; his oath to keep
it meant something.
No great political event occurred in his administra
tion ; the questions which now vex the country had not
arisen. There was no quarrel between freedom and
slavery; no man in Congress ventured to denounce
slavery as a crime ; the African slave-trade was thought
wrong, not the slavery which caused it. Party Hnes,
obliterated under Mr. Monroe's administration, were
viewed and marked with a good deal of care and ex
actness ; but the old lines could not be wholly restored.
Mr. Adams was not the President of a section of the
country; not the President of a party, but of the
nation. He favored no special interest of a class, to
the injury of another class. He did not reward his
friends, nor punish his foes; the party of the spoils,
patent or latent at all times, got no spoils from him.
He never debauched his country by the removal and
appointment of officers. Had he done otherwise, done
as all his successors have done, used his actual power
to promote his own ambition, no doubt he might have
been reelected. But he could not stoop to manage men
in that way. No doubt he desired a reelection, and
saw the method and means to effect that; but con
science said, " It is not right." He forbore, lost his
election, and gained — we shall soon see what he
gained. On the 19th of July, 1826, at a public dinner at
Edgefield Court-house, South Carolina, Mr. McDuffie
said, " Mr. Adams came into power upon principles
utterly subversive of the republican system, substitut-

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 237
ing the worst species of aristocracy, that of speculating
politicians and office-hunters, in the place of a sound
and wholesome republican democracy." When Mr.
Adams retired from office, he could remember, with the
virtuous Athenian, that no man had put on mourning
for him because unjustly deprived of his post. Was
an office-holder or an office-wanter a political friend of
Mr. Adams, that did not help him ; a foe, that did not
hinder. He looked only to the man's ability and in
tegrity. I wish it was no praise to say these things ;
but it is praise I dare not apply to any other man since
Washington. Mr. Adams once said, " There is no
official act of the chief magistrate, however momentous,
or however minute, but it should be traceable to a dic
tate of duty, pointing to the welfare of the people."
That was his executive creed.
As a pubHc servant, he had many quaHties seldom
united in the same person. He was simple and unos
tentatious; he had none of the airs of a great man;
seemed humble, modest and retiring; caring much for
the substance of manhood, he let the show take care of
itself. He carried the simplicity of a plain New Eng
land man into the President's house, spending Httle in
its decorations — about one-fourth, it is said, of the
amount of his successor. In his house-keeping, public
or private, there was only one thing much to be boasted
of and remarked upon: strange to say, that was the
master of the house. He was never eclipsed by his
own brass and mahogany. He had what are called
democratic habits, and served himself in preference to
being served by others. He treated all that were about
him with a marked deference and courtesy, carrying
his respect for human rights into the minutest details
of common Hfe.

238 HISTORIC AMERICANS
He was a model of diligence, though not, perhaps,
very systematic. His state papers, prepared while he
was Minister, Secretary, or member of Congress, his
numerous orations and speeches, though not always
distinguished for that orderly arrangement of parts
which is instinctive with minds of a high philosophical
character, are yet astonishing for their number and
the wide learning they display. He was well
acquainted with the classic and most modern languages ;
at home in their literature. He was surprisingly fa
miliar with modern history; perhaps no poHtical man
was so thoroughly acquainted with the poHtical history
of America, and that of Christian Europe for the last
two hundred years. He was widely read and pro
foundly skilled in all that relates to diplomacy, and to
international law. He was fond of beUes-lettres, and
commented on Shakespeare more like a professor than
a layman in that department. Few theologians in
America, is is said, were so widely read in their pecuhar
lore as he. He had read much, remembered much, un
derstood much. However, he seems to have paid little
attention to physical science, and perhaps less to meta
physical. His speeches and his conversation, though
neither briUiant, nor rich in ideas, astonished young
men with an affluence of learning, which seemed marvel
ous in one all his life devoted to practical affairs. But
this is a trifle: to achieve that, nothing is needed but
health, diligence, memory, and a long life. Mr. Adams
had all these requisites.
He had higher qualities: he loved his country, per
haps no man more so; he had patriotism in an heroic
degree, yet was not thereby blinded to humanity. He
thought it a vital principle of human society, that each
nation should contribute to the happiness of aU; and,

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 239
therefore, that no nation should " regulate its conduct
by the exclusive or even the paramount consideration
of its own interest." Yet he loved his country, his
whole country ; and when she was in the wrong he told
her so, because he loved her. " This," said he, " would
be a good sentiment : ' Our country ! May she be al
ways successful; but, whether successful or not, may
she be always in the right.' " He saw the faults of
America, saw the corruption of the American govern
ment. He did not make gain by this in private, but
set an honest face against it.
He was a conscientious man. This peculiarity is
strongly marked in most of his life. He respected the
limit between right and wrong. He did not think it
unworthy of a statesman to refer to moral principles,
to the absolutely right. I do not mean to say, that, in
his whole life, there was no departure from the strict
rule of duty. I have mentioned already some ex
amples, but kept one more for this place: he pursued
persons with a certain vindictiveness of spirit. I wjll
not revive again the old quarrels, nor dig up his hard
words, long ago consigned to oblivion ; it would be un
just to the Hving. He was what is called a good hater.
If he loved an idea, he seemed to hate the man who
opposed it. He was not content with replying; he
must also retort, though it manifestly weakened the
force of the reply. In his attacks on persons he was
sometimes unjust, violent, sharp, and vindictive; some
times cruel, and even barbarous. Did he ever forgive
an enemy? Every opponent was a foe, and he
thrashed his foes with an iron hoof and winnowed them
with a storm. The most awful specimens of invective
which the language affords can be found in his words
— 'bitter, revengeful, and unrelenting. I am sorry to

240 HISTORIC AMERICANS
say these things; it hurts my feelings to say them,
yours not less to hear them. But it is not our fault
they are true ; it would be mine, if, knowing they were
true, I did not on this occasion point them out in warn
ing words.
Mr. Adams says that Roger WiUiams was conscien
tious and contentious; it is equaUy true of himself.
Perhaps Mr. Adams had Httle humor, but certainly
a giant's wit; he used it tyrannously and Hke a giant.
Wit has its place in debate; in controversy it is a
legitimate weapon, offensive and defensive. After one
has beaten the single barley-corn of good sense out of
a whole wagon-load of chaff, the easiest way to be rid
of the rubbish is to burn it up with the Hghtning of
wit; the danger is, that the burning should begin be
fore the separation is made; that the fire consume
the good and bad indifferently. When argument is
edged and pointed with wit, it is doubly effective;
but when that edge is jagged with ill-wiU, poisoned,
too, with personal spleen, then it becomes a weapon un
worthy of a man. Sometimes Mr. Adams used his
wit as fairly as his wisdom; and bags of wind, on
which Hercules might have stamped and beaten a
twelvemonth, but in vain — at a single puncture
from that keen wit gave up their ghost and flattened
into nothing; a vanity to all men, but a vexation of
spirit to him who had blown them so full of his own
soul. But sometimes, yes, often, Mr. Adams's wit
performs a different part: it sits as a judge, unjust
and unforgiving, " often deciding wrong, and when
right from wrong motives." It was the small dagger
with which he smote the fallen foe. It is a poor
praise for a famous man, churchman, or statesman,
to beat a blackguard with his own weapons. It must

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 241
be confessed, that, in controversy, Mr. Adams's ar
rows were sharp and deftly delivered; but they were
often barbed, and sometimes poisoned.
True, he encountered more political opposition than
any man in the nation. For more than forty years
he has never been without bitter and unrelenting ene
mies, public and private. No man in America, per
haps, ever had such provocations; surely, none had
ever such opportunities to reply without retorting.
How much better would it have been, if, at the end of
that long life and fifty years' war, he could say he had
never wasted a shot; had never sinned with his lips,
nor once feathered his public arrow with private
spleen! Wise as he was, and old, he never learned
that for undeserved calumny, for personal insult and
abuse, there is one answer, Christian, manly, and ir
refutable — the dignity of silence. A just man can
afford to wait till the storm of abuse shall spend its
rage and vanish under the rainbow, which itself fur
nishes and leaves behind. The retorting speech of
such a man may be silvern or iron; his silence, vic
torious and golden.
It is easy to censure Mr. Adams for such intem
perance of speech and persecution of persons; un
fortunately, too easy to furnish other examples of
both. We know what he spoke — God only what he
repressed. Who knows out of how deep a fullness of
indignation such torrents gush? Tried by the
standard of other men, his fellow politicians of
America and Europe, he was no worse than they, only
abler.22 The mouse and the fox have as great a
proportionate anger as the Hon, though the one is
ridiculous and the other terrific. Mr. Adams must
be tried by his own standard, the rule of right, the
VI— 16

242 HISTORIC AMERICANS
standard of conscience and of Christianity; then
surely he did wrong. For such a man the vulgarity
of the offense is no excuse.
With this and the other exceptions he appears a
remarkably conscientious man in his public life. He
may often have erred, as all men, without violating
his own sense of right.
While he was President he would not consent to
any " public manifestation of honors personal to him
self." He would not accept a present, for his Bible
taught him what experience continually enforces, that
a gift blinds the eyes of wise men and perverts their
judgment. While at St. Petersburg, the Russian
Minister of the Interior, then an old man, felt un
easy on account of the presents accepted during his
official service, and, calculating the value of all gifts
received, returned it to the imperial treasury. This
fact made an impression on Mr. Adams, and led to a
resolution which he faithfully kept. When a book
seller sent him a costly Bible, he kept the book, but
paid its full value. No bribes, no pensions, in any
form, ever soiled justice in his hands. He would
never be indebted to any body of men, lest they might
afterwards sway him from the right path.
Because he was a conscientious man he would never
be the servant of a party, and never was. It was of
great advantage to him that he was absent while the
two chief parties were forming in the United States.
He came into the Massachusetts Legislature as a Fed-
eraHst, but some anti-Federalists also voted for him.
His first vote showed he was not Hmited by the com
mon principles of a party. He was chosen to the
Senate of the United States, not by a party vote. At
first he acted mainly with the FederaHsts, though not

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 243
always voting with his coUeagues; but in 1807 acted
with the administration in the matter of the Em
bargo. This was the eventful crisis of his life; this
change in his poHtics, while it gave him station and
poHtical power, yet brought upon him the indignation
of his former friends; it has never been forgotten nor
forgiven. Be the outward occasion and inward motive
what they may, this led to the sundering of friend
ships long cherished and deservedly dear; it produced
the most bitter experience of his life. Political men
would naturaUy undertake to judge his counsel by its
probable and obvious consequences, the favor of the
Executive, rather than attribute it to any latent motive
of patriotism in his heart.
Wlule at the head of the nation he would not be
the President of a party, but of the people; when he
became a representative in Congress he was not the
delegate of a party, but of justice and the eternal
right, giving his constituents an assurance that he
would hold himself in allegiance to no party, national
or poHtical. He has often been accused of hatred to
the South ; I can find no trace of it. " I entered Con
gress," says he, " without one sentiment of discrim
ination between the North and South." At first he
acted with Mr. Jackson, to arrest the progress of nul
lification, for the democracy of South CaroHna was
putting in practice what the Federalists of New Eng
land have so often been aUeged to have held in theory,
and condemned on that allegation. Here he was con
sistent. In 1834 he approved the spirit of the same
President in demanding justice of France; but after
wards he did not hesitate to oppose, and perhaps
abuse him.
He had a high reverence for religion; none of our

244 HISTORIC AMERICANS
pubHc men more. He aimed to be a Christian man.
Signs of this have often been sought in his habits of
church-going, of reading the Bible; they may be
found rather in the general rectitude of his Hfe, public
and private, and in the high motives which swayed
him, in his opposition to slavery, in the self-denial
which cost him his re-election. In his pubHc acts he
seems animated by the thought that he stood in the
presence of God. Though rather unphilosophical in
his theology, resting to a great degree on the authority
of tradition and the letter, and attaching much value
to forms and times, he yet saw the peculiar excellence
of Christianity, — that it recognized " love as the
paramount and transcendent law of human nature."
I do not say that his life indicates the attainment of a
complete religious repose, but that he earnestly and
continually labored to achieve that. You shall find
few statesmen, few men, who act with a more continual
and obvious reference to rehgion as a motive, as a
guide, as a comfort. He was, however, no sectarian.
His devotion to freedom appeared, where it seldom ap
pears, in his notions about reHgion. He thought for
himself, and had a theology of his own, rather old-
fashioned, it is true, and not very philosophical or
consistent, it may be, and in that he was not very sing
ular; but he allowed others to think also for them
selves, and have a theology of their own. Mr. Adams
was a Unitarian. It is no great merit to be a Uni
tarian, or a Calvinist, or a Catholic, perhaps no more
merit to be one than the other. But he was not
ashamed of his belief when Unitarianism was Httle,
despised, mocked at, and called " infideHty " on all
sides. When the Unitarian church at Washington, a
small and feeble body, met for worship in an upper

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 245
room — not large, but obscure, over a public bathing-
house — John Quincy Adams, the Secretary of State
and expecting to be President, came regularly to wor
ship with them. It was not fashionable ; it was hardly
respectable, for the Unitarians were not then, as now,
numerous and rich; but he went and worshiped. It
was no merit to think with any sect, it was a great
merit to dare to be true to his convictions. In his
theology, as in politics, he feared not to stand in a
minority. If there ever was an American who loved
the praise of God more than the praise of men, I be
lieve Mr. Adams was one.
His devotion to freedom, his love of his country,
his conscientiousness, his religion, are four things
strong and noticeable in his character. You shall look
long amongst our famous men before you find his
equal in these things.28
Somebody says, no man ever used all his intellectual
faculties as far as possible. If any man is an ex
ception to this rule, it is Mr. Adams. He was tem
perate and dihgent; industrious almost to a fault,
though not orderly or systematic. His diplomatic
letters, his orations, his reports and speeches, aU in
dicate wide learning, the fruit of the most remarka
ble diligence. The attainments of a well-bred scholar
are not often found in the American Congress, or the
President's house. Yet he never gives proof that he
had the mind of a great man. In his special depart
ment of politics he does not appear as a master. He
has no great ideas with which to solve the riddles of
commerce and finance ; has done little to settle the com
mercial problems of the world, — for that work there
is needed not only a retrospective acquaintance with
the habits and history of men, but the foresight which

246 HISTORIC AMERICANS
comes from a knowledge of the nature of things and
of man. His chief intellectual excellence seems to
have been memory; his great moral merit, a conscien
tious and firm honesty; his practical strength lay in
his diligence. His counsels seem almost always to
have come from a knowledge of human history, seldom
to have been prompted by a knowledge of the nature
of man. Hence he was a critic of the past, or an
administrator of the present, rather than a prophetic
guide for the future. He had many facts and prec
edents, but few ideas. Few examples of great po
Htical foresight can be quoted from his life; and
therein, to his honor be it spoken, his heart seems to
have out-traveled his head. The public affairs of the
United States seem generally to be conducted by many
men of moderate abilities, rather than by a few men
of great genius for politics.
Mr. Adams wrote much. Some of his works are
remarkable for their beauty, for the graceful pro
portions of their style, and the felicity of their dec
oration. Such are his celebrated Lectures on
Rhetoric and Oratory, which are sufficiently learned
and sagacious, not very philosophical, but written in
an agreeable style, and at the present day not wholly
without value. His review of the works of Fisher
Ames — I speak only of the rhetoric — is, perhaps, the
finest of his compositions. Some of his productions
are disorderly, ill-compacted, without " joints or con
texture," and homely to a fault: this oration is a
growth out of a central thought, marked by an in
ternal harmony; that, a composition, a piece of car
pentry distinguished by only an outward symmetry of
members; others are neither growth nor composition,

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 247
only a mass of materials huddled and lumped to
gether. Most of his later productions, with the ex
ception of his congressional speeches, are hard, cold,
and unfinished performances, with Httle order in the
thoughts, and less beauty in the expression. His ex
temporaneous speeches have more of both; they are
better finished than his studied orations. He could
judge and speak with fury, though he wrote with
phlegm. His illustrations are usually drawn from
Hterature, not from nature or human life; his lan
guage is commonly cold, derived from the Roman
stream which has been filtered through books, rather
than from the deep and original well of our Saxon
home. His published letters are compact, written in
a cold style, without playfulness or wit, with no ele
gance, and, though mostly business letters, they are
not remarkable for strength or distinctness. His
dihgence appears in verse as well as prose. He wrote
much that rhymed tolerably ; little that was poetical.
The same absence of nature, the same coldness and
lack of inspiration, mark his poetry and prose. But
in aU that he wrote, with the exceptions mentioned
above, though you miss the genial warmth, the lofty
thought, the mind that attracts, embraces, warms,
and inspires the reader, you find always a spirit of
humanity, of justice, and love to God.
Mr. Adams was seldom eloquent. Eloquence is no
great gift. It has its place among subordinate
powers, not among the chief. Alas for the states
man or preacher who has only that to save the state
withal ! Washington had none of it, yet how he ruled
the land! No man in America has ever had a po
litical influence so wide and permanent as Mr. Jeffer
son; yet he was a very indifferent writer, and never

248 HISTORIC AMERICANS
made a speech of any value. The acts of Washing
ton, the ideas of Jefferson, made eloquence superflu
ous. True, it has its value : if a man have at command
the electricity of truth, justice, love, the sentiments
and great ideas thereof, it is a good thing to be able
with Olympian hand to condense that electric fire into
bolted eloquence; to thunder and lighten in the sky.
But if a man have that electric truth, it matters Httle
whether it is Moses that speaks, or only Aaron;
whether or not Paul's bodily presence be weak and
his speech contemptible: it is Moses' thought which
thunders and lightens out of Sinai; it is Paul's idea
that is powerful and builds up the Church. Of true
eloquence, the best thoughts put in the best words,
and uttered in the best form, Mr. Adams had Httle,
and that appeared mainly in the ktter part of his
life. Hundreds have more. What passes for elo
quence is common in America, where the public mouth
is always a-going. His early orations are poor in
their substance and faulty in their form. His ability
as an orator developed late ; no proofs of it appear be
fore he entered the House of Representatives, at a
good old age.
In his manner of speaking there was little dignity
and no grace, though sometimes there was a terrible
energy and fire. He was often a powerful speaker
— by his facts and figures, by his knowledge, his
fame, his age, and his position, but most of all by his
independent character. He spoke worthily of great
men, of Madison or Lafayette, kindling with his
theme, and laying aside all littleness of a party.
However, he was most earnest and most eloquent not
when he stood up the champion of a neglected truth,
not when he dwelt on great men now venerable to us

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 249
all, but when he gathered his strength to attack a foe.
Incensed, his sarcasm was terrific; colossal vanity, as
piring to be a Ghenghis Khan, at the touch of that
Ithuriel spear shrank to the dimensions of Tom
Thumb. His invective is his masterpiece of oratoric
skill. It is sad to say this, and to remember that the
greatest works of ancient or of modern rhetoric, from
the thundering PhiHppics of Demosthenes down to
the sarcastic and crazy rattle of Lord Brougham,
are aU of the same character, are efforts against a
personal foe! Men find hitherto the ablest acts and
speech in the same cause, — not positive and creating,
but critical and combative, — in war.
If Mr. Adams had died in 1829, he would have been
remembered for awhile as a learned man; as an able
diplomatist, who had served his country faithfully at
home and abroad; as a President spotless and incor
ruptible, but not as a very important personage in
American history. His mark would have been faint
and soon effaced from the sands of time. But the
last period of his life was the noblest. He had worn
all the official honors which the nation could bestow ;
he sought the greater honor of serving that nation,
who had now no added boon to give. All that he had
done as Minister abroad, as Senator, as Secretary, and
President, is Httle compared with what he did in the
House of Representatives; and while he stood there,
with nothing to hope, with nothing to fear, the hand
of Justice wrote his name high up on the walls of his
country. It was surprising to see at his first at
tendance there, men, who, while he was President, had
been the loudest to call out " coalition, bargain, in
trigue, corruption," come forward and express the in
voluntary confidence they felt in his wisdom and in-

250 HISTORIC AMERICANS
tegrity, and their fear, actual though baseless, that his
withdrawal from the committee on manufactures would
" endanger the very Union itself."
Great questions soon came up; nullification was
speedily disposed of ; the bank and the tariff got ended
or compromised; but slavery lay in the consciousness
of the nation, like the one dear but appalling sin in a
man's heart. Some wished to be rid of it, northern
men and southern men. It would come up; to justify
that, or excuse it, the American sentiment and idea must
be denied and rejected utterly ; the South, who had long
known the charms of Bathsheba, was ready for her sake
to make away with Uriah himself. To remove that
monstrous evil, gradually but totally, and restore unity
to the nation, would require a greater change than the
adoption of the Constitution. To keep slavery out of
sight, yet in existence, unjustified, un excused, unre-
pented of, a contradiction in the national consciousness,
a political and deadly sin, the sin against the holy spirit
of American liberty, known but not confessed, the pub
lic secret of the people — that would lead to suppress
ing petitions, suppressing debate in Congress and out
of Congress, to silencing the pulpit, the press, and the
people. Under these circumstances, Mr. Adams went to Con
gress, an old man, well known on both sides the water,
the presidential laurels on his brow, independent and
fearless, expecting no reward from men for services
however great. In respect to the subject of slavery, he
had no ideas in advance of the nation ; he was far be
hind the foremost men. He " deprecated all discussion
of slavery or its abolition, in the House, and gave no
countenance to petitions for the abolition of slavery
in the District of Columbia or the territories." How-

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 251
ever, he acquired new ideas as he went on, and became
the congressional leader in the great movement of the
American mind towards universal freedom.
Here he stood as the champion of human rights;
here he fought, and with all his might. In 1836, by
the celebrated resolution, forbidding debate on the
subject of slavery, the South drove the North to the
wall, nailed it there into shameful silence. A " north
ern man with southern principles," before entering the
President's chair, declared, that if Congress should pass
a law to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, he
would exercise his veto to prevent the law.24 Mr.
Adams stood up manfully, sometimes almost alone, and
contended for freedom of speech. Did obstinate men
of the North send petitions relative to slavery, asking
for its abolition in the district or elsewhere? Mr.
Adams was ready to present the petitions. Did women
petition? It made no difference with him. Did slaves
petition? He stood up there to defend their right to
be heard. The South had overcome many an obstacle ;
but that one fearless soul would not bend, and could not
be broken. Spite of rules of order, he contrived to
bring the matter perpetually before Congress, and
sometimes to read the most offensive parts of the peti
tions. When Arkansas was made a state, he en
deavored to abolish slavery in its domain ; he sought to
establish international rektions with Hayti, and to se
cure the right of suffrage for the colored citizens of
the District of Columbia. The laws which forbid
blacks to vote in the northern states he held " in utter
abhorrence." He saw from afar the plots of southern politicians,
plots for extending the area of slavery, for narrowing
the area of freedom, and exposed those plots. You all

252 HISTORIC AMERICANS
remember the tumult it excited when he rose in his place
holding a petition from slaves ; that the American Con
gress was thrown into long and disgraceful confusion.
You cannot have forgotten the uproar which followed
his presenting a petition to dissolve the Union ! 25 I
know few speeches more noble and manly than his on
the right of petition, — occasioned by that celebrated
attempt to stifle debate, and on the annexation of
Texas. Some proposed to censure him, some clamored,
" expel him," some cried out, " burn the petitions ! "
" and him with them ! " screamed yet others. Some
threatened to have him indicted by the grand jury of
the district, " or be made amenable to another tribunal,"
hoping to see " an incendiary brought to condign pun
ishment." " My Hfe on it," said a southern legisla
tor, " if he presents that petition from slaves, we shall
yet see him within the walls of the penitentiary."
Some in secret threatened to assassinate him in the
streets. They mistook their man; with justice on his
side he did " not fear all the grand juries in the uni
verse." He would not curl nor cringe, but snorted his
defiance in their very face. In front of ridicule, of de
sertion, obloquy, rage, and brutal threats, stood up that
old man, bald and audacious; and the chafed rock of
Cohasset stands not firmer mid the yeasty waves, nor
more triumphant spurns back into the ocean's face the
broken billows of the storm. That New England knee
bent only before his God. That unpretending man —
the whole power of the nation could not move him from
his post.
Men threatened to increase the slave power. Said
one of the champions of slavery with prophetic speech,
but fatal as Cassandra's in the classic tale, Americans
" would come up in thousands to plant the lone star of

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 253
the Texan banner on the Mexican capital. . . .
The boundless wealth of captured towns and rifled
churches, and a lazy, vicious, and luxurious priesthood,
would soon enable Texas to pay her soldiery and re
deem her state debt, and push her victorious arms to the
very shores of the Pacific. And would not all this ex
tend the bounds of slavery? Yes, the result would be,
that, before another quarter of a century, the extension
of skvery would not stop short of the Western ocean."
Against this danger Mr. Adams armed himself, and
fought in the holiest cause — the cause of human
rights. I know few things in modern times so grand as that
old man standing there in the House of Representa
tives, the compeer of Washington, a man who had
borne himself proudly in kings' courts, early doing
service in high places, where honor may be won; a
man who had filled the highest office in any nation's
gift; a President's son, himself a President, standing
there the champion of the neediest of the oppressed:
the conquering cause pleased others; him only, the
cause of the conquered. Had he once been servile to
the hands that wielded power? No thunderbolt can
scare him now ! Did he once make a treaty and bind
Mexico to betray the wandering fugitive who took his
life in his hand and fled from the talons of the Amer
ican eagle ? Now he would go to the stake sooner than
tolerate such a deed! When he went to the Supreme
Court, after an absence of thirty years, and arose to
defend a body of friendless negroes torn from their
home and most unjustly held in thrall; when he asked
the judges to excuse him at once both for the trembling
faults of age and the inexperience of youth, the man
having labored so long elsewhere that he had forgotten

254 HISTORIC AMERICANS
the rules of court; when he summed up the conclusion
of the whole matter, and brought before those judicial
but yet moistening eyes the great men whom he had
once met there — Chase, Cushing, Martin, Livingston,
and Marshall himself; and while he remembered them
that were " gone, gone, all gone," remembered also
the Eternal Justice that is never gone, — why, the sight
was sublime. It was not an old patrician of Rome
who had been consul, dictator, coming out of his hon
ored retirement at the Senate's call, to stand in the
forum to levy new armies, marshal them to victory
afresh, and gain thereby new laurels for his brow ; —
but it was a plain citizen of America, who had held an
office far greater than that of consul, king, or dictator,
his hand reddened by no man's blooa, expecting no
honors, but coming in the name of justice to plead for
the slave, for the poor barbarian negro of Africa, for
Cinque and Grabbo, for their deeds comparing them to
Harmodius and Aristogeiton, whose classic memory
made each bosom thrill. That was worth all his
honors, — it was worth while to live fourscore years for
that. When he stood in the House of Representatives, the
champion of the rights of a minority, of the rights of
man, he stood colossal. Frederick the Great seems
doubly so, when, single-handed, " that son of the Dukes
of Brandenburg" contended against Austria, France,
England, Russia, kept them all at bay, divided by his
skill, and conquered by his might. Surely he seems
great, when measured merely by his deeds. But, in
comparison, Frederick the Great seems Frederick the
little: for Adams fought not for a kingdom, nor for
fame, but for justice and the eternal right; fought,
too, with weapons tempered in a heavenly stream!

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 255
He had his reward. Who ever missed it? From
mythological Cain, who slew his brother, down to Judas
Iscariot, and Aaron Burr; from Jesus of Nazareth,
down to the least man that dies or lives — who ever lost
his reward? None. No; not one. Within the wicked
heart there dwells the avenger, with unseen hands, to
adjust the cord, to poison the fatal bowl. In the im
penetrable citadel of a good man's consciousness, un
seen by mortal eyes, there stands the palladium of jus
tice, radiant with celestial light; mortal hands may
make and mar, — this they can mar not, no more than
they can make. Things about the man can others
build up or destroy ; but no foe, no tyrant, no assassin,
can ever steal the man out of the man. Who would
not have the consciousness of being right, even of try
ing to be right, though affronted by a whole world,
rather than conscious of being wrong, and hollow, and
false, have all the honors of a nation on his head? Of
late years, no party stood up for Mr. Adams, " The
madman of Massachusetts," as they called him, on the
floor of Congress ; but he knew that he had, and in his
old age, done one work, — he had contended for the
unalienable rights of man, done it faithfully. The
government of God is invisible. His justice the more
certain, — and by that Mr. Adams had his abundant re
ward. But he had his poorer and outward rewards, negative
and positive. For his zeal in behalf of freedom he was
called " a monarchist in disguise," " an alien to the
true interests of his country," " a traitor." A slave
holder from Kentucky published to his constituents that
he was " sincerely desirous to check that man, for if
he could be removed from the councils of the nation,
or silenced upon the exasperating subject to which he

256 HISTORIC AMERICANS
had devoted himself, none other, I beHeve, could be
found hardy enough or bad enough to fiU his place."
It was worth something to have an enemy speak such
praise as that; but the slave-holder was wrong in his
conjecture ; the North has yet other sons not less hardy,
not more Ukely to be silenced. Still more praise of a
similar sort : — at a fourth of July dinner at Walter-
borough, in South Carolina, this sentiment was pro
posed and responded to with nine cheers : " May we
never want a Democrat to trip up the heels of a Fed
eralist, or a hangman to prepare a halter for John
Quincy Adams." Considering what he had done and
whence those rewards proceeded, that was honor enough
for a yet greater man.
Let me turn to things more grateful. Mr. Adams,
through lack of genial qualities, had few personal
friends, yet from good men throughout the North there
went up a hearty thanksgiving for his manly independ
ence, and prayers for his success. Brave men forgot
their old prejudices, forgot the " Embargo," forgot
the " Hartford Convention," forgot all the hard things
which he had ever said, forgot his words in the Senate,
forgot their disappointments, and said — " For this our
hearts shall honor thee, thou brave old man ! " In
1843, when, for the first time, he visited the West, to
assist at the foundation of a scientific institution, all the
West rose up to do him reverence. He did not go out
to seek honors, they came to seek him. It was the
movement of a noble people, feeHng a noble presence
about them no less than within. When Cicero, the
only great man whom Rome never feared, returned
from his exile, all Italy rose up and went out to meet
him ; so did the North and the West welcome this cham
pion of freedom, this venerable old man. They came

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 257
not to honor one who had been a President, but one
who was a man. That alone, said Mr. Adams, with
tears of joy and grief filling his eyes, was reward
enough for all that he had done, suffered, or under
taken. Yes, it was too much; too much for one man
as the reward of one life !
You aU remember the last time he was at any pub
lic meeting in this city. A man had been kidnapped
in Boston, kidnapped at noon-day, " on the high road
between Faneuil HaU and old Quincy," and carried off
to be a slave ! 26 New England hands had seized their
brother, sold him into bondage for ever, and his chil
dren after him. In the presence of slavery, as of arms,
the laws are silent, — not always men. Then it ap
pears who are men, who not! A meeting was called
to talk the matter over, in a plain way, and look in
one another's faces. Who was fit to preside in such a
case? That old man sat in the chair in Faneuil Hall;
above him was the image of his father, and his own;
around him were Hancock and the other Adams, —
Washington, greatest of all; before him were the men
and women of Boston, met to consider the wrongs done
to a miserable negro slave; the roof of the old Cradle
of Liberty spanned over them all. Forty years before,
a young man and a Senator, he had taken the chair at
a meeting called to consult on the wrong done to Amer
ican seamen, violently impressed by the British from
an American ship of war, the unlucky Chesapeake;
some of you remember that event. Now, an old man,
clothed with half a century of honors, he sits in the
same hall, to preside over a meeting to consider the
outrage done to a single slave ; a greater outrage —
alas, not done by a hostile, not by an alien hand ! One
was the first meeting of citizens he ever presided over,
VI— 17

258 HISTORIC AMERICANS
the other was the last; both for the same object — the
defense of the eternal right.
But I would not weary you. His death was noble;
fit ending for such a life. He was an old man, the
last that had held a diplomatic office under Washington.
He had uttered his oracles; had done his work. The
highest honors of the nation he had worthily worn ; but,
as his townsmen tell us, — caring little for the Presi
dent, and much for the man, — that was very Httle in
comparison with his character. The good and ill of
the human cup he had tasted, and plentifully, too, as
son, husband, father. He had borne his testimony for
freedom and the rights of mankind; he had stood in
Congress almost alone; with a few gallant men had
gone down to the battlefield, and if victory escaped
him, it was because night came on.
He saw others enter the field in good heart, to stand
in the imminent deadly breach; he lived long enough
for his own welfare, for his own ambition ; long enough
to see the seal broken, — and then, this aged Simeon,
joyful in the consolation, bowed his head and went
home in peace. His feet were not hurt with fetters;
he died with his armor on ; died like a Senator, in the
capitol of the nation; died like an American, in the
service of his country; died like a Christian, full of
immortality; died like a man, fearless and free!
You will ask, What was the secret of his strength?
Whence did he gain such power to stand erect where
others so often cringed and crouched low to the
ground? It is plain to see: he looked beyond time, be
yond men ; looked to the eternal God, and, fearing Him,
forgot all other fear. Some of his failings he knew to
be such, and struggled with them though he did not

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 259
overcome. A man, not over-modest, once asked him
what he most of all lamented in his life, and he replied :
" My impetuous temper and vituperative speech ; that
I have not always returned good for evil, but in the
madness of my blood have said things that I am
ashamed of before my God ! " As the world goes, it
needed some greatness to say that.
When he was a boy, his mother, a still woman, and
capable, deep-hearted, and pious, took great pains with
his culture; most of all with his religious culture.
When, at the age of ten, he was about to leave home for
years of absence in another land, she took him aside to
warn him of temptations which he could not then un
derstand. She bade him remember religion and his
God — his secret, silent prayer. Often in his day
there came the earthquake of party strife ; the fire, the
storm, and the whirlwind of passion; he listened —
and God was not there ; but there came, too, the remem
brance of his mother's whispered words; God came in
that memory, and earthquake and storm, the fire and
the whirlwind were powerless, at last, before that still
small voice. Beautifully did she write to her boy of
ten, " Great learning and superior abilities will be of
little value . . . unless virtue, honor, truth, and
integrity, are added to them. Remember that you are
accountable to your Maker for all your words and your
actions." " Dear as you are to me," says this more
than Spartan, this Christian mother, " Dear as you are
to me, I would much rather you should have found
your grave in the ocean you have crossed, or that any
untimely death cross you in your infant years, than
see you an immoral, profligate, or graceless child. Let
your observations and comparisons produce in your
mind an abhorrence of domination and power — the

260 HISTORIC AMERICANS
parents of slavery, ignorance, and barbarism. May
you be led to an imitation of that disinterested patriot
ism and that noble love of your country which will
teach you to despise wealth, titles, pomp, and equip
age, as mere external advantages, which cannot add to
the internal excellence of your mind, or compensate for
the want of integrity and virtue." She tells him in a
letter, that her father, a plain New England clergy
man, of Braintree, who had just died, " left you a
legacy more valuable than gold or silver; he left you
his blessing, and his prayers that you might become
a useful citizen, a guardian of the laws, liberty, and
religion of your country. . . . Lay this bequest
up in your memory and practise upon it; believe me,
you will find it a treasure that neither moth nor rust
can destroy."
If a child have such a mother, there is no wonder
why he stood fearless, and bore a charmed life which
no • opposition could tame down. I wonder more that
one so born and by such a mother bred, could ever
once bend a servile knee ; could ever indulge that fierce
and dreadful hate ; could ever stoop to sully those hands
which hers had joined in prayer. It ill accords with
teachings like her own. I wonder that he could ever
have refused to " deliberate." Religion is a quality
that makes a man independent; disappointment will
not render such an one sour, nor oppression drive him
mad, nor elevation bewilder ; power will not dazzle, nor
gold corrupt ; no threat can silence and no fear subdue.
There are men enough born with greater abilities
than Mr. Adams, men enough in New England, in all
the walks of man. But how many are there in political
life who use their gifts so diligently, with such con
science, such fearless deference to God? — nay, tell us

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 261
one. I have not spared his faults ; I am no eulogist, to
paint a man with undiscriminating praise. Let his
follies warn us, while his virtues guide. But look on
all his faults, and then compare him with our famous
men of the North or the South ; with the great Whigs
or the great Democrats. Ask which was the purest
man, the most patriotic, the most honest; which did
his nation the smaUest harm and the greatest good;
which for his country and his kind denied himself the
most. Shall I examine their lives, public and private,
strip them bare and lay them down beside his life, and
ask which, after all, has the least of blemish and the
most of beauty? Nay, that is not for me to do or
to attempt.
In one thing he surpassed most men, — he grew more
liberal the more he grew old, ripening and mellowing,
too, with age. After he was seventy years old, he wel
comed new ideas, kept his mind vigorous, and never fell
into that crabbed admiration of past times and buried
institutions, which is the palsy of so many a man, and
which makes old age nothing but a pity, and gray
hairs provocative of tears. This is the more remark
able in a man of his habitual reverence for the past, in
one who judged oftener by the history than by the
nature of man.
Times wiU come when men shall look to that vacant
seat. But the thunder is silent, the lightning gone;
other men must take his place and fill it as they can.
Let us not mourn that he has gone from us ; let us re
member what was evil in him, but only to be warned of
ambition, of party strife, to love more that large
charity which forgives an enemy, and, through good
and ill, contends for mankind. Let us be thankful for
the good he has said and done, be guided by it and

262 HISTORIC AMERICANS
blessed. There is a certain affluence of inteUectual
power granted to some men, which provokes admira
tion for a time, let the man of myriad gifts use his
talent as he may. Such merely cubic greatness of mind
is matter of astonishment rather than a fit subject for
esteem and praise. Of that, Mr. Adams had little, as
so many of his contemporaries had more. In him
what most commands respect is, his independence, his
love of justice, of his country and his kind. No son of
New England has been ever so distinguished in political
life. But it is no great thing to be President of the
United States; some men it only makes ridiculous. A
worm on a steeple's top is nothing but a worm, no more
able to fly than while creeping in congenial mud; a
mountain needs no steeple to lift its head and show the
world what is great and high. The world obeys its
great men, stand where they may.
After all, this must be the greatest praise of Mr.
Adams: in private he corrupted no man nor woman;
as a politician he never debauched the public morals
of his country, nor used public power for any private
end; in public and private he lived clean and above
board ; he taught a fearless love of truth and the right,
both by word and deed. I wish I could add, that was a
small praise. But, as the times go, as our famous men
are, it is a very great fame, and there are few com
petitors for such renown ; I must leave him alone in that
glory. Doubtless, as he looked back on his long career,
his whole life, motives as well as actions, must have
seemed covered with imperfections. I will seek no
further to disclose his merits, or " draw his frailties
from their dread abode."
He has passed on, where superior gifts and oppor
tunities avail not, nor his long life, nor his high sta-

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 263
tion, nor his wide-spread fame; where enemies cease
from troubling, and the flattering tongue also is stiU.
Wealth, honor, fame, forsake him at the grave's mouth.
It is only the living soul, sullied or clean, which the kst
angel bears off in his arms to that world where many
that seem first shall be last, and the last first; but
where justice shall be lovingly done to the great man
full of power and wisdom who rules the state, and the
feeblest slave whom oppression chains down in ignor
ance and vice — done by the all-seeing Father of both
President and slave, who loves both with equal love.
The venerable man is gone home. He shall have his
praise. But who shaU speak it worthily? Mean men
and little, who shrank from him in life, who never
shared what was manliest in the man, but mocked at
his living nobleness, shall they come forward and with
mealy mouths, to sing his requiem, forgetting that his
eulogy is their own ban ? Some will re j oice at his death ;
there is one man the less to fear, and they who
trembled at his life may well be glad when the earth
has covered up the son she bore. Strange men will
meet with mutual solace at his tomb, wondering that
their common foe is dead, and they are met! The
Herods and Pilates of contending parties may be made
friends above his grave, and clasping hands may fancy
that their union is safer than before; but there will
come a day after to-day! Let us leave him to his
rest. The slave has lost a champion who gained new ardor
and new strength the longer he fought; America has
lost a man who loved her with his heart; religion has
lost a supporter; freedom an unfailing friend, and
mankind a noble vindicator of our unalienable rights.
It is not long since he was here in our own streets ;

264 HISTORIC AMERICANS
three winter months have scantly flown : he set out for
his toil — but went home to his rest. His labors are
over. No man now threatens to assassinate ; none to
expel; none even to censure. The theatrical thunder
of Congress, noisy but harmless, has ended as it ought,
in honest tears. South Carolina need ask no more a
halter for that one northern neck she could not bend
nor break. The tears of his country are dropped upon
his urn; the muse of history shall write thereon, in
letters not to be effaced, The one great man since
Washington whom America had no cause to fear.
To-day that venerable form lies in the capitol, —
the disenchanted dust. AU is silent. But his undy
ing soul, could we deem it still hovering o'er its native
soil, bound to take leave, yet lingering still, and loath
to part, that would bid us love our country, love man,
love justice, freedom, right, and above all, love God.
To-morrow that venerable dust starts once more to
join the dear presence of father and mother, to mingle
his ashes with their ashes, as their lives once mingled,
and their souls again. Let his native state communi
cate her last sad sacrament, and give him now, it is all
she can, a little earth for charity.
But what shall we say as the dust returns?
"Where slavery's minions cower
Before the servile power,
He bore their ban;
And, like the aged oak,
That braved the lightning's stroke
When thunders round it broke,
Stood up a man.
" Nay, when they stormed aloud,
And round him like a cloud,
Came thick and black, —
He single-handed strove,

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 265
And, like Olympian Jove,
With his own thunder drove
The phalanx back.
" Not from the bloody field,
Borne on his battered shield,
By foes o'ercome; —
But from a sterner fight,
In the defense of Right,
Clothed with a conqueror's might,
We hail him home.
" His life in labors spent,
That ' Old man eloquent '
Now rests for ay; —
His dust the tomb may claim; —
His spirit's quenchless flame,
His 'venerable name,'
Pass not away."

VI
DANIEL WEBSTER
When Bossuet, who was himself the eagle of elo
quence, preached the funeral discourse on Henrietta
Maria, daughter of Henry the Fourth of France,
and wife of Charles the First of Engknd, he had a
task far easier than mine to-day. She was indeed
the queen of misfortunes; the daughter of a king
assassinated in his own capital, and the widow of a
king judicially put to death in front of his own
palace. Her married life was bounded by the murder
of her royal sire, and the execution of her kingly
spouse; and she died neglected, far from kith and
kin. But for that great man, who in his youth was
called, prophetically, a " Father of the Church," the
sorrows of her birth and her estate made it easy to
gather up the audience in his arms, to moisten the
faces of men with tears, to show them the nothingness
of mortal glory, and the beauty of eternal life. He
led his hearers to his conclusion that day, as the
mother kys the sobbing child in her bosom to still
its grief.
To-day it is not so with me. Of all my public
trials, this is my most trying day. Give me your
sympathies, my friends; remember the difficulty of
my position, — its delicacy too.
I am to speak of one of the most conspicuous men
that New England ever bore, — conspicuous, not by
accident, but by the nature of his mind, — one of her
266

DANIEL WEBSTER 267
ablest inteUects. I am to speak of an eminent man,
of great power, in a great office, one of the landmarks
of politics, now laid low. He seemed so great that
some men thought he was himself one of the institu
tions of America. I am to speak while his departure
is yet but of yesterday ; while the sombre flags still float
in our streets. I am no party man; you know I am
not. No party is responsible for me, nor I to any
one. I am free to commend the good things of all
parties, — their great and good men; free likewise
to censure the evil of all parties. You will not ask
me to say what only suits the public ear: there are
a hundred to do that to-day. I do not follow opinion
because popular. I cannot praise a man because he
had great gifts, great station, and great opportunities ;
I cannot harshly censure a man for trivial mistakes.
You will not ask me to flatter because others flatter ;
to condemn because the ruts of condemnation are so
deep and so easy to travel in. It is unjust to be un
generous, either in praise or blame: only the truth is
beautiful in speech. It is not reverential to treat a
great man like a spoiled child. Most of you are old
enough to know . that good and evil are both to be
expected of each man. I hope you are all wise
enough to discriminate between right and wrong.
Give me your sympathies. This I am sure of, — I
shall be as tender in my judgment as a woman's love;
I will try to be as fair as the justice of a man. I
shall tax your time beyond even my usual wont, for
I cannot crush Olympus into a nut. Be not alarmed:
if I tax your time the more, I shall tire your patience
less. Such a day as this will never come again to
you or me. There is no Daniel Webster left to die,
and nature will not soon give us another such as he.

268 HISTORIC AMERICANS
I wiU take care by my speech that you sit easy on
your bench. The theme will assure it that you remem
ber what I say.
A great man is the blossom of the world; the indi
vidual and prophetic flower, parent of seeds that will
be men. This is the greatest work of God; far
transcending earth, and moon, and sun, and all the
material magnificence of the universe. It is " a little
lower than the angels," and; like the aloe-tree, it
blooms but once an age. So we should value, love,
and cherish it the more. America has not many great
men living now, — scarce one : there have been few
in her history. Fertile in multitudes, she is stingy in
greatness, — her works mainly achieved by large bodies
of but common men. At this day the world has not
many natural masters. There is a dearth of great
men. England is no better off than we her child.
Sir Robert Peel has for years been dead. Welling
ton's soul has gone home, and left his body awaiting
burial. In France, Germany, Italy, and Russia, few
great characters appear. The Revolution of 1848,
which found everything else, faUed because it found
not them. A sad Hungarian weeps over the hidden
crown of Maria Theresa; a sadder countenance drops
a tear for the nation of Dante, and the soil of Virgil
and Cassar, Lucretius and Cicero.1 To me these two
seem the greatest men of Europe now. There are
great chemists, great geologists, great philologians ;
but of great men, Christendom has not many. From
the highest places of politics greatness recedes, and
in all Europe no kingly intellect now throbs beneath
a royal crown. Even Nicholas of Russia is only tall,
not great.
But here let us pause a moment, and see what great-

DANIEL WEBSTER 269
ness is, looking at the progressive formation of the
idea of a great man.
In general, greatness is eminence of ability; so
there are as many different forms thereof as there
are qualities wherein a man may be eminent. These
various forms of greatness should be distinctly marked,
that, when we say a man is great, we may know
exactly what we mean.
In the rudest ages, when the body is man's only
tool for work or war, eminent strength of body is
the thing most coveted. Then, and so long as human
affairs are controUed by brute force, the giant is
thought to be the great man, — is had in honor for his
eminent brute strength.
When men have a Httle outgrown that period of
force, cunning is the quality most prized. The nimble
brain outwits the heavy arm, and brings the circum
vented giant to the ground. He who can overreach
his antagonist, plotting more subtly, winning with
more deceitful skill; who can turn and double on his
unseen track, can " smile and smile, and be a villain,"
— he is the great man.
Brute force is merely animal ; cunning is the animal
ism of the intellect, — the mind's least intellectual ele
ment. As men go on in their development, finding
quaHties more valuable than the strength of the lion or
the subtlety of the fox, they come to value higher in
teUectual faculties, — great understanding, great im
agination, great reason. Power to think is, then, the
faculty men value most; ability to devise means for
attaining ends desired ; the power to originate ideas, to
express them in speech, to organize them into institu
tions; to organize things into a machine, men into an
army, or a state, or a gang of operatives ; to adminis-

270 HISTORIC AMERICANS
ter these various organizations. He who is eminent in
this ability is thought the great man.
But there are qualities nobler than the mere intel
lect, the moral, the affectional, the religious faculties,
— .the power of justice, of love, of holiness, of trust
in God, and of obedience to his law, — the eternal
right. These are the highest qualities of man: whoso
is most eminent therein is the greatest of great men.
He is as much above the merely intellectual great
men, as they above the men of mere cunning or of
force. Thus, then, we have four different kinds of great
ness. Let me name them bodily greatness, crafty
greatness, intellectual greatness, reHgious greatness.
Men in different degrees of development wiU value
the different kinds of greatness. Belial cannot yet
honor Christ. How can the little girl appreciate
Aristotle and Kant? The child thinks as a child.
You must have manhood in you to honor it in others,
even to see it.
Yet how we love to honor men eminent in such
modes of greatness as we can understand! Indeed,
we must do so. Soon as we really see a real great
man, his magnetism draws us, will we or no. Do
any of you remember when, for the first time in adult
years, you stood beside the ocean, or some great moun
tain of New Hampshire, or Virginia, or Pennsylvania,
or the mighty mounts that rise in Switzerland? Do
you remember what emotions came upon you at the
awful presence? But if you are confronted by a
man of vast genius, of colossal history and achieve
ments, immense personal power of wisdom, justice,
philanthropy, religion, of mighty power of will and
mighty act ; if you feel him as you feel the mountain

DANIEL WEBSTER 271
and the sea, what grander emotions spring up ! It
is Hke making the acquaintance of one of the elemen
tary forces of the earth, — like associating with grav
itation itself! The stiffest neck bends over: down go
the democratic knees ; human nature is loyal then !
A New England shipmaster, wrecked on an island in
the Indian Sea, was seized by his conquerors and made
their chief. Their captive became their king. After
years of rule, he managed to escape. When he once
more visited his former realm, he found that the sav
age had carried him to heaven, and worshipped him
as a god greater than their fancied deities: he had
revolutionized divinity, and was himself enthroned as
a god. Why so? In intellectual qualities, in religious
quaHties, he was superior to their idea of God, and
so they worshipped him. Thus loyal is human nature
to its great men.
Talk of democracy ! — we are all looking for a mas
ter; a man manlier than we. We are always looking
for a great man to solve the difficulty too hard for us,
to break the rock which lies in our way, — to repre
sent the possibility of human nature as an ideal, and
then to realize that ideal in his life. Little boys in
the country, working against time, with stints to do,
long for the passing-by of some tall brother, who in a
few minutes shall achieve what the smaller boy took
hours to do. And we are all of us but little boys, look
ing for some great brother to come and help us end our
tasks. But it is not quite so easy to recognize the greatest
kind of greatness. A Nootka-Sound Indian would
not see much in Leibnitz, Newton, Socrates, or Dante ;
and if a great man were to come as much before us as
we are before the Nootka-Sounders, what should we

272 HISTORIC AMERICANS
say of him? Why, the worst names we could devise,
blasphemer, hypocrite, infidel, atheist. Perhaps we
should dig up the old cross, and make a new martyr of
the man posterity will worship as a deity. It is the
men who are up that see the rising sun, not the slug
gards. It takes greatness to see greatness, and know
it at the first; I mean to see greatness of the highest
kind. Bulk anybody can see; bulk of body or mind.
The loftiest form of greatness is never popular in its
time. Men cannot understand or receive it. Guinea
negroes would think a juggler a greater man than
Franklin. What would be thought of Martin Luther
at Rome, of Washington at St. Petersburg, of Fenelon
among the Sacs and Foxes? Herod and Pilate were
popular in their day, — men of property and standing.
They got nominations and honor enough. Jesus of
Nazareth got no nomination, got a cross between two
thieves, was crowned with thorns, and, when he died,
eleven Galileans gathered together to lament their
Lord! Any man can measure a walking-stick, — iso
many hands long, and so many nails beside; but it
takes a mountain-intellect to measure the Andes and
Altai. Now and then God creates a mighty man, who
greatly influences mankind. Sometimes he reaches far
on into other ages. Such a man, if he be of the great
est, will by and by unite in himself the four chief
forces of society,—1 business, politics, literature, and the
Church. Himself a stronger force than all of these, he
will at last control the commercial, political, literary,
and ecclesiastical action of mankind. But just as he
is greater than other men, in the highest mode of
greatness, will he at first be opposed, and hated too.
The tall house in the street darkens the grocer's window

DANIEL WEBSTER
opposite, and he must strike his light sooner than be
fore. The inferior great man does not understand
the man of superior modes of eminence. Sullenly the
full moon at morning pales her ineffectual light before
the rising day. In the Greek fable, jealous Saturn
devours the new gods whom he feared, foreseeing the
day when the Olympian dynasty would turn him out
of heaven. To the natural man the excellence of the
spiritual is only foolishness. What do you suppose the
best educated Pharisees in Jerusalem thought of Jesus ?
They thought him an infidel: "He blasphemeth."
They called him crazy : " He hath a devil." They
mocked at the daily beauty of his holiness: he had
" broken the Sabbath." They reviled at his philan
thropy : it was " eating with publicans and sinners."
Human nature loves to reverence great men, and
often honors many a Httle one under the mistake that
he is great. See how nations honor the greatest great
men, — Moses, Zoroaster, Socrates, Jesus, — that loft
iest of men ! But by how many false men have we been
deceived, — men whose light leads to bewilder, and daz
zles to blind ! If a preacher is a thousand years before
you and me, we cannot understand him. If only a hun
dred years of thought shall separate us, there is a great
gulf between the two, whereover neither Dives nor
Abraham, nor yet Moses himself, can pass. It is a
false great man often who gets possession of the pul
pit, with his lesson for to-day, which is no lesson ; and
a false great man who gets a throne, with his lesson for
to-day, which is also no lesson. Men great in little
things are sure of their pay. It is all ready, subject to
their order.
A little man is often mistaken for a great one. The
possession of office, of accidental renown, of imposing
VI— 18

274 HISTORIC AMERICANS
qualities, of brilliant eloquence, often dazzles the be
holder; and he reverences a show.
How much a great man of the highest kind can do
for us, and how easy ! It is not harder for a cloud to
thunder, than for a chestnut in a farmer's fire to snap.
Dull Mr. Jingle urges along his restive, hard-mouthed
donkey, besmutched with mire, and wealed with many a
stripe, amid the laughter of the boys; while, by his
proper motion, swanHke Milton flies before the faces
of mankind, which are new lit with admiration at the
poet's rising flight, his garlands and singing robes
about him, till the aspiring glory transcends the sight,
yet leaves its track of beauty trailed across the sky.
Intellect and conscience are conversant with ideas, —
with absolute truth and absolute right, as the norm of
conduct. But with most men the affections are de
veloped in advance of the intellect and the conscience ;
and the affections want a person. In his actions a man
of great intellect embodies a principle, good or bad;
and by the affections men accept the great intellectual
man, bad or good, and with him the principle he has
got. As the affections are so large in us, how delightful is
it for us to see a great man, honor him, love him, rev
erence him, trust him! Crowds of men come to look
upon a hero's face, who are aU careless of his actions
and heedless of his thought; they know not his what,
nor his whence, nor his whither; his person passes for
reason, justice, and religion.
They say that women have the most of this affection,
and so are most attachable, most swayed by persons, —
least by ideas. Woman's mind and conscience, and her
soul, they say, are easily crushed into her all-embracing
heart; and truth, justice, and holiness are trodden

DANIEL WEBSTER 275
underfoot by her affection, rushing towards its object.
" What folly ! " say men. But, when a man of large
intellect comes, he is wont to make women of us all, and
take us by the heart. Each great intellectual man, if
let alone, will have an influence in proportion to his
strength of mind and will, — the good great man, the
bad great man ; for as each particle of matter has an
attractive force, which affects all other matter, so each
particle of mind has an attractive force, which draws
aU other mind.
How pleasant it is to love and reverence! To idle
men how much more delightful is it than to criticize a
man, take him to pieces, weighing each part, and con
sidering every service done or promised, and then de
cide! Men are continually led astray by misplaced
reverence. Shall we be governed by the mere instinct of
veneration, uncovering to every man who demands our
obeisance? Man is to rule himself, and not be over
mastered by any instinct subordinating the whole to a
special part. We ought to know if what we follow be
real greatness or seeming greatness ; and of the real
greatness, of what kind it is, — eminent cunning, emi
nent intellect, or eminence of religion. For men ought
not to gravitate passively, drawn by the bulk of big
ness, but consciously and freely to follow eminent wis
dom, justice, love, and faith in God. Hence it becomes
exceedingly important to study the character of all
eminent men ; for they represent great social forces for
good or iU.
It is true, great men ought to be tried by their peers.
But " a cat may look upon a king," and, if she is to
enter his service, will do well to look before she leaps.
It is dastardly in a democrat to take a master with less
scrutiny than he would buy an ox.

276 HISTORIC AMERICANS
Merchants watch the markets : they know what ship
brings corn, what hemp, what coal; how much cotton
there is at New York or New Orleans ; how much gold
in the banks. They learn these things, because they
live by the market, and seek to get money by their
trade. Politicians watch the turn of the people and the
coming vote, because they live by the ballot-box, and
wish to get honor and office by their skill. So a min
ister, who would guide men to wisdom, justice, love,
and piety, to human welfare, — ¦ he must watch the great
men, and know what quantity of truth, of justice, of
love, and of faith there is in Calhoun, Webster, Clay ;
because he is to live by the word of God, and only
asks, " Thy kingdom come ! "
What a great power is a man of large inteUect!
Aristotle rode on the neck of science for two thousand
years, till Bacon, charging down from the vantage-
ground of twenty centuries, with giant spear unhorsed
the Stagyrite, and mounted there himself; himself in
turn to be unhorsed. What a profound influence had
Frederick in Germany for half a century! What an
influence Sir Robert Peel and Wellington have had in
England for the last twenty or thirty years ! — < Napo
leon in Europe for the last fifty years ! Jefferson yet
leads the democracy of the United States ; the cold hand
of Hamilton still consolidates the several states. Dead
men of great intellect speak from the pulpit. Law is
of mortmain.
In America it is above all things necessary to study
the men of eminent mind, even the men of eminent sta
tion ; for their power is greater here than elsewhere in
Christendom. Money is our only material, greatness
our only personal nobility. In England, the influence
of powerful men is checked by the great families, the

DANIEL WEBSTER 277
great classes, with their ancestral privileges consoli
dated into institutions, and the hereditary crown.
Here we have no such f amiHes ; historical men are not
from or for such ; seldom had historic fathers ; seldom
leave historic sons.
Tempus ferax hominum, edax hominum.
Fruitful of men is time ; voracious also of men.
Even while the individual family continues rich,
political unity does not remain in its members, if numer
ous, more than a single generation. Nay, it is only in
families of remarkable stupidity that it lasts a single
age. In this country the swift decay of powerful families
is a remarkable fact. Nature produces only individ
uals, not classes. It is a wonder how many famous
Americans leave no children at all. Hancock, and
Samuel Adams, Washington, Madison, Jackson — each
was a childless flower that broke off the top of the
family tree, which after them dwindled down, and at
length died out. It has been so with European stocks
of eminent stature. Bacon, Shakespeare, Leibnitz,
Newton, Descartes, and Kant died and left no sign.
With strange self-complaisance said the first of these,
" Great benefactors have been childless men." 2 Here
and there an American family continues to bear famous
fruit, generation after generation. A single New
England tree, rooted far off in the marches of Wales,
is yet green with life, though it has twice blossomed
with Presidents.3 But in general if the great Amer
ican leave sons, the wonder is what becomes of them,
— so little, they are lost, — a single needle from the
American pine, to strew the forest floor amid the other
litter of the woods.
No great families here hold great men in check,

278 HISTORIC AMERICANS
There is no permanently powerful class. The me
chanic is father of the merchant, who wiU again be the
grandsire of mechanics. In thirty years, half the
wealth of Boston will be in the hands of men now poor ;
and, where power of money is of yesterday, it is no
great check to any man of large intellect, industry, and
will. Here is no hereditary office. So the personal
power of a great mind, for good or evil, is free from
that threefold check it meets in other lands, and be
comes of immense importance.
Our nation is a great committee of the whole; our
state is a provisional government, riches our only herit
able good, greatness our only personal nobility; office
is elective. To the ambition of a great bad man, or the
philanthropy of a great good man, there is no check but
the power of money or numbers; no check from great
families, great classes, or hereditary privileges. If
our man of large intellect runs uphill, there is nothing
to check him but the inertia of mankind; if he runs
down hill, that also is on his side.
With us the great mind is amenable to no conven
tional standard measure, as in England or Europe, —
only to public opinion. And that public opinion is
controlled by money and numbers ; for these are the two
factors of the American product, the multiplier and the
multiplicand, — ¦ millions of money, miUions of men.
A great mind is like an elephant in the line of
ancient battle, — the best ally if you can keep him in
the ranks, fronting the right way ; but, if he turn about,
he is the fatalest foe, and treads his master underneath
his feet. Great minds have a trick of turning round.
Taking all these things into consideration, you see
how important it is to scrutinize all the great men, —
to know their quantity and quality, — before we allow

DANIEL WEBSTER 279
them to take our heart. To do this is to measure one
of the most powerful popular forces for guiding the
present and shaping the future. Every office is to be
filled by the people's vote, — that of public president
and private cook. Franklin introduced new philan
thropy to the law of nations. Washington changed
men's ideas of poHtical greatness. If Napoleon the
Present goes unwhipped of Justice, he will change those
ideas again; not for the world, but for the salons of
Paris, for its journals and its mob.
How different are conspicuous men to different eyes !
The city corporation of Toulouse has just addressed
this petition to Napoleon : —
. " Mou seigneuh, — The government of the world by Providence
is the most perfect. France and Europe style you the elect of
God for the accomplishment of his designs. It belongs to no
Constitution whatever to assign a term for the divine mission
with which you are intrusted. Inspire yourself with this thought,
— to restore to the country those tutelar institutions, which form
the stability of power and the dignity of nations."
That is a prayer addressed to the Prince President
of France, whose private vices are equaled only by his
public sins. How different he looks to different men!
To me he is Napoleon the Xittle; to the mayor and
aldermen of Toulouse he is the Elect of God, with irre
sponsible power to rule as long and as badly as likes
him best. Well said Sir Philip Sidney, " Spite of the
ancients, there is not a piece of wood in the world out of
which a Mercury may not be made."
It is this importance of great men which has led
me to speak of them so often ; not only of men great by
nature, but great by position or money or office, or
by reputation ; men substantially great, and men great
by accident. Hence I spoke of Dr. Channing, whose

280 HISTORIC AMERICANS
word went like morning over the continents. Hence I
spoke of John Quincy Adams, and did not fear to
point out every error I thought I discovered in the
great man's track, which ended so proudly in the
right; and I did homage to all the excellence I found,
though it was the most unpopular excellence. Hence
I spoke of General Taylor ; yes, even of General Har
rison, a very ordinary man, but available, and acci
dentally in a great station.
You see why this ought to be done. We are a young
nation; a great man easily gives us the impression of
his hand; we shall harden in the fire of centuries, and
keep the mark. Stamp a letter on Chaldean clay, and
how very frail it seems! but burn that clay in the
fire, — and, though Nineveh shall perish, and Babylon
become a heap of ruins, that brick keeps the arrow-
headed letter to this day. As with bricks, so with
nations. Ere long, these three and twenty millions will be
come a hundred millions ; then perhaps a thousand mil
lions, spread over all the continent, from the Arctic to
the Antarctic Sea. It is a good thing to start with
men of great religion for our guides. The difference
between a Moses and a Maximian will be felt by many
millions of men, and for many an age, after death has
effaced both from the earth. The dead hand of Moses
yet circumcises every Hebrew boy; that of mediaeval
doctors of divinity still clutches the clergyman by the
throat; the dead barons of Runnymede even now keep
watch, and vindicate for us all a trial by the law of the
land, administered by our peers.
A man of eminent abilities may do one of two things
in influencing men. Either he may extend himself at
right angles with the axis of the human march, lateral-

DANIEL WEBSTER 281
ize himself, spreading widely, and have a great power in
his own age, putting his opinion into men's heads, his
will into their action, and yet never reach far onward
into the future. In America he will gain power in his
time, by having the common sentiments and ideas, and
an extraordinary power to express and show their
value; great. power of comprehension, of statement, and
of will. Such a man differs from others in quantity,
not quality. Where all men have considerable, he has
a great deal. His power may be represented by two
paraUel lines, the one beginning where his influence be
gins, the other where his influence ends. His power
wiU be measured by the length of the lines lateraUy,
and the distance betwixt the parallels. That is one
thing. Or a great man may extend himself forward, in the
line of the human march, himself a prolongation of the
axis of mankind : not reaching far sideways in his own
time, he reaches forward immensely, his influence wid
ening as it goes. He will do this by superiority in sen
timents, ideas, and actions; by eminence of justice and
of affection; by eminence of religion: he will differ in
quality as well as quantity, and have much where the
crowd has nothing at all. His power also may be rep
resented by two lines, both beginning at his birth,
pointing forwards, diverging from a point, reaching
far into the future, widening as they extend, compre
hending time by their stretch, and space by their
spread. Jesus of Nazareth was of this class : he spread
laterally in his Hfetime, and took in twelve Galilean
peasants and a few obscure women ; now his diverging
lines reach over two thousand years in their stretch,
and contain two hundred and sixty millions of men
within their spread.

282 HISTORIC AMERICANS
So much, my friends, and so long, as preface to this
estimate of a great man.
Daniel Webster was a man of eminent abihties:
for many years the favored son of New Engknd. He
was seventy years old; nearly forty years in the coun
cils of the nation ; held high office in times. of peril and
doubt ; had a commanding eloquence — there were two
million readers for every speech he spoke; and for the
last two years he has had a vast influence on the opinion
of the North. He has done service ; spoke noble words
that will endure so long as English lasts. He has
largely held the nation's eye. His public office made
his personal character conspicuous. Great men have no
privacy; their bed and their board are both spread in
front of the sun, and their private character is a pub
lic force. Let us see what he did, and what he was;
what is the result for the present, what for the future.
Daniel Webster was born at Salisbury, N. H., on the
borders of civilization, on the 18th of January, 1782.
He was the son of Captain Ebenezer and Abigail (East
man) Webster.
The mother of Captain Webster was a Miss Bachel-
der, of Hampton, where Thomas Webster, the American
founder of the family, settled in 1636. She was de
scended from the Rev. Stephen Bachiller,4 formerly of
Lynn in Massachusetts, a noted man in his time, un
justly, or otherwise, driven out of the colony by the
Puritans. Ebenezer Webster, in his early days, lived
as " boy " in the service of Colonel Ebenezer Stevens,
of Kingston, from whom he received a " lot of land " in
Stevenstown, now Salisbury. In 1764 Mr. Webster
built himself a log cabin on the premises, and lighted his
fire. His land " lapped on " to the wilderness ; no

DANIEL WEBSTER 283
New Englander living so near the north star, it is
said. The family was anything but rich, living first
in a log cabin, then in a frame house, and some time
keeping tavern.
The father was a soldier in the French War, and in
the Revolution; a great, brave, big, brawny man;
" high-breasted and broad-shouldered ; " " with heavy
eyebrows," and " a heart which he seemed to have bor
rowed from a Hon ; " " a dark man," so black that " you
could not tell when his face was covered with gunpow
der ; " six feet high, and both in look and manners
" uncommon rough." He was a shifty man of many
functions, — a farmer, a saw-miller, " something of a
blacksmith," a captain in the early part of the Revo
lutionary War, a colonel of militia, representative and
senator in the New Hampshire Legislature, and finally
judge of the Court of Common Pleas; yet he "never
saw the inside of a schoolhouse." In his early married
Hfe, food sometimes failed on the rough farm : then the
stout man and his neighbors took to the woods, and
brought home many a fat buck in their day.
The mother, one of the " black Eastmans," was a
quite superior woman. It is often so. When virtue
leaps high in the public fountain, you seek for the lofty
spring of nobleness, and find it far off in the dear
breast of some mother, who melted the snows of winter,
and condensed the summer's dew into fair, sweet hu
manity, which now gladdens the face of man in all the
city streets. Bulk is bearded and masculine; niceness
is of woman's gendering.
Daniel Webster was fortunate in the outward cir
cumstances of his birth and breeding. He came from
that class in society whence almost all the great men
of America have come, — the two Adamses, Washing-

284 HISTORIC AMERICANS
ton, Hancock, Jefferson, Jackson, Clay, and almost
every living notable of our time. New Hampshire
herself has furnished a large number of self-reliant
and able-headed men, who have fought their way in
the world with their own fist, and won eminent stations
at the last. The little, rough state breeds professors
and senators, merchants and hardy lawyers, in singular
profusion. Our Hercules was also cradled on the
ground. When he visited the West, a few years ago,
an emigrant from New Hampshire met him in Ohio,
recognized him, and asked, " Is this the son of Cap
tain Webster? " " It is, indeed," said the great man.
" What ! " said he, " is this the little black Dan that
used to water the horses ? " And the great Daniel
Webster said, " It is the little black Dan that used to
water the horses." He was proud of his history. If
a man finds the way alone, should he not be proud of
having found the way, and got out of the woods?
He had small opportunities for academical educa
tion. The schoolmaster was " abroad " in New Hamp
shire ; and was seldom at home in Salisbury. Only two
or three months in the year was there a school; often
only a movable school, that ark of the Lord, shifting
from place to place. Sometimes it was two or three
miles from Captain Webster's. Once it was stationary
in a log house. Thither went Daniel Webster, " carry
ing his dinner in a tin pail," a brave, bright boy.
" The child is father of the man." The common school
of America is the cradle of all her greatness. How
many Presidents has she therein rocked to vigorous
manhood! But Mr. Webster's school time was much
interrupted : there were " chores to be done " at home, —
the saw-mill to be tended in winter ; in summer Daniel
" must ride the horse to plough ; " and in planting-

DANIEL WEBSTER 285
time, and hay-time, and harvest, have many a day
stolen from his scanty seed-time of learning. In his
father's tavern-barn, the future Secretary gave a rough
currying, " after the fashion of the times," to the sorry
horse of many a traveler, and in the yard of the inn
yoked the oxen of many a New Hampshire teamster.
" Cast the bantling on the rocks."
When fourteen years old, he went to Phillips Acad
emy at Exeter for a few months,5 riding thither on the
same horse with his father ; then to study with Rev. Mr.
Wood at Boscawen, paying a " dollar a week " for the
food of the body and the food of the mind. In the
warm weather " Daniel went barefoot, and wore tow
trousers and a tow shirt, his only garments at that
season," spun, woven, and made up by his diligent
mother. " He helped do the things " about Mr.
Wood's barn and woodpile, and so diminished the
pecuniary burden of his father. But Mr. Wood had
smaU Latin and less Greek, and only taught what he
knew. Daniel was an ambitious boy and apt to learn.
Men wonder that some men can do so much with so
little outward furniture. The wonder is the other
way. He was more college than the college itself, and
had a university in his head. It takes time, and the
sweat of oxen, and the shouting of drivers, goading
and whipping, to get a cart-load of cider to the top of
Mount Washington ; but the eagle flies there on his own
wide wings, and asks no help. Daniel Webster had
little academic furniture to help him. He had the
mountains of New Hampshire, and his own great
mountain of a head. Was that a bad outfit? No mil
lionaire can buy it for a booby son.
There was a British sailor, with a wife but no child,

286 HISTORIC AMERICANS
an old " man-of-war's-man," living hard by Captain
Webster's, fond of fishing and hunting, of hearing
the newspapers read, and of telling his stories to all
comers. He had considerable influence on the young
boy, and never wore out of his memory.
There was a small social library at SaHsbury, whence
a bright boy could easily draw the water of life for his
intellect; at home was the Farmer's Almanac, with its
riddles and " poetry," Watts's Hymns and the Bible,
the inseparable companion of the New England man.
Daniel was fond of poetry, and, before he was ten years
old, knew dear old Isaac Watts all by heart. He
thought all books were to be got by heart. I said he
loved to learn. One day his father said to him, " I
shall send you to college, Daniel ; " and Daniel laid his
head on his father's shoulder, and wept right out. In
reading and spelling he surpassed his teacher; but his
hard hands did not take kindly to writing, and the
schoolmaster told him his fingers were " destined to the
plough-tail." He was not a strong boy, was " a crying baby " that
worried his mother ; but a neighbor " prophesied,"
" You will take great comfort in him one day ! " As
he grew up he was " the slimmest of the family," a
farmer's youngest boy, and " not good for much."
He did not love work. It was these pecuHarities which
decided Captain Webster to send Daniel to college.
The time came for him to go to college. His father
once carried him to Dartmouth in a wagon. On the
way thither, they passed a spot which Captain Webster
remembered right well. " Once when you were a little
baby," said he, " in the winter we were out of provi
sions, I went into the woods with the gun to find some
thing to eat. In that spot yonder, then all covered

DANIEL WEBSTER 287
with woods, I found a herd of deer. The snow was
very deep, and they had made themselves a pen, and
were crowded together in great numbers. As they
could not get out, I took my choice, and picked out a
fine, fat stag. I walked round and looked at him,
with my knife in my hand. As I looked the noble
fellow in the face, the great tears rolled down his
cheeks, and I could not touch him. But I thought of
you, Daniel, and your mother, and the rest of the
little ones, and carried home the deer."
He can hardly be said to have " entered college : "
he only " broke in," so slenderly was he furnished with
elementary knowledge. This deficiency of elementary
instruction in the classic tongues and in mathematics
was a sad misfortune in his later life which he never
outgrew. At coUege, like so many other New Hampshire boys,
he " paid his own way," keeping school in the vaca
tion. One year he paid his board by " doing the liter
ature " for a weekly newspaper. He graduated at
Dartmouth in his twentieth year, largely distinguished
for power as a writer and speaker, though not much
honored by the college authorities ; so he scorned his
degree ; and, when the faculty gave him their diploma,
he tore it to pieces in the college yard, in presence of
some of his mates, it is said, and trod it under foot.6
When he graduated, he was apparently of a feeble
constitution, " long, slender, pale, and aU eyes," with
" teeth as white as a hound's ; " thick, black hair clus
tered about his ample forehead. At first he designed
to study theology, but his father's better judgment
overruled the thought.
After graduating, he continued to fight for his edu
cation, studying law with one hand, keeping school

288 HISTORIC AMERICANS
with the other, and yet finding a third hand — this
Yankee Briareus — to serve as Register of Deeds.
This he did at Fryeburg in Maine, borrowing a copy of
Blackstone's Commentaries, which he was too poor to
buy. In a long winter evening, by copying two deeds,
he could earn fifty cents. He used his money, thus se
verely earned, to help his older brother, Ezekiel,
" Black Zeke," as he was called, to college. Both
were " heinously unprovided."
Then he came to Boston, with no letters of introduc
tion, raw, awkward, and shabby in his dress, with cow
hide shoes, blue yam stockings, " coarsely ribbed," his
rough trousers ceasing a long distance above his feet.
He sought admittance as a clerk to more than one office
before he found a place; an eminent lawyer, rudely
turning him off, " would not have such a fellow in the
office ! " Mr. Gore, a man of large reputation, took in
the unprotected youth, who " came to work, not to
play." Here he struggled with poverty and the law.
Ezekiel, not yet graduated, came also and took a school
in Short street. Daniel helped his brother in the
school. Edward Everett was one of the pupils, a
" marvelous boy," with no equal, it was thought, in all
New England, making the promise scholarly he has
since fulfilled.
Mr. Webster was admitted to the bar in 1805, with
a prophecy of eminence from Mr. Gore, — a prophecy
which might easily be made: such a head was its own
fortune teUer. His legal studies over, refusing a
lucrative office, he settled down as a kwyer at Boscawen,
in New Hampshire. Thence went to Portsmouth in
1807, a lawyer of large talents, getting rapidly into
practice ; " known all over the State of New Hamp
shire," known also in Massachusetts. He attended to

DANIEL WEBSTER 289
Hterature, wrote papers in the " Monthly Anthology,"
a periodical published in the " Athens of America " —
so Boston was then called. He printed a rhymed ver
sion of some of the odes of Horace, and wrote largely
for the " Portsmouth Oracle."
In 1808 he married Miss Grace Fletcher, an attrac
tive and beautiful woman, one year older than himself,
the daughter of the worthy minister of Hopkinton, N.
H. By this marriage he was the father of two daugh
ters and two sons. But, alas for him; this amiable
and beloved woman ceased to be mortal in 1828.
In 1812, when thirty years of age, he was elected
to Congress, — 'to the House of Representatives. In
1814 his house was burned, — a great loss to the young
man, never thrifty, and then struggling for an estate.
He determined to quit New Hampshire, and seek a place
in some more congenial spot. New Hampshire breeds
great lawyers, but not great fortunes. He hesitated
for a while between Boston and Albany. He doubted,
so he wrote to a friend, if he could make a Hv-
ing in Boston. But he concluded to try ; and in
1816 he removed to Boston, in the state which had
required his ancestor, Rev. Stephen Bachiller, " to f or-
bare exercising his gifts as a pastor or teacher pub-
liquely in the Pattent," " for his contempt of author
ity, and till some scandles be removed."
In 1820, then thirty-eight years old, he is a member
of the Massachusetts Convention, and is one of the
leading members there; provoking the jealousy, but at
the same time distancing the rivalry, of young men
Boston born and Cambridge bred. His light, taken
from under the New Hampshire bushel at Portsmouth,
could not be hid in Boston. It gives light to aU that
enter the house. In 1822 he was elected to Congress

290 HISTORIC AMERICANS
from Boston; in 1827, to the Senate of the United
States. In 1841 he was Secretary of State; again a
private citizen in 1843; in the Senate in 1845, and
Secretary of State in 1850, where he continued, until,
" on the 24th of October, 1852, all that was mortal of
Daniel Webster was no more ! "
He was ten days in the General Court of Massa
chusetts; a few weeks in her Convention; eight years
representative in Congress; nineteen, senator; five,
Secretary of State. Such is a condensed map of his
outward history.
Look next at the headlands of his life. Here I
shall speak of his deeds and words as a citizen and pub
lic officer.
He was a great lawyer, engaged in many of the most
important cases during the last forty years ; but, in the
briefness of a sermon, I must pass by his labors in the
law.7 I know that much of his present reputation depends
on his achievements as a lawyer ; as an " expounder of
the Constitution." Unfortunately, it is not possible
for me to say how much credit belongs to Mr. Web
ster for his constitutional arguments, and how much
to the late Judge Story. The publication of the cor
respondence between these gentlemen will perhaps help
settle the matter ; but still much exact legal information
was often given by word of mouth, during personal
interviews, and that must for ever remain hidden from
aU but him who gave and him who took. However,
from 1816 to 1842 Mr. Webster was in the habit of
drawing from that deep and copious well of legal
knowledge, whenever his own bucket was dry. Mr.
Justice Story was the Jupiter Pluvius from whom Mr.
Webster often sought to elicit peculiar thunder for his

DANIEL WEBSTER 291
speeches, and private rain for his own pubHc tanks of
law. The statesman got the lawyer to draft bills, to
make suggestions, to furnish facts, precedents, law,
and ideas. He went on this aquilician business, ask
ing aid, now in a " bankruptcy bill " in 1816 and
1825; then in questions of law of nations in 1827;
next in matters of criminal law in 1830 ; then of con
stitutional law in 1832 ; then in relation to the North
eastern boundary in 1838 ; in matters of international
law again, in his negotiations with Lord Ashburton, in
1842. " You can do more for me than all the rest
of the world," wrote the Secretary of State, April 9th,
1842, " because you can give me the lights I most
want ; and if you furnish them, I shall be confident that
they will be true lights. I shall trouble you greatly
the next three months." And again, July 16th,
1842, he writes, " Nobody but yourself can do this."
But, alas! in his later years the beneficiary sought to
conceal the source of his supplies. Jupiter Pluvius
had himself been summoned before the court of the
higher law.8
Much of Mr. Webster's fame as a constitutional
lawyer rests on his celebrated argument in the Dart
mouth College case. But it is easy to see that the facts,
the law, the precedents, the ideas, and the conclusions
of that argument, had almost all of them been pre
sented by Messrs. Mason and Smith in the previous
trial of the case.9
Let me speak of the public acts of Mr. Webster in
his capacity as a private citizen. Here I shall speak of
him chiefly as a public orator.
Two juvenile orations of his are still preserved, de
livered while he was yet a lad in college. One is a

292 HISTORIC AMERICANS
Fourth-of- July oration, — a performance good enough
for a lad of eighteen, but hardly indicating the talents
of its author. The sentiments probably belong to the
neighborhood, and the diction to the authorities of the
college : —
" Fair Science, too, holds her gentle empire amongst us, and
almost innumerable altars are raised to her divinity from Bruns
wick to Florida. Yale, Providence, and Harvard now grace our
land; and Dartmouth, towering majestic above the groves which
encircle her, now inscribes her glory on the registers of fame!
Oxford and Cambridge, those oriental stars of literature, shall
now be lost, while the bright sun of American Science displays
his broad circumference in uneclipsed radiance." — p. 10.
Here is an opinion which he seems to have entertained
at the end of his life. He speaks of the formation of
the Constitution : — ¦
" We then saw the people of these States engaged in a trans
action which is undoubtedly the greatest approximation towards
human perfection the political world ever yet experienced; and
which will perhaps for ever stand, in the history of mankind,
without a parallel." — pp. 8, 9.
In 1806 he delivered another Fourth-of- July address
at Concord, N. H., containing many noble and gener
ous opinions : — •
" Patriotism," said he, " hath a source of consolation that
cheers the heart in these unhappy times, when good men are
rendered odious, and bad men popular; when great men are
made little, and little men are made great. A genuine patriot,
above the reach of personal considerations, with his eye and his
heart on the honor and the happiness of his country, is a char
acter as easy and as satisfactory to himself as venerable in the
eyes of the world. While his country enjoys freedom and
peace, he will rejoice and be thankful; and, if it be in the coun
cils of Heaven to send the storm and the tempest, he meets the
tumult of the political elements with composure and dignity.
Above fear, above danger, above reproach, he feels that the last
end which can happen to any man never comes too soon, if he
fall in defense of the law and the liberty of his country." — p. 21.

DANIEL WEBSTER 293
In 1812 he deHvered a third Fourth-of -July address
at Portsmouth. The political storm is felt in the little
harbor of Portsmouth, and the speaker swells with the
tumult of the sea. He is hostile to France; averse to
the war with England, then waging, yet ready to fight
and pay taxes for it. He wants a navy. He comes
" to take counsel of the dead," with whom he finds an
" infallible criterion." But, alas ! " dead men teU no
tales," and give no counsel. There was then no witch
at Portsmouth to bring up Washington quickly.
His subsequent deference to the money power begins
to appear : " The Federal Constitution was adopted
for no single reason so much as for the protection of
commerce." " Commerce has paid the price of inde
pendence." It has been committed to the care of the
general Government, but " not as a convict to the safe
keeping of a jailor," " not for close confinement."
He wants a navy to protect it. Such were the opinions
of Federalists around him.
But these speeches of his youth and early manhood
were but commonplace productions. In his capacity
as public orator, in the vigorous period of his facul
ties, he made three celebrated speeches, not at all poHt
ical, — at Plymouth Rock, to celebrate the two hun
dredth anniversary of New England's birth ; at Bunker
Hill, in memory of the chief battle of New England;
and at Faneuil Hall, to honor the two great men who
died when the nation was fifty years old, and they four
score. Each of these orations was a great and noble
effort of patriotic eloquence.
Standing on Plymouth Rock, with the graves of the
forefathers around him, how proudly could he say : - —
" Our ancestors established their government on morality and
religious' sentiment. Moral habits, they believed, cannot safely

294 HISTORIC AMERICANS
be trusted on any other foundation than religious principle, nor
any government be secure which is not supported by moral
habits. Living under the heavenly light of revelation, they hoped
to find all the social dispositions, all the duties which men owe
to each other and to society, enforced and performed. Whatever
makes men good Christians makes them good citizens. Our
fathers came here to enjoy their religion free and unmolested;
and, at the end of two centuries, there is nothing upon which we
can pronounce more confidently, nothing of which we can ex
press a more deep and earnest conviction, than of the ines
timable importance of that religion to man, both in regard to
this life and that which is to come."
At Bunker Hill there were before him the men of the
Revolution, — venerable men who drew swords at Lex
ington and Concord, and faced the fight in many a
fray. There was the French nobleman, — would to
God that France had many such to-day ! — who periled
his fortune, life, and reputation, for freedom in Amer
ica, and never sheathed the sword he drew at Yorktown
till France also was a repubhc, — Lafayette was there ;
the Lafayette of two revolutions; the Lafayette of
Yorktown and Olmutz. How well could he say : —
" Let our conceptions be enlarged to the circle of our duties.
Let us extend our ideas over the whole of the vast field in which
we are called to act. Let our object be, our country, our whole
country, and nothing but our country. And, by the blessing of
God, may that country itself become a vast and splendid monu
ment, not of oppression and terror, but of wisdom, of peace, and
of liberty, upon which the world may gaze with admiration for
ever ! "
On another occasion, he stood at the grave of two
great men, who, in the time that tried men's souls, were
of the earliest to peril " their lives, their fortunes, and
their sacred honor," — • men who, having been one in the
Declaration of Independence, were again made one in
death; for then the people returned to the cradle
wherein the elder Adams and Hancock had rocked

DANIEL WEBSTER 295
Liberty when young ; and Webster chanted the psalm of
commemoration to Adams and Jefferson, who had helped
that new-bom child to walk. He brought before the
living the mighty dead. In his words they fought
their battles o'er again; we heard them resolve that,
" sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish," they
gave their hand and their heart for liberty ; and Adams
and Jefferson grew greater before the eyes of the peo
ple, as he brought them up, and showed the massive
services of those men, and pointed out the huge struc
ture of that human fabric which had gone to the
grave : —
" Adams and Jefferson, I have said, are no more. As human
beings, indeed, they are no more. They are no more, as in 1776,
bold and fearless advocates of independence; no more, as at
subsequent periods, the head of the government; no more, as
we have recently seen them, aged and venerable objects of ad
miration and regard. They are no more. They are dead. But
how little is there of the great and good which can die! To
their country they yet live, and live for ever. They live in all
that perpetuates the remembrance of men on earth; in the re
corded proofs of their own great actions, in the offspring of
their intellect, in the deep-engraved lines of public gratitude,
and in the respect and homage of mankind. They live in their
example ; and they live, emphatically, and will live, in the in
fluence which their lives and efforts, their principles and opin
ions, now exercise, and will continue to exercise, on the affairs
of men, not only in their own country, but throughout the
civilized world."
How loftily did he say : —
" If we cherish the virtues and the principles of our fathers,
Heaven will assist us to carry on the work of human liberty
and human happiness. Auspicious omens cheer us. Great ex
amples are before us. Our own firmament now shines brightly
upon our path. Washington is in the clear, upper sky. These
other stars have now joined the American constellation. They
circle round their center, and the heavens beam with new light.
Beneath this illumination let us walk the course of life, and, at

296 HISTORIC AMERICANS
its close, devoutly commend our beloved country, the common
parent of us all, to the Divine Benignity."
As a political officer, I shall speak of him as a legis
lator and executor of the law, a maker and administra
tor of laws.
In November, 1812, Mr. Webster was chosen as Rep
resentative to the Thirteenth Congress. At that time
the country was at war with Great Britain; and the
well-known restraints still fettered the commerce of
the country. The people were divided into two great
parties, — the Federalists, who opposed the embargo
and the war; and the Democrats, who favored both.
Mr. Madison, then President, had been forced into the
war, contrary to his own convictions of expediency and
of right. The most bitter hatred prevailed between the
two parties : " party politics were inexpressibly vio
lent." An eminent lawyer of Salem, afterwards one of
the most distinguished jurists in the world, a Demo
crat, was, on account of his political opinions, knocked
down in the street, beaten, and forced to take shelter in
the house of a friend, whither he fled, bleeding, and
covered with the mud of the streets.10 Political rancor
invaded private life ; it occupied the pulpit ; it bhnded
men's eyes to a degree almost exceeding belief; were
it not now again a fact, we should not believe it possible
at a former time.
Mr. Webster was a Federalist, earnest and devoted,
with the convictions of a Federalist, and the prejudices
and the blindness of a Federalist ; and, of course, hated
by men who had the convictions of a Democrat, and
the prejudices and blindness thereof. It is difficult to
understand the wilfulness of thorough partisans. In
New Hampshire the judges were Democrats ; the Fed
eralists, having a majority in the Legislature, wished

DANIEL WEBSTER 297
to be rid of them, and, for that purpose, abolished all
the courts in the state, and appointed others in their
place (1813). I mention this only to show the temper
of the times.
There was no great principle of political morals on
which the two parties differed, only on measures of ex
pediency. The Federalists demanded freedom of the
seas and protection for commerce ; but they repeatedly,
solemnly, and officially scorned to extend this protection
to saUors. They justly complained of the embargo
that kept their ships from the sea, but found little
fault with the British for impressing sailors from
American ships. The Democrats professed the great
est regard for "sailors' rights;" but, in 1814, the
Government forbade its officers to grant protection to
" colored sailors," though Massachusetts alone had
more than a thousand able seamen of that class.11 A
leading Federal organ said, — " The Union is dear ;
commerce is still more dear." " The eastern states
agreed to the Union for the sake of their commerce." 12
With the Federalists there was a great veneration
for Engknd. Mr. Fisher Ames said, — " The immor
tal spirit of the wood-nymph Liberty dweUs only in the
British oak." " Our country," quoth he, " is too big
for union, too sordid for patriotism, and too democratic
for Hberty." " England," said another, " is the bul
wark of our religion," and the " shield of afflicted hu
manity." A Federalist newspaper at Boston censured
Americans as " enemies of England and monarchy,"
and accused the Democrats of " antipathy to kingly
power." Did Democrats complain that our prisoners
were ill-treated by the British, it was declared " foolish
and wicked to throw the blame on the British Govern
ment! " Americans expressed indignation at the Brit-

298 HISTORIC AMERICANS
ish outrages at Hampton, — burning houses and violat
ing women. The Federal newspapers said, it is " impos
sible that their (the British) military or naval men
should be other than magnanimous and humane." Mr.
Clay accused the Federalists of " plots that aim at the
dismemberment of the Union," and denounced the party
as " conspirators against the integrity of the nation."
In general the Federalists maintained that England
had a right to visit American vessels to search for and
take her own subjects, if found there; and, if she some
times took an American citizen, that was only an " in
cidental evil." Great Britain, said the Massachusetts
Legislature, has done us " no essential injury : " she
" was fighting the battles of the world." They de
nied that she had impressed " any considerable num
ber of American seamen." Such was the language of
Mr. Webster and the party he served. But even at
that time the " Edinburgh Review " declared, " Every
American seaman might be said to hold his liberty, and
ultimately his life, at the discretion of a foreign com
mander. In many cases, accordingly, native-born
Americans were dragged on board British ships of war :
they were dispersed in the remotest quarters of the
globe, and not only exposed to the perils of service, but
shut out by their situation from all hope of ever being
reclaimed. The right of reclaiming runaway seamen
was exercised, in short, without either moderation or
justice." Over six thousand cases of impressment were re
corded in the American Department of State. In Par
liament Lord Castlereagh admitted that there were
three thousand five hundred men in the British fleet
claiming to be American citizens, and sixteen hundred
of them actually citizens. At the beginning of the war

DANIEL WEBSTER 299
two thousand five hundred American citizens, impressed
into the British navy refused to fight against their na
tive land, and were shut up in Dartmoor prison. When
the Guerriere was captured, there were ten American
sailors on board who refused to fight. In Parliament,
in 1808, Mr. Baring (Lord Ashburton) defended the
rights of Americans against the British orders in coun
cil, while in 1812 and 1813 the Federalists could " not
find out the cases of impressment ;" — such was the in
fluence of party spirit.
The party out of power is commonly the friend of
freedom. The Supreme Court of Massachusetts de
clared that unconstitutional acts of Congress were void ;
the Legislature declared it the duty of the state courts
to prevent usurped and unconstitutional powers from
being exercised : " It is the duty of the present gener
ation to stand between the next and despotism ; "
" Whenever the national compact is violated, and the
citizens of this state oppressed by cruel and unauthor
ized enactments, this Legislature is bound to interpose
its power to wrest from the oppressor his victim."
After the Federal party had taken strong ground,
Mr. Webster opposed the administration, opposed the
war, took the part of England in the matter of im
pressment. He drew up the Brentwood Memorial, once
so famous all over New England, now forgotten and
faded out of all men's memory.13
On the 24th of May, 1813, Mr. Webster first took
his seat in the House of Representatives, at the extra
session of the thirteenth Congress. He was a member
of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and industriously
opposed the administration. In the three sessions of
this Congress, he closely followed the leaders of the
Federal party; voting with Mr. Pickering a hundred

300 HISTORIC AMERICANS
and ninety-one times, and against him only four times,
in the two years.14 Sometimes he " avoided the ques
tion ; " but voted against thanking Commodore Perry
for his gallant conduct, against the purchase of Mr.
Jefferson's library, against naval supplies, direct taxes,
and internal duties.
He opposed the government scheme of a National
Bank.15 No adequate reports of his speeches against
the war 16 are preserved; but, to judge from the testi
mony of an eminent man, they contained prophetic
indications of that oratorical power which was one day
so mightily to thunder and Hghten in the nation's
eyes.17 Yet his influence in Congress does not appear
to have been great. In later years he defended the
United States Bank; but that question, like others,
had then become a party question; and a horse in the
party-team must go on with his fellows, or be flayed
by the driver's lash.
But though his labors were not followed by any very
marked influence at Washington, at home he drew on
himself the wrath of the Democratic party. Mr. Isaac
Hill, the editor of the leading Democratic paper in New
Hampshire, pursued him with intense personal hatred.
He sneeringly says, and falsely, " The great Mr. Web
ster, so extremely flippant in arguing petty suits in the
courts of law, cuts but a sorry figure at Washington:
his overweening confidence and zeal cannot there sup
ply the place of knowledge." 18
He was sneeringly called the " great," the " elo
quent," the ' " pre-eminent " Daniel Webster. His
deeds, his words, his silence, all were represented as
coming from the basest motives, and serving the mean
est ends. His Journal at Portsmouth was called the
" Lying Oracle." Listen to this : " Mr. Webster

DANIEL WEBSTER 301
spoke much and often when he was in Congress; and,
if he had studied the Wisdom of Solomon (as some of
his colleagues probably did), he would have discovered
that a fool is known by his much speaking."
Mr. Webster, in common with his party, refused to
take part in the war. " I honor," said he, " the peo
ple that shrink from such a contest as this. I applaud
their sentiments : they are such as religion and human
ity dictate, and such as none but cannibals would wish
to eradicate from the human heart." Whereupon the
editor asks, " Will not the Federal soldiers call the
man who made the speech ' a cold-blooded wretch, whose
heart is callous to every patriotic feeling? ' " and
then, " We do not wonder at Mr. Webster's reluctance
again to appear at the city of Washington " (he was
attending cases at court) : — >" even his native brass
must be abashed at his own conduct, at his own
speeches." Flattery " has spoiled him ; for applica
tion might have made him something a dozen years
hence. It has given him confidence, a face of brass,
which and his native volubility are mistaken for ' pre
eminent talent.' Of all men in the state, he is the fittest
to be the tool of the enemy." He was one of the men
that bring the " nation to the verge of ruin ; " a
" Thompsonian intriguer ; " a " Macf arland admirer ; "
" The self-importance and gross egotism he displays
are disgusting ; " " You would suppose him a great
merchant, living in a maritime city, and not a man
reared in the woods of Salisbury, or educated in the
wilds of Hanover." 19
Before he was elected to Congress, Mr. Hill accused
him of " deliberate falsehood," of " telling bold un
truths to justify the enormities of the enemy." The
cry was raised, " The Union is in danger." Mr. Web-

302 HISTORIC AMERICANS
ster was to bring about " a dissolution of the Union ; "
" The few conspirators in Boston, who aim at the
division of the Union, and the English government,
who support them in their rebellion, appear to play into
each other's hands with remarkable adroitness." The
" Patriot " speaks of " the mad measures of the Boston
junto; the hateful, hypocritical scheme of its canting,
disaffected chief, and the audacious tone of its public
prints." The language of Washington was quoted
against political foes; his farewell address reprinted.
Mr. Webster was charged with " setting the North
against the South." The Essex junto was accused of
"a plot to destroy the Union," in order " to be under
the glorious shelter of British protection." The Fed
eralists were a " British faction ; " the country mem
bers of the Massachusetts Legislature were " wooden
members ; " distinguished characters were " exciting
hostility against the Union ; " one of these " ought
to be tied to the tail of a Congreve rocket, and offered
up a burnt sacrifice." It was " moral treason " not to
rej oice at the victories of the nation — it was not then
" levying war." The Legislature of New Jersey called
the acts of the Massachusetts Legislature " the ravings
of an infuriated faction," and Gov. Strong a " maniac
Governor." The " Boston Patriot " called Mr. Web
ster " the poor fallen Webster," who " curses heartily
his setters-on : " " the poor creature is confoundedly
mortified." Mr. Cky, in Congress, could speak of
" the bowlings of the whole British pack, let loose
from the Essex junto : " the Federalists were attempt
ing " to familiarize the public mind with the horrid
scheme of disunion." 20 And Isaac Hill charged the
Federalists with continually " threatening a separation
of the states; striving to stir up the passions of the

DANIEL WEBSTER 303
North against the South, — in clear defiance of the
dying injunctions of Washington." 21 I mention these
things that all may understand the temper of those
times. In 1815 Mr. Webster sought for the office of Attor
ney-General of New Hampshire, but failing thereof,
was re-elected to the House of Representatives.22 In
the fourteenth Congress, two important measures came
up amongst others, — the bank and the tariff. Mr.
Calhoun and Mr. Clay favored the establishment of a
national bank, with a capital of $35,000,000. Mr.
Webster opposed it, by votes and words, reaffirming the
sound doctrines of his former speech: the founders of
the Constitution were " hard-money men ; " govern
ment must not receive the paper of banks which do not
pay specie ; but " the taxes must be paid in the legal
money of the country." 23 Such was the doctrine of
the leading FederaHsts of the time, and the practice of
New England. He introduced a resolution, that all
revenues of the United States should be paid in the
legal currency of the nation. It met scarce any oppo
sition, and was passed the same day. I think this was
the greatest service he ever performed in relation to our
national currency or national finance. He was himself
proud of it in his later years.24
The protective tariff was supported by Messrs. Cal
houn, Clay, and Lowndes. Mr. Webster opposed it;
for the capitalists of the North, then deeply engaged in
commerce, looked on it as hostile to their shipping, and
talked of the " dangers of manufactories." Was it for
this reason that the South, always jealous of the north
ern thrifty toil, proposed it? So it was alleged. Mr.
Webster declared that Congress has no constitutional
right to levy duties for protection; only for revenue;

304 HISTORIC AMERICANS
revenue is the constitutional substance ; protection, only
the accidental shadow.
In 1816 Mr. Webster removed to Boston. In 1819,
while he was a private citizen, a most important ques
tion came before the nation, — Shall slavery be extended
into the Missouri territory? Here too Mr. Webster
was on the side of freedom. He was one of a com
mittee appointed by a meeting of the citizens of Bos
ton to call a general meeting of the citizens to oppose
the extension of slavery. The United States Marshal
was chairman of the meeting. Mr. Webster was one
of the committee to report resolutions at a subsequent
meeting. The preamble said : —
"The extirpation of slavery has never ceased to be a measure
deeply concerning the honor and safety of the United States."
" In whatever tends to diminish the evil of slavery, or to check
its growth, all parts of the confederacy are alike interested."
"If slavery is established in Missouri, then it will be burdened
with all the mischiefs which are too well known to be the sure
results of slavery; an evil, which has long been deplored, would
be incalculably augmented; the whole confederacy would be
weakened, and our free institutions disgraced, by the voluntary
extension of a practice repugnant to all the principles of a
free government, the continuance of which in any part of our
country necessity alone has justified."
It was resolved, that Congress " possesses the constitutional
power, upon the admission of any new State created beyond
the limits of the original territory of the United States, to
make the prohibition of the further extension of slavery or
involuntary servitude in such new State a condition of its
admission." "It is just and expedient that this power should
be exercised by Congress, upon the admission of all new States
created beyond the limits of the original territory of the United
States." In a speech Mr. Webster " showed incontrovertibly
that Congress had this power; that they were called
upon by all the principles of sound policy, humanity,
and morality, to enact it, and, by prohibiting slavery

DANIEL WEBSTER 305
in the new State of Missouri, oppose a barrier to the
future progress of slavery, which else — ¦ and this was
the last time the opportunity would happen to fix its
Hmits — would roll on, desolating the vast expanse of
continent to the Pacific Ocean." 25
Mr. Webster was appointed chairman of a committee
to prepare a memorial to Congress on this matter.26
He said : —
"We have a strong feeling of the injustice of any toleration
of slavery." But, "to permit it in a new country, what is it
but to encourage that rapacity and fraud and violence, against
which we have so long pointed the denunciations of our penal
code? What is it but to tarnish the proud fame of our coun
try? What is it but to throw suspicion on its good faith, and
to render questionable all its professions of regard for the
rights of humanity, and the liberties of mankind?" — p. 21.
At that time, such was the general opinion of the
northern men. A writer in the leading journal of
Boston said : " Other calamities are trifles compared
to this (slavery). War has alleviations ;¦ if it does
much evil, it does some good: at least it has an end.
But negro slavery is misery without mixture; it is
Pandora's box, but no hope at the bottom; it is evil,
and only evil, and that continually." 27
A meeting of the most respectable citizens of
Worcester resolved against " any further extension of
slavery," as " rendering our boasted land of liberty
preeminent only as a mart for human flesh."
" Sad prospects," said the " Boston Daily Adver
tiser," " indeed for emancipators and colonizers, that,
faster than the wit or the means of men can devise a
method even for keeping stationary the frightful prop
agation of slavery, other men, members of the same
community, sometimes colleagues of the same deliber-

306 HISTORIC AMERICANS
ative assembly, will be compassing, with all their
force, the widest possible extension of slavery." 28
The South uttered its threat of " dissolving the
Union," if slavery were not extended west of the Missis
sippi. " The threat," said a writer, " when we con
sider from whence it comes, raises at once wonder and
pity, but has never been thought worth a serious answer
here. Even the academicians of Laputa never imag
ined such a nation as these seceding states would form."
" We have lost much ; our national honor has received
a stain in the eyes of the world ; we have enlarged the
sphere of human misery and crime." 29 Only four
New Englanders voted for the Missouri Compromise,
— Hill and Holmes of Maine, Mason and Shaw of
Massachusetts. Mr. Webster held no public office in this state, un
til he was chosen a member of the Convention for
amending the Constitution of the Commonwealth.
It appears that he had a large influence in the
Massachusetts Convention. His speeches, however, do
not show any remarkable depth of philosophy, or width
of historic view; but they display the strength of a
great mind not fully master of his theme. They are
not always fair; they sometimes show the specious
arguments of the advocate, and do not always indicate
the soundness of the judge. He developed no new
ideas ; looked back more than forward. He stated his
opinions with clearness and energy. His leaning was
then, as it always was, towards the concentration of
power ; not to its diffusion. It was the Federal leaning
of New England at the time. He had no philosophical
objection to a technical reHgious test as the qualifica
tion for office, but did not think it expedient to found
a measure on that principle. He wanted property, and

DANIEL WEBSTER 307
not population, as the basis of representation in the
Senate. It was " the true basis and measure of
power." " PoHtical power," said he, " naturally and
necessarily goes into the hands which hold the prop
erty." The House might rest on men, the Senate on
money. He said, " It would seem to be the part of
poHtical wisdom to found government on property ; "
yet he wished to have the property diffused as widely
as possible. He was not singular in this preference of
money to men. Others thought, that, to put the Sen
ate on the basis of population, and not property, was
a change of " an alarming character."
He had small confidence in the people; apparently
Httle sympathy with the multitude of men. He was
jealous of the Legislature; afraid of its encroach
ment on the Judiciary, — New Hampshire had, per
haps, shown him examples of legislative injustice, —
but contended ably for the independence of judges.
He had great veneration for the existing Constitution,
and thought there would " never be any occasion for
great changes " in it, and that " no revision of its
general principles " would be necessary. Others of the
same party thought also that the Constitution was " the
most perfect system that human wisdom had ever de
vised." To judge from the record, Mr. Webster found
abler heads than his own in that Convention. Indeed
it would have been surprising if a young man, only
eight and thirty years of age, should surpass the
" assembled wisdom of the state."
On the 2nd of December, 1823, Mr. Webster took
his seat in the House of Representatives, as member for
Boston. He defended the cause of the Greeks " with
the power of a great mind applied to a great subject,"
denounced the " Holy Alliance," and recommended in-

308 HISTORIC AMERICANS
terference to prevent oppression. Public opinion set
strongly in that direction.30 " The policy of our gov
ernment," said he, " is on the side of liberal and en
lightened sentiments ; " " The civilized world has done
with ' the enormous faith of many made for one.' " 31
In 1816 he had opposed a tariff which levied a
heavy duty on imports; in 1824 he opposed it again,
with vigorous arguments. His speech at that time is
a work of large labor, of some nice research, and still
of value. " Like a mighty giant," says Mr. Hayne,
" he bore away upon his shoulders the pillars of the
temple of error and delusion, escaping himself unhurt,
and leaving his adversaries overwhelmed in its ruins."
He thought, " the authority of Congress to exercise
the revenue power with direct reference to the protec
tion of manufactures is a questionable authority." He
represented the opinion of New England, which " dis
countenanced the progress of this policy " of high
duties. The Federalist of the North inclined to free
trade; in 1807 Mr. Dexter thought it "an unalien
able right," and in 1820 Judge Story asked why
should " the laboring classes be taxed for the necessaries
of life?" The tariff of 1824 got but one vote from
Massachusetts. As the public judgment of northern
capitalists changed, it brought over the opinion of Mr.
Webster, who seems to have had no serious and sober
convictions on this subject. At one time, he declares
the protective system is ruinous to the laboring man;
but again, " it is aimed point-blank at the protection of
labor ; " and the duty on coal must not be diminished,
lest coal grow scarce and dear. Non-importation was
" an American instinct."
In 1828 he voted for " the bill of abominations," as
that tariff was called, which levied " thirty-two mil-

DANIEL WEBSTER 309
Hons of duties on sixty-four millions of imports," not
because he was " in favor of the measure, but as the
least of two evils."
In 1816 the South wanted a protective tariff: the
commercial North hated it. It was Mr. Calhoun who
introduced the measure first. Mr. Clay gave it the
support of his large talents and immense personal in
fluence, and built up the " American System." Penn
sylvania and New York were on that side. General
Jackson voted for the tariff of 1824. Mr. Clay was
jealous of foreign commerce ; it was " the great source
of foreign wars ; " " The predilection of the school of
the Essex junto," said he, " for foreign trade and
British fabrics is unconquerable." Yet he correctly
said, " New England will have the first and richest
fruits of the tariff." 32
After the system of protection got footing, the
Northern capitalists set about manufacturing in good
earnest, and then Mr. Webster became the advocate
of a high tariff of protective duties. Here he has been
blamed for his change of opinion; but to him it was
an easy change. He was not a scientific legislator: he
had no great and comprehensive ideas of that part of
legislation which belongs to political economy. He
looked only at the fleeting interest of his constituents,
and took their transient opinions of the hour for his
norm of conduct. As these altered, his own views also
changed. Sometimes the change was a revolution.33
It seems to me his first opinion was right, and his last
a fatal mistake, that he never answered his first great
speech of 1824 ; but it also appears that he was honest
in the change ; for he only looked at the pecuniary in
terest of his employers, and took their opinions for his
guide. But he had other fluctuations on this mat-

310 HISTORIC AMERICANS
ter of the tariff, which do not seem capable of so hon
orable an explanation.34
In the days of nullification Mr. Webster denied the
right of South Carolina to secede from the Union, or
to give a final interpretation of the Constitution. She
maintained that the Federal government had violated
the Constitution ; that she, the aggrieved State of South
Carolina, was the judge in that matter, and had a con
stitutional right to " nullify " the Constitution, and
withdraw from the Union.
The question is a deep one. It is the old issue of
Federal and Democrat, — the question between the
constitutional power of the whole, and the power of the
parts, — Federal power and State power. Mr. Webster
was always in favor of a strong central government;
honestly in favor of it, I doubt not. His speeches on
that subject were most masterly speeches. I refer, in
particular, to that in 1830 against Mr. Hayne, and the
speech in 1833 against Mr. Calhoun.
The first of these is the great political speech of
Daniel Webster. I do not mean to say that it is just in
its political ethics, or deep in the metaphysics of poli
tics, or far-sighted in its political providence. I only
mean to say that it surpasses all his other political
speeches in the massive intellectual power of state
ment. Mr. Webster was then eight and forty years
old. He defended New England against Mr. Hayne;
he defended the Constitution of the United States
against South Carolina. His speech is full of splendid
eloquence ; he reached high, and put the capstone upon
his fame, whose triple foundation he had laid at
Plymouth, at Bunker Hill, and at Faneuil Hall. The
" Republican members of the Massachusetts Legisla
ture " unanimously thanked him for his able vindica-

DANIEL WEBSTER 311
tion of their state. A Virginian, who heard the speech,
declared he felt " as if looking at a mammoth tread
ing his native canebrake, and, without apparent con
sciousness, crushing obstacles which nature had never
designed as impediments to him."
He loved concentrated power, and seems to have
thought the American government was exclusively na
tional, and not federal. The Constitution was " not
a compact." He was seldom averse to sacrificing the
rights of the individual states to the claim of the
central authority. He favored consolidation of power,
while the South Carolinians and others preferred local
self-government. It was no doctrine of his that " un
constitutional laws bind the people ;" but it was his
doctrine that such laws bind the people until the Su
preme Court declares them unconstitutional ; thus mak
ing not the Constitution, but the discretion of the
rulers, the measure of its powers!
It is customary at the North to think Mr. Webster
whoUy in the right, and South Carolina wholly in the
wrong, on the question of nullification; but it should
be remembered, that some of the ablest men whom the
South ever sent to Washington thought otherwise.
There was a good deal of truth in the speech of Mr.
Hayne: he was alarmed at the increase of the central
power, which seemed to invade the rights of the states.
Mr. Calhoun defended the Carolinian idea ;35 and Cal
houn was a man of great mind, a sagacious man, a
man of unimpeachable integrity in private.36 Mr.
Clay was certainly a man of very large intellect, wise
and subtle and far-sighted. But, in 1833, he intro
duced his " Compromise Measure," to avoid the neces
sity of enforcing the opinions of Mr. Webster.

312 HISTORIC AMERICANS
I must pass over many things in Mr. Webster's con
gressional career.
While Secretary of State he performed the chief
act of his public life, — the one deed on which his rep
utation as a political administrator seems now to settle
down and rest. He negotiated the Treaty of Wash
ington in 1842. The matter was difficult, the claims
intricate ; there were four parties to pacify, — Eng
land, the United States, Massachusetts, and Maine.
The quarrel was almost sixty years old. Many polit
ical doctors had laid their hands on the immedicable
wound, which only smarted sorer under their touch.
The British Government sent over a minister to nego
tiate a treaty with the American Secretary. The two
eminent statesmen settled the difficulty. It has been
said that no other man in America could have done
so well, and drawn the thunder out of the gathered
cloud. Perhaps I am no judge of that; yet I do not
see why any sensible and honest man could not have
done the work. You all remember the anxiety of
America and of England; the apprehension of war;
and the delight when these two countries shook hands,
as the work was done. Then we all felt that there
was only one English nation, — the English Briton
and the English American; that Webster and Ash-
burton were fellow-citizens, yea, brothers of the same
great Anglo-Saxon tribe.
His letters on the right of search, and the British
claim to impress seamen from American ships, would
have done honor to any statesman in the world. He
refused to England the right to visit and search our
ships, on the plea of their being engaged in the slave-
trade. Some of my anti-slavery brethren have cen
sured him for this. I always thought he was right

DANIEL WEBSTER 313
in the matter. But, on the other side, his celebrated
letter to Lord Ashburton, in the Creole case, seems to
me most eminently unjust, false in law, and wicked in
morality.37 It is the greatest stain on that negotia
tion; and it is wonderful to me, that, in 1846, Mr.
Webster could himself declare he thought that letter
was the " most triumphant production " from his pen
in all the correspondence.
But let us pause a moment, and see how much praise
is really due to Mr. Webster for negotiating the treaty.
I limit my remarks to the northeastern boundary.
The main question was, Where is the northwest angle
of Nova Scotia, mentioned in the treaty of 1783 ? For
a line, drawn due north from the source of the river
St. Croix to the summit of the highlands dividing
the waters of the Atlantic from those of the St. Law
rence, was to terminate at that point. The American
claim was most abundantly substantiated; but it left
the British provinces, New Brunswick and Canada,
in an embarrassed position. No military road could
be maintained between them ; and, besides, the American
border came very near to Quebec. Accordingly, the
British Government, on the flimsiest pretext, refused
to draw the Hnes and erect the monuments contem
plated by the treaty of 1794; perverted the language
of the treaty of 1783, which was too plain to be
misunderstood; and gradually extended its claim
further and further to the west. By the treaty of
Ghent (1814) it was provided that certain questions
should be left out to a friendly power for arbitration.
In 1827 this matter was referred to the king of the
Netherlands: he was to determine where the line of
the treaty ran. He did not determine that question,
but, in 1831, proposed a new conventional line. His

314 HISTORIC AMERICANS
award ceded to the British about 4119 square miles of
land in Maine. The English assented to it; but the
Americans refused to accept the award, Mr. Webster
opposing it. He was entirely convinced that the Amer
ican claim was just and sound, and the American
interpretation of the treaty of 1783 the only correct
one. On a memorable occasion, in the Senate of the
United States, Mr. Webster declared that " Great
Britain ought forthwith to be told that, unless she
will agree to settle the question by the 4th of July
next, according to the treaty of 1783, we wiU then
take possession of that line, and let her drive us off
if she can ! "
The day before, and in all soberness, he declared
that he never entertained a doubt that the right to this
disputed territory was in the United States. This
was " perfectly clear, — so clear that the controversy
seemed hardly to reach to the dignity of a debatable
question." But in 1842 the British minister came to negotiate
a treaty. Maine and Massachusetts were asked to
appoint commissioners to help in the matter; for it
seemed determined on that those states were to re
linquish some territory to which they had a lawful
claim. Those states could not convey the territory
to England, but might authorize the Federal Gov
ernment to make the transfer. The treaty was made,
and accepted by Maine and Massachusetts. But it
ceded to Great Britain all the land which the award
had given, and 893 square miles in addition. Thus
the treaty conveyed to Great Britain more than five
thousand square miles — upwards of three million
acres — of American territory, to which, by the terms
of the treaty, the American title was perfectly good.

DANIEL WEBSTER 315
Rouse's Point was ceded to the United States, with
a narrow strip of land on the north of Vermont and
New Hampshire ; but the king's award gave us Rouse's
Point at less cost. The rights which the Americans
gained with the navigation of a part of the St. John's
River were only a fair exchange for the similar right
conceded to the British. As a compensation to Maine
and Massachusetts for the loss of the land and the
jurisdiction over it, the United States paid those two
states $300,000, and indemnified Maine for the ex
penses occasioned by the troubles which had grown
out of the contested claims, — about $300,000 more.
Great Britain gained all that was essential to the
welfare of her colonies. AU her communications, civil
and miHtary, were for ever placed beyond hostile
reach; and all the miHtary positions claimed by Amer
ica, with the exception of Rouse's Point, were for
ever secured to Great Britain. What did England
concede? The British Government still keeps (in
secret) the identical map used by the English and
American commissioners who negotiated the Treaty of
1783; the boundary Hne is drawn on it, in red ink,
with a pen, exactly where the Americans had always
claimed that the Treaty required it to be!
It was fortunate that the controversy was settled;
it was wise in America to be liberal. A tract of wild
land, though half as large as Massachusetts, is noth
ing compared to a war. It is as well for mankind
that the jurisdiction over that spot belongs to tlie
Lion of England as to the Eagle of America. But
I fear a man who makes such a bargain is not en
titled to any great glory among diplomatists. In
1832 Maine refused to accept the award of the king,
even when the Federal Government offered her a mil-

316 HISTORIC AMERICANS
lion acres of good land in Michigan, of her own selec
tion, valued at a million and a quarter of dollars.
Had it been a question of the southwestern boundary,
and not the northeastern, Mexico would have had an
answer to her claim very different from that which
England received. Mr. Webster was determined on
negotiating the treaty at all hazards, and was not very
courteous to those who expostulated and stood out
for the just rights of Maine and Massachusetts; nay,
he was indignant at the presumption of these states
asking for compensation when their land was ceded
away ! 38
Was there any real danger of a war? If England
had claimed clear down to the Connecticut, I think
the Southern masters of the North would have given
up Bunker Hill and Plymouth Rock, rather than risk
to the chances of a British war the twelve hundred
million dollars invested in slaves. Men who live in
straw houses think twice before they scatter firebrands
abroad. England knew well with whom she had to
deal, and authorized her representative to treat only
for a " conventional line," not to accept the line of
the treaty! Mr. Webster succeeded in negotiating,
because he gave up more American territory than
any one would yield before, — more than the king
of the Netherlands had proposed. Still, we may all
rejoice in the settlement of the question; and if Great
Britain had admitted our claim by the plain terms of
the treaty, and then asked for the land so valuable
and necessary to her, who in New England would
have found fault? 39
After the conclusion of the treaty Mr. Webster
came to Boston. You remember his speech in 1842
in Faneuil Hall. He was then sixty years old. He

DANIEL WEBSTER 317
had done the great deed of his life. He still held
a high station. He scorned, or affected to scorn, the
littleness of party and its narrow platform, and
claimed to represent the people of the United States.
Everybody knew the importance of his speech. I
counted sixteen reporters of the New England and
northern press at that meeting. It was a proud day
for him, and also a stormy day. Other than friends
were about him. It was thought that he had just
scattered the thunder which impended over the nation.
But a sullen cloud still hung over his own expecta
tions of the presidency. He thundered his eloquence
into that cloud, — the great ground-lightning of his
Olympian power.
I come now to speak of his relation to slavery. Up
to 1850, with occasional fluctuations, much of his
conduct had been just and honorable. As a private
citizen, in 1819, he opposed the Missouri Compromise.
At the meeting of the citizens of Boston to prevent
that iniquity, he said, " We are acting for unborn
millions, who lie along before us in the track of
time." 40 The extension of slavery would demoralize
the people, and endanger the welfare of the nation.
" Nor can the laws derive support from the manners
of the people, if the power of moral sentiment be
weakened by enjoying, under the permission of the
government, great facilities to commit offenses." 41
A few months after the deed was done, on Fore
fathers' Day in 1820, standing on Plymouth Rock,
he could say : —
" I deem it my duty, on this occasion, to suggest that the
land is not yet wholly free from the contamination of a traffic
at which every feeling of humanity must for ever revolt, — I

318 HISTORIC AMERICANS
mean the African slave-trade. Neither public sentiment nor
the law has hitherto been able entirely to put an end to this
odious and abominable trade. At the moment when God in his
mercy has blessed the Christian world with a universal peace,
there is reason to fear that, to the disgrace of the Christian
name and character, new efforts are making for the extension
of this trade by subjects and citizens of Christian states, in
whose hearts there dwell no sentiments of humanity or of
justice, and over whom neither the fear of God nor the fear of
man exercises a control. In the sight of our law the African
slave-trader is a pirate and a felon; and in the sight of Heaven
an offender far beyond the ordinary depth of human guilt.
There is no brighter page of our history than that which records
the measures which have been adopted by the government at an
early day, and at different times since, for the suppression of
this traffic; and I would call on all the true sons of New
England to cooperate with the laws of man and the justice of
Heaven. If there be, within the extent of our knowledge or
influence, any participation in this traffic, let us pledge our
selves here, upon the Rock of Plymouth, to extirpate and de
stroy it. It is not fit that the land of the Pilgrims should bear
the shame longer. I hear the sound of the hammer; I see the
smoke of the furnaces where manacles and fetters are still
forged for human limbs. I see the visages of those who, by
stealth and at midnight, labor in this work of hell, foul and
dark, as may become the artificers of such instruments of misery
and torture. Let that spot be purified, or let it cease to be
of New England. Let it be purified, or let it be set aside from
the Christian world. Let it be put out of the circle of human
sympathies and human regards; and let civilized man hence
forth have no communion with it."
In 1830 he praised Nathan Dane for the Ordinance
which makes the difference between Ohio and Ken
tucky, and honorably vindicated that man who Hved
" too near the north star " for southern eyes to see.
" I regard domestic slavery," said Mr. Webster to
Mr. Hayne, " as one of the greatest evils, both moral
and political."
In 1837, at Niblo's Garden, he avowed his entire
unwillingness to do anything which should extend the
slavery of the African race on this continent. He
said : —

DANIEL WEBSTER 319
" On the general question of slavery a great portion of the
community is already strongly excited. The subject has not
only attracted attention as a question of politics, but it has
struck a far deeper-toned chord. It has arrested the religious
feeling of the country; it has taken strong hold on the con
sciences of men. He is a rash man, indeed, and little con
versant with human nature, — and especially has he a very erro
neous estimate of the character of the people of this country,
— who supposes that a feeling of this kind is to be trifled
with or despised. It will assuredly cause itself to be re
spected. It may be reasoned with; it may be made willing —
I believe it is entirely willing — to fulfil all existing engage
ments and all existing duties; to uphold and defend the Con
stitution as it is established, with whatever regrets about some
provisions which it does actually contain. But to coerce it into
silence, to restrain its free expression, to seek to compress and
confine it, warm as it is, and more heated as such endeavors
would inevitably render it, — should this be attempted, I know
nothing, even in the Constitution or in the Union itself, which
would not be endangered by the explosion which might follow."
He always deckred that slavery was a local matter
of the South; sectional, not national. In 1830 he
took the ground that the general government had
nothing to do with it. In 1840, standing " beneath
an October sun " at Richmond, he declared again that
there was no power, direct or indirect, in Congress or
the general government, to interfere in the smallest
degree with the " institutions " of the South.
At first he opposed the annexation of Texas ; he
warned men against it in 1837. He went so far as
to declare: —
" I do say that the annexation of Texas would tend to pro
long the duration and increase the extent of African slavery
on this continent. I have long held that opinion, and I would
not now suppress it for any consideration on earth! And be
cause it does increase the evils of slavery, because it will in
crease the number of slaves and prolong the duration of their
bondage, — because it does all this, I oppose it without condi
tion and without qualification, at this time and all times, now
and for ever."

HISTORIC AMERICANS
He prepared some portions of the Address of the
Massachusetts Anti-Texas Convention in 1845. But
as some of the leading Whigs of the North opposed
that meeting and favored annexation, he did not
appear at the Convention, but went off to New York!
In 1845 he voted against annexation. He said that
he had felt it to be his duty steadily, uniformly, and
zealously to oppose it. He did not wish America to
be possessed by the spirit of aggrandizement. He
objected to annexation principally because Texas was
a slave state. Here he stood with John Quincy
Adams, but, alas ! did too little to oppose that annexa
tion. Against him were Mr. Calhoun, the South,
almost aU the Democratic party of the North, — Mr.
Van Buren losing his nomination on account of his
hostility to new slave soil ; and many of the capitalists
of the North wished a thing that Mr. Webster wanted
not. He objected to the Constitution of Texas. Why?
Because it tied up the hands of the Legislature against
the abolition of slavery. He said so on Forefathers'
Day, two hundred and twenty-five years after the land
ing of the Pilgrims on Plymouth Rock. Then he
could not forget his own proud words, uttered a
quarter of a century before. I thought him honest
then ; I think so still. But he said that New England
might have prevented annexation; that Massachusetts
might 'have prevented annexation, only " she could
not be roused." If he had labored then for freedom
with as much vigor and earnestness as he wrought for
slavery in 1850 and 1851, Massachusetts would have
been roused; New England would have risen as a
single man ; and annexation of new slave soil have been
put off till the Greek Kalends, a day beyond eternity.
Yet he did some service in this work.

DANIEL WEBSTER 321
After the outbreak of the Mexican War, the northern
men sought to pass a law prohibiting slavery in the
new territory gained from Mexico. The celebrated
" Wilmot Proviso " came up. Mr. Webster also wished
to prohibit slavery in the new territory. In March,
1847, he presented to Congress the resolutions of the
Massachusetts Legislature against the extension of
slavery, — which had been passed unanimously, — and
he " indorsed them all."
"I thank her for it, and am proud of her; for she has de
nounced the whole object for which our armies are now trav
ersing the mountains of Mexico." " If anything is certain, it
is that the sentiment of the whole North is utterly opposed to
the acquisition of territory to be formed into new slaveholding
states." «
At the Whig Convention at Springfield, in 1847, he
maintained that the Wilmot Proviso was his " thunder."
" Did I not commit myself in 1837 to the whole doctrine, fully,
entirely? " " I cannot quite consent that more recent discov
erers should claim the merit and take out a patent. We are to
use the first and the last and every occasion which offers to
oppose the extension of slave power." *s
On the 10th of August, 1848, in the Senate of the
United States, he said: —
"My opposition to the increase of slavery in this country, or
to the increase of slave representation, is general and universal.
It has no reference to the lines of latitude or points of the
compass. I shall oppose all such extension at all times and
under all circumstances, even against all inducements, against
all supposed limitations of great interests, against all combina
tions, against all compromises."
He sought to gain the support of the Free-soilers
in Massachusetts, and encouraged their enterprise.
Even when he denounced the nomination of General
Taylor as " not fit to be made," he declared that he

HISTORIC AMERICANS
could stand on the Buffalo Platform; its anti-slavery
planks were good sound Whig timber; he himself had
had some agency in getting them out, and did not
see the necessity of a new organization. He had never
voted for the admission of a slave state into the Union !
But, alas ! all this was to pass away. Was he sincere
in his opposition to the extension of slavery? I
always thought so. I think so still.
Yet, after aU, on the 7th of March, 1850, he could
make that speech — you know it too well. He refused
to exclude slavery by law from Californk and New
Mexico. It would " irritate " the South, would " re-
enact the law of God." He declared Congress was
bound to make four new slave states out of Texas;
to allow all the territory below 36° 30' to become slave
states; he volunteered to give Texas fifty thousand
square miles of land for slave territory, and ten mil
lions of dollars; would refund to Virginia two hun
dred millions of dollars derived from the sale of the
public lands, to expatriate the free colored people
from her soil; he would support the Fugitive Slave
Bill, with all its amendment, " with all its provisions,"
" to the fuUest extent."
You know the Fugitive Slave BiU too well. It is
bad enough now; but when he first volunteered his
support thereto, it was far worse, for then every one
of the seventeen thousand postmasters of America
might be a legal kidnapper by that bill. He pledged
our own Massachusetts to support it, and that " with
alacrity." My friends, you all know the speech of the 7th of
March: you remember how men felt when the tele
graph brought the first news, they thought there must
be some mistake! They could not believe the light-

DANIEL WEBSTER
ning. You recollect how the Whig party, and the
Democratic party, and the newspapers, treated the
report. When the speech came in full, you know the
effect. One of the most conspicuous men of the state,
then in high office, declared that Mr. Webster " seemed
inspired by the devil to the extent of his intellect."
Ycu know the indignation men felt, the sorrow and
anguish. I think not a hundred prominent men in
all New England acceded to the speech. But such
was the power of that gigantic understanding, that,
eighteen days after his speech, nine hundred and
eighty-seven men of Boston sent him a letter, telling
him that he had pointed out " the path of duty, con
vinced the understanding and touched the conscience
of a nation ;" and they expressed to him their " entire
concurrence in the sentiments of that speech," and
their " heartfelt thanks for the inestimable aid it
afforded to the preservation " of the Union.
You remember the return of Mr. Webster to Bos
ton; the speech at the Revere House; his word that
"discussion" on the subject of slavery must "in
some way be suppressed ;" you remember the " disa
greeable duty ;" the question if Massachusetts " will
be just against temptation ;" whether " she will con
quer her prejudices " in favor of the trial by jury,
of the unalienable rights of man, in favor of the Chris
tian religion, and
"Those thoughts which wander through eternity."
You remember the agony of our colored men. The
Son of Man came to Jerusalem to seek and to save
that which was lost; but Daniel Webster came to
Boston to crush the poorest and most lost of men into
the ground with the hoof of American power.

324 HISTORIC AMERICANS
At the moment of making that speech, Mr. Webster
was a member of a French Abolition Society, which
has for its object to protect, enlighten, and eman
cipate the African race!
You all know what followed. The Fugitive Slave
Bill passed. It was enforced. You remember the
consternation of the colored people in Boston, New
York, Buffalo, Philadelphia, — all over the land. You
recollect the speeches of Mr. Webster at Buffalo,
Syracuse, and Albany, — his industry never equaled
before; his violence, his indignation, his denuncia
tions. You remember the threat at Syracuse, that
out of the bosom of the next Anti-slavery Convention
should a fugitive slave be seized. You remember the
scorn that he poured out on men who pledged " their
lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor," for the
welfare of men.
You remember the letters to Mr. Webster from
Newburyport, Kennebec, Medford, and his " neigh
bors in New Hampshire." You have not forgotten the
" Union meetings ;" " blue-light Federalists " and
" genuine Democrats dyed in the wool " united into
one phalanx of hunkerism and became his " re
tainers," lay and clerical, — the laymen maintaining
that his political opinions were an " amendment to
the Constitution;" and the clergymen, that his public
and private practice was " one of the evidences of
Christianity." You remember the sermons of doctors
of divinity, proving that slavery was Christian, good
Old Testament Christian at the very least. You do
not forget the offer of a man to deliver up his own
mother. Andover went for kidnapping. The loftiest
pulpits, — I mean those highest bottomed on the dollar,
— they went also for kidnapping. There arose a

DANIEL WEBSTER 325
shout against the fugitive from the metropolitan pul
pits, " Away with such a fellow from the earth ! —
Kidnap him, kidnap him ! " And when we said, mildly
remonstrating, " Why, what evil has the poor black
man done? " the answer was, — " We have a law, and
by that law he ought to be a slave ! "
You remember the first kidnappers which came here
to Boston. Hughes was one of them, an ugly-looking
feUow, that went back to die in a street brawl in his
own Georgia. He thirsted for the blood of Ellen
Craft. You remember the seizure of Shadrach, and his
deliverance out of his fiery furnace. Of course it
was an angel who let him out ; for that court, — the
kidnappers' court, — thirsting for human blood, spite
of the " enlargement of the testimony," after six trials,
I think, has not found a man, who, at noonday and
in the center of the town, did the deed ! So I suppose
it was an angel who did the deed, and miracles are
not over yet. I hope you have not forgotten Caphart,
the creature which " whips women," the great ally of
the Boston kidnappers.
You remember the kidnapping of Thomas Sims;
Faneuil Hall shut against the convention of the peo
ple; the court house in chains; the police drilled in
the square; soldiers in arms; Faneuil Hall a barrack.
You remember Fast Day, 1851, — at least I do. You
remember the " Acorn " and Boston on the 12th of
April. You have not forgotten the dreadful scenes
at New York, Philadelphia, and Buffalo; the tragedy
at Christiana.
You have not forgotten Mr. Webster's definition of
the object of government. In 1845, standing over the
grave of Judge Story, he said, — " Justice is the great

326 HISTORIC AMERICANS
interest of mankind ;" I think he thought so too ! But
at New York, on the 18th of November, 1850, he
said, — " The great object of government is the pro
tection of property at home, and respect and renown
abroad." He went to Annapolis, and made a speech compli
menting a series of ultra resolutions in favor of slav
ery and slave-catching. One of the resolutions made
the execution of the Fugitive Slave Law the sole bond
of the Union. The orator of Bunker Hill repHed : —
" Gentlemen, I concur in the sentiments expressed by you
all — -and I thank God they were expressed by you all — in the
resolutions passed here on the 10th of December. And allow
me to say, that any state, North or South, which departs one
iota from the sentiment of that resolution, is disloyal to this
Union. " Further, — so far as any act of that sort has been com
mitted, — such a state has no portion of my regard. I do
not sympathize with it. I rebuke it wherever I speak, and on
all occasions where it is proper for me to express my senti
ments. If there are states — and I am afraid there are —
which have sought, by ingenious contrivances of state legisla
tion, to thwart the fair exercise and fulfilment of the laws of
Congress passed to carry into effect the compacts of the Con
stitution, — that state, so far, is entitled to no regard from me.
At the North there have been certainly some intimations in
certain states of such a policy.
" I hold the importance of maintaining these measures to be
of the highest character and nature, every one of them out and
out, and through and through. I have no confidence in any
body who seeks the repeal, in anybody who wishes to alter or
modify these constitutional provisions. There they are. Many
of these great measures are irrepealable. The settlement with
Texas is as irrepealable as the admission of California. Other
important objects of legislation, if not in themselves in the
nature of grants, and therefore not so irrepealable, are just
as important; and we are to hear no parleying upon it. We
are to listen to no modification or qualification. They were
passed in conformity with the provisions of the Constitution;
and they must be performed and abided by, in whatever event,
and at whatever cost."

DANIEL WEBSTER 327
Surrounded by the Federalists of New England,
when a young man, fresh in Congress, he stood out
nobly for the right to discuss all matters. Every boy
knows his brave words by heart : —
" Important as I deem it, sir, to discuss, on all proper occa
sions, the policy of the measures at present pursued, it is still
more important to maintain the right of such discussion in its
full and just extent. Sentiments lately sprung up, and now
growing popular, render it necessary to be explicit on this
point. It is the ancient and constitutional right of this people
to canvass public measures, and the merits of public men. It
is a homebred right, a fireside privilege. It has ever been en
joyed in every house, cottage, and cabin in the nation. It is not
to be drawn into controversy. It is as undoubted as the right
of breathing the air, and walking on the earth. Belonging to
private life as a right, it belongs to public life as a duty; and
it is the last duty which those whose representative I am shall
find me to abandon. This high constitutional privilege I shall
defend and exercise within this house and without this house,
and in all places; in time of war, in time of peace, and at
all times.
"Living, I will assert it; dying I will assert it; and should I
leave no other inheritance to my children, by the blessing of
God I will leave them the inheritance of free principles, and
the example of a manly, independent, and constitutional defense
of them."
Then, in 1850, when vast questions, so intimately af
fecting the welfare of millions of men, were before the
country, he told us to suppress agitation !
" Neither you nor I shall see the legislation of the country
proceed in the old harmonious way, until the discussions in
Congress and out of Congress upon the subject [of slavery]
shall be in some way suppressed. Take that truth home with
you, and take it as truth."
" I shall support no agitations having their foundation in
unreal and ghostly abstractions."**
The opponents of Mr. Webster, contending for the
freedom of all Americans, of all men, appealed from

328 HISTORIC AMERICANS
the Fugitive Slave Bill to " the element of all laws, out
of which they are derived, to the end of all laws, for
which they are designed and in which they are per
fected." How did he resist the appeal? You have
not forgotten the speech at Capon Springs, on the
26th of June, 1851. " When nothing else will an
swer," he said, " they," the abolitionists, " invoke ' re
ligion,' and speak of the ' higher law ! ' " He of the
granite hills of New Hampshire, looking on the moun
tains of Virginia, blue with loftiness and distance, said,
" Gentlemen, this North Mountain is high, the Blue
Ridge higher still, the AUeghanies higher than either,
and yet this ' higher law ' ranges further than an
eagle's flight above the highest peaks of the AUe
ghanies! No common vision can discern it; no com
mon and unsophisticated conscience can feel it; the
hearing of common men never learns its high behests;
and, therefore, one would think it is not a safe law to
be acted upon in matters of the highest practical mo
ment. It is the code, however, of the abolitionists of
the North."
This speech was made at dinner. The next " senti
ment " given after his was this : —
" The Fugitive Slave Law. — Upon its faithful execution de
pends the perpetuity of the Union."
Mr. Webster made a speech in reply, and distinctly
declared, —
"You of the South have as much right to secure your fugi
tive slaves, as the North has to any of its rights and privileges
of navigation and commerce."
Do you think he believed that? Daniel Webster
knew better. In 1844, only seven years before, he had
said, —

DANIEL WEBSTER 329
"What! when all the civilized world is opposed to slavery;
when morality denounces it; when Christianity denounces it;
when every thing respected, everything good, bears one united
witness against it, is it for America — America, the land of
Washington, the model republic of the world — is it for Amer
ica to come to its assistance, and to insist that the maintenance
of slavery is necessary to the support of her institutions? "*5
How do you think the audience answered then?
With six-and-twenty cheers. It was in Faneuil Hall.
Mr. Webster said, " These are Whig principles ;" and,
with these, " Faneuil Hall may laugh a siege to scorn."
That speech is not printed in his collection! How
could it stand side by side with the speech of the 7th
of March?
In 1846 a Whig Convention voted to do its possible
to " defeat aU measures calculated to uphold slavery,
and promote all constitutional measures for its over
throw ; " to " oppose any further addition of slave-
holding states to this Union ; " and to have " free in
stitutions for all, chains and fetters for none."
At that time Mr. Webster declared he had a heart
which beat for everything favorable to the progress of
human liberty, either here or abroad; then, when in
" the dark and troubled night " he saw only the Whig
party as his Bethlehem star, he rejoiced in " the hope
of obtaining the power to resist whatever threatens to
extend slavery." 46 Yet after New York had kid
napped Christians, and with civic pomp sent her own
sons into slavery, he could go to that city and say,
" It is an air which for the last few months I love to
inhale. It is a patriotic atmosphere: constitutional
breezes fan it every day." 47
To accomplish a bad purpose, he resorted to mean
artifice, to the low tricks of vulgar adventurers in pol
itics. He used the same weapons once wielded against

330 HISTORIC AMERICANS
him, — misrepresentation, denunciation, invective. Like
his old enemy of New Hampshire, he carried his po
litical quarrel into private life. He cast off the ac
quaintance of men intimate with him for twenty or
thirty years. The malignity of his conduct, as it was
once said of a great apostate,48 was " hugely aggra
vated by those rare abilities whereof God has given
him the use." Time had not in America bred a man
before bold enough to consummate such aims as his.
In this New Hampshire Strafford, " despotism had at
length obtained an instrument with mind to compre
hend, and resolution to act upon, its principles in their
length and breadth ; and enough of his purposes were
effected by him to enable mankind to see as from a
tower the end of all."
What was the design of all this? It was to " save
the Union." Such was the cry. Was the Union in
danger? Here were a few non-resistants at the North,
who said, We will have " no union with slaveholders."
There was a party of seceders at the South, who
periodically blustered about disunion. Could these
men bring the Union into peril? Did Daniel Webster
even think so? I shall never insult that giant intellect
by the thought. He knew South Carolina, he knew
Georgia, very weU. Mr. Benton knew of no " dis
tress," even at the time when it was alleged that the
nation was bleeding at " five gaping wounds," so that
it would take the whole omnibus full of compromises
to staunch the blood: "All the political distress is
among the politicians." I think Mr. Webster knew
there was no danger of a dissolution of the Union.
But here is a proof that he knew it. In 1850, on the
22nd of December, he declared, " There is no longer
imminent danger of the dissolution of the United

DANIEL WEBSTER 331
States. We shaU Hve and not die." But, soon after,
he went about saving the Union again, and again, and
again, — saved it at Buffalo, Albany, Syracuse, at An
napolis, and then at Capon Springs.
I say there was no real danger ; but my opinion is a
mere opinion, and nothing more. Look, however, at a
fact. We have the most delicate test of public opin
ion, — the state of the public funds; the barometer
which indicates any change in the political weather.
If the winds blow down the Tiber, Roman funds fall.
Talk of war between France and England, the stocks
go down at Paris and London. The foolish talk about
the fisheries last summer lowered American stocks in
the market, to the great gain of prudent and far-
sighted brokers, who knew there was no danger. But
all this time, when Mr. Webster was telling us the
ship of state was going to pieces, and required under-
girding by the Fugitive Slave Bill, and needed the
kidnapper's hand at the helm; while he was advising
Massachusetts to " conquer her prejudices " in favor
of the unalienable rights of man; while he was de
nouncing the friends of freedom, and calling on us to
throw over to Texas — that monster of the deep which
threatened to devour the ship of state — fifty thousand
square miles of territory, and ten millions of dollars;
and to the other monster of secession to cast over the
trial by jury, the dearest principles of the Constitution,
of manhood, of justice, and of religion, " those
thoughts that wander through eternity ;" while he him
self revoked the noblest words of his whole life, cast
ing over his interpretation of the Constitution, his re
spect for state rights, for the common law, his own
morality, his own religion, and his own God, — the
funds of the United States did not go down one mill!

332 HISTORIC AMERICANS
You asked the capitalist, " Is the Union in danger? "
He answered, " 0 yes ! it is in the greatest peril."
" Then will you sell me your stocks lower than be
fore? " " Not a mill; not one mill — not the ten hun
dredth part of a dollar in a hundred ! " To ask men
to make such a sacrifice, at such a time, from such
a motive, is as if you should beg the captain of the
steamer " Niagara," in Boston harbor, in fair weather,
to throw over all his cargo, because a dandy in the
cabin was blowing the fire with his breath! No, my
friends, I shall not insult the majesty of that intel
lect with the thought that he believed there was danger
to the Union. There was not any danger of a storm ;
not a single cat's-paw in the sky ; not a capful of bad
weather between Cape Sable and the Lake of the
Woods !
But suppose the worst came to the worst, are there
no other things as bad as disunion? The Constitution
— does it " establish justice, insure domestic tranquil
lity," and " secure the blessings of liberty " to all the
citizens? Nobody pretends it, — with every eighth
man made merchandise, and not an inch of free soil
covered by the Declaration of Independence, save the
five thousand miles which Mr. Webster ceded away.
Is disunion worse than slavery? Perhaps not even to
commerce, which the Federalists thought " still more
dear " than Union. But what if the South seceded
next year, and the younger son took the portion of
goods that falleth to him, when America divides her
living? Imagine the condition of the new nation, —
the United States South; a nation without schools, or
the desire for them; without commerce, without manu
factures; with six million white men and three million
slaves; working with that barbarous tool, slave-labor,

DANIEL WEBSTER 333
an instrument as ill-suited to these times as a sickle of
stone to cut grain with ! How would that new " De
mocracy " appear in the eyes of the world, when the
public opinion of the nations looks hard at tyranny?
It would not be long before that younger son, having
spent all with riotous living, and devoured his sub
stance with slavery, brought down to the husks that the
swine do eat, — would arise, and go to the Nation, and
say, " Father, forgive me ; I have sinned against
heaven and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be
called thy son. Make me as one of thy hired serv
ants." The southern men knew well, that if the Union
were dissolved, their riches would take to themselves
legs, and run away, — or firebrands, and make a St.
Domingo out of Carolina! They cast off the North!
they set up for themselves ! 49
"Tush! tush! Fear boys with bugs!"
Here is the reason. He wanted to be President.
That was all of it.. Before this he had intrigued, —
always in a clumsy sort, for he was organized for hon
esty, and cunning never throve in his keeping, — had
stormed and blustered and bullied. " Gen. Taylor the
second choice of Massachusetts for the President,"
quoth he : "I teU you I am to be the first, and Massa
chusetts has no second choice." Mr. Clay must not be
nominated in '44 ; in '48 Gen. Taylor's was a " nomi
nation not fit to be made." He wanted the office him
self. This time he must storm the North, and con
ciliate the South. This was his bid for the Presidency,
— fifty thousand square miles of territory and ten
millions of dollars to Texas; four new slave states;
slavery in Utah and New Mexico; the Fugitive Slave
Bill; and two hundred millions of dolkrs offered to
Virginia to carry free men of color to Africa.50

334 HISTORIC AMERICANS
He never labored so before, and he had been a hard
working man. What speeches he made at Boston,
New York, Philadelphia, Albany, Buffalo, Syracuse,
Annapolis ! What letters he wrote ! His intellect was
never so active, nor gave such proofs of Herculean
power. The hottest-headed Carolinian did not put his
feet faster or further on in the support of slavery.
He
"Stood up the strongest and the fiercest spirit
That fought 'gainst Heaven, now fiercer by despair."
Once he could say, —
" By general instruction we seek as far as possible to purify
the whole moral atmosphere; to keep good sentiments upper
most, and to turn the strong current of feeling and opinion,
as well as the censures of the law, and the denunciations of
religion, against immorality and crime. We hope for a security
beyond the law, and above the law, in the prevalence of en
lightened and well-principled moral sentiment." si
In 1820 he could say, " All conscience ought to be
respected;" in 1850 it is only a fanatic who heeds his
conscience, and there is no higher law. In scorn of
the higher law he far outwent his transatlantic pro
totype ; for even Strafford, in his devotion to " Thor
ough," had some respect for the fundamental law of
nature, and said, — " If I must be a traitor to man or
perjured to God, I will be faithful to my Creator."
The fountains of his great deep were broken up —
it rained forty days and forty nights, and brought a
flood of slavery over this whole land; it covered the
market, and the factory, and the court-house, and the
warehouse, and the college, and rose up high over the
tops of the tallest steeples! But the ark of freedom
went on the face of the waters, — above the market,
above the factory, above the court-house, above the col-
VI— 24

DANIEL WEBSTER 335
lege, high over the tops of the tallest steeples, it floated
secure; for it bore the religion that is to save the
world, and the Lord God of Hosts had shut it in.
What flattery was there from Mr. Webster! What
flattery to the South! what respect for Southern nulH-
fiers ! " The secessionists of the South take a differ
ent course of remark ;" they appeal to no higher law !
" They are learned and eloquent ; they are animated
and full of spirit; they are high-minded and chival
rous; they state their supposed injuries and cause of
complaint in elegant phrases and exalted tones of
speech." He derided the instructions of his adopted state.
" It has been said that I have, by the course that I have
thought proper to pursue, displeased a portion of the people
of Massachusetts. Well, suppose I did. Suppose I displeased
all the people of that state, — what of that?
" What had I to do with instructions from Massachusetts upon
a question affecting the whole nation ! " "I assure you, gen
tlemen, I cared no more for the instructions of Massachusetts
than I did for those of any other state!"
What scorn against the " fanatics " of the North,
against the higher law, and the God thereof!
"New England, it is well known, is the chosen seat of the
abolition presses and the Abolition societies. There it is prin
cipally that the former cheer the morning by full columns of
lamentation over the fate of human beings free by nature and
by law above the Constitution, — but sent back, nevertheless,
chained and manacled to slavery and to stripes; and the latter
refresh themselves from daily toil by orgies of the night de
voted to the same outpourings of philanthropy, mingling all
the while their anathemas at what they call ' men-catching ' with
the most horrid and profane abjuration of the Christian Sab
bath, and indeed of the whole Divine Revelation: they sanctify
their philanthropy by irreligion and profanity; they manifest
their charity by contempt of God and His commandments."
"Depend upon it, the law [the Fugitive Slave Bill] will be
executed in its spirit and to its letter. It will be executed in

336 HISTORIC AMERICANS
all the great cities, — here in Syracuse, — in the midst of the
next Anti-slavery Convention, if the occasion shall arise; then
we shall see what becomes of their 'lives and their sacred
honor ! '" «
How he mocked at the " higher law," " that exists
somewhere between us and the third heaven, I never
knew exactly where ! "
The anti-slavery men were " insane persons," " some
small bodies of fanatics," " not fit for a lunatic asy
lum." To secure his purposes he left no stone unturned;
he abandoned his old friends, treating them with rage
and insolence. He revolutionized his own politics and
his own religion. The strong advocate of Hberty, of
justice to all men, the opponent of slavery, turned
round to the enemy and went square over ! But his old
speeches did not follow him: a speech is a fact; a
printed word becomes immovable as the Alps. His
former speeches, set all the way from Hanover to
Washington, were a line of fortresses grim with can
non, each levelled at his new position.
How low he stooped to supplicate the South, to
cringe before the Catholics, to fawn upon the Metho
dists at Faneuil Hall ! O, what a prostitution of what
a kingly power of thought, of speech, of will !
The effect of Mr. Webster's speech on the 7th of
March was amazing: at first Northern men abhorred
it ; next they accepted it. Why was this ? He himself
has perhaps helped us understand the mystery : —
" The enormity of some crimes so astonishes men as to sub
due their minds, and they lose the desire for justice in a morbid
admiration of the great criminal and the strangeness of the
crime." Slavery, the most hideous snake which southern re
gions breed, with fifteen unequal feet, came crawling

DANIEL WEBSTER 337
north ; fold on fold, and ring on ring, and coil on coil,
the venomed monster came: then avarice, the foulest
worm which northern cities gender in their heat, went
crawKng south ; with many a wriggling curl, it wound
along its way. At length they met, and, twisting up
in their obscene embrace, the twain became one mon
ster hunkerism ; theme unattempted yet in prose or
song: there was no North, no South; they were one
poison ! The dragon wormed its way along, — crawled
into the church of commerce, wherein the minister bap
tized the beast, " Salvation." From the ten command
ments the dragon's breath effaced those which forbid
to kill and covet, with the three between ; then with ma
lignant tooth, gnawed out the chief commandments
whereon the law and prophets hang. This amphisbsena
of the western world then swallowed down the holiest
words of Hebrew or of Christian speech, and in their
place it left a hissing at the higher law of God.
Northward and southward wormed the thing along its
track, leaving the stain of its breath in the people's
face; and its hissing against the Lord rings yet in
many a speech : —
" Religion, blushing, veils her sacred fires,
And, unawares, morality expires."
Then what shrinking was there of great consciences,
and hearts, and minds! So Milton, fabling, sings of
angels fallen from their first estate, seeking to enter
Pandemonium : —
" They but now who seemed
In bigness to surpass Earth's giant-sons,
Now less than smallest dwarfs, in narrow room
Throng numberless, 
 to smallest forms
Reduced their shapes immense, and were at large,

338 HISTORIC AMERICANS
Though without number still, amidst the hall
Of that infernal court."
Mr. Webster stamped his foot, and broke through
into the great hoUow of practical atheism, which under-
gulfs the State and Church. Then what a caving in
was there ! The firm-set base of northern cities quaked
and yawned with gaping rents. " Penn's sandy foun
dation " shook again, and black men fled from the city
of brotherly love, as doves, with plaintive cry, flee from
a farmer's barn when summer Hghtning stabs the roof.
There was a twist in Faneuil HaU, and the doors could
not open wide enough for Liberty to regain her an
cient cradle; only soldiers, greedy to steal a man,
themselves stole out and in. Ecclesiastic quicksand
ran down the hole amain. Metropolitan churches top
pled, and pitched, and canted, and cracked, their bow
ing walls all out of plumb. Colleges, broken from
the chain which held them in the stream of time, rushed
towards the abysmal rent. Harvard led the way,
" Christo et Ecclesise " in her hand. Down plunged
Andover, " Conscience and the Constitution " clutched
in its ancient, failing arm. New Haven began to cave
in. Doctors of divinity, orthodox, heterodox with
only a doxy of doubt, " no settled opinion," had great
alacrity in sinking, and went down quick, as live as
ever, into the pit of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, the
bottomless pit of lower law, — one with his mother,
cloaked by a surplice, hid beneath his sinister arm, and
an acknowledged brother grasped by his remaining
limb. Fossils of theology, dead as Ezekiel's bones,
took to their feet again, and stood up for most arrant
wrong. " There is no higher law of God," quoth they,
as they went down ; " no golden rule, only the statutes
of men." A man with mythological ear might fancy

DANIEL WEBSTER 339
that he heard a snickering laugh run round the world
below, snorting, whinnying, and neighing, as it echoed
from the infernal spot pressed by the fallen monsters
of iU-fame, who, thousands of years ago, on the same
errand, had plunged down the selfsame way. What
tidings the echo bore, Dante nor Milton could not tell.
Let us leave that to darkness, and to silence, and to
death. But spite of aU this, in every city, in every town, in
every college, and in each capsizing church, there were
found faithful men, who feared not the monster,
heeded not the stamping ; — nay, some doctors of di
vinity were found living. In all their houses there
was light, and the destroying angel shook them not.
The word of the Lord came in open vision to their
eye; they had their lamps trimmed and burning, their
loins girt; they stood road-ready. Liberty and reli
gion turned in thither, and the slave found bread and
wings. " When my father and my mother forsake me,
then the Lord wiU take me up ! "
After the 7th of March, Mr. Webster became the
aUy of the worst of men, the forefront of kidnapping.
The orator of Plymouth Rock was the advocate of
slavery; the hero of Bunker HiU put chains around
Boston court-house; the applauder of Adams and
Jefferson was a tool of the slaveholder, and a keeper
of skvery's dogs, the associate of the kidnapper, and
the mocker of men who loved the right. Two years he
lived with that rabble-rout for company, his name the
boast of every vilest thing.
"Oh, how unlike the place from whence he fell!"
In early life Mr. Hill, of New Hampshire, pursued
him with unrelenting bitterness. Of late years Mr.

340 HISTORIC AMERICANS
Webster had complained of this, declaring that Mr.
Hill had " done more than any other man to debauch
the character of New Hampshire, bringing the bitter
ness of politics into private life." But after that day
of St. Judas, Mr. Webster pursued the same course
which Mr. Hill had followed forty years before, and the
two enemies were reconciled. The Herod of the
Democrats and the Pilate of Federalism were made
friends by the Fugitive Slave Bill, and rode in the same
" Omnibus," — " a blue-light FederaHst " and " a genu
ine Democrat dyed in the wool."
Think of him ! — the Daniel Webster of Plymouth
Rock advocating the " Compromise Measures ! " the
Daniel Webster of Faneuil Hall, who once spoke with
the inspiration of Samuel Adams and the tongue of
James Otis, honoring the holy dead with his praise ! —
think of him at Buffalo, Albany, Syracuse, scoffing at
modern men, who " periled their lives, their fortunes,
and their sacred honor," to visit the fatherless and the
widows in their affliction, and to keep themselves un
spotted from the world ! — think of him threatening
with the gallows such as clothed the naked, fed the
hungry, visited the prisoner, and gave a cup of cold
water to him that was ready to perish ! Think of Dan
iel Webster become the assassin of Liberty in the cap-
itol! Think of him, full of the Old Testament and
dear Isaac Watts, scoffing at the higher law of God,
while the mountains of Virginia looked him in the face !
But what was the recompense ? Ask Massachusetts,
— ask the North. Let the Baltimore Convention tell.
He was the greatest candidate before it. General
Scott is a little man when the feathers are gone. Fill
more, you know him. Both of these, for greatness of
intellect, compared to Webster, were as a single mag-

DANIEL WEBSTER 341
pie measured by an eagle. Look at his speeches ; look
at his forehead; look at his face! The two hundred
and ninety-three delegates came together and voted.
They gave him thirty-two votes! Where were the
men of the " lower law," who made a denial of God the
first principle of their politics ? Where were they who
in Faneuil Hall scoffed and jeered at the " higher
law ;" or at Capon Springs, who " laughed " when he
mocked at the law higher than the Virginia hills?
Where were the kidnappers? The "lower law" men
and the kidnappers strained themselves to the utmost,
and he had thirty-two votes !
Where was the South? Fifty-three times did the
Convention ballot, and the South never gave him a
vote, — not a vote; no, not one! Northern friends —
I honor their affection for the great man — went to
the South, and begged for the poor and paltry pit
tance of a seeming vote, in order to break the bitter
ness of the fall ! They went " with tears in their
eyes," and in mercy's name, they asked that crumb
from the southern board. But the cruel South,
treacherous to him whom she beguiled to treason
against God, she answered, " Not a vote ! " It was the
old fate of men who betray. Southern politicians
" did not dare dispense with the services thrust on him,
but revenged themselves by withdrawing his well-mer
ited reward." It was the fate of Strafford; the fate
of Wolsey. When Lasthenes and Euthycrates be
trayed Olynthus to Macedonian Philip, fighting against
the liberties of Greece, they were distinguished — if
Demosthenes be right — only by . the cruelty of their
fate. Mr. Webster himself had a forefeeling that it
might be so ; for, on the morning of his fatal speech,
he told a brother Senator, " I have my doubts that the

342 HISTORIC AMERICANS
speech I am going to make wiU ruin me." But he
played the card with a heavy, a rash, a trembling, and
not a skilful hand. It was only the playing of a card,
— but his last card ! Mr. Calhoun had said, " The
furthest Southerner is nearer to us than the nearest
Northern man." They could trust him with their
work, — not with its covenanted pay !¦
Oh ! Cardinal Wolsey ! there was never such a f aU.
" He fell, like Lucifer, never to hope again ! "
The telegraph which brought him tidings of his fate
was a thunder-stroke out of the clear sky. No wonder
that he wept, and said, " I am a disgraced man, a
ruined man ! " His early, his last, his fondest dream
of ambition broke, and only ruin filled his hand!
What a spectacle! to move pity in the stones of the
street !
But it seemed as if nothing could be spared him.
His cup of bitterness, already full, was made to run
over ; for joyous men, full of wine and the nomination,
called him up at midnight out of his bed — the poor,
disappointed old man ! — to " congratulate him on the
nomination of Scott ! " And they forced the great
man, falling back on his self-respect, to say that the
next morning he should " rise with the lark, as jocund
and as gay."
Was not that enough? Oh, there is no pity in the
hearts of men ! Even that was not enough ! Northern
friends went to him, and asked him to advise men to
vote for General Scott!
General Scott is said to be an anti-slavery man ; but
soon as the political carpenters put the " planks " to
gether at Baltimore, he scrambled upon the platform,
and stands there on all-fours to this day, looking for

DANIEL WEBSTER 343
" fellow-citizens, native and adopted," Hstening for
" that rich brogue," and declaring that, after aU, he
is " only a common man." Did you ever read Gen
eral Scott's speeches? Then think of asking Daniel
Webster to recommend him for President, — Scott in
the chair, and Webster out. That was gall after the
wormwood! They say that Mr. Webster did write a
letter advocating the election of Scott, and afterwards
said, " I stiU Hve." If he did so, attribute it to the
wanderings of a great mind, shattered by sickness ;
and be assured he would have taken it back, if he had
ever set his firm foot on the ground again ! 5S
Daniel Webster went down to Marshfield — to die!
He died of his 7th of March speech! That word in
dorsed on Mason's Bill drove thousands of fugitives
from America to Canada. It put chains round our
court-house; it led men to violate the majesty of law
aU over the North. I viokted it, and so did you. It
sent Thomas Sims in fetters to his jail and his scourg
ing at Savannah; it caused practical atheism to be
preached in many churches of New York, Philadel
phia, Washington; and, worst of all, in Boston itself!
And then, with its own recoil, it sent Daniel Webster to
his grave, giving him such a reputation as a man would
not wish for his utterest foe.
No event in the American Revolution was half so ter
rible as his speeches in defense of slavery and kidnap
ping, his abrogation of the right to discuss all meas
ures of the government. We lost battles again and
again, lost campaigns — our honor we never lost.
The army was without powder at Cambridge in '76;
without shoes and blankets in '78 ; and the bare feet of
New England valor marked the ice with blood when
they crossed the Delaware. But we were never with-

344 HISTORIC AMERICANS
out conscience ; never without morality. Powder might
fail, and shoes drop, old and rotten, from soldiers'
feet. But the love of God was in the American heart,
and no American general said, " There is no law higher
than the Blue Ridge ! " Nay, they appealed to God's
higher law, not thinking that in politics religion
" makes men mad."
While the Philip of slavery was thundering at our
gate, the American Demosthenes advised us to " con
quer our prejudices " against letting him in ; to throw
down the wall " with alacrity," and bid him come : it
was a " constitutional " Philip. How silver dims the
edge of steel! When the tongue of freedom was cut
out of the mouth of Europe by the sabers of tyrants,
and only in the British Isles and in Saxon speech could
liberty be said or sung, the greatest orator who ever
spoke the language of Milton and Burke told us to
suppress discussion! In the dark and troubled night
of American politics, our taUest pharos on the shore
hung out a false beacon.
Once Mr. Webster said, " There will always be some
perverse minds who will vote the wrong way, let the
justice of the case be ever so apparent." 54 Did he
know what he was doing? Too well. In the winter
of 1850, he partially prepared a speech in defense of
freedom. Was his own amendment to Mason's Bill
designated to be its text? Some say so. I know
not. He wrote to an intimate and sagacious friend in
Boston, asking, " How far can I go in defense of free
dom and have Massachusetts sustain me? " The
friend repaid the confidence, and said, " Far as you
like ! " Mr. Webster went as far as New Orleans, as
far as Texas and the Del Norte, in support of slavery !
When that speech came, — the rawest wind of March,

DANIEL WEBSTER 345
— the friend declared : " It seldom happens to any
man to be able to disgrace the generation he is born in.
But the opportunity has presented itself to Mr. Web
ster, and he has done the deed ! "
Cardinal Wolsey fell, and lost nothing but his place.
Bacon fell ; the " wisest, brightest," lived long enough
to prove himself the " meanest of mankind." Straf
ford came down. But it was nothing to the fall of
Webster. The Anglo-Saxon race never knew such a
terrible and calamitous ruin. His downfall shook the
continent. Truth fell prostrate in the street. Since
then, the court-house has a twist in its waUs, and
equity cannot enter its door; the steeples point awry,
and the " higher law " is hurled down from the pul
pit. One priest would enslave all the " posterity of
Ham," and another would drive a fugitive from his
own door; a third became certain that Paul was a kid
napper ; and a fourth had the " assurance of conscious
ness that Christ Jesus would have sold and bought
slaves ! " Practical atheism became common in the
pulpits of America ; they forgot that there was a God.
In the hard winter of 1780, if Lafayette had copied
Arnold, and Washington gone over to the enemy, the
fall could not have been worse. Benedict Arnold feU,
but fell through, — so low that no man quotes him
for precedent. Aaron Burr is only a warning. Web
ster fell, and he lay there " not less than archangel
ruined," and enticed the nation in his fall. Shame on
us ! — all those three are of New-England blood !
Webster, Arnold, Burr!
My friends, it is hard for me to say those things.
My mother's love is warm in my own bosom still, and
I hate to say such words. But God is just ; and, in the
presence of God, I stand here to teU the truth.

346 HISTORIC AMERICANS
Did men honor Daniel Webster? So did I. I was
a boy ten years old when he stood at Plymouth Rock,
and never shall I forget how his clarion words rang in
my boyish heart. I was but a little boy when he spoke
those brave words in behalf of Greece. I was helped
to hate slavery by the Hps of that great intellect;
and now that he takes back his words, and comes him
self to be slavery's slave, I hate it tenfold harder than
before, because it made a bondman out of that proud,
powerful nature.
Did men love him? So did I. Not blindly, but as
I loved a great mind, as the defender of the Constitu
tion and the unalienable rights of man.
Sober and religious men of Boston yet mourn that
their brothers were kidnapped in the city of Hancock
and Adams — it was Daniel Webster who kidnapped
them. Massachusetts has wept at the deep iniquity
which was wrought in her capital — it was done by the
man whom she welcomed to her bosom, and long had
loved to honor. Let history, as
" Sad as angels at the good man's sin,
Blush to record, and weep to give it in ! "
Do men mourn for him? See how they mourn!
The streets are hung with black. The newspapers are
sad colored. The shops are put in mourning. The
Mayor and Aldermen wear crape. Wherever his death
is made known, the public business stops, and flags
drop half-mast down. The courts adjourn. The
courts of Massachusetts — at Boston, at Dedham, at
Lowell, all adjourn; the courts of New Hampshire, of
Maine, of New York; even at Baltimore and Wash
ington, the courts adjourn; for the great lawyer is
dead, and justice must wait another day. Only the

DANIEL WEBSTER 347
United States Court, in Boston, trying a man for help
ing Shadrach out of the furnace of the kidnappers, —
the court which executes the Fugitive Slave Bill, —
that does not adjourn; that keeps on; its worm dies
not, and the fire of its persecution is not quenched,
when death puts out the lamp of Hfe!55 Injustice is
hungry for its prey, and must not be balked. It was
very proper! Symbolical court of the Fugitive Slave
BiU — it does not respect life, why should it death?
and, scorning Hberty, why should it heed decorum?
Did the judges deem that Webster's spirit, on its way
to God, would look at Plymouth Rock, then pause on
the spots made more classic by his eloquence, and gaze
at Bunker Hill, and tarry his hour in the august com
pany of noble men at Faneuil Hall, and be gkd to
know that injustice was chanting his requiem in that
court? They greatly misjudge the man. I know
Daniel Webster better, and I appeal for him against
his idly judging friends.
Do men now mourn for him, the great man eloquent?
I put on sackcloth long ago ; I mourned for him when
he wrote the Creole letter, which surprised Ashburton,
Briton that he was. I mourned when he spoke the
speech of the 7th of March. I mourned when the
Fugitive Slave BiU passed Congress, and the same
cannons which have just fired minute-guns for him fired
also one hundred rounds of joy at the forging of a
new fetter for the fugitive's foot. I mourned for him
when the kidnappers first came to Boston, — hated
then, now " respectable men," " the companions of
princes," enlarging their testimony in the court. I
mourned when my own parishioners fled from the
"stripes" of New England to the "stars" of Old
England. I mourned when Ellen Craft fled to my

348 HISTORIC AMERICANS
house for shelter and for succor, and for the first time
in all my life I armed this hand. I mourned when I
married William and Ellen Craft, and gave them a
Bible for their soul, and a sword to keep that soul
living in a living frame. I mourned when that court
house was hung in chains; when Thomas Sims, from
his dungeon, sent out his petition for prayers, and the
churches did not dare to pray. I mourned when that
poor outcast in yonder dungeon sent for me to visit
him, and when I took him by the hand which Daniel
Webster was chaining in that hour. I mourned for
Webster when we prayed our prayer and sang our
psalm on Long Wharf in the morning's gray. I
mourned then: I shall not cease to mourn. The flags
will be removed from the streets, the cannon will sound
their other notes of joy ; but, for me, I shall go mourn
ing all my days ; I shall refuse to be comforted ; and at
last I shall lay down my gray hairs with weeping and
with sorrow in the grave. 0 Webster ! Webster ! would
God that I had died for thee !
He was a powerful man physically, a man of a large
mold, — a great body and a great brain : he seemed
made to last a hundred years. Since Socrates, there
has seldom been a head so massive huge, save the
stormy features of Michael Angelo, —
"The hand that rounded Peter's dome,
And groined the aisles of Christian Rome;"
he who sculptured Day and Night into such majestic
forms, — looked them in his face before he chiseled
them in stone. The cubic capacity of his head sur
passed nearly all former measurements of mind.
Since Charlemagne, I think there has not been such a

DANIEL WEBSTER 349
grand figure in all Christendom. A large man, de
corous in dress, dignified in deportment, he walked as
if he felt himself a king. Men from the country, who
knew him not, stared at him as he passed through our
streets. The coal-heavers and porters of London
looked on him as one of the great forces of the globe.
They recognized a native king. In the Senate of the
United States, he looked an emperor in that council.
Even the majestic Calhoun seemed common, compared
with him. Clay looked vulgar, and Van Buren but a
fox. His countenance, like Strafford's, was " manly
bkck." His mind —
"Was lodged in a fair and lofty room.
On his brow
Sat terror, mixed with wisdom; and, at once,
Saturn and Hermes in his countenance."
What a mouth he had! It was a lion's mouth. Yet
there was a sweet grandeur in his smile, and a woman's
softness when he would. What a brow it was! what
eyes! Hke charcoal fires in the bottom of a deep, dark
weU! His face was rugged with volcanic flames, —
great passions and great thoughts.
" The front of Jove himself;
An eye like Mars to threaten and command."
Let me examine the elements of Mr. Webster's char
acter in some detail. Divide the faculties, not bodily,
into inteUectual, moral, affectional, and religious, and
see what he had of each, beginning with the highest.
I. His latter life shows that he had no large develop
ment of the religious powers, which join men consciously
to the Infinite God. He had little religion in the
higher meaning of that word : much in the lower, — he
had the conventional form of religion, the formality

350 HISTORIC AMERICANS
of outward and visible prayer; reverence for the Bible
and the name of Christ ; attendance at meeting on Sun
days and at the " ordinances of rehgion." He was a
" devout man," in the ecclesiastic sense of the word.
But it is easy to be devout, hard to be moral. Of the
two men, in the parable, who " went up to the temple
to pray," only the Pharisee was " devout " in the com
mon sense. Devoutness took the Priest and the Levite
to the temple: morality led the good Samaritan to the
man fallen among thieves.
His reputation for religion seems to rest on these
facts, — that he read the Bible, and knew more passages
from it than most political editors, more than some
clergymen ; he thought Job " a great epic poem," and
quoted Habakkuk by rote; — that he knew many
hymns by heart ; attended what is caUed " divine serv
ice ;" agreed with a New Hampshire divine " in all the
doctrines of a Christian life ;" and, in the " Girard
case," praised the popular theology, with the minis
ters thereof, — the latter as " appointed by the Author
of the Christian religion himself."
He seems by nature to have had a religious turn of
mind ; was full of devout and reverential feelings ; took
a deep delight in religious emotions; was fond of re
ligious books of a sentimental cast ; loved Watts's ten
der and delicious hymns, with the devotional parts of
the Bible; his memory was stored with the poetry of
hymn-books; he was fond of attendance at meeting.
He had no particle of religious bigotry; joining an
orthodox church at Boscawen, an Episcopal at Wash
ington, a Unitarian at Boston, and attending religious
services without much regard for the theology of the
minister. He loved religious forms, and could not
see a child baptized without dropping a tear. Psalms

DANIEL WEBSTER 351
and hymns also brought the woman into those
great eyes. He was never known to swear, or use any
profanity of speech. Considering the habits of his
political company, that is a fact worth notice. But
I do not find that his religious emotions had any influ
ence on his later life, either public or private. He
read reHgion out of politics with haughty scorn — " It
makes men mad ! " It appeared neither to check him
from ill, nor urge to good. Though he said he loved
" to have reHgion made a personal matter," he forsook
the church which made it personal in the form of
temperance. His " religious character " was what the
churches of commerce tend to form, and love to
praise.56 II. Of the affections he was weU provided by nature,
though they were but little cultivated, — attachable to
a few who knew him, and loved him tenderly ; and, if he
hated like a giant, he loved also like a king.
He had small respect for the mass of men, — a con
tempt for the judgment and the feelings of the miUions
who make up the people. Many women loved him;
some from pure affection, others fascinated and over
borne by the immense masculineness of the man. Some
are still left who knew him in early Hfe, before political
ambition set its mark on his forehead, and drove him
forth into the world: they love him with the tenderest
of woman's affections. This is no small praise. In
his earHer Hfe he was fond of children, loved their
prattle and their play. They, too, were fond of him,
came to him as dust of iron to a loadstone, climbed on
his back, or, when he lay down, ky on his limbs and
also slept.
Of unimpassioned and unrelated love, there are two

352 HISTORIC AMERICANS
modes, — friendship for a few; philanthropy for all.
Friendship he surely had, especially in earlier life. All
along the shore men loved him; men in Boston loved
him to the last ; Washington held loving hearts which
worshiped him. But, of late years, he turned round
to smite and crush his early friends who kept the
higher law; ambition tore the friendship out of him,
and he became unkind and cruel. The companions of
his later years were chiefly low men, with large animal
appetites, servants of his body's baser parts, or tide-
waiters of his ambition, — vulgar men in Boston and
New York, who lurk in the habitations of cruelty,
whereof the dark places of the earth are full, seeking
to enslave their brother-men. These barnacles clove
to the great man's unprotected parts, and hastened his
decay. When kidnappers made their loathsome lair of
his bosom, what was his friendship worth?
Of philanthropy, I claim not much for him. The
noble plea for Greece is the most I can put in for argu
ment. He cared little for the poor ; charity seldom in
vaded his open purse; he trod down the poorest and
most friendless of perishing men. His name was never
connected with the humanities of the age. Soon as
the American government seemed fixed on the side of
cruelty, he marched all his dreadful artillery over, and
leveled his breaching cannons against men ready to
perish without his shot. In later years, his face was
the visage of a tyrant.
IH. Of conscience it seemed to me he had little; in
his later life, exceeding little: his moral sense seemed
long besotted; almost, though not wholly, gone.
Hence, though he was often generous, he was seldom
just. Free to give as to grasp, he was lavish by in
stinct, not charitable on principle.

DANIEL WEBSTER 353
He had little courage, and rarely spoke a Northern
word to a Southern audience, save his official words in
Congress.57 In Charleston he was the " school-master
that gives us no lessons." He quailed before the
Southern men who would " dissolve the Union," when
he stood before their eyes. They were " high-minded
and chivalrous:" it was only the non-resistants of the
North he meant to ban !
He was indeed eminently selfish, joining the instinc
tive egotism of passion with the self-conscious, volun
tary, deHberate, calculating egotism of ambition. He
borrowed money of rich young men — ay, and of poor
ones — in the generosity of their youth, and never re
paid. He sought to make his colleagues in office the
tools of his ambition, and that f aiHng, pursued them
with the intensest hate. Thus he sought to ruin the
venerable John Quincy Adams, when the President be
came a Representative. By secret hands he scattered
circulars in Mr. Adams's district to work his over
throw; got other men to oppose him. With different
men he succeeded better. He used his party as he used
his friends, — for tools. He coquetted with the Demo
crats in '42, with the Free-soilers in '48 ; but, the suit
miscarrying, turned to the slave power in '50, and ne
gotiated an espousal which was cruelly broken off in
'52. Men, parties, the law, and the nation, he did not
hesitate to sacrifice to the colossal selfishness of his
egotistic ambition.58
His strength lay not in the religious, nor in the af
fectional, nor in the moral part of man.
IV. But his intellect was immense. His power of
comprehension was vast. He methodized swiftly. If
you look at the varieties of intellectual action, you may
distribute them into three great modes; the under-

354 HISTORIC AMERICANS
standing, the imagination, and the reason ; — the un
derstanding dealing with details and methods, the prac
tical power; imagination, with beauty, the power to
create ; reason, with first principles and universal laws,
the philosophic power.
We must deny to Mr. Webster the great reason.
He does not belong at all with the chief men of that
department, — with Socrates, Aristotle, Pkto, Leib
nitz, Newton, Descartes, and the other mighties.
Nay, he has no place with humbler men of reason,
with common philosophers. He had no philosophical
system of politics, few philosophical ideas of politics,
whereof to make a system. He seldom grasps a
universal law. His measures of expediency for to-day
are seldom bottomed on universal principles of right,
which last for ever.
I cannot assign to him large imagination. He was
not creative of new forms of thought or of beauty;
so he lacks the poetic charm which gladdens in the
loftiest eloquence.
But his understanding was exceedingly great. He
acquired readily and retained well ; arranged with ease
and skill, and fluently reproduced. As a scholar, he
passed for learned in the American Senate, where
scholars are few; for a universal man, with editors
of political and commercial prints. But his learning
was narrow in its range, and not very nice in its
accuracy. His reach in history and literature was
very small for a man seventy years of age, always
associating with able men. To science he seems to
have paid scarce any attention at all. It is a short
radius that measures the arc of his historic realm!
A few Latin authors, whom he loved to quote, made
up his meager classic store. He was not a scholar,

DANIEL WEBSTER 355
and it is idle to claim great or careful scholarship for
him. Compare him with the prominent statesmen of
Europe, or with the popular orators of England, you
see continually the narrow range of his culture.
As a statesman, his lack of what I call the higher
reason and imagination continually appears. He in
vented nothing. To the national stock he added no
new idea, created out of new thought; no new maxim,
formed by induction out of human history and old
thought. The great ideas of the time were not borne
in his bosom.59
He organized nothing. There were great ideas of
immense practical value seeking lodgment in a body:
he aided them not. None of the great measures of
our time were his — not one of them. His best bill
was the Specie Bill of 1815, which caused payments
to be made in national currency.
His lack of conscience is painfully evident. As
Secretary of State, he did not administer eminently
weU.60 When Secretary of State under Mr. Tyler,
he knew how to be unjust to poor, maltreated Mex
ico. His letters in reply to the just complaints of
Mr. Bocanegra, the Mexican Secretary of State, are
painful to read : it is the old story of the Wolf and
the Lamb.
The appointments made under his administration
had better not be looked at too closely. The affairs
of Cuba last year and this, the affairs of the Fisheries
and the Lobos Islands, are Httle to his credit.
He was sometimes ignorant of the affairs he had
to treat ; he neglected the public business, — left grave
matters all unattended to. Nay, he did worse. Early
in August last, Mr. Lawrence had an interview with
the British Foreign Secretary, in which explanations

356 HISTORIC AMERICANS
were made calcukted to remove all anxiety as to the
Fishery question. He wrote a paper detailing the
result of the interview. It was designed to be commu
nicated to the American Senate. Mr. Lawrence sent
it to Mr. Webster. It reached the Department at
Washington on the 24th of August. But Mr. Web
ster did not communicate it to the Senate; even the
President knew nothing of its existence till after the
Secretary's death.61 Now it is not " compatible with
the public interest to publish it," as its production
would reveal the negligence of the Department. You
remember the letter he published on his own account
relating to the Fisheries ! No man, it was said, could
get office under his administration, " unless bathed in
negro's blood;" support of the Fugitive Slave Bill,
" like the path of righteous devotion, led to a blessed
preferment." Lacking both moral principle and intellectual ideas,
political ethics and political economy, it must needs
be that his course in politics was crooked. He op
posed the Mexican War, but invested a son in it, and
praised the soldiers who fought therein, as surpassing
our fathers who " stood behind bulwarks on Bunker
Hill ! " He called on the nation to uphold the stars
of America on the fields of Mexico, though he knew
it was the stripes that they held up. Now he is for
free trade, then for protection; now for specie, then
for bills ; first for a bank, then it is " an obsolete
idea;" now for freedom and against slavery, then for
slavery and against freedom; now justice is the object
of government, now money. Now, what makes men
Christians makes them good citizens; next, religion
is good " everywhere but in politics, — there it makes
men mad." Now, religion is the only ground of

DANIEL WEBSTER 357
government, and aU conscience is to be respected ; next,
there is no law higher than the " Omnibus," and he
hoots at conscience, and would not reenact the law
of God.
He began his career as the friend of free trade and
hard money; he would restrict the government to the
straight line of the Constitution rigidly defined; he
would resist the bank, the protective tariff, the exten
sion of slavery, — they exceeded the limits of the Con
stitution: he became the pensioned advocate of re
stricted trade and of paper money ; he interpreted the
Constitution to oppress the several states and the
citizens; brought the force of the government against
private right, and lent all his might to the extension
of slavery. Once he stood out boldly for the right of
aU men " to canvass public measures and the merits
of public men ;" then he tells us that discussion " must
be suppressed ! " Several years ago, he called a pri
vate meeting of the principal manufacturers of Bos
ton, and advised them to abandon the protective tariff ;
but they would not, and so he defended it as warmly
as ever! His course was crooked as the Missouri.
The Duke of WeUington and Sir Robert Peel were,
Hke him, without a philosophical scheme of political
conduct, or any great ideas whereby to shape the
future into fairer forms; but the principle of duty
was the thread which joined all parts of their public
ministration. Thereon each strung his victories. But
selfish egotism is the only continuous thread I find thus
running through the crooked life of the famous Amer
ican. With such a lack of ideas and of honesty, with a
dread of taking the responsibility in advance of pubHc
opinion, lacking confidence in the people, and confi-

358 HISTORIC AMERICANS
dence in himself, he did not readily understand the
pubHc opinion on which he depended. He thought
himself " a favorite with the people," — " sure of elec
tion if nominated;" it was "only the politicians " who
stood between him and the nation. He thought the
Fugitive Slave Bill would be popular in the North;
that it could be executed in Syracuse; and Massachu
setts would conquer her prejudices with alacrity!
He had little value as a permanent guide : he changed
often, but at the unlucky moment. He tacked and
wore ship many a time in his life, always in bad
weather, and never came round but he fell off from
the popular wind. Perseverance makes the saints:
he always forsook his idea just as that was about
to make its fortune. In his voyaging for the Pres
idency he was always too late for the tide; embarked
on the ebb, and was left as the stream run dry. The
Fugitive Slave Bill has done the South no good, save
to reveal the secrets of her prison-house, the Cabin
of Uncle Tom, and make the North hate slavery with
a tenfold hate. So far has he " Websterized " the
Whig party, he has done so to its ruin.
He was a great advocate, a great orator ; it is said,
the greatest in the land, — and I do not doubt that
this was true. Surely he was immensely great. When
he spoke, he was a grand spectacle. His noble form,
so dignified and masculine; his massive head; the
mighty brow, Olympian in its majesty; the great,
deep, dark eye, which, like a lion's seemed fixed on
objects afar off, looking beyond what lay in easy
range; the mouth so full of strength and determina
tion, — these all became the instruments of such elo
quence as few men ever hear. He magnetized men
by his presence; he subdued them by his will more

DANIEL WEBSTER 359
than by his argument. Many have surpassed him in
written words; for he could not embody the sunshine
in such flowers of thought as Burke, Milton, and Cicero
wrought into mosaic oratory. But, since the great
Athenians, Demosthenes and Pericles, who ever thun
dered out such spoken eloquence as he ?
Yet he has left no perfect specimen of a great
oration. He had not the instinctive genius which
creates a beautiful whole by nature, as a mother bears
a Hving son ; nor the wide knowledge, the deep philoso
phy, the plastic industry, which forms a beautiful
whole by art, as a sculptor chisels a marble boy. So
his greatest and most deliberate efforts of oratory
wiU not bear comparison with the great eloquence of
nature that is born, nor the great eloquence of art
which is made. Compared therewith, his mighty works
are as Hercules compared with Apollo. It is an old
world, and excellence in oratory is difficult. Yet he
has sentences and paragraphs that I think unsurpassed
and unequaled, and I do not see how they can ever
fade. He was not a Nile of eloquence, cascading into
poetic beauty now, then watering whole provinces
with the drainage of tropic mountains: he was a
Niagara, pouring a world of clear waters adown a
single ledge.
His style was simple, the business style of a strong
man. Now and then it swelled into beauty, though
it was often dull. In kter years, he seldom touched
the conscience, the affections, or the soul, except, alas !
to smite our sense of justice, our philanthropy, and
trust in God. He always addressed the understanding,
not the reason, — Calhoun did that the more, — not
the imagination: in his speech there was little wit,
little beauty, Httle poetry. He laid siege to the under-

360 HISTORIC AMERICANS
standing. Here lay his strength — he could make
a statement better than any man in America; had
immense power of argumentation, building a cause
way from his will to the hearer's mind. He was skil
ful in devising "middle terms," in making steps
whereby to lead the audience to his determination.
No man managed the elements of his argument with
more practical effect.
Perhaps he did this better when contending for a
wrong, than when battling for the right. His most
ingenious arguments are pleas for injustice. Part of
the effect came from the physical bulk of the man;
part from the bulk of will, which marked aU his
speech, and writing too; but much from his power of
statement. He gathered a great mass of material,
bound it together, swung it about his head, fixed his
eye on the mark, then let the ruin fly. If you want
a word suddenly shot from Dover to Calais, you send
it by lightning; if a ball of a ton weight, you get a
steam-cannon to pitch it across. Webster was the
steam-gun of eloquence. He hit the mark less by
skiU than strength. His shot seemed big as his tar
get. -
There is a great difference in the weapons which
speakers use. This orator brings down his quarry
with a single subtle shot, of sixty to the pound. He
carries death without weight in his gun, as sure as
fate. Here is another, the tin-peddler of American speech.
He is a snake in the grass, slippery, shining, with
a baleful crest on his head, cunning in his crazy
eye, and the poison of the old serpent in his heart,
and on his slimy jaw, and about the fang at the
bottom of his smooth and forked and nimble tongue.

DANIEL WEBSTER 361
He conquers by bewitching ; he fascinates his game to
death. Commonly, Mr. Webster was open and honest in
his oratory. He had no masked batteries, no Quaker
guns. He had " that rapid and vehement declamation
which fixes the hearer's attention on the subject, mak
ing the speaker forgotten, and leaving his art con
cealed." He wheeled his forces into line, column after
column, with the quickness of Hannibal and the mas
terly arrangement of Caesar, and, like Napoleon, broke
the center of his opponent's Hne by the superior weight
of his own column and the sudden heaviness of his
fire. Thus he laid siege to the understanding, and
carried it by dint of cannonade. This was his strat
egy, in the court-house, in the Senate, and in the public
haU. There were no ambuscades, no pitfalls, or treach
erous Indian subtlety. It was the tactics of a great
and naturally honest-minded man.
In his oratory there was but one trick, — that of
self -depreciation. This came on him in his later years,
and it always failed. He was too big to make any
one beHeve he thought himself little; so obviously
proud, we knew he valued his services high when he
rated them so low. That comprehensive eye could not
overlook so great an object as himself. He was not
organized to cheat, to deceive; and did not prosper
when he tried. 'Tis ill the lion apes the fox.
He was ambitious. Cardinal Wolsey's " unbounded
stomach" was also the stomach of Webster. Yet his
ambition mostly failed. In forty years of public life,
he rose no higher than Secretary of State; and held
that post but five years. He was continually out
generaled by subtler men. He had little political
foresight: for he had not the all-conquering religion

362 HISTORIC AMERICANS
which meekly executes the law of God, fearless of
its consequence; nor yet the wide philanthropy, the
deep sympathy with all that is human, which gives
a man the public heart, and so the control of the issues
of life, which thence proceed; nor the great justice
which sees the everlasting right, and journeys thither
ward through good or iU; nor the mighty reason,
which, reflecting, beholds the principles of human
nature, the constant mode of operation of the forces
of God in the forms of men; nor the poetic imagina
tion, which in its political sphere creates great schemes
of law: and hence he was not popukr.
He longed for the Presidency; but Harrison kept
him from the nomination in '40, Clay in '44, Taylor
in '48, and Scott in '52. He never had a wide and
original influence in the politics of the nation; for
he had no elemental thunder of his own — the Tariff
was Mr. Calhoun's at first; the Force BiU was from
another hand; the Fugitive Slave Bill was Mr.
Mason's ; " the Omnibus " had many fathers, whereof
Webster was not one. He was not a blood-relation
to any of the great measures, — to free trade or pro
tection, to paper money or hard coin, to freedom or
slavery; he was of their kindred only by adoption.
He has been on aU sides of most questions, save on
the winning side.62
In the case of the Fugitive Slave Bill, he stood
betwixt the living and the dead, and blessed the plague.
But, even here, he faltered when he came North again,
— " The South will get no concessions from me." Mr.
Webster commended the first draft of the Fugitive
Slave Bill, with Mr. Mason's amendments thereto, vol
unteering his support thereof " to the fullest extent."
But he afterwards and repeatedly declared, " The

DANIEL WEBSTER 363
Fugitive Slave Bill was not such a measure as I had
prepared before I left the Senate, and which I should
have supported if I had remained in the Senate." 63
" I was of opinion," he said, " that a summary trial
by jury might be had, which would satisfy the pre
judices of the people, and produce no harm to those
who claimed the services of fugitives." Nay, he went
so far as to introduce a bill to the Senate providing a
trial by jury for all fugitives claiming a trial for
their freedom.64 He thought the whole business of
deHvering up such as owed service or kbor, belonged
to the state whither the fugitive fled, and not to the
general government.65 Of course he must have con
sidered it constitutional and expedient to secure for the
fugitive a trial before an impartial jury of " twelve
good and lawful men," who should pass upon the
whole matter at issue. But, with that conviction, and
with that bill ready drafted, as he says, in his desk,
he could volunteer his support to one which took away
from the states all jurisdiction in the matter, and
from the fugitive all " due process of law," all trial
by jury, and left him in the hands of a creature of
the court, who was to be paid twice as much for en
slaving his victim as for acquitting a man !
He had almost no self-rehant independence of char
acter. It was his surroundings, not his wiU, that
shaped his course, — " driven by the wind and tossed."
Mr. Webster's political career began with generous
promise. He contended for the rights of the people
against the government, of the minority against the
majority; he defended the right of each man to dis
cuss aU public measures and the conduct of public
men ; he wished commerce to be unrestricted, payments
to be made in hard coin. He spoke noble words

364 HISTORIC AMERICANS
against oppression, — the despotism of the " Holy Al
liance " in Europe, the cruelty of the slave-trade in
America. Generously and nobly he contended against
the extension of slavery beyond the Mississippi. Not
philanthropic by instinct or moral principle, averse
to democratic institutions both by nature and convic
tion, he yet, by instinctive generosity, hated tyranny,
hated injustice, hated despotism. He appealed to
moral power against physical force. He sympathized
with the republics of South America. His great
powers taking such a direction certainly promised a
brilliant future, large services for mankind. But,
alas! he fell on evil times: who ever fell on any other?
He was intensely ambitious; not ambitious to serve
mankindj but to hold office, have power and fame.
Is this the " last infirmity of noble mind? " It was
not a very noble object he proposed as the end of
his life; the means to it became successively more and
more unworthy. " Ye cannot serve God and mam
mon." For some years no large body of men has had much
trust in him, — admiration, but not confidence. In
Massachusetts, off the pavements, for the last three
years, he has had but little power. After the speech
of March 7th, he said, " I wiU be maintained in
Massachusetts." Massachusetts said No! Only in
the cities that bought him was he omnipotent. Even
the South would not trust him. Gen. Jackson was
the most popular man of our time; Calhoun was a
favorite throughout the South; Clay, in all quarters
of the land; and, at this day, Seward wields the
forces of the Whigs. With all his talent, Webster
never had the influence on America of the least of
these.

DANIEL WEBSTER 365
Yet Daniel Webster had many popular qualities.
He loved out-door and manly sports, — boating, fish
ing, fowling. He was fond of nature, loving New
Hampshire's mountain scenery. He had started smaU
and poor, had risen great and high, and honorably
had fought his way alone. He rose early in the morn
ing. He loved gardening, " the purest of human
pleasures." He was a farmer, and took a country
man's delight in country things, — in loads of hay,
in trees, in turnips, and the noble Indian corn, in
monstrous swine. He had a patriarch's love of sheep,
— choice breeds thereof he had. He took delight in
cows, — short-horned Durhams, Heref ordshires, Ayr-
shires, Alderneys. He tilled paternal acres with his
own oxen. He loved to give the kine fodder. It
was pleasant to hear his talk of oxen. And but three
days before he left the earth, too ill to visit them,
his cattle, lowing, came to see their sick lord; and,
as he stood in his door, his great oxen were driven
up, that he might smeU their healthy breath, and look
his last on those broad, generous faces, that were never
false to him.
He loved birds, and would not have them shot on
his premises; and so his farm twittered all over with
their " sweet jargonings." Though in pubHc his dress
was more uniformly new than is common with acknowl
edged gentlemen, at home and on his estate he wore
his old and homely clothes, and had kind words for
aU, and hospitality besides. He loved his father and
brother with great tenderness, which easily broke into
tears when he spoke of them. He was kind to his
obscurer and poor relations. He had not money to
bestow; they could not share his intellect, or the re
nown it brought. But he gave them his affection,

366 HISTORIC AMERICANS
and they loved him with veneration. He was a
friendly man: all along the shore there were plain
men that loved him, — whom he also loved. He was
called " a good neighbor, a good townsman :" —
"Lofty and sour to those that loved him not;
But to those men that sought him, sweet as summer."
His influence on the development of America has
not been great. He had krge gifts, large opportuni
ties also for their use, — the two greatest things which
great men ask. Yet he has brought little to pass.
No great ideas, no great organizations, wiU bind him
to the coming age. His life has been a long vacilla
tion. Ere long, men wiU ask for the historic proof
to verify the reputation of his power. It wiU not
appear. For the present, his career is a failure: he
was balked of his aim. How will it be for the future?
Posterity will vainly ask for proof of his intellectual
power to invent, to organize, to administer. The his
torian must write that he aimed to increase the execu
tive power, the central government, and to weaken
the local power of the states; that he preferred the
federal authority to state rights, the judiciary to
the legislature, the government to the people, the
claims of money to the rights of man. Calhoun will
stand as the representative of state rights and free
trade; Clay, of the American system of protection;
Benton, of payment in sound coin; some other, of
the revenue tariff. And in the greatest question of
the age, the question of human rights, as champions
of mankind, there will appear Adams, Giddings, Chase,
Palfrey, Mann, Hale, Seward, Rantoul, and Sumner;
yes, one other name, which on the historian's page
will shade all these, — the name of Garrison. Men

DANIEL WEBSTER 367
will recount the words of Webster at Plymouth Rock,
at Bunker HiU, at Faneuil HaU, at Niblo's Garden;
they will also recollect that he declared " protection
of property " to be the great domestic object of gov
ernment ; that he said, " Liberty first and Union after
wards was delusion and folly;" that he called on Mas
sachusetts to conquer her " prejudices " in favor of
unalienable rights, and with alacrity give up a man
to be a slave; turned all the North into a hunting-
field for the blood-hound; that he made the negation
of God the first principle of government; that our
New England elephant turned round, tore Freedom's .
standard down, and trod her armies under foot. They
wiU see that he did not settle the greatest questions
by justice and the law of God. His paraUel lines
of power are indeed long lines, — a nation reads his
word: they are not far apart, you cannot get many
centuries between; for there are no great ideas of
right, no mighty acts of love, to keep them wide.
There are brave words which Mr. Webster has
spoken that will last while English is a speech; yea,
will journey with the Anglo-Saxon race, and one day
be classic in either hemisphere, in every zone. But
what will posterity say of his efforts to chain the
fugitive, to extend the area of human bondage ; of his
haughty scorn of any law higher than what trading
poHticians enact in the Capitol? "There is a law
above all the enactments of human codes, the same
throughout the world, the same in all time ;" " it
is the law written by the finger of God upon the heart
of man; and by that law, unchangeable and eternal,
while men despise fraud, and loathe rapine, and abhor
blood, they will reject with indignation the wild and
guilty fantasy that man can hold property in man."66

368 HISTORIC AMERICANS
Calhoun, Clay, Webster, — they were all able men,
long in politics, all ambitious, grasping at the Pres
idency, all failing of what they sought. AU three
called themselves " Democrats," taking their stand on
the unalienable rights of man. But all three con
joined to keep every eighth man in the nation a chattel
slave; all three at last united in deadly war against
the unalienable rights of men whom swarthy mothers
bore. O democratic America!
Was Mr. Webster's private life good? There are
many depraved things done without depravity of heart.
I am here to chronicle, and not invent. I cannot praise
a man for virtues which he did not have. This day
such praise sounds empty and impertinent as the chat
tering of a caged canary amid the sadness of a funeral
prayer. Spite of womanly tenderness, it is not for
me to renounce my manhood and my God. I shall —
"Naught extenuate and nothing add,
Nor set down aught in malice."
Before he left New Hampshire, I find no stain
upon his conduct there, save recklessness of expense.
But in Boston, when he removed here, there were
men in vogue, in some respects, perhaps, worse than
any since as conspicuous, — open debauchees. He fell
in with them, and became over-fond of animal delights,
of the joys of the body's baser parts; fond of sensual
luxury, the victim of low appetites. He loved power,
loved pleasure, loved wine. Let me turn off my face,
and say no more of this sad theme: others were as
bad as he.
He was intensely proud. Careless of money, he was
often in trouble on its account. He contracted debts,
and did not settle; borrowed of rich and poor, and

DANIEL WEBSTER 369
young and old, and rendered not again. Private money
often clove to his hands; yet in his nature there was
no taint of avarice. He lavished money on luxuries,
while his washer-woman was left unpaid. Few Amer
icans have squandered so much as he. Rapacious to
get, he was prodigal of his own. I wish the charges
brought against his public administration may be dis
proved, whereof the stain rests on him to this day.
When he entered on a lawyer's life, Mr. Gore ad
vised him, " Whatever bread you eat, let it be the
bread of independence ! " Oh that the great mind
could have kept that counsel! But, even at Ports
mouth, luxury brought debt, and many an evil on its
back. He coUected money and did not pay. " Bread
of independence," when did he eat it last? Rich men
paid his debts of money when he came to Massachu
setts ; they took a dead-pledge on the man ; only death
redeemed that mortgage. In 1827 he solicited the
Senatorship of Massachusetts ; it " would put down
the calumnies of Isaac Hill ! " He obtained the office,
not without management. Then he refused to take
his seat untU ten thousand dollars was raised for him.67
The money came clandestinely, and he went into the
Senate — a pensioner ! His reputation demanded a
speech against the tariff of '28; his pension required
his vote for that " bill of abominations." He spoke
one way, and voted the opposite. Was that the first
dotation? He was forestalled before he left New
Hampshire. The next gift was twenty thousand, it
is said. Then the sums increased. What great
" gifts " have been privately raised for him by con
tributions, subscriptions, donations, and the like! Is
it honest to buy up a man? honest for a man to sell
himself? Is it just for a judge who administers the

370 HISTORIC AMERICANS
law to take a secret bribe of a party at his court?
Is it just for a party to offer such gifts? Answer,
Lord Bacon, who tried it; answer, Thomas More, who
tried it not. It is worst for a maker of laws to be
bought and sold. New England men, I hope not
meaning wrong, bought the great Senator in '27, and
long held him in their pay. They gave him all his
services were worth, — gave more. His commercial
and financial poHcy has been the bane of New England
and the North. In 1850 the South bought him, but
never paid!
A senator of the United States, he was pensioned
by the capitalists of Boston. Their " gifts " in his
hand, how could he dare to be just ! His later speeches
smeU of bribes. Could not Francis Bacon warn
him, nor either Adams guide? Three or four hundred
years ago Thomas More, when " Under-Sheriff of
London," would not accept a pension from the king,
lest it might swerve him from his duty to the town;
when Chancellor, he would not accept five thousand
pounds which the English clergy publicly offered him,
for public service done as Chancellor. But Webster in
private took — how much I cannot tell! Considering
all things, his buyers' wealth and his unthriftiness,
it was as dishonorable in them to bribe as in him to
take their gift!
To gain his point, alas ! he sometimes treated facts,
law, constitution, morality, and religion, as an advo
cate treats matters at the bar. Was he certain South
CaroHna had no constitutional right to nullify? I
make no doubt he felt so; but in his language he is
just as strong when he declares the Fugitive Slave
Bill is perfectly constitutional; that slavery cannot
be in CaHfornia and New Mexico; just as confident

DANIEL WEBSTER 371
in his dreadful mock at conscience, and the dear God's
unchanging law. He heeded not " the delegated voice
of God " which speaks in the conscience of the faith
ful man.
No living man has done so much to debauch the
conscience of the nation; to debauch the press, the
pulpit, the forum, and the bar. There is no higher
law, quoth he; and how much of the pulpit, the
press, the forum, and the bar, denies its God! Read
the journals of the last week for proof of what I
say; and read our history since March of '50. He
poisoned the moral wells of society with his lower
law, and men's consciences died of the murrain of
beasts, which came because they drank thereat.
In an age which prizes money as the greatest good
and counts the understanding as the highest human
faculty, the man who is to lead and bless the world
must indeed be great in intellect, but also great in
conscience, greater in affection, and greatest of all
things in his soul. In his later years, Webster was
intellect, and Httle more. If he did not regard the
eternal right, how could he guide a nation to what is
useful for to-day? If he scorned the law of God,
how could he bless the world of men? It was by
this fault he fell. " Those who murdered Banquo,
what did they win by it ? "
-" A barren scepter in their gripe,

Thence to be wrenched with an unlineal hand,
No son of theirs succeeding."
He knew the cause of his defeat, and in the last
weeks of his life confessed that he was deceived; that,
before his fatal speech, he had assurance from the
North and South, that, if he supported slavery, it

372 HISTORIC AMERICANS
would lead him into place and power; but now he
saw the mistake, and that a few of the " fanatics "
had more influence in America than he and aU the
South! He sinned against his own conscience, and
so he fell!
He made him wings of slavery to gain a lofty
eminence. Those wings unfeathered in his flight. For
one and thirty months he fell, until at last he reached
the tomb. There, on the sullen shore, a mighty wreck,
great Webster lies.
" Is this the man in Freedom's cause approved,
The man so great, so honored, so beloved?
Where is the heartfelt worth and weight of soul,
Which labor could not stoop, nor fear control?
Where the known dignity, the stamp of awe,
Which, half-abashed, the proud and venal saw?
Where the calm triumphs of an honest cause? —
Where the delightful taste of just applause?
Oh, lost alike to action and repose,
Unwept, unpitied in the worst of woes;
With all that conscious, undissembled pride,
Sold to the insults of a foe defied;
With all that habit of familiar fame,
Doomed to exhaust the dregs of life in shame!
Oh, what a warning was his fall!
" To dash corruption in her proud career,
And teach her slaves that vice was born to fear."
" Oh dumb be passion's stormy rage,
When he who might
Have lighted up and led his age
Falls back in night."
Had he been faithful to his own best words, so
oft repeated, how he would have stood ! How different
would have been the aspect of the North and the
South; of the press, the pulpit, the forum, and the
court!

DANIEL WEBSTER 373
Had he died after the treaty of 1842, how different
would have been his fame !
Since the Revolution no American has had so noble
an opportunity as Mr. Webster to speak a word for
the advancement of mankind. There was a great
occasion: slavery was clamorous for new power, new
territory ; was invading the state rights of the North.
Earnest men in the North, getting aroused and hos
tile to slavery, were looking round for some able man
to take the political guidance of the anti-slavery feel
ing, to check the great national crime, and help end
it; they were asking —
"Who is the honest man, —
He that doth still and strongly good pursue,
To God, his neighbor, and himself, most true;
Whom neither fear nor fawning can
Unpin, or wrench from giving all their due?"
Some circumstances seemed to point to Mr. Webster
as the man; his immense oratorical abilities, his long
acquaintance with public affairs, his conspicuous posi
tion, his noble words in behalf of freedom, beginning
with his college days and extending over many a year,
— all these were powerful arguments in his behalf.
The people had always been indulgent to his faults,
allowing him a wide margin of public and private
oscillation; the North was ready to sustain him in
all generous efforts for the unalienable rights of man.
But he threw away the great moment of his life, used
all his abilities to destroy those rights of man, and
builded the materials of honorable fame into a monu
ment of infamy for the warning of mankind. Declar
ing that " the protection of property " was " the
great object of government," he sought to unite the
money power of the North and the slave power of

374 HISTORIC AMERICANS
the South into one great instrument to stifle discus
sion, and withstand religion, and the higher law of
God. Had he lived and labored for freedom as for slavery,
— nay, with half the diligence and half the power, —
to-morrow all the North would rise to make him their
President, and put on that Olympian brow the wreath
of honor from a people's hand. Then he would have
left a name like Adams, Jefferson, and Washington;
and the tears of every good man would have dropped
upon his tomb ! Had he served his God with half
the zeal that he served the South, He would not, in
his age, have left him naked to his enemies! If Mr.
Webster had cultivated the moral, the affectional, the
religious part of his nature with the same diligence
he nursed his power of speech, what a man there would
have been! With his great ability as an advocate,
with his eloquence, his magnetic power, in his position,
— a Senator for twenty years, — if he could have
attained the justice, the philanthropy, the religion
of Channing or of Follen, or of many a modest woman
in all the Christian sects, what a noble spectacle should
we have seen ! Then the nation would long since have
made him President, and he also would have revolution
ized men's ideas of poHtical greatness ; " the bigot
would have ceased to persecute, the despot to vex.,
the desolate poor to suffer, the slave to groan and
tremble, the ignorant to commit crimes, and the iU-
contrived law to engender criminality."
But he did not fall all at once. No man ever does.
Apostasy is not a sudden sin. Little by Httle he came
to the ground. Long leaning, he leaned over and
fell down. This was his great error — he sold himself
to the money power to do service against mankind.

DANIEL WEBSTER 375
The form of service became continually worse. Was
he conscious of this corruption? — at first? But shaU
he bear the blame alone? Oh, no! Part of it belongs
to this city, which corrupted him, tempted him with
a price, bought him with its gold. Daniel Webster
had not thrift. " Poor Richard " was no saint of his.
He loved luxury, and was careless of wealth. Boston
caught him by the purse; by that she led him to his
mortal doom. With her much fair speech she caused
him to yield; with the flattery of her lips she deceived
him. Boston was the Delilah that allured him; but
oft he broke the withes of gold, until at last, with a
pension, she shore off the seven locks of his head, his
strength went from him, and the PhiHstines took him
and put out his eyes, brought him down to Washing
ton, and bound him with fetters of brass. And he did
grind in their prison-house ; and they said, " Our god,
which is slavery, hath delivered into our hands our
enemy, the destroyer of our institutions, who slew
many of us." Then, having used him for their need,
they thrust the man away, deceived and broken-hearted !
No man can resist infinite temptation. There came
a peril greater than he could bear. Condemn the sin
— pity the offending man. The tone of political
morality is pitiably low. It lowered him, and then
he debased the morals of politics.
Part of the blame belongs to the New England
church, which honors " devoutness," and sneers at
every noble, manly life, calling men saints who only
pray, all careless of the dead men's bones which glut
the whited sepulcher. The churches of New England
were waiting to proclaim slavery, and renounce the
law of God. The disgrace is not his alone. But we
must bkme Mr. Webster as we blame few men. Soci-

'376 HISTORIC AMERICANS
ety takes swift vengeance on the petty thief, the small
swindler, and rogues in rags; the gaUows kills the
murderer, while for men in high office, with great
abilities, who enact iniquity into law; who enslave
thousands, and sow a continent with thraldom, to bear
want and shame and misery and sin; who teach as
political ethics the theory of crime, — for them there
is often no earthly outward punishment, save the in
dignation with which mankind scourges the memory
of the oppressor. From the judgment of men, the
appeal lies to the judgment of God: He only knows
who sins, and how much. How much Mr. Webster is
to be pitied, we know right well.
Had he been a clergyman, as once he wished, he
might have passed through life with none of the out
ward blemishes which now deform his memory; famed
for his gifts and graces too, for eloquence, and
" soundness in the faith," " his praise in all the
churches." Had he been a politician in a better age,
— when it is not thought just for capitalists to buy
up statesmen in secret, for politicians clandestinely to
sell their services for private gold, or for clergymen,
in the name of God, to sanctify all popular crimes, —
he might have lifted up that noble voice continuaUy
for truth and right. Who could not in such a time?
The straw blows with the wind. But, aks! he was
not firm enough for his place; too weak in conscience
to be the champion of justice while she needs a cham
pion. Let us be just against the wrong he wrought,
charitable to the man who wrought the wrong. Con
science compels our formidable blame; the affections
weep their pity too.
Like Bacon, whom Mr. Webster resembles in many
things, save industry and the philosophic mind, he

DANIEL WEBSTER 377
had " no moral courage, no power of self-sacrifice
or self-denial;" with strong passions, with love of
luxury in all its forms, with much pride, great fond
ness of applause, and the intensest love of power;
coming to Boston poor, a lawyer, without thrift, em
barking in politics with such companions for his pri
vate and his public life, with such pubHc opinion in
the State, — that honesty is to serve the present pur
poses of your party, or the wealthy men who control
it; in the Church, — that religion consists in belief
without evidence, in ritual sacraments, in verbal prayer,
— is it wonderful that this great intellect went astray ?
See how corrupt the churches are, — the leading clergy
of America are the anointed defenders of man-stealing ;
see how corrupt is the State, betraying the red men,
enslaving the black, pillaging Mexico ; see how corrupt
is trade, which rules the State and Church, dealing
in men. Connecticut makes whips for the negro-
driver. New Hampshire rears the negro-drivers them
selves. Ships of Maine and Rhode Island are in the
domestic slave-trade. The millionaires of Massachu
setts own men in Virginia, Alabama, Missouri. The
leading men in trade, in Church and State, think
justice is not much more needed in a statesman than
it is needed in an ox, or in the steel which shoes his
hoof. Remember these things, and pity Daniel Web
ster, ambitious, passionate, unthrifty; and see the cir
cumstances which weighed him down. We judge the
deeds: God only can judge the man. If you and I
have not met the temptation which can overmaster
us, let us have mercy on such as come bleeding from
that battle.
His caUing as a lawyer was somewhat dangerous,
leading him " to make the worse appear the better

378 HISTORIC AMERICANS
reason ;" to seek " not verity, but verisimilitude ;" to
look at the expedient end, not to inquire if his means
be also just ; to look too much at measures, not enough
at principles. Yet his own brother Ezekiel went safely
through that peril, — no smeU of that fire on his
garment. His intercourse with politicians was full of moral
peril. How few touch politics, and are thenceforward
clean !
Boston now mourns for him. She is too late in
her weeping. She should have wept her warning when
her capitalists filled his right hand with bribes. She
ought to have put on sackcloth when the speech of
March 7th first came here. She should have hung
her flags at half-mast when the Fugitive Slave Bill
became a law ; then she only fired cannons, and thanked
her representative. Webster fell prostrate, but was
Boston more innocent than he? Remember the nine
hundred and eighty-seven men that thanked him for
the speech which touched their " conscience," and
pointed out the path of " duty ! " It was she that
ruined him.
She bribed him in 1827, and often since. He re
garded the sums thus paid as a retaining fee, and at
the last maintained that the Boston manufacturers
were still in his debt; for the services he had rendered
them by defending the tariff in his place as Senator
were to them worth more than all the money he re
ceived! Could a man be honest in such a position?
Alas ! that the great orator had not the conscience to
remember at first that man shall not live by bread
alone. What a sad life was his ! His wife died, — a loving
woman, beautiful, and tenderly beloved. Of several

DANIEL WEBSTER 379
children, all save one have gone before him to the
tomb. Sad man, he lived to build his children's monu
ment! Do you remember the melancholy spectacle in
the street, when Major Webster, a victim of the Mexi
can War, was by his father laid down in yonder tomb?
a daughter, too, but recently laid low. How poor
seemed then the ghastly pageant in the street, empty
and hollow as the muffled drum!
What a sad face he wore, — furrowed by passion,
by ambition, that noble brow scarred all over with
the records of a hard, sad Hfe. Look at the prints and
pictures of him in the street. I do not wonder his
early friends abhor the sight. It is a face of sorrows,
— private, public, secret woes. But there are pictures
of that face in earlier years, full of power, but full
of tenderness ; the mouth feminine, and innocent as a
girl's. What a life of passion, of dark sorrow, rolled
betwixt the two ! In that ambition-stricken face his
mother would not have known her child.
For years, to me, he has seemed like one of the
tragic heroes of the Grecian tale, pursued by fate;
and latterly, the saddest sight in all the western world,
— widowed of so much he loved, and grasping at
what was not only vanity, but the saddest vexation
of the heart. I have long mourned for him, as for
no Hving or departed men. He blasted the friends
of man with scornful lightning: him, if I could, I
would not blast, but only bless continually and ever
more. You remember the last time he spoke in Boston;
the procession last summer, you remember it well.
What a sad and care-worn countenance was that of
the old man, welcomed with the mockery of appkuse !
You remember, when the orator wise-headed and

380 HISTORIC AMERICANS
friendly-hearted came to thank him for his services,
he said not a word of "saving the Union;" of the
" compromise measures," not a word. That farce
was played out — it was only the tragic facts which
were left; but for his great services he thanked him.
And when Webster replied, he said, " Here in Bos
ton I am not disowned; at least, here I am not dis
owned." No, Daniel Webster, you are not disowned
in Boston. So long as I have a tongue to teach, a
heart to feel, you shaU never be disowned. I must
be just. I shall be tender too!
It was partly by Boston's sin that the great man
fell. I pity his victims; you pity them too. But I
pity him more, oh, far more! Pity the oppressed,
wiU you? Will you not also pity the oppressor in
his sin ? Look there ! See that face, so manly strong,
so maiden meek. Hear that voice ! " Neither do I
condemn thee ! Go, and sin no more ! " Listen to
the last words of the Crucified : " Father, forgive them ;
for they know not what they do."
The last time he was in Faneuil Hall, — it was
" Faneuil Hall open ;" once it had been shut ; — it was
last May — the sick old man — ¦ you remember the
feeble look and the sad face, the tremulous voice. He
came to solicit the vote of the Methodists, — a vain
errand. I felt then that it was his last time, and for
bore to look upon that saddened countenance.
The last time he was in the Senate it was to hear
his successor speak. He stayed an hour, and heard
Charles Sumner demonstrate that the Fugitive Slave
Bill was not good religion, nor good constitution, nor
good law. The old and the new stood face to face, —
the Fugitive Slave Bill and Justice. What an hour!
What a sight ! What thoughts ran through the great

DANIEL WEBSTER 381
man's mind, mingled with what regrets! For slavery
never set well on him. It was a Nessus' shirt on our
Hercules, and the poison of his own arrows rankled now
in his own bones. Had Mr. Webster been true to his
history, true to his heart, true to his intention and
his promises, he would himself have occupied that
ground two years before. Then there would have
been no Fugitive Slave BiU, no chain round the court
house, no man-stealing in Boston ; but the " Defender
of the Constitution," become the " Defender of the
unalienable rights of man," would have been the Pres
ident of the United States. But he had not the cour
age to deliver the speech he made. No man can serve
two masters, — justice and ambition. The mill of God
grinds slow but dreadful fine!
He came home to Boston, and went down to Marsh-
field to die. An old man, broken with the storms of
State, went home — to die ! His neighbors came to
ease the faU, to look upon the disappointment, and
give him what cheer they could. To him to die was
gain; life was the only loss. Yet he did not wish to
die: he surrendered, — he did not yield.
At the last end, his friends were about him; his
dear ones — .his wife, his son (the last of six children
he had loved). Name by name he bade them all
farewell, and aU his friends, man by man. Two col
ored servants of his were there, — whom, it is said,
he had helped purchase out of slavery, and bless with
freedom's life. They watched over the bedside of the
dying man. The kindly doctor sought to sweeten the
bitterness of death with medicated skill; and, when
that failed, he gave the great man a little manna which
fell down from heaven three thousand years ago, and
shepherd David gathered up and kept it in a psalm:

382 HISTORIC AMERICANS
" The Lord is my Shepherd : though I walk through
the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil;
thy rod and thy staff they comfort me."
And the great man faltered out his last words,
" That is what I want — thy rod, thy rod ; thy staff,
thy staff." That heart had never wholly renounced
its God. Oh, no ! it had scoffed at His " higher law ;"
but, in the heart of hearts, there was religious feeling
still! Just four years after his great speech, on the 24th
of October, all that was mortal of Daniel Webster
went down to the dust, and the soul to the motherly
bosom of God! Men mourn for him: he heeds it not.
The great man has gone where the servant is free
from his master, where the weary are at rest, where
the wicked cease from troubHng.
"No further seek his merits to disclose,
Or draw his frailties from their dread abode;
There they alike in trembling hope repose,
The bosom of his Father and his God!"
Massachusetts has lost her great adopted son. Has
lost? Oh, no! "I still live" is truer than the sick
man knew: —
" He lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes
And perfect witness of all-judging God."
His memory will long live with us, still dear to many
a loving heart. What honor shall we pay? Let the
State go out mindful of his noblest services, yet tear
ful for his fall; sad that he would fain have fiUed/
him with the husks the swine do eat, and no man gave
to him. Sad and tearful, let her remember the force
of circumstances, and dark temptation's secret power.
Let her remember that while we know what he yielded

DANIEL WEBSTER 383
to and what is sin, God knows what also is resisted, and
He alone knows who the sinner is. Massachusetts, the
dear old mother of us all! Let her warn her children
to fling away ambition, and let her charge them, every
one, that there is a God who must indeed be worshiped,
and a higher law which must be kept, though gold
and Union fail ! Then let her say to them, " Ye have
dwelt long enough in this mountain; turn ye, and
take your journey into the land of Freedom, which
the Lord your God giveth you ! "
Then let her Hft her eyes to heaven, and pray: —
" Sweet Mercy ! to the gates of heaven
This statesman lead, his sins forgiven;
The rueful conflict, the heart riven
With vain endeavor,
And memory of earth's bitter leaven,
Effaced for ever!"

But

 "why to him confine the prayer,
While kindred thoughts and yearnings bear,
On the frail heart, the purest share
With all that live?
The best of what we do and are,
Great God, forgive!"

NOTES

NOTES

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

The lecture on Franklin was very carefuUy prepared.
It was based on a sermon or lyceum lecture which had
previously been given in several places and it was twice
rewritten throughout. In its -final form it was read be
fore the Parker Fraternity, a club instituted by the
members of the Twenty-Eighth Congregational So
ciety for " social, literary and philanthropic purposes,"
on October 6, 1858. Parker's notes show that he de
pended for his facts and quotations chiefly upon
Sparks's edition of Franklin's writings, which together
with Sparks's Life of Frankhn, had been published in
1844. The present editor has had before him, first, twenty-
eight pages of manuscript marked by Parker, " Pencil
Notes on Dr. Frankhn, 1856." Second, the lecture
written out completely by Parker. It is entitled, " Life
and Character of Dr. Franklin," and is written on one
side of the page only, with occasional notes on the mar
gin or on the blank page. This manuscript is bound
in a leather cover and stamped in gilt letters — " Dr.
Franklin." Third, the lecture copied for the printer
by Parker's Hterary executor, Mr. Lyman. This man
uscript differs from the original in several places.
There are some sentences or whole paragraphs that ap
parently are taken from the earlier sermon or lecture,
and the division into paragraphs is quite different.
FinaUy, the present editor has had before him the edi
tions of the lecture pubhshed in Boston, in 1870,
and by Miss Cobbe in England in the same year. The
text of these volumes follows Mr. Lyman's manuscript
though some further changes in arrangement were
387

388 HISTORIC AMERICANS
made, probably in the proofreading, both by Mr. Ly
man and Miss Cobbe.
Page 1, note 1. Parker was in error in this loca
tion of Franklin's birthplace. In a note written on
the edge of his manuscript and printed in both the
American and the English editions of " Historic Amer
icans," Parker cited as his authority certain reminis
cences recorded in Drake's History and Antiquities of
Boston. He found there [page 492] the statement
that " Franklin himself told Mrs. Hannah M. Crocker,
as she told me (Drake) in 1828, that he was born at
the sign of the Blue Ball, on the corner of Union
and Hanover Streets." Again [on page 638], he
found the testimony of Mrs. H. A. T. Lewis who
" well remembers hearing when she was young .
that Franklin was born at the sign of the Blue Ball in
Hanover Street." " It is important," says Parker in
his note, " to note these authorities because a building
in Milk Street is marked and is popularly known as
" The Birthplace of Franklin."
Mr. Justin Winsor in the Memorial History of Bos
ton sums up the results of later and more thorough re
search as follows : " The exact place of his [Frank
lin's] birth has long been a matter of antiquarian con
troversy. Franklin is said to have told Mrs. Hannah
Crocker that he first saw the light at the * Sign of
the Blue Ball ' on the corner of Hanover and Union
Streets. It seems, nevertheless, to be fully proved that
he was really born on Milk Street, nearly opposite the
Old South Church. According to the records of the
city archives, Franklin's father occupied a modest
wooden house on this site from the time of his arrival
from England in 1685 until 1712, when Benjamin was
six years of age. In the latter year the elder Franklin
bought and removed to the house on Hanover Street
called the 'Blue Ball' and Benjamin's earliest rec
ollections were no doubt connected with this residence.

NOTES 389
The house on Milk Street remained standing until De
cember, 1810, when it was destroyed by fire."
This judgment is confirmed by the testimony of all
the later and standard lives of Franklin. The baptism
on the same day as the child's birth is explained not
only by the usages of the times but also by the fact that
it was but a step across the street to the Old South
Meeting House, then a wooden structure puUed down
in 1729 to make way for the present familiar and fa
mous building. ,
Page 2, note 2. There is here omitted in this edi
tion a short paragraph printed in former editions and
designed to show why Parker conceived the services of
Franklin to be of greater significance than the services
of Washington. This paragraph is not contained in
the original manuscript in Parker's handwriting.
Page #, note 3. Parker is said to have here inter
jected in the spoken lecture, that " Sydney Smith says
that ' there would be more good Samaritans if it were
not for the two pence and the oil.' "
Page 3, note If,. William Franklin, the son, was
appointed Governor of New Jersey in 1762. He took
the side of the Loyalists in the Revolution, went to
England, was pensioned by the King, and remained in
England untU his death in 1813. His only son, Wil-
Ham Temple Frankhn, died without issue.
Franklin's daughter, Sarah, was born September 11,
1744, married Richard Bache, October 29, 1767, and
died October 5, 1808. Richard and Sarah Bache had
seven children and their descendants are both numer
ous and honorable.
Though Dr. Franklin's grandfather had five sons,
and his father also five sons who had a large number of
children, yet there is not an individual in the male line,
bearing the name, remaining.
Page 5, note 5. Parker made here a note on the
side of his manuscript to the effect that Franklin's

390 HISTORIC AMERICANS
mother was the daughter of Peter Folger, a " godly
and learned Englishman of excellent common sense and
well educated in surveying," who settled in Nantucket.
This Peter Folger came out to America with the famous
Hugh Peters in 1635 and with Mary Morrell, who
was a servant girl of Hugh Peters. Folger bought
Mary of Peters for twenty pounds and she became his
wife, so " the grandmother of Dr. Franklin was bought
for twenty pounds out of white slavery." Parker
states that this information was based on the authority
of Mr. F. C. Sanford of Nantucket.
Dr. Franklin took no little pains in discovering his
ancestral descent. The genealogy, which was largely
estabhshed by his own endeavor, can be found in vol.
1, p. 546 of Sparks's Franklin.
Page 12, note 6. The affair of the Hutchinson let
ters created no little excitement, both in England and
America. American historians have usually portrayed
it as an instance of spirited action on the part of the
patriot leaders who thus exposed and punished an
unwarranted attack upon their liberties. Hutchinson
himself believed that he was pursued with a most un
scrupulous malice.
Hutchinson throughout his public life had many
correspondents in England. He expressed his views
on poHtical questions with entire frankness but he was
equally frank in his communications to his friends and
neighbors in America, and his private correspondence
did not differ from his open and official declarations.
He was never a double-faced man and there is nothing
in the letters which Franklin sent to Boston which
Hutchinson had not repeatedly said both in public and
in private at home. Of Hutchinson's sincerity there
can now be no doubt whatever. " There was," said
John Fiske, " something pathetic in the intensity of
his love for New England." Yet " no public man in
America has ever been the subject of more virulent

NOTES 391
hatred. None has been more grossly misrepresented by
historians." The letters were written by Governor Hutchinson,
and other Tory friends in Boston, to a member of Par-
Hament, Thomas Whately. Whately died in 1772,
and the letters came in some unknown way into the
possession of Franklin. Frankhn sent them to Speaker
Cushing of the Massachusetts Assembly with the under
standing that the letters were to be shown only to a
few leading people, that they were not to be printed or
copied, and that they were to be carefully returned.
When the patriot leaders of the colony had read them,
the opportunity to bring discredit upon their enemies
seemed too good to be lost, and, in spite of Franklin's
pledge, they had the letters printed. The publication of
the letters led to great popular clamor and the prompt
demand of the Assembly for the dismissal of Governor
Hutchinson and Lieutenant Governor Oliver.
Page 12, note 7. Franklin's conduct in sending
these private letters to Boston may be justified by pa
triotic motives and by the safeguards against publica
tion with which he accompanied them. Mr. Robert C.
Winthrop palliated his conduct by saying that it should
be classed among what Burke caUed " irregular things
done in the confusion of mighty troubles, not to be
made precedents of or justified on principle." Most
highminded people will, however, agree with Sir George
Trevelyan when he said : " It is a sound rule that con
fidential correspondence should, under no circumstances
whatever, be used for the purpose of damaging a po
Htical adversary." (The American Revolution I. 157.)
If Franklin had done no more than send the letters
his conduct would have been at least explainable, but it
is now known that he accompanied them by a letter to
Dr. Samuel Cooper in which he suggested the use that
might be made of them without breaking the promise
of secrecy. He wrote : " The letters might be . . .

392 HISTORIC AMERICANS
spoken of to everybody, for there was no restraint
proposed to talking of them but only to copying,
and possibly, as distant objects, seen only through
a mist, appear larger, the same may happen from the
mystery in this case. However this may be, the terms
given with them could only be those with which they
were received." In another part of the same letter
he wrote, " One great reason of forbidding their pub
lication was an apprehension that it might put aU the
possessors of such correspondence here upon their
guard, and so prevent the obtaining more of it, and it
was imagined that showing the originals to so many
as were named, and to a few such others as they might
think fit, would be sufficient to establish their authen
ticity, and to spread through the province so just an
estimate of the writers as to strip them of all their de
luded friends and demolish effectually their interest and
influence." In view of this letter it is obviously impossible to
acquit Franklin of unfair use of a tempting oppor
tunity to bring discredit on the Tory leaders in Massa
chusetts. As Parker points out later in this lecture,
Franklin's moral sense was never very delicate or ele
vated. If the end were just he did not inquire much
about the justice of the means he employed. Mr.
Morse in his biography of Franklin is accurate in say
ing that " his morality was nothing if not practical "
and that " he fought the devil with fire." Franklin's
own account of the affair is printed in full in Sparks's
Franklin, IV., 405.
Page 13, note 8. Parker added here a footnote to
his manuscript explaining that he did not pursue the
story of this suit of Manchester Velvet because it had
been discredited by the investigations of " the cautious
and accurate Mr. Sparks." He adds, however, that
" it now seems to rest upon unquestionable authority,
notwithstanding Mr. Sparks's disclaimer." The story

NOTES 393
thus questioned and affirmed is that Frankhn did not
wear this velvet suit again until, as one of the ambassa
dors of his country, he signed the treaty of alliance
with France, on February 6, 1778. It has been alleged
that he wore it yet again when he signed the final
treaty of peace with England. Lord St. Helens, the
English envoy who also signed the treaty, says that
Franklin informed him of the fact " with a triumphant
air." [See Barton's Life of Franklin II., 508.
Morse's Franklin, 189, and Bowring's Memoir of Ben-
tham III., 59.] This reappearance of the suit has,
however, been amply disproved. [See Trevelyan's
American Revolution, I., appendix V.].
Page 15, note 9. In 1758, Frankhn himself owned a
slave named BiUy who ran away from him in England
and was found under the protection of a lady who was
having him taught to read and write and to play the
viohn. Parker noted this fact later in this lecture, in
a paragraph which is omitted in this edition, but went
on to say that " Slavery in 1758 was a very different
thing from what it was in 1858. It was by no means
the cruel and malignant thing it is now." Parker
did not, however, always make the same amiable allow
ance for other slaveholders of the Revolutionary pe
riod. Page 19, note 10. There is here omitted in this
edition a brief analysis of the intellectual facul
ties, separating them into the familiar divisions of the
understanding, the imagination and the reason. This
analysis is repeated in every lecture. In this lecture
the paragraph divisions which follow make the struc
ture sufficiently obvious without burdening the text
with so oft repeated an abstract.
Page 23, note 11. The feature of this Constitution
which " did not work well " and which was afterwards
altered, was the provision for a single legislative body,
instead of the customary two branches. This was a

394 HISTORIC AMERICANS
favorite project with Franklin for he had witnessed the
constant conflict between the two branches under the
proprietary government of Pennsylvania, where the
laws passed by the people's representatives were fre
quently vetoed by the Governor and Council. He dis
approved too of the distinction in rank which seemed
to be implied by calling one branch the " upper " and
the other the " lower " house. The incorporation of
the one chamber experiment in the Pennsylvania Con
stitution was undoubtedly Dr. Franklin's work for he
advocated the plan on various occasions. He is said
to have made a speech in which he compared a legisla
ture with two branches to a wagon with a team of
horses at each end pulling against one another. At
another time he iUustrated his objection to the cus
tomary plan by what he caUed the fable of the snake
with two heads and one body. " She was going to a
brook to drink, and on her way was to pass through a
hedge, a twig of which opposed her direct course ; one
head chose to go on the right side of the twig, the
other on the left; so that time was spent in the con
test, and before the decision was accomphshed, the
snake died of thirst."
Page 23, note 12. Franklin argued in the Consti
tutional Convention that the President of the United
States ought to be an unsalaried officer. He held that
the honor was a sufficient reward, that a place which
gave both honor and salary offered too corrupting a
temptation, and that instead of remaining an honorable
ambition for " the wise and moderate, the lovers of
peace and good order, the men fittest for the trust " it
would be scrambled for " by the bold and the violent,
the men of strong passions and indefatigable activity
in their selfish pursuits."
Franklin himself put this theory into practice and
devoted his salary as President of Pennsylvania to
public uses. In the whole fifty years of his pubHc life

NOTES 395
his financial compensations did not equal his necessary
expenses. Page 23, note 13. In his wiU Franklin provided as
follows :
" I was born in Boston, New England, and owe my
first instructions in literature to the free grammar
schools established there. I therefore give one hun
dred pounds sterhng to my executors, to be by them,
the survivors or survivor of them, paid over to the
managers or directors of the free schools in my native
town of Boston, to be by them, or by those person or
persons, who shall have the superintendence and man
agement of the said schools, put out to interest, and so
continued at interest forever, which interest annually
shall be laid out in silver medals, and given as honor
ary rewards annually by the directors of the said free
schools belonging to the said town, in such manner as
to the discretion of the selectmen of the said town shall
seem meet."
Parker disapproved the distribution of the Franklin
medals, which has been continued under this clause of
the will to the present time, because " while they stir
the ambition of the few, dishearten and discourage
many, and leave heart burnings amongst all."
Page 25, note 1J,. This conciliatory spirit led to
frequent charges against Franklin that he was neg
lectful of American interests and unduly susceptible to
the social and political influence of his friends in
France. Parker was at pains to make sure that these
charges were unverified and the result of mere politi
cal clamor or envy. He was glad to discover in Ran
dall's Life of Jefferson a fact which he emphasized in
a note in his manuscript, that " Jefferson declared that
the charge against Franklin of subserviency to France
had not a shadow of foundation and that it might truly
be said that they (the government of France) were
more under his influence than he under theirs."

396 HISTORIC AMERICANS
Page 28, note 15. In the treaty of 1783, between
the United States and Prussia, the following was the
twenty-third article, prepared by Franklin:
" If war should arise between the two contracting
parties, the merchants of either country, then residing
in the other, shall be allowed to remain nine months to
collect their debts and to settle their affairs, and may
depart, freely carrying off all their effects without mo
lestation or hindrance. And all women and children,
scholars of every faculty, cultivators of the earth,
artisans, manufacturers, and fishermen, unarmed and
inhabiting unfortified towns, viUages, or places, and
in general all others whose occupations are for the
common subsistence and benefit of mankind, not be
molested in their persons, nor shaU their houses and
goods be burnt or otherwise destroyed, nor their fields
wasted by the armed force of the enemy, into whose
power by the events of war they may happen to f aU.
But if anything is necessary to be taken from them
for the use of such armed force, the same shall be paid
for at a reasonable price.
" And all merchant and trading vessels employed in
exchanging the products of different places, and
thereby rendering the necessaries, conveniences, and
comforts of human life more easy to be obtained, and
more general, shall be allowed to pass free and un
molested, and neither of the contrasting powers shall
grant or issue any commission to any private armed
vessels, empowering them to take or destroy such trad
ing vessels, or interrupt such commerce."
Washington wrote to the Count De Rochambeau,
31st July, 1786, as follows:
" The treaty of amity, which has lately taken place
between the King of Prussia and the United States,
marks a new era in negotiation. It is the most liberal
treaty which has ever been entered into between inde
pendent powers. It is perfectly original in many of

NOTES 397
its articles, and, should its principles be considered here
after as the basis of connection between nations, it will
operate more fully to produce a general pacification
than any measure hitherto attempted among man
kind." Page 28, note 16. In his will Franklin provided as
follows : " I devote a thousand pounds to the town
of Boston — under the direction of the Select Men
united with the Ministers of the Episcopal, Congrega
tional and Presbyterian Churches in that town, who are
to let out the same upon Interest at five per cent, per
Annum to such young married artificers under the Age
of twenty-five years as have served an Apprenticeship
in the said Town ; and faithfully fulfilled the Duties re
quired in their Indentures so as to obtain good moral
Character from at least two respectable Citizens."
He provides, further, with great detail, in regard
to the administration of these loans for setting up ap
prentices in business, for the investment of the fund
and for the terms of repayment of the loans. He
caref uUy estimates the increase of the fund, if his plan
is carried on without interruption for a hundred years,
and finds at the end of that time the principal wiU
amount to 131,000 pounds " of which I would have
the managers of the donation lay out at their discre
tion one hundred thousand pounds in public works
which may be judged of most general utility to the
inhabitants, such as fortifications, bridges, aqueducts,
public buildings, baths, pavements and whatever may
make Hving in the town more convenient to its people
and render it more agreeable to strangers. The re
maining 31,000 pounds I would have continued to be
let out at interest in the manner above directed for
another hundred years as I hope it will have been found
that the institution has had a good effect on the con
duct of youth and of service to many worthy charac
ters and useful citizens."

398 HISTORIC AMERICANS
This trust has been honorably administered. At
the end of the term of a hundred years the fund was
not as large as Franklin had estimated but it amounted
to almost exactly ninety thousand pounds. Mean
while the whole industrial system of the country had
so changed that there were no longer apprentices ap
plying for loans. This result shows how incompletely
even the wisest man may anticipate the economical and
social changes of a hundred years and how judiciously
Franklin acted in leaving a large measure of freedom
to those who were to administer his bequest. In 1893
the managers of the fund decided to set aside some
thing over $322,000 to be expended " in pubHc works
which may be judged of most general utility to the in
habitants " and to set aside the balance of the principal,
something over $100,000 to be reinvested for another
hundred years.
Many suggestions were offered for the use of the
$322,000 — the purchase of a park, the building of a
museum, the erection of public baths, the creation of a
school for industrial and social education. Ten years
passed in debate in the course of which the custody of
the fund was transferred to a board appointed by the
Supreme Court and consisting of the ministers of the
three churches designated by Franklin and nineteen
other citizens of Boston. In 1904 this new board of
managers decided to use the fund for some form of
educational endeavor which might serve the practical
needs of working men and women. Mr. Andrew Car
negie then offered to convey to the city of Boston a
sum of money equal in amount to the accumulation of
the Franklin fund, then amounting to $408,000, pro
vided the city would contribute a site and provided the
institution so established was planned upon lines similar
to the Cooper Union in New York. This public
spirited offer was accepted by the managers of the
fund and the citizens of Boston. The capital which

NOTES 399
therefore stands at present (1908), to the credit of
the Franklin fund amounts to more than $900,000
and out of it is to be established in the immediate fu
ture the Franklin Union, an institution devoted to the
education and to the social betterment and enjoyment
of those who work with their hands.
Page 29, note 17. There is apparently no adequate
evidence that " the woman in question " was the
mother of Wilham Franklin. The son was born soon
after Franklin's wedding " of a mother," says Morse,
" of whom no record or tradition remains." Mrs.
Franklin took the baby and reared him as her own
child. [See Fisher's The True Benjamin Franklin,
p. 106 and Paul Leicester Ford's Essay on Who was
the mother of Franklin's son ?]
Page 29, note 18. She was no longer Deborah
Read for she had married a man named Rogers, a
worthless fellow who soon ran away. It was aUeged
that he had an earlier wife living and there was also a
story that he was dead. In Morse's Life of Franklin
we read that Franklin " hardly knew what he was
wedding, a maid, a widow or another man's wife."
The runaway husband never reappeared and for forty
years the Franklins lived contentedly together. " She
proved," wrote Frankhn, " a good and faithful help
mate. . . . We throve together and have ever
mutually endeavored to make each other happy.'
" She assisted me cheerfully in my business, folding
and stitching pamphlets, tending shop, purchasing old
linen rags for the paper makers, etc., etc. We kept no
idle servants, our table was plain and simple, our fur
niture of the cheapest. For instance, my breakfast
was for a long time bread and milk (no tea), and I
ate it out of a twopenny earthen porringer, with a
pewter spoon. But mark how luxury wiU enter fam
ilies, and make progress, in spite of principle: being
called one morning to breakfast, I found it in a china

400 HISTORIC AMERICANS
bowl, with a spoon of silver ! They had been bought
for me without my knowledge by my wife, and had
cost her the enormous sum of three-and-twenty shil
lings, for which she had no other excuse or apology to
make, but that she thought her husband deserved a
silver spoon and china bowl as weU as any of his
neighbors. This was the first appearance of plate and
china in our house, which afterward, in a course of
years, as our wealth increased, augmented graduaUy
to several pounds in value."
Page 31, note 19. John Dickinson and Dr. Frank
hn were men of equal integrity and patriotism but they
looked at pubHc questions from different points of
view. They were frequently in conflict as champions
of opposite political principles. There is no evidence,
however, that there was any malice or iU-will in their
frequent arguments. Later, in the Constitutional Con
vention of 1787, they not infrequently voted on the
same side.
Mr. Dickinson was a constitutional Hberal, but in no
sense a revolutionist. He advocated defensive but
not offensive warfare. " He was prepared," said Sir
George Trevelyan, " to fight to the death for the
rights of America, and to die twice over rather than
forswear his allegiance to the King." He was op
posed to the Declaration of Independence, and yet such
was the respect felt for his character and skiU that he
was elected President of Pennsylvania and it appears
that he was the man chosen by Congress to make the
plan for the Articles of Confederation and to draft the
form of treaties with foreign powers. His colleagues,
that is, might disagree with him in his political conclu
sions, but no one doubted his intelligence, trustworthi
ness and the sincerity of his patriotic motives. His
conservative influence is summed up in a phrase of one
of his published letters : " Let us never forget how
essential a degree of moderation is to the happiness of
a republic."

NOTES 401
Page 33, note 20. This allusion is to a paragraph
in Sparks's Franklin I., 517.
Page 35, note 21. Parker's view of Franklin's re
Hgion is just and accurate. He was never an Ortho
dox Christian but " a man of greater humanity never
lived." In London he attended with regularity at the
dissenting meeting house which became the first Unita
rian Church. Dr. Priestley, the founder of the Uni
tarian Church in Philadelphia, was one of his most
intimate friends. Franklin's own expressions about
Christianity aUy him very closely with the principles
called Unitarian.
Page 35, note 22. There are omitted in this edi
tion four short paragraphs which Parker apparently
interpolated in his manuscript after the original read
ing and which bear but little relation to what has gone
before or what comes afterwards. They refer to the
machinations of Franklin's enemies and to the lack of
response in Congress to Franklin's money claims and
appeals for clerk hire.
Page 39, note 23. There are here omitted in this
edition two paragraphs in which Parker described what
Franklin's impressions of America might be were he to
return to the scene of his former labors.
II
GEORGE WASHINGTON
In preparing the lecture on Washington, Parker had
before him the twelve volumes of Jared Sparks's edition
of the writings of Washington, Sparks's Life of Wash
ington, which was pubhshed in 1839, and Kirkland's
Life of Washington. Parker's pencil notes from
Kirkland are enclosed in the manuscript of the lecture
used by the present editor. Irving's Life of Washing
ton which was just coming from the press, MarshaU's
Life of Washington, which was the first of the stand-
VI— 26

402 HISTORIC AMERICANS
ard biographies and which was published in 1802,
and the great orations on Washington given by Fisher
Ames in 1802, by Webster in 1832, and by Robert C.
Winthrop at the laying of the corner-stone of the
Washington monument, were doubtless famihar to
Parker. Edward Everett's famous oration on the
character of Washington was first delivered in the
Music Hall in Boston on February 23, 1856, and as
Parker wrote, Everett was giving the oration in aid of
the fund for the purchase of Mount Vernon, in aU parts
of the country.
For his biographical facts Parker relied almost
wholly on Sparks, whose careful study he compared fa
vorably with Irving's more readable and popular work.
This preference for Sparks over Irving is a curious il
lustration of the fact that Parker was naturally a man
of books and a scholar delighting in the search after
facts. Circumstances forced him into the career of a
reformer and public leader, but his natural tastes made
him a student working for untold hours in his library.
Later biographers and readers have certainly found
Irving's Life of Washington an inexhaustible delight,
and for all the admirable lives of Washington by Henry.
Cabot Lodge, 1889, George Cooper King, 1894, Brad
ley Tyler Johnson, 1894, Norman Hapgood, 1901,
Woodrow Wilson and Owen Wister, 1907, it remains,
whether in its original form or in the abridgment
prepared in 1889 by John Fiske, the standard life of
Washington. Page J/.6, note 1. This unhistorical aspersion upon
Virginia betrays Parker's prejudice rather than an im
partial judgment. The state that furnished to the
Revolutionary Army not only thousands of brave sol
diers, but also its Commander-in-Chief, its most dash
ing cavalry leaders, and the general who won at the
Cowpens what John Fiske called " in point of tactics
the most brilliant battle of the war " could not justly

NOTES 403
be called "unmilitary." The later history of Vir
ginia, which Parker did not live to read, declared her
to be a " mother of undiminished men." " Virginia,"
said Theodore Roosevelt in his life of Gouvemeur
Morris (page 325), " stands easily first among all our
commonwealths for the statesmen and warriors she has
brought forth . . . She gave leaders to both sides
at the two great crises : Washington and Marshall to
the one, and Jefferson to the other, when the question
was one of opinion as to whether the Union should be
built up; and when the appeal to arms was made to
tear it down, Farragut and Thomas to the North, Lee
and Jackson to the South."
Page 4-7, note 2. Parker here made note on his
manuscript that " Irving, who is often inaccurate, says
at fifteen. The more careful Sparks says seventeen."
Compare Irving's Life of Washington, I., 34, with
Sparks's Washington, I., 78. Parker seems to have
split the difference.
Page 50, note 3. Compare with Parker's descrip
tion of Washington's situation, the foUowing account
in Edward Everett's oration on " The Youth of Wash
ington," spoken at Beverly, July 4, 1835. " A re
luctant and undisciplined miHtia was to be kept em
bodied by personal influence — without pay, without
clothes, without arms. Sent to defend an extensive
mountain frontier, with forces wholly inadequate to
the object; the sport of contradictory orders from a
civil governor, inexperienced in war ; defrauded by
contractors ; tormented with arrogant pretensions of
subaltern officers in the royal army ; weakened by whole
sale desertions in the hour of danger; misrepresented
by jealous competitors; traduced, maligned — the
youthful Commander-in-Chief was obliged to foresee
everything, to create everything, to endure everything,
to effect everything, without encouragement, without
means, without co-operation."

404 HISTORIC AMERICANS
Page 52, note 4- Parker never visited Mount Ver
non. Had he done so he could not have described that
beautiful and modest mansion as either " great " or
" uncomfortable." The house, in its perfect propor
tions, its quiet dignity, its broad sunny aspect, is
singularly representative of the symmetry of character,
the domestic simplicity and transparent integrity of
the noble country gentleman who owned it. There is
nowhere in the world a more inspiring and satisfying
place of pilgrimage than Mount Vernon for those who
believe in republican principles and in high ideals of
family life.
Page 53, note 5. These orders Parker found in
Kirkland's Washington, pp. 178, 179. Parker made
a marginal note that " afterwards he changes again
and writes Richard Washington, ' I want neither lace
nor embroidery. Plain clothes, with gold or silver
buttons, if worn are a genteel dress and are all that I
desire.' Yet he complains that his clothes have never
fitted him well."
Parker's interest in these trivial matters is curiously
illustrative of the way in which the personal point of
view entered into his judgments. To one of Parker's
rustic origin and frugal way of Hfe, such clothing,
perfectly suitable for a man of Washington's station,
seemed extravagant. It was hard for the men of the
Puritan inheritance to believe that the luxury of the
Virginia planters was not both unmanly and unholy.
The old misunderstandings and resentments of Round
head and Cavalier continued even to Parker's genera
tion, and to these inherited differences were added the
hostilities of the anti-slavery discussion.
Page 55, notes 6~7. The quotations from the diary
were taken by Parker from Kirkland's Washington,
pp. 184 and 191.
Page 56, note 8. This fact Parker found recorded
in Sparks II., 297.

NOTES 405
Page 56, note 9. This quotation, not then so well
known as now, Parker discovered in Adams's Works
II., 360.
Page 56, note 10. Parker gives as his authority
Sparks II., 351, 400. I., 118.
Page 57, note 11. This quotation, here slightly al
tered, is found in Sparks I., 132.
Page 59, note 12. It is impossible to discover upon
what authority Parker, and many other historians,
based such an extraordinary misstatement as that Gen
eral Ward was " old " and " almost imbecile." He was
in fact just forty-eight years old, and he had before
him twenty-five years of vigorous life and useful public
service. As to his " imbecility " it may be noted that
Congress, when it appointed Washington to be Com
mander-in-Chief, on the same day chose Artemus Ward
to be senior Major-General, or second in command. It
was iUness, and not senility, that prevented Ward from
undertaking active service in the field. Though, in
the hope that his health would improve, and at Wash
ington's solicitation, he retained his commission for
nearly a year ; he felt obliged to resign in 1776. His
miHtary career was short but his subsequent civil career
was long and honorable. He was a member of the
Massachusetts General Court for sixteen years and
Speaker of the House. He was chosen to the Conti
nental Congress, and after the organization of the
Federal Government he was a member of Congress for
several terms. He died in 1800, aged seventy-three
and his descendants are numerous and serviceable.
Page 60, note 13. This allusion is doubtless to the
scenes in State Street at the time of the rendition of
the fugitive slave, Antony Bums, on June 2, 1854.
Page 61, note 14- The context would make it ap
pear that this disgraceful flight occurred at the Battle
of Long Island, but there was nothing disgraceful in
the rout of the brave militiamen who were trapped on

406 HISTORIC AMERICANS
that dreadful day. Parker doubtless refers to what
happened two weeks later when the British landed at
Kips Bay, where the foot of Thirty-fourth Street now
is. The event is thus recorded in the Memoirs of Gen
eral Heath, " About noon the British landed at Kepps
Bay. They met with but small resistance, and pushed
towards the city, of which they took possession in the
afternoon. . . . Here it was, as fame hath said,
that General Washington threw his hat on the ground
and exclaimed, ' Are these the men with which I am
to defend America? ' "
General Greene wrote of the same occurrence : —
" Fellows's and Parsons's brigades ran away from
about fifty men, and left his ExceUency on the ground
within eighty yards of the enemy, so vexed at the in
famous conduct of the troops that he sought death
rather than life."
Page 61, note 15. This was the first statement in a
public address in Boston of the discovery of the abom
inable treason of General Charles Lee. The older his
torians of the Revolution had remarked Lee's " way
wardness " and commented on his selfish egotism and
his insubordination, but no one had suspected down
right treachery. On June 22, 1858, Mr. George H.
Moore, Librarian of the New York Historical Society,
presented in a paper read before the Society the positive
and documentary proofs of Lee's treason. Parker had
evidently heard of these revelations, though the book,
containing Mr. Moore's Address and facsimiles of Lee's
papers, was not published until 1860.
Parker, however, went beyond the facts in saying
that Lee " purposely suffered himself to be taken
prisoner." Lee's craven terror at his capture was not
a piece of acting. Indeed his treasonable designs were
largely the outcome of his fear lest he should be exe
cuted as a deserter from the British Army in which he
had formerly held a commission.

NOTES 407
Page 62, note 16. The New England patriots were
often exasperated by the indifference or helplessness of
the people of the other colonies. In New England,
where the people were altogether of English stock,
trained to warfare by long experience in conflicts with
the French and Indians, where every village had its
company of minute-men, and whence, after the siege
of Boston, practically all the Tories had fled, invasion
meant the instant uprising of a formidable army, such
as that which swept the British down the Lexington
road, or that which captured the Brunswickers at
Bennington or that which surrounded Burgoyne at
Saratoga. In Pennsylvania, however, different condi
tions prevaUed. The Quaker principles, widely dif
fused in the community, were opposed even to a war of
self-defense. A large proportion of the popuktion
was not of Enghsh stock and cared little about the
issues of the Revolution. Public opinion was by no
means united and the Tory element continued strong
in numbers and activity. Parker's strictures on the
apathy of Pennsylvania are justified by the contem
porary records. Thus Colonel Timothy Pickering,
Adjutant-General of the Army, writing home to Salem
on September 25, 1777, just after the battle of the
Brandywine, said, " I am told that upwards of sixty-
five thousand men are enrolled in the militia of Pennsyl
vania, yet we have not two thousand in the field, and
these are of little worth and constantly deserting.
. . . I had heard at home of so much contempt and
ridicule thrown by the southern gentlemen on the New
England militia, that I expected something better
here; but no militia could be more contemptible than
those of Pennsylvania; none can be spoken of more
contemptuously by their own countrymen. How
amazing that Howe should march from the head of
Elk to the Schuylkill, a space of sixty miles, without
opposition from the people of the country. Such

408 HISTORIC AMERICANS
events would not have happened in New England.
. . . I feel in some degree reconciled to Howe's en
tering Pennsylvania and Philadelphia, that the un
worthy inhabitants (of which 'tis apparent a majority
of the State is composed) may experience the calamities
of war, which nothing but their own supineness and
unfriendliness to the American cause would have
brought on them."
Page 63, note 17. Parker's knowledge of the Con
way Cabal was inadequate. To place the honorable
names of Pickering and Schuyler along with the tar
nished names of Conway, Gates and Mifflin, was unjust.
Schuyler was the most loyal and magnanimous of pa
triots, devoted to Washington and ever alert to serve
his country's good. To couple his name with that of
James Lovell attains to the height of the ridiculous, for
Lovell was Schuyler's bitter foe and the man who, more
than any other, was responsible for Schuyler's removal
from the command of the Northern Army, and the ap
pointment of the incompetent and treacherous Gates.
Pickering, like most of the New England leaders,
did sometimes talk and write critically of Washington,
but he never descended to the vulgar tricks and selfish
ambitions of Conway or Gates. Like John Adams he
occasionaUy got " tired of hearing Aristides called the
just," and praise of Washington sometimes drew from
his just and honest tongue some expression of an op
posite character. Pickering was a Puritan whose dis
position revolted at flattery, but that he greatly ad
mired Washington and loyally served both the cause and
the Commander-in-Chief is proved not only by his rec
ord as Adjutant-General and Quartermaster-General of
the Army, but also by the fact that he was the officer
selected to write the reply to Washington's FareweU
Address and that Washington chose him to be succes
sively Secretary of War and Secretary of State in his
cabinet.

NOTES 409
Page 67, note 18. Parker never went to the ex
treme of Garrison and Phillips and other of the anti-
slavery leaders who denounced the Constitution as a
" Covenant with Hell " and refused to exercise poHtical
rights under it. On the other hand the Webster
Whigs, urgent above all things for the preservation of
the Union, made, as Parker says, an idol of the Con
stitution and affected to believe that it was a perfect
instrument. Parker did his duty as a citizen even
though he knew the " faults " of the Constitution and
saw its " victims." The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amend
ments would have completely reconciled him.
Page 68, note 19. In none of his historic or politi
cal writings did Parker do justice to the genius of
Hamilton. Just what the ground of his disapproba
tion was, does not appear, but presumably he held
Hamilton responsible for the " faults " in the Consti
tution. HamUton's distrust of popular government
was also doubtless obnoxious to Parker's democratic
temperament and to his confidence in the principles of
the town-meeting. Hamilton was the foremost of the
Federalists and beHeved in a strong central govern
ment, but nothing in Hamilton's speeches or letters
justifies an impartial historian in saying that he was
" monarchic " in his poHtical convictions.
Page 71, note 20. It is not to be denied that Wash
ington's style of writing is singularly plain and even
formal, but in its perfect simplicity and directness it
compares well with the Johnsonian Heaviness which was
literary fashion of his day. It must further be re
membered that Parker had before him only the Sparks
edition of Washington's writings. It is well known that
Mr. Sparks, in editing the works of the great Ameri
cans, whose biographies he wrote with immense labor and
care, printed what he thought the writers ought to
have said rather than what they actually did say. He
could not resist the temptation to improve Washing-

410 HISTORIC AMERICANS
ton's English, correct his speUing and punctuation,
soften hard phrases and omit things that he either con
sidered improper or beneath the dignity of the writer.
Washington's style does not gather any ornamentation
or artificial brightness now that we have the originals
printed as they were written but it does gather some
thing of the picturesque quality, the humanity, the re
ality, that Parker missed. Parker was unconsciously
criticising Mr. Sparks more than he was Washington
when he passed judgment on Washington's style as
stiff and prim.
Page 72, note 21. The connection of Madison with
the composition of the Farewell Address was some
what remote. " The ideas " says Norman Hapgood
(George Washington, page 391) " were Washington's,
chosen from his own mind and the minds of Hamilton,
Jay, Madison, and others, but the draft in its final
form was the work of Hamilton, and it is written with
a literary vigor quite beyond the reach of Washington
himself." Page 75, note 22. In these criticisms Parker cer
tainly failed in due appreciation of Washington's
ability as a soldier. The plain logic of history cannot
support such statements as that Trenton was his only
brilliant battle and that he was skilful in attack but
not in defense. The skill and audacity with which he
saved the army at the Bridge of the Assunpink and
again at the Brandy wine, and the judgment by which,
in taking up his positions in two successive winters at
Morristown and at Valley Forge, he kept all hostile
operations in check, refute the limitation put by Par
ker on his genius. In these and like emergencies he
thought and acted with extraordinary alertness and
with quick and firm decision.
The campaign of June, 1777, further iUustrates
Washington's purely military capacity. In eighteen
days of marching and counter-marching, Washington

NOTES 411
with an army less than half as numerous as that of
Howe, by superior strategy alone completely foiled
Howe's purpose of marching across New Jersey to Phil
adelphia, and compelled him to go around by water.
Said John Fiske (American Revolution, I., 307), " This
campaign has attracted less attention than it deserves,
mainly, no doubt, because it contained no battles or
other striking incidents. It was purely a series of strate
gic devices. But in point of miHtary skill, it was, per
haps, as remarkable as anything that Washington ever
did, and it certainly occupies a cardinal position in the
history of the overthrow of Burgoyne." After the sur
render at Yorktown, Lord Cornwallis, who was an excel
lent judge, expressed to Washington his generous admi
ration for the wonderful skill that had suddenly hurled
an army four hundred miles with such precision and
effect. "But after aU," he added, "your Excel
lency's achievements in New Jersey were such that
nothing could surpass them."
The surprise at Trenton was indeed a brilliant con
ception but the attacks at Germantown and Monmouth
were planned with equal daring and ability. But for
an accident in one case and treachery in the other,
either might have resulted in a success no less briUiant
than that at Trenton. These conceptions belong in
the same rank with those of Hannibal, Caesar or Na
poleon. There was nothing Fabian in the mind that
conceived and carried out the campaign that ended at
Yorktown. That exploit certainly indicated a mili
tary capacity of the first order. Said John Fiske
(American Revolution, II., 281), "For thoroughness
of elaboration and promptness of execution, this move
ment on Washington's part was as remarkable as the
march of Napoleon in the autumn of 1865, when he
swooped from the shore of the English Channel into
Bavaria, and captured the Austrian Army at Ulm."
Page 78, note 23. This allusion is found in Jeffer
son's Works, IX., 164.

412 HISTORIC AMERICANS
Page 80, note 24- Parker made note that he found
this account, which has often been repeated, in Rush's
Washington in Domestic Life, 67-69.
Page 80, note 25. Parker as he wrote this page
had just read in Villemain's " Vie de Chateaubriand,"
which was published in 1858, the account of that
youthful enthusiast's interview with Washington in
1791, and made allusion to it in a marginal note.
Page 81, note 26. This story is quoted from
Sparks, II., 40.
Page 83, note 27. This saying Parker found in
Hildreth'a History of the United States, III., 272.
Page 86, note 28. It was easy for Parker, whose
temperament was exceptionally warm, expressive, al
most dramatic, to fall in with the common notion
that Washington was a cold, austere person, admirable,
but not lovable, because not loving. Doubtless Wash
ington held his affections, as all other elements of his
nature, under control, but heat is always greatest under
restraint. A calm exterior does not always mean a
lack of passion. Washington's official correspondence
is certainly characterized by a rigid sense of propriety,
but who knows what and how he wrote to his intimates.
Mrs. Washington destroyed aU but two of his letters
to her, which might have revealed a different side of his
nature, and they had no children. Parker's judg
ment was also influenced by the fact that, save for
Knox, Greene, and Arnold, Washington did not care
for his New England associates. Washington justly
valued the New Englanders for their integrity, sobri
ety and patriotism, but the Virginia country gentle
man did not readily admit to intimacy men, however
worthy, who seemed to him lacking in certain outward
refinements and in good fellowship. On the other
hand he loved daring, chivalrous, high-minded youths,
like Lafayette, Hamilton, Laurens and Harry Lee.
With such as these he proved as human as anyone

NOTES 413
could desire. We may be sure that the man who wept
in helpless wrath as he watched the slaughter of his
soldiers in the swamps of the Gowanus or in the re
doubt of Fort Washington was not incapable of deep
distress. The General who as he bade farewell to his
officers at Fraunce's Tavern, on the impulse of the
moment embraced each one, should not be accused of a
lack of demonstrative good will.
Page 90, note 29. The quotation is from Emer
son's famous Concord Hymn, the last line, slightly
altered, of the verse inscribed on the Statue of the
Minute-Man at Concord Bridge. Emerson was a Con
cord man and to him " the shot heard round the world "
was fired at Concord Bridge. Parker was a Lexing
ton man and his grandfather was the Captain of the
minute-men who first confronted the British on Lex
ington Green. To him, therefore, the great event of
the 19th of April, 1775, was the early morning skirmish
at Lexington. It was hardly fair of Parker, however,
to borrow a Concord verse, written by a Concord man,
about a Concord battle, and apply it to the Lexing
ton affair.
Page 90, note 30. This statement that " there
were many Africans in the Battle of Bunker Hill "
rests only upon tradition. It was commonly reported,
for instance, that Major Pitcairn was shot by a negro
named Peter Salem, and Edward Everett, in his ad
dress at the Dedication of the Statue of General War
ren, gave to that reasonably authentic legend a certain
currency. Colonel Trumbull in his historic picture of
the battle, painted in 1787, introduced several figures
of colored men, and this is probably the origin of the
impression that " many " were present. In some of the
New England Militia companies of free negroes un
doubtedly took their places in the ranks with the white
men. The official records bear testimony, however, to
the fact that there was some question about aUowing

414 HISTORIC AMERICANS
negroes to enlist. On May 20, 1775, a month before
the Battle of Bunker's Hill, the Massachusetts Com
mittee of Safety voted " that no slaves be admitted into
this army upon any consideration whatever " [Force's
American Archives, 4th Ser., II., 762]. On July 10,
1775, a month after the battle, an order was issued by
the Adjutant-General of the Army as follows: "You
are not to enlist any deserter from the ministerial army,
nor any stroller, negro or vagabond." In Force's
American Archives [Ser. IV., vol. 3, p. 1161], is the
Record of the Committee of Conference consisting of
Dr. Franklin, Benjamin Harrison and Thomas Lynch,
with the Deputy-Governors of Connecticut and Rhode
Island, a Committee of the Council of Massachusetts
and General Washington. The subject of negro sol
diers came up at this meeting and " it was agreed that
they be rejected altogether." In the Orderly Book,
under date November 12 (Sparks's Washington, III.,
155), it is recorded, " Neither negroes, boys unable to
bear arms, nor old men unable to endure the fatigues
of the campaign, are to be enlisted." On the 31st of
December, 1775, Washington wrote from Cambridge to
the President of Congress (Sparks's Washington, III.,
218), to point out that free negroes who had served
in the army ought to have the privilege of reenlisting,
and on January 16, 1776, Congress decided (Jour
nals of Congress, II., 26) that the " Free negroes who
have served faithfully in the army of Cambridge be en
listed therein, but no others." In view of these facts
the presumption is against the presence of " many Af
ricans " at Bunker's Hill.
Page 90, note 31. While there were free negroes in
many of the New England regiments the proportion
of blacks in the Rhode Island line was greater than in
the other States. In 1862 when the question of the
enlistment of black troops in the Union Army was a
burning issue the advocates of that measure made care-

NOTES 415
ful search for precedents. The most complete and
elaborate of the treatises is one prepared by Mr.
George Livermore and presented to the Massachusetts
Historical Society on August 14, 1862. In this work
is contained a full account of the Rhode Island ex
periment with negro soldiers.
On January 2, 1778, two months after the Battle
of Red Bank, General Varnum wrote to Washington:
" The two Battalions for the State (Rhode Island) be
ing smaU, and there being a necessity of the State's
furnishing an additional number to make up their pro
portion in the Continental Army, the Field Officers
have represented to me the propriety of making one
temporary Battalion from the two, so that one entire
corps of officers may repair to Rhode Island, in order
to receive and prepare the recruits for the field. It
is imagined that a Battalion of negroes may be raised
there. . . . The Field Officers who go upon this
command, are Col. Greene, Lt. Col. Olney, and Major
Ward." This communication Washington transmitted on
the same day to Governor Cooke of Rhode Island and
these letters were laid before the Rhode Island As
sembly at the February session. The Assembly passed
a vote (Livermore's Historical Research, pages 152,
153) authorizing the enlistment of free negroes and of
slaves, who would thereupon receive their freedom. A
minority of the Assembly entered protest against this
action but on February 23 Governor Cooke wrote to
Washington that Colonel Greene was going forward
with the enhstment. " Every effective slave," he
wrote, " upon his passing muster is absolutely made
free. . . . Masters are allowed at the rate of a
hundred and twenty pounds for the most valuable slave
and in proportion to those of less value. The number
of slaves in this State is not great, but it is generally
thought that three hundred and upwards will be en-
Hsted."

416 HISTORIC AMERICANS
At the May session of the Assembly enlistment of
negroes was stopped and it was voted that " no negro,
mulatto or Indian slave be permitted to enlist from and
after the tenth day of June next."
The actual number of blacks thus enlisted can never
be known. The only way of discovering the propor
tion is by reading the roster of the regiment and judg
ing by the names. Such surnames as Liberty, Free
dom, and Freeman, are presumably those of negroes
who won their freedom by enlisting. The proportion
of blacks, however, is not large except in Col. Greene's
Battalion. In the roster of the Second Battalion,
counting one hundred and forty-one men, two names
are presumably those of Indians, and three, Prince
Jackson, Cuff Peckham, and Richard Pomp, may not
improbably be those of negroes.
Col. Greene's Battalion made a good record on
Rhode Island in the fighting of August, 1778, and
continued in the service until the end of the War.
The Marquis de Chastellux wrote in his journal under
the date of the fifth of January, 1781, " At the pas
sage to the ferry I met a detachment of the Rhode
Island regiment. . . . The greatest part of them
are negroes or mulattoes." [ChasteUux' Travels, I.,
454.] Page 90, note 32. Parker apparently based the
statement that " a negro regiment from New England
stood in the thickest of the battle " of Red Bank, on a
similar statement in Mr. Whittier's essay on The
Black Men in the Revolution. This was originally
a newspaper article but was published in 1854 in Whit
tier's volume of Literary Recreations. Whittier,
in turn, found his authority in a speech against slavery
in Missouri delivered by Governor Eustis of Massa
chusetts on December 12, 1820, wherein Governor Eus
tis said, " The blacks formed an entire regiment and
they discharged their duty with zeal and fidelity. The

NOTES 417
gallant defense of Red Bank, in which the Black Regi
ment bore a part, is among the proofs of their valor."
Careful investigation fails to discover any verifica
tion for this statement. The gallant defenders of
Fort Mercer, at Red Bank, in October, 1777, num
bered in all four hundred men, so that any negro regi
ment included must have been hardly more than
a company. No historian of the battle mentions any
negro soldiers at all. The story of their presence
probably arose from the fact that Colonel Christopher
Greene of Rhode Island, who commanded at Red Bank,
was shortly afterwards detailed to go home and raise
the battahon described in the preceding note.
Page 91, note 33. Parker found his foundation for
these statements in Sparks X., 163, and XII., 181.
Page 94, note 34- It would be hard to find any
justification for the statement that Washington " is
no Southerner in many particulars." Was not the
very misunderstanding and depreciation of the New
England nature of which Parker complains a proof of
Washington's distinctively Southern point of view?
Washington was a typical Virginia country gentleman
at his best. The sense of superiority, the pride of
station, the luxury of dress and appointments, the self-
forgetting courage, the patriotic zeal, the quick temper
under control of will, the lack of religious earnestness
and literary interests, the out-of-door accomplishments,
the open-house hospitality of Washington, were all in
dications of Virginia birth and habit.
Page 96, note 35. Comparisons of great men are
unprofitable if one is only seeking to be correct in the
proportions of his admirations, but contrasts and re
semblances when keenly observed and described may
seem to bring out characteristics which would other
wise be obscure. This suggestion of a comparison be
tween Washington and CromweU is finely taken up and
developed by Frederic Harrison in his Washington
VI— 27

418 HISTORIC AMERICANS
and Other Addresses. Mr. Harrison also suggests
an equally significant comparison between Washington
and William the Silent. Edward Everett in his Wash
ington Oration marked with great rhetorical effect the
contrast between Washington and the such successful
soldiers and administrators as Peter the Great, Freder
ick the Great, and Napoleon Bonaparte.
Page 96, note 36. This Indian tradition of Wash
ington is, as Norman Hapgood observes in his
George Washington (page 88) " partly amusing
and partly impressive." From the days of Fort Ne
cessity to the days of Wayne's victory at the FaUing
Waters, Washington had been not a friend but a
scourge to the Indian tribes. His " justice to the Red
Men " consisted in punishing them severely for their
depredations. Ill
JOHN ADAMS
The Adams lecture was delivered by Parker in the
Fraternity Course on Tuesday evening, January 4,
1859. It was reported next day at two columns'
length in the " Atlas and Daily Bee," which records
that " the audience, in consequence of the severe storm,
was exceedingly small."
Page 102, note 1. The letter here quoted was writ
ten on October 19, 1756, and is printed in the Works
of John Adams I., 38.
Page 104, note 2. Col. John Quincy was an an
cestor to be proud of. His name was not only be
stowed on the town of Quincy, but was transmitted in
a still more living way by being given to John Adams'
eldest son, John Quincy Adams, who was bom just as
his great-grandfather lay dying. Colonel Quincy
represented Braintree in the General Court for twenty-
eight years, was Speaker of the House for twelve
years, Colonel of the Suffolk Regiment, Member of the

NOTES 419
Council, a man of genuine power and a much respected
leader in the Province.
Page 105, note 3. John Norton (1606-1663) was
the able and austere minister of Ipswich (1638-1653)
and of the First Church in Boston (1653-1663). His
reputation for severity was owing to the rigid Puri
tanism of his doctrine and discipline and to his bitter
feeling against the turbulent Quakers who disturbed
the peace of the community. The word " dreadful "
apphed to him by Parker indicates simply the change
in the standards of people in regard to morals and
theology. In his own day and by the judgment of
his own contemporaries Norton was not only a popular
and attractive preacher but one of the great civil lead
ers of the Colony.
Page 106, note 4- Mr. Lyman, in editing the first
issue of Historic Americans, here made note that this
story of Adams' wooing " is differently told by other
authorities." Parker's is the accepted form though he
exaggerated the difference in social rank between
Adams and his bride. If Parson Smith objected to
Adams as a suitor it was not because of any social dis
tinction but because of that " impetuous, impatient "
temperament that so often got Mr. Adams into trouble.
.Page 108, note 5. These resolutions are printed
in the Works of John Adams III., 465.
Page 110, note 6. Parker got this relation wrong
end to. It was Quincy who was first asked to defend
Captain Preston and who agreed to do so if his in
timate friend and feUow-patriot Adams, would stand
up with him. For both young lawyers it was an
heroic thing to do. Quincy's own father sternly re
buked him for defending " those criminals charged
with the murder of our fellow-citizens." Quincy was
one of the most enlightened of the patriot leaders and
his untimely death just at the outbreak of the Revo
lution was a great blow to the cause into which he had

420 HISTORIC AMERICANS
thrown himself with high idealism and fervent de
votion. Page 111, note 7. Governor Shirley died on March
24, 1771.
Page 112, note 8. See the Note on the Hutchinson
letters on page 424.
Page 112, note 9. Parker died before the natural
prejudices rising out of the Revolutionary War had
disappeared. A later and more impartial historical
judgment does not sustain the condemnation of Hutch
inson which his successful opponents wrote into Ameri
can history. We now know that he was a high-minded
gentleman, true to his convictions and worthy of
respect. His theory of the relation between the
American Provinces and the British was narrowly
legal, and he was too thoroughly an aristocrat
to sympathize with the patriot movement, but
John Fiske was right in saying (Essays Historical and
Literary I., 43) that " never has there been a more
memorable iUustration of the wrong and suffering
that is apt to be wrought in a period of revolutionary
excitement than the fact that during the autumn of
1773 one of the purest and most high-minded citizens
of Massachusetts was regarded by so many other pure
and high-minded citizens as little better than a
traitor." " For intellectual accomplishments Hutch
inson . . . stands in the foremost rank of Ameri
can public men. For thorough grasp of finance he
was the peer of Hamilton and Gallatin. In 1809,
John Adams who loved him not, said, ' he understood
the subject of coin and commerce better than any man
I ever knew in this country.' His mastery of law was
equally remarkable, and as a historian his accuracy
is of the highest order. . . . He was nothing, if
not public-spirited, and his kindness towards persons
in distress and sorrow knew no bounds." (Fiske I., 49.)
" Alike for intellectual eminence and for spotless purity

NOTES 421
of character there have been few Americans more
thoroughly entitled to our respect than Thomas
Hutchinson. It is sad indeed, though perfectly nat
ural, that such a man should have to wait a hundred
years before his countrymen could come to consider his
career dispassionately."
Page 114, note 10. It is questionable whether
John Adams ever seriously " doubted his own abihty "
but it is certain that he " doubted the nation's genius."
It was at this time that he wrote, " We have not men
fit for the times. We are deficient in genius, in educa
tion, in travel, in fortune, in everything. I feel un
utterable anxiety. (Works I., 148.)
Page 118, note 11. Testimony to Parker's careful
ness in preparing this lecture is found in the following
letter inclosed in the manuscript of the lecture which
is before the present editor.
Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Secretary's Office,
Boston, December 21, 1858.
Rev. Theodore Parker,
Deah. Sir : I have caused a careful examination of the
Records of the Council to be made and it does not ap
pear that John Adams ever received any compensation
for services as a Justice of the Sup'r Court of Judica
ture, to which office he was appointed on the 11th of Oct.
1775, and the acceptance of which he signified in a
letter received by the Council on the 31st of December.
On the 9th of December, 1776, a warrant was drawn
in his favor for £121. s 13. d 1. " as a balance of his
acc't for expenses &c " as a delegate to Congress ; and
on the 4th of Jan. 1777 another was drawn for £226.
s 6. d 2. " in full satisfaction for services and expenses
as a delegate to the Continental Congress for the
Year 1776." Very truly yours,
Oliver Warner, Secy.

422 HISTORIC AMERICANS
Page 126, note 12. " A personal prejudice, im
properly called distrust, on the part of Hamilton
towards Adams, from this time forth led to actions
which Adams, being human, could not but resent.
Mutual dislike grew into strong animosity, which in
time ripened into bitter vindictiveness. The quarrel
had such vitality that it survived to subsequent genera
tions, so that later historians in each family have kept
the warfare immortal. The Adams writers represent
Hamilton as clandestine, underhanded, substantially
dishonorable. The Hamilton writers represent Mr.
Adams as an obstinate, wrong-headed old blunderer,
whom their distinguished progenitor in vain strove to
keep from working serious mischief. In fact, Hamil
ton, though constantly carried by his antipathy be
yond the limits of good judgment, did nothing morally
reprehensible; Adams, though committing very pro
voking errors as a politician and party leader, never
went far wrong as a statesman and patriot." (Morse's
John Adams, 246.)
Page 126, note 13. The Essays of Davila
were written by Adams while in England. Prof. J. S.
Bassett (The Federalist System, p. 48) caUs them
" a heavy discussion of the principles of government, ad
vocating a government in which the enlightened classes
should have the greatest influence." The essays
aroused much hostile criticism and Adams was con
demned as an " aristocrat " and finally as a " mon-
ocrat." Page 128, note 14. As recorded in Note 12, the New
England writers whose works were before Parker as he
wrote this and the accompanying lectures were mostly
of the Adams School. Parker never did justice to
the genius of Hamilton. A later generation is able
to see that Washington's confidence in Hamilton's
ability was not " misplaced."
Page 129, note 15. Parker was not correct in

NOTES 423
saying that Washington "quietly favored" the ap
pointment of Hamilton to the second place. He made
that appointment an absolute condition of his own
acceptance of the first place.
Page 142, note 16. In this letter Washington ex
presses a strong hope that " you will not withhold mer
ited promotion from Mr. John (Quincy) Adams because
he is your son " ; and also says, " I give it as my de
cided opinion that Mr. Adams is the most valuable pub
Hc character we have abroad," and so on in the same
strain. Page 143, note 17. This allegation is unfortu
nately true of Franklin and Hamilton. Parker was
too ready to believe it to be true of Washington and
Jefferson, but there is absolutely no reliable evidence
to support such a suspicion.
Page 144> note 18. The Cunningham letters
" were written by the Ex-President to one of his rel
atives soon after his return to Quincy. They were ' un
der the seal of the strictest confidence ' and contained
the most unreserved expression of his sentiments re
specting the chief actors and events in the later portion
of his public life. In other words, they were vehement,
rancorous, abusive, and unjust, as was perfectly nat
ural when it is remembered under what fresh provo
cation of real wrongs their writer was smarting at the
time. His vanity and his rage naturally found free
expression as he strove in close confidence to tell to a
friend the story of the unfair treatment of which he
had been the victim. Mr. C. F. Adams says that an
heir of the person to whom these letters were written
gave them to the opponents of John Quincy Adams
to be used against him when he was a candidate for
president ; and that this ignominious transaction was
rewarded with a post in the Boston Custom-House. It
was of course a great mistake upon Adams's part that
he wrote them, and it was a grave misfortune for him

424 HISTORIC AMERICANS
that they were, even though dishonorably and many
years afterwards, sent out before the world. It was
the last and nearly the worst exhibition of that blind
imprudence which at one time and another in his career
had cost him so dear." (Morse's John Adams, 327.)
Page 150, note 19. Francis Adrian Van der Kemp
(1752-1829) was a distinguished Dutch scholar, pa
triot and divine who championed the cause of civic and
religious freedom and was obliged to flee with his
family to America in 1788. He was warmly and hos
pitably received by Washington, and the other leaders
of American thought and life. He finally settled at
Barneveld, N. Y., whence he carried on an active and
most interesting correspondence with Jefferson, Adams,
George Clinton and many other friends in America as
well as with the scholars in Europe who sympathized
with his misfortune and valued his high character and
great learning. See Francis Adrian Van der Kemp,
an autobiography, together with extracts from his
correspondence. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York,
1903. Page 154, note 20. This allusion is presumably to
Edward Everett. IV
THOMAS JEFFERSON
The lecture on Jefferson was never delivered. Par
ker's manuscript shows that in writing it he had before
him the existing edition of Jefferson's Works and
Tucker's and Randall's Lives of Jefferson.
Page 169, note 1. This allusion is a curious re
minder of the fact that at the time Parker was writing
this lecture he was also a participant in the conferences
that agreed to provide John Brown with arms for his
proposed attack on Harpers Ferry. Brown held the
belief that if the blacks in Virginia could be furnished
with arms and leaders they would rise and secure their

NOTES 425
own freedom. It is probably this opinion of Brown's
that is reflected in Parker's statement that in the Revo
lutionary times there were in Virginia 275,000 slaves
ready to rise and " side with an invader when he should
appear." In fact there was no more possibility of such
an insurrection in 1779 than in 1859 when John Brown
found no response from the slaves he expected to join
him by thousands as soon as he appeared on Virginia
soil. Page 170, note 2. This quotation Parker took from
RandaU's Life of Jefferson, I., 398. In a note Parker
wrote, " In April, 1784, Mr. Jefferson was Chairman
of a Committee (Mr. Chase of Maryland and Howell
of Rhode Island also were members), and in that ca
pacity submitted a plan for the government of the
entire western region, from the thirty-first degree of
north latitude to the northern boundary of the United
States (thus including much more than the territory
northwest of the Ohio River). One of the provisions
of this important biU was, " that after the year 1800
there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude
in any of the said States " into which it was provided
that the territory might be divided, " other than in
the punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have
been duly convicted." The question being taken upon
this proviso, seven States voted for it, and but three
against: one State was equally divided in its represen
tation, and two were absent. And so it was lost, as
by the rules at least two-thirds of the thirteen States
were required to vote for it before it could become a
law." Page 172, note 3. It is a curious reading of history
that declares that Franklin and Madison " represented
the Democracy " in the making of the Constitution.
Party lines had not been drawn. The opponents of
the Constitution did as a rule afterwards become Anti-
Federahsts but so did some of the upholders of the

426 HISTORIC AMERICANS
Constitution. Madison, who was second to none in
influence in the Convention, was at the time " a mod
erate Federalist." (Theodore Roosevelt. Life of
Gouverneur Morris, p. 139.)
Page 173, note 4- It was unnecessary for Parker
to conclude that Hamilton's dominant influence in na
tional affairs at this time was in any measure due to the
age or infirmity of Washington. Hamilton's extraor
dinary gifts as a constructive and creative statesman
gave him an influence which would have been quite as
marked had Washington been in the prime of life.
Page 178, note 5. The appointment of the " Mid
night Judges " was made by Mr. Adams at nine o'clock
in the evening of March 3, 1801, when his term of of
fice was to end at midnight. Jefferson always looked
upon this act of Mr. Adams's as personally unkind to
himself. Page 178, note 6. Parker here made note of the fol
lowing letter to Abbe Arnoud, Paris, July 19, 1789,
which he found in Jefferson's Works, III., 81.
" We all know that permanent judges acquire an
esprit de corps : that being known, they are liable to be
tempted by bribery : that they are misled by favor, by
relationship, by a spirit of party, by a devotion to
legislative or executive power: that it is better to leave
a cause to the decision of cross and pile than to that of
a judge biased to one side: and that the decision of
twelve honest men gives still a better hope of right than
cross and pile does. It is in the power, therefore, of
the juries, if they think permanent judges are under
any bias whatever, in any cause, to take on themselves
to judge the law as well as the fact. They never
exercise this power, but when they suspect partiality in
the judges : and by the exercise of this power they have
been the firmest bulwarks of English liberty. Were I
called upon to decide whether the people had best be
omitted in the legislative or judiciary department I

NOTES 427
would say it is better to leave them out of the legisla
tive." 8
Page 181, note 7. The quotations with which Par
ker proved the well-known fact that Jefferson believed
in an elective judiciary and in rotation in office are all
taken from Jefferson's Works or from Tucker's Life.
In order the references are to Works II., 329 ; I., 81 ;
VIII., 13 ; VII., 12 ; Tucker II., 436 ; Works VII., 295 ;
VII., 256; VII., 403. Parker also cites Tucker II.,
112 ; Randall III., 124, 636 ; Works IV., 561 ; V., 549 ;
VI., 462 ; VII., 134, 178, 192, 199, 216, 278, 322, 403.
Page 184, note 8. Parker here quoted in a note
the following expressions of Jefferson's views :
" When I consider that the limits of the United
States are precisely fixed by the treaty of 1783, that
the Constitution declares itself to be made for the
United States, I cannot help believing the intention was
not to permit Congress to admit into the Union new
States which should be formed out of the Territory for
which, and under whose authority alone, they were
then acting. I do not believe it was meant they might
receive England, Ireland, Holland, etc., into it, which
would be the case on your construction. When an in
strument admits two constructions, ... I prefer
that which is safe and precise. . . . Our peculiar
security is in the possession of a written Constitution."
(Works IV. 506). Also see his letter to the Secretary
of State, August 25, 1803, in which he proposes the
following form of Amendment to the Constitution
necessary in the case of Louisiana : " Louisiana, as
ceded by France to the United States, is made a part
of the United States. Its white inhabitants shall be
citizens, and stand, as to their rights and obligations,
on the same footing with other citizens of the United
States in analogous situations." Works IV., 503.
August 12, 1803, he wrote to Judge Breckenridge,
" The Constitution has made no provision for our hold-

428 HISTORIC AMERICANS
ing foreign territory, still less for incorporating for
eign nations into our Union. The Executive, in seiz
ing the fugitive occurrence which so much advances
the good of their country, have done an act beyond the
Constitution." Works IV., 500.
Page 196, note 9. Parker was all too ready to be
lieve any tales or gossip that iUustrated the terrible
evil, incident to slavery, that is hinted at in this charge
against Jefferson. He frequently alluded to this in
famy and particularly to the alleged fact that even
so pure and moral a man as Jefferson could not rise
above the habit of his fellow slaveholders. Sometimes
he mentioned these charges as if he really believed them,
sometimes as if he comprehended that they were the
inventions of political foes aided by the sensational
press of the time and by the gossip of sundry untrust
worthy colored people in and about Charlottes
ville. The whole matter is discussed in a Note on
page 510 of the volume of this edition of Parker's
Works, entitled the American Scholar.
Page 196, note 10. This is the high praise for so
astute and keen a politician as Jefferson but it appears
to be on the whole justly bestowed. It is aU the more
to Jefferson's credit because few politicians have ever
been so violently and persistently maligned. Jefferson
was sometimes bitter in the language of his replies as
when he called the great Judge Marshall " an un
principled and impudent Federal buU-dog," but as a
rule he was tolerant and magnanimous.
Page 196, note 11. After he became President, by
the first national vessel that carried despatches to
France, Jefferson wrote to Paine inviting him to accept
a free passage to America in the ship. This kindly
act brought upon him the fierce condemnation of the
Orthodox Christians to whom Paine was an " infidel and
blasphemer." Page 196, note 12. The Mazzei letter was written

NOTES 429
April 24, 1796 to an old neighbor in Virginia, the Ital
ian Mazzei, then in Europe. How it came to be pub
lished no one knows. It roused great indignation
among the Federalists and the admirers of Washing
ton. There was nothing to be said and Jefferson wisely
refrained from attempts at explanation. The letter
is printed in Morse's Jefferson, p. 183.
Parker found the story of the letter in Hildreth's
History of the United States, V., 55, and in Randall's
Jefferson, III., 609, and he added the note:
" Jefferson's expression in the Mazzei letter, of
' Samsons in the field and Solomons in council,' must
have referred to Washington. At the time of publica
tion Jefferson wrote Madison, August 3, that he could
not avow the Mazzei letter ' Without a personal dif
ference between General Washington and myself, which
nothing before the pubhcation of this letter has ever
done. It would embroil me also with all those with
whom his character is still popular : that is to say, with
nine-tenths of the people of the United States.' "
Page 200, note 13. This statement of faith can be
found in Jefferson's Works IV., 479.
Page 201, note 14- This quotation is from Ran
dall's Life of Jefferson III., 561.
Page 202, note 15. This anecdote Parker found in
RandaU's Jefferson III., 345.

V
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS
John Quincy Adams died in Washington on Feb
ruary 23, 1848. Ten days afterwards, on Sunday,
March 5th, Mr. Parker preached at the Melodeon in
Boston the discourse here printed. The sermon was
written almost at a single sitting though " it had been
years in preparation." The career of the staunch

430 HISTORIC AMERICANS
old anti-slavery hero was a theme much to Parker's
liking and his characterizations are searching, vivid
and just.
Page 211, note 1. This is one of the earhest occa
sions of Parker's use of the famous description of de
mocracy later adopted by Abraham Lincoln in the
Gettysburg Address. The phrase was frequently re
peated in Parker's sermons, speeches and prayers,
though it never assumed the exact and final form given
to it by Lincoln. Lincoln's indebtedness to Parker has
been clearly traced. Mr. Herndon, Lincoln's law part
ner, came to Boston after the Douglas-Lincoln de
bate and saw Parker and other anti-slavery leaders and
discussed with them Lincoln's political prospects. He
took back with him to Springfield printed copies of
some of Parker's sermons and addresses and gave them
to Lincoln. In one of these pamphlets, in the lecture
on " The Effect of Slavery on the American People "
Lincoln marked with a pencil the familiar phrase and
afterwards embodied it, in his own simple and majestic
formula, in the Gettysburg Address.
Page 214, note 2. The three northern, single term,
Presidents were John Adams, John Quincy Adams, and
Martin Van Buren. The five southern, two term,
Presidents were Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Mon
roe and Jackson.
Page 221, note 3. This feeling on Adams's part is
emphasized in his address at Washington on July 4,
1821, to which Parker refers in a note on his manu
script. Page 221, note 4- For his authority Parker re
ferred in a note to Adams's speech in the House of
Representatives May 8th-9th, 1840, and adds a com
ment which illustrates the extraordinary breadth and
variety of his reading. " It is a little remarkable," he
says, " that the false principle of the common law, on
which Mr. Adams was commenting, as laid down by

NOTES 431
Blackstone, is corrected by a writer, Mr. Pothier, who
rests on the civil law for his authority."
Page 222, note 5. This "juvenile essay" was
Adams's answer to Paine's Rights of Man, first printed
in the Columbian Centinel and in 1793 pubhshed as a
pamphlet in London.
Page 222, note 6. The " Gag law " was passed in
1836 to stop the flood of anti-slavery petitions pre
sented by Mr. Adams. It was the result of much dis
cussion among the southern leaders and was moved in
the House by Mr. Atherton of New Hampshire. It
provided that, " all petitions, memorials, resolutions,
or papers relating in any way, or to any extent what
soever, to the subject of slavery or the abolition of
slavery, shall, without being either printed or referred,
be laid upon the table, and that no further action what
ever shall be had thereon."
This action, says Mr. Rhodes (History of the United
States I., 70) was for the Southern leaders "the be
ginning of the madness that the gods send upon men
whom they wish to destroy ; for instead of making the
fight on the merits of the question, they shifted the
ground. They put Adams in a position where his ef
forts in the anti-slavery cause were completely over
shadowed by his contest for the right of petition."
Page 223, note 7. These views are set forth in Mr.
Adams's oration at Quincy in 1831.
Page 227, note 8. There may weU be differences of
opinion about the wisdom of Mr. Adams in voting
for the Embargo, but about his absolute honesty of
purpose and courage of conviction there can be no
doubt whatever. The charge that he was influenced in
his vote by desire for place cannot be believed.
Mr. Adams was never a party man, but preeminently
a patriotic citizen of the whole United States. In
voting for the Embargo he knew that he was antagoniz
ing all his friends and neighbors and voting against

432 HISTORIC AMERICANS
the interest of the State which had sent him to the Sen
ate. His biographer is justified in saying (Morse's
John Quincy Adams, p. 64) that " so far from these
acts being a yielding to selfish and calculating tempta
tion, they called for great courage and strength of
mind. . . . Mr. Adams was not so dull as to un
derrate, nor so void of good feeling as to be careless
of, the storm of obloquy which he had to encounter, not
only in such shape as is customary in Hke instances
of a change of sides in politics, but, in his present case,
of a peculiarly painful kind. He was to seem unfaith
ful, not only to a party, but to the bitter feud of a
father whom he dearly loved and greatly respected ; he
was to be reviled by the neighbors and friends who con
stituted his natural social circle in Boston; he was to
alienate himself from the rich, the cultivated, the in
fluential gentlemen of his neighborhood, his comrades,
who would almost universally condemn his conduct.
He was to lose his position as Senator, and probably to
destroy aU hopes of further political success so far as
it depended upon the good will of the people of his own
State. In this he was at least giving up a certainty in
exchange for what even his enemies must admit to have
been only an expectation. . . . Mr. Adams's diary
shows unmistakably that he was acting rigidly upon
principle, that he believed himself to be injuring or
even destroying his political prospects, and that in so
doing he taxed his moral courage severely."
Page 227, note 9. In the original pamphlet edition
of this sermon Parker gave as references for this view,
Pickering's letter to Governor SuUivan on the Em
bargo, Boston, 1808. John Quincy Adams's Letter
to the Hon. H. G. Otis, etc., Boston, 1808. Picker
ing's Interesting Correspondence, 1808. Review of the
Correspondence between the Hon. John Adams and the
late William Cunningham, etc., 1824. But see, also,
Mr. Adams's "Appendix" to the above letter, pub-

NOTES 433
lished sixteen years after the vote on the Embargo.
Baltimore, 1824, and Mr. Pickering's Brief Remarks
on the Appendix. August, 1824.
Page 227, note 10. Reference is here made to the
British Orders in Council of November 22, 1807.
They were not officially made known to the American
Congress till February 7, 1808. They were, how
ever, published in the National Intelligencer, on the
morning on which the President's message was sent to
the Senate, December 18, 1807, but were not men
tioned in the message nor in the debate.
Page 227, note 11. Parker was indeed treading on
difficult ground when he thus defended Mr. Adams in
Boston. The wrath of Massachusetts when her Sen
ator gave his vote for the Embargo was deep and last
ing. Forty years of honorable service had not suf
ficed to still that indignation. As Parker spoke there
were still many people in Boston who felt and believed
that John Quincy Adams was the embodiment of all
that is base and treacherous. It was these " awful
shades " that Parker hesitated to disquiet.
Page 228, note 12. Parker made a note here as
f oUows : " I copy this from the first letter of Mr.
Pickering. Mr. Adams wrote a letter (to H. G. Otis)
in reply to this of Mr. Pickering, but said nothing re
specting the words charged upon him ; but in 1824, in
an Appendix to that letter, he denies that he expressed
the ' sentiment ' which Mr. Pickering charged him with.
But he does not deny the words themselves. They rest
on the authority of Mr. Pickering, his colleague in the
Senate, a strong party man, it is true, perhaps not
much disposed to conciliation, but a man of most un
questionable veracity. The ' sentiment ' speaks for it
self." Page 230, note 13. See Adams's Remarks in the
House of Representatives, January 5, 1846.
Page 230, note 14- This quotation is from the Cor-
VI— 28

434 HISTORIC AMERICANS
respondence between the Hon. John Adams and the late
William Cunningham, Esq., Boston, 1823. Letter
XLIIL, p. 150.
Page 230, note 15. John Smith, Senator from
Ohio, was a personal friend of Aaron Burr, and was sus
pected of being implicated in his conspiracy. On No
vember 27, 1807, the Senate appointed a committee to
investigate his case, of which- committee Mr. Adams, to
his great regret was chairnjan. After many weeks of
inquiry a report was made favoring Smith's expul
sion. The resolution to expel failed, however, by one
vote, Mr. Adams voting for it. Feeling tiiis weight of
sentiment against him, Mr. Smith shortly afterward
resigned. Mr. Adams later in Hfe referring to this
session in his diary wrote, " I find little to censure in
what I did, nothing in what I intended." See Memoir
of John Quincy Adams, vol. I., p. 482 and vol. VIII.,
p. 121
Page 231, note 16. This was the President's Mes
sage of March 15, 1826.
.Page 232, note 17. See Mr. Adams's message, De
cember 2, 1828. The exact sum was $1,197,422.18.
Page 232, note 18. Parker here made note of his
references as follows: See Mr. Clay's Letter to Mr.
A. H. Everett, April 27, 1825; to Mr. Middleton,
respecting the intervention of the Emperor of Russia,
May 10, and December 26, 1825; to Mr. GaUatin,
May 10, and June 19, 1826, and February 24,
1827. Executive Documents, Second Session of the
20th Congress, vol. I.
Page 233, note 19. Parker quoted these sentences
from the Report of Mr. Adams's lecture on the Chinese
War, in the Boston Atlas, for December 4 and 5, 1841.
Page 234, note 20. These views are to be found in
Mr. Adams's Speech on Oregon, delivered on February
9, 1846.
Page 235, note 21. This quotation is from Mr.

NOTES 435
Adams's Address on breaking ground for the Chesa
peake and Ohio Canal, July 4, 1828.
Page 241, note 22. See his defense of this in his
Address to his Constituents at Braintree, September
17, 1842.
Page 245, note 23. Parker here made the follow
ing note in the pamphlet edition of the sermon : " In
a public address, Mr. Adams once quoted the well-
known words of Tacitus (Annals VI., 39), Par negotiis
neque supra — applying them to a distinguished man
lately deceased. A lady wrote to inquire whence they
came. Mr. Adams informed her, and added, they
could not be adequately translated in less than seven
words in English. The lady replied that they might
be well translated in five — "Equal to, not above, duty ;
but better in three — John Quincy Adams."
Page 251, note 24- This President was Mr. Van
Buren. Page 252, note 25. Parker here made note of the
foUowing references': " See the Debates of the House
January 23, and following, 1837 ; or Mr. Adams's
own account of the matter in his Letters to his Constit
uents, etc. (Boston, 1837.) See, too, his Series of
Speeches on the Right of Petition and the Annexation
of Texas, January 14 and following, 1838. (Printed
in a pamphlet. Washington, 1838.)"
Page 257, note 26. At a meeting in Faneuil Hall,
September 24, 1846, resolutions were adopted express
ing the pubHc indignation at " this recent kidnapping
and abduction of a negro man who had escaped from
his master at New Orleans and landed in the neighbor
hood of Boston. He was pursued, captured, and
shipped off for New Orleans by the captain of the
vessel in which he had made his escape unknown to
the captain. But for retaking him the captain had no
authority from the owner of the negro." Memoir of
John Quincy Adams, vol. XII., p. 273. Parker, Sum-

436 HISTORIC AMERICANS
ner, PhiUips, C. F. Adams and S. G. Howe were among
the speakers at this meeting. VI
DANIEL WEBSTER
This discourse was preached at the Melodeon on
Sunday morning, October 31, 1852, just a week after
Mr. Webster's death. The memorable funeral services
had been held at Marshfield on Friday; the signs of
public and private mourning were everywhere displayed
and every pulpit in Boston rang with eulogy. Par
ker's sermon was the one discordant note. It was
printed in the newspapers and as a pamphlet and widely
distributed. The pamphlet contained the foUowing
Introduction :
To the Young Men of America.
Gentlemen : — I address this discourse to you in
particular, and by way of introduction wUl say a few
words. We are a young nation, three and twenty milHons
strong, rapidly extending in our geographic spread,
enlarging rapidly in numerical power, and greatening
our material strength with a swiftness which has no
example. Soon we shall spread over the whole conti
nent, and number a hundred miUion men. America
and England are but parts of the same nation — a
younger and an older branch of the same Anglo-Saxon
stem. Our character will affect that of the mother
country, as her good and evil still influence us. Con
sidering the important place which the Anglo-Saxon
tribe holds in the world at this day — occupying one-
eighth part of the earth, and controlling one-sixth
part of its inhabitants — the national character of
England and America becomes one of the great human
forces which is to control the world for some ages to
come.

NOTES 437
In the American character there are some command
ing and noble quaHties. We have founded some po
Htical and ecclesiastical institutions which seem to me
the proudest achievements of mankind in Church and
State. But there are other qualities in the nation's
character which are mean and selfish ; we have founded
other institutions, or confirmed such as we inherited,
which were the weakness of a former and darker age,
and are the shame of this.
The question comes, which quaHties shall prevail in
the character and in the institutions of America — the
noble, or the mean and selfish? Shall America govern
herself by the eternal laws, as they are discerned
through the conscience of mankind, or by the transient
appetite of the hour — the lust for land, for money, for
power or fame? That is a question for you to settle;
and, as you decide for God or Mammon, so follows
the weal or woe of millions of men. Our best in
stitutions are an experiment: shall it fail? If so, it
wiU be through your fault. You have the power to
make it succeed. We have nothing to fear from any
foreign foe, much to dread from wrong at home: will
you suffer that to work our overthrow ?
The two chief forms of American action are business
and politics — the commercial and the political form.
The two humbler forms of our activity — the Church
and the Press, the ecclesiastic and the literary form —
are subservient to the others. Hence it becomes ex
ceedingly important to study carefully our commercial
and political action, criticising both by the absolute
right; for they control the development of the people,
and determine our character. The commercial and
political forces of the time culminate in the leading
politicians, who represent those forces in their per
sons, and direct the energies of the people to evil or to
good. It is for this reason, young men, that I have spoken

438 HISTORIC AMERICANS
so many times from the pulpit on the great poHtical
questions of the day, and on the great political men;
for this reason did I preach and now again publish,
this discourse on one_of the most eminent Americans
of our day — that men may be warned of the evil in
our business and our State, and be guided to the eternal
justice which is the foundation of the common weal.
There is a higher law of God, written imperishably on
the nature of things, and in the nature of man; and,
if this nation continually violates that law, then we
fall to the ground.
If there be any truth, any justice, in my counsel, I
hope you will be guided thereby; and, in your com
merce and politics, will practise on the truth which
ages confirm, that righteousness exalted a nation, while
injustice is a reproach to any people."
The discourse was reprinted many times. It was in
cluded in Parker's Works and in Miss Cobbe's Edition,
vol. XII., p. 10. The final edition in pamphlet form
carried the foUowing preface, dated, with ominous sig
nificance, March 7, 1853.
" It is now four months since the delivery of this ser
mon. A phonographic report of it was pubHshed the
next morning, and quite extensively circulated in all
parts of the country. Since then, I have taken pains
to examine anew the Hfe and actions of the distin
guished man who is the theme of the discourse. I have
carefully read all the criticisms on my estimate of him,
which came to hand; I have diligently read the most
important sermons and other discourses which treat of
him, and have conversed anew with persons who have
known Mr. Webster at all the various periods of his
Hfe. The result is embodied in the following pages.
" My estimate of Mr. Webster differs from that which
seems to prevail just now in Church and State ; differs
widely ; differs profoundly. I did not suppose that

NOTES 439
m7 judgment upon him would pass unchallenged. I
have not been surprised at the swift condemnation
which many men have pronounced upon this sermon ¦ —
upon the statements therein, and the motives thereto.
I should be sorry to find that Americans valued a great
man so little as to have nothing to say in defense of
one so long and so conspicuously before the public.
The violence and rage directed against me is not as
tonishing; it is not even new. I am not vain enough
to fancy that I have never been mistaken in a fact of
Mr. Webster's history, or in my judgment pronounced
on any of his actions, words or motives. I can only
say I have done what I could. If I have committed
any errors, I hope they will be pointed out. Fifty
years hence the character of Mr. Webster and his emi
nent contemporaries will be better understood than
now : for we have not yet all the evidence on which the
final judgment of posterity will rest. Thomas Hutch
inson and John Adams are better known now than at
the day of their death: five and twenty years hence
they wiU both be better known than at present."
This sermon has a greater fame than any of Par
ker's published discourses. As an account of the
character and career of Webster it is untrustworthy,
but it is one of the most remarkable examples of con
demnatory eloquence in aU Hterature. Parker did not
Hve to see the events which would have led him to alter
his harsh judgment. His colleagues in the anti-
slavery battles came to have a very different estimate
of Webster as the permanent element in his work ap
peared and the tumult of angry debate died away.
Whittier made noble reparation for " Ichabod " in the
" Lost Occasion " and the anti-slavery leaders in Con
gress who had fought and denounced the compromises
of 1850 were ready ten years later to make much larger
concessions to the South than Webster had ever fa-

440 HISTORIC AMERICANS
vored. Parker himself wrote to Mr. Herndon in 1858
" Daniel Webster stood on higher anti-slavery ground
than Abraham Lincoln now."
The contemporary estimate of Parker's sermon was
pronounced by Mr. Everett (Works III., 409).
" The most difficult problem in practical science is
to construct a lens which wiU not distort the body it
reflects — The motives and conduct, the principles and
the characters of men buried deep in the heart are not
less likely to be mistaken than the lines and angles of
material bodies. The uncharitableness of individuals
and parties will sometimes confound a defect in the
glass with a blemish in the object. A fly hatched from
a maggot in our brain creeps into the tube and
straightway we proclaim that there is a monster in the
heavens which threatens to devour the sun."
The modern estimate of Parker's sermon has been
summed up in the deliberate judgment of one of the
most impartial of American historians (Rhode's His
tory of the United States, vol. I., pp. 288, 290).
" The preacher appeared to want the good which
Webster did interred with his bones and the evil to live
after him. The current gossip of Boston and the
pungent tales of Washington correspondents were crys
tallized into a serious utterance and given the stamp
of a scholar. Apparently Parker had misgivings
about his facts, for a few months later we find him
writing Sumner and Giddings in the endeavor to get
evidence concerning Webster's recreancy to the anti-
slavery cause and acceptance of money gifts. A teacher
of young men, for it was to them that this discourse
was addressed, should have made sure of his facts be
fore he gave vent to such vituperative and vindictive
words 
Parker spoke every Sunday to two or three thousand
people in the Melodeon or the Music Hall, and exer
cised great influence. His sermon on Webster moulded

NOTES 441
many opinions. Of all indictments it is the most
severe. It would, indeed, be deplorable if it presented
the true character of the man who had received so
much honor from his countrymen, and it is gratifying
that fewer men now believe the charges than when the
sermon was delivered; that instead of acknowledging
' its analytical justice, its fidelity,' it is regarded as
the raving of an honest fanatic."
The final judgment upon Webster is not the con
temporary view of either friend or foe but such a
sound conclusion as that of Senator Hoar.
" His place in history is that of a public teacher
guiding the thought and inspiring the emotions of his
countrymen when the issues on which hung the fate
of the republic were being determined. The republic
is founded upon ideas. When those ideas lose their
power over the minds and hearts of the people, the re
public wiU come to an end. It is the fortune of Daniel
Webster, as of no other man except Jefferson, that the
great ideas which He at the foundation of the republic
clothe themselves to every man's understanding in his
language, and rest for their sanction and vindication
upon his argument."
It has seemed best to print in these notes certain tes
timonies of recent writers whose point of view is more
judicial than was possible in the stress and conflict of
Mr. Parker's day and generation.
Page 268, note 1. These references are presuma
bly to Kossuth and Mazzini.
Page 277, note 2. The pathos in these allusions is
in the fact that Parker was himself a childless man.
It was the greatest disappointment of his Hfe that he
had no children to call his own.
Page 277, note 3. The reference is to the Adams
family, a stock which continues to bear good fruit.
Page 282, note 4' Rev- Stephen Bachiler arrived
in Boston June 5, 1632. He was then seventy-one

442 HISTORIC AMERICANS
years of age. With him were his family and six other
persons, and of these he constituted a church in Lynn
(then Saugus). He soon found himself in opposition
to the dominant authorities of the colony on account
of certain notions about the relation of Church and
State. His life became " one constant scene of turbu
lence, disappointment and accusation." Forbidden to
preach in Massachusetts he removed to New Hamp
shire, and became the founder of the town of Hampton.
He afterwards lived in Exeter and Portsmouth. At
the age of eighty-one he married his third wife and
was fined ten pounds for not publishing the marriage
according to law. Soon afterward he returned to Eng
land and is said to have died at Hackney in 1660 in the
one hundredth year of his age. He was a man of un
usual physical and intellectual vigor. From tradition
we gather that he was tall and sinewy, with black hair,
strong features, and the dark, deep-set eyes so charac
teristic of Webster. He was a powerful preacher and
a man obstinate and tenacious in his opinions. One
proof of his striking character is the fact that many
of his descendants attribute their abilities to him.
Among his distinguished descendants were John Green-
leaf Whittier, William Pitt Fessenden, Caleb Cushing,
and Daniel Webster.
Page 285, note 5. Webster had not " a few
months," but a year at Exeter under the guidance of
that remarkable teacher, Dr. Benjamin Abbot. At the
commemoration of Mr. Abbot's fiftieth anniversary as
Preceptor of the Academy, he sat between Mr. Web
ster and Mr. Everett, both of them his former pupils.
Hon. John P. Hale, in his speech said, " If you had
done nothing else but instruct these two, you might
say, Exegi monumentum sere perennius."
Page 287, note 6. The statement that young Web
ster " scorned his degree " from Dartmouth and " tore
his diploma in pieces " is unverifiable. No such oc-

NOTES 443
currence is mentioned in any biography of Webster.
Webster was afterwards devoted to his College and ren
dered it unstinted and distinguished service.
Page 290, note 7. It is but a partial sketch of
Webster that omits adequate mention of his remarka
ble talents and extraordinary success as a practicing
lawyer. Parker was not so much concerned to give an
accurate account of Webster's career as to make that
career serve the purpose of an anti-slavery appeal.
The facts of Webster's Hfe which did not serve that
immediate end were therefore dismissed with slight
mention. Parker's method may be rhetorically de
fensible. The point he wished to make received its em
phasis but at the cost of injustice to Mr. Webster.
For a good brief account of Webster's legal gifts and
services see Hon. S. M. McCall's Daniel Webster, pp.
18-44. Page 291, note 8. Webster undoubtedly consulted
his friend Judge Story in many difficult cases and es
pecially concerning the principles involved in the Ash-
burton Treaty, but he reached his own conclusions in
his own way. No biographer of Judge Story ever
claimed that he was the " Jupiter Pluvius " who filled
Mr. Webster's mind or that he had more influence with
Mr. Webster than many another trusted friend and
admirer. Page 291, note 9. It was Mr. Webster's own gen
erosity that enabled his critic to make this thrust, for
Webster, in his Dartmouth College Speech, gave credit
for all his knowledge and the better part of his argu
ment to his colleagues Jeremiah Mason and Jeremiah
Smith who had, with Webster, argued the case
in the New Hampshire Court. This was, however, a
piece of undue generosity. The triumph of Webster
in this case was a triumph of personality. Mason and
Smith were able and learned lawyers and Webster had
the benefit of their briefs in addition to his own, but

444 HISTORIC AMERICANS
the unparalleled eloquence of the advocate was the de
termining element in this celebrated case.
Page 296, note 10. Mr. Parker here made a foot
note in the original pamphlet edition of this sermon,
stating that the " distinguished jurist " was Judge
Story. There is no mention of any such occurrence
as that described by Parker in the two-volume biogra
phy of Judge Story by his son or in any other Hfe
of Story, though such violent expressions of party
feeling certainly did occur.
Page 297, note 11. The statement that Massachu
setts had at this time one thousand black seamen is un
doubtedly an exaggeration.
Page 297, note 12. This quotation is from the
Columbian Centinel for July 25, 1812.
Page 299, note 13. Brentwood is a smaU New
Hampshire town some twenty miles from Portsmouth.
The Brentwood Convention was a great meeting of
all " who loved the memory of Washington " held in
the August of 1812 to protest against the acts of the
Government which were destroying the commerce of
New England. Webster spoke at the Convention and
was put on the Committee to frame resolutions expres
sive of the sense of the meeting. His report, often
called the " Rockingham Memorial," is practically an
oration addressed to President Madison, and is the first
of Webster's important state papers. For an ade
quate account of the Brentwood meeting and Web
ster's part in it see Prof. McMaster's Daniel Webster,
pp. 63-67. Parker here made note " I purposely pass
over other political writing and speech of his."
Page 300, note 14. Hon. Timothy Pickering of
Salem was the leader of the Federalist party in Con
gress at this time and could always be depended upon
to cast a straight party vote.
Page 300, note 15. See Webster's speech in the
House of Representatives Jan. 2, 1815.

NOTES 445
Page 300, note 16. See Webster's speech on the
Army Bill delivered in the House of Representatives
Jan. 14, 1814.
Page 300, note 17. This prophecy of Webster's
future greatness is found in the writings of Judge
Story. Page 300, note 18. This quotation is from the New
Hampshire Patriot of July 27, 1813.
Page 301, note 19. Parker was careful in repro
ducing these venomous libels to give in foot-notes in
the pamphlet edition of this sermon the references to
the files of the New Hampshire Patriot. The quo
tations in order are from the issues of August 27,
1814, Oct. 4, 1814, Aug. 2, 1814, Aug. 9, 1814, Oct.
29, 1812, Oct. 13, 1812, and March 30, 1813, quoted
from the Baltimore Patriot.
Page 302, note 20. This quotation from Henry
Clay is taken from his speech delivered in the House
of Representatives on Jan. 8, 1813.
Page 303, note 21. This quotation is from the
New Hampshire Patriot for June 7, 1814.
Page 303, note 22. For his authority for this state
ment Parker refers to the Farmer's Monthly Visi
tor, vol. XII., p. 198, Manchester, N. H., 1832. This
reference indicates Parker's readiness to take up and
accept any gossip adverse to Mr. Webster. There is
apparently no foundation for the story that Webster
sought the office of Attorney General of New Hamp
shire. Page 303, note 23. This statement occurs in Web
ster's Speech in the House of Representatives, Feb. 29,
1816. (National InteUigencer for March 2, 1816.)
See also Webster's Works, vol. III., p. 35.
Page 303, note 24. This bill passed the House of
Representatives on April 26, 1816. Yeas 79; Nays,
35. See Lodge's Daniel Webster, pp. 66, 67.
Page 305, note 25. This is quoted from an " Ac-

446 HISTORIC AMERICANS
count of a Meeting at the State House in Boston, Dec.
3, 1819, to consider the Extension of Slavery by the
United States." (Boston Daily Advertiser for Dec.
4, 1819.)
Page 305, note 26. The paper was published under
the title, A Memorial to the Congress of the United
States, on the Subject of Restraining the Increase of
Slavery in the New States to be admitted into the
Union, etc., etc., Boston, 1819, p. 22.
Page 305, note 27. " L.M." in Columbian Cen
tinel for Dec. 8, 1819.
Page 306, note 28. Boston Daily Advertiser
for Nov. 20, 1819.
Page 306, note 29. Boston DaUy Advertiser
for Mar. 16, 1820.
Page 308, note 30. Meetings had been held in
Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and other important
towns, and considerable sums of money raised on be
half of the Greeks. See the letters of John Q. Adams
to Mr. Rich and Mr. Luriottis, Dec. 18, 1823 ; and of
John Adams, Dec. 29, 1823. Parker notes that Mr.
Randolph in his speech in the House of Representa
tives, Jan. 20, 1824, tartly asked, " Why have we never
sent an envoy to our sister republic Hayti ? "
Page 309, note 31. Parker here made a foot-note
in his manuscript, " See the just and beautiful re
marks of Mr. Webster in this speech." Works, vol.
III., pp. 77, 78, 92 and 93. " 0 si sic semper! "
Page 309, note 32. This quotation is from Clay's
Speech in the House of Representatives, Apr. 26, 1820.
Page 309, note 33. Mr. Webster's speeches on the
tariff in 1824 and 1828 can be found in his Works, vol.
III., pp. 94 and 228, and his subsequent speeches
thereon in 1837 and 1846 in his Works, vol. IV., p.
304 and vol. V., p. 361, vol. II., p. 130, and 349, et
seq. As illustrating his change of view, compare vol.
III., pp. 118, and 124, with vol. II., p. 137. Web-

NOTES 447
ster's reasons for the change of opinion can be found
in vol.' V., pp. 186 and 240. " All of these speeches,"
said Parker, " are marked by great ability of state
ment." Mr. Webster's apparent inconsistency about the
tariff is rightly explained by Parker. While a mem
ber of the House of Representatives, in company with
almost all the New England members, he opposed the
policy of artificially promoting manufacturing. That
policy was however adopted. New England deter
mined to profit by it. The enterprise, industry and
thrift formerly expended chiefly in commerce turned
to manufacturing. When Webster entered the Senate
the situation had completely changed. New England
was a manufacturing center and its representatives had
naturaUy become upholders of the protective tariff
which they had formerly opposed. For an adequate
discussion, see Lodge's Daniel Webster, pp. 155-171.
Page 310, note 34- In justification of this aUusion
Parker made note, " Compare his speech in Faneuil
HaU, Sept. 30, 1842, with his tariff speeches in 1846.
Works, vol. II., p. 130, with vol. V., p. 161, and vol.
II., p. 349."
Page 311, note 35. See Mr. Calhoun's Disquisi
tion on Government, and his Discourse on the Con
stitution and Government of the United States in his
Works, vol. 1 (Charleston, 1851): Life and Speeches
(New York, 1843) No. 3-6- See too, Life and Speeches,
No. 9, 19, 22. It should be remembered that Parker
was himself a " States Rights " man, and theoretically
more in sympathy with the views of Calhoun than with
those of Webster. For modern descriptions of the
Reply to Hayne see McMaster's Webster, pp. 146-
181, Lodge's Webster, 172-204, McCaU's Webster,
57-68. Page 311, note 36. Parker here made a foot-note
in the pamphlet edition of this discourse, " A more

448 HISTORIC AMERICANS
thorough acquaintance with the character and con
duct of Mr. Calhoun makes it doubtful to me that he
deserves this threefold praise."
Page 313, note 37. The brig Creole was on a voy
age from Virginia to New Orleans with a load of slaves,
when the negroes rose, killed one man, and took pos
session of the vessel and carried her into the British
West Indian port of Nassau where assistance was re
fused to the crew, and where the slaves, save a few held
for murder, were allowed to go free. This was an act
of very doubtful legality. It touched both England
and the Southern States in a very sensitive point, and
it required all Mr. Webster's tact and judgment to
keep it out of the negotiation of the treaty with Great
Britain until the main issues had been settled.
Page 316, note 38. For his facts and authorities in
this discussion Parker in a note, referred to the Treaty
of Peace, etc., 1783. Public Statutes of the United
States of America (Boston, 1846), vol. 8, p. 80.
Treaty of Amity, Commerce, and Navigation, etc.
1794, ibid. p. 116. Treaty of Peace and Amity, 1814,
ibid. p. 218. — Act of Twentieth Congress, stat. 1,
chap. 30, ibid. vol. 4, p. 262. Act of Twenty-sixth
Congress, stat. 1, chap. 3, ibid. vol. 5, p. 402: and
stat. 2, chap. 2, p. 413. — III. Statement on the part
of the United States, of the Case referred in pursuance
of the Convention of 29th of Sept., 1827, between
the said States and Great Britain, to his Majesty, the
King of the Netherlands, for his decision thereon
(Washington, 1829). North American Boundary,
A.: Correspondence relating to the Boundary, etc.,
etc., (London, 1838). North American Boundary,
part I. : Correspondence relating to the Boundary, etc.
(London, 1840). The Right of the United States of
America to the northeastern Boundary claimed by
them, etc. etc., by Albert Gallatin, etc. (New York,
1840.) Documents of the Senate of Massachusetts,

NOTES 449
1839, No. 45 : 1841, No. 9. Documents of the House
of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Massachu
setts, 1842, No. 44. — IV. Congressional Globe, etc.
(Washington, 1843), vol. XII., and Appendix. See
also Mr. Webster's Defense of the Treaty : Works, vol.
V., p. 18.
Page 316, note 39. Parker here made note as fol
lows, " The time has not yet come when the pubHc can
completely understand this negotiation, and I pass
over some things which it is not now prudent to re
late." It is impossible to discover what Parker meant
by this comment. There was nothing secret about
the treaty and Parker was certainly not used to re
straining speech because of something " not now pru
dent to relate." The negotiations and Mr. Webster's
transcendent services in connection with them, are de
scribed in McCaU's Webster, pp. 95—99, Lodge's Web
ster, 246-256, McMaster's Webster, 263-275.
Page 317, note 4@- Reported in the Columbian
Centinel for Dec. 8, 1819, but not contained in the
edition of Webster's Works. Webster's instructions
to Everett when editing the Works were " I wish to- per
petuate no feuds. ... I should prefer not to
leave a word that would give unnecessary pain to any
honest man however opposed to me."
Page 317, note 41- Memorial to Congress, also
omitted in the Works.
Page 321, note 4®- The quotations of Webster's
anti-slavery views were taken by Parker from Web
ster's Works, vol. 1, p. 45, vol. 3, p. 279, also p. 263,
vol. 1, p. 356, 357, vol. 1, p. 270, vol. 2, p. 93, vol.
2, p. 552.
This quotation is from the Congressional Globe,
Mar. 1847, p. 555.
Page 321, note 4&- This is a sentence from Web
ster's address at the Convention at Springfield, Sept.
10, 1847, reported in Boston Daily Advertiser.
VI— 29

450 HISTORIC AMERICANS
Page 327, note 44- The speeches referred to had
not, when Parker wrote, all been collected in the Works.
He read them in a collection of Webster's Speeches
at Buffalo, Syracuse, and Albany, May, 1851.
Page 329, note 45. This is from the Speech at the
Revere House, April 29, 1850.
Page 329, note 46. Speech at Faneuil Hall, Sept.
23, 1846, reported in the Daily Advertiser, Sept.
24. Page 329, note 47. Speech at New York, May 12,
1851, printed in Boston Atlas of May 14.
Page 330, note 4&- This reference is to Lord
Strafford. Page 333, note 49. The events of 1861 proved that
Webster and not Parker was correct in his estimate of
the reality of the Southern threats of secession. Par
ker believed that the utterances of the Southern leaders
were mere " bluster " and that " there was not a cat's-
paw in the sky." Webster was in much closer contact
with Southern opinion and realized that the danger of
disunion was imminent, that the Southerners meant
what they said and that the maintenance of the Union
was the only thing to be thought of at such a crisis.
Webster's defenders have always held that in 1850 the
choice was simply between secession and compromise,
and that the Compromise Acts, while they did not pre
vent ultimate secession, delayed it for ten years and
enabled the Free States to gather the strength of pur
pose and unity of sentiment that enabled them to carry
the Civil War to a successful issue. It is not impossi
ble to believe that had Webster " on the 7th of March
shown any less anxiety for the Union, had that great
centripetal force become centrifugal or weakened in
the attraction which it exerted to hold the States in
their orbits, who shall say that our magnificent and now
united domain might not be covered by two hostile
flags, one of which would float over a republic founded
upon slavery." (McCall's Webster, 3.)

NOTES 451
Webster's conviction of the supreme necessity of
saving the Union was bound up with his other con
viction that thereby human freedom would in the end
best be worked out; and though he may have been
mistaken as to the means by which human freedom
was to be advanced, yet in the end his words and his
work became the drumbeat of the nation. " Because
he spoke the sentences which, far above aU others, be
came the watchwords of the North in this struggle for
national integrity, his fame is high and sure in the
story of America, not only as her greatest master of
an eloquence which Hghted up the deepest truths in
her Constitution, but as the one of her sons whose
powerful statement of this nation's faith did most in
time of peril to insure the nation's Hfe." (Hap-
good's Daniel Webster, 114.)
Page 333, note 50. The statement that Webster's
Seventh of March Speech was dictated by his desire
for the presidency cannot be proved or disproved.
Men's motives are so complex that in such a case it is
impossible to reach a clear and correct analysis. The
inference that a desire for the presidency is a base and
selfish motive should not however pass unchallenged.
It wiU be an unhappy day for America when the lead
ing statesmen of any period or party cannot and do
not look to the presidency as a legitimate ambition and
as the crown of a serviceable and honorable political
career. The following quotations from two recent bi
ographers of Webster state the facts accurately and
impartiaUy. " There have been many theories as to the motives
which led Mr. Webster to make the 7th of March
speech. In the heat of contemporary strife his ene
mies set it down as a mere bid to secure Southern sup
port for the presidency, but this is a harsh and narrow
view. The longing for the presidency undoubtedly
had a weakening effect upon him in the winter of

452 HISTORIC AMERICANS
1850, and had some influence upon the speech of the
7th of March. But it is unjust to say that it did
more. It certainly was far removed from being a
controlling motive. His friends, on the other hand,
declared that he was governed solely by the highest
and most disinterested patriotism, by the truest wis
dom. This explanation, like that of his foes, fails
by going too far and being too simple. His motives
were mixed. His chief desire was to preserve and
maintain the Union." (Lodge's Webster, 330.)
" It was said, and has been so often repeated that it
is accepted in some quarters as an article of political
faith, that Webster made his speech as a bid for the
presidency. But on that point it is pertinent to re
member that he threw away his fairest chance for the
presidency by patriotically refusing, at the dictates of
his own party in his own State and of its leaders in the
country, to retire from Tyler's cabinet until our dif
ferences with Great Britain should be composed; that
he had many times resigned or refused to accept im
portant public office; that the great position of Sena
tor from Massachusetts had more than once to be forced
upon him, and that, before the 7th of March at least,
he had fully lived up to his own impressive declaration
that solicitations for high public office were ' incon
sistent with personal dignity and derogatory to the
character of the institutions of the country.' Solici
tude for the Union was no new thing with him, that
an ignoble motive should be ascribed. But it was not
the first time, as it doubtless will not be the last, when
those having in view the accomphshment of some great
public object, to the exclusion of everything else, have
imputed evil motives to those who have not sanctioned
their particular course of procedure." (McCall's
Webster, 104.)
Page 334, note 51. This quotation is from Web
ster's speech in the Massachusetts Convention, Dec.
5, 1820.

NOTES 453
Page 336, note 52. These quotations are taken
from Webster's speeches at Syracuse and Capon
Springs. Page 343, note 53. The discrepancies in Parker's
description of Webster's physical condition in the
months that followed the speech of the 7th of March
again reveal the fact that this discourse is not to be
taken as an impartial study of a great man's character
and career. Parker was not afraid of inconsistency, if
by it he could emphasize a point in his attack. Now
Webster is described as " the sick old man " with
" feeble Hmbs and trembling voice," and again, re
ferring to the same period, he is described as " Hercu
lean " and wearing " the visage of a tyrant." He be
comes by turns " shattered by sickness " and the titanic
upholder of all the diabolic institutions of the times.
The description changes, that is, according as the ac
cuser proposes to denounce Webster as an oppressor
or as a sycophant.
Page 344> note 54- Reported in the Columbian
Centinel, Mar. 11, 1820.
Page 347, note 55. " I am told," wrote Parker in
a foot-note, " that there was some technical reason why
that court continued its session. I know nothing of
the notice: but I believe it was the fact that the only
court in the United States which did not adj ourn at the
intelligence of the death of Mr. Webster, was the
court which was seeking to punish a man for rescuing
Shadrach from the fiery furnace prepared for him."
Page 351, note 56. Starr King said of Webster's
religion, " Mr. Webster was not the partisan of any
intricate and narrow theological theories. The broad,
plain, primary truths of religion were sufficient for his
reverence and his conscience. I have heard it said
that he disliked the word ' Christianity ' and pre
ferred the simple phrase, ' The Religion of Jesus.'
The spirit of penitence, faith and love, and a reveren-

454 HISTORIC AMERICANS
tial gratitude for the mission of Christ as the channel
of redeeming truth and life to the world — these were
the outlines of his theology : these were the definitions
of Christian character which satisfied his mind. The
report which a friend has made of his last hour as
sures the world that there was nothing in his utterances
of faith and hope of a technical character. No ex
pression escaped him which would mark him as of this
or that theology, or of any church, save the universal
Church of Christ." (Sermon preached Oct. 31,
1852.) Page 353, note 57. The statement that Webster
" had little courage " and " quailed " before the
Southern leaders fails to convince those who remember
the Reply to Hayne, the encounter with Calhoun, and
all the years of strenuous Parliamentary controversy
wherein Webster contended dauntlessly against the
threats and violence of the majority. Webster had
the courage of his convictions not only in the face
of his political opponents, but also under the attacks
of misunderstanding friends. Parker conveniently
failed to remember how in 1842 the popular clamor
in his own party and his own State would have forced
Webster from the Cabinet and how he faced his angry
constituents in Faneuil Hall and again at the Whig
Convention. His words were not those of a coward
or a truckler, but of a statesman conscious of right
motives and of his own integrity.
" I am," he said, " a Httle hard to coax : but as to
being driven, that is out of the question. I chose to
trust my own judgment, and thinking I was at a post
where I was in the service of my country and could
do it good, I stayed there. . . . No man feels
more highly the advantage of the advice of friends than
I do: but on a question so delicate and important as
this I like to choose myself the friends who are to give
me advice: and upon this subject, gentlemen, I shall

NOTES . 455
leave you as enlightened as I found you. I give no
pledge: I make no intimation one way or the other:
and I will be as free, when this day closes, to act as
duty calls, as I was at its dawn."
Page 353, note 58. John Fiske wrote (Essays his
torical and literary, vol. I., p. 406.)
" Mr. Webster was accused of sacrificing his convic
tions and truckhng to the South, in order to obtain
Southern support for the presidency. But a compre
hensive survey of his political career renders such an
interpretation highly improbable. His conduct in re
maining in Mr. Tyler's cabinet was one of the capital
instances of moral courage to be found in American
history; and his habitual independence of party was
not the sort of thing that is wont to characterize timid
seekers after the presidency. That Mr. Webster
strongly wished to be President is not to be denied;
but his mental attitude was the proud one that rather
claimed it as a right than asked it as a favor. It was
hke the f eehng of the soldier whose unexampled services
have earned the right to assume the weightiest respon-
sibihty in the widest field of action. I do not beheve
that Mr. Webster ever sacrificed his convictions to sel
fish or unworthy motives. That he now and then sacri
ficed certain convictions to certain other convictions,
when he felt himself driven to such bitter alternative,
I would freely admit ; but that is a very different thing.
In 1850 he subordinated his feelings about slavery,
just as in 1828 he had subordinated his views on the
tariff, to the paramount necessity of saying the Union."
Page 355, note 59. " It is sometimes said of Web
ster that as a statesman he was not creative and that
no conspicuous legislative acts are identified with his
name; that he was the unrivaled advocate of policies,
but not their originator. It must be remembered that
during the most of his congressional career his party
was in a minority and he had only a limited opportu-

456 HISTORIC AMERICANS
nity to fashion political legislation. He did not, it is
true, pass any considerable portion of his time in draw
ing bills, embodying more or less fanciful theories of
government. But he displayed in a prominent degree
the qualities of statesmanship most loudly called for
by his time. He was highly successful in adapting to
the needs of a nation the provisions of a written consti
tution, by applying to its construction the soundest
principles of government.
His profound sympathy with the genius of our sys
tem, and his true poHtical sense enabled him to display
the most difficult art of statesmanship, the practical ap
plication of theory to the government of a nation/'
(McCall's Webster, 81, 83.)
Page 355, note 60. " It is impossible for an Ameri
can to read the diplomatic correspondence of Webster
while Secretary of State and not feel a new pride in his
country. The absolute absence of anything petty or
meretricious, the simple dignity and the conscious
power, cause one to feel that it ennobled the nation to
have such a defender. It may be said, too, that the
manner in which he conducted the State Department
proved that he possessed the highest qualities of execu
tive statesmanship." (McCaU's Webster, 98.)
Page 356, note 61. It is almost incredible that
Parker should have carried his invective to the ex
treme of this accusation of neglect of duty in a dying
man. Webster had been stricken with mortal disease
and had but a few weeks to live when this omission to
transmit a communication to the Senate is said to have
occurred. Within a few minutes in this very discourse
Parker was to describe Webster three months before
this date as, " the sick old man, you remember the feeble
look, and the sad face and trembling voice."
Page 362, note 62. The statement that Webster
" never had a wide and original influence in the politics
of the nation " is one that Parker could not have

NOTES 457
written after the great events of 1861. Mr. Chad-
wick, Parker's latest biographer, justly says that
" Parker, being theoretically a states-right man, could
not appreciate the value of Webster's great speeches
in the thirties against Hayne and Calhoun on the na
ture of the Union as an indissoluble bond. There came
a time before Parker had been one year dead when those
speeches were as a great sea-wall, against which the doc
trine of secession broke in hopeless rage." (Chad-
wick's Theodore Parker, Note p. 260.)
This judgment is affirmed by all the historians ef
the period. The principles of which Webster was the
foremost champion were those which inspired Abraham
Lincoln and his fellow-workers. It was the sentiment
of Union that banded together the armies of the North.
It was by the triumph of that sentiment and not by the
disruptive schemes of the Abolitionists, that the na
tional government was upheld and the slaves secured
their freedom. Webster was a creative and perma
nent influence in national affairs because he was " the
preeminent champion and exponent of nationality. He
said once, ' there are no Alleghenies in my politics,'
and he spoke the exact truth. . . . He did not in
vent the Union, or discover the doctrine of nationality,
but he found the great fact and the great principle
ready to his hand, and he lifted them up, and preached
the gospel of nationality throughout the length and
breadth of the land. In his fidelity to this cause he
never wavered nor faltered. From the first burst of
boyish oratory to the sleepless nights at Marshfield,
when, waiting for death, he looked through the win
dow at the light which showed him the national flag
fluttering from its staff, his first thought was of a
united country. To his large nature the Union ap
pealed powerfully by the mere sense of magnitude
which it conveyed. The vision of future empire, the
dream of the destiny of an unbroken union touched

458 HISTORIC AMERICANS
and kindled his imagination. He could hardly speak
in public without an allusion to the grandeur of Amer
ican nationahty, and a fervent appeal to keep it sacred
and intact. For fifty years, with reiteration ever more
frequent, sometimes with rich elaboration, sometimes
with brief and simple allusion, he poured this message
into the ears of a listening people. His words passed
into text-books, and became the first declamations of
school-boys. They were in every one's mouth. They
sank into the hearts of the people, and became uncon
sciously a part of their life and daily thoughts. When
the hour came, it was love for the Union and the senti
ment of nationality which nerved the arm of the North,
and sustained her courage. That love had been fos
tered, and that sentiment had been strengthened and
vivified by the life and words of Webster." (Lodge's
Webster, p. 361.)
Page 363, note 63. See Webster's letter to the
Union Committee, Works, vol. VI., p. 578.
Page 363, note 64. This bill is printed in Web
ster's Works, vol. V., p. 373.
Page 363, note 65. See Works, vol. V., p. 354.
Page 367, note 66. This quotation from Lord
Brougham's speech in the House of Commons, July
13, 1830.
Page 369, note 67. The truth seems to be that in
stead of soliciting the Senatorship and working to ob
tain it, Webster was reluctant to accept it. " It is
tme," wrote Mr. McCaU (Webster, p. 116), "that
his friends contributed considerable sums of money to
his support, and he was severely criticised for accepting
such assistance. Burke received from his friends gifts,
or loans that were never repaid, to an enormous amount
for those days. Fox's friends gave him an annuity of
fifteen thousand dollars. I do not know that it has oc
curred to any one to accuse either of them of impro
priety. Can it be doubted that Webster's friends were

NOTES 459
as much attached to him, or that they gave from pure
personal loyalty mingled with a patriotic desire to
maintain in the service of their country talents as
splendid as ever Fox or Burke possessed, and that were
even more successfully employed? It is to be regretted
from the abuse to which his example may give rise that
he found it necessary to receive this aid. The danger
is that a far lesser man than Webster, in a high pub
lic place might receive a more calculating homage.
However, each case must be judged on its own merits.
It is very true that he was not a bookkeeper. But if
accounts had been carefully kept, it may be doubted
whether even from the money standpoint he did not
give more than he received. Instead of neglecting his
profession and eking out his expenses by the aid of his
friends, he might have remained out of the public serv
ice and enjoyed the most lucrative practice at the
American bar."
It is a curious iUustration of the faUibility of human
judgment to compare with the scathing invective of
Parker the eulogies of Webster delivered by contempo
raries equaUy high-minded and as determined to be
just and truthful. The orations of Edward Everett,
Rufus Choate, George S. Hilliard and Chief Justice
Parker are only a few examples of the enormous number
of printed eulogies that crowd the library catalogues.
These glow with ardent tribute and proud affection,
while at the same time Parker is finding Webster guilty
of all the sins that flesh is heir to. It is conducive at
least to a suspended judgment to read first Parker's
vehement denunciation and then to hear the pure and
stately Everett, who knew Webster privately as well as
publicly, say of him:
" I saw him at all seasons and on all occasions, in
the flush of public triumph, in the intimacy of the fire
side, in the most unreserved interchange of personal
confidence: in health and in sickness, in sorrow and in

460 HISTORIC AMERICANS
joy: when early honors began to wreathe his brow,
and in after life through most of the important scenes
of his public career. I saw him on occasions that show
the manly strength, and, what is better, the manly
weakness, of the human heart: and I declare this day,
in the presence of Heaven and of men, that I never
heard from him the expression of a wish unbecoming a
good citizen and a patriot — the utterance of a word
unworthy a gentleman and a Christian: that I never
knew a more generous spirit, a safer adviser, a warmer
friend." (Everett, Orations and Speeches, IV, 229.)

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