Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams.

CHAPTER IX.

INFLUENCE OF MILITARY SUCCESS.--POLICY OF THE ADMINISTRATION.--MR. ADAMS' SPEECH ON THE REMOVAL OF THE DEPOSITS FROM THE BANK OF THE UNITED STATES.--HIS OPINIONS ON FREEMASONRY AND TEMPERANCE SOCIETIES. --EULOGY ON WILLIAM WIRT.--ORATION ON THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF LAFAYETTE.--HIS COURSE ON ABOLITION PETITIONS.--ON INTERFERENCE WITH THE INSTITUTION OF SLAVERY.--ON THE POLICY RELATIVE TO THE PUBLIC LANDS.--SPEECH ON DISTRIBUTING RATIONS TO FUGITIVES FROM INDIAN HOSTILITIES.--ON WAR WITH MEXICO.--EULOGY ON JAMES MADISON.--HIS COURSE ON A PETITION PURPORTING TO BE FROM SLAVES.--FIRST REPORT ON JAMES SMITHSON'S BEQUEST, 219

CHAPTER X.

MARTIN VAN BUREN PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.--MR. ADAMS' SPEECH ON THE CLAIMS OF THE DEPOSIT BANKS.--HIS LETTER ON BOOKS FOR UNIVERSAL READING.--ORATION AT NEWBURYPORT.--SPEECH ON THE RIGHT OF PETITION.-- LETTER TO THE MASSACHUSETTS ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY.--ADDRESS TO THE INHABITANTS OF HIS DISTRICT.--HIS VIEWS AS TO THE APPLICATION OF THE SMITHSONIAN FUND.--HIS INTEREST IN THE SCIENCE OF ASTRONOMY.--LETTER TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE ON AN ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATORY.--LETTER ON THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.--RESOLUTIONS FOR THE LIMITING OF HEREDITARY SLAVERY.--DISCOURSE BEFORE THE NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY.--ADDRESS ON THE SUBJECT OF EDUCATION.-- REMARKS ON PHRENOLOGY.--ON THE LICENSE LAW OF MASSACHUSETTS.--HE ORGANIZES THE OUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 268

CHAPTER XI.. Second Report on the Smithsonian Fund.--His Speech on a Bill for

SECOND REPORT ON THE SMITHSONIAN FUND.--HIS SPEECH ON A BILL FOR INSURING A MORE FAITHFUL EXECUTION OF THE LAWS RELATING TO THE COLLECTION OF DUTIES ON IMPORTS.--REMARKS ON THE ESTABLISHMENT OF AN EXTENSIVE SERIES OF MAGNETICAL AND METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS.--ON ITINERANT ELECTIONEERING.--ON ABUSES IN RESPECT TO THE NAVY FUND.--ON THE POLITICAL INFLUENCES OF THE TIME.--ON THE ORIGIN AND RESULTS OF THE FLORIDA WAR.--HIS DENUNCIATION OF DUELLING.--HIS ARGUMENT IN THE SUPREME COURT ON BEHALF OF AFRICANS CAPTURED IN THE AMISTAD, 302

CHAPTER XII.. William Henry Harrison President of the United States.--His

WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.--HIS DEATH.--VICE-PRESIDENT JOHN TYLER SUCCEEDS.--REMARKS OF MR. ADAMS ON THE OCCASION.--HIS SPEECH ON THE CASE OF ALEXANDER M'LEOD.--HIS VIEWS CONCERNING COMMONPLACE BOOKS.--HIS LECTURE ON CHINA AND CHINESE COMMERCE.--REMARKS ON THE STATE OF THE COUNTRY, AND HIS DUTY IN RELATION TO IT.--HIS PRESENTATION OF A PETITION FOR THE DISSOLUTION OF THE UNION, AND THE VOTE TO CENSURE HIM FOR DOING IT.--HIS THIRD REPORT ON MR. SMITHSON'S BEQUEST.--HIS SPEECH ON THE MISSION TO MEXICO, 328

CHAPTER XIII.

REPORT ON PRESIDENT TYLER'S APPROVAL, WITH OBJECTIONS, OF THE BILL FOR THE APPORTIONMENT OF REPRESENTATIVES.--REPORT ON HIS VETO OF THE BILL TO PROVIDE A REVENUE FROM IMPORTS.--LECTURE ON THE SOCIAL COMPACT, AND THE THEORIES OF FILMER, HOBBES, SYDNEY, AND LOCKE.-- ADDRESS TO HIS CONSTITUENTS ON THE POLICY OF PRESIDENT TYLER'S ADMINISTRATION.--ADDRESS TO THE NORFOLK COUNTY TEMPERANCE SOCIETY. --DISCOURSE ON THE NEW ENGLAND CONFEDERACY OF 1643.--LETTER TO THE CITIZENS OF BANGOR ON WEST INDIA EMANCIPATION.--ORATION ON LAYING THE CORNER-STONE OF THE CINCINNATI OBSERVATORY, 364

CHAPTER XIV.

REPORT ON THE RESOLVES OF THE LEGISLATURE OF MASSACHUSETTS PROPOSING AN AMENDMENT OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES IN EFFECT TO ABOLISH A REPRESENTATION FOR SLAVES.--FOURTH REPORT ON JAMES SMITHSON'S BEQUEST.--INFLUENCE OF MR. ADAMS ON THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE NATIONAL OBSERVATORY AND THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION.--GENERAL JACKSON'S CHARGE THAT THE RIO GRANDE MIGHT HAVE BEEN OBTAINED, UNDER THE SPANISH TREATY, AS A BOUNDARY FOR THE UNITED STATES, REFUTED.-- ADDRESS TO HIS CONSTITUENTS AT WEYMOUTH.--REMARKS ON THE RETROCESSION OF ALEXANDRIA TO VIRGINIA.--HIS PARALYSIS.--RECEPTION BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.--HIS DEATH.--FUNERAL HONORS.--TRIBUTE TO HIS MEMORY, 409

MEMOIR

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.

CHAPTER I.

BIRTH.--EDUCATION.--RESIDENCE IN EUROPE.--AT COLLEGE.--AT THE BAR. --POLITICAL ESSAYS.--MINISTER AT THE HAGUE.--AT BERLIN.--RETURN TO THE UNITED STATES.

John Quincy Adams, son of John and Abigail Adams, was born on the 11th of July, 1767, in the North Parish of Braintree, Massachusetts--since incorporated as the town of Quincy. The lives and characters of his parents, intimately associated with the history of the American Revolution, have been already ably and faithfully illustrated.

See "Letters of Mrs. Adams, with an Introductory Memoir," and "The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States, with a Life of the Author," by their grandson, Charles Francis Adams.

The origin of his name was thus stated by himself: "My great-grandfather, John Quincy, was dying when I was baptized, and his daughter, my grandmother, requested I might receive his name. This fact, recorded by my father at the time, is not without a moral to my heart, and has connected with that portion of my name a charm of mingled sensibility and devotion. It was filial tenderness that gave the name--it was the name of one passing from earth to immortality. These have been, through life, perpetual admonitions to do nothing unworthy of it."

John Quincy represented the town of Braintree in the colonial legislature forty years, and long held the office of speaker.

At Braintree his mother watched over his childhood. At the village school he learned the rudiments of the English language. In after life he often playfully boasted that the dame who taught him to spell flattered him into learning his letters by telling him he would prove a scholar. The notes and habits of the birds and wild animals of the vicinity early excited his attention, and led him to look on nature with a lover's eye, creating an attachment to the home of his childhood, which time strengthened. Many years afterwards, when residing in Europe, he wrote: "Penn's Hill and Braintree North Common Rocks never looked and never felt to me like any other hill or any other rocks; because every rock and every pebble upon them associates itself with the first consciousness of my existence. If there is a Bostonian who ever sailed from his own harbor for distant lands, or returned to it from them, without feelings, at the sight of the Blue Hills, which he is unable to express, his heart is differently constituted from mine."

These local attachments were indissolubly associated with the events of the American Revolution, and with the patriotic principles instilled by his mother. Standing with her on the summit of Penn's Hill, he heard the cannon booming from the battle of Bunker's Hill, and saw the smoke and flames of burning Charlestown. During the siege of Boston he often climbed the same eminence alone, to watch the shells and rockets thrown by the American army.

With a mind prematurely developed and cultivated by the influence of the characters of his parents and the stirring events of that period, he embarked, at the age of eleven years, in February, 1778, from the shore of his native town, with his father, in a small boat, which conveyed them to a ship in Nantasket Roads, bound for Europe. John Adams had been associated in a commission with Benjamin Franklin and Arthur Lee, as plenipotentiary to the Court of France. After residing in Paris until June, 1779, he returned to America, accompanied by his son. Being immediately appointed, by Congress, minister plenipotentiary to negotiate a treaty of peace and commerce with Great Britain, they both returned together to France in November, taking passage in a French frigate. On this his second voyage to Europe, young Adams began a diary, which, with few intermissions, he continued through life. While in Paris he resumed the study of the ancient and modern languages, which had been interrupted by his return to America.

In July, 1780, John Adams having been appointed ambassador to the Netherlands, his son was removed from the schools of Paris to those of Amsterdam, and subsequently to the University of Leyden. There he pursued his studies until July, 1781, when, in his fourteenth year, he was selected by Francis Dana, minister plenipotentiary from the United States to the Russian court, as his private secretary, and accompanied him through Germany to St. Petersburg. Having satisfactorily discharged his official duties, and pursued his Latin, German, and French studies, with a general course of English history, until September, 1782, he left St. Petersburg for Stockholm, where he passed the winter. In the ensuing spring, after travelling through the interior of Sweden, and visiting Copenhagen and Hamburg, he joined his father at the Hague, and accompanied him to Paris. They travelled leisurely, forming an acquaintance with eminent men on their route, and examining architectural remains, the paintings of the great Flemish masters, and all the treasures of the fine arts, in the countries through which they passed. In Paris, young Adams was present at the signing of the treaty of peace in 1783, and was admitted into the society of Franklin, Jefferson, Jay, Barclay, Hartley, the Abbe Mably, and many other eminent statesmen and literary men. After passing a few months in England, with his father, he returned to Paris, and resumed his studies, which he continued until May, 1785, when he embarked for the United States. This return to his own country caused a mental struggle, in which his judgment controlled his inclination. His father had just been appointed minister at the Court of Great Britain, and, as one of his family, it would have been to him a high gratification to reside in England. His feelings and views on the occasion he thus expressed:

"I have been seven years travelling in Europe, seeing the world, and in its society. If I return to the United States, I must be subject, one or two years, to the rules of a college, pass three more in the tedious study of the law, before I can hope to bring myself into professional notice. The prospect is discouraging. If I accompany my father to London, my satisfaction would possibly be greater than by returning to the United States; but I shall loiter away my precious time, and not go home until I am forced to it. My father has been all his lifetime occupied by the interests of the public. His own fortune has suffered. His children must provide for themselves. I am determined to get my own living, and to be dependent upon no one. With a tolerable share of common sense, I hope, in America, to be independent and free. Rather than live otherwise, I would wish to die before my time."

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