In retort to that arraignment of being a “Military Chieftain”—made as if the phrase be merely another name for “buccaneer”—the General writes the old friendly fox, Colonel Burr:
“It is not strange that he (Statesman Clay) should indulge himself in such reasoning, since it comes somewhat to his own personal defense. Our blue-grass Secretary has been ever remarkable for his caution, to give it a no worse name, and has not yet risked himself for his country, or moved from safe repose to repel an invading foe.”
The General is not the only one who comments upon the astounding copartnership in politics and policies between Statesman Adams and Statesman Clay. John Randolph, of Roanoke, remarks concerning it, from his bitter place in the Senate:
“Sir, it is a coming together of the puritan and the blackleg—Blifil and Black George!”
This view seems hugely to excite Statesman Clay, and he challenges the picturesque Randolph to a duel by Little Falls. They meet; but, since both are at pains to miss, no good comes of it.
Wizard Lewis goes teaching the General's merits in every State of the Union. In his White House siege, Wizard Lewis receives his best help from Statesman Adams himself.
The latter publicist is a personage of ice-cold ideas, and lists ingratitude at the top of the virtues. There be folk—descended, doubtless, of ancestors that heated the pincers and turned the thumbikins, and worked the straining rack for the Inquisitions as mere day laborers at torture—who delight in doing mean, hateful, punishing things to their fellow mortals, if they may but call such doing “duty.” They will weep hypocritically while burning a victim, and aver, between sobs, that they pile the fagots and apply the torch only from a “sternest conviction of duty.” The word “duty,” like the venom of a serpent, is ever in their mouths; by it they break hearts, destroy hopes, create blackness, blot out light, forbid happiness, foster grief, and plant pain in breasts innocent of every crime save that of helping them. Statesman Adams—heart as hollow as a bell and quite as brazen—is one of these. He demonstrates his purity by refusing his obligations, and proves himself great by turning his back on his friends. Made up of a multitude of littlenesses, he offers no trait of breadth or bigness as an offset. He is not wise; he is not brave; he is not generous; he is not—even in wrongdoing—original. He will guide by some maxim; or he will permit himself to be posed by a proverb; and, while ever breathlessly respectable, he is never once right. As President he proposes for himself an inhuman goodness, and declares that he will remove no one from office on “account of politics”—a catch phrase which has protected incompetency in place in every age.