PART IV.
SPREAD OF DEMOCRACY AND EXTENSION
OF TERRITORY, 1825–1850.
CHAPTER XVIII.
the administration of john quincy adams, 1825—1829.
FAILURES OF THE ADMINISTRATION.
335. Character of Adams’s Administration.—Adams was a statesman of great ability and experience and of high integrity, but he represented ideas of strong government not pleasing to the masses. He seemed to be a Federalist veneered with Democracy. He did not have the faculty of winning and holding friends. He could not be easy in his manners, and, on the other hand, his dignity lacked grace. Besides, his election had been disputed, his opponents were factious, and events favored him almost as little as they had done his father. The strongest man in his Cabinet, Clay, was really a source of weakness to him, for Jackson’s friends continued to pretend to believe in the corrupt bargain.[[148]] Adams’s administration was, therefore, on the whole, a failure.
336. Foreign Affairs.—Even in foreign affairs, where, being a trained diplomatist, he had been previously successful, things went against Adams. He secured a number of good commercial treaties, but lost the important trade with the British West Indian ports through the failure to comply in time with certain demands of Great Britain. Perhaps if he had used the tact afterward displayed by Jackson, he would have secured the trade without trouble. But, as it was, the fault lay mainly with Congress, which took delight in humiliating the President.
337. The Panama Congress.—Adams fared as badly or worse when he indorsed the scheme of General Bolivar, the South American patriot hero, for holding at Panama a convention, or congress, of all the American republics. Both Adams and Clay, the latter of whom had long taken interest in South American affairs, believed that through such a congress the influence of the United States would be extended and the Monroe Doctrine be more firmly established. But although commissioners were finally sent to Panama, they arrived too late to participate in the conference, owing to the protracted debates in Congress on the propriety of sending them. Although Adams’s opponents would under any circumstances have delighted to harass him, these debates were mainly due to the fact that Hayti, a republic of revolted negro slaves, was to be represented at Panama. Southern congressmen disliked the social and political recognition involved, and feared that the subject of slavery might come up for discussion. As a matter of course, Adams’s opponents made him bear the brunt of the fiasco.
338. Internal Improvements.—In domestic affairs the President’s policy was still more unsuccessful. In his tactless way he favored internal improvements to an extent unwarranted at the time. He knew of the general prejudice against the government’s undertaking what the states preferred to do themselves, and he should have known also that the vetoes of his two predecessors had carried great weight. Besides, it was almost amusing to counsel the American people, as he did, to build observatories, when they were more interested in finances, public and private, than in astronomy. Some money had indeed been spent on improvements, especially upon the Cumberland Road, a highway running through Maryland, West Virginia, and Ohio, and designed to connect East and West. More money was spent during Adams’s term; but much opposition was aroused, particularly in the South, even Calhoun being now dubious of the constitutionality of such expenditure of the public funds.
339. Georgia and the Indians.—Still more humiliating than anything described yet was Adams’s failure to protect from the aggressions of the governor and legislature of Georgia, the Creeks and Cherokees, who lived in a half-civilized condition within the boundaries of that state. Both tribes had treaty relations with the United States, and neither owed allegiance to Georgia. Yet the state proceeded to survey the lands of the Creeks under a treaty of 1825, before the general government had had time to investigate the matter. When Adams interfered, feeling that the Indians were being imposed upon, Governor Troup used imprudent language, which he reiterated in 1827 under similar circumstances. On the latter occasion he actually called out state militia to meet the United States troops. This was pushing the doctrine of state sovereignty to a very dangerous extreme. As the President got little support from Congress, he had to brook the insult in spite of a splendid speech in his behalf by Daniel Webster. A few years later, as we shall soon see, another state, South Carolina, stood out against another President, Andrew Jackson, with far less impunity, Jackson being a more commanding man than Adams, and his opponents less determined. It must be remembered, too, that although the rash conduct of Georgia’s legislature and governor deserves partial censure, the people of the state were acting but naturally, when they endeavored to supplant by white settlers the Indians within their borders. An Indian state within a commonwealth was not to be tolerated, and the United States had in 1802 promised to get the Indians away as soon as possible.