Because of his inordinate vanity, he was susceptible to flattery, and they who knew him best approached him accordingly. We have an illustration of it at the time of the decision to dismiss Genêt. There was some question as to the attitude of Adams, and, knowing of his secret jealousy of Washington, George Cabot, to whom was assigned the task of guiding him favorably, called upon him one morning at an early hour.
‘Mr. Adams, this French Minister’s conduct seems to me to be the most objectionable,’ ventured Cabot casually.
‘Objectionable? It is audacious, sir,’ stormed Adams.
‘I think if you were President you would not permit him to perform his office very long,’ said the cunning Cabot.
‘Not an hour, sir. I would dismiss him immediately.’
‘I wish you would allow me to say to the President that such are your views,’ said Cabot.
‘Certainly, sir; I will say so to the President myself when I see him.’[1212]
Thus the danger of Adams’s opposition was cleverly removed by conveying the impression that the suggestion of a dismissal had come from him. So thoroughly were his enemies imbued with the idea that he could be led by subtle flattery that the apologists for the traitors in his Cabinet, taking note of his later harmonious relations with Marshall, explained that these were due to the genius of the latter in insinuating his own ideas into Adams’s head. However that may be, there was one thing that flattery could not do—it could not coax him from a principle or from the performance of a patriotic duty. When the royal Attorney-General of Massachusetts undertook to flatter him into the service of the King in the fight against the people eight years before the Declaration of Independence, he failed utterly.
The violence of his temper made him difficult even to his friends, and he had but few. He had a genius for embroilment, and dwelt perpetually on a battle-field, sometimes real, often imaginary, but always genuine to him. Liancourt, calling upon him at Quincy and finding his conversation ‘extremely agreeable,’ noted, however, that it was ‘tinged with a sort of sarcasm.’[1213] Madison, we have seen, referred to his ‘ticklish’ temper.[1214] If a political opponent could give a moderate description of his weakness, and a Frenchman one so mild, the members of his Cabinet felt no compulsion for restraint. Franklin had done him a grave disservice in a brief but altogether friendly characterization carrying the suggestion that he sometimes appeared mad. This was a hint on which his enemies were to play as long as he lived. They took Franklin literally and called Adams ‘crazy.’ ‘What but insanity’ could have led him to this or that? asks the biographer of Wolcott.[1215] ‘No sane mind could have imagined such a thought,’ he says again.[1216] ‘A weak and intemperate mind,’ writes one of his Cabinet to another.[1217] Even Jefferson, who was more considerate of him than others, thought his French war message ‘crazy.’ But it was reserved for McHenry to sum up his enemies’ case against him. ‘Whether he is spiteful, playful, witty, kind, cold, drunk, sober, angry, easy, stiff, jealous, cautious, confident, close, open, it is almost always in the wrong place or to the wrong person.’[1218] All of which means that he was super-sensitive, irritable, the victim of an ungovernable temper which drove him into spluttering rages on ridiculously slight provocations. Men shrank from conferences with him on subjects involving a difference of opinion. Then he could be as insulting as Dr. Johnson without the advantage of having obsequious idolaters on whom to vent his rage. What a joy it would have been to have pitted these two men against each other on the question of colonial rights! What a picture Boswell could have made of the encounter!
Adams was difficult in conference, too, because of his suspicious disposition. He could never quite persuade himself of the sincerity of his conferee, and he carried a chip upon his shoulder. This suspicion of his fellows had been a curse of his youth; it followed him to the grave. He felt himself surrounded by envy, hatred, malice, and was inclined to suspect that a good-natured smile was in derision. In youth he fancied that his neighbors were anxious to retard his progress. He was miserable in London, where his reception, while cool, was not half so bad as he imagined. The British Minister in Paris could not disabuse him of the notion that in London he would be looked upon ‘with evil eyes.’[1219] His worst fears were realized in ‘the awkward timidity in general’ and the ‘conscious guilt’ and shame in the countenances of the people.[1220] This feeling that he was in the midst of enemies made him more than ever tenacious of his rights. He knew the privileges and civilities to which his position entitled him, and keenly felt his failure to receive them. It was something he was never to forgive. The begrudging or withholding of a right was always, to him, an affront instantly to be met with a stormy challenge. ‘I am not of Cæsar’s mind,’ he wrote, soon after becoming Vice-President. ‘The second place in Rome is high enough for me, although I have a spirit that will not give up its right or relinquish its place.’[1221] This sense of his deserts, because of ability and services, goes far to explain his relations with Washington and Hamilton.