As has been said, it so happened that in Mr. Monroe's administration the heaviest burden of labor and responsibility rested upon Mr. Adams; the most important and most perplexing questions fell within his department. Domestic breaches had been healed, but foreign breaches gaped with threatening jaws. War with Spain seemed imminent. Her South American colonies were then waging their contest for independence, and naturally looked to the late successful rebels of the northern continent for acts of neighborly sympathy and good fellowship. Their efforts to obtain official recognition and the exchange of ministers with the United States were eager and persistent. Privateers fitted out at Baltimore gave the State Department scarcely less cause for anxiety than the shipbuilders of Liverpool gave to the English Cabinet in 1863-64. These perplexities, as is well known, caused the passage of the first "Neutrality Act," which first formulated and has since served to establish the principle of international obligation in such matters, and has been the basis of all subsequent legislation upon the subject not only in this country but also in Great Britain.
The European powers, impelled by a natural distaste for rebellion by colonists, and also believing that Spain would in time prevail over the insurgents, turned a deaf ear to South American agents. But in the United States it was different. Here it was anticipated that the revolted communities were destined to win; Mr. Adams records this as his own opinion; besides which there was also a natural sympathy felt by our people in such a conflict in their own quarter of the globe. Nevertheless, in many anxious cabinet discussions, the President and the Secretary of State established the policy of reserve and caution. Rebels against an established government are like plaintiffs in litigation; the burden of proof is upon them, and the neutral nations who are a sort of quasi-jurors must not commit themselves to a decision prematurely. The grave and inevitable difficulties besetting the administration in this matter were seriously enhanced by the conduct of Mr. Clay. Seeking nothing so eagerly as an opportunity to harass the government, he could have found none more to his taste than this question of South American recognition. His enthusiastic and rhetorical temperament rejoiced in such a topic for his luxuriant oratory, and he lauded freedom and abused the administration with a force of expression far from gratifying to the responsible heads of government in their troublesome task.
Apart from these matters the United States had direct disputes of a threatening character pending with Spain concerning the boundaries of Louisiana. Naturally enough boundary lines in the half explored wilderness of this vast continent were not then marked with that indisputable accuracy which many generations and much bloodshed had achieved in Europe; and of all uncertain boundaries that of Louisiana was the most so. Area enough to make two or three States, more or less, might or might not be included therein. Such doubts had proved a ready source of quarrel, which could hardly be assuaged by General Jackson marching about in unquestionable Spanish territory, seizing towns and hanging people after his lawless, ignorant, energetic fashion. Mr. Adams's chief labor, therefore, was by no means of a promising character, being nothing less difficult than to conclude a treaty between enraged Spain and the rapacious United States, where there was so much wrong and so much right on both sides, and such a wide obscure realm of doubt between the two that an amicable agreement might well seem not only beyond expectation but beyond hope.
Many and various also were the incidental obstacles in Mr. Adams's way. Not the least lay in the ability of Don Onis, the Spanish Minister, an ambassador well selected for his important task and whom the American thus described:—
"Cold, calculating, wily, always commanding his own temper, proud because he is a Spaniard, but supple and cunning, accommodating the tone of his pretensions precisely to the degree of endurance of his opponent, bold and overbearing to the utmost extent to which it is tolerated, careless of what he asserts or how grossly it is proved to be unfounded, his morality appears to be that of the Jesuits as exposed by Pascal. He is laborious, vigilant, and ever attentive to his duties; a man of business and of the world."
Fortunately this so dangerous negotiator was hardly less anxious than Mr. Adams to conclude a treaty. Yet he, too, had his grave difficulties to encounter. Spanish arrogance had not declined with the decline of Spanish strength, and the concessions demanded from that ancient monarchy by the upstart republic seemed at once exasperating and humiliating. The career of Jackson in Florida, while it exposed the weakness of Spain, also sorely wounded her pride. Nor could the grandees, three thousand miles away, form so accurate an opinion of the true condition and prospects of affairs as could Don Onis upon this side of the water. One day, begging Mr. Adams to meet him upon a question of boundary, "he insisted much upon the infinite pains he had taken to prevail upon his government to come to terms of accommodation," and pathetically declared that "the King's Council was composed of such ignorant and stupid nigauds, grandees of Spain, and priests," that Mr. Adams "could have no conception of their obstinacy and imbecility."
Other difficulties in Mr. Adams's way were such as ought not to have been encountered. The only substantial concession which he was willing to make was in accepting the Sabine instead of the Rio del Norte as the southwestern boundary of Louisiana. But no sooner did rumors of this possible yielding get abroad than he was notified that Mr. Clay "would take ground against" any treaty embodying it. From Mr. Crawford a more dangerous and insidious policy was to be feared. Presumably he would be well pleased either to see Mr. Adams fail altogether in the negotiation, or to see him conclude a treaty which would be in some essential feature odious to the people.