John Quincy Adams / American Statesmen Series

by Jr. John T. Morse

This agitation of the slavery question made itself felt in a way personally interesting to Mr. Adams, by the influence it was exerting upon men's feelings concerning the still pending and dubious treaty with Spain. The South became anxious to lay hands upon the Floridas and upon as far-reaching an area as possible in the direction of Mexico, in order to carve it up into more slave States; the North, on the other hand, no longer cared very eagerly for an extension of the Union upon its southern side. Sectional interests were getting to be more considered than national. Mr. Adams could not but recognize that in the great race for the Presidency, in which he could hardly help being a competitor, the chief advantage which he seemed to have won when the Senate unanimously ratified the Spanish treaty, had almost wholly vanished since that treaty had been repudiated by Spain and was now no longer desired by a large proportion of his own countrymen.

Matters stood thus when the new Spanish envoy, Vivês, arrived. Other elements, which there is not space to enumerate here, besides those referred to, now entering newly into the state of affairs, further reduced the improbability of agreement almost to hopelessness. Mr. Adams, despairing of any other solution than a forcible seizure of Florida, to which he had long been far from averse, now visibly relaxed his efforts to meet the Spanish negotiator. Perhaps no other course could have been more effectual in securing success than this obvious indifference to it. In the prevalent condition of public feeling and of his own sentiments Mr. Adams easily assumed towards General Vivês a decisive bluntness, not altogether consonant to the habits of diplomacy, and manifested an unchangeable stubbornness which left no room for discussion. His position was simply that Spain might make such a treaty as the United States demanded, or might take the consequences of her refusal. His dogged will wore out the Spaniard's pride, and after a fruitless delay the King and Cortes ratified the treaty in its original shape, with the important addition of an explicit annulment of the land grants. It was again sent in to the Senate, and in spite of the "continued, systematic, and laborious effort" of "Mr. Clay and his partisans to make it unpopular," it was ratified by a handsome majority, there being against it "only four votes—Brown, of Louisiana, who married a sister of Clay's wife; Richard M. Johnson, of Kentucky, against his own better judgment, from mere political subserviency to Clay; Williams, of Tennessee, from party impulses connected with hatred of General Jackson; and Trimble, of Ohio, from some maggot of the brain." Two years had elapsed since the former ratification, and no little patience had been required to await so long the final achievement of a success so ardently longed for, once apparently gained, and anon so cruelly thwarted. But the triumph was rather enhanced than diminished by all this difficulty and delay. A long and checkered history, wherein appeared infinite labor, many a severe trial of temper and hard test of moral courage, bitter disappointment, ignoble artifices of opponents, ungenerous opposition growing out of unworthy personal motives at home, was now at last closed by a chapter which appeared only the more gratifying by contrast with what had gone before. Mr. Adams recorded, with less of exultation than might have been pardonable, the utter discomfiture of "all the calculators of my downfall by the Spanish negotiation," and reflected cheerfully that he had been left with "credit rather augmented than impaired by the result,"—credit not in excess of his deserts. Many years afterwards, in changed circumstances, an outcry was raised against the agreement which was arrived at concerning the southwestern boundary of Louisiana. Most unjustly it was declared that Mr. Adams had sacrificed a portion of the territory of the United States. But political motives were too plainly to be discerned in these tardy criticisms; and though General Jackson saw fit, for personal reasons, to animadvert severely upon the clause establishing this boundary line, yet there was abundant evidence to show not only that he, like almost everybody else, had been greatly pleased with it at the time, but even that he had then upon consultation expressed a deliberate and special approval.

The same day, February 22, 1821, closed, says Mr. Adams, "two of the most memorable transactions of my life." That he should speak thus of the exchange of ratifications of the Spanish treaty is natural; but the other so "memorable transaction" may not appear of equal magnitude. It was the sending in to Congress of his report upon weights and measures. This was one of those vast labors, involving tenfold more toil than all the negotiations with Onis and Vivês, but bringing no proportionate fame, however well it might be performed. The subject was one which had "occupied for the last sixty years many of the ablest men in Europe, and to which all the power and all the philosophical and mathematical learning and ingenuity of France and of Great Britain" had during that period been incessantly directed. It was fairly enough described as a "fearful and oppressive task." Upon its dry and uncongenial difficulties Mr. Adams had been employed with his wonted industry for upwards of four years; he now spoke of the result modestly as "a hurried and imperfect work." But others, who have had to deal with the subject, have found this report a solid and magnificent monument of research and reflection, which has not even yet been superseded by later treatises. Mr. Adams was honest in labor as in everything, and was never careless at points where inaccuracy or lack of thoroughness might be expected to escape detection. Hence his success in a task upon which it is difficult to imagine other statesmen of that day—Clay, Webster, or Calhoun, for example—so much as making an effort. The topic is not one concerning which readers would tolerate much lingering. Suffice it then to say that the document illustrated the ability and the character of the man, and so with this brief mention to dismiss in a paragraph an achievement which, had it been accomplished in any more showy department, would alone have rendered Mr. Adams famous.

It is highly gratifying now to look back upon the high spirit and independent temper uniformly displayed by Mr. Adams abroad and at home in all dealings with foreign powers. Never in any instance did he display the least tinge of that rodomontade and boastful extravagance which have given an underbred air to so many of our diplomats, and which inevitably cause the basis for such self-laudation to appear of dubious sufficiency. But he had the happy gift of a native pride which enabled him to support in the most effective manner the dignity of the people for whom he spoke. For example, in treaties between the United States and European powers the latter were for a time wont to name themselves first throughout the instruments, contrary to the custom of alternation practised in treaties between themselves. With some difficulty, partly interposed, it must be confessed, by his own American coadjutors, Mr. Adams succeeded in putting a stop to this usage. It was a matter of insignificant detail, in one point of view; but in diplomacy insignificant details often symbolize important facts, and there is no question that this habit had been construed as a tacit but intentional arrogance of superiority on the part of the Europeans.

For a long period after the birth of the country there was a strong tendency, not yet so eradicated as to be altogether undiscoverable, on the part of American statesmen to keep one eye turned covertly askance upon the trans-Atlantic courts, and to consider, not without a certain anxious deference, what appearance the new United States might be presenting to the critical eyes of foreign countries and diplomats. Mr. Adams was never guilty of such indirect admissions of an inferiority which apparently he never felt. In the matter of the acquisition of Florida, Crawford suggested that England and France regarded the people of the United States as ambitious and encroaching; wherefore he advised a moderate policy in order to remove this impression. Mr. Adams on the other side declared that he was not in favor of our giving ourselves any concern whatever about the opinions of any foreign power. "If the world do not hold us for Romans," he said, "they will take us for Jews, and of the two vices I would rather be charged with that which has greatness mingled in its composition." His views were broad and grand. He was quite ready to have the world become "familiarized with the idea of considering our proper dominion to be the continent of North America." This extension he declared to be a "law of nature." To suppose that Spain and England could, through the long lapse of time, retain their possessions on this side of the Atlantic seemed to him a "physical, moral, and political absurdity."

The doctrine which has been christened with the name of President Monroe seems likely to win for him the permanent glory of having originated the wise policy which that familiar phrase now signifies. It might, however, be shown that by right of true paternity the bantling should have borne a different patronymic. Not only is the "Monroe Doctrine," as that phrase is customarily construed in our day, much more comprehensive than the simple theory first expressed by Monroe and now included in the modern doctrine as a part in the whole, but a principle more fully identical with the imperial one of to-day had been conceived and shaped by Mr. Adams before the delivery of Monroe's famous message. As has just been remarked, he looked forward to the possession of the whole North American continent by the United States as a sure destiny, and for his own part, whenever opportunity offered, he was never backward to promote this glorious ultimate consummation. He was in favor of the acquisition of Louisiana, whatever fault he might find with the scheme of Mr. Jefferson for making it a state; he was ready in 1815 to ask the British plenipotentiaries to cede Canada simply as a matter of common sense and mutual convenience, and as the comfortable result of a war in which the United States had been worsted; he never labored harder than in negotiating for the Floridas, and in pushing our western boundaries to the Pacific; in April, 1823, he wrote to the American minister at Madrid the significant remark: "It is scarcely possible to resist the conviction that the annexation of Cuba to our Federal Republic will be indispensable to the continuance and integrity of the Union." Encroachments never seemed distasteful to him, and he was always forward to stretch a point in order to advocate or defend a seizure of disputed North American territory, as in the cases of Amelia Island, Pensacola, and Galveston. When discussion arose with Russia concerning her possessions on the northwest coast of this continent, Mr. Adams audaciously told the Russian minister, Baron Tuyl, July 17, 1823, "that we should contest the rights of Russia to any territorial establishment on this continent, and that we should assume distinctly the principle that the American continents are no longer subjects for any new European colonial establishments." "This," says Mr. Charles Francis Adams in a footnote to the passage in the Diary, "is the first hint of the policy so well known afterwards as the Monroe Doctrine." Nearly five months later, referring to the same matter in his message to Congress, December 2, 1823, President Monroe said: "The occasion has been judged proper for asserting, as a principle in which the rights and interests of the United States are involved, that the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers."

It will be observed that both Mr. Adams and President Monroe used the phrase "continents," including thereby South as well as North America. A momentous question was imminent, which fortunately never called for a determination by action, but which in this latter part of 1823 threatened to do so at any moment. Cautious and moderate as the United States had been, under Mr. Adams's guidance, in recognizing the freedom and autonomy of the South American states, yet in time the recognition was made of one after another, and the emancipation of South America had come, while Mr. Adams was yet Secretary, to be regarded as an established fact. But now, in 1823-24, came mutterings from across the Atlantic indicating a strong probability that the members of the Holy Alliance would interfere in behalf of monarchical and anti-revolutionary principles, and would assist in the resubjugation of the successful insurgents. That each one of the powers who should contribute to this huge crusade would expect and receive territorial reward could not be doubted. Mr. Adams, in unison with most of his countrymen, contemplated with profound distrust and repulsion the possibility of such an European inroad. Stimulated by the prospect of so unwelcome neighbors, he prepared some dispatches, "drawn to correspond exactly" with the sentiments of Mr. Monroe's message, in which he appears to have taken a very high and defiant position. These documents, coming before the Cabinet for consideration, caused some flutter among his associates. In the possible event of the Holy Alliance actually intermeddling in South American affairs, it was said, the principles enunciated by the Secretary of State would involve this country in war with a very formidable confederation. Mr. Adams acknowledged this, but courageously declared that in such a crisis he felt quite ready to take even this spirited stand. His audacious spirit went far in advance of the cautious temper of the Monroe administration; possibly it went too far in advance of the dictates of a wise prudence, though fortunately the course of events never brought this question to trial; and it is at least gratifying to contemplate such a manifestation of daring temper.

But though so bold and independent, Mr. Adams was not habitually reckless nor prone to excite animosity by needless arrogance in action or extravagance in principle. In any less perilous extremity than was presented by this menaced intrusion of combined Europe he followed rigidly the wise rule of non-interference. For many years before this stage was reached he had been holding in difficult check the enthusiasts who, under the lead of Mr. Clay, would have embroiled us with Spain and Portugal. Once he was made the recipient of a very amusing proposition from the Portuguese minister, that the United States and Portugal, as "the two great powers of the western hemisphere," should concert together a grand American system. The drollery of this notion was of a kind that Mr. Adams could appreciate, though to most manifestations of humor he was utterly impervious. But after giving vent to some contemptuous merriment he adds, with a just and serious pride: "As to an American system, we have it; we constitute the whole of it; there is no community of interests or of principles between North and South America." This sound doctrine was put forth in 1820; and it was only modified in the manner that we have seen during a brief period in 1823, in face of the alarming vision not only of Spain and Portugal restored to authority, but of Russia in possession of California and more, France in possession of Mexico, and perhaps Great Britain becoming mistress of Cuba.

So far as European affairs were concerned, Mr. Adams always and consistently refused to become entangled in them, even in the slightest and most indirect manner. When the cause of Greek liberty aroused the usual throng of noisy advocates for active interference, he contented himself with expressions of cordial sympathy, accompanied by perfectly distinct and explicit statements that under no circumstances could any aid in the way of money or auxiliary forces be expected from this country. Neutrals we were and would remain in any and all European quarrels. When Stratford Canning urged, with the uttermost measure of persistence of which even he was capable, that for the suppression of the slave trade some such arrangement might be made as that of mixed tribunals for the trial of slave-trading vessels, and alleged that divers European powers were uniting for this purpose, Mr. Adams suggested, as an insuperable obstacle, "the general extra-European policy of the United States—a policy which they had always pursued as best suited to their own interests, and best adapted to harmonize with those of Europe. This policy had also been that of Europe, which had never considered the United States as belonging to her system.... It was best for both parties that they should continue to do so." In any European combinations, said Mr. Adams, in which the United States should become a member, she must soon become an important power, and must always be, in many respects, an uncongenial one. It was best that she should keep wholly out of European politics, even of such leagues as one for the suppression of the slave trade. He added, that he did not wish his language to be construed as importing "an unsocial and sulky spirit on the part of the United States;" for no such temper existed; it had simply been the policy of Europe to consider this country as standing aloof from all European federations, and in this treatment "we had acquiesced, because it fell in with our own policy."

In a word, Mr. Adams, by his language and actions, established and developed precisely that doctrine which has since been adopted by this country under the doubly incorrect name of the "Monroe Doctrine,"—a name doubly incorrect, because even the real "Monroe Doctrine" was not an original idea of Mr. Monroe, and because the doctrine which now goes by that name is not identical with the doctrine which Monroe did once declare. Mr. Adams's principle was simply that the United States would take no part whatsoever in foreign politics, not even in those of South America, save in the extreme event, eliminated from among things possible in this generation, of such an interference as was contemplated by the Holy Alliance; and that, on the other hand, she would permit no European power to gain any new foothold upon this continent. Time and experience have not enabled us to improve upon the principles which Mr. Adams worked out for us.