Life and public services of John Quincy Adams, sixth President of the United States, with the eulogy delivered before the Legislature of New York

by William H. Seward

In 1845, the obnoxious rule of the House of Representatives was rescinded. The freedom of debate and petition was restored, and the unrestrained and irrepressible discussion of slavery by the press and political parties began. For the rest, the work of emancipation abides the action, whether it be slow or fast, of the moral sense of the American people. It depends not on the zeal and firmness only of the reformers, but on their wisdom and moderation also. Stoicism, that had no charity for error, never converted any human society to virtue; Christianity, that remembers the true nature of man, has encompassed a large portion of the globe. How long emancipation may be delayed, is among the things concealed from our knowledge, but not so the certain result. The perils of the enterprize are already passed—its difficulties have already been removed—when it shall have been accomplished it will be justly regarded as the last noble effort which rendered the Republic imperishable.

Then the merit of the great achievement will be awarded to John Quincy Adams; and by none more gratefully than by the communities on whom the institution of slavery has brought the calamity of premature and consumptive decline, in the midst of free, vigorous, and expanding States.

If this great transaction could be surpassed in dramatic sublimity, it was surpassed when the same impassioned advocate of humanity appeared, at the age of seventy-four, with all the glorious associations that now clustered upon him, at the bar of the Supreme Court of the United States, and pleaded, without solicitation or reward, the cause of Cinque and thirty other Africans, who had been stolen by a Spanish slaver from their native coast, had slain the master and crew of the pirate vessel, floated into the waters of the United States, and there been claimed by the President, in behalf of the authorities of Spain. He pleaded this great cause with such happy effect, that the captives were set at liberty. Conveyed by the charity of the humane to their native shores, they bore the pleasing intelligence to Africa, that justice was at last claiming its way among civilized and Christian men!

The recital of heroic actions loses its chief value, if we cannot discover the principles in which they were born. The text of John Quincy Adams, from which he deduced the duties of citizens, and of the republic, was the address of the Continental Congress to the people of the United States, on the occasion of the successful close of the American Revolution. He dwelt often and emphatically on the words:

Let it be remembered, that it has ever been the pride and the boast of America, that the rights for which she contended were the rights of human nature. By the blessing of the Author of those rights, they have prevailed over all opposition, and form the basis of thirteen independent States. No instance has heretofore occurred, nor can any instance be expected hereafter to occur, in which the unadulterated forms of republican government can pretend to so fair an opportunity of justifying themselves by their fruits. In this view, the citizens of the United States are responsible for the greatest trust ever confided to a political society. If JUSTICE, GOOD FAITH, HONOR, GRATITUDE, and all the other qualities which ennoble the character of a nation and fulfil the ends of government, be the fruits of our establishments, the cause of liberty will acquire a dignity and lustre which it has never yet enjoyed, and an example will be set which cannot but have the most favorable influence on mankind. If, on the other side, our Governments should be unfortunately blotted with the reverse of these cardinal virtues, the great cause which we have engaged to vindicate will be dishonored and betrayed; the last and fairest experiment in favor of the rights of human nature will be turned against them, and their patrons and friends exposed to the insults, and silenced by the votaries of tyranny and usurpation.

Senators and Representatives of the People of the State of New York: I had turned my steps away from your honored halls, long since, as I thought forever. I come back to them by your command, to fulfil a higher duty and more honorable service than ever before devolved upon me. I repay your generous confidence, by offering to you this exposition of the duties of the magistrate and of the citizen. It is the same which John Quincy Adams gave to the Congress of the United States, in his oration on the death of James Madison. It is the key to his own exalted character, and it enables us to measure the benefits he conferred upon his country. If then you ask what motive enabled him to rise above parties, sects, combinations, prejudices, passions, and seductions, I answer that he served his country, not alone, or chiefly because that country was his own, but because he knew her duties and her destiny, and knew her cause was the cause of human nature.

If you inquire why he was so rigorous in virtue as to be often thought austere, I answer it was because human nature required the exercise of justice, honor, and gratitude, by all who were clothed with authority to act in the name of the American people. If you ask why he seemed, sometimes, with apparent inconsistency, to lend his charities to the distant and the future rather than to his own kindred and times, I reply, it was because he held that the tenure of human power is on condition of its being beneficently exercised for the common welfare of the human race. Such men are of no country. They belong to mankind. If we cannot rise to this height of virtue, we cannot hope to comprehend the character of John Quincy Adams, or understand the homage paid by the American people to his memory.

Need it be said that John Quincy Adams studied justice, honor and gratitude, not by the false standards of the age, but by their own true nature? He generalized truth, and traced it always to its source, the bosom of God. Thus in his defence of the Amistad captives he began with defining justice in the language of Justinian, "Constans et perpetua voluntas jus SUUM cuique tribuendi." He quoted on the same occasion from the Declaration of Independence, not by way of rhetorical embellishment, and not even as a valid human ordinance, but as a truth of nature, of universal application, the memorable words, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, and that among these rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." In his vindication of the right of debate, he declared that the principle that religious opinions were altogether beyond the sphere of legislative control, was but one modification of a more extensive axiom, which included the unbounded freedom of the press, and of speech, and of the communication of thought in all its forms. He rested the inviolability of the right of petition, not on constitutions, or charters, which might be glossed, abrogated or expunged, but in the inherent right of every animate creature to pray to its superior.

The model by which he formed his character was Cicero. Not the living Cicero, sometimes inconsistent; often irresolute; too often seeming to act a studied part; and always covetous of applause. But Cicero, as he aimed to be, and as he appears revealed in those immortal emanations of his genius which have been the delight and guide of intellect and virtue in every succeeding age. Like the Roman, Adams was an orator, but he did not fall into the error of the Roman, in practically valuing eloquence more than the beneficence to which it should be devoted. Like him he was a statesman and magistrate worthy to be called "The second founder of the Republic,"—like him a teacher of didactic philosophy, of morals, and even of his own peculiar art; and like him he made all liberal learning tributary to that noble art, while poetry was the inseparable companion of his genius in its hours of relaxation from the labors of the forum and of the capitol.

Like him he loved only the society of good men, and by his generous praise of such, illustrated the Roman's beautiful aphorism, that no one can be envious of good deeds, who has confidence in his own virtue. Like Cicero he kept himself unstained by social or domestic vices; preserved serenity and cheerfulness; cherished habitual reverence for the Deity, and dwelt continually, not on the mystic theology of the schools, but on the hopes of a better life. He lived in what will be regarded as the virtuous age of his country, while Cicero was surrounded by an overwhelming degeneracy. He had the light of Christianity for his guide; and its sublime motives as incitements to virtue: while Cicero had only the confused instructions of the Grecian schools, and saw nothing certainly attainable but present applause and future fame. In moral courage, therefore, he excelled his model and rivalled Cato. But Cato was a visionary, who insisted upon his right to act always without reference to the condition of mankind, as he should have acted in Plato's imaginary Republic. Adams stood in this respect midway between the impracticable stoic and the too flexible academician. He had no occasion to say, as the Grecian orator did, that if he had sometimes acted contrary to himself, he had never acted contrary to the Republic; but he might justly have said, as the noble Roman did, "I have rendered to my country all the great services which she was willing to receive at my hands, and I have never harbored a thought concerning her that was not divine."