ngenuity and
success; but after my acquaintance with him, which commenced in Congress
in 1775, his excellence as a legislator, a politician, or a negotiator
most certainly never appeared. No sentiment more weak and superficial
was ever avowed by the most absurd philosopher than some of his,
particularly one that he procured to be inserted in the first
constitution of Pennsylvania, and for which he had such a fondness as to
insert it in his will. I call it weak, for so it must have been, or
hypocritical; unless he meant by one satiric touch to ridicule his own
republic, or throw it into everlasting contempt.

I must acknowledge, after all, that nothing in life has mortified or
grieved me more than the necessity which compelled me to oppose him so
often as I have. He was a man with whom I always wished to live in
friendship, and for that purpose omitted no demonstration of respect,
esteem, and veneration in my power, until I had unequivocal proofs of
his hatred, for no other reason under the sun but because I gave my
judgment in opposition to his in many points which materially affected
the interests of our country, and in many more which essentially
concerned our happiness, safety, and well-being. I could not and would
not sacrifice the clearest dictates of my understanding and the purest
principles of morals and policy in compliance to Dr. Franklin.

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS

(1767-1848)

The chief distinction in character between John Adams and his son is the
strangest one imaginable, when one remembers that to the fiery,
combative, bristling Adams blood was added an equal strain from the gay,
genial, affectionate Abigail Smith. The son, though of deep inner
affections, and even hungering for good-will if it would come without
his help, was on the surface incomparably colder, harsher, and thornier
than his father, with all the socially repellent traits of the race and
none of the softer ones. The father could never control his tongue or
his temper, and not always his head; the son never lost the bridle of
either, and much of his terrible power in debate came from his ability
to make others lose theirs while perfectly keeping his own. The father
had plenty of warm friends and allies,--at the worst he worked with half
a party; the son in the most superb part of his career had no friends,
no allies, no party except the group of constituents who kept him in
Congress. The father's self-confidence deepened in the son to a