onest men under
the influence of political prejudice. But such a charge, alleged
concerning a single act in a long public career, is to be scanned with
suspicion. Disproof by demonstration is impossible; but it is fair to
seek for the character of the act in a study of the character of the
actor, as illustrated by the rest of his career. Thus seeking we shall
see that, if any traits can be surely predicated of any man,
independence, courage, and honesty may be predicated of Mr. Adams. His
long public life had many periods of trial, yet this is the sole
occasion when it is so much as possible seriously to question the
purity of his motives--for the story of his intrigue with Mr. Clay to
secure the Presidency was never really believed by any one except
General Jackson, and the beliefs of General Jackson are of little
consequence. From the earliest to the latest day of his public life,
he was never a party man. He is entitled to the justification to be
derived from this life-long habit, when, in 1807-8, he voted against
the wishes of those who had hoped to hold him in the bonds of (p. 064)
partisan alliance. In point of fact, so far from these acts being a
yielding to selfish and calculating temptation, they called for great
courage and strength of mind; instead of being tergiversation, they
were a triumph in a severe ordeal. Mr. Adams was not so dull as to
underrate, nor so void of good feeling as to be careless of, the storm
of obloquy which he had to encounter, not only in such shape as is
customary in like instances of a change of sides in politics, but, in
his present case, of a peculiarly painful kind. He was to seem
unfaithful, not only to a party, but to the bitter feud of a father
whom he dearly loved and greatly respected; he was to be reviled by
the neighbors and friends who constituted his natural social circle in
Boston; he was to alienate himself from the rich, the cultivated, the
influential gentlemen of his neighborhood, his comrades, who would
almost universally condemn his conduct. He was to lose his position as
Senator, and probably to destroy all hopes of further political
success so far as it depended upon the good will of the people of his
own State. In this he was at least giving up a certainty in exchange
for what even his enemies must admit to have been only an expectation.

But in fact it is now evident that there was not upon his part even an
expectation. At the first signs of the views whic