y. "This is one of the
severest afflictions," he exclaimed, "to which human existence is
liable. The silver cord is broken,--the tenderest of natural ties is
dissolved,--life is no longer to me what it was,--my home is no longer
the abode of my mother. While she lived, whenever I returned to the
paternal roof, I felt as if the joys and charms of childhood returned to
make me happy; all was kindness and affection. At once silent and active
as the movement of the orbs of heaven, one of the links which connected
me with former ages is no more. May a merciful Providence spare for many
future years my only remaining parent!"

The policy of the friends and enemies of Mr. Monroe's administration was
developed by the debates in the House of Representatives on the Seminole
war, and the spirit of intrigue began to operate with great publicity.
Some of the Western friends of Mr. Adams proposed to him measures of
counteraction, on which he remarked: "These overtures afford
opportunities and temptations to intrigue, of which there is much in
this government, and without which the prospects of a public man are
desperate. Caballing with members of Congress for future contingency has
become so interwoven with the practical course of our government, and so
inevitably flows from the practice of canvassing by the members to fix
on candidates for President and Vice-President, that to decline it is to
pass a sentence of total exclusion. Be it so! Whatever talents I
possess, that of intrigue is not among them. And instead of toiling for
a future election, as I am recommended to do, my only wisdom is to
prepare myself for voluntary, or unwilling, retirement." On the same
topic, in February, 1819, he thus expressed himself: "The practice which
has grown up under the constitution, but contrary to its spirit, by
which members of Congress meet in caucus and determine by a majority the
candidates for the Presidency and Vice-Presidency to be supported by the
whole meeting, places the President in a state of undue subserviency to
the members of the legislature; which, connected with the other practice
of reelecting only once the same President, leads to a thousand corrupt
cabals between the members of Congress and heads of departments, who are
thus made, almost necessarily, rival pretenders to the succession. The
only possible chance for a head of a department to attain the Presidency
is by ingratiating himself with the members of Congress; and as ma