ought to
be made by law for defraying the expense incident to the appointment of
an agent or commissioner to Greece, whenever the President shall deem it
expedient to make such appointment;" supporting it by a speech adapted
to catch the popular tide, then at the full, and, in fact, doing nothing
with the appearance of doing something. A member of Congress consulted
Mr. Adams on an amendment he proposed to make to the project of Mr.
Webster, as specified in his resolve, it being then under consideration
in the House of Representatives. Mr. Adams replied, it was immaterial
what form the resolution might assume; the objection to it would be the
same in every form. It was, in his opinion, the intermeddling of the
legislature with the duties of the executive; it was the adoption of
Clay's South American system; seizing upon the popular feeling of the
moment to embarrass the administration. A few days afterwards, Mr. Adams
took occasion to state his reasons to Mr. Webster for being averse to
his resolution.

Notwithstanding the Virginia doctrine, that the constitution does not
authorize the application of public moneys to internal improvement, was
one of the hinges on which the selection of candidates in the Southern
States turned, Mr. Adams did not refrain from openly expressing his own
opinion. In a letter to a gentleman in Maryland, dated January, 1824, he
stated that "Congress does possess the power of appropriating money for
public improvements. Roads and canals are among the most essential means
of improving the condition of nations; and a people which should
deliberately, by the organization of its authorized power, deprive
itself of the faculty of multiplying its own blessings, would be as wise
as a Creator who should undertake to constitute a human being without a
heart."[2]

[2] _Niles' Register_, vol. XXVI., pp. 251-328.

While the election of President was pending, and the event uncertain, a
member of Congress from Ohio told Mr. Adams there were sanguine hopes of
his success; on which he remarked: "We know so little of that in
futurity which is best for ourselves, that whether I ought to wish for
success is among the greatest uncertainties of the election. Were it
possible to look with philosophical indifference to the event, that is
the temper of mind to which I should aspire. But who can hold a
firebrand in his hand by thinking of the frosty Caucasus? To suffer
without feeling is not in human nature; a