y is military service, coupled with demagogue
policy. 2d. That, in the absence of military service, demagogue policy
is the first and most indispensable element of success, and the art of
party drilling the second. 3d. That the drill consists in combining
the Southern interest in domestic slavery with the Northern riotous
democracy. 4th. That this policy and drill, first organized by Thomas
Jefferson, accomplished his election, and established the Virginia
dynasty of twenty-four years;--a perpetual practical contradiction of
its own principles. 5th. That the same policy and drill, invigorated by
success and fortified by experience, has now placed Martin Van Buren in
the President's chair, and disclosed to the unprincipled ambition of
the North the art of rising upon the principles of the South. And 6th.
That it has exposed in broad day the overruling influence of the
institution of domestic slavery upon the history and policy of the
Union."

In the case of a contested election Mr. Adams remarked: "The conduct of
a majority of the House has, from beginning to end, been governed by
will, and not by judgment; and so I fear it will be always in every case
of contested elections."

"The speech of Horace Everett, of Vermont," (made on the 8th June, 1836,
on the Indian annuity bill,) said Mr. Adams, "gives a perfectly clear
and distinct exposition of the origin and causes of the Florida war, and
demonstrates, beyond all possibility of being gainsaid, that the wrong
of the war is on our side. It depresses the spirits, and humiliates the
soul, that this war is now running into its fifth year, has cost thirty
millions of dollars, has successively baffled and disgraced all our
chief military generals,--Gaines, Scott, Jesup, and Macomb,--and that
our last resources now are bloodhounds and no quarter. Sixteen millions
of Anglo-Saxons unable to subdue, in five years, by force and by fraud,
by secret treachery and by open war, sixteen hundred savage warriors!
There is a disregard of all appearance of right, in our transactions
with the Indians, which I feel as a cruel disparagement of the honor of
my country."

On the 1st of January, 1841, Mr. Adams, referring to the accounts he had
received that the attendance at the Presidential levees was much smaller
than usual, and that the visitors were chiefly from among the
President's old adversaries, the Whigs, remarked:

"'_Donec eris felix multos numerabis amicos Tempora si fuerint