are parties, and the
din and turmoil of their contests are ceaselessly heard? They are founded
now on questions of mere administration, or on the more ephemeral
questions of personal merit. Such parties are dangerous only in the
decline, not in the vigor of Republics. Rome was no longer fit for
freedom, and needed a Dictator and a Sovereign, when Pompey and Caesar
divided the citizens. What though the magnanimity of Adams was not
appreciated, and his contemporaries preferred his military competitor in
the subsequent election? The sword gathers none but ripe fruits, and the
masses of any people will sometimes prefer them to the long maturing
harvest, which the statesmen of the living generations sow, to be reaped
by their successors. For all this Adams cared not. He had extinguished the
factions which for forty years had endangered the State. He had left on
the records of history instructions and an example teaching how faction
could be overthrown, and his country might resort to them when danger
should recur. For himself he knew well, none knew better, that

"He who ascends to mountain-tops shall find
The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow.
He who surpasses or subdues mankind,
Must look down on the hate of those below.
Though high above the sun of glory glow,
And far beneath the earth and ocean spread,
Round him are icy rocks, and loudly blow
Contending tempests on his naked head,
And thus reward the toils which to their summits led."

The federal authority had so long been factiously opposed, that the
popular respect for its laws needed to be renewed. The State of Georgia
presented the fit occasion. She insisted on expelling, forcibly, remnants
of Indian tribes, within her limits, in virtue of a treaty which was
impeached for fraud, and came for revision before the Supreme Court and
the Senate. The President met the emergency with boldness and decision.
The demonstration thus given that good faith should be practised, and the
law have its way, no matter how unequal the litigating parties, operated
favorably toward restoring the moral influence of the Government. That
influence, although sometimes checked, has recently increased in strength,
until the federal authority is universally regarded as final, and liberty
again walks confidently hand in hand with law.

John Quincy Adams "loved peace and ensued it." He loved peace as a
Christian, because war was at enmity with the