Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams Part 23

"Not more certainly is the body invigorated and preserved by suitable food, by manly exercises, by the vital air, than are the intellectual and moral faculties by the investigation and reception of divine truths, by habits of obedience to the divine will, by cheerful submission to the order and discipline of Divine Providence. Nor let us ever distrust the Father of our spirits, who knows perfectly all the wants of our nature, but rest a.s.sured that his commandments in the sacred Scriptures are entirely in harmony with the decrees of his providence; and that as to fear Him and keep His commandments is the whole duty (because the highest duty, and comprehending all others), so will it prove the whole and eternal happiness of man. If the indissoluble and harmonious connection between the laws of nature, of Providence and the moral law, be not always obvious, it is always certain. Over all the darkness, disturbances, and evils of the world shines revealed, more or less clearly, like the serene and cheerful heavens, this immutable law, binding virtue, however obscure, persecuted, or forsaken, to reward; duty, however humble or arduous, to happiness. Hence the declaration, that all things shall work together for good to them who love G.o.d, and that all things are theirs--the past and future, things temporal and spiritual, prosperity and adversity, angels, and princ.i.p.alities, and powers, and G.o.d himself, in all the resources of his wisdom and all the eternity of his reign.

"How shone out, clear as the noonday, yet mild and gentle as the morning, even in age, in the life and character of that great and venerable man, around whose precious, but, alas! inanimate form we all press in grat.i.tude, admiration, and love, those high virtues derived from faith in G.o.d, and nurtured by his revealed truth, this bereaved Congress, and, I may add, this nation witnesses. * * * * * *

"Truly emblematic of his moral integrity and strength of character would be the granite column from his native hills, one and entire, just in its proportions, towering in its height, immoveable in its foundations, and pointing to Heaven as the temple and throne of everlasting authority, the final refuge, the imperishable home of all regenerated and faithful souls.

"Independence of mere human authority in the use of his reason, on all subjects, was united with veneration most sincere and profound for the sacred Scriptures, as a supernatural revelation from G.o.d, 'whose prerogative extends not less to the reason than the will of man,' and from a daily perusal of the Divine Word, and a constant and devout attendance upon the public worship of the Sabbath, although differing on some points from common opinions, he cherished enlarged views of Christian communion, and recognized in most, if not all the religious denominations of this country, members of one and the same family and kingdom of Jesus Christ.

"Alas, the sad and appalling ruins of death! 'This is the end of earth.'

Approach! lovers of pleasure, seekers after wisdom, aspirants, by pre-eminence in station, and power, and influence among men, to fame; see the end of human distinctions and earthly greatness! Surely man walketh in a vain show; surely man in his best estate is altogether vanity. How pertinent to this scene the words of Job: 'He leadeth princes away spoiled, and overthroweth the mighty. He removeth away the speech of the trusty, and taketh away the understanding of the aged. He discovereth deep things out of darkness, and bringeth out to light the shadow of death!' How, indeed, is the mighty fallen, and the head of the wise laid low! All flesh is gra.s.s--all the glory of man as the flower of the field.

And shall this vast congregation soon be brought to the grave--that house appointed for all the living? Hear, then, the great announcement of the Son of G.o.d: 'I am the resurrection and the life, and whosoever believeth in me, though he were dead yet shall he live, and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.' Is it strange that he who communed so much with the future as the great statesman to whose virtues and memory we now pay this sad, final, solemn tribute of honor and affection, should, in the last conversation I ever had with him, have expressed both regret and astonishment at the indifference among too many of our public men to the truths and ordinances of our holy religion? Is it to affect our hearts that he has been permitted to fall in the midst of us, to arouse us from this insensibility, and cause us to press towards the gates of the eternal city of G.o.d? Let us bless G.o.d for another great example to shine upon us, that another star (we humbly trust) is planted amid the heavenly constellations to guide us to eternity!"

At the conclusion of the exercises in the capitol, a vast procession, escorted by military companies, conveyed the remains to the Congressional burying ground, where they were to rest until preparations for their removal to Quincy should be completed.

"Sad was the pomp that yesterday beheld, As with the mourner's heart the anthem swelled; The rich-plumed canopy, the gorgeous pall, The sacred march, and sable vested wall!-- These were not rites of inexpressive show, But hallowed as the types of real woe!

Ill.u.s.trious deceased! a NATION'S sighs, A NATION'S HEART, went with thine obsequies!"

The following letter of thanks from Mrs. Adams, addressed to the Speaker, was laid before the House of Representatives:--

"Washington, February 29, 1848.

"SIR: The resolutions in honor of my dear deceased husband, pa.s.sed by the ill.u.s.trious a.s.sembly over which you preside, and of which he at the moment of his death was a member, have been duly communicated to me.

"Penetrated with grief at this distressing event of my life, mourning the loss of one who has been at once my example and my support through the trials of half a century, permit me nevertheless to express through you my deepest grat.i.tude for the signal manner in which the public regard has been voluntarily manifested by your honorable body, and the consolation derived to me and mine from the reflection that the unwearied efforts of an old public servant have not even in this world proved without their reward in the generous appreciation of them by his country.

"With great respect, I remain, sir, your obedient servant, "LOUISA CATHARINE ADAMS."

On the following week, the Committee of one from each State and Territory in the Union, appointed by the House of Representatives to take charge of the remains of the deceased ex-President, and convey them to Quincy for final interment, commenced their journey. It was a new, yet inexpressibly thrilling and imposing spectacle. The dead body of "the Old Man Eloquent,"

surrounded and guarded by a son of each of the States and Territories of that Union which he had so largely a.s.sisted in consolidating and sustaining, leaves the capitol of the nation, where for more than thirty years he had acted the most conspicuous part among the fathers of the land, to rest in the tomb of its ancestors, amid the venerable shades of Quincy. How solemn the progress of such a procession. It was indeed, "the Funeral March of the Dead!" Wherever it pa.s.sed, the people rose up and paid the utmost marks of respect to the remains of one who had occupied so large a s.p.a.ce in the history of his country. In towns, in villages, in cities, as the mournful cortege swept through, business was suspended, flags were displayed at half mast, bells were tolled, minute guns were fired, civil and military processions received the sacred remains, and watched over them by night and by day, and pa.s.sed them on from State to State.

"What a progress was it which the dead patriot thus made! From the capitol of the nation, beneath whose dome, and while at his post of duty, he was seized by death--within sight almost of that Mount Vernon where repose the ashes of him, the Father of his Country, who first distinguished, encouraged and employed the extraordinary capacity of the youthful Adams--through cities that in his life time have grown up from villages--pa.s.sing, at Baltimore, almost beneath the shadow of the monument which there testifies of the valor of those who fell for country in the war of 1812--and in Philadelphia halting and reposing within the hall where his great father; John Adams, had fearlessly stood for Independence, and where Independence was proclaimed--the dead pa.s.sed on, everywhere followed by the reverential gaze and the mourning heart, till, reaching the great metropolis of New York, where the same father had been sworn in and taken his seat, as the first Vice President of the United States, with George Washington for President! Thence away the march was resumed, till it reached old Faneuil Hall--the cradle of American liberty, the fitting final restingplace, while yet unburied, of the body of one in whose heart, at no moment of life, did the love of liberty, imbibed or strengthened in that hall, suffer the slightest abatement." [Footnote: King's Eulogy.]

Faneuil Hall was clothed in the dark drapery of mourning, fitting to receive the body of one of the greatest of the many n.o.ble sons of the venerable Bay State. Amid solemn dirges and appropriate ceremonies, the chairman of the Congressional Committee surrendered to a Committee from the Legislature of Ma.s.sachusetts, the sacred remains they had accompanied from the capitol of the United States.--

"Throughout the journey," said the chairman, "there have been displayed manifestations of the highest admiration and respect for the memory of your late distinguished fellow-citizen. In the large cities through which we expected to pa.s.s, we antic.i.p.ated such demonstrations; but in every village and hamlet, at the humblest cottage which we pa.s.sed, and from the laborers in the field, the same profound respect was testified by their uncovered heads."

The Committee of the Ma.s.sachusetts Legislature having thus received the body from its Congressional escort, in turn surrendered it to the keeping of the munic.i.p.al authorities of Boston, for burial at Quincy. This ceremony was performed by Mr. Buckingham, chairman of the Legislative Committee, in these impressive words:--

"In the name and behalf of the Government and People of the Commonwealth of Ma.s.sachusetts, whose honored but humble servant I this day am, I consign to your faithful keeping, Mr. Mayor, the remains of JOHN QUINCY ADAMS--all that was mortal of that venerable man, whose age and whose virtues had rendered him an object of intense interest and admiration to his country and to the world. We place these sacred remains in your possession, to be conveyed to their appointed home--to sleep in the sepulchre and with the dust of his fathers."

Mr. Quincy, the Mayor, in accepting the guardianship conferred upon him in behalf of the city of Boston, replied in the following terms:--

"There is something sublime in the scene that surrounds us. An honored son of Ma.s.sachusetts--one who was educated by a signer of the Declaration of Independence--one who heard the thunder of the great struggle for liberty on yonder hill, has, after a life of unparalleled usefulness and fidelity, fallen in the capitol of the country he served. His remains were escorted here by delegates from every State in the Union. They have pa.s.sed over spots ever memorable in history. They have everywhere been received with funeral honors. They have reposed in the hall of independence. They now lie in the cradle of liberty. As a citizen of Ma.s.sachusetts, I cannot but acknowledge our sense of the honor paid to her distinguished son. Mourned by a nation at its capitol, attended by the representatives of millions to the grave, he has received a tribute to his memory unequalled among men.

"These remains now rest in the cradle of liberty. It is their last resting-place on their journey home. As a statesman's, 'this is to them the last of earth!' To-morrow they will be deposited in the peaceful church-yard of the village of his birth, there to be mourned, not as statesmen mourn for statesmen, but as friends mourn for friends.

"He will be 'gathered to his fathers!' And how great, in this case, is the significance of the expression! It is possible that other men may be attended as he will be to the grave. But when again shall the tomb of a President of the United States open its doors to receive a son who has filled the same office?"

On the following day, the body, under the charge of the munic.i.p.al officers of Boston, was conveyed to Quincy. In the Unitarian church, in the presence of old neighbors and friends, the last funeral exercises were held, and the last sad burial service was performed.

By the side of the graves of his fathers, overshadowed by aged trees, which had sheltered his head in the days of boyhood, in a plain tomb, prepared under his own direction, and inscribed simply with his name, sleep the ashes of JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.

"Let no weak drops Be shed for him. The virgin in her bloom Cut off, the joyous youth, and darling child, These are the tombs that claim the tender tear And elegiac songs. But Adams calls For other notes of gratulation high; That now he wanders thro' those endless worlds He here so well descried; and, wondering, talks And hymns their Author with his glad compeers.

Columbia's boast! whether with angels thou Sittest in dread discourse, or fellow blest Who joy to see the honor of their kind; Or whether, mounted on cherubic wing, Thy swift career is with the whirling orbs, Comparing things with things, in rapture lost, And grateful adoration for that light So plenteous ray'd into thy mind below From Light himself--oh! look with pity down On human kind, a frail, erroneous race!

Exalt the spirit of a downward world!

O'er thy dejected country chief preside, And be her Genius called! her studies raise, Correct her manners, and inspire her youth; For, though deprav'd and sunk, she brought thee forth, And glories in thy name. She points thee out To all her sons, and bids them eye thy star-- Thy star, which, followed steadfastly, shall lead To wisdom, virtue, glory here, and joy Unspeakable in worlds to come."

EULOGY.[Footnote: Delivered before the Legislature of New York, by Wm. H.

Seward.]

We are in the midst of extraordinary events. British-American Civilization and Spanish-American Society have come into collision, each in its fullest maturity. The armies of the North have penetrated the chapparels at Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma--pa.s.sed the fortresses of Monterey, and rolled back upon the heart of Mexico the unavailing tide of strong resistance from the mountain-side of Buena Vista. Martial colonists are encamped on the coasts of California, while San Juan d'Ulloa has fallen, and the invaders have swept the gorge of Cerro Gordo--carried Perote and Puebla, and planted the banner of burning stars and ever-multiplying stripes on the towers of the city of the Aztecs.

The thirtieth Congress a.s.sembles in this conjuncture, and the debates are solemn, earnest, and bewildering. Interest, pa.s.sion, conscience, freedom, and humanity, all have their advocates. Shall new loans and levies be granted to prosecute still farther a war so glorious? or shall it be abandoned? Shall we be content with the humiliation of the foe? or shall we complete his subjugation? Would that severity be magnanimous, or even just? Nay, is the war itself just? Who provoked, and by what unpardonable offence, this disastrous strife between two eminent Republics, so scandalous to Democratic Inst.i.tutions? Where shall we trace anew the ever-advancing line of our empire? Shall it be drawn on the sh.o.r.e of the Rio Grande, or on the summit of the Sierra Madre? or shall Mexican Independence be extinguished, and our eagle close his adventurous pinions only when he looks off upon the waves that separate us from the Indies?

Does Freedom own and accept our profuse oblations of blood, or does she reject the sacrifice? Will these conquests extend her domain, or will they be usurped by ever-grasping slavery? What, effect will this new-born ambition have upon ourselves? Will it leave us the virtue to continue the career of social progress? How shall we govern the conquered people? Shall we incorporate their mingled races with ourselves, or rule them with the despotism of proconsular power? Can we preserve these remote and hostile possessions in any way, without forfeiting our own blood-bought heritage of freedom?

Steam and lightning, which have become docile messengers, make the American people listeners to this high debate, and anxiety, and interest, intense and universal, absorb them all. Suddenly the council is dissolved.

Silence is in the capitol, and sorrow has thrown its pall over the land.

What new event is this? Has some Cromwell closed the legislative chambers? or has some Caesar, returning from his distant conquests, pa.s.sed the Rubicon, seized the purple, and fallen in the Senate beneath the swords of self-appointed executioners of his country's vengeance? No!

nothing of all this. What means, then, this abrupt and fearful silence?

What unlooked for calamity has quelled the debates of the Senate and calmed the excitement of the people? An old man, whose tongue once indeed was eloquent, but now through age had well nigh lost its cunning, has fallen into the swoon of death. He was not an actor in the drama of conquest--nor had his feeble voice yet mingled in the lofty argument--

"A grey-haired sire, whose eye intent Was on the visioned future bent."

And now he has dreamed out at last the troubled dream of life. Sighs of unavailing grief ascend to Heaven. Panegyric, fluent in long-stifled praise, performs its office. The army and the navy pay conventional honors, with the pomp of national woe, and then the hea.r.s.e moves onward.

It rests appropriately, on its way, in the hall where independence was proclaimed, and again under the dome where freedom was born. At length the tomb of JOHN ADAMS opens to receive a SON, who also, born a subject of a king had stood as a representative of his emanc.i.p.ated country, before princ.i.p.alities and powers, and had won by merit, and worn without reproach, the honors of the Republic.

From that scene, so impressive in itself, and impressive because it never before happened, and can never happen again, we have come up to this place surrounded with the decent drapery of public mourning, on a day set apart by authority, to recite the history of the citizen, who, in the ripeness of age, and fulness of honors, has thus descended to his rest. It is fit to do so, because it is by such exercises that nations regenerate their early virtues and renew their const.i.tutions. All nations must perpetually renovate their virtues and their const.i.tutions, or perish. Never was there more need to renovate ours than now, when we seem to be pa.s.sing from the safe old policy of peace and moderation into a career of conquest and martial renown. Never was the duty of preserving our free inst.i.tutions in all their purity, more obvious than it is now, when they have become beacons to mankind in what seems to be a general dissolution of their ancient social systems.

The history of JOHN QUINCY ADAMS is one that opens no new truth in the philosophy of virtue; for there is no undiscovered truth in that philosophy. But it is a history that sheds marvellous confirmation on maxims which all mankind know, and yet are p.r.o.ne to undervalue and forget.

The exalted character before us was formed by the combination of virtue, courage, a.s.siduity, and modesty, under favorable conditions, with native talent and genius, and ill.u.s.trates the truth, that in morals as in nature, simplicity is the chief element of the sublime.

John Quincy Adams was fortunate in his lineage; in the period, and in the place of his nativity; in all the circ.u.mstances of education; in the age and country in which he lived; in the incidents, as well as the occasions of his public service; and in the period and manner of his death. He was a descendant from one of the Puritan planters of Ma.s.sachusetts, and a son of the most intrepid actor in the Revolution of Independence. Quincy, the place of his birth, is a plain, bounded on the west by towering granite hills, and swept without defence by every wind from the ocean. Its soil in ancient times was as sterile as its climate is always rigorous.

Born on the eleventh day of July, 1767, in the hour of the agitation of rebellion, and reared within sight and sound of gathering war, the earliest political ideas he received were such as John Adams then uttered--"We must fight." "Sink or swim--live or die--survive or perish with my country, is my unalterable determination." A mother fervently pious, and eminent in intellectual gifts, directed with more than maternal a.s.siduity and solicitude the education of him who was to render her own name immortal. Never quite divorced from home, yet twice, and for long periods in his youth, a visitor in Europe, he enjoyed always the parental discipline of one of the founders of the American State, and often the daily conversation of Franklin and Jefferson; and combined travel in France, Spain, England, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, and Russia, and even diplomatic experience, with the instructions of the schools of Paris, of the University at Leyden, and of Harvard University at Cambridge; and all these influences fell upon him at a period when his country, then opening the way to human liberty through trials of fire, fixed the attention of mankind.

The establishment of the Republic of the United States of America, is the most important secular event in the history of the human race. It did not disentangle the confused theory of the origin of Government, but cut through the bonds of power existing by prescription, at a blow; and thus directly and immediately affected the opinions and the actions of men in every part of the civilized world. It animated them everywhere to seek freedom from despotic power and aristocratic restraint. Whenever and wherever they have since moved, either by peaceful agitation or by physical force, to meliorate systems of government, whether in France at the close of the last century, or afterward on the second subversion of the elder branch of the Bourbons, or in the recent overthrow of the const.i.tutional king, or in Ireland, or in England, or in Italy, or in Greece, or in South America, whether they succeeded or failed, there, in the tumult or in the strife, was the spirit of the American Revolution.

"It gave an example of a great people, not merely emanc.i.p.ating themselves, but governing themselves, without either a monarch to control, or an aristocracy to restrain them; and it demonstrated, for the first time in the history of the world, contrary to the predictions and theories of speculative philosophy, that a great nation, when duly prepared, is capable of self-government by purely republican inst.i.tutions."

But the establishment of the American Republic was too great an achievement to be made all at once. It was a drama of five grand acts, each of which filled a considerable period, and called upon the stage actors of peculiar powers and distinguished virtues. Those acts were, colonization, preparation, revolution, organization, consolidation.

Two of these acts were closed before John Quincy Adams was born. The third, the revolution, the shortest of them all, dazzles the contemplation by the rapidity and the martial character of its incidents. The fourth, the organization of the Government, by the splendors of genius elicited, and the felicity of the new form of government presented, satisfies the superficial inquirer that, when the Const.i.tution had been adopted, nothing remained to perfect the great achievement. But other nations have had successful revolutions, and have set up free const.i.tutions, and have yet sunk again under reinvigorated despotism. The CONSOLIDATION of the American Republic--the crowning act--occupied forty years, reaching from 1789 to 1829. During that period, John Quincy Adams partic.i.p.ated continually in public affairs, and ultimately became the princ.i.p.al actor.

The new Government was purely an experiment. In opposition to the fixed habits of mankind, it established suffrage practically universal, and representation so perfect that not one Legislative House only, but both Houses; not legislative officers only, but all officers, executive, ministerial, and even judicial, were directly or indirectly elected by the people. The longest term of the senatorial trust was but six years, and the shortest only two, and even the tenure of the executive power was only four years. This Government, betraying so much popular jealousy, was invested with only special and limited sovereignty. The conduct of merely munic.i.p.al affairs was distributed within the States, among Governments even more popular than the federal structure, and without whose ever-renewed support that structure must fall.

The Government thus const.i.tuted, so new, so complex and artificial, was to be consolidated, in the midst of difficulties at home, and of dangers abroad. The const.i.tution had been adopted only upon convictions of absolute necessity, and with evanescent dispositions of compromise. By nearly half of the people it was thought too feeble to sustain itself, and secure the rights for which governments are inst.i.tuted among men. By as many it was thought liable to be converted into an over-shadowing despotism, more formidable and more odious than the monarchy which had been subverted. These conflicting opinions revealed themselves in like discordance upon every important question of administration, and were made the basis of parties, which soon became jealous and irreconcilable, and ultimately inveterate, and even in some degree disloyal.