A: Adams through Arthur

See below for annotated biographies of anti-slavery Whigs. Source: Scribner’s Dictionary of American Biography; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography.

ADAMS, Charles Francis, 1807-1886, Vice President, Anti-Slavery Free Soil Party, newspaper publisher and editor. Son of former President John Quincy Adams. Grandson of President John Adams. Opposed annexation of Texas, on opposition to expansion of slavery in new territories. Formed “Texas Group” within Massachusetts Whig Party. Formed and edited newspaper, Boston Whig, in 1846.

(Adams, 1900; Duberman, 1961; Goodell, 1852, p. 478; Mitchell, 2007, pp. 32-33; Pease, 1965, pp. 445-452; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 51, 298; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 12-13. Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 1, pp. 40-48).

Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography 1888, Volume I, pp. 12-13:

ADAMS, Charles Francis, diplomatist, son of John Quincy Adams, born in Boston, 18 August, 1807; died there, 21 November, 1886. When two years old he was taken by his father to St. Petersburg, where he learned German, French, and Russian. Early in 1815 he travelled all the way from St. Petersburg to Paris with his mother in a private carriage, a difficult journey at that time, and not unattended with danger. His father was soon afterward appointed minister to England, and the little boy was placed at an English boarding-school. The feelings between British and Americans was then more hostile than ever before or since, and young Adams was frequently called upon to defend with his fists the good name of his country. When he returned after two years to America, his father placed him in the Boston Latin school, and he was graduated at Harvard College in 1825, shortly after his father's inauguration as president of the United States. He spent two years in Washington, and then returned to Boston, where he studied law in the office of Daniel Webster, and was admitted to the Suffolk bar in 1828. The next year he married the youngest daughter of Peter Chardon Brooks, whose elder daughters were married to Edward Everett and Reverend Nathaniel Frothingham. From 1831 to 1836 Mr. Adams served in the Massachusetts legislature. He was a member of the Whig Party, but, like all the rest of his vigorous and free-thinking family, he was extremely independent in politics and inclined to strike out into new paths in advance of the public sentiment. After 1836 he came to differ more and more widely with the leaders of the Whig Party with whom he had hitherto acted. In 1848 the newly organized Free-Soil Party, consisting largely of Democrats, held its convention at Buffalo and nominated Martin Van Buren for president and Charles Francis Adams for vice-president. There was no hope of electing these candidates, but this little party grew, six years later, into the great Democratic Party. In 1858 he was elected to Congress by the Republicans of the 3d District of Massachusetts, and in 1860 he was reelected. In the spring of 1861 President Lincoln appointed him minister to England, a place which both his father and his grandfather had filled before him. Mr. Adams had now to fight with tongue and pen for his country as in school-boy days he had fought with fists. It was an exceedingly difficult time for an American minister in England. Though there was much sympathy for the U. S. government on the part of the workmen in the manufacturing districts and of many of the liberal constituencies, especially in Scotland, on the other hand the feeling of the governing classes and of polite society in London was either actively hostile to us or coldly indifferent. Even those students of history and politics who were most friendly to us failed utterly to comprehend the true character of the sublime struggle in which we were engaged— as may be seen in reading the introduction to Mr. E. A. Freeman's elaborate "History of Federal Government, from the Formation of the Achaean League to the Disruption of the United States" (London, 1862). Difficult and embarrassing questions arose in connection with the capture of the Confederate commissioners Mason and Slidell, the negligence of Lord Palmerston's government in allowing the "Alabama" and other Confederate cruisers to sail from British ports to prey upon American commerce, and the ever manifest desire of Napoleon III, to persuade Great Britain to join him in an acknowledgment of the independence of the confederacy. The duties of this difficult diplomatic mission were discharged by Mr. Adams with such consummate ability as to win universal admiration. No more than his father or grandfather did he belong to the school of suave and crafty, intriguing diplomats. He pursued his ends with dogged determination and little or no attempt at concealment, while his demeanor was haughty and often defiant. His unflinching firmness bore clown all opposition, and his perfect self-control made it difficult for an antagonist to gain any advantage over him. His career in England from 1861 to 1868 must be cited among the foremost triumphs of American diplomacy. In 1872 it was attempted to nominate him for the presidency of the United States, as the candidate of the liberal Republicans, but Horace Greeley secured the nomination. He was elected in 1869 a member of the board of overseers of Harvard College, and was for several years president of the board. He has edited the works and memoirs of his father and grandfather, in 22 octavo volumes, and published many of his own addresses and orations. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 12-13.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 1, Pt. 1, pp. 40-48:

ADAMS, CHARLES FRANCIS (May 27, 1835-March 20, 1915), railroad expert, civic leader, historian, was born at Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Charles Francis Adams [q. v.] and Abigail Brown (Brooks) Adams. His earlier years were passed between Boston and Quincy and by a preference for the latter he became identified with its history as a town. He remembered his grandfather, John Quincy Adams, as an old man, "always writing ... with a perpetual ink stain on the forefinger and thumb of his right hand" (Autobiography, p. 9), and was impressed by his industrious and somewhat solitary life. From private schools the boy went through the Boston Latin School, entered Harvard University in the sophomore year, and graduated in 1856. Critical of his education and career, he looked back with pleasure on his Harvard days as a "period of rapid development and much enjoyment" (Ibid., p. 31). After leaving college he studied law in the office of Richard Henry Dana and Francis E. Parker, leading lawyers of their day; but though he was admitted to practice in 1858, he soon discovered that he had no great liking for the law. As what practice he had occupied but a small part of his time, he was in a position to form relations that developed his as yet unformed aptitudes. In 1848 he had accompanied his father to the Buffalo convention, and during the session of the convention Charles Sumner took him to Niagara Falls. He formed a close and admiring friendship for Sumner and later for Seward, with whom he and his father made a tour in the West in the campaign of 1860, where the young man made some speeches, which were well received. In Dana's office he met the best and took what was offered in the association. He grew up in an atmosphere of political discussion. His hours gave him time to write and he began, as had his father, with newspaper communications on public questions. Visiting his father in Washington in the winter of 1860, he eagerly made use of his opportunity to meet prominent men and gained in assurance as well as knowledge. Seeking a wider audience, he offered to James Russell Lowell, then editor of the Atlantic Monthly, an article on "The Reign of King Cotton," a subject of living interest. Its acceptance gave him encouragement. At this time he kept a diary, as his three forebears had done. Of this a few extracts only have been preserved, enough to cause regret that he destroyed the record in later years.

In February 1861 he again went to Washington, remained for nearly a month, and witnessed the inauguration of Lincoln, still widening his acquaintance with public men, observing, and studying the situation, only to admit in after years that, with almost every one concerned, he had failed to grasp the situation. His father and Seward seemed to him to have a policy "eminently sensible" (Ibid., p. 73), that of holding the border states loyal until the secession movement should recede, the new administration be in power, and the Union reaction encouraged. Adams's vivid account of this interval, with its uncertainties, doubtings, and lack of cooperation, the coming of the President-elect and his loose utterances on the way, and the sentiments of Seward and Sumner, give proof of his gift of description.

Returning to Boston in March, the appointment of his father to the English mission laid upon him the care of the family property, and the outbreak of war made this a heavy responsibility. As all young men were in the militia, he was a member of the 4th Battalion of Massachusetts Volunteer Militia, learned the manual and how to march, and was in garrison in Fort Independence in Boston harbor. The training was elementary yet serviceable. He saw the first regiments leave for the South without a strong wish to follow them; he had five weeks of playing soldier at Fort Independence in April and May 1861; and in the following months he watched his friends take service. By the end of October his course of action was determined and he applied for a captaincy in the 1st Massachusetts Cavalry. He received a commission as first lieutenant in December and on the 28th of that month he started for South Carolina with his regiment. To Adams it proved a service of three and a half years, and five years passed before he was again a resident of Boston. Summing up his experience, he was inclined to regard his military life as educationally incomparably more valuable than his years in the university; it would have been even more valuable had he been a staff officer, as he more than once had the opportunity to become. A regimental officer, he records, "no matter how high his grade, sees nothing and knows nothing of what is going on-obedience, self-sacrifice, and patient endurance are the qualities most in demand for him; but as for any intelligent comprehension of the game in progress, that for the regimental officer is quite beyond his ken" (Ibid., pp. 135-36). His family letters during his service have been printed in A Cycle of Adams Letters, 1861-65 (1920) and have a quality of their own. Vivid in description, natural in expression, frank in opinion on men and events, they are shot through with the vein of introspection natural to an Adams. Sharing in two of the great battles, Antietam and Gettysburg, he gives a picture of camp and garrison service that is unmatched. Conscientious in the performance of duty and learning by experience the essentials of routine, he held an enviable reputation and General Humphreys offered him the highest position on his staff. Adams, now a colonel, declined, feeling obliged to remain with his negro regiment-the 5th Massachusetts Cavalry. In August 1864 his health began to break down and in May 1865 he was a physical wreck. Mustered out in June of that year, he received the brevet of brigadier-general. He married at Newport, November 8, 1865, Mary Hone Ogden, daughter of Edward and Caroline Callender Ogden of New York.

After eleven months in Europe in 1865-66 he returned, restored in health but without occupation. Realizing his unfitness for the law as a source of livelihood, he took to his pen and wrote on railroads, then the important feature in the economic growth of the country. The transcontinental lines were being (milt with government aid, and in Wall Street the greatest speculators were fighting for control of eastern roads. Adams, seeking for the broad principles that should apply to the development of railroad construction and management, had before him the best of examples. From 1866 to 1873 the building of roads had been overdone. They had been recklessly financed and made the object of stock gambling, involving good as well as doubtful undertakings. Adams analyzed the acts and intentions of the men seeking to gain possession of the Erie road, while wrecking it, and in a series of articles fearlessly attacked them and exposed the criminal acts to which they resorted. The papers attracted as great attention by their courage as by their grasp of some railroad problems of general application. Gathered into a volume- Chapters of Erie and Other Essays (1871) they have kept a place in the literature of railroads and stock speculations. He also wrote a series of articles on the Tweed Ring, which were printed under the title, "An Episode in Municipal Government," in the North American Review (October 1874, January and July 1875, October 1875) over the name of C. F. Wingate, who had supplied some of the material and to whom Adams characteristically gave the full credit.

When Massachusetts took the lead in establishing a Board of Railroad Commissioners in 1869 Adams because of his evident fitness was appointed one of the three members. The youngest and most active, he performed the labor, controlled the proceedings, and in 1872 became the chairman. This position he held until 1879, producing a series of reports on railway accidents and policy that drew attention to the methods and utility of the board and led to the creation in other states of boards closely modeled after that of Massachusetts. The success of his administration rested upon a full and impartial public examination of facts and a frank presentation to the public of conditions and conclusions. He won the confidence of both operators and public; and the handling of the engineers' strike in 1877 proved the efficacy of his principles, for no other, strike among railway operatives in Massachusetts occurred for twenty-five years. The subject was treated by him in 1902 in Investigation and Publicity as opposed to Compulsory Arbitration and his methods found favor but not acceptance. He left records of his railroad experience in Railroads: Their Origin and Problems (1878) and Notes on Railroad Accidents (1879). In 1878, through the influence of Carl Schurz, he became chairman of the government directors of the Union Pacific Railroad, visited the Pacific coast, and prepared the report. Later, in 1884, he became president of that road, a position forced upon him, only to be ousted from it after six years by Jay Gould and his following, who were none too friendly to Adams because of his exposure of the Erie. Adams foresaw the future importance of the road and from the verge of bankruptcy he raised it to a solvent and efficient system. The later financial situation and legislative measures hindered the completion of his administrative reforms. Through no fault of his own he was unable to meet the maneuvers of the speculative railroad wrecker. Still another recognition of his abilities in railroad affairs was his appointment to the Board of Arbitration of the Trunk Line Railroads, but he held the position for only three years, convinced that the time was not ready for such a board.

Living in Quincy, Massachusetts, he and his brother John Quincy Adams served as moderators in town meetings for twenty years and directed the proceedings of the town government at a time when the place by its size was outgrowing that form of administration. Charles Adams had the more suggestive mind and the greater capacity for labor, but the two brothers left their impress in permanent form. Adams was a member of the school committee, a trustee of the public library, a park commissioner, and a commissioner of the sinking fund. In each of these positions he accomplished results that in retrospect pleased him. He found the school system antiquated and the methods of teaching so imperfect as to be of little value. The average graduate of the grammar school in 1870 could not read with ease, nor could he write an ordinary letter in good English in a legible hand. Uncertain what reforms were necessary, Adams proposed the employment of a trained superintendent and in 1875 gained his end. Out of this came the "Quincy System," which was widely studied and imitated throughout the land and for which Adams was almost wholly responsible. It substituted new methods for the old mechanical ones. In place of memorizing rules, children were to learn to read, write, and cipher as they learned to walk and talk, naturally and by practice. In reading and writing, a geography or history took the place of speller, grammar, and copybook. By 1880 the success of the system seemed assured and Adams's account of the reform-The New Departure in the Common Schools of Quincy passed through six editions.

As the town possessed no public library, provision for one was made in 1871, the cost to be met by town and private subscription. Opened in that year, it proved a great success, and nine years later, through Adams's agency, the town gained the Thomas Crane library building, dedicated in 1882, Adams making the address. In 1874 the town had a debt of $112,000; after nine years of the Adams brothers' management this was reduced to $19,000 and disappeared shortly after. Owing to Adams's plans the town received Wollaston Park, historic as the site of Thomas Morton's Merry Mount. The union of the suggestive and the practical in Adams which had benefited the town by application trained him for wider fields, and in 1892 he was appointed to the state commission to devise a system of parks and public reservations in the vicinity of Boston. The work of this commission has surrounded the city with beautiful connecting roadways, saved Blue Hill from the quarrymen, and preserved the Middlesex Fells as public parks. He also served as chairman of a state commission to report upon the relations of street railways and municipalities, which caused him to study the subject, in European cities and produced useful general legislation based upon his recommendations, which again was copied in other cities.

For twenty-four years from 1882 he was a member of the Board of Overseers of Harvard University and was prominent in many lines of its development. The nomination of visiting committees fell to him and he himself gave special attention to the English department. His elaborate reports on conditions produced some changes, but he was never satisfied that he had fully understood the situation and the remedy. To him the Harvard system was "radically wrong," and he expressed his views in two addresses which called out much controversy. His ideas on the education to be given by college and university were developed in A College Fetich (1883), a protest against the compulsory study of dead languages; and, in 1906, near the term of his long service as overseer, in Some Modern College Tendencies, in which he pointed out the complete separation of teacher and individual student and the absence of direction in studies and of the personal influence of instructors. A remedy he found in a group of colleges, each independent and each having its specialty, where the master should know every student. The university should supplement college training. Both papers were constructive in their suggestion and served their purpose of causing reexamination of accepted methods.

Meanwhile another field had opened to him, by accident as he thought, when the citizens of Weymouth asked him to deliver an address on the 250th anniversary of its settlement. Without experience in historical investigation he accepted and in so doing entered upon forty years of historical writing, essentially his "aptitude," from which he derived his greatest pleasure and most lasting reputation. The address was given in 1874, and in the following year he was elected a member of the Massachusetts Historical Society, became a vice-president of it in 1890 and president in 1895, a position he held until his death. In that period he contributed many papers, broadened the scope of the society, and added greatly to its reputation. In 1883 he printed some six copies of Episodes in New England History, a study of the history of Quincy, which in 1892 appeared in an extended form in two volumes as Three Episodes of Massachusetts History and remains a model local history in its form and treatment. In the same year (1883) appeared his edition of Morton's New English Canaan and in 1894 his Antinomianism in the Colony of Massachusetts-Bay, 1636-38, elaborately annotated. He ventured into a somewhat new field in a biography of Richard Henry Dana (1890), and in a life of his father, Charles Francis Adams (1900), both of which have taken a high place in American biography.

Wishing to write a full biography of his father, Adams for a number of years gave close study to the political history of Massachusetts and the War of Secession and its results. Not a little of his material was used in occasional papers and addresses, the more important of which were side studies of his principal theme. In a group of papers he expressed his conception of secession and particularly the conduct of General Lee: "Shall Cromwell have a Statue?" (1902), a plea for a statue to Lee in Washington; Lee at Appomattox, etc. (1902); Constitutional Ethics of Secession(1903); and Lee's Centennial (1907), a series that marked the waning of the animosities which had survived the war. Beginning with 1899 and for fifteen years thereafter he prepared a number of papers on the diplomatic history of the War of Secession, the larger part of which appeared in the Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Drawing largely from the family papers, he was able to give valuable material hitherto unknown, and he enriched it by an interpretation which, always original and individual, often ran counter to accepted conclusions. In 1899 he printed "The Laird Rams," in the Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Volume XXXIII; in 1901 he made an address in New York on Before and after the Treaty of Washington (published in 1902), and followed it by a number of essays on the British Declaration of Neutrality, the Trent Affair, the Rams, and British and French mediation. Becoming convinced that the story could not be fully told without having the contemporary English and French diplomatic papers, he went twice to England in 1913, the first visit being due to his appointment to deliver three lectures on American history at Oxford University. These lectures were printed in 1913 as Trans-Atlantic Historical Solidarity. He gained access to important collections in England, obtained much material, and returned to complete the life of his father. The new material led to a revision of his earlier studies in diploma tic history, but was never fully utilized.

All this does not measure the extent of his activities. He engaged in large business enterprises and with a measure of success. In the town of Lincoln, Massachusetts, whither he removed from Quincy, he showed the same interest in town government as he had in Quincy. Throughout his whole career he was keenly alive to the course of political events, took an active share in reform and independent movements, and was an eager participant in the discussions of public policy, both state and national. He began as a Republican, but later became independent of party and remained so to the end. Except for the positions held in Quincy he never was a candidate for nor held an elective office. In 1883 he was offered a nomination for the governorship, but declined it on the ground that a third candidate would divide the party and make the defeat of General Butler less certain. In dealing with public questions, he acted and wrote not as a partisan but in a large way-as had his ancestors before him. He spoke and published on ballot and electoral reform, proportional representation, free trade (he was in favor of a tariff for revenue), civil service reform, currency and finance, taxation, the abuses of the pension system, Panama tolls, the Philippines, and imperialism. To the end he remained active, individual, and suggestive. He died in Washington, March 20, 1915.

"Always independent, sometimes recalcitrant ... by nature inclined to believe that long-established practices of governments, institutions of education, and financial or industrial organizations were likely to be wrong, or at least capable of great improvement," was President Eliot's summary of his life-work (Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, XL VIII, 387). "Inheriting a great tradition of public service, he felt the obligations which it imposed, and to that patriotism which was born in the descendant of men who had done so much to found and preserve this nation was added the consciousness of what was due from the members of his family," added Moorfield Storey (Ibid., XL VIII, 387). In his writing, so much of which was for special occasions, he has left a record of his own acts, opinions, and experience, expressed with detachment and independence. Possessing an inquiring and historical mind, with pronounced ability to investigate and present social and historical problems, progressive in matters of political or administrative improvement, yet conservative in action, he showed that he was near to John Quincy Adams in qualities of mind but wanting in the aggressiveness that distinguished the elder statesman. Passing a life largely in controversy, his absolute honesty of purpose and conviction was never questioned.

In addition to what has been mentioned Adams printed a number of historical addresses, of which the following are the more important: Double Anniversary, '76 and '63 at Quincy (1869); An Oration before the Authorities of Boston, July 4, 1872 (1872); History of Braintree (1891); The Centennial Milestone, Quincy (1892); Massachusetts: its Historians and its History (1893); Sifted Grain and the Grain Sifters (1900); and "'Tis Sixty Years Since" (1913). On politics he published Individuality in Politics (1880) and Emancipation of the Voter (1894). In 1911 he gathered into a volume a number of his papers Studies: Military and Diplomatic, 1775-1865- and before 1912 he prepared an autobiography, published the year after his death.

[The chief sources are Charles Francis Adams 1835- 1915: An Autobiography, with a "Memorial Address" by Henry Cabot Lodge (1916) and tributes in Massachusetts Historical Society Proc., XLVIII.]

W.C.F.



ADAMS, John Quincy, 1767-1848, Massachusetts, sixth U.S. President (1825-1829), U.S. Congressman (1831-1848), U.S. Secretary of State, lawyer, anti-slavery leader, activist, abolitionist, son of second U.S. President John Adams. As president his administration was Whig. Opposed the Missouri Compromise of 1819, which allowed the expansion of slavery in southern states. Fought against the “Gag Rule” in Congress, which prevented discussion of the issue of slavery in the U.S. House of Representatives. The Gag Rule was revoked in 1844.

(Adams, 1874; Bemis, 1956; Cable, 1971; Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, pp. 238, 243-244, 367-370; Filler, Louis. The Crusade Against Slavery, 1830-1860. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1960, p. 57, 80, 82, 96, 98, 102, 104, 105, 107, 108, 164, 168, 208; Goodell, 1852; Hammond, 2011, pp. 25, 175, 176, 240, 248, 272, 273, 276, 380; Mason, 2006, pp. 3., 90, 93, 98, 165, 185, 187, 190, 200, 205, 214-222, 263n31, 383n32, 289n47; Miller, 1996; Mitchell, Thomas G. Antislavery Politics in Antebellum and Civil War America. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2007, pp. 3, 6, 8, 10, 18-19, 24, 33, 39, 45, 137, 197, 248; Pease, William H., & Pease, Jane H. The Antislavery Argument. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1965, pp. 260-267; Remini, 2002; Richards, 1986; Rodriguez, Junius P., Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2007, pp. 40-41, 49, 45, 132, 153-154, 305; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, pp. 24-28; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928);

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 1, Pt. 1, pp. 84-92.)

ADAMS, JOHN QUINCY (July 11, 1767- February 23, 1848), eldest son of John and Abigail (Smith) Adams, was born at Braintree (now Quincy), Massachusetts. With little early schooling he accompanied his father to France in 1778, already keeping a journal which developed into one of the most famous of diaries. He had a short training in French and Latin in an academy at Passy. Returning to America he went to France again in 1779 and attended the Latin School at Amsterdam. He matriculated into Leyden University in January 1781, but soon went to St. Petersburg as secretary to Francis Dana, United States minister to Russia. In 1783 he returned to The Hague and resumed his classics under Dumas, the editor of Vattel, again to be called away to serve as secretary to his father during the peace negotiations. On the father's appointment to the London mission the son determined to return to America, entered Harvard College a junior sophister, graduated in 1787, studied law at Newburyport under Theophilus Parsons, afterwards chief justice of Massachusetts, and was admitted to practice July 15, 1790. Law as a profession did not attract him and he readily turned to political discussion. In 1791 he wrote, under the name of "Publicola," a reply to Paine's Rights of Man, and the authorship was ascribed to his father in London and Edinburgh reissues. He contributed to and translated for a French newspaper in Boston and in a series of essays signed "Marcellus," "Columbus," and "Barneveld," he so dealt with Genet and neutrality as to attract the notice of Washington, who commissioned him (May 30, 1794) minister to the Netherlands. He arrived at his post as the French occupied the country, but remained to study, observe, and report upon European conditions. On July 26, 1797, while in England on diplomatic business he married Louisa Catherine, daughter of Joshua Johnson, of a Maryland family. He was named for the mission in Portugal, but his destination was changed to Berlin, where he negotiated a treaty and found abundant leisure for reading. He made a visit to Silesia and printed a volume of letters describing it. His foreign mission ended in September 1801, he resumed his law practice in Boston. He was nominated for Congress, but was defeated on November 3, 1802, by W. Eustis, who received a majority of 59 votes in a total of 3,699. Though without party affiliations, Adams had been previously elected to the state Senate in April 1802. On the first opportunity he showed his want of respect for party lines by proposing in caucus that two or three of the governor's council be "of opposite politics to our own, by way of conciliatory procedure," but his suggestion was rejected. In February 1803 he was elected to the United States Senate, with Timothy Pickering as a colleague, and took his seat in October while the bill for taking possession of Louisiana was under consideration. On October 26 he asked its supporters where in the Constitution they found authority for vesting in persons appointed by the President the military, civil, and judicial powers exercised "by the existing government of Louisiana." He proposed to amend the bill "consistently with the Constitution," but his motion, not being in order, could not be considered. On November 3 he voted in favor of an appropriation for carrying into effect the purchase treaty, which other Federalist senators opposed, and on January 10, 1804 he introduced two resolutions against taxing the inhabitants of Louisiana without their consent, neither of which was accepted by the Senate. He also opposed a bill for the temporary government of the territory. He was never reconciled to the course of legislation taken at that time, but believed the acquisition of Louisiana to have been "accomplished by a flagrant violation of the Constitution."

His report on Senator John Smith, who was implicated in the Burr plot, his attitude on the impeachment of Judge Pickering, his apparent support of the administration in regard to British aggressions against neutrals and the affair of the Chesapeake, and finally his votes on the Embargo of 1807, where he chose to favor embargo as an alternative to war, proved his want of party allegiance and aroused the full hostility of Pickering. The latter denounced him at home, secured a premature election of a new senator from Massachusetts, and thus forced Adams to resign, on June 8, 1808. He was now regarded by the Federalists as an apostate, was shunned by his old associates, and shared in the odium heaped upon his father, He had in 1806 been appointed to the chair of rhetoric and oratory in Harvard College and even in that position was made to feel the dislike of his social equals. During his term as senator the tendency of the Federalists to condone the insults and injuries inflicted upon American commerce, that peace might be kept with Great Britain, had led Adams to draw away from that party; and its secret maneuvers, with Pickering as a leader, to form closer relations, if not more, with England shocked his devotion to the Union. Unable to induce the Federalists of Boston to pledge full support to the government after the affair of the Chesapeake, he accomplished his end in a meeting of Republicans. Yet he was not a Republican nor a full supporter of the administration, and refused an offer from Republicans of a nomination to Congress. An independent, he was regarded with suspicion by both parties.

When Madison became president he nominated Adams to be minister at St. Petersburg, and in October 1809 the new minister was at his post. His experience at other capitals proved of service in Russia, the only country of Europe which refused to comply with the commercial decrees of Napoleon and thus the only outlet for the trade of the United States. On friendly terms with the Tsar, respected by his diplomatic colleagues, participating in the social life of the capital though without being able properly to reciprocate favors, he widened his knowledge and, even against the English representative, furthered the interests of his country with results that were to be gratefully remembered fifty years later. During his absence (February 1811) he was nominated and confirmed to the Supreme Court of the United States, an appointment which he immediately declined. He saw Russia invaded by Napoleon because of her refusal to close her ports and he saw the United States declare war against Great Britain at the very time when Russia was combining with that nation against France. An offer from Russia to mediate the differences between England and the United States led to the appointment of peace commissioners by the latter, and Adams, James A. Bayard, and Albert Gallatin were named (April 17, 1813) and dispatched, too hastily, it proved, as Great Britain had not agreed to the mediation, and the Senate rejected Gallatin (July 19, 1813). Growing weary of the war, Great Britain expressed a willingness to negotiate, but not under Russian mediation, and the United States again named the same agents and added to the mission Jonathan Russell and Henry Clay (January 18, 1814). In a commission composed of such incongruous personalities differences in opinion were certain to arise. Adams was the first in authority by his appointment, but he required Gallatin's tact and criticism to temper his too ardent sensibility and in the end the credit for success may be divided between those two members. The British commissioners were by no means the equal in ability of the Americans, and by their demands and arrogant manner of making them created a situation unfavorable to agreement. Adams drafted the papers of the American commissioners and complained somewhat overmuch that his colleagues revised them in a hostile spirit. Clay specially irritated him, for they differed in temperament as well as in interests. To Adams the fisheries were immeasurably important; to Clay the navigation of the Mississippi. Clay favored a continuance of war, Adams looked for peace. The course of the negotiation and the pa rt played by each commissioner are related in Adams's diary. While failing to obtain all their instructions called for, they succeeded in making peace (December 24, 1814) and either postponed undetermined questions or provided for their settlement in future instruments.

Adams was in Paris on the return of Napoleon and during the greater part of the "Hundred Days." He was made minister to the Court of St. James's, thus repeating the father's experience in being the fir s t minister to that court after a war, and, still in succession, took part in discussing a commercial treaty. For two years Adams had abundant opportunity to complete his diplomatic education. N ever quite congenial with the English, he carried on negotiations with the cabinet of the King on questions still at issue between the two countries, without reaching agreement. He lived at Ealing, in the neighborhood of London, and took but little part in the social life around him, though he formed many agreeable connections, and educated his sons in English schools. Official functions he endured, rather than enjoyed, and he indulged his tastes as a reader and student.

He was invited by Monroe, in March 1817, to be secretary of state in his cabinet and took up his duties September 22. No more congenial office could have fallen to him, and his previous training and experience eminently fitted him to fill it. Politically, it was a period of calm. The war for independence and the organization of a federal government had been accomplished; a new generation, with new problems, had come forward and Adams, though inheriting and easily imbibing prejudices, brought to the conduct of his office wide experience and knowledge, great industry, and political independence. At times, it is true, his direct method seemed aggressive and unnecessarily forceful in cabinet discussion. He soon learned, too, that the apparent "era of good feeling" was largely neutralized by a contest among many for the presidency, in success ion to Monroe. Clay had opposed Adams's appointment to the State Department, deeming that he had himself better claims and he opposed the administration because of his disappointment. Crawford and Calhoun, in the cabinet, laid their plans for succession and the last four years of Monroe's term were passed in maneuvering for political position.

The questions before the Department of State were many and of grave moment. The revolting Spanish colonies in America fitted out many privateers in the United States, a practice defended by Clay, who severely criticized both Monroe and Adams for their more cautious and correct policy. The Floridas, still Spanish territory, afforded a refuge for Indians and malefactors, and Spain could not protect the United States from raids and retreats, accompanied by murder and rapine. Jackson, placed in command, went against the Seminole Indians, pursued them into Spanish territory, hanged some of them, executed two British subjects, deposed one governor and named another, and left a garrison in occupation. Thus to invade the territory of a nation in time of peace created serious liabilities. Monroe and all his cabinet, except Adams, believed the general had exceeded his instructions and had done what could not in law be defended. Calhoun would have punished him. Adams took the ground that, as Spain had proved incapable of policing her territories, the United States was obliged to act in self-defense, and so far and so ably justified Jackson's conduct as to silence protests either from Spain or Great Britain. Congress debated the question, with Clay as the leading opponent of Jackson, but would not disapprove of what Jackson had done. It was strange that Jackson’s later hatred of Adams, his ablest defender, should have been greater than his hatred of Clay and Calhoun, his critics.

The most delicate and important negotiation conducted by Adams was the treaty for the cession of the Floridas by Spain. Not only were the western bounds of the territory in doubt, but the delays and trickiness of Spanish diplomacy complicated the agreement. Huge grants of land to court favorites, not mentioned, or concealed by false dates, nearly trapped Adams in serious errors. He had secured(1818)a postponement of the Oregon question by an agreement with Great Britain for a joint occupation for ten years, and to obtain Florida and quiet Spanish claims he gained an acknowledgment from Spain of a line of boundary to the South Sea, a proposal wholly his, in which he took natural pride. Giving up Texas with the consent, if not at the instance of Monroe, he obtained a treaty of cession (1819) which later was declared by his opponents a deliberate sacrifice of territory. Jackson approved of the treaty, and Clay again opposed what had been done, but without success.

While the Spanish treaty was in the making Missouri applied for statehood and a struggle arose on the exclusion of slavery. Adams approved of the Missouri Compromise and believed the measure excluded slavery in territories and in states formed from territory north of the dividing line. He saw clearly that the principle involved momentous possibilities, and might even lead to the dissolution of the Union. To him the controversy over Missouri was the "title-page to a great tragic volume." His opposition to slavery was pronounced and in his diary he pictured a life devoted to the problem of emancipation as "nobly spent or sacrificed."

The Spanish colonies in America obtained recognition of their independence from Monroe in March 1822. Already Adams had questioned the claims of Great Britain on the Pacific Ocean, and soon after, in contesting a Russian ukase regarding the same ocean, he laid down the principle that "the American continents are no longer subjects for any new European colonial establishments." Russia acquiesced. Great Britain feared that the United States would take Cuba and that France, if allowed to interpose in Spain, might control the Spanish empire in America. Acting on a suggestion of Adams that the interests of the United States and Great Britain were the same, Canning proposed a joint declaration against a forcible subjection of the colonies to Spain and against acquisition by cession or conquest of American territory by any European power. Both Jefferson and Madison favored this proposal, though it recognized the leadership of England and opposition to the Holy Alliance; but Adams wished to remonstrate against interference of European powers by force with South America, to disclaim all interference with Europe, and to make an American policy. The President's message of December 2, 1823, embodied those principles. Striking out his own references to European questions, such as the invasion of Spain by France and the Greek revolt, Monroe asserted that the American continents "are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European power"; that "any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere" would be regarded as "dangerous to our peace and safety," and "we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them [the late Spanish possessions], or controlling in any other manner their destiny, by any European power in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States." Known as the Monroe Doctrine, and with credit equally divided between the President and the Secretary, it has proved of great importance in the history of American diplomacy.

As the time of the presidential election approached Adams was one of four candidates. His office had by custom come to be regarded as the stepping-stone to the presidency, but in his term of service he had done little directly to advance his prospects by conciliating his rivals or the politicians. He stood upon his public services, and was the only Northern candidate. When the returns were known Jackson had received 99 votes; Adams, 84; Crawford, 41; and Clay, 37. Adams's support had come from New York and New England. With Crawford broken in health the decision in the House rested with Clay and his pronounced dislike of Jackson made a support of Adams natural. Adams, receiving the votes of thirteen states to Jackson's seven, was declared elected. The contest left a long train of consequences materially affecting the later careers of the two candidates, and Adams himself wished that a nearer approach to unanimity could have been reached, even had it been necessary for him to refuse the office in order to permit a new choice. Before the House had acted it was charged that Clay had entered into a corrupt bargain with Adams by which Adams would be president and Clay secretary of state. Though without any basis of truth the charge gained plausibility when Clay was appointed secretary. In the hands of Jackson and his followers it became a weapon which served to check Clay's success during his life and to defeat Adams in 1828. Three years before that election Jackson was again nominated for the presidency by the legislature of his State; he accepted and announced his platform, the essence of which was the denunciation of the alleged bargain between Clay and Adams.

President Adams in his inaugural stated his broad plan of internal improvements, and, in his annual message, his ideas of directing government powers to promote the arts and sciences, a national university, astronomical observatories, and scientific enterprises, in short, to whatever would improve the people. Not only were Northern strict constructionists astonished at the proposal that the federal government should exercise such extensive powers but Southerners were alarmed, fearing slavery might be abolished under them. Opposition in Congress took shape and was first directed against the proposed Panama mission the sending of commissioners to attend a congress of the republics, lately Spanish colonies. In the course of the debate John Randolph uttered his famous characterization of the "coalition of Blifil and Black George-the combination, unheard of till then, of the Puritan with the blackleg." Adams's own faith in any success from the Congress was not strong and he gauged the weakness of the republics better than did Clay. In the end circumstances prevented the United States from being represented.

The mid-term elections of 1827 to Congress gave, for the first time in the history of the government, a large majority against the administration. By the union of the Crawford and Jackson forces the South was consolidating its influence against Adams. with no great difference in policy to justify contests of parties the agitation for political vantage turned upon personalities. Adams removed no man for political opinion or even for political activity against himself, and so little of the politician did he have in his make-up that he wished to retain Crawford in the cabinet and to appoint Jackson to the War Department. He refused to break with McLean, the postmaster general, though cognizant of his activities in behalf of Jackson. Such restraint in the exercise of a power to secure followers by the use of patronage alienated friends and encouraged enemies. During his administration only twelve removals from office were made, yet in 1826 he was arraigned for abuse of patronage and an effort was made to transfer a good share of the appointments from the President to congressmen. Few campaigns have equalled that of 1828 for its license and bitter personalities. For want of a party of his own to check the attacks of the well-organized opposition, Adams and his policy of centralized government were defeated. In the electoral college he received only 83 votes while to Jackson were given 178.

He returned to Massachusetts, where the old-time Federalists showed much the same opposition to him that they had shown to his father. By the publication of a Jefferson letter in the last days of the campaign Giles of Virginia fixed upon Adams the charge of giving Jefferson knowledge of the disunion proposals by the leaders of the party in 1804. To a demand for names and particulars by thirteen leading Federalists of Massachusetts Adams made a reply which did not satisfy, and the questioners published a letter (expressive of their deep resentment against him) which they believed to be conclusive (see Correspondence between John Quincy Adams and Several Citizens of Massachusetts, 1829). Keenly feeling the attitude and language of his opponents, among whom were some of the most influential men in the state, he prepared a reply, which was first published in 1877 (Documents Relating to New England Federalism, ed. by Henry Adams). As a controversial document it stands high and as an explanation of the somewhat obscure movements of Pickering and others, it must be accepted as final.

Retiring to Quincy, ostracized by the Federalists and deeming his defeat an unjust return for his long public service, Adams expected to repeat the years of practical banishment endured by his father. Books, of which he had collected many in Europe, offered some refuge from memories of the past, his farm required attention, and he planned writing history or biography. Before he could fall upon any settled and engrossing task, however, he was asked to be the representative in Congress from the Plymouth district. without definite party support he was elected to the Twenty-second Congress (March 4, 1831) by a large majority and was returned for eight successive Congresses-a period of seventeen years lacking ten days. At the time of his election no member had sat in the House who possessed such varied experience and appropriate qualities. He was familiar with the inside political history of forty years abroad and at home. His remarkable memory of events was supplemented by a remarkable diary, the general accuracy of which could hardly be questioned, however colored it might be by temperament and prejudice. Industrious and conscientious in the discharge of his public duties in Congress, he served on many important committees and prepared reports which covered many questions of public policy. As a debater he was listened to with respect and, when aroused, with nearly as great fear; for his integrity was unquestioned, his information vast and ready, and his utterances direct, forceful, and at times tipped with gall. Altogether he entered upon years of influence and combat which made his congressional service unique and quite the most important part of his career.

His first appointment, chairman of the committee on manufactures, which he held for ten years, brought him into indirect connection with South Carolina nullification. For Calhoun he had no warm feeling, having received no support from him in Monroe's cabinet and only opposition in the presidency; but he thought that some concessions in the protective tariff might be made to placate South Carolina. Though it was not his committee that devised tariffs, he presented from it a minority report censuring the course of the administration. Jackson's proclamation he commended, but he believed in the event too much had been yielded to the nullifiers by a compromise which postponed instead of deciding the issue. To him any compromise on that particular question would lead to "final and irretrievable dissolution of the Union," an ever present thought in his view of public affairs.

In the discussion of the question of slavery Adams did not take a prominent part before 1835 and even then leadership was thrust upon him by force of circumstances. In 1805 he had proposed to lay a duty upon imported slaves, but only four senators had voted with him. As secretary of state he had dealt with the suppression of the slave-trade and not with the ques tion of slavery. Atrocious as he considered that traffic, he considered the right of search by foreign officers of American vessels upon the seas in time of peace a still greater evil (Memoirs, VI, 37). When Haiti had become free and could be recognized in 1826, as president he had acted with caution and had found reasons for withholding an acknowledgment of independence. Clay's influence h ad led him to evade the question in the propose d Panama Congress, as both Haiti and Cuba furnished "near and dangerous examples, against the contagion of which "all means necessary to the security" of the United States should be employed. Now in Congress the question assumed a new form. In the first weeks of his first session he had presented petitions on slavery. In 1834 the attempts of the upholders of slavery to suppress the right of petition had been successful. For Congress to refuse to receive appeals from individuals and associations was bad enough from any point of view; to treat with contempt resolutions from the legislature of a State, no matter what the subject, involved an extraordinary exercise of power, even more indefensible. Adams, whether armed with resolutions of the legislature of Massachusetts, or with his "bundles" of petitions, kept the question before the House, greatly exasperating the majority, who were always ready to enforce the gag principle.

When president he had made a fruitless attempt to obtain Texas from Mexico by cession; but now when the annexation of Texas was first brought forward he opposed it and in a speech delivered May 25, 1836--"by far the most noted speech that I ever made," he wrote in the following year-he "opened the whole subject of the Mexican, Indian, negro, and English war." A Spanish translation was printed in Mexico and Miss Martineau used it in her volume upon America. On the general reception given to it, assailed in the South and West and applauded in the North and East, he felt that his opportunity had come. "This [the extension of slavery] is a cause upon which I am entering at the last stage of life, and with the certainty that I cannot advance in it far; my career must close, leaving the cause at the threshold. To open the way for others is all that I can do. The cause is good and great"(Memoirs, IX, 298). His position, the same as that he had taken on the admission of Louisiana, was on the broadest lines. In June 1838, it was expressed in the following language: "That the power of annexing the people of a foreign government to this Union has not been delegated to the Congress nor to any Department of the Government of the United States, but has been reserved to the people. That any attempt by Act of Congress or by treaty to annex the republic of Texas to this Union would be a usurpation of power, which it would be the right and the duty of the free people of the Union to resist and annul" (Memoirs, V, 20). On that proposition he occupied the "morning hour" from June 16 to July 7, 1838, preventing a vote on annexation; and in 1843 he united with twelve other members of Congress in a protest declaring that annexation would mean the dissolution of the Union (Niles' Register, LXIV, 173-75). Territory, they held, could be acquired by treaty, but there was no power to transfer a man from one country to another without his consent. Adams embodied the conviction that the Texas question involved the sacrifice of Northern freedom to slavery and the South, and the purchase of Western support by the plunder of the public lands. His opposition to annexation and to the war with Mexico brought to him petitions against annexation as well as on slavery in the District of Columbia and on slavery in general and they came to him in increasing numbers. His management of these "incendiary papers" was at first guided by the unanimous support of the Massachusetts members of the House of Representatives (Memoirs, IX, 443), but he acted more and more independently.

Wearied if not frightened by the number of petitions relating to slavery, some of which had been presented through Adams, the House entertained a proposition (December 1836) that no such petitions should be read, printed, committed, or in any way acted upon by the House. This took final shape in the rule that all such petitions should, without reading or printing, or any other action of the House upon them, be laid upon the table. As a motion to lay on the table admitted no debate, all discussion was precluded. Each year, from 1836 to 1844, Adams opposed without success the adoption of this rule. Such a "gag" on free discussion, he charged, was a direct violation of the Constitution, of the rules of the House, of the rights of his constituents, and, as he said in after years, of his right to freedom of speech as a member of the House. On December 3, 1844, the "gag" resolution was at last defeated. While the right of petition was to Adams the real issue, he became the channel through which petitions on slavery streamed in large numbers. He was not an abolitionist, and suffered from the attacks of the abolitionists as well as from their opponents; but he recognized, as few of his day did, that a denial of the right to discuss a public question of such character threatened the continuance of the Union. Further, he early expressed (1836) the conviction that should the South become the se at of a war, "civil, servile, or foreign, from that instant the war powers of the Congress[ would]extend to interference with the institution of slavery in every way by which it can be interfered with" (Register of Debates in Congress, Volume XII, pt. IV, p. 4047), a sweeping proposition which implied an assertion of an even strong er power; viz., that slavery could be abolished by the exercise of the treaty-making power (1841) and still la ter, that in a state of war the military authority-president or commander of the army-might order the universal emancipation of slaves (April 14, 1842. See C. F. Adams, "John Quincy Adams and Emancipation through Martial Law" in Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 2nd series, Volume XV). To check Adams's continued presentation of petitions, Southern members proposed to discipline and even to expel him, but he proved capable of holding his positions and of putting his critics in the wrong. Thus in February 1837 he asked if the gag resolution would cover a petition he had received from twenty-two persons who declared themselves to be slaves, and in the confusion that followed various motions from censure to expulsion were offered. When permitted to speak, Adams, by stating that the petition favored slavery, turned the tables on his opposers, who rounded out a somewhat ridiculous policy of suppression by gravely proposing to censure Adams for ''creating an impression and leaving the House under that impression" that the petition in question was for the abolition of slavery (Letters from John Quincy Adams to his Constituents, 1837, p. 16); also for "giving color to the idea that slaves have the right of petition" and for being ready to serve as their organ (Ibid., p. 19). The petition was probably a hoax, intended to embarrass Adams. His final speech silenced his critics and proved his ability to meet, almost single-handed, the forces of the South.

His course in the House showed what was regarded at the time as strange inconsistency. He debated and voted with complete independence, to the great confusion of those who counted upon his support. When assurance was made by those in charge of the bill for the admission of Arkansas as a State that no proposition concerning slavery would be made in the debate, Adams remarked that if no other member would offer such a proposal he would, and kept his promise. The fact that he had not been on speaking terms with President Jackson and had received insult at his hands did not prevent his supporting him-"at the hazard of my own political destruction" in Jackson's quarrel with France, in his controversy with South Carolina, and in other critical periods of his administration. Yet he opposed Jackson's bank policy, submitting a minority report in protest against the proceedings of the committee of inquiry of which he was a member. A speech upon Jackson's removal of the public moneys from the Bank of the United States was not delivered but was published and served its purpose. From the committee on manufactures he also submitted (February 1833) a report which reviewed the claims of the South for the protection of slavery, the proposed disposal of the public lands, and the doctrine of nullification. To none of these would he yield a particle. Only one other member of the committee signed this report.

His personal influence and ability to deal with a crisis were shown in December 1839, when the House assembled to find itself unable to organize because of the arbitrary action of its clerk. So equally were parties divided in it that the members from New Jersey, whose election was contested, would decide the political complexion of the House, the Speaker, and the committees. The clerk, himself the clerk of the last House, without authority to do anything but list the members offering proper credentials, and depending for his own reelection on the issue of the contest, refused to name the contested seats, producing a state of complete inaction difficult to meet. After three days of futile effort, Adams appealed to the members to organize and stated his determination himself to put to the meeting the question of ordering the clerk to read the names of the New Jersey members holding the governor's credentials. He was elected chairman, and for eleven days presided over a body not yet formally organized and torn by a partisan difference, on which depended the large rewards of committee appointments and their influence on legislation. Belonging to no party and entirely familiar with parliamentary practice, he controlled the stormy sessions and brought the extraordinary situation to a successful issue.

When the Whigs controlled the House in the Twenty-seventh Congress Adams was made chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, for which he was eminently fitted. He could not escape attack, however, and his position in the matter of the Creole, a vessel captured by its cargo of slaves and taken to Nassau, where the slaves were set free by the authorities, invited it. A petition from Georgia for his removal engaged the House for some days; the Southern members of the Committee on Foreign Affairs resigned from it, unwilling, as they said, to serve with a chairman in whom they had no confidence, and others appointed asked to be excused. If the objectors planned to replace Caleb Cushing in the chairmanship, they failed; but Adams was not reappointed to that committee in the next Congress.

In January and March 1841, for the first time since 1809, Adams appeared before the Supreme Court of the United States. On the earlier occasion he had argued in defense of certain rights in which many of his fellow citizens had much property at stake; on the later he presented an elaborate argument vindicating the right to freedom of the Armistad captives, fifty-three negroes who had been taken at sea by a vessel of the United States, after they had revolted, killed the captain, and obtained possession of the vessel in which they and their masters were sailing for their destination. They were charged with murder and piracy. The Spanish owners claimed the negroes, the Spanish minister claimed both ship and negroes under the treaty of 1795, and the United States officer called for salvage. The United States circuit court held that it had no jurisdiction of a crime committed on the high seas in a Spanish vessel, but would not release the negroes claimed as property by the Spaniards. Adams was asked to defend the slaves and made an argument which Justice Story described as "extraordinary, for its power, for its bitter sarcasm, and its dealing with topics far beyond the record and points of discussion" (W. W. Story, Life and Letters of Joseph Story, 1851, II, 348). The decision of the Court declared the negroes to be free. Adams's published argument was a plea for justice, but it also served once more to express his views upon slavery.

In 1842 another occasion arose in the House of Representatives for action against Adams. He had presented (January 24) a petition from citizens of Haverhill, Massachusetts, praying that for sectional reasons the Union of the States be peaceably dissolved, and moved its reference to a select committee with instructions to report against it. The document may be regarded as a satire on the proposed dissolution of the Union. Days were spent in discussing resolutions prepared in a caucus of Southern members and presented by Marshall of Kentucky, stating that Adams had disgraced his country, might well be expelled from the national councils, and should receive their "severest censure." After eleven days of excitement, with A dams as the center of the storm, he offered to drop the subject if the resolution of censure were tabled, ending a scene that was dramatic and sensational and ending also all attempts to suppress the offender by threats of censure.

Science had interested him, though he was too absorbed in public duties to be able to pursue the study. When in Russia he had given some attention to Russian weights and measures and, shortly after becoming secretary of state, the Senate (March 1817) called upon him for a full report. The House did not act until December 1819, when it made the same requisition. On receiving the Senate's call Adams began a report, but had made little progress before that of the Hou se was received. Devoting six months to the subject he completed the document-"a fearful and oppressive task"-and in February 1821 it was printed by Congress. Elaborate and thorough for the time and containing definite recommendations for permanent and universal uniformity of standards, it remained without influence in legislation or in advancing an agreement among nations on the subject. It was reprinted in 1871 and is still of value for reference. In another direction he left a permanent record. He was chairman of the committee to report upon the power of Congress to accept the fund left by the Englishman, James Smithson, to the United States, to establish at Washington an institution for the "increase and diffusion of knowledge." Adams not only reported that Congress was competent to accept the bequest, but he made recommendations for employing it and was instrumental in preventing its diversion to local and temporary objects. He wished to establish in the United States "the most complete astronomical observatory in the world," but Congress was unwilling to act. From the receipt of the fund in 1838 until 1846 Adams jealously watched the proposed uses, made four elaborate reports upon its disposition, provided for restoring the fund when wasted by bad investment in state bonds, and saw success in the end-a permanent fund and a national observatory. In the Smithsonian Institution his foresight and labor have been justified. It was in recognition of his efforts to encourage the study of astronomy that he was invited in 1843 to lay the corner-stone of the Cincinnati Observatory.

On September 17, 1842, Adams gave to his constituents a full statement of his conduct during his service in Congress in the form of an examination of the administration under the successive presidents in that time (Address of John Quincy Adams to his Constituents of the Twelfth Congressional District). It embodied his conception of what the South and the slave power had done or wished to do, and how far their policy had been aided by a sacrifice of principle by the North. Entirely characteristic in form and expression it contains an excellent picture of the great political acts of twelve years by a leading actor in them. It was the last political paper prepared by Adams and may serve as his political testament. A minority report supporting resolves of the legislature of Massachusetts which proposed to amend the Constitution of the United States so as to abolish the representation of slaves was made by him in April 1844, signed also by Giddings. Occasional addresses, of more or less political cast, and debates in Congress on the annexation of Texas and the Oregon question, occupied his attention and called out his accustomed vigor and acumen. On November 19, 1846, he was stricken with paralysis while walking in the streets of Boston, but recovered sufficiently to take his seat in the House on February 16, 1847. A year later, February 21, 1848, shortly after responding to the call of his name he fell in a second stroke and, carried to the Speaker's room in the Capitol, he died there on the evening of February 23 without having recovered consciousness. Mrs. Adams died on May 15, 1852.

Of unquestioned patriotism, Adams believed that the nation should contribute to the happiness of all, and that no nation should "regulate its conduct by the exclusive or even the paramount consideration of its own interest." He saw and criticized the faults of policy or administration even more readily than he praised conduct that was based on the performance of duty. From his early years he studied political institutions, especially those of his own country, applying his knowledge to national and international questions as they came before him. Too much engrossed by immediate problems, he did not formulate a policy and thus appears inconsistent in his conduct, as if swerved by temporary considerations. Yet it was recognized in his day that one sentiment ran through all his life, an intense love of freedom for all men, and an invincible belief in the inalienable rights of man. The American Constitution was to him but a stage in the political development of those rights, not creating but accepting them, and must itself, therefore, be interpreted as a means rather than an end. As his father had done before him, he went back to natural law for the origin of rights, and, because the Constitution embodied "compromises," he accepted and defended it only so far as its principles rested upon natural right. In his long and bitter controversy over slavery this conception of the Constitution and its failure to embody the higher forms of freedom and rights of man gave him a weapon of great power. "Slavery and democracy," he wrote, "especially a democracy founded, as ours is, on the rights of man-would seem to be incompatible with each other; and yet, at this time, the democracy of the country is supported chiefly, if not entirely, by slavery."

In the contest with the slave power he acted almost alone. Independence of party was a "duty" imposed upon him, for his service belong ed to the nation. Even as a representative in Congress from Massachusetts he was not influenced by the peculiar interests of that State, unless support of a protective tariff ca n be instanced to the contrary, a tariff that in form was framed for the whole country. To him a majority meant nothing, unless it acted oppressively-and he worked for the individual or a number, for the slave or the free man, for women or men, with the same zeal and detachment, intent only on defending the cause he had at heart. No other man of his day came to represent as he did the essence of the right of petition, and his persistence and courage won admiration even from those who thought him a madman or incendiary, and condemned his methods and the principle for which he was contending.

His many writings and speeches contain much that is autobiographical and much that is historical, for he dwelt on past and present history, and both utilized his own experience to the full and rested upon documents. His state papers and controversies suffered from the wealth of reference which his early studies, wide reading, extraordinary memory and application supplied. His readiness in debate and his bitterness of speech, which seemed at times almost too strongly colored by vindictiveness, made his attack something to be feared. Fond of combat and of controversy, his career was marked by an assertiveness amounting to pugnacity. Conscientious to a fault, he left no argument without exhausting its possibility. From his early days surrounded by enemies, as he believed, his gift of contention was developed and leaned toward offense. Yet he kept himself under restraint in the face of great provocation. He avoided the mean and tricky: he was always an honorable foe. No man judged his own acts more severely than he, and his diary, described as a "treasury of damnations," dealt with his own thoughts and acts more contritely than the occasion demanded. Harsh as his judgments on men and deeds appear, they show an ability to touch upon character and motives that makes them in part true. He had a deeply religious feeling and became a Unitarian, but never worked out a system of theology, any more than he did a system of politics. Only in his great fight on freedom did he approach a philosophy of the latter subject.

To him his generation gave the title of "the old man eloquent." Yet Theodore Parker thought him "seldom eloquent" and what oratorical ability he had to be of late development. In his manner of speaking there was little dignity and no grace, though sometimes there was a terrible energy and fire and " invective was his masterpiece of oratoric skill." Emerson, who heard him in his later years, spoke of his reputation as a fine reader: "No man could rea d the Bible with such powerful effect" (Works, 1904, VIII, 122). Of the fine voice broken by age he declared that the "wonders he could achieve with that cracked and disobedient organ showed what power might have belonged to it in early manhood" (Ibid.).

Simple in his tastes, and disliking the exposure to flattery that high position in the state brings, Adams was known as a man of social talent, a good talker, admired for his richness of recollection and apt illustration. Even his enemies, of whom he had an abundance, recognized that side of him and wondered. His family letters are of a quality different from his public papers, and his admiration for his father and his ambitions for his son, Charles Francis Adams, led to free confidences which reveal a softer and more lovable nature and a conscience that smote him when he thought himself most obliged to oppose or punish. Theodore Parker, not sparing in his opinion of others, wrote on the death of Adams, "The one great man since Washington, whom America had no cause to fear" (Works, 1908, Volume VII).

The more important writings of John Quincy Adams are: Memoirs, 12 volumes, edited by Charles Francis Adams (1874-77); Life in a New England Town, diary as a l a w student, 1787-88, edited by Charles Francis Adams, Jr.(1903); Documents R elating to New England Federalism, edited by Henry Adams (1877); Writings, edited by W. C. Ford, 7 volumes (1913); Oration at Plymouth, Massachusetts, December 22, 1802 (reproduced, 1820); Letters on Silesia (London, 1804; Paris, trans. by J. Dupuy, 1807); Inaugural Oration (1806); Letter to H. G. Otis (1808); American Principles, a Review of the Works of Fisher Ames (1809); Lectures on Rhetoric and Oratory, 2 volumes (1810); Correspondence, 1811-14 (1913); Report on Weights and Measures (1821); Duplicate Letters, the Fisheries and the Mississippi (1822; 2nd ed., Louisville, 1823); Correspondence between John Quincy Adams and Several Citizens of Massachusetts, concerning the Charge of a Design to Dissolve the Union (1829); Eulogy on James Monroe (1831); Dermot MacMorrogh, or the Conquest of Ireland (1832); Letters to Wm. L. Stone ... upon the Subject of Masonry and Anti-masonry (1833); Letters to Edward Livingston [on Freemasonry] (1833); Oration on Lafayette, December 31, 1834 (1835); Eulogy on James Madison (1836); Letters to his Constituents (1837); Character of Hamlet: a letter to J. H. Hackett (1839); Speech upon Right of Petition, June-July, 1838; Jubilee of the Constitution (1839); China Question (1841); New England Confederacy of MDCXLIII (1843); Oration, Cincinnati Astronomical Society (1843); Letters on the Masonic Institution (1847); Poems of Religion and Society (1848); and Orations, 4th of July, at Boston, 1793; Quincy, 1831; and Newburyport, 1837.

[W. H. Seward, Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams (1849); Josiah Quincy, Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams (1858); John T. Morse, John Quincy Adams (1882).]

W.C.F.

Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:

ADAMS, John Quincy, sixth president of the United States, born in Braintree, Massachusetts, 11 July, 1767; died in Washington, D. C., 23 February, 1848. He was named for his mother's grandfather, John Quincy. In his eleventh year he accompanied his father to France, and was sent to school near Paris, where his proficiency in the French language and other studies soon became conspicuous. In the following year he returned to America, and back again to France with his father, whom, in August, 1780, he accompanied to Holland. After a few months at school in Amsterdam, he entered the university of Leyden. Two years afterward John Adams's secretary of legation, Francis Dana, was appointed minister to Russia, and the boy accompanied him as private secretary. After a stay of fourteen months, as Catharine's government refused to recognize Mr. Dana as minister, young Adams left St. Petersburg and travelled alone through Sweden, Denmark, and northern Germany to France, spending six months in the journey. Arriving in Paris, he found his father busy with the negotiation of the treaty of peace between Great Britain and the United States, and was immediately set to work as secretary, and aided in drafting the papers that “dispersed all possible doubt of the independence of his country.” In 1785, when his father was appointed minister to England, he decided not to stay with him in London, but to return at once to Massachusetts in order to complete his education at Harvard college. For an American career he believed an American education to be best fitted. Considering the immediate sacrifice of pleasure involved, it was a remarkably wise decision in a lad of eighteen. But Adams's character was already fully formed; he was what he remained throughout his life, a Puritan of the sternest and most uncompromising sort, who seemed to take a grim enjoyment in the performance of duty, especially when disagreeable. Returning home, he was graduated at Harvard college in 1788, and then studied law in the office of Theophilus Parsons, afterward chief justice of Massachusetts. In 1791 he was admitted to the Suffolk bar, and began the practice of law, the tedium of which he relieved by writing occasional articles for the papers. Under the signature of “Publicola” he criticised some positions taken by Thomas Paine in his “Rights of Man”; and these articles, when republished in England, were generally attributed to his father. In a further series of papers, signed “Marcellus,” he defended Washington's policy of neutrality; and in a third series, signed “Columbus,” he discussed the extraordinary behavior of Citizen Genet, whom the Jacobins had sent over to browbeat the Americans into joining France in hurling defiance at the world. These writings made him so conspicuous that in 1794 Washington appointed him minister to Holland, and two years later made an appointment transferring him to Portugal. Before he had started for the latter country his father became president of the United States and asked Washington's advice as to the propriety of promoting his own son by sending him to Berlin. Washington in strong terms recommended the promotion, declaring that in his opinion the young man would prove to be the ablest diplomat in the American service. In the fall of 1797 Mr. Adams accordingly took up his residence at the capital of Prussia. Shortly before this he had married Miss Louisa Johnson, a niece of Thomas Johnson, of Maryland. During his residence at Berlin Mr. Adams translated Wieland's “Oberon” into English. In 1798 he was commissioned to make a commercial treaty with Sweden. In 1800 he made a journey through Silesia, and wrote an account of it, which was published in London and afterward translated into German and French. When Jefferson became president, Mr. Adams's mission terminated. He resumed the practice of law in Boston, but in 1802 was elected to the Massachusetts senate, and next year was chosen to the senate of the United States instead of Timothy Pickering. The federalist party was then rent in twain by the feud between the partisans of John Adams and those of Hamilton, and the reception of the younger Adams in the senate was far from flattering. Affairs grew worse when, at the next vacancy, Pickering was chosen to be his uncongenial colleague. Mr. Adams was grossly and repeatedly insulted. Any motion he might make was sure to be rejected by the combined votes of republicans and Hamiltonians, though frequently the same motion, made soon afterward by somebody else, would be carried by a large majority. A committee of which he was a member would make and send in its report without even notifying him of its time and place of meeting. At first Mr. Adams was subjected to such treatment merely because he was the son of his father; but presently he rendered himself more and more amenable to it by manifesting the same independence of party ties that had made his father so unpopular. Independence in politics has always been characteristic of the Adams family, and in none has this been more strongly marked than in John Quincy Adams. His first serious difference with the federalist party was occasioned by his qualified approval of Jefferson's purchase of Louisiana, a measure that was bitterly opposed and fiercely censured by nearly all the federalists, because it was feared it would add too much strength to the south. A much more serious difference arose somewhat later, on the question of the embargo. Questions of foreign rather than of domestic policy then furnished the burning subjects of contention in the United States. Our neutral commerce on the high seas, which had risen to very considerable proportions, was plundered in turn by England and by France, until its very existence was threatened. In May, 1806, the British government declared the northern coast of Europe, from Brest to the mouth of the Elbe, to be blockaded. By the Russian proclamation of 1780, which was then accepted by all civilized nations except Great Britain, such paper blockades were illegal; but British ships none the less seized and confiscated American vessels bound to any port on that coast. In November Napoleon issued his Berlin decree making a paper blockade of the whole British coast, whereupon French cruisers began seizing and confiscating American vessels on their way from British to French ports. Two months later England issued an order in council, forbidding neutrals to trade between any of her enemy's ports; and this was followed by orders decreeing fines or confiscation to all neutral ships daring to violate the edict. In December, 1807, Napoleon replied with the Milan decree, threatening to confiscate all ships bound to England, or which should have paid a fine to the British government or submitted to search at the hands of a British commander. All these decrees and orders were in flagrant violation of international law, and for a time they made the ocean a pandemonium of robbery and murder. Their effect upon American commerce was about the same as if both England and France had declared war against the United States. Their natural and proper effect upon the American people would have been seen in an immediate declaration of war against both England and France, save that our military weakness was then too manifest to make such a course anything but ridiculous. Between the animus of the two bullies by whom we were thus tormented there was little to choose; but in two respects England's capacity for injuring us was the greater. In the first place, she had more ships engaged in this highway robbery than France, and stronger ones; in the second place, owing to the difficulty of distinguishing between Americans and Englishmen, she was able to add the crowning wickedness of kidnapping American seamen. The wrath of the Americans was thus turned more against England than against France; and never perhaps in the revolutionary war had it waxed stronger than in the summer of 1807, when, in full sight of the American coast, the “Leopard” fired upon the “Chesapeake,” killed and wounded several of her crew, and violently carried away four of them. For this outrage the commander of the “Leopard” was promoted in the British service. In spite of all these things, the hatred of the federalists for France was so great that they were ready to put up with insult added to injury rather than attack the power that was warring against Napoleon. So far did these feelings carry them that Mr. John Lowell, a prominent federalist of Boston, was actually heard to defend the action of the “Leopard.” Such pusillanimity incensed Mr. Adams. “This was the cause,” he afterward said, “which alienated me from that day and forever from the councils of the federal party.” He tried to persuade the federalists of Boston to hold a meeting and pledge their support to the government in any measures, however serious, that it might see fit to adopt in order to curb the insolence of Great Britain. But these gentlemen were too far blinded by party feeling to respond to the call; whereupon Mr. Adams attended a republican meeting, at which he was put upon a committee to draft and report such resolutions. Presently the federalists bowed to the storm of popular feeling and held their meeting, at which Mr. Adams was also present and drafted resolutions. For his share in the proceedings of the republicans it was threatened that he should “have his head taken off for apostasy.” It was never of much use to threaten Mr. Adams. An extra session of congress was called in October to consider what was to be done. Mr. Jefferson's government was averse to war, for which the country was ill prepared, and it was thought that somewhat milder measures might harass England until she would submit to reason. For a year and a half a non-importation act had been in force; but it had proved no more effective than the non-importation agreements of 1768 and 1774. Now an embargo was laid upon all the shipping in American ports. The advantage of such a measure was very doubtful; it was damaging ourselves in the hope of damaging the enemy. The greatest damage fell upon the maritime states of New England, and there the vials of federalist wrath were poured forth with terrible fury upon Mr. Jefferson and the embargo. But the full measure of their ferocity was reserved for Mr. Adams, who had actually been a member of the committee that reported the bill, and had given it his most earnest support. All the choicest epithets of abuse were showered upon him; few men in our history have been more fiercely berated and reviled. His term of service in the senate was to expire on 3 March, 1809. In the preceding June the Massachusetts legislature chose Mr. Lloyd to succeed him, a proceeding that was intended and accepted as an insult. Mr. Adams instantly resigned, and Mr. Lloyd was chosen to fill the remainder of his term. In the course of the next month the republicans of his congressional district wished to elect him to the house of representatives, but he refused. In 1806 Mr. Adams had been appointed professor of rhetoric and belles-lettres at Harvard college, and in the intervals of his public duties had delivered lectures there, which were published in 1810, and for a time were held in esteem.

One of Mr. Madison's first acts on succeeding to the presidency in 1809 was to nominate Mr. Adams minister to Russia. Since Mr. Dana's failure to secure recognition in 1782, the United States had had no minister in that country, and the new mission was now to be created. The senate at first declined to concur in creating the mission, but a few months later the objectors yielded, and Mr. Adams's nomination was confirmed. He was very courteously received by Alexander I., and his four years and a half in Russia passed very pleasantly. His diary gives us a vivid account of the Napoleonic invasion and its disastrous ending. In the autumn of 1812 the czar offered his services as mediator between the United States and Great Britain. War had only been declared between these powers three months before, but the American government promptly accepted the proposal, and, in the height of the popular enthusiasm over the naval victories of Hull and Decatur, sent Messrs. Gallatin and Bayard to St. Petersburg to act as commissioners with Mr. Adams. The British government refused to accept the mediation of Russia, but proposed instead an independent negotiation, to which the United States agreed, and the commissioners were directed to meet at Ghent. Much time was consumed in these arrangements, while we were defeating England again and again on the sea, and suffering in return some humiliating reverses on land, until at last the commissioners met at Ghent, in August, 1814. Henry Clay and Jonathan Russell were added to the American commission, while England was represented by Lord Gambier, Dr. Adams, and Mr. Goulburn. After four months of bitter wrangling, from which no good result could have been expected, terms of peace were suddenly agreed upon in December. In warding off the British attempts to limit our rights in the fisheries Mr. Adams played an important part, as his father had done in 1782. The war had been a drawn game, neither side was decisively victorious, and the treaty apparently left things much as before. Nothing was explicitly done to end the pretensions of England to the right of search and the impressment of seamen, yet the naval victories of the United States had taught the British a lesson, and these pretensions were never renewed. The treaty was a great disappointment to the British people, who had hoped to obtain some advantages, and Mr. Adams, for his share in it, was reviled by the London press in a tone which could not but be regarded as a compliment to his powers. After the conclusion of the treaty he visited Paris and witnessed the return of Napoleon from Elba and the exciting events that followed up to the eve of Waterloo. Here his wife and children joined him, after a tedious journey from St. Petersburg, not without distress and peril by the way. By this time Mr. Adams had been appointed commissioner, with Clay and Gallatin, to negotiate a new commercial treaty with England. This treaty was completed on 13 July, 1815; but already, on 26 May, when Mr. Adams arrived in London, he had received the news of his appointment as minister to England. The series of double coincidences in the Adams family between missions to England and treaties with that power is curious. First John Adams is minister, just after his share in the treaty that concluded the revolutionary war, then his son, just after the treaty that concluded the war of 1812-'15, and then the grandson is minister during the civil war and afterward takes part in the treaty that disposed of the Alabama question.

After an absence of eight years, John Quincy Adams was called back to his native land to serve as secretary of state under President Monroe. A new era in American politics was dawning. The war which had just been concluded has sometimes been called our second war of independence; certainly the year 1815, which saw the end of the long strife between France and England, marks an important era in American history. Our politics ceased to be concerned mainly with foreign affairs. So suddenly were men's bones of political contention taken away from them that Monroe's presidency is traditionally remembered as the “era of good feeling.” So far as political parties were concerned, such an epithet is well applied; but as between prominent individuals struggling covertly to supplant one another, it was anything rather than an era of good feeling. Mr. Adams's principal achievement as secretary of state was the treaty with Spain, whereby Florida was ceded to the United States in consideration of $5,000,000, to be applied to the liquidation of outstanding claims of American merchants against Spain. By the same treaty the boundary between Louisiana and Mexico was established as running along the Sabine and Red rivers, the upper Arkansas, the crest of the Rocky mountains, and the 42d parallel. Mr. Adams defended the conduct of General Jackson in invading Spanish Florida and hanging Arbuthnot and Ambrister. He supported the policy of recognizing the independence of the revolted colonies of Spanish America, and he was the principal author of what is known as the “Monroe Doctrine,” that the American continent is no longer open to colonization by European powers. His official report on weights and measures showed remarkable scientific knowledge. Toward the close of Monroe's first term came up the first great political question growing out of the purchase of Louisiana: Should Missouri be admitted to the union as a slave-state, and should slavery be allowed or prohibited in the vast territory beyond? After the Missouri compromise had passed through congress, and been submitted to President Monroe for his signature, two questions were laid before the cabinet. First, had congress the constitutional right to prohibit slavery in a territory? and, secondly, in prohibiting slavery “forever” in the territory north of Mason and Dixon's line, as prolonged beyond the Mississippi river, did the Missouri bill refer to this district only so long as it should remain under territorial government, or did it apply to such states as might in future be formed from it? To the first question the cabinet replied unanimously in the affirmative. To the second question Mr. Adams replied that the term “forever” really meant forever; but all his colleagues replied that it only meant so long as the district in question should remain under territorial government. Here for the first time we see Mr. Adams taking that firm stand in opposition to slavery which hereafter was to make him so famous.

Mr. Monroe's second term of office had scarcely begun when the question of the succession came into the foreground. The candidates were John Quincy Adams, secretary of state; William H. Crawford, secretary of the treasury; John C. Calhoun, secretary of war; and Henry Clay, speaker of the house of representatives. Shortly before the election General Jackson's strength began to loom up as more formidable than the other competitors had supposed. Jackson was then at the height of his popularity as a military hero, Crawford was the most dexterous political manager in the country. Clay was perhaps the most persuasive orator. Far superior to these three in intelligence and character, Mr. Adams was in no sense a popular favorite. His manners were stiff and disagreeable; he told the truth bluntly, whether it hurt or not; and he never took pains to conciliate any one. The best of men in his domestic circle, outside of it he had few warm friends, but he seemed to have a talent for making enemies. When Edward Everett asked him if he was “determined to do nothing with a view to promote his future election to the presidency as the successor of Mr. Monroe,” he replied that he “should do absolutely nothing,” and from this resolution he never swerved. He desired the presidency as much as any one who was ever chosen to that high office; but his nature was such that unless it should come to him without scheming of his own, and as the unsolicited expression of popular trust in him, all its value would be lost. Under the Circumstances, it was a remarkable evidence of the respect felt for his lofty character and distinguished services that he should have obtained the presidency at all. The result of the election showed 99 votes for Jackson. 84 for Adams, 41 for Crawford, 37 for Clay. Mr. Calhoun, who had withdrawn from the contest for the presidency, received 182 votes for the vice-presidency, and was elected. The choice of the president was thrown into the house of representatives, and Mr. Clay now used his great influence in favor of Mr. Adams, who was forthwith elected. When Adams afterward made Clay his secretary of state, the disappointed partisans of Jackson pretended that there had been a bargain between the two, that Adams had secured Clay's assistance by promising him the first place in the cabinet, and thus, according to a usage that seemed to be establishing itself, placing him in the line of succession for the next presidency. The peppery John Randolph characterized this supposed bargain as “a coalition between Blifil and Black George, the Furitan and the blackleg.” There never was a particle of foundation for this reckless charge, and it has long since been disproved.

During Monroe's administration the Federalist party had become extinct. In the course of John Quincy Adams's administration the new division of parties into Whigs and Democrats began to grow up, the Whigs favoring internal improvements, the national bank, and a high tariff on importations, while the Democrats opposed all such measures on the ground that they were incompatible with a strict construction of the constitution. In its relation to such questions Mr. Adams's administration was Whig, and thus arrayed against itself not only all the southern planters, but also the ship-owners of New England and the importers of New York. But a new and powerful tendency now came in to overwhelm such an administration as that of Adams. The so-called “spoils system” was already germinating, and the time had come when it could be put into operation. Mr. Adams would have nothing to say to such a system. He would not reward the men who worked for him, and he would not remove from office the men who most vigorously opposed him. He stood on his merits, asked no favors and granted none; and was, on the whole, the most independent president we have had since Washington. Jackson and his friends promised their supporters a share in the government offices, in which a “clean sweep” was to be made by turning out the present incumbents. The result of the election of 1828 showed that for the time Jackson's method was altogether the more potent; since he obtained 178 electoral votes, against 83 for Adams.

The close of his career as president was marked by an incident that increased the odium in which Mr. Adams was held by so many of the old federalist families of Boston. In the excitement of the election the newspapers devoted to Jackson swarmed with mischievous paragraphs designed to injure Adams's reputation. Among other things it was said that, in 1808, he had suspected some of the federalist leaders of entertaining a scheme for carrying New England out of the union, and, fearing that such a scheme would be promoted by hatred of the embargo, and that in case of its success the seceded states would almost inevitably be driven into alliance with Great Britain, he communicated his suspicions to President Jefferson and other leading republicans. These tales, published by unscrupulous newspapers twenty years after the event, grossly distorted what Mr. Adams had actually said and done; and thirteen eminent Massachusetts federalists addressed to him an open letter, demanding that he should bring in a bill of particulars supported by evidence. Adams replied by stating the substance of what he had really said, but declining to mention names or to point out the circumstances upon which his suspicion had been based. In preserving this reticence he was actuated mainly by unwillingness to stir up a furious controversy under circumstances in which it could do no good. But his adversaries made the mistake of attributing his forbearance to dread of ill consequences to himself, a motive by which, it is safe to say, Mr. Adams was never influenced on any occasion whatever. So the thirteen gentlemen returned to the attack. Mr. Adams then wrote out a full statement of the case, completely vindicating himself, and bringing forward more than enough evidence to justify any such suspicions as he had entertained and guardedly stated. After finishing this pamphlet he concluded not to publish it, but left it among his papers. It has lately been published by Prof. Henry Adams, in his “Documents relating to New England Federalism,” and is not only of great historical importance, but is one of the finest specimens of political writing to be found in the English language.

Although now an ex-president, Mr. Adams did not long remain in private life. The greatest part of his career still lay before him. Owing to the mysterious disappearance of William Morgan, who had betrayed some of the secrets of the Masonic order, there was in some of the northern states a sudden and violent prejudice against the Freemasons and secret societies in general. An “anti-mason party” was formed, and by its votes Mr. Adams was, in 1831, elected to congress, where he remained, representing the same district of Massachusetts, until his death in 1848. He was shortly afterward nominated by the anti-masons for the governorship of Massachusetts, but was defeated in the legislature, there being no choice by the people. In congress he occupied a perfectly independent attitude. He was one of those who opposed President Jackson's high-handed treatment of the bank, but he supported the president in his firm attitude toward the South Carolina nullifiers and toward France. In 1835, as the French government delayed in paying over the indemnity of $5,000,000 which had been agreed upon by the treaty of 1831 for plunder of American shipping in the Napoleonic wars, Jackson threatened, in case payment should be any longer deferred, to issue letters of marque and reprisal against French commerce. This bold policy, which was successful in obtaining the money, enlisted Mr. Adams's hearty support. He defended Jackson as he had defended Jefferson on the occasion of the embargo; and this time, as before, his course was disapproved in Massachusetts, and he lost a seat in the U. S. senate. He had been chosen to that office by the state senate, but the lower house did not concur, and before the question was decided the news of his speech in favor of reprisals turned his supporters against him. He was thus left in the house of representatives more independent of party ties than ever, and was accordingly enabled to devote his energies to the aid of the abolitionists, who were now beginning to appear conspicuously upon the scene. At that time it was impossible for the opponents of slavery to effect much. The only way in which they could get their case before congress was by presenting petitions for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. Unwilling to receive such petitions, or to allow any discussion on the dreaded question, congress in 1836 enacted the cowardly “gag-rule,” that “all petitions, memorials, resolutions, or papers relating in any way or to any extent whatsoever to the subject of slavery or the abolition of slavery, shall, without being either printed or referred, be laid upon the table; and that no further, action whatever shall be had thereon.” After the yeas and nays had been ordered on this, when Mr. Adams's name was called he rose and said: “I hold the resolution to be a direct violation of the constitution of the United States, the rules of this house, and the rights of my constituents.” The house sought to drown his words with loud shrieks and yells of “Order!” “Order!” but he raised his voice to a shout and defiantly finished his sentence. The rule was adopted by a vote of 117 to 68, but it did more harm than good to the pro-slavery party. They had put themselves in an untenable position, and furnished Mr. Adams with a powerful weapon which he used against them without mercy. As a parliamentary debater he has had few if any superiors; in knowledge and dexterity there was no one in the house who could be compared with him; he was always master of himself, even at the white heat of anger to which he often rose; he was terrible in invective, matchless at repartee, and insensible to fear. A single-handed fight against all the slave-holders in the house was something upon which he was always ready to enter, and he usually came off with the last word. Though the vituperative vocabulary of the English language seemed inadequate to express the hatred and loathing with which the pro-slavery party regarded him, though he was more than once threatened with assassination, nevertheless his dauntless bearing and boundless resources compelled the respect of his bitterest opponents, and members from the south, with true chivalry, sometimes confessed it. Every session he returned to the assault upon the gag-rule, until the disgraceful measure was rescinded in 1845. This part of Mr. Adams's career consisted of a vast number of small incidents, which make a very interesting and instructive chapter in American history, but can not well be epitomized. He came to serve as the rallying-point in congress for the ever-growing anti-slavery sentiment, and may be regarded, in a certain sense, as the first founder of the new republican party. He seems to have been the first to enunciate the doctrine upon which Mr. Lincoln afterward rested his great proclamation of emancipation. In a speech in congress in 1836 he said: “From the instant that your slave-holding states become the theatre of war—civil, servile, or foreign—from that instant the war powers of the constitution extend to interference with the institution of slavery in every way in which it can be interfered with.” As this principle was attacked by the southern members, Mr. Adams from time to time reiterated it, especially in his speech of 14 April, 1842, on the question of war with England and Mexico, when he said: " Whether the war be civil, servile, or foreign, I lay this down as the law of nations: I say that the military authority takes for the time the place of all municipal institutions, slavery among the rest. Under that state of things, so far from its being true that the states where slavery exists have the exclusive management of the subject, not only the president of the United States, but the commander of the army has power to order the universal emancipation of the slaves.”

After the rescinding of the gag-rule Mr. Adams spoke less frequently. In November, 1846, he had a shock of paralysis, which kept him at home four months. On 21 February, 1848, while he was sitting in the house of representatives, came the second shock. He was carried into the speaker's room, where he lay two days, and died on the 23d. His last words were: “This is the last of earth; I am content.” See “Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams,” by William H. Seward (Auburn, 1849); “Life of John Quincy Adams,” by Josiah Quincy (Boston, 1858); “Diary of John Quincy Adams,” edited by Charles F. Adams, 12 vols., 8vo (Philadelphia, 1874-'7); and “John Quincy Adams,” by John T. Morse, Jr. (Boston, 1882).
The steel portrait of Mr. Adams, facing page 24, is from a picture by Marchant, in the possession of the New York Historical Society. The mansion represented on page 26 is the Adams homestead at Quincy, in which the presidents lived, now the summer residence of Charles Francis Adams. Source: Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I. pp. 17-23.



ANDERSON, Lucien, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery. Anderson was a Representative from Kentucky; born near Mayfield, Graves County, Kentucky, June 23, 1824; attended the public schools; studied law; was admitted to the bar in 1845 and commenced practice in Mayfield; presidential elector on the Whig ticket of Scott and Graham in 1852; member of the State house of representatives 1855-1857; elected as an Unconditional Unionist to the Thirty-eighth Congress (March 4, 1863-March 3, 1865); declined to be a candidate for renomination in 1864; delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1864; resumed the practice of his profession; died in Mayfield, Kentucky, October 18, 1898.

(Congressional Globe; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928)



ANDREW, John Albion, 1818-1867, reformer, anti-slavery advocate, lawyer, Governor of Massachusetts, member Conscience Whig, Free Soil Party, Republican Party. Opponent of slavery. In Boston, he took a prominent part in the defense of fugitive slaves Shadrach, Burns and Sims. Supported John Brown in legal defense.

(American National Biography, Vol. 1, 2002, p. 489; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 1, p. 279; Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 72-73)

Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:

ANDREW, John Albion, statesman, born in Windham, Maine, 31 May, 1818; died in Boston, Massachusetts, 30 October, 1867. His father, descended from an early settler of Boxford, Massachusetts, was a prosperous merchant in Windham. John Albion was graduated at Bowdoin in 1837. He was a negligent student, though fond of reading, and in his professional life always felt the lack of training in the habit of close application. He immediately entered on the study of the law in the office of Henry H. Fuller, in Boston, where in 1840 he was admitted to the bar. Until the outbreak of the war he practised his profession in that city, attaining special distinction in the fugitive-slave cases of Shadrach Burns and Sims, which arose under the fugitive-slave law of 1850. He became interested in the slavery question in early youth, and was attracted toward many of the reform movements of the day. After his admission to the bar he took an active interest in politics and frequently spoke on the stump on behalf of the Whig Party, of which he was an enthusiastic member. From the year 1848 he was closely identified with the anti-slavery party of Massachusetts, but held no office until 1858, when he was elected a member of the state legislature from Boston, and at once took a leading position in that body. In 1860 he was a delegate to the Chicago Republican Convention, and, after voting for Mr. Seward on the early ballots, announced the change of the vote of part of the Massachusetts delegation to Mr. Lincoln. In the same year he was nominated for governor by a popular impulse. Many feared that the radicalism of his opinions would render him unsafe in action, and the political managers regarded him as an intruder and opposed his nomination; yet he was elected the twenty-first governor of Massachusetts since the adoption of the constitution of 1780 by the largest popular vote ever cast for any candidate. He was energetic in placing the militia of Massachusetts on a war footing, in anticipation of the impending conflict between the government and the seceded states. He had announced this purpose in his inaugural address in 1861, and, upon being inducted into office, he sent a confidential message to the governors of Maine and New Hampshire, inviting their cooperation in preparing the militia for service and providing supplies of war material. This course of action was not regarded with favor at the time by a majority of the legislature, although his opponents refrained from a direct collision. On receiving the president's proclamation of 15 April, 1861, he despatched five regiments of infantry, a battalion of riflemen, and a battery of artillery to the defence of the capital. Of these, the Massachusetts 6th was the first to tread southern soil, passing through New York while the regiments of that state were mustering, and shedding the first blood of the war in the streets of Baltimore, where it was assailed by the mob on Governor Andrew sent a telegram to Mayor Brown, praying him to have the bodies of the slain carefully sent forward to him at the expense of the common wealth of Massachusetts. He was equally active in raising the Massachusetts contingent of three years' volunteers, and was laborious in his efforts to aid every provision for the comfort of the sick and wounded soldiers. He was four times reëlected governor, holding that office till January, 1866, and was only then released by his positive declination of another renomination, in order to attend to his private business, as the pecuniary sacrifice involved in holding the office was more than he was able to sustain, and his health was seriously affected by his arduous labors. In 1862 he was one of the most urgent of the northern governors in impressing upon the administration at Washington the necessity of adopting the emancipation policy, and of accepting the services of colored troops. In September, 1862, he took the most prominent part in the meeting of governors of the northern states, held at Altoona, Pennsylvania, to devise ways and means to encourage and strengthen the hands of the government. The address of the governors to the people of the north was prepared by him. Governor Andrew interfered on various occasions to prevent the federal authorities from making arbitrary arrests among southern sympathizers in Massachusetts previous to the suspension of the habeas-corpus act. In January, 1863, he obtained from the Secretary of War the first authorization for raising colored troops, and the First Colored Regiment (54th Massachusetts Infantry) was despatched from Boston in May of that year. Governor Andrew was particular in selecting the best officers for the black troops and in providing them with the most complete equipment. Though famous as the war governor of Massachusetts, he also bestowed proper attention on the domestic affairs of the commonwealth. In his first message he recommended that the provision in the law preventing a person against whom a decree of divorce has been granted from marrying again, should be modified; but the proposition met with strong opposition in the legislature, especially from clergymen, and it was not till 1864 that an act was passed conferring power upon the supreme court to remove the penalty resting upon divorced persons. He also recommended a reform in the usury laws, such as was finally effected by an act passed in 1867. He was strongly opposed to capital punishment, and recommended its repeal. A law requiring representatives in Congress to be residents of the districts from which they are elected was vetoed by him on the ground that it was both unconstitutional and inexpedient, but was passed over his veto. Of the twelve veto messages sent by Governor Andrew during his incumbency, only one other, in the case of a resolve to grant additional pay to members, was followed by the passage of the act over the veto. His final term as governor expired 5 January, 1866. In a valedictory address to the legislature he advocated a generous and conciliatory policy toward the southern states, “demanding no attitude of humiliation; inflicting no acts of humiliation.” Governor Andrew was modest and simple in his habits and manner of life, emotional and quick in sympathy for the wronged or the unfortunate, exceedingly joyous and mirthful in temperament, and companionable with all classes of persons. The distinguished ability that shone out in his administration as governor of Massachusetts, the many sterling qualities that were summed up in his character, his social address, and the charm of his conversational powers, together with his clear and forcible style as an orator, combined to render him conspicuous among the state governors of the war period, and one of the most influential persons in civil life not connected with the federal administration. Soon after the expiration of his last term as governor he was tendered, but declined, the presidency of Antioch College, Ohio. He presided over the first national Unitarian Convention, held in 1865, and was a leader of the conservative wing of that denomination—those who believed with Channing and the early Unitarians in the supernaturalism of Christ's birth and mission, as opposed to Theodore Parker and his disciples. After retiring from public life Mr. Andrew entered upon a lucrative legal practice. In January, 1867, he represented before the general court about 30,000 petitioners for a license law, and delivered an argument against the principle of total prohibition. His death, which occurred suddenly from apoplexy, was noticed by public meetings in various cities. He married, 25 December, 1848, Miss Eliza Jane Hersey, of Hingham, Massachusetts, who with their four children survived him. See “Memoir of Governor Andrew, with Personal Reminiscences,” by Peleg W. Chandler (Boston, 1880), “Discourse on the Life and Character of Governor Andrew,” by Reverend E. Nason (Boston, 1868), and “Men of Our Times,” by Harriet Beecher Stowe. A life of Governor Andrew, by Edwin P. Whipple, was left unfinished at the time of Mr. Whipple’s death in 1886. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888. pp.72-73.

Scribner’s Dictionary of American Biography, 1936, pp. 279-281:

ANDREW, JOHN ALBION (May 31, 1818- October 30, 1867), governor of Massachusetts, was born at Windham, Maine, of Massachusetts stock, his earliest ancestor of whom we have record, Robert Andrew, having come as it appears from England, settled in what is now Boxford, and died there a prosperous landowner in 1668. Robert's son, Joseph, moved to Salem, where the main stem of the Andrews continued to live. Jonathan Andrew, the father of the future governor, moved to Windham, Maine, in 1807, established a general store, married Nancy Green Pierce, prospered, and became the leading man of the village. On John Andrew's education unusual pains were lavished. His mother, a woman of attainments and force of character, had been a school-teacher and for a time taught the boy herself. Later, when the family was larger, finding the district school inadequate, the parents built a tiny school-house near their own door and here John, his brother, and two sisters were carefully grounded in the rudiments. The next stage, following the custom of the time, was the local academy and in due course the boy attended for a brief time the academies at Portland, North Yarmouth, and Bridgton. Late in 1831, when he was in his fourteenth year, the serious illness of his mother, to whom he was much attached, called him home and he remained there until her death in the early spring of 1832. Soon afterward he returned to his studies, this time at Gorham Academy, where he prepared for college, entering Bowdoin in 1833. As a student he ranked among the lowest in his class. He spent more time in social fellowship than in study and graduated with more competency in argument and public speaking than in any other field. As a boy he had been stirred by the Anti-Slavery movement; he had now become a determined foe of slavery and his conviction on this issue was to shape h is political course.

He was not yet twenty when he arrived in Boston in 1837, and entered the law office of Fuller & Wash burn as a student, and he was still very youthful in appearance in 1840 when he was admitted to the bar. His progress in the profession was gradual, partly because he was of a slow-maturing type, partly because of his incurably sociable temperament which was always leading him away from the paths of legal preferment. He was active in the Unitarian Church and assistant editor of the church paper, secretary for many years of the Boston Port Society, and one of the most devoted visitors to the prisons, where he was to be found every Sunday afternoon and whence he derived more law cases than fees. It was said of him at this period, "No one who had a 'hard case,' with no money to pay for legal assistance, was ever turned away from his office for that reason; and no one however guilty was denied whatever assistance his case was fairly entitled to receive"(Chandler, p. 79). His father, with his younger son and two daughters, had removed from Maine to Massachusetts and settled at Boxford not far from Boston so as to be near the elder son. There the family hearth continued and the family life was maintained, Andrew returning constantly to recount his experiences in the city and to renew his strength in the atmosphere of love and admiration. So a decade passed while he established relations, made friends, set the foundations for the career which lay hidden before him. In 1847 he became engaged to Eliza Jones Hersey and in 1848was married.

During all this time, Andrew's interest in the Anti-Slavery movement never wavered. His association with the members of James Freeman Clarke's church and other reforming and aspiring groups had deepened the religious and humanitarian side of his nature. When the slavery question again became a burning issue he took a leading part in its discussion. Though he rejected the extreme positions of Garrison and Wendell Phillips, he maintained the firm and uncompromising opposition to slavery which represented the best spirit of Massachusetts. He took part with Bowditch, Howe, Sumner, Theodore Parker, Charles Francis Adams, and others in the fugitive slave case of the brig Ottoman in the summer of 1846 and read the resolutions at the Faneuil Hall meeting where John Quincy Adams, then in his eightieth year, presided. From this time on he was drawn into closer relations with Sumner and Howe and the Young Whigs. Politics, which had always fascinated him, now took a larger part of his thought. The campaign of 1848 stirred him deeply. He was one of the organizers of the Free-Soil party with its platform "Free Soil, Free Speech, Free Labor, and Free Men,'' and he gave himself whole-heartedly to the campaign. With the Know-Nothing movement which swept over Massachusetts four years later he had little in common, and it was not until the Republican party appeared that he was again able to engage with full conviction. In 1857 he was nominated and elected on the Banks or Republican ticket to the legislature. There in the session of 1858 he won distinction by a speech so brilliant and effective that it made him at once one of the leaders of the party. Though he declined reelection his place was established and his popularity grew.

John Brown's raid, his capture, trial, and death had an effect that could not have been predicted upon Andrew's career. When the raid failed and Brown was made prisoner, Andrew took a leading part in raising funds for his defense. When sentence had been pronounced, he took part in a public meeting to raise funds for Brown's family and on that occasion used the words, "John Brown himself is right," which aroused a storm of enthusiasm among anti-slavery men everywhere. When at the instance of the Southern senators a committee was set up to investigate the raid, Andrew was cited to appear and testify. His bearing and testimony before the committee, which had the widest publicity, gave lively satisfaction to anti-slavery men, especially to Massachusetts anti-slavery men. The episode made him more popular than before and in consequence he was almost unanimously chosen delegate to the Republican National Convention at Chicago and made chairman of the delegation. He shared in the nomination of Lincoln, went to Springfield to see him, and brought back a lofty but just opinion of the great leader. One honor led to another. It had long been growing evident that Andrew was one to whom his fellow citizens were well disposed. In the month of July, 1860, a well-informed observer described him as "the most popular man in Massachusetts." In the following month occasion offered a proof. Governor Banks, whose renomination was taken for granted, suddenly declined, five days before the nominating convention. The "machine" had settled upon Henry L. Dawes, a Conservative. But no sooner was it known that Andrew's nomination was a possibility than a legion of friends hastened to his support and he was nominated on the first ballot by a great majority. By an even greater majority-in fact the greatest popular majority in the history of the state up to that time-he was elected governor on the same ticket on which Lincoln became President.

Andrew was now at his utmost vigor of mind and body. Forty-two years of age, strong and sturdy of build, full of energy, capable of great effort and equal to unusual strains of endurance, he was ready for the great labors before him. The crisis was swift in appearance. He had not written his inaugural address before warnings reached him from Adams, and Sumner that the government at Washington was in danger. He at once took steps to put the state militia in a position of readiness. Other warnings followed and within a month he had obtained from the legislature an emergency fund of $100,000, with which to arm, equip, and transport the militia if needed for the defense of Washington. Then came the firing on Fort Sumter and Lincoln's call for troops. Andrew so labored that the Massachusetts regiments were ready and went forward before those of any other state. The 6th Massachusetts was the only armed regiment to reach Washington on that critical 19th of April before the city was cut off from the North-as it remained for nearly a week. As the war went on, the Governor came to be more and more the embodiment of the patriotic spirit of the State. His short, rotund, figure, once ridiculed, became beloved. The upper circles of society found him an agreeable guest. The chorus, still remembered in Massachusetts, made to rally the pro-slavery mobs

"Tell John Andrew
Tell John Andrew
Tell John Andrew
John Brown's dead"

would now have brought him votes in any town in the state. There was no longer any question about his reelection. The state felt that he was enlisted for the war.

In 1862, when the first fine enthusiasm was over, when the tale of deaths and wounds, losses and defeats chilled the spirits and the delay of emancipation discouraged the most ardent, the governors of several northern states united in what has been called the Altoona Conference to urge upon the President the emancipation of the negroes and a more vigorous prosecution of the war. Andrew was a member of the Conference. By a singular coincidence President Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation the day before the Conference met, but the governors went on to Washington, conferred with the President, and doubtless contributed something to that increased vigor which became apparent from then on. With emancipation secured there was one other thing that Andrew had at heart. This was to give the negro the full standing of a man by making him a soldier and admitting him to the army. He urged that the negroes be organized into separate corps and regiments. Nothing that he ever undertook appealed to him more powerfully and when he finally had the consent of the War Department and got his first negro regiment, the 54th, organized he felt it a great achievement. "I stand or fall," he declared, ~'as a man and a magistrate, with the rise and fall in history of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment." It was a great venture for, without some such test, one may doubt whether the negro would have achieved his citizenship in the United States. At the election of 1864 Andrew was reelected governor. The end of the war was now in sight. Andrew, absorbed with the problems which would come with peace, labored to establish the negro in his rights and to provide for cooperation between the North and the South. In his farewell message delivered in January 1866, he advocated a lenient and friendly policy toward the Southern states and reconstruction without retribution. When he retired from office, at the close of 1866, it became apparent that the war had worn him out. His friends had already noted that he had overdrawn his physical resources, and he had been warned to husband his strength. Through the greater part of 1867 he continued, however, to take an active interest in public affairs; he worked for reform in the usury laws and in the divorce law, and took a prominent position in opposing the principle of total prohibition. He resisted several minor attacks of ill health and worked on at his legal business, but finally, on October 29, he was stricken with apoplexy and died on the following day amid the general grief of the city.

[Henry Greenleaf Pearson, The Life of John A. Andrew (1904); Peleg W. Chandler, Memoir of Governor Andrew(1880); Albert Gallatin Browne, Sketch of the Official Life of John A. Andrew (1868); A Memorial Volume Containing the Exercises of the Dedication of the Statue of John A. Andrew (1878); Elias Nason, Discourse on the Life and Character of the Hon. John Albion Andrew (1868); Samuel Burnham, "Hon. John Albion Andrew" in New England History and Genealogical Register, January 1869; Moorfield Storey, Life of Charles Sumner (1900), pp. 52, 192, 209, 271, 295.]

W. B. P.



ANDREWS, Sherlock James, jurist, born in Wallingford, Connecticut, 17 November, 1801; died in Cleveland, Ohio, 11 February, 1880. He was elected to Congress in 1840 as a Whig, and served for a single term.

Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 75-76:

ANDREWS, Sherlock James, jurist, born in Wallingford, Connecticut, 17 November, 1801; died in Cleveland, Ohio, 11 February, 1880. He was graduated at Union College in 1821, after which he continued his studies at Yale, where he followed the lectures on science as assistant to Professor Silliman, and also the lectures on law. In 1825 he moved to Ohio, and from that time devoted himself to the profession of law, and was constantly engaged in important litigation before the state and federal courts. He was elected to Congress in 1840 as a Whig, and served for a single term. He became in 1848 a judge of the superior court of Ohio, and he was a member of the Constitutional Conventions of 1849 and 1873, where his influence was felt upon important committees. He was urged at one time to allow himself to be a candidate for governor, but declined this distinction, as well as others for which his name was mentioned, because he preferred to remain in private life. For a time he shared with Thomas Corwin the leadership of the Ohio bar. His wit, his eloquence, his sympathy, his good sense, and his integrity gave him great power before a jury or before the public. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 75-76.



Anthony, Henry Bowen, 1815-1884, Republican, statesman, newspaper editor, Governor of Rhode Island, U.S. Senator 1859-1884, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.

(Appletons’, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 81-82; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 1, pp. 316-317; Anthony, Henry Bowen, A Memoir, 1885; Congressional Globe)

Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 81-82:

ANTHONY, Henry Bowen, statesman, born of Quaker parents, in Coventry, Rhode Island, 1 April, 1815; died in Providence, 2 September, 1884. He was descended in a direct line from John Anthony, who came from England about 1640 and settled on the island of Rhode Island. He was graduated at Brown University in 1833, and devoted himself to literary pursuits. He became editor of the Providence "Journal" in 1838, and in 1840 was admitted into partnership, the paper being published under the name of Knowles, Vose & Anthony till the death of Mr. Vose in 1848, when it was continued under the name of Knowles & .Anthony till 1 January, 1863, when it became Knowles, Anthony & Danielson. Mr. Anthony gave himself up to his newspaper with all the energy and enthusiasm of his nature. No amount of work staggered him; early and late he was in his office, and for many years he had around him a brilliant circle of young men. He early developed poetical taste, and there are several pieces of merit that bear his name. His mind was quick and accurate, and he had a wonderful memory; and his editorial labors contributed largely to the growth of the art of journalism in New England. He had many offers to go to other cities and take charge of newspapers, but declined them all. In 1837 he married Sally Rhodes (daughter of the late Christopher Rhodes, of Pawtuxet), who died in 1854. In 1849, and again in 1850, he was elected governor of Rhode Island. As a Whig at the first election he had a majority of 1,556; at the second, fewer than 1,000 votes were cast against him. He declined a third election, and gave himself once more entirely to his editorial work. This continued till 1859, when he was elected, as a Republican, to the U. S. Senate, where he remained by reelections till his death. During his service in the Senate he still contributed largely to his paper. Three times he was elected president protem of the Senate—in March, 1863, in March, 1871, and in January, 1884; but the last time his failing health prevented him from accepting. He was exceedingly popular in Washington, and often spoken of as "the handsome senator." He served on many important committees, and was twice the chairman of the committee on printing, his practical knowledge of that subject enabling him to introduce many reforms in the government printing. He was at different times a member of the committees on claims, on naval affairs, on mines and mining, and on post-offices and post-roads. On the trial of President Johnson he voted for impeachment. He was not a frequent or brilliant speaker in the Senate, but always talked to the point, and commanded attention. He shone more as a writer than as a speaker. His memorial and historical addresses were models of composition. A volume of these addresses, printed privately in 1875, contains a tribute to Stephen A. Douglas, delivered 9 July. 1861; one to John R. Thompson, 4 December, 1862; one to William P. Fessenden, 14 December, 1869; and three different addresses on Charles Sumner-the first on the announcement of his death in the Senate; the second when Mr. Anthony, as one of the committee appointed by the Senate, gave up the body of Mr. Sumner to the governor of Massachusetts; and the third when Mr. Boutwell presented in the Senate resolutions of respect for Mr. Sumner's memory. Mr. Anthony also spoke in the Senate on the death of William A. Buckingham, and on 21 January, 1876, delivered a short address on the death of Henry Wilson, Vice-President of the United States. When the statues of General Greene and Roger Williams were presented to Congress by the state of Rhode Island, Mr. Anthony made the addresses, and he also made a short address at the presentation of the statues of Trumbull and Sherman. One of his best efforts was when he introduced the bill providing for repairing and protecting the monument erected in Newport, Rhode Island, to the memory of the Chevalier de Tiernay, commander of the French naval forces sent out in 1780 to aid the American Revolution. Mr. Anthony had a warm and affectionate nature, genial manner, a commanding figure, and was a perfect specimen of a man. In his last days, with manly courage, he calmly waited for the end. As soon as his death was known, Governor Bourn and Mayor Doyle issued proclamations to that effect, and called upon the people to attend the funeral, which took place from the first Congregational Church in Providence on Saturday, 6 September It was the largest funeral ever known in Rhode Island. Mr. Anthony bequeathed a portion of his library, known as the "Harris Collection of American Poetry," to Brown University. It consists of about 6,000 volumes, mostly small books, and many of them exceedingly rare. It was begun half a century ago by the late Albert G. Greene, continued by Caleb Fiske Harris, and, after his death, completed by his kinsman, the late senator. The Reverend Dr. J. C. Stockbridge, a member of the board of trustees of the university, is preparing an annotated catalogue of the collection. Appletons’, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 81-82.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 1, Pt. 1, pp. 316-317:

ANTHONY, HENRY BOWEN (April 1, 1815-September 2, 1884), journalist, politician, a descendant of John Anthony of Hampstead, England, who came to Boston in 1634 and removed to Rhode Island about 1640, was born at Coventry, Rhode Island. His father was William Anthony and his mother was Eliza Kinnicutt Greene. Both his father and his maternal grandfather, James Greene of Warwick, were Quakers. His father was a cotton manufacturer and the part of the town in which they lived was called Anthony. There the boy attended village school and the Friends' meeting-house. Most of his life was spent, however, in Providence, where he fitted for college at a private school and entered Brown University in 1829. He made a good, though not brilliant, record in college and graduated with his class in 1833, carrying with him a very definite leaning toward letters. Although he went into business, to which he gave five years, partly in Providence and partly in Savannah, Georgia, literature remained his major interest. In 1837 he married Sarah Aborn, daughter of Christopher Rhodes. A year later, when he was twenty-three years old, he was invited by a kinsman who owned the Providence Journal to take the editorship during an interim of a few weeks. He exhibited such a surprising gift and aptitude for the editorial duty that what began as a mere stop-gap became permanent. So skilfully did he guide the fortunes of the paper and so general was the respect and influence it attained under his direction that he was soon seen to be indispensable. Thus it came about that he was in charge of the paper-the most influential journal in the state-in 1842 during the Dorr Rebellion, one of the crises in the modern history of the old commonwealth. During that time of turbulence and disorder, the newspaper office became the center and rallying-point of the conservative interests of the state and its editor rose to a position of exceptional authority. To Anthony the paper owed not only its political power but very largely also its excellent literary style. Examples of his skill in verse are the mock heroic poems, "The Dorriad" and "The Chepachet Campaign," satirizing Dorr and his partizans, which appeared in the Journal in 1843 (republished in The Dorr War, by Arthur M. Mowry, 1901). Throughout his life and even up to within a week or two of his death he continued to exercise a guiding influence over the Journal, writing paragraphs and articles which were marked by urbanity, charm, and a shrewd knowledge of men and affairs.

Naturally enough then, when in 1849 a conservative candidate was sought for the governorship, Anthony was named and elected governor of the state, was reelected in 1850 and was urged to run again in 1851, but declined. His administration as governor fulfilled the expectations of his friends and gave him a reputation both for talent and sagacity in the conduct of public affairs. It was, therefore, a matter of course that when he was nominated in 1858 for the Senate he was elected with little opposition. The atmosphere of the Senate was particularly congenial to Anthony's tastes and abilities. His personal charm and dignity, his knowledge of affairs, his acquaintance with public men, his natural ease and kindliness of manner, all fitted him to fill his part in the upper chamber with distinction and success. There he was chosen president pro tempore on many occasions, in 1869, 1870, 1871, and for the last time in 1884, when he declined to serve on the score of ill health. It was no wonder that he was returned by his loyal state time after time until he had become the "Father of the Senate"; he was still a member when he died, full of honors and greatly admired both by his associates and his constituents.

Anthony was one of the type of senators whose services lie rather in the exercise of judgment and practical wisdom than in any definite contribution either to law or practise. He was a member, however, of important committees: Claims, Naval Affairs, Mines and Mining, Post Office and Post Roads, and finally that of Public Printing, on which he served for more than twenty-two years and there labored to reduce the extravagance and waste, to restrict public printing to the legitimate demands of the various government departments, and to make the Congressional Record a faithful transcript of congressional proceedings. In these endeavors he was only partly successful; they were such desirable ends, however, that they have been pursued, and some of them attained, by others. Similarly as a member of the Committee on Naval Affairs, a post which he filled from 1863 to 1884, he exerted always a sound and moderating influence. He was conservative by constitution: he voted for the impeachment of Johnson, was a steadfast supporter of a protective tariff, and was no less firm in support of a sound currency. He brought to the Senate the character and attainments of a gentleman, a profound and sympathetic knowledge of the state he represented, and an urbanity and courtesy which made him a valued associate in the upper chamber.

[Henry Bowen Anthony, A Memorial (1885); George Frisbie Hoar, Autobiography of Seventy Years (1903), Volume II; letters and papers of Justin S. Morrill.]

W.B.P.



APPLETON, William, merchant, born in Brookfield, Massachusetts, 16 November, 1786; died in Longwood, near Boston, 20 February, 1862. He was elected as a Whig to Congress, serving from 1851 to 1855, and again was a member in the special session from 4 July to 6 August, 1861.

Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 85:

APPLETON, William, merchant, born in Brookfield, Massachusetts, 16 November, 1786; died in Longwood, near Boston, 20 February, 1862. He was a son of the Reverend Joseph Appleton, of Brookfield, received an academic education, and at the age of fifteen became a clerk in a country store at Temple. In 1807 he went to Boston, where for over fifty years he was a successful merchant, giving also much attention to banking and financial operations. He was president of the U. S. Branch Bank from 1832 to 1836, and was also president of the Provident Institution for Savings and the Massachusetts General Hospital. He gave $30,000 to the last named institution, and was noted for his benevolence. He was elected as a Whig to Congress, serving from 1851 to 1855, and again was a member in the special session from 4 July to 6 August, 1861, after which he resigned. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 85.



ARNOLD, Samuel Greene, historian, born in Providence, Rhode Island 12 April 1821; died there 13 February, 1880. In 1852 he was chosen lieutenant-governor of his state, the only man elected on the Whig ticket, and he again occupied that office in 1861 and 1862.

Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:

ARNOLD, Samuel Greene, historian, born in Providence, Rhode Island 12 April 1821; died there 13 February, 1880. He was graduated at Brown in 1841, spent two years in a Providence counting-house, and visited Europe. On his return he studied law, being graduated at Harvard Law School in 1845, and was admitted to the Rhode Island bar; but before practising he again travelled extensively in Europe, the east, and South America. In 1852 he was chosen lieutenant-governor of his state, the only man elected on the Whig ticket, and he again occupied that office in 1861 and 1862. On the breaking out of the Civil War he was for a few weeks in command of a battery of artillery and aide to Governor Sprague. From 1 December, 1862, to 3 March, 1863, he served in the U. S. Senate, having been chosen to fill out the term of J. F. Simmons, resigned. He published a valuable “History of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations” (2 vols., New York, '' He was the author of “The Spirit of Rhode Island History,” a discourse delivered on 17 January, 1853, before the Rhode Island historical Society, of which he was for some time the president, an address before the American Institute in New York in October, 1850, and numerous other addresses, and articles in Periodicals. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, p. 97.



ARTHUR, Chester Alan, twenty-first president of the United States, born in Fairfield, Franklin County, Vermont, 5 October, 1830; died in New York City, 18 November, 1886.

Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:

ARTHUR, Chester Alan, twenty-first president of the United States, born in Fairfield, Franklin County, Vermont, 5 October, 1830; died in New York City, 18 November, 1886. His father was Reverend William Arthur (given below). His mother was Malvina Stone. Her grandfather, Uriah Stone, was a New Hampshire pioneer, who about 1763 migrated from Hampstead to Connecticut River, and made his home in Piermont, where he died in 1810, leaving twelve children. Her father was George Washington Stone. She died 16 January, 1869, and her husband died 27 October, 1875, at Newtonville, New York Their children were three sons and six daughters, all of whom, except one son and one daughter, were alive in 1886.

Chester A. Arthur, the eldest son, prepared for college at Union Village in Greenwich, and at Schenectady, and in 1845 he entered the sophomore class of Union. While in his sophomore year he taught school for a term at Schaghticoke, Rensselaer County, and a second term at the same place during his last year in college. He joined the Psi-Upsilon Society, and was one of six in a class of one hundred who were elected members of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, the condition of admission being high scholarship. He was graduated at eighteen years of age, in the class of 1848. While at college he decided to become a lawyer, and after graduation attended for several months a law school at Ballston Spa, returned to Lansingburg, where his father then resided, and continued his legal studies. During this period he fitted boys for college, and in 1851 he was principal of an academy at North Pownal, Bennington County, Vermont. In 1854, James A. Garfield, then a student in Williams College, taught penmanship in this academy during his winter vacation.

In 1853, Arthur, having accumulated a small sum of money, decided to go to New York City. He there entered the law office of Erastus D. Culver as a student, was admitted to the bar during the same year, and at once became a member of the firm of Culver, Parker & Arthur. Mr. Culver had been an anti-slavery member of Congress from Washington county when Dr. Arthur was pastor of the Baptist Church in Greenwich in that county. Dr. Arthur had also enjoyed the friendship of Gerrit Smith, who had often been his guest and spoken from his pulpit. Together they had taken part in the meeting convened at Utica, 21 October, 1835, to form a New York anti-slavery Society. This meeting was broken up by a committee of pro-slavery citizens; but the members repaired to Mr. Smith's home in Peterborough, and there completed the organization. On the same day in Boston a women's anti-slavery society, while its president was at prayer, was dispersed by a mob, and William Lloyd Garrison was dragged through the streets with a rope around his body, threatened with tar and feathers, and for his protection lodged in jail by the mayor. From these early associations Arthur naturally formed sentiments of hostility to slavery, and he first gave them public expression in the Lemmon slave case. In 1852 Jonathan Lemmon, a Virginia slave-holder, determined to take eight of the slaves of his wife, Juliet — one man, two women, and five children — to Texas, and brought them by steamer from Norfolk to New York, intending to re-ship them from New York to Texas. On the petition of Louis Napoleon, a free colored man, on 6 November, a writ of habeas corpus was issued by Judge Elijah Paine, of the superior court of New York City, and after arguments by Mr. Culver and John Jay for the slaves, and H. D. Lapaugh and Henry L. Clinton for the slave-holder, Judge Paine, on 13 November, released the slaves on the ground that they had been made free by being brought by their master into a free state. The decision created great excitement at the south, and the legislature of Virginia directed its attorney-general to appeal to the higher courts of New York. The legislature of New York passed a resolution directing its governor to defend the slaves. In December, 1857, the supreme court, in which a certiorari had been sued out, affirmed Judge Paine's decision (People v. Lemmon, 5 Sandf., 681), and it was still further sustained by the court of appeals at the March term, 1860 (Lemmon v. People, 20 New York Rep., 562). Arthur, as a law student, and after his admission to the bar, became an earnest advocate for the slaves. He went to Albany to secure the intervention in their behalf of the legislature and the governor, and he acted as their counsel in addition to attorney-general Ogden Hoffman, E. D. Culver, Joseph Blunt, and (after Mr. Hoffman's death) William M. Evarts. Charles O'Conor was employed as further counsel for the slave-holder, and argued his side before the court of appeals, while Mr. Blunt and Mr. Evarts argued for the slaves. Until 1855 the street-car companies of New York City excluded colored persons from riding with the whites, and made no adequate provision for their separate transportation. One Sunday in that year a colored woman named Lizzie Jennings, a Sabbath-school superintendent, on the way home from her school, was ejected from a car on the Fourth avenue line. Culver, Parker & Arthur brought a suit in her behalf against the company in the supreme court in Brooklyn, the plaintiff recovered a judgment, and the right of colored persons to ride in any of the city cars was thus secured. The Colored People's Legal Rights Association for years celebrated the anniversary of their success in this case. Mr. Arthur became a Henry Clay Whig, and cast his first vote in 1852 for Winfield Scott for president. He participated in the first Republican state Convention at Saratoga, and took an active part in the Fremont Campaign of 1856. On 1 January, 1861, Governor Edwin D. Morgan, who on that date entered upon his second term, and between whom and Mr. Arthur a warm friendship had grown up, appointed him on his staff as engineer-in-chief, with the rank of brigadier-general. He had previously taken part in the organization of the state militia, and had been judge-advocate of the second brigade. When the Civil War began, in April, 1861, his active services were required by Governor Morgan, and he became acting quartermaster-general, and as such began in New York City the work of preparing and forwarding the state's quota of troops. In December he was called to Albany for consultation concerning the defences of New York Harbor. On 24 December he summoned a board of engineers, of which he became a member; and on 18 January, 1862, he submitted an elaborate report on the condition of the national forts both on the sea-coast and on the inland border of the state. On 10 February, 1862, he was appointed inspector-general, with the rank of brigadier-general, and in May he inspected the New York troops at Fredericksburg and on the Chickahominy. In June, 1862, Governor Morgan ordered his return from the Army of the Potomac, and he acted as secretary of the meeting of the governors of the loyal states, which was held at the Astor House, New York City, 28 June. The governors advised President Lincoln to call for more troops; and on 1 July he called for 300,000 volunteers. At Governor Morgan's request, General Arthur resumed his former work, resigned as inspector-general, and 10 July was appointed quartermaster-general. In his annual report, dated 27 January, 1863, he said: “Through the single office and clothing department of this department in the City of New York, from 1 August to 1 December, the space of four months, there were completely clothed, uniformed, and equipped, supplied with camp and garrison equipage, and transported from this state to the seat of war, sixty-eight regiments of infantry, two battalions of cavalry, and four battalions of artillery.” He went out of office 31 December, 1862, when Horatio Seymour succeeded Governor Morgan, and his successor, Quartermaster-General S. V. Talcott, in his report of 31 December, 1863, spoke of the previous administration as follows: “I found, on entering on the discharge of my duties, a well-organized system of labor and accountability, for which the state is chiefly indebted to my predecessor, General Chester A. Arthur, who by his practical good sense and unremitting exertion, at a period when everything was in confusion, reduced the operations of the department to a matured plan, by which large amounts of money were saved to the government, and great economy of time secured in carrying out the details of the same.”

Between 1862 and 1872 General Arthur was engaged in continuous and active law practice — in partnership with Henry G. Gardner from 1862 till 1867, then for five years alone, and on 1 January, 1872, he formed the firm of Arthur, Phelps & Knevals. He was for a short time counsel for the department of assessments and taxes, but resigned the place. During all this period he continued to take an active interest in politics; was chairman in 1868 of the central Grant club of New York; and became chairman of the Executive Committee of the Republican state Committee in 1879.

On 20 November, 1871, he was appointed by President Grant collector of the port of New York, and assumed the office on 1 December; was nominated to the Senate 6 December, confirmed 12 December, and commissioned for four years 16 December On 17 December, 1875, he was nominated for another term, and by the Senate confirmed the same day, without reference to a committee — a courtesy never before extended to an appointee who had not been a senator. He was commissioned 18 December, and retained the office until 11 July, 1878, making his service about six and two thirds years.

The New York Republican state Convention, held at Syracuse, 22 March, 1876, elected delegates to the national convention in favor of the nomination of Senator Conkling for president. The friends of Mr. Conkling in the state convention were led by Alonzo B. Cornell, then naval officer in the New York custom-house. A minority, calling themselves reform Republicans, and favoring Benjamin H. Bristow for president, were led by George William Curtis. At the national convention at Cincinnati, 14 June, sixty-nine of the New York delegates, headed by Mr. Cornell, voted for Mr. Conkling, and one delegate, Mr. Curtis, voted for Mr. Bristow. At the critical seventh ballot, however, Mr. Conkling's name was withdrawn, and from New York sixty-one votes were given for Rutherford B. Hayes, against nine for James G. Blaine; and the former's nomination was thus secured. At the New York Republican state Convention to nominate a governor, held at Saratoga, 23 August, Mr. Cornell and ex-Governor Morgan were candidates, and also William M. Evarts, supported by the reform Republicans led by Mr. Curtis. Mr. Cornell's name was withdrawn, and Governor Morgan was nominated. In the close state and presidential canvass that ensued, Messrs. Arthur and Cornell made greater exertions to carry New York for the Republicans than they had ever made in any other campaign; and subsequently General Arthur's activity in connection with the contested countings in the southern states was of vital importance. Nevertheless, President Hayes, in making up his cabinet, selected Mr. Evarts as his secretary of state, and determined to remove Messrs. Arthur and Cornell, and to transfer the power and patronage of their offices to the use of a minority faction in the Democratic Party. The president had, however, in his inaugural of 5 March, 1877, declared in favor of civil service reform — “a change in the system of appointment itself; a reform that shall be thorough, radical, and complete; that the officer should be secure in his tenure so long as his personal character remained untarnished, and the performance of his duties satisfactory.” In his letter of acceptance of 8 July, 1876, he had used the same words, and added: “If elected, I shall conduct the administration of the government upon these principles, and all constitutional powers vested in the executive will be employed to establish this reform.” It became necessary, therefore, before removing Arthur and Cornell, that some foundation should be laid for a claim that the custom-house was not well administered. A series of investigations was thereupon instituted. The Jay commission was appointed 14 April, 1877, and during the ensuing summer made four reports criticising the management of the custom-house. In September, Secretary Sherman requested the collector to resign, accompanying the request with the offer of a foreign mission. The newspapers of the previous day announced that at a cabinet meeting it had been determined to remove the collector. The latter declined to resign, and the investigations were continued by commissions and special agents. To the reports of the Jay commission Collector Arthur replied in detail, in a letter to Secretary Sherman, dated 23 November On 6 December, Theodore Roosevelt was nominated to the Senate for collector, and L. Bradford Prince for naval officer; but they were rejected 12 December, and no other nominations were made, although the Senate remained in session for more than six months. On 11 July, 1878, after its adjournment, Messrs. Arthur and Cornell were suspended from office, and Edwin A. Merritt was designated as collector, and Silas W. Burt as naval officer, and they took possession of the offices. Their nominations were sent to the Senate 3 December, 1878. On 15 January, 1879, Secretary Sherman communicated to the Senate a full statement of the causes that led to these suspensions, mainly criticisms of the management of the custom-house, closing with the declaration that the restoration of the suspended officers would create discord and contention, be unjust to the president, and personally embarrassing to the secretary, and saying that, as Collector Arthur's term of service would expire 17 December, 1879, his restoration would be temporary, as the president would send in another name, or suspend him again after the adjournment of the Senate. On 21 January, 1879, Collector Arthur, in a letter to Senator Conkling, chairman of the committee on commerce, before which the nominations were pending, made an elaborate reply to Secretary Sherman's criticisms, completely demonstrating the honesty and efficiency with which the custom-house had been managed, and the good faith with which the policy and instructions of the president had been carried out. A fair summary of the merits of the ostensible issue is contained in Collector Arthur's letter of 23 November, 1877, from which the following extract is taken: “The essential elements of a correct civil service I understand to be: first, permanence in office, which of course prevents removals except for cause; second, promotion from the lower to the higher grades, based upon good conduct and efficiency; third, prompt and thorough investigation of all complaints, and prompt punishment of all misconduct. In this respect I challenge comparison with any department of the government under the present, or under any past, national administration. I am prepared to demonstrate the truth of this statement on any fair investigation.” In a table appended to this letter Collector Arthur showed that during the six years he had managed the office the yearly percentage of removals for all causes had been only 2¾ per cent. as against an annual average of 28 per cent. under his three immediate predecessors, and an annual average of about 24 per cent, since 1857, when Collector Schell took office. Out of 923 persons who held office when he became collector, on 1 December, 1871, there were 531 still in office on 1 May, 1877, having been retained during his entire term. In making promotions, the uniform practice was to advance men from the lower to the higher grades, and all the appointments except two, to the one hundred positions of $2,000 salary, or over, were made in this method. The expense of collecting the revenue was also kept low; it had been, under his predecessors, between 1857 and. 1861, 59/100 of one per cent. of the receipts; between 1861 and 1864, 87/100; in 1864 and 1865, 1 30/100; between 1866 and 1869, 74/100; in 1869 and 1870, 85/100; in 1870 and 1871, 60/100; and under him, from 1871 to 1877, it was 62/100 of one per cent. The influence of the administration, however, was sufficient to secure the confirmation of Mr. Merritt and Mr. Burt on 3 February, 1879, and the controversy was remitted to the Republicans of New York for their opinion. Mr. Cornell was nominated for governor of New York 3 September, 1879, and elected on 4 November; and Mr. Arthur was considered a candidate for U. S. Senator for the term to begin 4 March, 1881.

On retiring from the office of collector, General Arthur resumed law practice with the firm of Arthur, Phelps, Knevals & Ransom. But he continued to be active in politics, and, in 1880, advocated the nomination of General Grant to succeed President Hayes. He was a delegate at large to the Chicago Convention, which met 2 June, and during the heated preliminary contest before the Republican National Committee, which threatened to result in the organization of two independent conventions, he conducted for his own side the conferences with the controlling anti-third term delegates relative to the choice of a temporary presiding officer, and the arrangement of the preliminary roll of delegates in the cases to be contested in the convention. The result of the conferences was an agreement by which all danger was avoided, and when, upon the opening of the convention, an attempt was made, in consequence of a misunderstanding on the part of certain Grant delegates, to violate this agreement, he resolutely adhered to it, and insisted upon and secured its observance. After the nomination, 10 June, of General Garfield for president, by a combination of the anti-third term delegates, a general desire arose in the convention to nominate for vice-president some advocate of Grant and a resident of New York state. The New York delegation at once indicated their preference for General Arthur, and before the roll-call began the foregone conclusion was evident: he received 468 votes against 283 for all others, and the nomination was made unanimous. In his letter of acceptance of 5 July, 1880, he emphasized the right and the paramount duty of the nation to protect the colored citizens, who were enfranchised as a result of the southern rebellion, in the full enjoyment of their civil and political rights, including honesty and order, and excluding fraud and force, in popular elections. He also approved such reforms in the public service as would base original appointments to office upon ascertained fitness, fill positions of responsibility by the promotion of worthy and efficient officers, and make the tenure of office stable, while not allowing the acceptance of public office to impair the liberty or diminish the responsibility of the citizen. He also advocated a sound currency, popular education, such changes in tariff and taxation as would “relieve any overburdened industry or class, and enable our manufacturers and artisans to compete successfully with those of other lands,” national works of internal improvement, and the development of our water-courses and harbors wherever required by the general interests of commerce. During the canvass he remained chairman of the New York Republican state Committee. The result was a plurality for Garfield and Arthur of 21,000 in the state, against a plurality of 32,000 in 1876 for Tilden and Hendricks, the Democratic candidates against Hayes and Wheeler.

Vice-President Arthur took the oath of office 4 March, 1881, and presided over the extra session of the Senate that then began, which continued until 20 May. The Senate contained 37 Republicans and 37 Democrats, while Senators Mahone, of Virginia, and Davis, of Illinois, who were rated as independents, generally voted, the former with the Republicans and the latter with the Democrats, thus making a tie, and giving the vice-president the right to cast the controlling vote, which he several times had occasion to exercise. The session was exciting, and was prolonged by the efforts of the Republicans to elect their nominees for secretary and sergeant-at-arms, against dilatory tactics employed by the Democrats, and by the controversy over President Garfield's nomination, on 23 March, for collector of the port of New York, of William H. Robertson, who had been the leader of the New York anti-third term delegates at the Chicago Convention. During this controversy the vice-president supported Senators Conkling and Platt in their opposition to the confirmation. On 28 March he headed a remonstrance, signed also by the senators and by Postmaster-General James, addressed to the president, condemning the appointment, and asking that the nomination be withdrawn. When the two senators hastily resigned and made their unsuccessful contest for a reelection by the legislature of New York, then in session at Albany, he exerted himself actively in their behalf during May and June.

President Garfield was shot 2 July, 1881, and died 19 September His cabinet announced his death to the vice-president, then in New York, and, at their suggestion, he took the oath as president on the 20th, at his residence, 123 Lexington avenue, before Judge John R. Brady, of the New York supreme court. On the 22d the oath was formally administered again in the vice-president's room in the capitol at Washington by Chief-Justice Waite […]

He died suddenly, of apoplexy, at his residence, No. 123 Lexington avenue. New York, Thursday morning, 18 November, 1886. The funeral services were held on the following Monday, at the Church of the Heavenly Rest. President Cleveland and his cabinet, Chief-Justice Waite, ex-President Hayes, James G. Blaine, Gens. Sherman, Sheridan, and Schofield, and the surviving members of President Arthur's cabinet, were in attendance. On the same day a special train conveyed his remains to Albany, where they were placed by the side of his wife in the family burial-place in Rural cemetery. [Appleton’s 1900]

Sources:
Dictionary of American Biography, Volumes I-X, Edited by Dumas Malone, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1930.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Volumes I-VI, Edited by James Grant Wilson & John Fiske, New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1888-1889.