Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 4.djvu/413

1808. events were tending fast. The idea of combining the Eastern States against the embargo,—which if carried out put an end to the Union under the actual Constitution,—belonged peculiarly to Pickering; and since he first suggested it in his famous embargo letter, it had won its way until New England was ripe for the scheme.

One by one, the Federalist leaders gave their adhesion to the plan. Of all these gentlemen, the most cautious—or, as his associates thought, the most timid—was Harrison Gray Otis, President of the Massachusetts Senate. Never in the full confidence of the Essex Junto, he was always a favorite orator in Boston town-meeting, and a leader in Boston society; but he followed impulses stronger than his own will, and when he adopted an opinion his party might feel secure of popular sympathy. Dec. 15, 1808, Otis wrote from Boston to Josiah Quincy at Washington a letter which enrolled him under Pickering's command.


 * "It would be a great misfortune for us to justify the obloquy of wishing to promote a separation of the States, and of being solitary in that pursuit. . . . On the other hand, to do nothing will seem to be a flash in the pan, and our apostate representatives will be justified in the opinions which they have doubtless inculcated of our want of union and of nerve. What then shall we do? In other words, what can Connecticut do?  For we can