Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume I.djvu/103

 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS 83 who survived him, born in Boston, Aug. 18, 1807. At the age of two years he was taken by his father to St. Petersburg, where he passed the next six years and learned to speak Russian, German, and French. In February, 1815, he made the journey with his mother in a private carriage from St. Petersburg to Paris, to meet his father there in the then disturbed state of Europe no slight under- taking. He accompanied his father on his mission to England, and being placed at a boarding school, according to the fisticuff usages then if not still in vogue in English schools, he was obliged to fight his English schoolfellows in defence of the honor of Amer- ica. In 1817 he returned with his father to America, and was placed in the Boston Latin school, whence he entered Harvard college, where he graduated in 1825. The next two years he passed at Washington with his father, who was then president, but in 1827 returned to Massachusetts and pursued the study of the law in the office of Daniel Webster. In 1828 he was admitted to the Boston bar, but never has engaged actively in practice. In 1829 he married the youngest daughter of Peter 0. Brooks, a Boston merchant a connection which also made him a brother-in-law of Ed- ward Everett. The next year he was nomi- nated a representative from Boston to the Massachusetts legislature, but declined. This did not please his father, in consequence of which he accepted the nomination the next year, and served in the house for the succeed- ing three yeai, when he was transferred to the senate, in which he served two years. By this time Mr. Adams began to differ on several points with the leaders of the whig party, with which he had hitherto acted. In 1848 he was selected by the newly organized free-soil party as their candidate for the vice-presidency, along with ex-president Van Buren as candi- date for the presidency. In the autumn of 1858 he was chosen a representative to Con- gress by the third district of Massachusetts, and took his seat in December, 1859. He was a member of the joint committee on the li- brary, and chairman of the house committee on manufactures, which latter had but little to do, the time and thoughts of members being occupied with more exciting subjects. Mr. Adams watched with careful attention the course of events, and on the last day of May, 1860, addressed the house in a forcible speech, vindicating the policy of the republican party. In the interval between the two sessions of his congressional service, Mr. Adams, in company with Mr. Seward, made a journey in. some of the northwestern states, and made several speeches in support of Mr. Lincoln for the presidency. On the day after the meeting of the second session of the thirty-sixth congress, so much of the president's message as related to the condition of the country was referred to a special committee of one from each state. Mr. Adams was the member for Massachu- setts. This committee finally reported a series of resolves disavowing on the part of the free states any right to interfere with slavery in the slave states ; a bill for the admission of New Mexico, leaving it to the inhabitants to allow or exclude slavery as they might decide ; and an amendment to the constitution forbid- ding all interference on the part of congress with slavery in these states. The bill for the admission of New Mexico was rejected, but the other two measures were passed in the house by large majorities. Mr. Adams sup- ported them all, and gave his reasons for so doing in a speech delivered Jan. 31, 1861. In 1861 he was appointed by President Lincoln minister to England, in place of Mr. Dallas. Mr. Adams arrived in London and assumed his duties about the middle of May. These duties were most arduous. With a few exceptions, the feeling alike of the ruling and the commer- cial classes of England was either unfriendly to us or indifferent. Mr. Adams had to maintain the rights of his country with unbending firm- ness, and at the same time to keep his spirit under perfect rule, as any explosion of ill temper or any expression of irritation would have been turned to the disadvantage alike of himself and his country. In the many discus- sions he had with the British ministry he showed a complete knowledge alike of inter- national law and of the history of his own country, as well as discretion, tact, and good temper. His influence as a public man was in- creased by his social qualities, his agreeable conversation, and his familiarity with the whole range of English literature. When in 1868, after an absence of seven years, he re- turned home, Mr. Adams left England with the respect of every man who had been brought into official relations with him, and with a large amount of warm personal regard. In December, 1870, he pronounced before the New York historical society a discourse on American neutrality, which has been printed. Upon the ratification by England and America of the treaty of Washington for the settlement of the claims of each country against the other growing out of the civil war, Mr. Adams was selected by the president as the American ar- bitrator, and upon that duty sailed for Europe in November, 1871. Mr. Adams has been a contributor to the "North American Review" and the "Christian Examiner," and between 1845 and 1848 was the editor of a political daily paper at Boston, by which he contributed to prepare the way for the present republican party. He is principally known, however, as the editor of his grandfather's collected writ- ings, published in ten volumes, the first volume containing a life of John Adams written by him. The same duty which Mr. Adams has performed for his grandfather, he intends to perform for his father, for the execution of which he possesses abundant and most val- uable materials. John Quiney, eldest son of the preceding, a lawyer and politician, born in