Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Politics volume 4 .djvu/173

Rh the African slave-trade was thought wrong, not the slavery which caused it. Party lines, obliterated under Mr. Monroe's administration, were viewed and marked with a good deal of care and exactness; but the old lines could not be wholly restored. Mr. Adams was not the President of a section of the country; not the President of a party, but of the nation. He favoured no special interest of a class, to the injury of another class. He did not reward his friends, nor punish his foes; the party of the spoils, patent or latent at all times, got no spoils from him. He never debauched his country by the removal and appointment of officers. Had he done otherwise, done as all his successors have done, used his actual power to promote his own ambition, no doubt he might have been re-elected. But he could not stoop to manage men in that way. No doubt he desired a re-election, and saw the method and means to effect that; but conscience said, "It is not right." He forbore, lost his election, and gained—we shall soon see what he gained.

On the 19th of July, 1826, at a public dinner at Edgefield Court-house, South Carolina, Mr. McDuffie said, "Mr. Adams came into power upon principles utterly subversive of the republican system; substituting the worst species of aristocracy, that of speculating politicians and office-hunters, in the place of a sound and wholesome republican democracy." When Mr. Adams retired from office, he could remember, with the virtuous Athenian, that no man had put on mourning for him because unjustly deprived of his post. Was an office-holder or an office-wanter a political friend of Mr. Adams, that did not help him; a foe, that did not hinder. He looked only to the man's ability and integrity. I wish it was no praise to say these things; but it is praise I dare not apply to any other man since Washington. Mr. Adams once said, "There is no official act of the chief magistrate, however momentous, or however minute, but it should be traceable to a dictate of duty, pointing to the welfare of the people." That was his executive creed.

As a public servant, he had many qualities seldom united in the same person. He was simple, and unostentatious; he had none of the airs of a great man; seemed humble,