EULOGY
On JOHN ADAMS and THOMAS JEFFERSON, pronounced in Hallowell, Me. July, 1826—by Peleg Sprague.
It is good for us to be here. We are assembled to pay our tribute of respect to the memory of distinguished benefactors; to indulge in recollections of exalted virtues and resplendent talents devoted to the service of our country and of mankind.—Adams and Jefferson are no more! They, whose names are associated with all that belongs to us, are entwined with whatever is dear in the recollections of youth, and all that is valuable in the possessions of manhood, which were pronounced with reverence by trembling age and lisping infancy; and admired throughout the civilized world—they have passed away—the shroud, the coffin and the hearse have received them; the long train has followed them in sable, solemn silence, and the tomb has echoed to the hollow tread of the mourners!
To do justice to one such man would far transcend my feeble powers. How doubly impossible where both are combined! If the task you have assigned me required this, I should indeed shrink from it in despair. But we are assembled to do them homage, not in the vain expectation of adding to their glory, but to obey the impulse of our own feelings, and to prove that we appreciate, and are worthy to retain the blessings we have derived from them. The occasion does not call for the minutiæ of their lives and characters, and I shall attempt only, in a humble manner, to dwell, for a few moments, on their prominent features, and present in connexion some plain reflections upon the nature, extent, and effects of their labors.
We enquirer not who were the progenitors of such men. No ancestry could add to that lustre, which will gild their descendants for ages to come.
As their celebrity is derived from their intellect, it would be most interesting, if time permitted, to trace the early cultivation and the whole training of their minds. Both received their education at public colleges, and both studied the profession of the law.
Mr. Adams made such distinguished progress in his profession, that, at an early age, the office of Chief Justice of his native state was tendered to him; but he declined its acceptance. His successful defence of the British officers tried for murder at the time of the Boston massacre, when popular indignation against them had been excited almost to fury, shows at once his power and independence of mind, and his high sense of justice and professional duty.
Mr. Jefferson rendered a most important service to his state, by aiding in the revisal of all the colonial and British statutes in force in Virginia, and reducing them, with a part of the common law, to one code. He divested them of their aristocratical features and feudal barbarisms; and by abolishing entails, and the rights of primogeniture, decreed the equal distribution of estates among children—the true agrarian law of republics, beneath which the greatest masses of wealth soon melt away.
Their course of legal study and professional exertion was admirably adapted to prepare them both for their destined career; to strengthen, enlarge and liberalize the mind; to give clear views of natural rights, and the violation of them by human institutions. I know it is said that this profession tends to narrow and contract the sphere of thought. It does so, where the attention is fixed, with microscopic vision, upon its rigid forms and the artificial processes of mere technical deduction; where precedents, like the decrees of fate, demand a blind submission, and inveterate absurdities are bowed down to with superstitious awe, which holds the intellect in bondage, and shrinks from improvement as impiety. But those of whom we speak, regarded law in its true exalted character; the rule of human action founded on right and reason, designed for the security and happiness of all rational beings—the foundation of human societies and human enjoyment. Its origin and its objects; the foundation and the fabric—were by them viewed with a comprehensive eye, and examined with and unyielding scrutiny; calling into exercise the most enlarged comprehension and the most vigorous grasp of intellect.
In 1770, Mr. Adams began his political career as representative from the town of Boston. In 1774, being elected to the council, he had the honor of being negatived by Governor Gage on account of his political conduct.
Mr. Jefferson was scarcely more than twenty-one years of age when he was elected a member of the legislature of Virginia. Thus, like the father of his country, he was called early into public service. While they were yet scarcely hardened into manhood; to Washington, as a military commander, Virginia entrusted the lives of her citizens and the safety of her frontier; and Jefferson mingled his counsels among the reverend and the grave in her halls of legislation. Such was the policy of Virginia, which has nourished her great men, and clustered around her so many brilliant names, and gave her, for a time, such preponderating sway in the national councils. Whenever a new luminary was discovered emerging from her horizon, she scattered no mists of prejudice nor clouds of mistrust before him, but courted his earliest beams and gloried in his meridian splendor.
Adams and Jefferson, in the Colonial Assemblies of Massachusetts and in the Continental Congress, were among the earliest and most strenuous opposers of British aggression. They were conspicuously active in the measures which led to, and maintained our Independence. They knew well the magnitude of the undertaking, but they knew also the immense importance of our severance from the mother country. They early foresaw that it was to be a contest of blood; but they saw too that the object was worth all the cost of sacrifice and dangers, through which it was to be attained. It is for the essential part they took in the great work of our Revolution that we owe them our profoundest gratitude. A work, the magnitude of which cannot be exaggerated—its value can never be estimated.
There are those indeed, who, dazzled by the glory of Britain, are apt to think there is nothing so forbidding in a connexion with her, and that there could not be much danger under the dominion of so brave, so free, and so refined a nation. We may concede to them all that is asked for her arts, her literature and her science; for the measured freedom which she enjoys, and the watchfulness and vigor with which she guards and maintains her rights. But we are not to forget the principles of human nature, and that history and observation teach us, that those who are most jealous of their own freedom, are often the most ready to bind the yoke and wield the lash of servitude upon others. The refined Athenian and the lofty Roman had their slaves, and the invincible Spartans their helots; and even in a portion of our own thrice blessed country, we see the high-minded, the free and the chivalric, holding their fellow men in bondage. But why do we seek other illustrations, when the example of Britain herself is before us? Look at her treatment of her colonies, hardly excepting even those now remaining on this side of the Atlantic, from whose poverty she can filch no wealth, and who, being contiguous to us and in full view of our unrestrained happiness, are held by so feeble a tie, that if she attempted to straighten, she must sunder it.
Look at Ireland—whose green fields have been scorched by oppression, and where the fruits of Heaven are blasted by the breath of man! See her emaciated sons; with starvation on the one hand and the gibbet on the other—they crawl into their low mud-built huts, to carry to famishing children only a communion of wretchedness! Look at India—where Ambition has reddened his hands in the blood of millions; Rapine—has rioted on their spoils!—where Avarice has been sent to glean the fields which War and Desolation had reaped!
I trust that I speak from no prejudice, much less from any narrow spirit of hostility towards England. But I would have you appreciate the freedom you enjoy, and the merits of those who gave it. I know that much, very much of the wrong which Britain inflicts upon others, results inevitably from her own condition. Her sense of justice yields to the necessities of her own excessive population. But this renders not her connexion the less disastrous. The Lion is indeed of noble nature, but when his own whelps cry out for hunger, let all beware of his embrace.
It is mere delusion to suppose that we should have escaped the deadly effects of England’s restrained dominion, if our fathers had not resisted. Had they yielded to her claim of right “to bind us in all cases whatsoever,” it is in vain to say that our Independence would only have been for a short time delayed. She would have bound our infant-giant limbs in fetters, and stinted them forever of their fair proportions. Our people would not have multiplied as now—our commerce would not have covered every sea, nor our extended fields gloried in their harvests; but the forest would still have frowned around us, and poverty, and weakness, and dependance have been our portion. This is the thraldom—such are the miseries from which Adams and Jefferson have redeemed us, and honored and blessed be their names forever.
The Continental Congress was the theatre of their severest trials and highest glory. Among the measures of that august assembly, the Declaration of Independence stands pre-eminent. Every thing connected with it excites deep and acute interest. The motion “That these states are and of right ought to be free and independent,” was made by Richard Henry Lee, and, as it has been asserted, at the instance of Mr. Adams. The committee on this motion consisted of Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, Sherman, and Livingston, by whom Jefferson and Adams were appointed a sub-committee, and then the making of the original draught of the Declaration was devolved on Mr. Jefferson alone. That which he presented was approved by Mr. Adams, then by the whole committee, and reported to the Congress without the change of a single syllable. Some portions of the original were stricken out by that body before its adoption. Among which was a most eloquent and impressive invective against the king, for having introduced negro slavery into the colonies, and still continuing the slave trade; which Mr. Jefferson’s friends would not permit to remain, but they could not deprive him of the honor of having proposed it.
The Declaration, in its present form, was adopted by the vote of the Congress, and subscribed by its members, on the 4th of July, 1776, the most important day, politically speaking, that the world has ever seen. Our admiration of this instrument is raised, not merely by the unequalled elegance and elevation of its style, but by the matchless thoughts that strike so forcibly on the heart—by the principles it developes, and the firmness of purpose, which gives form and vigor to those principles; and that spirit, which breathes them into life, and energy, and action. But it is as a great, solemn political act that it demands our highest veneration. What had the world ever seen that was equal, that approached to it? Go to antiquity—to Greece—to Rome—travel over France, Spain, Germany, and the whole of modern Continental Europe. All was comparative gloom: political science had not risen. Go to the isles of the sea—to Britain, then the freest of nations: and Englishmen would proudly point you to their Magna Charter as their most valuable birth right, and the greatest bulwark of liberty which any nation had raised. It was so. And yet how does it dwindle in the contrast with our declaration of independence, which was a greater era in the history of mankind, than Magna Charta was, in the history of England. The latter was a concession, extorted by armed barons from their Sovereign. It was, what is called, a charter from the King, as the fountain of all right and power. He was their lord and master—the ultimate owner of all the soil in the kingdom; and this was a grant, forced it is true, but still a grant, from his grace and favor, allowing the exercise of some rights to his subjects, and consenting to some limits to his royal prerogative.
The former is not a grant of priviliges to a portion of a single nation—it is a declaration, by a whole people, of what before existed, and will always exist, the native equality of the human race, as the true foundation of all politics, of all human institutions. It was an assertion that we held our rights, as we hold our existence, by no charter, except from the King of Kings. It vindicated the dignity of our nature. It rested upon this “one inextinguishable truth, which never has been, and never can be wholly eradicated from the human heart, placed as it is in the very core and centre of it it by its Maker, that man was not made the property of man—that human power is a trust for human benefit, and that, when it is abused, resistance becomes justice and duty.”
This great truth was proclaimed to the world, with a voice that reached over oceans and continents, and found an instant response in every human breast. I cannot exaggerate to myself the effects it will produce, not merely upon this country, but on the future condition of the human race. Its power was soon felt in the tremendous revolutions of France, and the convulsive throes for liberty throughout Europe.
But it may be asked, how could those scenes, of horror and of crime, have flowed from the pure and beneficent principles of that Declaration? The answer is ready. The soil of France was not prepared for the seeds of liberty; and falsehood, impiety, and unbridled passion sprung up. The immense populace were then sunk in the depths of brutal ignorance. It had been for ages the policy of the civil rulers and the clergy, to keep the people in profound darkness, as the means of perpetuating their own power. The mind and the body were both led in thraldom. An arbitrary government had prostrated them to the earth, and a Catholic priesthood had thrown over them the pall of bigotry, thro’ which no ray from above could penetrate. Ground into the dust they felt like men, though they could not see like men. They knew that they were wronged, but knew not the means of redress; and rising in their wrath, were indiscriminate in their vengeance. The people, there, were the strong man, who had been shorn of his locks, and bound in fetters, and his eyes sealed up from the light of Heaven, and his toil and agony were made the profit and the sport of lords and nobles! No wonder, that in his blindness and rage, he laid hold of the pillars of the fabric, which sustained them, and buried himself and his oppressors in undistinguished ruin.
(Concluded next week.)
EULOGY
On JOHN ADAMS and THOMAS JEFFERSON, pronounced in Hallowell, Me. July, 1826—by Peleg Sprague.
[Concluded.]
But the convulsions and miseries of Europe, since our revolution, have not been in vain.—They afford lessons to rulers and subjects which cannot be forgotten. Inquiry has been excited, knowledge is extending, the rights and duties of man are become understood, and must in their progress be universally asserted and exercised. By the effects of our Declaration of Independence, South America has been emancipated—Europe enlightened—and Greece—unhappy Greece, aroused from her lethargy of centuries.
Mr. Adams’ participation in this great measure is not less honorable than that of his illustrious colleague. His whole soul seemed wrapt up in the issue.—His efforts were unremitted.—‘Instant in season and out of season’—in the congress and out of it—in conversation and in debate, he exerted all his powers of persuasion, and poured forth his highest strains of eloquence, and by the aid of Him, who ‘touched Isaiah’s hallowed lips with fire,’ he moved the heart and convinced the mind, and his glorious purpose was accomplished. To have been, the one the author, and the other the most efficient advocate of that Declaration, is fame enough for both. It has placed them on the highest pinnacle of human greatness, and their names will go down with unfading glory to future ages.
But it was not by this act alone that Jefferson and Adams were distinguished in the Continental Congress. In that assembly of glowing patriots, they were always among the most ardent: with the daring and the fearless, they were among the boldest: with the unyielding—among the firmest: and with the sagacious—the wisest. And when we say that they were eminently conspicuous in the old Congress at Philadelphia, in order to understand the full merit of such distinction, we must recollect who were the men that composed that body. If we examine their individual characters, their state papers and their public acts, we shall, with the celebrated Chatham, yield them collectively our unqualified admiration. It is difficult to speak of them with simple justice, with out appearing to us the language of extravagant eulogium. For all, who have not well considered, will think it incredible that they should have been men of such overshadowing greatness.—but it should be remembered that great occasions make great men. That it is amidst political revolutions that powerful minds are formed and called into action. The sparks of genius are struck out by the concussion, and the fury of the blast but increases the intensity of its fires. In the calm of peace intellect may be torpid, or the inferior and unworthy, by the little arts of intrigue, may rise to place and power. But when the storm rages, and all feel that they are embarked together upon the waves—then, when the timid quail, and the feeble tremble, and the short sighted are confounded: none but the strong hand, and the firm heart, and the unbleached eye, can hold the helm and direct the course. It is amidst the war of the elements that the master spirits rule.
Mr. Adams was removed from the Congress to other scenes of important duty and usefulness. In August 1779, he was sent to Europe as a Commissioner of peace. The public ship, on board which he embarked, was commanded by the gallant Commodore Tucker, now living and a native of this state, who took more guns from the enemy, during the revolutionary war, than any naval officer, and who has been far less known and rewarded than his merits deserved. One occurrence on their passage is worthy of relation as illustrating the characters of both. Discovering an enemy’s ship, neither could resist the temptation to engage, altho’ against the dictates of prudent duty. Tucker, however, stipulated that Mr. Adams should remain in the lower part of the ship as a place of safety. But no sooner had the battle commenced than he was seen on deck, with a musket in his hands fighting as a common marine.—The Commodore peremptorily ordered him below, but, called instantly away, it was not until considerable time had elapsed, that he discovered this public minister still at his post, intently engaged in firing upon the enemy. Advancing, he exclaimed, ‘why, are you here, Sir? I am commanded by the Continental Congress to carry you safe to Europe, and I will do it:’ and, seizing him in his arms, forcibly carried him from the scene of danger.
Mr. Adams remained in Europe during the remainder of the war, and for some time after, and went from court to court unceasingly exerting himself for the good of his country. He succeeded in negotiating a loan at Amsterdam; and a treaty of amity and commerce, and also a convention with the Netherlands—both of which were signed in October, 1782. He was engaged in negotiating the treaty with Great Britain which terminated the war, and his name is subscribed to the provisional articles of peace of November, 1782; the armistice declaring a cessation of hostilities of January 1783; and the definitive treaty of peace of September of the same year. He was subsequently Ambassador to the court of St. James, and one of the negotiators of the treaty of 1785 with Prussia.
Mr. Jefferson remained in the United States, continuing his efforts for the general good, in the several capacities of Delegate to Congress, a member of the Legislature, and governor of Virginia. In 1784 he was associated with Adams, Franklin, Jay and Laurens in a plenipotentiary commission to the several powers of Europe, and in July 1785, signed the treaty of amity and commerce with Prussia.
In 1781 Mr. Jefferson composed his notes on Virginia, and in the year 1786 and 1787, Mr. Adams wrote his Defence of the American Constitutions. Both are works of great and deserved celebrity.
Under our present federal constitution, Mr. Adams was twice elected to the Vice Presidency; and succeeded General Washington in the office of President.
Mr. Jefferson successively filled the stations of Secretary of State, Vice President, and President of the United States.
The terms, for which they have severally been elected, having expired, both retired from the highest offices and greatest honors which this or any country could afford, to the retreats of private life; in which they were exemplars of purity, hospitality and usefulness. Mr. Jefferson at Monticello, devoting his time to the University of Virginia; and Mr. Adams, at Quincy, holding up the lamp of his experience for the guidance of others.
Mr. Adams was of an ardent temperament. His intellect was marked with great fervor and great strength. Sometimes rapid, almost to precipitancy, yet immovably fixed in its purposes. Of untiring industry, and unyielding perseverance, he was characterized by active moral courage. Scences where others were appalled but nerved him to greater energy.
Mr. Jefferson was constitutionally calm, circumspect and philosophic. His views were clear and comprehensive. He investigated closely and reflected much before he proceeded to action, and having marked out his course with extensive knowledge and deep thought, advanced in it with undeviating step.
The minds of both seized their subjects with a giant’s power; but one seemed to embrace the most, and the other to grasp the closest. They were both learned; but yielded to no dogmas, and were trammelled by no systems. Enriched by the spoils of ages, they did not bend beneath the weight of their own wealth; but it increased their inborn independence, they stood more firmly erect, and fearlessly surveyed the heavens & the earth. Wherever truth would lead they dared to follow; and they cared not if they shook the world with their opinions, if they but scattered the clouds and let in light upon the mind.
I propose not to dwell upon that period of their lives when they were at the head of contending parties. I would not, on this day, strike a single chord that may not be attuned to harmony. In the awful silence of the tomb, passion is hushed, and its fires burn not amid the damps of death. Whatever we may think of the correctness of their respective opinions or the policy of their measures, we may at least accord to each of them honesty and singleness of intention. In this we shall but follow their own example, who in later life have borne willing testimony to the merits of each other—adams proclaiming the services of Jefferson, and Jefferson asserting that Adams was emphatically the great man of the Congress which declared our Independence.—While we lament their temporal alienation, we have the consolation to know that personal friendship, and harmony of political views, were fully restored long before the close of life. It was grateful, it was ennobling, to see those great and good men, whose hearts, in early time, had been bound and knit together, but who, for a while, had estranged from each other, again unite in the cordial embrace, and the strong sympathy, which death itself was not to sunder, but in which they were to pass together to another world. The streams of their lives were united near their sources, and, joined in one current, had forced their way through mounds of earth, and swept over appalling barriers……but, at length, divided in their course, by a rough island of rock, they rushed by its opposing sides with turbulent and emulous rapidity—until, at least, their waters were commingled in peace, and flowed on tranquil and majestic, into the ocean of eternity.
We contemplate their departure without any thing of the bitterness of despair, and with little even of the poignancy of grief, but with a soothing sadness and a melancholy pleasure. We mourn indeed; but it is with the feelings in which we view the closing of the year, when nature herself is falling to decay and seems to be putting on the shroud of death. We must be solemn: for it is a memento, which comes home to our own hearts, and tells us, that however bright the tide, or proud the waves, on which we ride, they bear us swiftly to silence and night.
They had lived to reap the richest of earthly rewards in the abundant success of all their labours. They had seen the institutions which they had established, survive the violence of internal excitement, and the shock of foreign war; and our country rich, powerful and populous, beyond what the most glowing visions of their youth had dared to depict. They had seen the expansion of the soul, when the pressure of bigotry and tyranny was removed; and the free spirit go forth in its majesty—penetrating the dark recesses of Spanish oppression in the South; and invading the strong holds of Turkish despotism in the East; and iron thrones melting before that fire whose early flame their breath had fanned. They had lived to become the Patriarchs of America, and saw their children in the land of promise; and one of them behold the destinies of this far extended and enlightened people, safely reposing in the hands of his own Patriot Son, preeminent for wisdom and virtue. The men of other days……their companions and their friends, had passed away; and new generations had risen up to call them blessed. Their labors were finished—the number of their days was full—they had lived enough for themselves, for their country and mankind. It only remained to them that their last prayer should be answered in the wonderful, we may almost be permitted to say, the miraculous coincidence of their departure, which have given new interest to a day, which was before above all days of political celebration. They had passed indeed through the valley of the shadow of death, but it was lighted up by the brightness of their own day of Jubilee—their spirits arose upon the songs of joy, and the prayers and gratitude of millions, whom they had made free—and had the prophet lent his ‘chariot of fire,’ and ‘his horses of fire’ their ascent could hardly have been more glorious.
It remains to us to cherish their memory, and emulate their virtues, by perpetuating and extending the blessings which they have bequeathed. So long as we preserve our country their fame cannot die, for it is reflected from the surface of every thing that is beautiful and valuable in our land. We cannot recur too often, nor dwell too long upon the lives and characters of such men; for our own will take something of their form and impression from those on which they rest. If we inhale the moral atmosphere in which they moved, we must feel its purifying and invigorating influence. If we raise our thoughts to their elevation, our minds will be expanded and ennobled, in beholding the immesurable distance beneath, & around us. ‘Can we create the pure mountain air, and not be refreshed; can we walk abroad amidst the beautiful and the grand of the works of creation, and feel no kindling of devotion?’
Our country has been sometimes reproached for not erecting monuments and statues to her departed worthies. But what avails the monument of brass and stone? Sink its foundations deep; raise it as high as human ken; when the rolling years press on—it falls—they sweep over it, and leave not a trace of its gloomy grandeur. Erect the statue of marble; it is cold and lifeless—Time clasps it—and it becomes dust in his hands. But the patriot-statesmen and philanthropists, like whose whom we this day commemorate, who have been the instruments of Providence in adding to the numbers and happiness of the human race—who have peopled and gladdened new regions—their memorials are every where! Their statues are men; living, feeling, intelligent, adoring man; bearing the image of his Maker; having the impress of divinity. These shall endure, by constant succession, through countless ages, and vigorous in the embrace of Time, become more and more abundant. Their monuments are the everlasting hills which they have clothed with verdure—Their praises are sounds of health and joy, in vallies which they have made fruitful. To them incense daily rises, in the perfumes of fragrant fields, which they have spread with cultivation. Fair cities proclaim their glory—gorgeous mansions speak their munificence. Their names are inscribed on the goodly habitations of men; and on those hallowed temples of GOD, whose spires ever point to the Heaven which we trust, has received them.