USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Old South church (Third church) Boston. Memorial addresses, Sunday evening, October 26, 1884 > Part 8
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1 Mentioned in a letter to James Warren, specifying certain items, dated
Baltimore, February II, 1777, in the Winslow Warren collection.
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thing worth living for besides money. They are a perpetual rebuke to ease and avarice and pride. Their memory is like a north-west breeze, purifying our civilization, and giving us all new hope for the future of mankind.
Mr. Adams was again twice elected to Congress, but he each time declined the honor, regarding the great victory as already won, and wishing to enjoy the retirement of private life. Yet his services were still in demand, and for several years he was President of the Massachusetts Senate and a member of the Council, devoting his time wholly to public affairs, introducing important measures, drafting State papers, consulting with committees, and, in those trying times after an exhausting war, supporting in every way the local and national authority. During Shays's rebellion he did all in his power to sustain the hands of Governor Bowdoin, and when it was intimated by lawless agitators that his own example was in favor of their cause, he declared, in no unmistakable language, that he "meant not license when he cried liberty." He inclined to a conservative policy now that the foundations of the law were established in justice and equity. Notwith- standing the high honors which he had earned, he never forgot the arena of his early triumphs-the town-meeting-which he still loved to attend, and over which he was generally chosen to preside as moderator.
In 1788, Mr. Adams was one of the twelve representatives to the convention called by Massachusetts to adopt the Federal Constitution, and the first motion, after the organization, was made by him, " That the Convention would attend morning prayers daily, and that the gentlemen of the clergy of every denomination be requested to officiate in turn." We see in this the same liberal and devout spirit which had so success- fully harmonized the councils of the first Congress. There has long been a common error, into which many writers have fallen, that Samuel Adams was opposed to the Federal Con- stitution. Referring to this, Mr. Bancroft has recently said,1 that Adams "never was opposed to the Constitution. He
I In a private letter to Professor Hosmer.
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only waited to make up his mind." He studied it with his customary caution, and sought to guard the State against the possibility of surrendering too much to the General Govern- ment, especially to the Federal Executive and the Judiciary. Adams was consistent in this. He always, to the day of his death, believed in a pure democracy, and opposed the tendency towards centralization. He was afraid of conferring power, where the people themselves or their most immediate repre- sentatives could not control it. He had taken the same posi: tion in Congress when the departments of government were created with secretaries at their head. No doubt his view of a national administration was too limited for the growth of a continent, and his fear of encroachments upon popular liberty was extreme ; but, after a century of trial, it still remains a question whether good government is not often imperilled by such vast powers as are granted to our high officials. Mr. Adams, however, let it be remembered, did not oppose the Constitution. He discussed it freely, proposed amendments, listened to the arguments of others, and counselled delay in view of the great importance of the instrument ; but when at last it came to be ratified, he not only favored it, but had more influence than any other man in carrying it through the con- vention, and recommending it to the other States.
At this time Mr. Adams met with a severe loss, in the death of his only son, Dr. Samuel Adams, who had done honorable service for his country as a surgeon through the Revolutionary War. His unpaid claims were bequeathed to his father, and afterwards redeemed by the Government, so that Mr. Adams, by a wise investment of the proceeds, was placed above want during the rest of his life.
For four years in succession he was elected Lieutenant Governor on the ticket headed by Hancock. This gave great satisfaction to the public, as these foremost names in Massa- chusetts had been historically associated together in so many positions. Both had been necessary factors in the pre-revolu- tionary days ; and although, like Goethe and Schiller, very different from each other in respect to age, ability, fortune,
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and style of living, they had stood together as fellow-patriots1 -par nobile fratrum-in the most critical period of the movement with which their names will forever be identified. By excepting these two names in the general offer of pardon made in 1775, Gage showed his power of discrimination, but he could not have conferred more honor upon the men whom he sought thus to degrade, for it was a recognition of their unequalled services to the cause of liberty, and it gave them at once a popularity accorded to no other person.
The estrangement which had grown up between these chiefs in later years, causing wide-spread regret and much disturbance in local politics, was now removed, and the two familiar names were again united year after year, in the mouths of the people, as they ever will be in the history of the State.
On the death of Hancock in 1793, Adams assumed the executive chair, and was annually elected governor as long as he consented to be a candidate. His addresses to the Legis- lature were characterized by the same vigorous and patriotic spirit as ever, and his adminstration was dignified and bene- ficent. He did not hesitate to express his solicitude for the preservation of those fundamental principles of popular gov- ernment which he regarded as the only security of the nation's happiness and peace. He did not escape the enmity which party-strife engendered in the contest which he carried on with the Federalists. He had opposed the centralizing and aristocratic tendencies which they represented, and he did not cease to advocate a simpler and purer mode of life than that which was becoming prevalent in society around him. The increase of wealth and its attendant luxuries, with a gradual laxity in morals and religion, seemed to him to threaten the permanence of republican institutions. Whether his misgiv- ings were wholly justified at the time may be an open ques- tion ; but there can be no doubt that the danger which he indicated with fearless fidelity, is a danger which history has repeatedly taught, and one against which our country in its growth needs to be continually on its guard.
1 The Lexington Memorial Hall has
a statue of Hancock in marble, by
Thomas Gould, standing near that of Samuel Adams already referred to.
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On the twentieth anniversary of American Independence, Governor Adams laid the corner stone of the present State House with imposing ceremonies, assisted by Paul Revere, who represented the Masonic fraternity.
In 1797, feeling the infirmities of age, the Governor with- drew from public life, after a career of more than half a century of uninterrupted service in the cause of his country. For several years he now enjoyed the seclusion of his home in Winter Street,1 receiving the kind attentions of his beloved wife and daughter, and honored by a large circle of acquain- tances. In the summer time he was often seen sitting at his door or walking in his garden, clad in cap and gown. He sometimes visited the public schools, in which he had always taken the deepest interest.2 The scholars, it is said, knew him well, and were always delighted to see his benignant face on the street or in the school-room.
Upon the accession of Jefferson to the presidency in 1801, that leader of the Democracy wrote a cordial letter to Mr. Adams, with whom he had long had the most intimate per- sonal and political relations. "How much," he said, "I lament that time has deprived me of your aid. It would have been a day of glory which should have called you to the first office of the adminstration. But give us your counsel, my friend, and give us your blessing ; and be assured that there exists not in the heart of man a more faithful esteem than mine to you."
The last writing of Mr. Adams, known to exist, was a defence of christian truth in a letter to Thomas Paine, urging him, as a friend of liberty, not to excite the spirit of discord by his attacks upon Christianity.
1 A large old-fashioned wooden house, nearly opposite the present entrance to Music Hall. Before the Revolution it was the property of Sylvester Gardiner, the wealthy loyalist.
2 In 1775, Mr. Adams wrote in a pri- vate letter, " Our ancestors laid an excel- lent foundation for the security of liberty by setting up, in a few years after their arrival, a public seminary of learning ; and by their laws they obliged every town
consisting of a certain number of families to keep and maintain a grammar school. I should be much grieved if it should be true, as I am informed, that some of the towns have dismissed their school-mas- ter, alleging that the extraordinary ex- pense of defending the country renders them unable to support them. I hope this inattention to the principles of our wise forefathers does not prevail." From the Winslow Warren collection.
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And now the patriot's work was done. He had run his race ; he had fought the fight ; he had obtained the victory ; and, after most of his associates had passed away, he had lived to see the fair structure of liberty, whose foundations he had laid so well, rising in comely proportions, strengthened by years and enlarged by a nation's growth. The rewards of a grateful people had been laid at his feet. The crown of age and of honor was upon him; and patiently, like the patriarch, he waited "leaning upon the top of his staff." On Sunday morning, October 2, 1803, Samuel Adams breathed his last, in the eighty-second year of his age. He was buried in the Checkley tomb in the Granary Burying-Ground, the cortége, escorted by the cadets and a large body of citizens, passing through the principal streets by the Old South and around the Old State House.
In tracing the career of this remarkable man, we have been continually impressed with the fact that the source of his power was in the high moral and religious qualities of his character. He was endowed with ample intellectual gifts, with an inexhaustible energy of will, with marvellous sa- gacity and tact, which under any circumstances would have given him a prominent place among men. But these gifts would never have made him what he was, had it not been for the presence of that guiding and controlling spirit which shaped his conduct and gave purpose and vigor to his whole life. This was perfectly well understood by his contempo- raries. They followed him gladly because they trusted him implicitly. They knew him to be devout, humble, conscien- tious and even rigid in applying to himself the principles of godliness, and this added immense weight to the power of his example. Conscience was not merely an element of his character ; it was the chief element, holding everything else subservient to its sway, and impressing itself upon all that he said and did. He was the product of a Puritan age ; a strict Calvinist, not by tradition merely, but by severe reasoning and calm judgment ; a diligent student of the Bible, accus-
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tomed to refer everything to the oracles of God; a believer in the Christian Sabbath, willing to forego all secular enjoy- ments that its hours might be hallowed to the purposes of rest and worship; a lover of the sanctuary, whither he always went, accompanied by his family ; a priest in his house, habitually maintaining the domestic altar. Warmly attached to the faith and order of the New England churches, he al- ways maintained that they were more friendly to republican ideas of virtue and liberty than any other. Austere he un- doubtedly would seem to many, who know little of the exact- ing demands of a holy religion, but any one acquainted with his life can see abundant evidence of the sweetness and grace of Christian love diffusing itself in the tender relations of the home, in his treatment of the young, in his regard for the poor, in his incessant yearning for the public welfare, in his private correspondence and even in many of his official documents. When the question of slavery came up in Mas- sachusetts, Adams advocated its abolition with his usual ardor. Just then a female slave was given to his wife. "A slave cannot live in my house," he said, when told of it. "If she comes, she must be free." She was accordingly made free, and was ever after kindly cared for in his family until her death. No one knew Samuel Adams better in the pre-revo- lutionary days than his observing cousin, who wrote in his diary :1 " He is a man of refined policy, steadfast integrity, exquisite humanity, fair erudition, and obliging and engaging manners, real as well as professed piety, and a universal good character, unless it should be admitted that he is too attentive to the public, and not enough so to himself and his family."
At the age of nineteen, shortly after leaving college, it ap- pears that young Adams joined the Church in Brattle Street,2 attracted thither, perhaps, by the fame of Dr. Colman, or it
1 John Adams, Works II. 162. For a careful study of the relation of John Adams to the Revolution, see the recent address of Judge Chamberlain before the Webster Historical Society, at its annual meeting, 1884.
2 May 2, 1742, at the same time with 14
Thomas Phillebrown, and William Brown. Among others who joined that year were Walter Baker, Benjamin Sampson, Thomas Stacy, James Ridge- way, Daniel Boyer, Samuel Norton, Ebenezer Messenger, Thomas Amory and John Gore.
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may be through the influence of some of his young com- panions. His biographer does not mention the fact. Through a large part of his life, however, he attended the church in Summer Street, of which his father was one of the founders, and of which his father-in-law, Dr. Checkley, was the pastor for more than half a century. In 1789, owing to various changes that had taken place in that church, Mr. Adams, who never seems to have been an enrolled member of it, transferred his connection to the Old South, as the following letter will show :
"At a meeting of the church of Christ in Brattle-Street, Boston, June 7, 1789,
Our brother Samuel Adams, who in the year 1742 was admitted to full communion with this church, but who, for many years past, has congregated and communed with the church in Summer Street, being desirous to enter into a more immediate connexion with the church under the pastoral care of the Rev. Mr. Joseph Eckley ;
We do hereby recommend him to the charity and fellowship of the said church, as he hath always (so far as is known to us) conducted agreably to his covenant engagements.
Attest :
PETER THACHER,
Pastor of the Church in Brattle-Street.
Boston, Fune 8, 1789."
By uniting with the Old South Church, Samuel Adams re- turned to his ancestral home, and added his name to those of Oxenbridge Thacher, James Otis, Thomas Cushing, John Scollay, Thomas and William Dawes, Robert Treat Paine, William Phillips, and others, in the brilliant roll of revolu- tionary patriots who have honored this church by their per- sonal connection with it.
We ought to preserve the memory of these men. Not one of them is as well known among us as he should be, al- though some of their lives have been written. If this tablet serves to call attention in any way to their public services and private worth, it will do precisely what Adams would have wished, and what he was himself always doing,-bringing his
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associates into prominence, and when possible, yielding the precedence to them. The more we know of his contempo- raries the more we shall know of him ; for he was emphatically a man of the times and of the people ; as Judge Sullivan truly says, in the words which you have inscribed on yonder mar- ble, " To give his history at full length would be to give a history of the American Revolution."
In no respect is the character of Adams seen to better ad- vantage than in his friendships. He was a true brother to those he trusted and loved. His heart clung to them with strong affection. He enjoyed their society, sought their coun- sel, shared their confidence, brought them into notice, and in- dulged the fullest expressions of feeling in his correspondence with them. This was notably true of his relations with Dr. Chauncy, Dr. Cooper, Josiah Quincy, Dr. Warren, Elbridge Gerry, Arthur and Richard Henry Lee of Virginia, James Warren, Dr. Jarvis, Governor Strong, and Judge Sullivan.
We are not surprised to learn that a figure so strongly marked encountered the hostility of his enemies. This was to be expected in the nature of things. Where was there ever an important political movement that did not create opposite views as to policy, and hard feeling as to men? And if, in this case, there seems to have been towards Mr. Adams in the latter part of his life an undeserved prejudice and neglect, it is fully accounted for by the bold stand which he conscientiously took against the popular drift in political and social life. The same courageous principle which led him in his youth to resist the royal governors led him in his age to oppose what he thought a dangerous tendency among the Federalists, and to rebuke extravagance and corruption wherever he found them. He would not have been Sam Adams if he had done otherwise. To be recreant to his sense of duty was not a sin that lay at his door. To lower his standard to meet the demands of the hour was an absolute impossibility. A clever manager he always was, but never a trimmer. He created parties ; he could not be the creature of a party. Every one knew just where to find him ; for he
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was always consistent with himself. The quality which gave him a temporary unpopularity was the very quality which made him what he was throughout his long life, and which leads a grateful country to-day to erect statues and tablets to his memory.
In judging of his character, we must always remember the conditions under which it was developed and the principles which he acquired by his training. That he was strict in his religious faith, and sincere in his practice, is unquestioned. That he was also wonderfully adroit in his methods is equally well known. This naturally leads to the inquiry whether in his shrewdness he exceeded the limits of what we should call honesty to-day. I would answer this question by recalling, first, one of the elements of what is technically known as the New England character. It has always savored of shrewd- ness, with an inclination sometimes towards sharp practice. It has successfully contended with the world at a bargain, and has seldom been surpassed for wit or tact. That this element is deeply rooted in our character is sufficiently apparent. That it is sometimes allied with deceit is also painfully true. But as a quality, pure and simple, it is free from this charge, and must be so regarded. It admits of dexterity and strategy
without incurring reproach. What is true of the New Eng- land type to which Adams belonged is true I suppose of him. Our strictures upon that type apply to him in common with many of his contemporaries and predecessors on these shores. We may improve upon it as the years advance ; we certainly ought to. But our judgment of Adams must in this respect be essentially the judgment of his time and his surroundings. The other answer which may be offered to the question raised, is that in certain disguises which Adams and his compatriots adopted they were following what they considered legitimate methods under the ethics of war. If Dr. Cooper or Judge Parsons or Samuel Adams helped Hancock write his speeches or public documents-and they probably all did at one time or another-they did it, as they thought, without committing any moral offence. They did it because the liberation of their
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country seemed to require it ; because they were engaged in a life and death struggle, and were compelled to resort to the tactics of war. They did it just as a military commander would get the advantage of his enemy, by stratagem, by spies, by decoys, and other contrivances such as are permitted in war. The treatment which the Hutchinson letters received may be ascribed partly to this motive, and partly to the high state of excitement at the time, which gave an exaggerated coloring to everything, said or written, on either side.
This may, at least, suggest an explanation of certain ingeni- ous and effective devices which the fathers employed when they strove to obtain their freedom. To Bernard and Hutch- inson, no doubt, Adams seemed cunning enough, always on the alert, using men as tools and leading them into all kinds of mischief. But we are now learning, by a critical study of the facts, to distinguish between what Samuel Adams really was, and what his enemies represented him as being. They said he was a demagogue. We know he was not (in the sense in which that word is used). He never flattered or cajoled the people ; never went among them with insinuating smiles and selfish aims ; never misled them by seeming to be what he was not. His patriotism was disinterested and transparent from beginning to end.1 He was never moved by bribery or threats. His integrity was unimpeachable. A guinea, he said, never glistened in his eyes. In his farewell address to the Legislature, referring to his country which he had served so long in war and in peace, he said : " I can say with truth that I have not enriched myself in her service." Such testimony as this is of incalculable worth to the nation. It is a legacy beyond all price. Happy is the commonwealth that inherits it. Never let it be forgotten.
It is remarkable how little this peerless man was ever in- fluenced by those natural passions which are so prevalent in political life. One controlling passion he always had, burn- ing like a flame,-the love of liberty ; but almost every other
1 " Your principles," said Jefferson,
in a letter to Adams Feb. 26, 1800,
" have been tested in the crucible of time and have come out pure."
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was trodden under foot. What did Samuel Adams care for money, or pleasure, or fame, or office, or ease? The very things that men generally covet the most he passed by alto- gether. This is known to be true, although it has taken time to reveal it. Much of his work was done anonymously,- written by his pen, but adopted by others, without ever a protest from him. A careful search among his papers re- veals the fact (which would seem extravagant were it not proved), that every effective plan and every important paper in the political history of Massachusetts from 1765 to 1775- to go no further-was, without a single exception, invented and framed by him. And yet so modest was he, that the world never knew it all in his day. Such disregard for the honors of authorship is almost unparalleled. He wrote popular essays for the press over a great variety of signatures. No less than twenty-five different names have been discovered as his. He destroyed a vast number of his own writings, and many more were lost after his death, but the collection in Mr. Bancroft's hands is very large and very convincing upon this point. The drafts of the principal resolves, remon- strances and appeals, for town and assembly alike, are all in his handwriting. And the official correspondence during that time was wholly his work.1 It is estimated that these productions would fill sixteen large printed octavo volumes.
His style was always clear and forcible, formed on the purest classical and English models, with a nervous vigor all his own. Whether written or spoken, his language was wonderfully adapted to reach the popular mind. His speeches were usually short ; never rapid in their delivery.
These services give Adams the fullest claim to be regarded not only as a politician, marshalling the political forces with consummate skill, but also, as Senator Hoar has said,2 as a philosopher, establishing fundamental principles, and as a
1 He is acknowledged to have been the ablest and most voluminous writer on American politics in the last century. Indeed his state papers form a most important part of our literature for that period. The Revolution would be an
enigma without them. Chatham's opinion of them has been often quoted. 2 In his address at the reception by Congress of the Massachusetts Statues in the Capitol at Washington, Dec. 19, 1876.
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statesman, framing great measures, filling responsible posi- tions, and guiding legislative assemblies. "I doubt," said the lamented Garfield,1 speaking of Adams's political and religious position, " if any man equalled Samuel Adams in formulating and uttering the fierce, clear and inexorable logic of the Revolution. . . . The men who pointed out the pathway to freedom by the light of religion as well as of law, were the foremost promoters of American independence. And of these, Adams was unquestionably chief."
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