his most able lectures at Providence, Rhode Island. This was a broad and statesman-like examination of the principles of monarchy, democracy, universal suffrage, and the origin of human government; and in it he briefly explored the false theories of the "divine right" of the few, and acknowledged the indebtedness of the friends of democracy to John Locke and Algernon Sidney. During this vacation, Mr. Adams also delivered a lecture on temperance before the Norfolk Temperance Society, which could not have been in perfect harmony with the total abstinence theory of that organization. Mr. Adams based his own temperance philosophy on the ancient Hebrew practices, and, like all men who have attempted to construct a system on the apparent and literal sense of the Scripture unmodified and unillustrated by the divine substance and soul within, he failed. About his temperance theory, there was an aroma of good wine. With him excess was intemperance. So in his temperance vocabulary were to be found the more than doubtful terms, "intemperate use," "excessive use," of alcoholic liquors, tender sophisms, which, long before his time, and ever since, have been ringing out a sort of license to the great mass of men to whom a taste is excess, and to whom there is no safety but in total, absolute abstinence, as facts should have abundantly proven to a stupid world. These classes of temperance men have always held up to the world the unreasonable and impracticable theory of do and do not, touch and touch not, taste and taste not. And of all these blind leaders of the blind, it may be set down as an indisputable fact, perhaps, that there never has been one of them who did not base his teachings, to some extent, upon his own private, ineradicable passions and tastes; or, to be more charitable, whose theories are not, in some sense, colored by those tastes and inclinations. To the skirts of the preacher and the physician, or, more properly, the temperance - teacher and the physician, thus including all such moralists and theologians as Mr. Adams, must depend the great bulk of the sin of alcoholic and other filth drinking, the world over. The latter have built their "strengthening prescriptions," in bad Latin, for centuries, on alcoholic bases, and have continually said to three-fourths of the men, women, and children of every generation, "A stimulant is indicated in your case." And from time immemorial there have not been wanting clergymen who have quoted Scripture, and with untold memories said: "Should I leave my wine, which cheereth God and man, and go to be promoted over the trees?" 'And wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make his face to shine, and bread that strengtheneth man's heart." 66 What grade of theological intelligence could seek an apology for mere animal wants and passions in this beautiful poetry of the soul? The bread that can strengthen the "heart" of man must be all good in the complex, the life of love, of good, from the will. Love is gladdened by truth, and charity and good shine from interior perfections which could only delight in performing uses to men, not in being exalted over them. "Without a parable spake he not unto them." The coarse objects of this world are taken to por tray the inexpressible beauties of spiritual and higher states of being. The noblest theme touched in man's philosophy is life, undying spirit-life. And for this only did the Great Physician prescribe the real food and drink which are faintly typified in objects of familiar use in the material world. After the close of the session in the spring of 1843, Mr. Adams spent some time in examining records in the Department of State especially bearing on General Jackson's negotiations for Texas; and in repeated and not altogether unsuccessful attempts to draw from Mr. Webster a better understanding of the condition of our foreign relations. Notwithstanding his want of confidence in Mr. Webster, and his utter disrespect for what he believed to be Mr. Webster's principles and disposition on some points, he did not hesitate to apply to him for information, or seek hours of conversation with him when duty was involved. Mr. Adams now began to prepare his usual address to his constituents, putting before them his most earnest views of public affairs and his own connection with them. The lecture season, which with him was in the summer and fall, was also coming on; and this he did not hope to escape, however much he felt that his age and long laborious public services should relieve him of this burden. On the 29th of May, he delivered before the Historical Society in Boston an address on the New England Confederacy of 1643. A little later he wrote a letter declining an invitation to visit Bangor at the celebration of the British emancipation of slaves in the West Indies. In this long letter he reviewed the whole question of slavery in American politics with even more than his ordinary vigor, as may be seen in the following quotation: "The extinction of slavery from the face of the earth is a problem, moral, political, religious, which at this moment rocks the foundations of human society throughout the regions of civilized man. It is indeed nothing more nor less than the consummation of the Christian religion. It is only as immortal beings that all mankind can in any sense be said to be born equal; and when the Declaration of Independence affirms as a self-evident truth that all men are born equal, it is precisely the same as if the affirmation had been that all men are born with immortal souls; for, take away from man his soul, the immortal spirit that is within him, and he would be a mere tamable beast of the field, and, like others of his kind, would become the property of his tamer. Hence it is, too, that, by the law of nature and of God, man can never be made the property of man. And herein consists the fallacy with which the holders of slaves often delude themselves, by assuming that the test of property is human law. The soul of one man can not by human law be made the property of another. The owner of a slave is the owner of a living corpse; but he is not the owner of a man." Although Mr. Adams usually felt that he was genuinely opposed to all public pageants and dinners, he was sometimes forced into them through a disposition to be good-natured, or to be like other people. During this summer he was caught in two trips which turned out to be of a character he never would have chosen for himself. The wife of Charles Francis had been induced by her father, Peter Chardon Brooks, to make a trip for her health to Niagara, and Mr. Adams was to accompany her and her son, John Quincy. But the trip, which was designed to be private and quiet, resulted very differently. He was compelled to visit Buffalo, Albany, Rochester, Auburn, Utica, Syracuse, and other towns in New York, where he was received in magnificent style, held receptions, shook hands, and made speeches, and thus the whole journey was turned into an "ovation." He also accepted an invitation from the Astronomical Society of Cincinnati to be present at the laying of the corner-stone of the observatory about to be built there. O. M. Mitchell, the astronomer, and subsequently a brave and able general in the Union army, met Mr. Adams with this invitation at Niagara Falls. He soon afterwards received a warm friendly letter from Henry Clay, asking him to visit Lexington while on his trip to Cincinnati. On the 25th of October, he set out from Boston on this long and trying journey. He again visited Albany and Buffalo, and from the latter place went by steamer to Cleveland. From Cleveland he passed through Akron, Columbus, Dayton, and many other towns. At Lebanon, where he remained over night, he was met by a delegation of citizens from Cincinnati, and on the 8th of November reached the Henrie House, on Third Street, in that city, where rooms had been provided for him. On the following day the ceremony of laying the corner-stone was to be performed, and Mr. Adams was to deliver his oration on the spot. But the morning set in rainy, and after the necessary steps on the hill, then called Mount Adams in honor of this event, the people gathered at Wesley Chapel, on Fifth Street, where Mr. Adams delivered his address with great success to himself and acceptably to his hearers. On the 13th, he started up the Ohio on the steamer Ben Franklin. At Maysville, Pittsburg, and other points he was received with great respect; and, on the 24th, reached Washington. This whole journey had |