ALS, three pages on two adjoining sheets, 8 x 9.75, April 14, 1816. Lengthy handwritten letter to Samuel Dexter, who had been Secretary of War and Secretary of the Treasury during the administration of John Quincy Adams' father, John Adams. In this intimate and personal letter, Adams offers his view on the War of 1812, its effects on American and European character, opposition to the war efforts, his negotiations to end the war, and the future of Europe. During this period, Adams was serving as United States Minister to the United Kingdom, and had been a part of the American delegation that negotiated the end to the War of 1812.
In part: "Nothing could be more gratifying to me than your obliging suffrage to the usefulness of my services since my present residence in Europe…My path of duty has been clear. Whatever success has attended it must be attributed, first to a wiser disposer of human affairs, than any of us; secondly, to the glorious energy of our countrymen, upon the ocean and upon the Land—An energy, which neither our foreign enemy, nor those 'Wise Men of the East,' who built their system of politics upon contempt for the American character, had taken into their account—thirdly to the wisdom, moderation, and pure patriotism of the President, Congress and Government of the United States, who commenced and prosecuted the War, and authorized, the conclusion of the Peace, upon principles founded in the honour, independence, and real welfare of the Union—fourthly to the able, and honourable colleagues with whom I have been associated. With all these aids, and with a line of conduct so plainly marked out, as the only one that could with propriety be pursed, whatever anxious moments have weighed upon me during the career through which I have passed, there has certainly been no extraordinary effort either of intellect or of virtue required of me, in any of the situations, wherein I have been placed.
I have not been called upon to rise, at the dictate of my own conscience above the very atmosphere of party Politics. To act in opposition to all, or most of those with whom I had acted before—to bear the buffetings of the most inveterate of political enemies—'the foes who once were friends'—to lose the affection, and even the esteem of those whom I had most highly regarded and respected to be branded as an apostate from my Principles, for the very stubbornness of my adherence to them—to have my inflexible devotion to my duty construed into a base and sordid dereliction of it—to encounter the glance 'of hard unkindess' altered eye' and the more mortifying candour of those, whose compassion was willing to acquit my honesty, at the expense of my understanding, and scored to the account of folly, whatever they deducted from the charge of vice.
Of all this I had some, and not a little experience for two years before I left the United States, and of this I think you have had no small share during the last three years—It is precisely the Period of my whole public life to which I look back with the greatest satisfaction, and in which to my own mind my services, were though less successful, yet more meritorious than any thing that I have done in Europe. I am aware that of the measures of that time, your opinion was and continues to be unfavourable, whether they were the best measures, might then, and may still be very fairly questioned; nor shall I deny that the policy and wisdom of the Declaration of War when it was made might at the time and may yet be far from unquestionable—and that different views of the common interest may lead upon the fairest grounds to opposite conclusions on this question. It was not the Constitutional opposition, it was the spirit of Faction, and the project of disunion, in the New-England leaders, that I held in abhorrence.
It is this which you have so boldly, and in the end so successfully resisted, and by resisting it, with the weight of your character, and the power of your eloquence, have rendered service to the Union, and even to New England, which the whole lives of the whole Hartford Convention will never equal—I yet hope that at the moment I am writing, a Majority of the People of Massachusetts have testified their sense of this most important service, by placing you at the head of their Government—But should it be otherwise, should the Bulwark and the Press-gang combination, still be strong enough to carry a Candidate, whom I should be sorry to rank among them, and whom I believe they took up more for your sake than for his own; more to keep you out, than to get him in, you will enjoy a reward superior to anything that Parties, or Peoples can bestow—the imperishable reward of a self-approving mind.
The Plan for separating New England from the rest of the North-American Union, has, I suppose, been again for the present moment been laid aside. But it has been so long formed, so repeatedly sunk into the shade, at seasons of National Prosperity, and reappeared with increasing maturity, at times of general difficulty and danger. It has taken such deep root, in the speculation opinions of some Semi-Solons, and opened such a field for the petty ambition of some Demi-Semi-Caesars, that I take it for granted, it is not dead but will be watered into bloom again by the first shower of Public Calamity that may occur. I am apprehensive that this pernicious system will survive off its founders, and that there is a school of younger politicians arising, deeply infected with its doctrines—as disunion is the only fatal mischief which in the natural course of events can for many ages befall our Country, I hope that a school not less ardent and zealous and far more wise and learned will be reared at the same time to repel and explode its errors. In the physical world it is said that the poisonous plant and its medicinal antidote, are usually found growing in the neighbourhood of each other—may the same guardian care of Providence be extended to our political world!
The Prospects of Europe, are not more propitious to the Freedom and happiness of its inhabitants, than they have been for the past thirty years—Europe has escaped from servitude to France, but it yet remains for France to escape from servitude to Europe. In shaking off the fetters of a French Military Despotism, Europe is passively submitting to be reshackled with the manacles of feudal and papal tyranny—she has burst asunder the adamantine chains of Buonaparte, to be pinioned by the rags and tatters of Monkery and Popery. She has cast up the Coda of Napoleon, and returned to her own vomit of Jesuits, Inquisitions, and Legitimacy, or Divine Right. With this state of things it is impossible that Europe should be long contented. Europe is not even now contented. Very little however of the voice of discontent can be heard. The cry is drowned in the louder noise of the soldier's drum. The further dismemberment, and the final partition of France, will probably for some time furnish occupation for the rest of Europe, but according to every probability the Rights of Individuals, and of Nations, will be trampled upon as they have been. May our Country, display forever the reverse of this Picture." In fine condition. A long and important handwritten letter by John Quincy Adams, who would return to the United States one year later to assume the role of Secretary of State in Madison's administration.
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